Sir Philip Burne-Jones A Life In a Tall Shadow by Tim McGee Philip Burne-Jones was of the unique generation that lived to see both sides of the century mark—from the Victorian era to the modern realities of World War 1—and beyond. While the legacy of the Burne-Jones name will always be the "beautiful beauty" of Edward Burne-Jones's art, a survey of the life of his son Philip finds a moody man-about-town, remembered more for his social life than for his contribution to the Edwardian world of art. Despite (or perhaps because of) all the poetry and legend that surrounded Philip growing up, Lord David Cecil was later to write, "there was nothing idealistic and Pre-Raphaelite about him". 1 By the 1860s the remnants of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, having already passed into a second generation, were beginning to create a "second generation" of its own. William Morris's daughters Jenny and May were born in 1861 and 1862 respectively, and on October 1, 1861, a son was born to Edward Burne-Jones and his wife Georgiana. Philip was their first child, and his arrival came at a busy time; his father's as art was gaining notoriety, earning the praise of Ruskin and the support of Rossetti, with whom he was creating designs for the newly-formed Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. In anticipation of the additional family member, they had just moved to a new home in Great Russell Street. Georgiana, in The Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones, devotes scarcely a full page to her son's birth. They had engaged nurse Wheeler, (who had previously cared for Elizabeth Siddal), and all was set. But when the time came the nurse was not available, and Edward himself had to take charge of the proceedings until she arrived. It was a stressful experience for him—possibly even more so than for Georgie. Looking back on the event, she remembered the infant being "the most valiant member of the family". Before long baby Philip was brought to Manchester to introduce him to Georgie's family, and was baptized at the cathedral there, with Ruskin and Rossetti both being named as his godparents. All went well until Phil, (or Pip, as he was called), was three years old. On returning home from a family holiday, Philip caught scarlet fever. His mother, in caring for her child, also contracted it. Georgiana was at this time pregnant with their second child, and the severity of her fever led to its premature birth. Too delirious to care for the frail new infant, Georgie had just begun to recover when the baby—a boy—died. They named him Christopher, "because he had borne so heavy a weight as he crossed through the troubled waters of his short life".2 Two years later the family was to expand once again, and five year-old Phil predicted that "it would be either a boy or a girl." He was right. It was a girl—Margaret—whose birth went much smoother than Philip's. In the years ahead, Margaret was to become the caring, responsible counterpart to her brother. Philip had several prominent relatives, by virtue of his mother's well-married sisters. Royal Academy President Edward Poynter was his uncle. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and author Rudyard Kipling were his cousins. Close in age, their biographies recall tales of their shared childhood, and they remained close for the rest of their lives. Other than occasional mentions in letters, details of Philip's life do not resurface in print until 1931, when his niece Angela Thirkell published her childhood reminiscences in Three Houses. She writes of family visits to her grandfather's home in Rottingdean and of her youthful ambivalence toward her Uncle Phil on his random visits home. Beyond these scattered references, the spotlight seems to have bypassed Philip, and relatively little has been written about this enigmatic, complex personality. Education and Career Philip began his formal education at Marlborough, the private school previously attended by William Morris. In Penelope Fitzgerald's biography of Edward Burne-Jones, she suggests that the timing of Phil's enrollment—he was eleven—was related to his presence around the studio at the time of Burne-Jones's affair with model Marie Zambaco. Phil was often close by when Zambaco came to the house, and this may have precipitated the decision. This would be Phil's first time away from home, and the transition was not an easy one for child or parent. Early on, the new student was described by his father as suffering "long fits of apathy varied by halfhysterical times of religious anxiety, distressing to