a private paradise

LioneL BuLmer ● margaret green

Margaret Green2. Walking on the Sea Front, Seaton Carew oil on board 27 x 48 cms 103⁄4 x 183⁄4 ins

Atelier no. 169

Lionel Bulmer3. Swans by the Bandstand, 1952 pen and wash 35 x 45 cms 133⁄4 x 173⁄4 ins

Atelier no. 1120L

a pr ivate paradiseby Ian Collins

English Impressionism in general and the New English Art Club in particular were practically invented on the East Anglian coast at Walberswick and Southwold. And of all the artists who headed eastward in the distant wake of Philip Wilson Steer and his friends and followers of the 1880s, perhaps a pair of kindred painters who worked here for 30 successive summers, from 1960 to 1990, have come closest to the spirit of the pioneers and the place.

Margaret Green and Lionel Bulmer came from opposite ends of the country and in other senses grew up poles apart. She was the daughter of a Teeside steelworker, he was the son of a London architect. But both had the great good fortune to find their creative talents, most notably in draughtsmanship, nurtured at home from the start. Margaret was still a promising secondary school pupil when Lionel was drafted into the war. They met at the Royal College of Art when it had been relocated by the bombing of London to the Lake District. Here in the magical landscape of the Romantic poets Margaret and Lionel fell (instantly, totally, permanently) in love.

margaret and Lional Bulmer with artists’ model

Lionel Bulmer5. Parking in the Forecourt, 1952 pen and wash 35 x 46 cms 133⁄4 x 181⁄8 ins

Atelier no. 1120M

Lionel Bulmer4. The Railway Station pen and wash 35 x 45 cms 133⁄4 x 173⁄4 ins

Atelier no. 1091

Margaret Green carried off hearts and prizes at the RCA immediately after the war’s end, but for her there was only ever one possible partner once she had set eyes on him. Happily he returned the feeling in full. They felt no need of marriage – though that formal seal would finally be set, in 1991, when Lionel was dying – as from the outset they simply shared everything. Despite the remaining contrasts in their characters, their friends came to refer to them as a single entity – MargaretandLionel.

It is very rare for two artists to live and work together in perfect harmony. One normally smothers the creativity of the other, who has to tend to the chores and the children. The names of the gifted-but-forgotten wives of celebrated male artists are too many to mention (but Mrs Eric Ravilious, Mrs John Nash and Mrs Cecil Collins are but three, albeit from an older generation, whose lives overlapped with those of Margaret and Lionel and who could themselves have had brilliant careers). It may be just possible for the spouse of a famous painter to have a studio in the corner of a large house, but MargaretandLionel worked happily from corners of the same small table. For they followed the Royal

Lionel Bulmer and Margaret Green: Bright Confident Mornings

On 8 May 1945, London turned the lights back on. Floodlights shone on St Paul’s and on Nelson’s Column, while Leicester Square and Piccadilly came alive as neon signs flashed like tropical fish through the formerly blacked-out evenings. Londoners now strolled about safely at night, free to stop and be entranced by the glow of newly stocked shop windows.

Nevertheless, for most, daily life remained a struggle. Apart from the massive building reconstruction that was still needed to rehouse thousands, rationing was actually increased, and heat remained scarce. After visiting postwar London, the American literary critic Edward Wilson wrote: “How empty, how sickish, how senseless everything suddenly seems the moment the war is over! We are left flat with impoverished and humiliated life that the drive against the enemy kept our minds off ”. And a contemporary entry from Chancellor of the Exchequer Hugh Dalton’s diary despondently read: “Never bright confident morning again”.

When Lionel Bulmer and Margaret Green followed the RCA’s return to Chelsea, they lived and painted the realities of this recovery period, which lasted far longer in Britain than in any other Allied country. Their work captured everyday life in London as a series of modest, self-contained victories, and for all the dim, shabby sense of making do, there is an even stronger sense of what endured: hope.

Margaret Green16. In the Park oil on board 64 x 71 cms

25 x 28 insAtelier no. 241

overleaf:Lionel Bulmer15. The May Picnic oil on board 92 x 137 cms

36 x 54 insAtelier no. 1025

Lionel Bulmer24. The Unmade Bed pen and ink 31 x 34 cms 121⁄4 x 133⁄8 ins Atelier no. 1174

Margaret Green25. Sleeping watercolour 36 x 51 cms 14 x 20 ins

Atelier no. 226

Lionel Bulmer26. Early Morning, Walking Past the Fruit Cage oil on canvassed board 50 x 61 cms 195⁄8 x 24 ins

Atelier no. 028

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