Edward James
Encyclopedia
Edward William Frank James (1907–1984) was a British poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

 known for his patronage
Patronage
Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows to another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings or popes have provided to musicians, painters, and sculptors...

 of the surrealist
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....

 art movement.

Early life and marriage

Edward James was born on 16 August 1907, the only son of William James, an American railroad magnate who moved to England and married Evelyn Forbes, a Scots socialite, who was reputedly fathered by the Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales is a title traditionally granted to the heir apparent to the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the 15 other independent Commonwealth realms...

 (later Edward VII). He had four older sisters: Audrey, Millicent, Xandra, and Silvia. James was educated briefly at Eton
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....

, and then at Le Rosey
Institut Le Rosey
Institut Le Rosey, commonly referred to as Le Rosey or simply Rosey, is a school, in Gstaad, Switzerland. It is described as one of the most prestigious boarding schools in the world. The school was founded by Paul-Émile Carnal in 1880 on the site of the 14th-century Château du Rosey near the town...

 in Switzerland, then at Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church or house of Christ, and thus sometimes known as The House), is one of the largest constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England...

, where he was a contemporary of Evelyn Waugh
Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer...

 and Harold Acton
Harold Acton
Sir Harold Mario Mitchell Acton CBE was a British writer, scholar and dilettante perhaps most famous for being wrongly believed to have inspired the character of "Anthony Blanche" in Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited...

. In 1912 he inherited the 8000 acres (32.4 km²) West Dean House
West Dean House
West Dean House is a large flint-faced manor house situated in West Dean, West Sussex, near the historic City of Chichester. This country estate has approximately of land and dates back to 1086, with various royal connections throughout the years...

 in Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...

, on the death of his father.

James' first sponsorship of note was in publishing John Betjeman
John Betjeman
Sir John Betjeman, CBE was an English poet, writer and broadcaster who described himself in Who's Who as a "poet and hack".He was a founding member of the Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture...

's first book of poems when at Oxford. He worked with Brian Howard on the Glass Omnibus. After Oxford, James had a brief career as a trainee diplomat at the embassy in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

. He was asked to send a coded message to London that the Italians had laid the keels for three destroyers, but got the code wrong; the message said "300 destroyers". Shortly after this he was sent "on indefinite leave".

In the early 1930s, James married Tilly Losch
Tilly Losch
Ottilie Ethel Leopoldine "Tilly" Losch, Countess of Carnarvon was an Austrian-born dancer, choreographer, actress and painter who lived and worked for most of her life in the United States and United Kingdom....

, an Austrian dancer, choreographer, actress and painter. He had several productions created expressly for her, the most notable of which was Les Ballets 1933, which included Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...

, Lotte Lenya
Lotte Lenya
Lotte Lenya was an Austrian singer, diseuse, and actress. In the German-speaking and classical music world she is best remembered for her performances of the songs of her husband, Kurt Weill. In English-language film she is remembered for her Academy Award-nominated role in The Roman Spring of Mrs...

 and George Balanchine
George Balanchine
George Balanchine , born Giorgi Balanchivadze in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to a Georgian father and a Russian mother, was one of the 20th century's most famous choreographers, a developer of ballet in the United States, co-founder and balletmaster of New York City Ballet...

. He and Boris Kochno
Boris Kochno
Boris Kochno was a Russian poet, dancer and librettist. He was close with Karol Szymanowski who gave him as a gift a Russian translation of the chapter The Symposium from Efebos, the composer's unpublished novel. Szymanowski also dedicated four poems to him...

 commissioned that year Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...

 and Weill's
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...

 last collaboration, The Seven Deadly Sins, which Balanchine produced, directed and choreographed.

James divorced Losch in 1934, accusing her of adultery with Prince Serge Obolensky
Serge Obolensky
Sergei Platonovich 5th Knyaz Obolensky-Neledinsky-Meletzky was a Russian Prince and Vice Chairman of the Board of Hilton Hotels Corporation....

