So I began reading that Elizabeth Taylor's father was an art dealer in Bond Street, London, which is the "posh" retail street in London, and where Sotheby's auction house is currently situated. I saw also that Elizabeth Taylors Estate included some Augustus John paintings. I read that she was friendly this famous welsh painter too (who was the most prominent british portrait painter in the 1920's), and her father bought a home from him in Hampstead (North London): another very prestigious area outside London. She inherited these paintings through her friendship with him and from her father. That was before he moved them to California where she embarked on her film star career.
My eyes glanced at the catalogue for tonights sale, and I came across another artist who painted some contemporary looking horses that led me to going back to college days when I always recall being drawn to the work of Franz Marc's horses.
Franz Marc and I share a similar vision: He loved dogs and especially horses and strove to paint them with spirituality. I found it really quite moving to read that he died in WWI. He learned to ride when he went for military training and after reading some extracts from his writings, he no doubt was sitting in trenches and described mankind as "ugly" and looked to those poor horses to keep him going...he was considering become a priest before an artist:
On 2nd of April in 1915 he wrote: "I think a lot about my own art. The ungodly people around me did not arouse my true feelings, whereas the undefiled vitality of animals called forth everything good in me...I found people ugly very early on, animals seemed to me more beautiful, more pure.." he knew then he wanted only to paint animals. ...it brings back memories of my grandfather who fought through WWI, and who often used to tell me about this war and his love for his horse Screamer who died when it took a direct hit from a shell and was promptly cut up to be eaten by the starving french population. The Atrocities of war.
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