see."3 Poor Phil could not have found much comfort in the letters he received from William Morris, in which he relived his own rough times at Marlborough. It was here that Phil developed his lifelong gift for caricature, though his father, hoping for a more serious output, asked him not to pursue it publicly. According to the plan, Phil would go on to University College, Burne-Jones's Oxford alma mater. Writing to his young son at Marlborough, Edward reveals his wish: "I want to bring you here [Oxford] early that you may finish your course and still be young enough to begin art if you like painting."4 Philip did attend Oxford, but did not finish his course, quitting after two years. Aware of his parents' disappointment, he agreed to study painting back in London, in a studio space arranged at home. Edward was pleased to see his son take up his interest in art, as he wrote to his American friend Charles Eliot Norton: "I sit and look at it with a bit of pride, and feel helped in my turn and encouraged. Also he is a good and sincere critic, and I find myself always following his advice, to the bettering of my pictures."5 He was publicly supportive and took every opportunity to help Philip along; there are hints, however, that he had his doubts. In an undated (c. 1879) letter from D.G. Rossetti to Jane Morris, Rossetti writes: "Ned says he has given up all thoughts of Art for Phil. He spoke in a rather wild way, as if dismal dumps afflicted him."6 Entering his twenties at the height of his father's success, Philip found himself fitting easily into the ranks of young London society—learning to spend enormous amounts of his father's money. Though social climbing was clearly becoming a priority, his art was useful in helping him to be seen as something more than a self-indulgent man of leisure. In his own words, "The critics have been rather down on me. . .They don't like me to be my father's son (& paint too)".7 During the next few years, however, Philip focused more seriously on art as a career and had his debut exhibition in 1886 at Grosvenor Gallery—a prestigious venue for a first-timer. By 1889 his father was writing proudly to Ruskin: "Phil is working thoroughly and I think you would have a word of praise for his pictures—full of care & finish... It is the greatest comfort to me..."8 It was natural that Philip should follow his father's lead in exhibiting, and he participated in shows at the Dowdeswell Galleries, the Goupil, the Grosvenor and the New Gallery, all in London. He exhibited at the Royal Academy 11 times between 1898 and 1918, and at the Paris Salon of 1900, where he exhibited the portrait of his father now in the National Portrait Gallery. If in his work he did not follow the Pre-Raphaelite gospel, neither was he quite a believer in the contemporary “modern” schools. A realistic line was important to him in portraiture, but he did not indulge in the microscopic detail of some Pre-Raphaelite art. In 1905, the year of a major French Impressionist exhibit at the Grafton Gallery, Philip published a long essay describing the Impressionist movement as a misguided experiment, "perhaps worth trying".9 He saw the early resistance to the style as more than just the traditional hostility of art orthodoxy toward something new, but a verdict voiced by the very spirit of the "everlasting Art of the World". In this he aligned with his father's testimony at the famous Ruskin-Whistler trial, about Impressionism's "want of finish". Reviewers often approached the younger Burne-Jones's work in the context of his father's success—not always to Philip's benefit. The stylistic difference between father and son is noted in a review of his 1914 London show: "Here and there we have a suggestion of the influence excercised by the artist's eminent father, but on the whole the exhibition is a curious example of the incalculable nature of heredity, in art as in the other departments of life."10 Throughout his lifetime Philip produced over 60 paintings. In subject matter his preferences were small-scale portraits (he did not believe in "great canvases which showed miles of skirts and trousers"), landscapes and "poetic fancies". The list of his portrait-sitters includes some of the best-known names of the time: G. F. Watts, Sir Edward Elgar, Sir Edward Poynter, Henry James, Rudyard and Carrie Kipling, Charles Eliot Norton, Oliver, son of Stanley Balwin, M.P. and Percy Wyndham. He also created illustrations for several works of fiction; The Young Pretenders by Edith Henrietta Fowler, 1895, The Amber Witch by Wilhem Meinhold, 1895, Peter Schlemihl by