Victor Willing
Encyclopedia
Victor Arthur James Willing (15 January 1928 – 1 June 1988) was a British
painter
there, 1940-45. A year was then spent at Guildford School of Art while he awaited call-up to National Service which duly followed, 1946-8. He secured a commission as second-lieutenant in the Royal Artillery, serving in Northern Ireland and at Dover. On release he was accepted by the Slade School of Fine Art
, University of London but only to start in 1949, so he returned for a year to Guildford Art School studying sculpture under Willi Soukop
. A fellow student and friend there at the time was Elisabeth Frink
. He produced two accomplished stone carvings during this year, a female torso and a head (private collections).
Willing's start at the Slade coincided with William Coldstream
's arrival there as Director and Professor. Fellow entrants that year included Michael Andrews
, Henry Inlander and James Burr, while Euan Uglow
, Craigie Aitchison
, Paula Rego
and Myles Murphy also overlapped subsequently. Other close friends, Keith Sutton
and Peter Snow, had started the previous year. Willing was admired by his fellow students for his adventurous talent and intellectual zest and was denoted 'spokesman for his generation' by the critic David Sylvester
. He was deeply fascinated by one of Francis Bacon
's first exhibitions, in 1949, and he invited him to talk at the Slade. They subsequently became friends and saw a good deal of each other especially after Willing left the Slade in 1953. Another artist who became a long-standing friend was Rodrigo Moynihan
and each painted the other's portrait. Willing's portrait of Moynihan is with the Royal College of Art
but Moynihan's of Willing was stolen and was, it is thought, destroyed by the thief.
Willing took his diploma in 1952 and then stayed on for a further year. Of work produced during these student years rather little survives. Four paintings, Head of a Man (John Mills), Boy on a Tricycle (both private collection), Head of a Girl (Paula Rego) (Dumfriesshire Educational Trust) and Standing Nude (Tate Gallery) are still extant however and possibly two other 'summer compositions', Europa and the Bull and Musicians. His diploma painting Act of Violence is still with University Art Collections, University College
.
In 1951 Willing had married his long-time Guildford girl friend, Hazel Whittington, and they lived first at Shalford near Guildford and, from 1954, in a large maisonette at Lancaster Gate (Bayswater). He was able to paint there and also in a small studio that he had in Chelsea.
In 1955 Erica Brausen of the Hanover Gallery gave him a show which was a considerable critical success. Paintings were bought by the Arts Council of Great Britain
and also by Sir Colin Anderson, a notable supporter of young artists. A star piece of the show, Reclining Nude, went to a Belgian purchaser and has disappeared from view. Unfortunately there was no catalogue nor, it seems, were the exhibits photographed. Paintings from around this time, which may have been in the exhibition, are Runners and Man Explaining (private collection) and Winter Machine (Arts Council Collection). Man with a Kitten no longer exists but was published in monochrome. An impressive Sentry, which was shown at the ICA, is believed lost. There were also a few portraits: Andrew Forge, Natasha Spender and Lawrence Alloway
(the last two, whereabouts unknown).
By 1956 Willing’s marriage was failing and at the end of that year he left home and the country, eventually to join Paula Rego in Portugal. Rego’s parents were supportive and the two were able to live quietly at the family quinta in Ericeira where they both continued to paint. They were married in 1959 following Willing’s divorce from Hazel Whittington. From 1962 they also had a base in London, a house in Albert Street, Camden Town which Rego’s father, José Figueiroa Rego, had given them.
Although many paintings were produced during this period most were destroyed or painted over. Survivals include Self Portrait and Standing Figure and Nude (1957; two parts of an unfinished triptych). Willing was discouraged when the more adventurous Lech, Precarious Drag and Untitled, which relate more closely to his late work, were viewed unfavourably by a critic friend and he reverted to painting (as he put it) ‘stodgy nudes’.
The year 1966 brought major upsets to his career as an artist. Both his father and his father-in-law died and he saw no option but to take on the management of the latter’s business interests in Lisbon. At the same time he was diagnosed as suffering from the early stages of multiple sclerosis. Art took on a lesser role for the next eight years until the Portuguese revolution of 1974 led to the failure of the business and the eventual return of the family – which now included Caroline, Victoria and Nick Willing
– to live permanently in London.