, an American hotel executive; her countersuit, in which she made it clear that James was homosexual, failed. James was in fact bisexual. After the divorce, James joined a social set in England which included the Mitford sisters and the composer Lord Berners.

Surrealism

James is best known as a passionate and early supporter of Surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....

, a movement that was born from the political uncertainty and upheaval between the wars. Rejecting the bourgeois' dominating rationality, surrealists escaped into a world of fantasy and irrationality. He sponsored Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....

 for the whole of 1938 and his collection of paintings and art objects that subsequently came to be accepted as the finest collection of surrealist work in private hands. He also provided practical help, supporting Dalí for about two years, and allowed René Magritte
René Magritte
René François Ghislain Magritte[p] was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of witty and thought-provoking images...

 to stay in his London house to paint.

James appeared in two famous surrealist paintings, both by Magritte:
  • Not to be Reproduced
    Not to be Reproduced
    Not to be Reproduced is a painting by the Belgian surrealist René Magritte. It currently is owned by the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam....

  • The Pleasure Principle: Portrait of Edward James


Each suggests an alienated person. In the first, James looks away from the centre; in the second he looks into a mirror which shows the back of his head; in the third James's head is a fireball.

As well as Dalí and Magritte, his art collection included works by Hieronymus Bosch, Giorgio de Chirico
Giorgio de Chirico
Giorgio de Chirico was a pre-Surrealist and then Surrealist Italian painter born in Volos, Greece, to a Genovese mother and a Sicilian father. He founded the scuola metafisica art movement...

, Paul Klee
Paul Klee
Paul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...

, Leonora Carrington
Leonora Carrington
Leonora Carrington OBE was a British-born Mexican artist, a surrealist painter and a novelist. She lived most of her life in Mexico City.-Early life:...

, Pavel Tchelitchew
Pavel Tchelitchew
Pavel Tchelitchew was a Russian-born surrealist painter, set designer and costume designer. He left Russia in 1920, lived in Berlin from 1921 to 1923, and moved to Paris in 1923. In Paris Tchelitchew became acquainted with Gertrude Stein and, through her, the Sitwell and Gorer families...

, Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...

, Giacometti, Max Ernst
Max Ernst
Max Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.-Early life:...

 and Paul Delvaux
Paul Delvaux
Paul Delvaux was a Belgian painter, associated with Surrealism, famous for his paintings of female nudes.-Biography:...

, amongst others. Most were sold at a well-publicized sale at Christies two years after his death.

His intellectual interest in surrealism is demonstrated by his sponsorship of Minotaure
Minotaure
Minotaure, published between 1933 and 1939, was a Surrealist-oriented publication founded by Albert Skira in Paris. The editors were André Breton and Pierre Mabille. It was a luxurious publication, sporting original artworks on its cover by prestigious artists like Pablo Picasso...

, a lavish Surrealist magazine published in Paris. His refurbishment of Monkton House, in a part of the West Dean Estate
West Dean House
West Dean House is a large flint-faced manor house situated in West Dean, West Sussex, near the historic City of Chichester. This country estate has approximately of land and dates back to 1086, with various royal connections throughout the years...

, was a Surrealist dream. It was done in collaboration with the pioneering British decorator, Syrie Maugham, and has some of the most iconic Surrealist works on display, including the large sofa
Mae West Lips Sofa
The Mae West Lips Sofa is a surrealist sofa by Salvador Dalí. The wood-and-satin sofa was shaped after the lips of actress Mae West, whom Dalí apparently found fascinating. It measures 86.5 x 183 x 81.5 cm. Edward James, a rich British patron of the Surrealists in the 1930s, commissioned...

 to which Dalí
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....

 gave the form and colour of Mae West
Mae West
Mae West was an American actress, playwright, screenwriter and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades....

's lips, and his Lobster Telephone
Lobster Telephone
Lobster Telephone is a surrealist object, created by Salvador Dalí in 1936 with surrealist artist and patron Edward James...

 in white. His most fantastic surrealist creation was realised in the Mexican rain forest, a surrealist Sculpture garden, "Las Pozas" (see below).