Adelbert Chamisso, 1898 and The Little Iliad by Maurice Hewlett, 1915. Curse of The Vampire It is a telling fact of Philip's life that, of his entire artistic output, it was controversy, not technique, that made one piece his most widely known. The story begins at an exhibition opening at the New Gallery, April 24, 1896. Along with several paintings by his father, including Love and the Pilgrim, the show featured a large-scale painting by Philip entitled The Vampire. It was said to be a vengeful portrait of Mrs. Patrick Campbell, the top star of the London stage. The 35 year-old Philip, madly in love with the actress, had lavished gifts of jewelry and furs upon her, only to be summarily dropped. The painting depicts an unconscious male "victim" sprawled across a bed, with a beautiful woman leaning over him with a dark, victorious smile. Her face was clearly the actress's. Printed in the exhibition catalogue was a short poem written by cousin "Ruddy" Kipling for the piece which, by association, roped its writer into the situation: A fool there was and he made his prayer (Even as you and I!) To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair (We called her the woman who did not care) But the fool he called her his lady fair— (Even as you and I!) Oh, the years we waste and the tears we waste And the work of our head and hand Belong to the woman who did not know (And now we know that she never could know) And did not understand! According to The Illustrated London News the painting was "treated with no little passion but leaves an unpleasant impression", and the ruckus caused the elder Burne-Jones not a little embarrassment. Ironically, it was to Phil's sister Margaret that the actress went for emotional support, being her close friend and neighbor. The poem itself earned a bit of fame; in 1915 a silent film based loosely on the story was released, entitled A Fool There Was, featuring a young Theda Bara in her first starring role. Her character was known only as The Vampire, which gave rise to the popular term “Vamp”. Mrs. Patrick Campbell was his most publicized romance, though there were other loves in Philip's life—most of them from London theater circles. His burning infatuation with Lillie Langtry was well known, with Phil traveling as far as Monte Carlo just to be near her; for a time, he had a serious but ill-fated relationship with playwright Edith "D.D." Balfour. None of these relationships developed into a long-term commitment, however, and Philip never married. In contrast, Margaret had long since become Mrs. John W. Mackail and had a thriving family of her own. Sir Philip In 1894 the baronetcy was bestowed on Edward Burne-Jones, with the artist's great reluctance—and Philip's great delight. Indeed, it was solely for Philip that Edward ever consented (it is said that Phil actually cried as he begged his father to accept the title). Most in his circle considered his acceptance more of a selling-out than an honour—including his own wife: "I scarcely dare tell Georgie, so profound is her scorn." At the same time, he was only too aware of Philip's desire to some day claim the title: "I am almost in a hurry to be gone that he may light a long cigar and march down Bond Street..."11 Jane Morris had heard that the idea may originally have come from family friend and solicitor Sir George Lewis, as a step "in case his daughter wanted to marry Phil, so that he might be their equal in rank. It is all too funny, and makes one roar with laughing."12 William Morris's reaction to the "honour" was simple: "Well a man can be an ass for the sake of his children." Upon Sir Edward's death in 1898 the title passed to Philip, then aged 37. Looking back, he deeply regretted the kind of son he had been: "I hold the memory of my father in the most loving reverence - and though I failed him at every turn, he never lost hope about me, nor despised me - but loved and forgave and comforted me to the end - I have never had such a friend since."13 Philip rose to the occasion and was a supportive son, overseeing the cataloging, photographing and dispersing of his father's many remaining works, finished and unfinished. In contemplating the future course of the 2nd baronet's life, Henry James's words spoke for many: "...I take a great interest in him—strange, incomplete, and yet with distinct gifts of his own, as he is. To know him is to watch his life with a curiosity almost inhuman, but not in the least to be the more qualified to say what may ever become of it."14 Though he would continue to rely on his father's earnings to support his lifestyle, Philip