Bruce Chatwin (18 page)
Authors: Nicholas Shakespeare
Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Literary, #Literary Collections, #Letters, #Literary Criticism, #General, #Diaries & Journals, #Personal Memoirs
Wilson had great faith in the ideas of the young. He said to Timewell: “I really think that boy would do well in the Modern Picture department. Would you give him up?”
“The fact Bruce was nice-looking didn’t do him any harm,” says Timewell. “For quite a while he was Peter’s very blue-eyed boy.”
Just how Bruce attracted the Chairman’s attention is not certain. Bruce told Michael Cannon that he had caused a stir by translating the Greek inscription on an amphora. Since most public schoolboys of the period knew Greek – and Bruce’s Greek was not very good – this hardly sets him apart. He told Susannah Clapp that he remained unnoticed until, “loitering near a Picasso gouache of a harlequin, he was approached by a man ‘looking like a birdman in a blue fedora and suede shoes’ who asked him what he thought of the picture. ‘I don’t think it’s genuine,’ pronounced the porter.” The birdman was Sir Robert Abdy, art buyer for Gulbenkian. Abdy, impressed, passed on the comment to Wilson.
In the spring of 1959, Wilson set about injecting energy in his two favourite departments, Modern Pictures, which included Impressionist sales, and Antiquities, where, in 1937, he had been given his own head as a cataloguer. “Wilson’s text told stories and made connections that went beyond the bare recital of facts,” wrote Robert Lacey. “One ring had been found in the tomb of a dramatically murdered duke, another in the bed of the river Oise . . .”
Under Wilson’s wing, Bruce began to move between both departments as a junior cataloguer. Antiquities answered directly to Wilson and was “a convenient term which may denote anything from a Sumerian clay tablet to a carved head from darkest Africa”. It took up a tiny room in the basement and consisted of Bruce; a secretary, Felicity Nicholson; and an outside adviser whose job was to come in once or twice a week to give his expertise. This was Wilson’s friend, John Hewett. The two had been business partners since the 1950s; they lived next to each other in Kent and Wilson had been Hewett’s best man. Second only to Wilson, Hewett was a crucial figure in Bruce’s apprenticeship.
Hewett was a Bond Street dealer, but he virtually ran Antiquities. A dapper figure with a spade beard, he liked to glide silently into a room and make a theatrical display of pulling from an expensive tweed pocket a waistcoat button or a fifth-century gold marvel or a shell. He did not ask Bruce, “What is it?” Rather, he dropped it into his palm and with his ox-eyes on him waited for Bruce to comment.
Ted Lucie-Smith, who used to hang around Hewett’s shop and run errands for him, says, “He made objects available and he endowed them with magic. He was interested in natural curiosities almost as much as works of art. Bruce acquired from him the feeling that an object which was a wonder of nature was as satisfying as a work of art.” Hewett’s taste, not confined to any period or culture, was for simplicity of form.
One clique thought Hewett a genius. He did not disabuse them. He relied on his taste and on his
gravitas,
supported by long silences, to a greater extent than on his expertise, which though real was not as encompassing as his supporters might believe. He could be generous, often allowing Bruce to buy an expensive object and pay over a long period, or to exchange a lesser thing for a finer one. But, says Lucie-Smith, “there always came a day when he was determined to screw you for a better deal.”
gravitas,
supported by long silences, to a greater extent than on his expertise, which though real was not as encompassing as his supporters might believe. He could be generous, often allowing Bruce to buy an expensive object and pay over a long period, or to exchange a lesser thing for a finer one. But, says Lucie-Smith, “there always came a day when he was determined to screw you for a better deal.”
Hewett was an odd ally for PCW, as Wilson was known. “He was a rampant heterosexual,” says Lucie-Smith, “and came from a different layer of the English class system.” A self-taught man who still spoke in “a faint Cockney whine”, Hewett had remade himself as a shaman-dealer. Raised in Ealing, where his grandfather had a horse and cart removals business, his first love was botany – a passion he also encouraged in Bruce. Before the war he had worked as apprentice gardener in a great house in Middlesex. Wounded while serving as a batman in the Scots Guards in Algeria, he convalesced in Naples, and there discovered his aesthetic appetite. He was an expert in fifteenth-century carpets, the history of travel in the South Seas and Africa. His special love was for tribal and ethnographic specimens collected by botanists and sailors.
Bruce’s photographic memory acquired a new depth of focus under Hewett’s tuition. He learned to look with close attention to detail and to remember what he had seen. “Hewett taught Bruce how to hold something in your hand and feel it and
really
look at it,” says Elizabeth. “Not just look, but look intensely. Bruce used to look at something in changing lights until you got pretty fed up, but it did mean that he never forgot a thing.” The designer John Stefanidis once discussed with Bruce some chairs in the Villa Malcontenta that he was keen to copy. “You don’t have to copy them,” said Bruce. “I’ve got the precise measurements.”
really
look at it,” says Elizabeth. “Not just look, but look intensely. Bruce used to look at something in changing lights until you got pretty fed up, but it did mean that he never forgot a thing.” The designer John Stefanidis once discussed with Bruce some chairs in the Villa Malcontenta that he was keen to copy. “You don’t have to copy them,” said Bruce. “I’ve got the precise measurements.”
