Light & Shadow

Britain's dean of portrait painters is a fierce-looking, bearded 75-year-old named Augustus John. In his long life he has been almost everywhere, has known and painted practically everyone he considered worth knowing, and he loves to talk about it. Having finally arrived at what he lightly calls the "Halfway House" of life, John thought it was time to get his memories in print. Next week his book will be on sale in U.S. shops. Chiaroscuro: Fragments of Autobiography (Pellegrini & Cudahy: $5) is indeed one of the most fragmentary autobiographies ever written. But the fragments he has gathered up sometimes turn out to be semiprecious nuggets.

A Paltry Sum. He brushes over dates, rarely discusses his nine children or his second wife, Dorelia MacNeill, to whom he refers simply as "D." The best nuggets are his painter's-eye-view comments on his famed sitters. "[Bernard] Shaw's head," says John, "had two aspects, as he pointed out himself: the concave and the convex . . . When I informed him of my fee, [Shaw exclaimed], 'What! Do you mean to say you work for so paltry a sum?' But before I had time to revise my charges, the cheque was written and handed over."

Another famous Irishman, James Joyce, sat for a series of pencil sketches. "He had a precise and buttoned-up appearance . . . He explained that the poverty of his beard was due to an early accident to his chin, but I did not feel empowered to restore the missing growth. In spite of his cold and formal exterior, I was much drawn to Joyce and, on finally parting with him . . . to his consternation, embraced him in the continental manner."

A Colossal Effigy. In 1920, John went on one of his most famous rampages. Shortly after he had finished a portrait of Lord Leverhulme, founder of the Lever Bros, soap empire, the canvas was returned with the head cut out of the picture. "I wrote to his Lordship requiring an explanation of this remarkable proceeding . . . I received in return a letter stating that, on finding the picture too large to place in his safe, the owner had cut out what he considered to be the most important part, that is the head . . . As for the remainder, it had been sent back by an error on the part of his housekeeper. I was urgently requested to keep the matter dark . . . My answer to this was to inform the Press." Soon the artistic world was in an uproar. Telegrams and cables began to pour in. Public demonstrations took place. "In Italy . . . a 24-hour strike was called, involving everyone connected with the painting industry . . . a colossal effigy . . . was constructed of soap and tallow, paraded through the streets of Florence, and ceremoniously burnt, [after which] a wreath was solemnly laid on the altar of St. John."

When he was not working on a commission, he usually packed up his family and took to the road, gypsy fashion. Meanwhile, John's roster of famous subjects grew, e.g., Japan's Prince (later Emperor) Hirohito--"an inconspicuous young man attired in a navy blue suit"--Thomas Hardy, T. E. Lawrence, W. B. Yeats. His fees also grew, to -L-1,000 and up. The "series of scenes and adventures" practically fill Chiaroscuro, but here & there, John pauses to point and comment. Samples:

P: "Beauty at its highest is of course sexual and can be calculated. The Pretty Girl is the supreme criterion. This is why prudent young men in search of the ideal will always carry a tape measure in their pocket."

P: "Artists, like children, are excited by the irrational, the bizarre and the outlandish."

Chiaroscuro does not pretend to tell all. It is, as John amiably explains, but a "rough cross section of a part of my career . . . No doubt everything comes out in the wash eventually, but I see no reason to anticipate this process and spoil other people's fun."

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