Cardiff Castle of Crossed Destinies

Augustus John

Augustus John was born in Tenby, his father was a lawyer and his mother a talented amateur artist came from a family of master plumbers. He was six when his mother died and his father entered a prolonged period of grieving, which seems to have affected him as strongly as it did his sister.

Augustus John studied at Tenby College and in 1894 the Slade. He also met Travellers in Pembroke and became enamoured of the Gypsy life. It was around this time that he connected the story of his remarkable drawing skills and his unconventional way of life to a head injury caused by diving into the sea. He certainly cut his head badly and became impatient to get on with his life put on hold by his long convalescence.

In 1898 he won the annual Slade Prize and used the money to study in Paris. In early 1900 he married Ida Nettleship and took a teaching post in Liverpool. In 1893 he co-founded Chelsea School of Art with William Orpen. In 1903 he met with Dorothy McNeil, Doreilia, who had studied at the Slade with Gwen John and had been her lover. Augustus pursued her to Paris and Gwen helped persuade her to become part of Augustus John's household. Dorelia became his muse. In 1907 Ida died from puerperal fever. He later married Dorelia. In 1910 he made several trips to Arenig Fawr with James Dickson Innes, born in Llanelli, and Derwent Lees, an Australian. There is a painting of James Dickson Innes painted by Ian Strang in the National Museum, Wales. In the mountains of North Wales these three overpainted the hackneyed myth of the Sublime. Augustus John was also able to spend time with the Kale, the Romany Gypsies of North Wales; he learned their language and joined their campsites. This was possibly the highpoint of his career, both geographically and aesthetically. James Innes Dickson was dead from tuberculosis by the start of the First World War and Derwent Lees was confined to a psychiatric hospital from 1918 until his death 1931.

During the First World War Augustus John was assigned to the Canadian froces. He never settled to this and was sent home for brawling. After the war he became Britain's leading portraitist, although his style was becoming laboured. He had a return to form with paintings he made on a trip to Jamaica in 1937. He was the president of the Gypsy Lore Society until his death in 1961. Six months before his death he was on the first march to Trafalgar Square to protest against the deployment of nuclear weapons in Britain.