New Mexico

In 1940, James showed up in Taos, New Mexico
Taos, New Mexico
Taos is a town in Taos County in the north-central region of New Mexico, incorporated in 1934. As of the 2000 census, its population was 4,700. Other nearby communities include Ranchos de Taos, Cañon, Taos Canyon, Ranchitos, and El Prado. The town is close to Taos Pueblo, the Native American...

, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, as a guest of Mabel Dodge Luhan
Mabel Dodge Luhan
Mabel Evans Dodge Sterne Luhan , née Ganson was a wealthy American patron of the arts. She is particularly associated with the Taos art colony.-Early life:...

, where he was known for his amusing, clever eccentricity and effeminate manner. In Taos, he met the Hon. Dorothy Brett
Dorothy Brett
Dorothy Brett British-American painter, remembered as much for her social life as for her art. Born into an aristocratic British family she associated with such notables and Virginia Woolf, John Huxley, Gilbert Cannan, and George Bernard Shaw. Her sister Sylvia became Ranee of Sarawak.In 1924...

, an impoverished British aristocrat and painter, who in 1941 sold him nine paintings for $580. He later invited the 70 year-old Brett (as she was known) to return to England and reside at West Dean, but she declined.

Las Pozas


Las Pozas ("the Pools") was created by James, more than 2000 feet (609.6 m) above sea level, in a subtropical rainforest in the mountains of Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 just outside the town of Xilitla. It includes more than 80 acres (323,748.8 m²) of natural waterfalls and pools interlaced with towering Surrealist sculptures in concrete.

Las Pozas is near the village of Xilitla, San Luis Potosí, a seven-hour drive north of Mexico City. In the early 1940s, James went to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, and then decided that he "wanted a Garden of Eden set up . . . and I saw that Mexico was far more romantic” and had "far more room than there is in crowded Southern California” . In Hollywood in 1941, his lifetime friend and cousin, Magic Realist
Magic realism
Magic realism or magical realism is an aesthetic style or genre of fiction in which magical elements blend with the real world. The story explains these magical elements as real occurrences, presented in a straightforward manner that places the "real" and the "fantastic" in the same stream of...

 painter Bridget Bate Tichenor
Bridget Bate Tichenor
Bridget Bate Tichenor , also known as Bridget Tichenor or B.B.T., was a Mexican surrealist painter of fantastic art in the school of magic realism and a fashion editor...

, encouraged him to search for a surreal location in Mexico to express his diverse esoteric interests. In Cuernavaca, he hired Plutarco Gastelum as a guide. They discovered Xilitla in November 1945. Eventually Plutarco married a local woman and had four children. James was "Uncle Edward", to the children called James,and frequently stayed with them in a house Plutarco had built, a mock-Gothic cement castle, now a hotel - La Posada El Castillo.

Between 1949 and 1984, James built scores of surreal concrete structures with names like the House on Three Floors Which Will in Fact Have Five or Four or Six, the House with a Roof like a Whale, and the Staircase to Heaven. There were also plantings and beds full of tropical plants, including orchids - there were, apparently, 29,000 at Las Pozas at one time - and a variety of small casas (homes), niches, and pens that held exotic birds and wild animals from the world over -- James owned many exotic animals and once took his pet boa constrictors to the Hotel Francis in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...

..

Massive sculptures up to four stories tall punctuate the site. The many trails throughout the garden site are composed of steps, ramps, bridges and narrow, winding walkways that traverse the valley walls. Construction of Las Pozas cost more than $5 million. To pay for it, James sold his collection of Surrealist art at auction.

In the summer of 2007, the Fundación Pedro y Elena Hernández, the company Cemex
Cemex
CEMEX is the world's largest building materials supplier and third largest cement producer. Founded in Mexico in 1906, the company is based in Monterrey, Mexico...

