The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (445 page)

(1860–1942).
British painter, printmaker, teacher, and critic, one of the most important figures of his time in British art. He was born in Munich of a Danish-German father and an Anglo-Irish mother and he remained cosmopolitan. The family settled in London in 1868. Both his father and his grandfather were painters, but Sickert—after a good classical education—initially trained for a career on the stage, 1877–81. He toured with Sir Henry Irving's company but never progressed beyond small parts and in 1881 he abandoned acting and became a student at the
Slade
School. In the following year he became a pupil of
Whistler
, and in 1883 he worked in Paris with
Degas
. Between 1885 and 1905 Sickert spent much of his time in Dieppe, living there 1899–1905, and also visited Venice several times. From 1905, when he returned to England, he became the main channel for influence from avant-garde French painting in British art—the inspiration for the
Camden Town Group
. In 1918–22 he again lived in Dieppe, then settled permanently in England, living in London and Brighton before moving to Broadstairs, Kent (1934), and finally to Bathampton, near Bath (1938).
Sickert took the elements of his style from various sources but moulded them into a highly distinctive
œuvre
. From Whistler he derived his subtle modulations of tone, although his effects were richer than the characteristically delicate harmonies of Whistler. To Degas he was indebted particularly for his method of painting from photographs and for the informality of composition this encouraged. His favourite subjects were urban scenes and figure compositions, particularly pictures of the theatre and music-hall and drab domestic interiors. Sickert himself wrote in 1910 that ‘The more our art is serious, the more will it tend to avoid the drawing-room and stick to the kitchen.’ This attitude permeates his most famous painting,
Ennui
, a compelling image of a stagnant marriage, of which he painted at least four versions, that in the Tate Gallery, London (
c.
1914), being the largest and most highly finished. From the 1920s Sickert received many honours. His later works—often based on press photographs or Victorian illustrations—are very broadly handled, painted in a rough, vigorous technique, with the canvas often showing through the paint in places. The colour is generally much higher keyed than in his earlier work and sometimes almost
Expressionist
in its boldness. The prevailing critical opinion for many years was that these late works marked a significant decline, but major claims have recently been made for them, particularly following the 1981
Arts Council
exhibition ‘Late Sickert: Painting 1927 to 1942’.
As well as painting, Sickert was an outstanding etcher (he learnt the technique from Whistler) and a great teacher (he opened seven private art schools, each of brief duration, and also taught part-time at Westminster School of Art, 1908–12 and 1915–18). He was celebrated for his wit and charm and was a stimulating talker and an articulate writer on art; Osbert Sitwell edited a posthumous collection of his writings entitled
A Free House!
(1947). Sickert was married three times; his third wife (from 1926) was the painter Thérèse Lessore (1884–1945). His brother
Bernard Sickert
(1862/3–1932) was a landscape painter and etcher. He was a member of the
New English Art Club
.
One of the more eccentric theories about the Jack the Ripper murders of 1888 has it that Sickert (against his will) was part of a team that carried out the killings to cover up a scandal about an illegitimate child born to the Duke of Clarence (Queen Victoria's grandson); see Stephen Knight ,
Jack the Ripper
:
The Final Solution
(1976, revised edition, 1984) and Jean Overton Fuller,
Sickert & the Ripper Crimes
(1990).

 
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(1609–
c.
1680).
German soldier and amateur artist who probably invented the technique of
mezzotint
. The earliest of his few surviving prints, a portrait of the Landgravine Amelia Elizabeth of Bohemia, dated 1642, was sent by Siegen to the Landgrave with a letter stating that the invention was his. Prince
Rupert
, whom he probably met in Brussels in 1654, learnt the technique from him.

 
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(1836–1935).
French
Neo-Impressionist
painter. He began in the
Impressionist
manner, but met
Seurat
in 1884 and became an ardent disciple of his views and technical method. After the death of Seurat in 1891 he became the acknowledged leader of the Neo-Impressionist group, and in 1899 he published
D'Eugène Delacroix au néo-impressionnisme
, which was long regarded as the authoritative work on the subject. The book was, however, more in the nature of a manifesto in defence of the movement than an objectively accurate history. It reflected changes which had taken place in Signac's own style since 1890 towards greater brilliance of colour, and his best works are generally considered to be those in which he moved away from the scientific precision advocated by Seurat towards a freer and more spontaneous manner. His work had a great influence on
Matisse
.

 
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significant form
.

See
BELL , CLIVE
.

 
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(
c.
1440/50–1523).
Italian painter from Cortona, active in various cities of central Italy, notably Arezzo, Florence, Orvieto, Perugia, and Rome. According to
Vasari
(who was related to him and ‘as a child of eight’ met ‘this good old man’), Signorelli was a pupil of
Piero della
Francesca and this seems highly probable on stylistic grounds, for his solid figures and sensitive handling of light echo the work of the master. Signorelli differed from Piero, however, in his interest in the representation of action, which put him in line with contemporary Florentine artists such as the
Pollaiuolo
brothers. He must have had a considerable reputation by about 1483, when he was called on to complete the cycle of frescos on the walls of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, left unfinished by
Botticelli
,
Ghirlandaio
,
Perugino
, and
Rosselli
. (It is not known why these four artists abandoned the work in 1482, but it has been suggested that they simply downed tools because of slow payment.) Signorelli completed the scheme with distinction, but his finest works are in Orvieto Cathedral, where he painted a magnificent series of six frescos illustrating the end of the world and the Last Judgement (1499–1504). In these grand and dramatic scenes he displayed a mastery of the nude in a wide variety of poses surpassed at that time only by
Michelangelo
. Vasari says that ‘Luca's works were always highly praised by Michelangelo’ and several instances of close similarity between the work of the two men can be cited; perhaps most interesting is the enigmatic seated nude youth in Signorelli's
Last Acts and Death of Moses
in the Sistine Chapel, which is remarkably close to some of the
Ignudi
painted by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the chapel a quarter of a century later. By the end of his career, however, Luca had become a conservative artist, working in provincial Cortona, where his large workshop produced numerous altar-pieces. Several examples of his work are in the National Gallery, London.