was on his own. In 1902 he set out for the United States "to be somewhere, anywhere, where things were not quite so hackneyed as they had got to be at home".15 He traveled, according to Margaret, "with a quite peculiarly shady set of people, most of them looking as if their only reason for going was to escape the strong arm of the law" (one of those "shady" friends was London publisher Gerald Duckworth). Philip's plans were laid out in a newspaper article announcing his New York arrival: "I am here with paint pot and brush, and if anybody wants me to do any work I'm ready to do it."16 He brought along twenty-five of his paintings to sell, including the still unsold Vampire ("going cheap at $15,000!") whose "curse" followed him to America (one newspaper story erroneously reported the painting being sold to W.K. Vanderbilt for $18,400; when Philip demanded a retraction, the paper then reported that it was not for sale at all, effectively derailing the possibility. When The Vampire was later exhibited in Chicago, the actress's outraged society friends called for its removal). Also in the collection was The Lady Diana Manners as the "Prado" Infanta, referred to by Philip as "the fan picture" (See photo of P.B.-J.), and a fantasy piece, Earthrise from the Moon, an imaginary view prefiguring the very scene photographed 67 years later by the astronauts of Apollo 11. He settled into a studio in Manhattan, where he was moderately successful at finding portrait commissions. His first showing in New York ("from which I retired the poorer") was at the galleries of Roland Knoedler, whose father headed the Goupil Gallery in Paris. Exhibitions were also arranged in Baltimore, Chicago and Philadelphia. Endlessly—and a little desperately—seeking new projects, Philip made the rounds of New England society, calling on Professor Charles Eliot Norton in Cambridge, Isabella Stewart Gardner in Boston and PreRaphaelite art collector Samuel Bancroft in Delaware. At a commencement ceremony at Harvard University, Norton introduced Burne-Jones to the President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt. The president became Philip's target for a portrait commission, and the hunt was on. Through friends he arranged for Roosevelt to see his portrait of Kipling; though the president liked the piece, no commission came to pass. In all, his U.S. visit lasted one year, and he returned to England (it is at this point that my research loses track of The Vampire painting). Back home in South Kensington, Philip resumed his portrait-work—and his place on the London dinner party circuit. Two years after his trip to America, he wrote and illustrated a book of his impressions entitled Dollars and Democracy. In it he recalls how, before his arrival, he imagined America being a vast continent full of the most bewitching girls, clad in the daintiest costumes, delighted to see me, and ready to extend their pretty hands in a natural and unaffected camaraderie, only possible in America. Their husbands and brothers—strong, manly, simple folk—I pictured to myself as constantly at work somewhere out of sight, chiefly in "Wall Street", wherever that was, leaving their wives and sisters free to entertain me, and glad to think that they were doing so. I had heard much of the generosity of American men.17 This was followed in 1905 with a book entitled With Amy in Brittany, a journal of auto touring (one of his pleasures) through the north of France. Both of these books feature his loose pen-and-ink illustrations. Personality In a 1903 letter to Charles Fairfax Murray, American art collector Samuel Bancroft describes Sir Philip Burne-Jones as "a foolish, undeveloped child, so far as worldly wisdom goes."18 The undeveloped child was 41 years old. Apparently, Bancroft's opinion was not an uncommon one. By this point in Sir Philip's life, he had developed something of a reputation, painting him as a moody, restless man, spending much of his time in the resorts and casinos of Europe. The society columns noted frequent holidays to Paris and Switzerland, and Sydney Cockerell remembered Sir Philip as "a good artist; but he was a gadabout and didn't work. If he got an invitation from a lady of title in the country, he went off at once."19 This coincides with Rudyard Kipling's belief that Phil "would be greater if he were stuck on a desert island with nothing but paints and canvas and no society".20 Of all the views of Philip that have been recorded, the most insightful by far are those of his niece Angela Thirkell, daughter of Philip's sister Margaret. In her book of