In 1828, Joseph Haslewood drew up for his friend Samuel Sotheby
Hints for a Young Auctioneer of Books.
His first rule: “Consider your catalogue as the foundation of your eminence and make its perfection of character an important study.” One hundred and thirty years on, John Hewett made the Sotheby’s catalogue just that. In the Antiquities cubby-hole, he taught Bruce to condense an object to its purest form and to use few words vividly so that there could be no mistaking one item for another. Bruce had to produce a succinct description of the object’s history, weight and size so as to maximise its value. By the process of cataloguing thousands of objects and dipping into arcane reference books, he learned how to transfer graphic ideas into words. It was the exact skill of a botanist or a sniper.
Hints for a Young Auctioneer of Books.
His first rule: “Consider your catalogue as the foundation of your eminence and make its perfection of character an important study.” One hundred and thirty years on, John Hewett made the Sotheby’s catalogue just that. In the Antiquities cubby-hole, he taught Bruce to condense an object to its purest form and to use few words vividly so that there could be no mistaking one item for another. Bruce had to produce a succinct description of the object’s history, weight and size so as to maximise its value. By the process of cataloguing thousands of objects and dipping into arcane reference books, he learned how to transfer graphic ideas into words. It was the exact skill of a botanist or a sniper.
The entries were distilled and spare, at first glance dull.
A Syrian limestone relief of an antelope being attacked by a spotted beast of prey, 15 in by 11½ in 1st millennium BC
–
found at Amouda, North of Aleppo, in September/October 1959
found at Amouda, North of Aleppo, in September/October 1959
But the Chatwin style begins here.
A Bajokwe wooden figure of a squatting ape, baring its teeth and holding a fruit in its hand, the eyes inlaid with bone. 13 in.
Many of the skills Borges acquired through cataloguing books for the Miguel Cané municipal library, Bruce picked up in Antiquities.
*
As his first editor, Susannah Clapp, observed: “The cataloguer’s habits – of close attention, the chronicling of a mass of physical detail, the search for a provenance and the unravelling of a history – can be seen in the structure of his paragraphs and plots, and in his project of objectivity.”
*
As his first editor, Susannah Clapp, observed: “The cataloguer’s habits – of close attention, the chronicling of a mass of physical detail, the search for a provenance and the unravelling of a history – can be seen in the structure of his paragraphs and plots, and in his project of objectivity.”
Hewett also gave Bruce licence to go out and ham it up. He encouraged him to attach a story to each object: where it came from, why it was interesting, who owned it. Bruce soon grew nimble at exploiting the connection between story and salesmanship. Brian Sewell envied his gift of the gab. “He had extraordinary social grace and not the smallest embarrassment in dealing with anybody. He picked a thing up – a wretched bit of terracotta – and handled it in such way that the intending buyer felt it must be by Michelangelo.”
Bruce took as much interest in the owner as the object. Until Peter Wilson’s arrival as chairman, few members of the general public attended auctions. This now changed. Spear-headed by Brigadier Stanley Clark, a deft advertising campaign coaxed into the saleroom anyone who had £100 to spend. Works of art were promoted as affordable and, better still, as investments. About the whole performance – for a spectacle is what it became – was woven a spell of fun and the hint of rags turning into riches. Sotheby’s continued to welcome Armand Hammer, but he had to rub shoulders with “the little old lady with the Ming vase which had always been used as an umbrella stand”.
The little old lady was Bruce’s speciality. He explained to Colin Thubron how important Sotheby’s had been to fashioning his narratives. Antiquities began to supply a daily stream of characters with amazing stories. “When I was there the whole of life became in its better moments a sort of treasure hunt and that technique of treasure-hunting and being rewarded or not rewarded is, I suppose, the way in which I do research on a story.
“For example a letter comes from an old woman in an old folks’ home in Tunbridge Wells saying she’s seen in the papers Sotheby’s have sold a Benin head. She has a Benin head because her father was a doctor on the Benin expedition and so you go down and see this marvellous old lady.
“She says: ‘Do you smell something here?’
“I say, ‘Not particularly.’
“‘Yes, you can. Sniff. Smell it.’
“So I went like that. ‘What is it?’
“‘I’ll tell you what it is. Caca. Everybody in this place is incontinent’.”
The woman pointed to the Benin head on the floor and asked how much it would fetch. “It’s perfectly genuine. We were in Cape Town and I remember my father telling the servants to wash it down because it was covered in blood,
human blood.
And they put the hose pipe on it and the yard was red with blood for days.”
human blood.
And they put the hose pipe on it and the yard was red with blood for days.”
