Landlord and Tenant, by George John Pinwell, 1871. Watercolour and gouache over graphite; 16 x 22 5/8 inches (40.6 x 57.4 cm.). Collection of the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, accession no. B2015.18.5. [Click on all the images to enlarge them.]
This watercolour was commissioned by George Dalziel of the publishing firm The Dalziel Brothers. It was exhibited at the Old Water-Colour Winter Exhibition in 1870-71 and then later at the Pinwell Memorial Exhibition at Deschamps' Gallery in 1876, no. 93. This dramatic subject is a genre work with the imposing figure of a landlord threatening to evict a poor widow and her children who have apparently fallen behind in their rent.
The critic of The Illustrated London News found the subject too painful: "Mr. Pinwell, who appears to be a follower of Mr. Walker, attains something of the same exquisitely precise truthfulness in his faces; but it is imitative exactitude, seldom elevated by poetic and ideal feeling; and his work, as a whole, is at present less harmonious and complete. A suspicion, in fact, arises that this very promising artist may be found among the number of those whose powers are perverted by indulgence in eccentricity, or not directed to the noblest ends… In Landlord and Tenant (272) we have a wretched interior, with the contrast of an emaciated widow surrounded by three starveling children, and a burly, well-fed, uncompassionate landlord, who may be threatening a distraint – a subject too simply painful" (566).
The Morning Post praised Pinwell's portrayal of the figures: "Notwithstanding his curious predilection for very warm colors, thrown into contrast so violent as at times to amount to conflict, Mr. Pinwell's pictures have an indefinable charm. They are not only invariably correct and spirited in drawing, but they bear evidence of graceful fancy and strong, dramatic feeling. These qualities are especially discernable in the drawing entitled Landlord and Tenant (272), in which the artist has depicted with touching pathos the alarm of a poor young widow and her three children on the sudden appearance in their wretched home of a remorseless scoundrel who is evidently threatening to evict them for non-payment of rent. The dismay of the mother, the terror of her little daughters, and the brutality of the landlord, whose stern brow and harsh, hard mouth proclaim the ruffianism of his nature, are all portrayed with eloquent truthfulness of expression.
Left: Closer view of the child sitting on the floor. Right: Closer view of the mother with her two older girls.
The reviewer from The Art Journal felt Pinwell had difficulty arranging his figures into a coherent composition: "Mr. Pinwell is a near approach to Mr. Walker; perhaps more, however, in foxiness of colour and lavish use of opaque than in conception. In each master, however, maybe traced like peculiarities in composition: the materials are apt to fall about for want of coherence, the scattered figures are not brought together under symmetric law… It appears to us, indeed, doubtful whether Mr. Pinwell can ever make himself either a dramatist or a colourist. And yet it must be admitted that there is no more dramatic composition in the room than Landlord, and Tenant (272); though, as a composition, the landlord stands at too great a distance from the tenant. The difficulty which this painter has never been quite able to get over is how to treat his picture as a whole: the parts –as, for instance, that lovely and pathetic group, the poor mother with two starving children clinging to her – are scarcely short of perfect. To look at a group that skilfully composed gives to an artistic eye infinite pleasure. Not to see these drawings by Mr. Walker, and Mr. Pinwell would be indeed to miss an exquisite delight" (25).
Closer view of the landlord's face.
F. G. Stephens in The Athenaeum, had mixed feeling on this work: "Landlord and Tenant (272) has a heart-rendering subject, the visit of a ruthless 'owner of small property' to his miserable widowed lodger and her family. The picture is hot in color, and curiously unsubstantial in painting, yet, apart from the exaggerated and sensational expressions of the faces, there is much of rare merit and fine art in the design and painting of this work. Mr. Pinwell's art is either in a transitional state, or it is, more unfortunately, feverish in its nature. It is difficult to say whether this is a bold study or an unfinished picture" (726). A critic for The Saturday Review had much the same concerns about Pinwell's work: "Mr. Pinwell, the most promising of Associates, prejudices his prospects by exaggerating the defects of Mr. Walker…Yet the Gallery does not contain a work more impressive in sentiment or thorough in workmanship then Landlord and Tenant, (272). But again the artist does find it hard to seize upon a subject as a whole, and to bring the several parts into pictorial unity. Yet the group of mother and children whom the merciless 'landlord' resolves to make homeless is alike compact in composition, lovely in form, and intense in dramatic expression" (838).
When this work was shown at the memorial exhibition of Pinwell's work at Mr. Deschamps' Gallery in 1876 a critic for Judy praised Pinwell's depiction of character: "The Landlord and Tenant (92) shows that he had a keen perception of character. The beefy, brutal landlord is wonderfully good, and how pathetic is the expression on the half starved mother, with her children hanging around her! – a painful picture to those well-fed people who don't like to believe that such misery exists (193).
Bibliography
Esposito, Donato. Frederick Walker and the Idyllists. London: Lund Humphries, 2017. 73-75.
"Fine Arts. The Society of Painters in Water Colours." The Illustrated London News. LVII (3 December 1870): 566.
"Pinwell's Pictures." Judy. XVIII (23 February 1876): 193.
"Society of Painters in Water-Colours." The Art Journal. New Series X (1 January 1871): 25-26.
Stephens, Frederick George: "Society of Painters in Water Colours." The Athenaeum. No. 2249 (3 December 1870): 726-27.
"The Two Water-Colour Societies - Sketches and Studies." The Saturday Review. XXX (31 December 1870): 837-38.
Williamson, George C. George J. Pinwell and His Works. London: George Bell & Sons, 1900: 20, 84 & 153.
"Winter Exhibition of the Society of Painters in Water Colours." The Morning Post. 28 November 1870: 2.
Created 14 May 2023