memories, Three Houses, we get a rare view of life within the Burne-Jones family—and the most telling portrait available of her unpredictable Uncle Phil. From her unique vantage point, she warmly remembers her uncle's good qualities, but reveals the sad motivations that affected Philip BurneJones's whole life: "He could have been a distinguished painter and would have been one under a luckier star, but two things told fatally against him. He never needed to work, and he was cursed with a sense of diffidence and a feeling that whatever he did would be contrasted unfavorably with his father's work." She acknowledges his artistic gift, but adds, "His kindness of heart was unbounded and yet he could wound most cruelly and deliberately. There was on his mother's side, coming from her mother's family, a strain of deep melancholy and self-distrust which in some of the family was almost a disease. Uncle Phil must have suffered under this all his life and could not control it enough to keep himself from making others suffer with him. He was quick to suspect an imagined slight or insult and would say or write something which would bring the unsuspecting offender to bewildered tears. Then he would fall into depths of repentance and selfaccusation that shattered everyone concerned".21 She remembered him, simply, as "a very unhappy man." Writing in 1906 to his friend (and Rossetti biographer) H.C. Marillier from Nice, Sir Philip's discontented tone comes through: I rattle about like a kernel in a huge nutshell—and go on occasional motor sprees with friends who are stopping here—but all my expeditions seem to end in the casinos at Monte Carlo, to which, though it has lightened my purse somewhat, I can't help feeling a certain amount of gratitude for distracting and absorbing me when I most needed distraction and absorption.22 The most scathing account must be Virginia Woolf's, from her 5-volume diaries published in 1970. Her unabashed memories of Philip from 1912 deserve to be quoted in full: He wore a light overcoat & sat, his foolish nervous white face looking aged & set unhappy & eager & disillusioned, alone at a little white marble table, while everyone else paraded or chattered & the band played—he had no companion—none of his smart ladies —nobody to chatter to, in his affected exaggerated voice; p a y i n g a s t o n i s h i n g compliments, using dears & darlings & going into that once fashionable whinny of laughter which must I think have come down from Burne-Jones himself—and Phil was a kind of dissipated degenerate, spending all the thousands that were paid for those wan women on staircases, on love affairs, on luxuries, on being a fashionable bachelor & fairy godfather to the Trees & Taylors & other fashionable young ladies—a very timid conventional man at bottom, with a horrid taste in pictures, presumably, but a way with children.23 Incomplete. Gadabout. Degenerate. Harsh words to sum up a man's life. In Sir Philip's defense, it's only right to note that in almost every estimation available, the negative impressions are balanced with fond memories of his talent, warmth and generosity. William Rothenstein remembered him as "a boisterous visitor, full of fun"; to his niece Angela Thirkell he could be "the most witty and amusing companion possible." Even Mrs. Patrick Campbell—the "Vampire"—wrote of his "unforgettable kindness". As for Philip's own self-estimation, it is said that he actually did write an autobiography; what might it say about a young man growing up in the rarified atmosphere of Victorian culture? What might it add to the biographies of the entire Burne-Jones family? Ironically, even this story runs true to Philip's form; it is said that he sold the piece to a "disreputable" Fleet Street publisher and, changing his mind, retrieved it only with Kipling's help. This would be a fascinating item to read today. As the years went on Philip traveled much less (he made one more short trip to America for Christmas 1924) and all but discontinued his painting, occasionally sketching caricatures for friends and acquaintances. He lived out his days in London, where he died in a nursing home on June 21, 1926 at the age of 63. Some sources claim that Sir Philip took his own life, though his death is officially listed as heart failure; his final illness was said to have been brought on during a last, "disastrous" visit to the French Riviera. Sir Philip's obituary observed that the artistic temperament he had inherited "was perhaps less a gift than a burden", and that his sister Margaret was now "the single survivor of that golden world in