, and the government of San Luis Potosí
San Luis Potosí
San Luis Potosí officially Estado Libre y Soberano de San Luis Potosí is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 58 municipalities and its capital city is San Luis Potosí....

 paid about $2.2 million for Las Pozas and created Fondo Xilitla, a foundation that will oversee the preservation and restoration of the site.

West Dean

In 1964, James gave his English estate which included West Dean House
West Dean House
West Dean House is a large flint-faced manor house situated in West Dean, West Sussex, near the historic City of Chichester. This country estate has approximately of land and dates back to 1086, with various royal connections throughout the years...

 at West Dean
West Dean, West Sussex
West Dean is a village and civil parish in the District of Chichester in West Sussex, England located north of Chichester on the A286 road just west of Singleton. The parish includes the hamlets of Binderton and Chilgrove....

 to a charitable trust. The Edward James Foundation comprises West Dean College
West Dean College
West Dean College is situated in the West Dean Estate, of West Dean near Chichester. The Estate was formerly the home of the poet and patron of the arts, Edward James. He was an avid admirer of the Surrealist movement, and formed one of the largest collections of their works during his lifetime...

, a centre for the preservation of traditional arts and crafts, through short courses and full-time Diplomas and MAs. One of only two professional Tapestry Weaving studios in the UK, an Art Gallery are all housed on a 6400 acres (25.9 km²) estate which is open to the public through the West Dean Gardens.

West Dean College
West Dean College
West Dean College is situated in the West Dean Estate, of West Dean near Chichester. The Estate was formerly the home of the poet and patron of the arts, Edward James. He was an avid admirer of the Surrealist movement, and formed one of the largest collections of their works during his lifetime...

 is part of the Edward James Foundation set up in 1971 in response to James' vision of establishing “an educational foundation where creative talents can be discovered and developed, and where one can spread culture through the teaching of crafts and the preservation of knowledge that might otherwise be destroyed or forgotten”.

Edward James is buried in the St Roche's Arboretum at West Dean
West Dean, West Sussex
West Dean is a village and civil parish in the District of Chichester in West Sussex, England located north of Chichester on the A286 road just west of Singleton. The parish includes the hamlets of Binderton and Chilgrove....

, with the simple inscription Edward James 1907 - 1984 Poet. The stone was carved by John Skelton
John Skelton (sculptor)
John Skelton MBE was the nephew of Eric Gill and was also noted as an important letterer and sculptor after initially being apprenticed to his uncle shortly before Eric Gill's death...

.

Writings


I have seen such beauty as one man has seldom seen;
therefore will I be grateful to die in this little room,

surrounded by the forests, the great green gloom
of trees my only gloom - and the sound, the sound of green.

Here amid the warmth of the rain, what might have been
is resolved into the tenderness of a tall doom

who says: 'You did your best, rest' - and after you the bloom
of what you loved and planted still will whisper what you mean.

And the ghosts of the birds I loved, will attend me each a friend;
like them shall I have flown beyond the realm of words.

You, through the trees, shall hear them, long after the end
calling me beyond the river. For the cries of birds

continue, as - defended by the cortege of their wings -
my soul among strange silences yet sings.


—Edward James, Poet 1907 - 1984

  • E. James, "The Bones of my Hand", privately printed, London 1930.
  • E. James, The Glass Omnibus, privately printed, London 1934.
  • E. James, The Gardener Who Saw God, 1937
  • Edward James wrote four poems "Sécheresses" and Francis Poulenc put them in music for choir 4 mixt voices and piano ro orchestra in 1937
  • George Melly (ed), Swans Reflecting Elephants, My Early Years, Autobiography of Edward James (Weidenfeld, London 1982).

Portrait sculpture

An early marble portrait sculpture of Edward James exists, by the sculptor Isamu Noguchi
Isamu Noguchi
was a prominent Japanese American artist and landscape architect whose artistic career spanned six decades, from the 1920s onward. Known for his sculpture and public works, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Graham productions, and several mass-produced lamps and furniture pieces,...

.

External links

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