Francis Vane Phipson Rutter (17 February 1876 – 18 April 1937)"Rutter, Frank V. P.", Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2007; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2007. Retrieved from ukwhoswho 8 August 2008. was a British art critic, curator and activist.
In 1903, he became art critic for The Sunday Times, a position which he held for the rest of his life.The Times, 19 April 1937, p. 16, issue 47662, col B, "Obituary: Mr. Frank Rutter". Retrieved from infotrac.galegroup.com, 8 August 2008. He was an early champion in England of modern art, founding the French Impressionist Fund in 1905 to buy work for the national collection, and in 1908 starting the Allied Artists Association to show "progressive" art, as well as publishing its journal, Art News, the "First Art Newspaper in the United Kingdom". In 1910, he began to actively support women's suffrage, chairing meetings, and giving sanctuary to suffragettes released from prison under the Cat and Mouse Act—helping some to leave the country.
From 1912 to 1917, he was the curator of Leeds City Art Gallery. In 1917, he edited the cultural journal Art & Letters with Herbert Read. In his writing after World War I, Rutter observed that advertising imagery was seen by far more people than work in art galleries;Saler, pp.101–102. he noted a new realism after the period of "abstract experiment", and he praised the work of Dod Procter as a "complete presentation of twentieth century vision".
Early life Frank Rutter was born at 4 The Cedars, Putney, London, the youngest son of Henry Rutter (died 1896) and Emmeline Claridge Phipson, daughter of Samuel Ryland Phipson, a landowner and stock- and share-broker from a family of pin and needle manufacturers.Owen, Felicity (article credit). "Rutter, Francis Vane Phipson", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (subscription required). Retrieved 11 August 2008. His grandfather, John, and his father were both prosperous solicitors with chambers in Clifford's Inn, Holborn, and both had acted for John Ruskin, John assisting on Ruskin's marriage nullification with Euphemia (Effie) Gray; Henry severed the connection with Ruskin, after the latter rejected his counsel on a property transaction.Yeates, John. N.W.1.: The Camden Town Artists—A Social History, pp. 85–96. Heale Gallery, Somerset, 2007. ISBN 9780955817601. Available online at camdenschool.co.uk.
From 1889, Frank Rutter was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, at that time in Aldersgate, where he specialised in Hebrew (under the influence of his father whose hobby was Biblical archaeology) and where pupils were expected to gain Oxbridge scholarships or exhibitions in classics: Rutter, aged seventeen tried but failed to gain a scholarship in history at Exeter College, Oxford, but was successful in the Queens' College, Cambridge, examination for a scholarship in Hebrew, going to university in 1896 and gaining the Semitic Language Tripos (degree) in 1899.
Whilst still at school, Rutter, along with a fellow sixth form student, Edgar D., explored London nightlife, visiting music halls, eating out in Gatti's Restaurant and joining nightclubs, which were then an adjunct to the more formal London's gentleman's club, providing a dining room, ballroom, writing room, and female membership, which was not taken up by respectable women in society, although the male membership was mostly respectable; Rutter's father happily financed these activities.
When at Cambridge, Rutter gained popularity through his banjo-playing, and, thanks to the good train service available, extended his social pursuits to Paris, first visiting in 1898, speaking French fluently and often staying for a month at a time in the city, where he made friends in the Latin Quarter.
After university, spent a few months as an itinerant tutor, then began as a freelance writer in London with a newly acquired typewriter. One of his successful interviews was with Bernard Shaw on the subject of housing problems—the text of which was entirely provided by Shaw himself; The Times printed an interview with the American scout, Major Burnham, on his return from South Africa.
He obtained posts as assistant editor of To-day and the Sunday Special, both part of the same publishing group. In February 1901, he became sub-editor of the Daily Mail, and began to write art criticism, mostly for The Financial Times and The Sunday Times. In 1902, he went back to To-day as editor for two years, and for a short time brought it back into profit, until it succumbed to cheaper competition and was merged with London Opinion. In 1903, Leonard Rees appointed him art critic of The Sunday Times, a post he held for the rest of his life, 34 years in all. Rutter honed his skills whilst doing the job, and also made the acquaintance of leading artists in Paris through frequenting the cafés.
The French Impressionist Fund
In 1903 the creation of the National Art Collections Fund initiated many years of frustration for Rutter, who believed it would siphon off available money from his own aims.Lago, Mary. Christiana Herringham and the Edwardian Art Scene, University of Missouri Press, 1996. , He was a strong supporter of Impressionist and Expressionist Modernism.Taylor, Brandon. Art for the Nation: Exhibitions and the London Public, 1747–2001, p. 134, Manchester University Press, 1999. , Flint, Kate. Impressionists in England: The Critical Reception, p. 33, Routledge., . He considered "perfectly dreadful"Rutter, Frank. Art in My Time, p.114–119, Rich & Cowan, London, 1933. the lack of such work in the national collections, pointing out in 1905 that the only example of the modern French school was Edgar Degas' The Ballet from Robert the Devil (1876) in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Raging with indignation, he wrote articles on this omission, gave lectures, and, galvanised by the opening of the Impressionist exhibition staged by Durand-Ruel at the Grafton Galleries in London in 1905, he persuaded the editor and proprietors of The Sunday Times to allow space for a public subscription, the French Impressionist Fund. Sargent and Wertheimer each sent ten guineas; Blanche Marchesi staged a fund-raising concert; Rutter, although "extremely nervous" gave his first lecture at the Grafton Galleries. Sir Claude Phillips and D.S. MacColl joined him on the executive committee of the fund, and contributions slowly mounted up to £160, sufficient at that time to buy a top class Impressionist painting.