The head
was
genuine, Bruce sold it and the woman used the money to sail back to South Africa. “She had a marvellous time in Cape Town and she died on the way back and was buried at sea. Many people in the world are
yearning
for that kind of destiny.”
was
genuine, Bruce sold it and the woman used the money to sail back to South Africa. “She had a marvellous time in Cape Town and she died on the way back and was buried at sea. Many people in the world are
yearning
for that kind of destiny.”
In the tearoom at Sotheby’s, there was a phrase, “doing a Bruce”. It meant wrapping up something in a bit of myth and making a story out of it.
For Bruce in his first two years, Sotheby’s functioned as a cabinet of curiosities that was constantly replenished. To observe Hewett and Bruce together was, says one dealer, “like watching a young puppy with a silent block of marble”. Hewett said, “He was at a very impressionable age then. Coming into Antiquities, he was confronted by the whole gamut of civilisation. We catalogued, we sorted out what was rubbish, what was a fake and we decided what to illustrate.”
A photograph shows Bruce holding an African mask against shelves stacked with a Greek pot, a Thai head, an New Guinea head, a Roman torso, an Assyrian relief, a fake Benin bronze. Having to make snap judgements on objects so diverse, Bruce’s connoisseurship developed at a great rate.
Hewett said, “He was a good pupil, was willing to learn. He’d pick something up and say, ‘This is jolly good,’ and I’d say, ‘It
is
jolly good, but what is it?’ It might have been 50,000
BC
to the present day. And I’d say, ‘It’s Rumarian, 3rd millennium
BC
. Read Leonard Woolley’s book about Ur.’ I pushed him to read about everything. I’d send him to research on a piece we weren’t sure about – say, to the British Museum or the Ashmolean, wherever there were other examples. I’ve had very little experience of anyone cramming knowledge into such a short space of time. He was the quickest I’ve known.”
is
jolly good, but what is it?’ It might have been 50,000
BC
to the present day. And I’d say, ‘It’s Rumarian, 3rd millennium
BC
. Read Leonard Woolley’s book about Ur.’ I pushed him to read about everything. I’d send him to research on a piece we weren’t sure about – say, to the British Museum or the Ashmolean, wherever there were other examples. I’ve had very little experience of anyone cramming knowledge into such a short space of time. He was the quickest I’ve known.”
One day, in a consignment of Japanese Netsuke carvings, Bruce picked out a little ivory figure carved like a crescent moon, of a man with his arms up. It was the same size and shape as the others, but Bruce identified it as Polynesian, something of great rarity. It sold for £600. On another occasion he went into a shop in Ludlow and ignoring everything else fixed on what seemed to be a walking stick: it was one of the flag-poles from a doge’s barge. The owner had no idea.
Hewett said, “If you put ten things on a table, Bruce would pick out the best one. Basically, he had a strange thing, rather unfashionable now, which is called a good eye.”
Brian Sewell says of it, “The eye is indefinable, but those who have it know so, and know it to be the instrument through which informed intuition works; it is connected with a knotting of the stomach and a clenching of the bowels; it may break a sweat on a man’s brow, or make him breathless as angina.” Sewell once witnessed an “eye” responding to a picture of scant quality. “‘If that’s a Romney, my cock’s a lettuce.’”
He says, “Bruce would come into my room at Christie’s. ‘Gosh, isn’t that so, so beautiful,’ and it might be something I hadn’t noticed. He didn’t know what it was, when it was done, who did it; but he knew it had quality. He could bring it out of the mire.”
He responded to the object, not its label. “He didn’t care whether it would be by Fra Angelico,” says Robert Erskine, then running the St George’s Gallery. “I would be interested in something which had a historical point to make. Bruce was not so much interested in the meaning. He knew things like a docket, but to put something, say, in an eighteenth-century context didn’t interest him. He’d see it frozen. His reaction was totally aesthetic.”
In this Bruce modelled himself on Hewett. He believed that beauty was inherent in objects of great seriousness or of human endeavour and that things were genuine because
he
felt, intuitively, that they
were
so.
he
felt, intuitively, that they
were
so.
Those lucky enough to have the eye could trade on it. Bruce wrote, “The Directors at Sotheby’s assumed that people like myself had private incomes to supplement our wretched salaries. What was I to do? Exist on air? I earned myself a little extra by trafficking in antiquities . . . Almost everyone in the art business was at it.”
He bid at Sotheby’s under the name “Winchat”. (On 16 July 1962, for instance, Winchat paid £30 for an Attic marble funerary stele.) He told Jane Abdy that Wilson had arranged for him to have a credit account in order to buy, an arrangement she found “rather odd”. He bought more expensive items in partnership.
Hewett was Bruce’s entrée to a circle of collectors on whom he would depend for his financial survival. The introductions were made in Hewett’s Park Street office or in the saleroom at Sotheby’s, around a horse-shoe table covered in green baize. This circle remained a constant factor in Bruce’s life. They dealt. They swapped objects, sometimes lovers, and they prided themselves on having “the eye”.
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