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Walter Sickert and the language of art

This is the first analysis of Sickert and internationalism. It challenges the received notion of Sickert as an English modern and lays the ground for a longer study of Sickert as an unEnglish artist. Sickert was born in Munich to a Danish father and Anglo-Irish mother and lived in Britain , France and Italy and these mixed nationalities were an integral part of his identity . He carefully-invented an English personae , but British critics played a part when they erased his German origins and ignored his international links as part of a campaign to boost national confidence at the time of his 1941 National Gallery ,London retrospective. Moreover, Sickert too confused the issue because he was ambivalent about his mixed heritage, and as a result he has been largely studied within a British rather than an international context. This view of Sickert neglects several important factors. Sickert took a lively interest in a number of European artists. Paris art institutions and exhibitions and the politicking of its art world had a formative effect on him when he lived there. Sickert used the organizing structure of the Salon d’Automne (founded 1903) as a model for the exhibition cultures he fostered in Britain including the Allied Artists Association (AAA). This new research on the Salon d’Automne which is best known for launching the Fauves also reveals its importance as forum for the international mix of artists in Paris. Sickert was under contract to the Bernhein-Jeune gallery which had Bonnard, Matisse, and Vuillard in its stable. The pictures that Sickert saw in Paris represent a broad mix of styles that constitute the painterly mark-making of his work or what Sickert called ‘the language of painting’ meaning a form of expression that transcends national boundaries.