Willing had decided that he must now return to his true métier and he rented a room in a disused school in Stepney and began to paint. Alone for long periods, and standing only with difficulty, he often just sat and looked at the wall. During these periods of ‘reverie’ pictures would appear to him of an intense and visionary quality which he was then able to draw. Many of these drawings were subsequently enlarged into oil paintings and both were exhibited in 1978 at the AIR (Artist Information Registry) Gallery, then in Shaftsbury Avenue, London. This exhibition was a critical success and during the next ten years was followed by several others most notably at the Serpentine Gallery
(1982) and the Whitechapel Art Gallery (1986), the latter a major retrospective. In 1982 he was Artist in Residence, Corpus Christi College and Kettle's Yard
art gallery, Cambridge. His paintings entered important collections including the Tate Gallery, the Arts Council and the Saatchi Collection. His many drawings were also widely exhibited and collected. Particularly striking was the series of Masks which were shown at the Hayward Gallery Annual (sponsored by the Arts Council) in 1985.
With his increasing disability the large paintings of the earlier eighties gave place to smaller, his last exhibition being of a series of Heads at the Karsten Schubert Gallery in 1987. Also towards the end of his life he designed and had made some small sculptures, painted and gilded, resembling some of the standing figures in his drawings. Another idea, surviving in small models, was the creation of the 'aedicola' or 'shelter', a place of refuge or retreat, which had featured in his drawings and paintings.
Willing died at home in Hampstead, London, on June 1, 1988. In the years since then several important publications and exhibitions have taken place. In 1993 Karsten Schubert published a selection of his writings and two conversations with John McEwen while in 2000 appeared the August Media multi-authored study of his work. Five works were included in the 'New Displays' at the Tate Gallery in 1999 and in 2000 there was a solo exhibition of his work at Marlborough Fine Art, London. In late 2008 the Pallant House Gallery
, Chichester exhibited their holdings of his paintings, bequeathed to them by the architect Colin St John Wilson
, alongside some loans of early work. An extensive retrospective exhibition, curated by Helmut Wohl, opened at the Casa das Historias Paula Rego, Cascais, Portugal on September 9, 2010 and will close on January 2, 2011.
1952 Group exhibition, New Trends in Realist Painting, ICA, London.
1955 Solo exhibition, Hanover Gallery, London.
1962 Group exhibition, The Arts Council as Patron, The Arts Council Gallery, London, and on tour.
1978 Solo exhibition, Air Gallery, London.
1979 Group exhibition, The British Art Show, Arts Council of GB, Graves Art Gallery and on tour.
1980 Solo exhibition, The House Gallery, London.
1980 Group exhibition, Pictures for an Exhibition, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London.
1980 Group exhibition, Summer Exhibition, Blond Fine Art, London.
1981-2 Group exhibition, Winter Exhibition, Blond Fine Art, London.
1982 Solo exhibition, Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London.
1982 Solo exhibition, Serpentine Gallery, London.
1982 Group exhibition, British Drawing, Hayward Annual 1982, Hayward Gallery, London.
1983 Solo exhibition, Kettle's Yard Gallery, Cambridge.
1983 Solo exhibition of drawings, Hobson Gallery, Cambridge.
1983 Solo exhibition, Bernard Jacobson Gallery, New York City, USA.
1983 Solo exhibition, Bernard Jacobson Gallery, Los Angeles, USA.
1984 Group exhibition, Old Allegiances and New Directions, Arts Council of GB, Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield and tour.
1984-7 Group exhibition, New Works on Paper, The British Council, Warsaw, Poland and tour.
1985 Solo exhibition, Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London.
1985 Group exhibition, Hayward Annual 1985, Hayward Gallery, London.
1986 Retrospective exhibition, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London.
1986 Group exhibition, Surprises in Store, Twentieth Century British Painting from the Rugby Collection, University of Warwick, Coventry.
1987 Exhibition of Heads at Karsten Schubert Gallery, London.
1999 Five works included in 'New Displays', Tate Gallery, London.
2000 Solo exhibition, Marlborough Fine Arts, London.
2008-9 Solo exhibition, Victor Willing: Revelations, Discoveries, Communications, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester.
2010-11 Retrospective exhibition, Casa das Historias Paula Rego, Cascais, Portugal
The British Council.
Rugby Borough Council.
The Tate Gallery.
Saatchi Collection (now dispersed).
