The Life of Bryan, by Andrew Lambirth Tanya Harrod
The Life of Bryan: A Celebration of Bryan Robertson
Precocious, asthmatic, sexually ambigu and a Francophile autodidact from a modest background, the young Bryan Robertson (1925-2002) soon found artistic mentors.
These included the painter Mary Kessell, now an unsung figure, who introduced him to her lover Kenneth Clark. Robertson formed educative friendships with other older women such as the sculptor Betty Rea and the painter Elizabeth Vellacott and, later, he consistently supported the work of women.
During his heady years at the Whitechapel Gallery, where he was appointed director in 1952 aged 27, he created a modern art gallery, a radiant white cube, when such spaces did not exist in London.
He staged exhibitions of major modern European artists, including Kazimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian and
Nicolas de Staël, and showed groundbreaking Americans, filling a gap left by an unreceptive Tate. He took in MOMA’S travelling Jackson Pollock show in 1958, installing it with the architect Trevor Dannatt, conjuring up rugged, blockwork walls and a ceiling of muslin clouds.
At the Whitechapel, Robertson offered crucial support to mid-career and young British artists. His shows for figures like Prunella Clough, John Craxton, Allan Davie, Barbara Hepworth and Keith Vaughan were complemented by The New Generation exhibitions held in 1964, 1965, 1966 and 1968. These introduced, inter alia, Antony Caro, Patrick Caulfield, John Hoyland, David Hockney, Philip King and Bridget Riley. Each show was given a well-illustrated, square-format catalogue with a cover photograph by Snowdon.
Robertson liked the high life but he was also a passionate egalitarian, who annually hosted the Pictures for Schools exhibitions organised by his friend Nan Youngman. He actively advised Leicestershire Education Authority on purchases of art.
Robertson had very specific taste: ‘What I look for in art of any period is imaginative energy, radiance, equilibrium, composure, colour, light, vitality, poise, buoyancy, a transcendent ability to soar above life and not be subjugated by it. I have tended to prefer abstract to figurative art in the twentieth century because so much modern figurative painting, unsurprisingly, is inherently morbid.’
Robertson had little time for the Euston Road School: ‘Ex-public school boys painting their cleaning ladies’.