Rutter's choice was Monet's Vétheuil: Sunshine and Snow (since retitled Lavacourt under Snow), which MacColl was in favour of and Durand-Ruel had promised to sell for the amount collected, but Phillips pointed out that National Gallery did not accept work by living artists; discreet enquiries revealed that the gallery trustees also found too "advanced" Manet, Sisley and Pissarro: "They were certainly dead—but they had not been dead long enough for England", wrote Rutter, adding "I nearly wept with disappointment."
MacColl ascertained that the trustees would accept Eugène Boudin, who Rutter protested was not an Impressionist but whom he accepted out of necessity, mollified by MacColl's argument that "he's the beginning of Impressionism and we can make a start with him." To avoid any accusations of logrolling Durand-Ruel's exhibition, they agreed that Rutter would travel to Van der Veldt, a private collector in Le Havre, to choose a Boudin painting. He brought back as personal luggage Boudin's 1888 painting, Entre les jetées, Trouville (The Entrance to Trouville Harbour),Variously titled also as Port of Trouville and Harbour at Trouville. and wrote to MacColl on 11 October 1905 to inform him of the work he had selected, which Van der Veldt had accepted £120 for provided it would go to a national collection and which was waiting at the Goupil Gallery for MacColl to see."Manuscripts Catalogue – Document Details", University of Glasgow. Retrieved 10 October 2008. The letter is dated 1906 in the archive, but it must have been written in 1905.
It was shown privately at the Goupil Gallery for the subscribers, and presented in January 1906 to the National Gallery through the National Art Collections Fund, which Rutter said was keen to act as a channel for the prestigious presentation, but had not given "the slightest help or encouragement when I needed it most." It made Rutter "boil with rage" to contrast this with the Fund's spending of thousands of pounds on older paintings; he said, "the Fund's inertia and snobbish ineptitude are entirely characteristic of the art-officialdom in England."
Allied Artists' Association
While in Paris in 1907, Rutter had the idea for gaining greater exposure for progressive artists with the Allied Artists Association (AAA), founded the following year and based on the model of the French Salon des Indépendants with the principle of non-juried shows of international artists, who could subscribe and choose which works they wished to enter (initially five pieces, later three)."Allied Artists' Association (A.A.A.)", Grove Art Online, retrieved from Oxford Art Online (subscription site), 8 August 2008.Sickert, Richard Walter; Robins, Anna Gruetzner. Walter Sickert: The Complete Writings on Art, p. xxxi, Oxford University Press, 2003. , . Retrieved from Google Books.
Rutter was a supporter of the Fitzroy Street Group, which had been founded in 1907, and succeeded in gaining the support of key members, Walter Sickert, Spencer Gore and Harold Gilman, for the AAA. Rutter was a natural organiser and, with the help of Lucien Pissarro attracted 80 members.Glew states 40 members. Rutter was keen to mount a foreign section in the first show, and liaised over this with Jan de Holewinski (1871–1927), who was in London to arrange a Russian art and craft show. The first AAA show in July 1908 was in the Royal Albert Hall and had over 3,000 works on display.
In 1909, at the second show in the Royal Albert Hall, over 1,000 works were shown, mainly by British artists, but also the first works (two paintings and twelve woodcuts) exhibited in London by Wassily Kandinsky.Glew, Adrian. "Every work of art is the child of its time" , Tate Etc., issue 7, Summer 2006. Retrieved 8 August 2008. Rutter's friends in Leeds, Michael Sadler and his son, Michael Sadleir (who had modified the spelling of his surname) developed a relationship with Kandinsky, who assigned English translation rights for Concerning the Spiritual in Art to Sadleir.
Rutter was secretary of the AAA and organised it for four years. It was artistically accomplished, but not so financially. Through the AAA, Rutter helped many artists, such as Charles Ginner, who, although not achieving outstanding success, was able to gain an audience and develop a loyal following for his work.The Times, 7 January 1952, p. 6, Issue 52202, col E, "Mr. Charles Ginner". Retrieved from infotrac.galegroup.com, 8 August 2008. The AAA exhibited also for the first time in London Constantin Brâncuși, Jacob Epstein, Robert Bevan and Walter Bayes.
From October 1909 to 1912, Rutter also published and edited the weekly, cheaply printed Art News (sold for 2d a week), the journal of the AAA, like which it had an open-door policy on contributors, featuring the lectures given to the Royal Academy Schools by Sir William Blake Richmond, as well as Sickert's attack on the Royal Academy, "Straws from Cumberland Market", his column on topical issues being the main attraction.Yeates, p. 140 It was promoted as the "First Art Newspaper in the United Kingdom".
Suffragettes, Post-Impressionism, and Leeds
On 30 August 1909 Rutter married Thirz Sarah (Trixie, born 1887/8), whose father, James Henry Tiernan, was a member of the New Zealand Police. With the encouragement of George Bernard Shaw, Rutter became a member of the Fabian Society.