I’m the man on the Clapham omnibus – I don’t know much about art but I know what I like – and I have the cheek to share with you the, usually under-rated, artists that I admire.
Leonard Rosoman has flitted through these pages but has not been properly introduced. First, I do not have any of his work, a situation I’d like to rectify when an opportunity arises. Secondly, Andrew Ritchie of Goodenough College does – or at least the college does. They have these two large (300cm X 500cm) paintings in their library. They were done in 1970 and depict college life: Life in London House and Scene on Mecklenburgh Square.
I won’t bore you with Rosoman’s biography, except to remind you of his service in WW II with the Auxiliary Fire Service and then as an official war artist when he was commissioned into the Royal Marines and was posted on HMS Formidable in the Pacific.
When he was studying he admired work by Gaugin, Paul Nash and Edward Burra. When he was teaching at the Royal College of Art he in turn influenced David Hockney and Peter Blake. He said, on Desert Island Discs in 2002, of Hockney “teaching him was a little bit scary because if anybody ever had something written on his forehead, he had”. Hockney has, in return, paid tribute to Rosoman’s influence.
There is a continuum in art where student becomes teacher and this becomes a chain, nowhere better exemplified that in the National Gallery exhibition, Painters’ Paintings and in the chain from Gaugin to Hockney via Rosoman.
Rosoman’s murals at the Royal Academy restaurant have vanished, so if you want to see his work go to the the Imperial War Museum, Goodenough College or the chapel at Lambeth Palace. Here is a description of his work there.
The present day ceiling artwork entitled ‘From Darkness to Light’ was painted by Leonard Henry Rosoman in 1988. The panels depict Pope Gregory the Great commissioning Saint Augustine to visit England in AD 597. St. Thomas à Becket is shown as a young man hunting, in a reference to the image that can be found alongside a depiction of his murder in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170. The central panels show the enthronement of Archbishop Parker and scenes from the first Lambeth Conference. The last image above the altar shows Christ in Glory.
Rosoman was a prolific painter and illustrator so it should not be hard to find something that you like by this impressive artist.