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
painter
Life and work
Victor Willing was born in Alexandria, Egypt, the only son of George Willing, professional soldier, and his wife Irene Cynthia Tomkins. The first four years of his life were spent there and, briefly, in Malta. On returning to the UK his father was posted to various parts of southern England including the Isle of Wight and Bordon, Hampshire. Willing's education was in consequence rather disrupted until the family moved permanently to Guildford, Surrey and he was able to attend The Royal Grammar SchoolRoyal Grammar School, Guildford
The Royal Grammar School is a selective English independent day school for boys in Guildford, Surrey. The school dates its founding to the death of Robert Beckingham in 1509 who left provision in his will to 'make a free scole at the Towne of Guldford'; in 1512 a governing body was set up to form...
there, 1940-45. A year was then spent at Guildford School of Art while he awaited call-up to National Service which duly followed, 1946-8. He secured a commission as second-lieutenant in the Royal Artillery, serving in Northern Ireland and at Dover. On release he was accepted by the Slade School of Fine Art
Slade School of Fine Art
The Slade School of Fine Art is a world-renownedart school in London, United Kingdom, and a department of University College London...
, University of London but only to start in 1949, so he returned for a year to Guildford Art School studying sculpture under Willi Soukop
Willi Soukop
Willi Soukop, RA was a sculptor, member of the Royal Academy and early teacher of Elisabeth Frink.Wilhelm Joseph Soukop was the son of a Moravian shoemaker whose horrific experiences in the First World War led to a mental breakdown and his disappearance immediately following the war’s end.From an...
. A fellow student and friend there at the time was Elisabeth Frink
Elisabeth Frink
Dame Elisabeth Jean Frink, DBE, CH, RA was an English sculptor and printmaker...
. He produced two accomplished stone carvings during this year, a female torso and a head (private collections).
Willing's start at the Slade coincided with William Coldstream
William Coldstream
Sir William Menzies Coldstream was a British realist painter and a long standing art teacher.-Biography:...
's arrival there as Director and Professor. Fellow entrants that year included Michael Andrews
Michael Andrews (artist)
Michael Andrews was a British painter.-Life and work:Michael Andrews was born in Norwich, England, the second child of Thomas Victor Andrews and his wife Gertrude Emma Green. He completed his two years' National service between 1947 and 1949, nineteen months of which was spent in Egypt...
, Henry Inlander and James Burr, while Euan Uglow
Euan Uglow
-Biography:Euan Uglow was born 10 March 1932 in London and as a child lived in Tulse Hill in south London. His father was an accountant, and Uglow went to the local grammar school in Tulse Hill, called Strand School. Afterwards he studied at Camberwell School of Art from 1948 to 1950...
, Craigie Aitchison
Craigie Aitchison (painter)
Craigie Aitchison, RA, CBE was a Scottish painter. He was known for his many paintings of the Crucifixion, one of which hangs behind the altar in the chapter house of Liverpool Cathedral.-Education:...
, Paula Rego
Paula Rego
Paula Rego is a painter born in Portugal although she is a naturalised British citizen.-Biography:Rego was born in the Portuguese capital Lisbon, the daughter of an electrical engineer who worked for the Marconi Company. Although this gave her a comfortable middle class home, the family was...
and Myles Murphy also overlapped subsequently. Other close friends, Keith Sutton
Keith Sutton
Keith George Sutton was a British artist and critic-Life and work:Keith Sutton was born in Dulwich on May 29, 1924, the younger son of George William Sutton and Audrey Pearl Dewar. He was educated at Rutlish School, Merton, leaving at age 16 to attend Wimbledon School of Art...
and Peter Snow, had started the previous year. Willing was admired by his fellow students for his adventurous talent and intellectual zest and was denoted 'spokesman for his generation' by the critic David Sylvester
David Sylvester
Anthony David Bernard Sylvester CBE, was a British art critic and curator. Although he received no formal education in the arts, during his long career he was influential in promoting modern artists, in particular the work of Joan Miró, Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon.Born into a well connected...
. He was deeply fascinated by one of Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon (painter)
Francis Bacon , was an Irish-born British figurative painter known for his bold, austere, graphic and emotionally raw imagery. Bacon's painterly but abstract figures typically appear isolated in glass or steel geometrical cages set against flat, nondescript backgrounds...
's first exhibitions, in 1949, and he invited him to talk at the Slade. They subsequently became friends and saw a good deal of each other especially after Willing left the Slade in 1953. Another artist who became a long-standing friend was Rodrigo Moynihan
Rodrigo Moynihan
Rodrigo Moynihan was an English painter.-Biography:Moynihan was born in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands, in 1910. His Anglo-Spanish family moved to London in 1918 and then to Wisconsin...
and each painted the other's portrait. Willing's portrait of Moynihan is with the Royal College of Art
Royal College of Art
The Royal College of Art is an art school located in London, United Kingdom. It is the world’s only wholly postgraduate university of art and design, offering the degrees of Master of Arts , Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy...
but Moynihan's of Willing was stolen and was, it is thought, destroyed by the thief.
