This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/jan/22/frank-whitford
The article has changed 3 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 1 | Version 2 |
|---|---|
| Frank Whitford obituary | Frank Whitford obituary |
| (1 day later) | |
| The art historian and critic Frank Whitford, who has died suddenly aged 72 of a suspected heart attack, was one of Britain's leading experts on 20th-century German and Austrian art. During his varied career, he lectured on the history of art at University College London and Homerton College, Cambridge, wrote several books and served as a newspaper art critic. From 1983 onwards he was a senior member of Wolfson College, Cambridge. | The art historian and critic Frank Whitford, who has died suddenly aged 72 of a suspected heart attack, was one of Britain's leading experts on 20th-century German and Austrian art. During his varied career, he lectured on the history of art at University College London and Homerton College, Cambridge, wrote several books and served as a newspaper art critic. From 1983 onwards he was a senior member of Wolfson College, Cambridge. |
| Frank also worked on and off as a cartoonist for daily papers. "Almost daily for four years or so," he later wrote, "I churned out a pocket cartoon, trying to be funny and politically astute at the same time. I was rarely if ever successful, which explains why my career was so short, only briefly extended by changing papers and editors in midstream." You could always recognise his cartoons because, as he explained, he could not draw feet and left them below the frame-line or disguised them in shapeless Doc Martens-style boots. | |
| Frank published his cartoons under the names of Whitford, and, less obviously, Rausch, the German for "intoxication" – he was indeed a bon vivant, with a rotund figure and ruddy complexion to show for it, and described his principal recreation in one biographical dictionary as "cooking". | |
| Frank was born in Bishopstoke, the son of Katherine Ellen, nee Rowe, and Percy Whitford, and retained a Hampshire accent. After attending Peter Symonds school in Winchester, he went to Wadham College, Oxford, where he neglected his studies in favour of other pursuits, teaching himself to draw, and working on student dramatic productions, films and magazines, to which he contributed posters, illustrations and cartoons. When he graduated in 1963 it was with third-class honours in English language and literature – perhaps the wrong subject for him anyway. | Frank was born in Bishopstoke, the son of Katherine Ellen, nee Rowe, and Percy Whitford, and retained a Hampshire accent. After attending Peter Symonds school in Winchester, he went to Wadham College, Oxford, where he neglected his studies in favour of other pursuits, teaching himself to draw, and working on student dramatic productions, films and magazines, to which he contributed posters, illustrations and cartoons. When he graduated in 1963 it was with third-class honours in English language and literature – perhaps the wrong subject for him anyway. |
| Graduation liberated Frank to pursue his real passion: modern German art. From Oxford he went straight on to the Courtauld Institute, obtaining an academic diploma in the history of art in 1965. His humorous drawings were good enough for him to be engaged by the Sunday Mirror and then the London Evening Standard as their pocket cartoonist in the mid-1960s. | Graduation liberated Frank to pursue his real passion: modern German art. From Oxford he went straight on to the Courtauld Institute, obtaining an academic diploma in the history of art in 1965. His humorous drawings were good enough for him to be engaged by the Sunday Mirror and then the London Evening Standard as their pocket cartoonist in the mid-1960s. |
| In the end, however, Frank did not think he was up to the standard of the cartoonists he admired, notably David Low and Victor Weisz ("Vicky"): he always maintained that foreign-born cartoonists had a more acute sense of the absurdities of British political life than British ones. | In the end, however, Frank did not think he was up to the standard of the cartoonists he admired, notably David Low and Victor Weisz ("Vicky"): he always maintained that foreign-born cartoonists had a more acute sense of the absurdities of British political life than British ones. |
| So he returned to academic life, studying at the Free University of Berlin, in German, with the aid of a Ford Foundation scholarship, and graduating with a degree in art history in 1969. The following year he was appointed lecturer in the history of art at UCL, then moved to Homerton College, Cambridge, as senior lecturer. He was always close not only to early 20th-century Central European art but also to the artists of his own generation, many of whom he knew well: his teaching was described by one of his former students as "compelling in its understanding of just what it is that makes artists tick". | So he returned to academic life, studying at the Free University of Berlin, in German, with the aid of a Ford Foundation scholarship, and graduating with a degree in art history in 1969. The following year he was appointed lecturer in the history of art at UCL, then moved to Homerton College, Cambridge, as senior lecturer. He was always close not only to early 20th-century Central European art but also to the artists of his own generation, many of whom he knew well: his teaching was described by one of his former students as "compelling in its understanding of just what it is that makes artists tick". |
| However, the art history department at Homerton was closed, and in 1986 he took up freelance work again, working as a tutor at the Royal College of Art, where in 1989 he was awarded a higher doctorate. He was also a team captain, opposite the artist Maggi Hambling, in Channel 4's gameshow Gallery in the 1980s, identifying and discussing paintings under the genial chairmanship of George Melly. In the early 1990s he briefly resumed his career as a cartoonist for the Sunday Mirror, and was art critic of the Sunday Times (1991-93) and the Cambridge Evening News. | However, the art history department at Homerton was closed, and in 1986 he took up freelance work again, working as a tutor at the Royal College of Art, where in 1989 he was awarded a higher doctorate. He was also a team captain, opposite the artist Maggi Hambling, in Channel 4's gameshow Gallery in the 1980s, identifying and discussing paintings under the genial chairmanship of George Melly. In the early 1990s he briefly resumed his career as a cartoonist for the Sunday Mirror, and was art critic of the Sunday Times (1991-93) and the Cambridge Evening News. |
| Meanwhile, his work in Berlin, Dresden and Dessau, carried out with the aid of further research grants, had borne fruit in numerous articles on modern German art for Studio International, where he was contributing editor (1964-73), and short introductory books on Expressionism (1970), Egon Schiele (1981), the Bauhaus (1984), and Understanding Abstract Art (1987), as well as a substantial biography, Oskar Kokoschka: A Life (1986). | |
| Frank enjoyed the informality and community spirit of Wolfson College, and played a key role on its fine arts committee, using his many contacts to help it put on exciting exhibitions of work by living artists. The many exhibitions he curated included a selection of Eduardo Paolozzi's work at the Tate (1971), and Pop Art in England at the Kunstverein Hamburg (1976); he was an adviser to the Nationalgalerie in Berlin for an exhibition of the work of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1980). In 2002 he was awarded the federal cross of the Order of Merit by the German government. | |
| He became fascinated by the large hoard of allegedly looted art found in a Munich apartment as revealed to the public last year. Studying the few pictures from it displayed online, he was convinced that they were fakes. "Look at that so-called self-portrait by Grosz!" he said to me at a New Year's Eve party. He had, as one of his students remarked, "a keen eye which informed his writing and could discern the difference between a work of serious intent and that which merely played to an over-receptive market". Whether he was right remains to be seen. | He became fascinated by the large hoard of allegedly looted art found in a Munich apartment as revealed to the public last year. Studying the few pictures from it displayed online, he was convinced that they were fakes. "Look at that so-called self-portrait by Grosz!" he said to me at a New Year's Eve party. He had, as one of his students remarked, "a keen eye which informed his writing and could discern the difference between a work of serious intent and that which merely played to an over-receptive market". Whether he was right remains to be seen. |
| In 1972 Frank married Cici (Cecilia) Dresser, who worked in Cambridge University Library as a Japanese specialist; this inspired him to write a study of Japanese Prints and Western Painters (1977). Several years ago she was seriously injured in a car accident and has been cared for in a nursing home, which Frank visited almost daily. | |
| She survives him. | She survives him. |
| • Francis Peter Whitford, art historian and cartoonist, born 11 August 1941; died 11 January 2014 |