which his own earlier and happier years were spent". His funeral services were attended by, among others, Margaret and her family, Stanley Baldwin P.M., Mr. and Mrs. Rudyard Kipling, Sir Sydney Cockerell and Detmar Blow, representing the Duke of Westminster. His ashes bear the phrase Quonium dilexit multum— Because you loved much. NOTES Thanks to: Patricia O'Connor, Judy Oberhausen, Frank Sharp 1 Lord David Cecil, Visionary and Dreamer; Two Poetic Painters: Samuel Palmer and Edward Burne-Jones (Princeton University Press 1969) pg. 151 2 Georgiana Burne-Jones, Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones (Macmillan & Co. 1904) Vol. 1 pg. 282 3 Penelope Fitzgerald, Edward Burne-Jones: A Biography (Michael Joseph 1975) 4 Georgiana Burne-Jones, Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones, Vol. 2 pg. 48 5 Ibid., Vol. 1 pg. 199 6 John Bryson, Ed., Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Jane Morris - Their Correspondence (Clarendon Press 1976 ) pg. 86 Lewis's daughter was Katie Lewis, recipient of EBJ's Letters to Katie; she was 16 years old at this time. 7 P.B.-J. to Bancroft, March 29, 1902; Delaware Art Museum, Samuel and Mary R. Bancroft Memorial 8 Helen Gill Viljoen, Ed., The Brantwood Diary of John Ruskin (Yale University Press 1971) 9 P.B.-J., The Experiment of Impressionism Living Age Boston, May 6, 1905 pg. 365 10 London Times, April 22, 1914 11 Penelope Fitzgerald, Edward Burne-Jones: A Biography pg.251 12 Peter Faulkner, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt and the Morrises / Kelmscott Lecture 1980 (William Morris Society 1981) pg. 34 13 Ina Taylor, Victorian Sisters (Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1987) pg. 187 14 Leon Edel, Ed., Henry James Letters Vol. 4 (Harvard University Press 1984) 15 Sir Philip Burne-Jones, Dollars and Democracy (D. Appleton & Co. 1904) pg. 4 16 New York Times Feb. 27, 1902 17 Sir Philip Burne-Jones, Dollars and Democracy pg. 5 18 Rowland Elzea, Ed., The Correspondence Between Samuel Bancroft, Jr. and Charles Fairfax Murray Delaware Art Museum Occasional Paper February 1980 pg. 178 19 Wilfrid Blunt, Cockerell (Alfred A. Knopf, 1968) pg. 98 20 Ina Taylor, Victorian Sisters pg. 185 21 Angela Thirkell, Three Houses (Morley-Baker 1980) pg. 67 22 January 8, 1906; author's collection 23 Anne Olivier Bell, Ed., The Diary of Virginia Woolf (Vol. 3 1925-1930) pg. 248 (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich N.Y. / London 1980) The "Trees and Taylors" are the daughters of Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and the granddaughters of Sir Henry Taylor. Bibliography New York Times, June 22, 1926 Ibid., Dec. 16, 1924 London Times, October 2, 1917 Ibid., June 22, 1926 Ibid., June 25, 1926 New York Tribune, July 29, 1902 Harper's Weekly 1902 Anne Olivier Bell, Ed., The Diary of Virginia Woolf (Vol. 3 1925-1930) (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich N.Y. / London 1980) Lord Birkenhead, Rudyard Kipling (Random House 1978) Wilfrid Blunt, Cockerell (Alfred A. Knopf, 1968) John Bryson, Ed., Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Jane Morris - Their Correspondence (Clarendon Press 1976 ) Georgiana Burne-Jones, Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones (Macmillan & Co. 1904) Stella Patrick Campbell, My Life and Some Letters (Dodd, Mead & Co. 1922) C. E. Carrington, The Life of Rudyard Kipling (Doubleday & Co. N.Y. 1955) Lord David Cecil, Visionary and Dreamer; Two Poetic Painters: Samuel Palmer and Edward Burne-Jones (Princeton University Press 1969) Leon Edel, Ed., Henry James Letters Vol. 4 (Harvard University Press 1984) Rowland Elzea, Ed., The Correspondence Between Samuel Bancroft, Jr. and Charles Fairfax Murray Delaware Art Museum Occasional Paper February 1980 Peter Faulkner, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt and the Morrises / Kelmscott Lecture 1980 William Morris Society 1981 Penelope Fitzgerald, Edward Burne-Jones: A Biography (Michael Joseph 1975) Rudyard Kipling, Something of Myself for My Friends Known and Unknown (Doubleday, Doran & Co. 1937) Margot Peters, Mrs. Pat: The Life of Mrs. Patrick Campbell (Random House 1984) Ina Taylor, Victorian Sisters (Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1987) Angela Thirkell, Three Houses (Morley-Baker 1980) Helen Gill Viljoen, Ed., The Brantwood Diary of John Ruskin (Yale University Press 1971) Angus Wilson, Rudyard Kipling—His Life and Works (The Viking Press N.Y. 1977) Manuscripts: Delaware Art Museum, Samuel and Mary R. Bancroft Memorial Manchester University — John Rylands Library