Willing took his diploma in 1952 and then stayed on for a further year. Of work produced during these student years rather little survives. Four paintings, Head of a Man (John Mills), Boy on a Tricycle (both private collection), Head of a Girl (Paula Rego) (Dumfriesshire Educational Trust) and Standing Nude (Tate Gallery) are still extant however and possibly two other 'summer compositions', Europa and the Bull and Musicians. His diploma painting Act of Violence is still with University Art Collections, University College
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
.
In 1951 Willing had married his long-time Guildford girl friend, Hazel Whittington, and they lived first at Shalford near Guildford and, from 1954, in a large maisonette at Lancaster Gate (Bayswater). He was able to paint there and also in a small studio that he had in Chelsea.
In 1955 Erica Brausen of the Hanover Gallery gave him a show which was a considerable critical success. Paintings were bought by the Arts Council of Great Britain
Arts Council of Great Britain
The Arts Council of Great Britain was a non-departmental public body dedicated to the promotion of the fine arts in Great Britain. The Arts Council of Great Britain was divided in 1994 to form the Arts Council of England , the Scottish Arts Council, and the Arts Council of Wales...
and also by Sir Colin Anderson, a notable supporter of young artists. A star piece of the show, Reclining Nude, went to a Belgian purchaser and has disappeared from view. Unfortunately there was no catalogue nor, it seems, were the exhibits photographed. Paintings from around this time, which may have been in the exhibition, are Runners and Man Explaining (private collection) and Winter Machine (Arts Council Collection). Man with a Kitten no longer exists but was published in monochrome. An impressive Sentry, which was shown at the ICA, is believed lost. There were also a few portraits: Andrew Forge, Natasha Spender and Lawrence Alloway
Lawrence Alloway
Lawrence Alloway was an English art critic and curator who worked in the United States from the 1960s. In the 1950s he was a leading member of the Independent Group in the UK and in the 1960s was an influential writer and curator in the US...
(the last two, whereabouts unknown).
By 1956 Willing’s marriage was failing and at the end of that year he left home and the country, eventually to join Paula Rego in Portugal. Rego’s parents were supportive and the two were able to live quietly at the family quinta in Ericeira where they both continued to paint. They were married in 1959 following Willing’s divorce from Hazel Whittington. From 1962 they also had a base in London, a house in Albert Street, Camden Town which Rego’s father, José Figueiroa Rego, had given them.
Although many paintings were produced during this period most were destroyed or painted over. Survivals include Self Portrait and Standing Figure and Nude (1957; two parts of an unfinished triptych). Willing was discouraged when the more adventurous Lech, Precarious Drag and Untitled, which relate more closely to his late work, were viewed unfavourably by a critic friend and he reverted to painting (as he put it) ‘stodgy nudes’.
The year 1966 brought major upsets to his career as an artist. Both his father and his father-in-law died and he saw no option but to take on the management of the latter’s business interests in Lisbon. At the same time he was diagnosed as suffering from the early stages of multiple sclerosis. Art took on a lesser role for the next eight years until the Portuguese revolution of 1974 led to the failure of the business and the eventual return of the family – which now included Caroline, Victoria and Nick Willing
Nick Willing
Nick Willing is a British director, writer and producer of films and television programs.Willing is the son of Portuguese painter Paula Rego and English artist Victor Willing and was largely brought up in Portugal, but settled in England at the age of 12...
– to live permanently in London.
Willing had decided that he must now return to his true métier and he rented a room in a disused school in Stepney and began to paint. Alone for long periods, and standing only with difficulty, he often just sat and looked at the wall. During these periods of ‘reverie’ pictures would appear to him of an intense and visionary quality which he was then able to draw. Many of these drawings were subsequently enlarged into oil paintings and both were exhibited in 1978 at the AIR (Artist Information Registry) Gallery, then in Shaftsbury Avenue, London. This exhibition was a critical success and during the next ten years was followed by several others most notably at the Serpentine Gallery
Serpentine Gallery
The Serpentine Gallery is an art gallery in Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, central London. It focuses on modern and contemporary art. The exhibitions, architecture, education and public programmes attract approximately 750,000 visitors a year...
