Augustus John, one of Fordingbridge’s most notorious past residents will be the subject of a talk organised by Fordingbridge Museum on Friday April 26.
His unconventional and bohemian lifestyle dismayed some locals when he lived in Fordingbridge from 1927 to 1961. The talk, entitled “Brilliant Destiny”, looks at John’s early life up until 1914.
Fordingbridge Museum Manager Jane Ireland said, “We are fortunate to have been successful in getting Dr David Boyd Haycock to deliver this talk. He is a freelance art historian and curator and writer who is a Visiting Research Fellow at Oxford Brookes University. He has just published a book on the early life of Augustus John which will be available at the talk.”
The talk will cover the life of John up until the start of the Great War when he was one of the most important British artists of the time. The novelist Virginia Woolf called the period, “the age of Augustus John”, whilst the author and painter Wyndham Lewis called the ten years up to 1914, “the Augustan Decade”.
The lecture will cover John’s rapid rise to fame from his birth in South Wales in 1878 to becoming the man almost every young British art student wished to emulate. It will also examine the personalities who influenced him and his relationship with his sister, the artist Gwen John, who also has Fordingbridge connections.
The talk is at Avonway Community Centre in Fordingbridge. It starts at 7.30 and tickets are £10 to include light refreshments. They are available from Fordingbridge Bookshop, Fordingbridge Museum or www.ticketsource.co.uk
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