Sickert at Tate Britain

Published: 08/05/2022

Sickert at Tate Britain

Sometimes you see a link between exhibitions. This happened to me with the current Hockney and Sickert exhibitions.

Both exhibitions brought out the influences artists have had on each other. They also touched on the use of the camera lucida. Sickert was influenced by Whistler and Degas and in turn influenced artists such as Bacon and Freud. Both Sickert and Hockney made use of the camera lucida.

Sickert’s long career had many facets with portraits, city views of Dieppe and Venice, nudes and scenes of lower class life. It was his paintings of ordinary situations underpinned by his unflattering view of life that challenged norms. Among these, were his paintings of music hall performers and audiences. He is credited, for example, with the first painting showing people watching a movie in a music hall.

His nudes attracted criticism at the time and subsequently. They are realistic not idealised, typically in poor and seedy settings, and in some cases, his paintings show a naked woman next to a clothed man. His Camden Town Murder series is ambiguous, not least as a change of title makes interpretation fluid. For example, a recumbent nude women and seated clothed man on a bed in one of the paintings here has been titled Camden Town Murder and How shall we do about the rent, which lead to interpretations  that are grim in different degrees. 

The final room in the exhibition contains Sickert’s later work. Many paintings here were based on press photos. It’s here that the camera lucida comes in, helping him transform black and white photos of royalty and other celebrities into larger colour paintings. It’s in this gallery we see how he had an influence on later artists such as Bacon and pop artists.

Sickert’s paintings are shown alongside work by others who influenced him or who he influenced. This seems to be a trend in recent exhibitions and helps focus on what an artist is trying to do and how they do it.

In the case of Sickert, I found his work uneven and sometimes troubling but I was taken with his unflinching and unflattering stance and his willingness to innovate and experiment, nowhere more apparent that in the gallery exhibiting a number of self-portraits.