(1982) and the Whitechapel Art Gallery (1986), the latter a major retrospective. In 1982 he was Artist in Residence, Corpus Christi College and Kettle's Yard
Kettle's Yard
Kettle's Yard is an art gallery and house in Cambridge, England.- History and overview :Kettle's Yard was originally the Cambridge home of Jim Ede and his wife Helen. Moving to Cambridge in 1956, they converted four small cottages into one idiosyncratic house and a place to display Ede's collection...
art gallery, Cambridge. His paintings entered important collections including the Tate Gallery, the Arts Council and the Saatchi Collection. His many drawings were also widely exhibited and collected. Particularly striking was the series of Masks which were shown at the Hayward Gallery Annual (sponsored by the Arts Council) in 1985.
With his increasing disability the large paintings of the earlier eighties gave place to smaller, his last exhibition being of a series of Heads at the Karsten Schubert Gallery in 1987. Also towards the end of his life he designed and had made some small sculptures, painted and gilded, resembling some of the standing figures in his drawings. Another idea, surviving in small models, was the creation of the 'aedicola' or 'shelter', a place of refuge or retreat, which had featured in his drawings and paintings.
Willing died at home in Hampstead, London, on June 1, 1988. In the years since then several important publications and exhibitions have taken place. In 1993 Karsten Schubert published a selection of his writings and two conversations with John McEwen while in 2000 appeared the August Media multi-authored study of his work. Five works were included in the 'New Displays' at the Tate Gallery in 1999 and in 2000 there was a solo exhibition of his work at Marlborough Fine Art, London. In late 2008 the Pallant House Gallery
Pallant House Gallery
Pallant House Gallery is an art gallery in Chichester, West Sussex, England. It houses one of the best collections of 20th century British art in the world....
, Chichester exhibited their holdings of his paintings, bequeathed to them by the architect Colin St John Wilson
Colin St John Wilson
Sir Colin Alexander St John Wilson, FRIBA, RA, was a British architect, lecturer and author. He spent over 30 years progressing the project to build a new British Library in London, originally planned to be built in Bloomsbury and now completed near Kings Cross.-Early and private life:Wilson was...
, alongside some loans of early work. An extensive retrospective exhibition, curated by Helmut Wohl, opened at the Casa das Historias Paula Rego, Cascais, Portugal on September 9, 2010 and will close on January 2, 2011.
Selected exhibitions
1952 Group exhibition, Nine Young Painters, Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), London.1952 Group exhibition, New Trends in Realist Painting, ICA, London.
1955 Solo exhibition, Hanover Gallery, London.
1962 Group exhibition, The Arts Council as Patron, The Arts Council Gallery, London, and on tour.
1978 Solo exhibition, Air Gallery, London.
1979 Group exhibition, The British Art Show, Arts Council of GB, Graves Art Gallery and on tour.
1980 Solo exhibition, The House Gallery, London.
1980 Group exhibition, Pictures for an Exhibition, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London.
1980 Group exhibition, Summer Exhibition, Blond Fine Art, London.
1981-2 Group exhibition, Winter Exhibition, Blond Fine Art, London.
1982 Solo exhibition, Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London.
1982 Solo exhibition, Serpentine Gallery, London.
1982 Group exhibition, British Drawing, Hayward Annual 1982, Hayward Gallery, London.
1983 Solo exhibition, Kettle's Yard Gallery, Cambridge.
1983 Solo exhibition of drawings, Hobson Gallery, Cambridge.
1983 Solo exhibition, Bernard Jacobson Gallery, New York City, USA.
1983 Solo exhibition, Bernard Jacobson Gallery, Los Angeles, USA.
1984 Group exhibition, Old Allegiances and New Directions, Arts Council of GB, Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield and tour.
1984-7 Group exhibition, New Works on Paper, The British Council, Warsaw, Poland and tour.
1985 Solo exhibition, Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London.
1985 Group exhibition, Hayward Annual 1985, Hayward Gallery, London.
1986 Retrospective exhibition, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London.
1986 Group exhibition, Surprises in Store, Twentieth Century British Painting from the Rugby Collection, University of Warwick, Coventry.
1987 Exhibition of Heads at Karsten Schubert Gallery, London.
1999 Five works included in 'New Displays', Tate Gallery, London.
2000 Solo exhibition, Marlborough Fine Arts, London.
2008-9 Solo exhibition, Victor Willing: Revelations, Discoveries, Communications, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester.
2010-11 Retrospective exhibition, Casa das Historias Paula Rego, Cascais, Portugal
Collections
The Arts Council.The British Council.
Rugby Borough Council.
The Tate Gallery.
Saatchi Collection (now dispersed).
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester