Robinson, Frederick Cayley

Lansdowne House 80, Hill London

Frederick Kaylee Robinson was born in Brentford-on-Thames in the family of a stock broker . He began his art education at St John's Wood Academy , which was located in London and was opened in 1878. There he studied from 1883 to 1885, and then entered the school of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1885. Frederick Cayley Robinson sailed around the coast of England, after which he continued his studies for three years at the Julian Academy in Paris from 1891 to 1894. His early works were close to naturalism , but under the influence of Puvi de Chavannes , the Nabis group , as well as Edward Burne-Jones , he began to work in the style of the Symbolists ^{[4] [5]} .

The artist was greatly impressed by the paintings of the Early Renaissance . Most of Kaylee Robinson’s early work went outside the UK. He lived for several years in Florence , where he studied the works of Giotto , Mantegna and Michelangelo , the practice of painting with tempera . After living four more years in Paris, Frederick Cayley Robinson settled in Cornwall in 1906. He began to exhibit his watercolors in 1911 at the Royal Society of Watercolorists and continued to send two or three works to each of the Society's annual exhibitions until 1926 ^[4] .

In 1914, Frederick Cayley Robinson moved to Lansdowne House near Holland Park , where there was a complex of studios, built by fashionable architect Edmund Davis , where already by that time the studios of such famous artists as Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon . He lived there from 1914 until his death. In the same year, he was appointed professor of composition and decoration at the Glasgow School of Art , which required his stay in Scotland for several months each year. Researchers note that from this time in his work, subjects from Celtic mythology appear, and his landscapes show that he was fascinated by the harsh nature of Scotland ^[6] . In the same 1914 (according to other sources - in 1912), Kaylee Robinson won the competition for the creation of the monumental work “ St. Patrick 's Arrival in Ireland ” ^[7] . The artist exhibited his work at this time in the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of British Artists , Royal Society of Watercolors, New English Art Club , Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts and in other prestigious galleries ^{[4] [5]} . Usually he signed his works “CAYLEY ROBINSON” or “CAYLEY / ROBINSON” ^[8] .

In addition to easel painting, Frederick Cayley Robinson worked for the theater, creating costumes and stage sets for performances, as well as an illustrator of books and a monumental artist. He worked on the production of Maurice Meterlink ’s play “The Blue Bird ” at the Haymarket Theater in 1909; the artist also created drawings for the illustrated edition of The Blue Bird, published in 1911; drawings for this edition were exhibited at a special exhibition in the Leicester Galleries held in London in the same year ^[4] .

Frederick Cayley Robinson was elected a member of the Royal Society of Watercolors in 1919 and an associate member of the Royal Academy in 1921, the artist was also a member of the New English Art Club . The artist’s memorial exhibition was held at the Royal Academy of Painting in 1928 and the Leicester Galleries in 1929 ^[5] . Some easel works by Robinson were in the collection of the Irish artist Cecil French (1879-1953). Cecil French - an artist, engraver and illustrator, abandoned painting after 1903, devoting himself to creating a collection of works by artists of the late XIX - early XX centuries. He particularly appreciated the paintings of Kaylee Robinson ^[4] .

In 2010, the London National Gallery presented six works by Kaylee Robinson at the solo exhibition of the artist in the Sunley Room , including four panels from Middlesex Hospital ^{[9] [10]} . The exhibition was held from July 14 to October 17 and was widely covered in the media ^{[11] [12]} .

The most famous works of the artist are four huge paintings that make up the polyptych of “Cases of Mercy”. The paintings are oil on canvas, created for the emergency room of the Middlesex Hospital in London. They were ordered by the artist in 1910 (or in 1912), and executed - between 1915 and 1920. The paintings remained in place until the hospital was demolished in 2008, and the paintings were not acquired by the Wellcome Library in London ^[4] .

Most of Kaylee Robinson's works are characterized by a sense of peace and meditative calm. Among the most common themes in the work of Frederick Cayley Robinson is the image of a woman and a girl in the interior. Often lighting comes from a light source in the room itself, and from a window outside. As art critic Charlotte Gere noted: “It is tempting to compare the interiors, which are perhaps his most successful works, with his French contemporaries Bonnard and Vuillard . A careful study shows that the atmosphere of Robinson's works has little to do with the intimacy that inspired the Nabi school, or with the quietism of the artists of the Cotswold school . Robinson’s paintings are filled with an almost ominous atmosphere, and it is felt that the characters in his stuffy rooms were conceived by the author as participants in ancient mysteries ” ^[4] .

Art historians note that in the framework of the representations of symbolism, the artist interpreted the images of women as symbols of an unknowable universe. Robinson is trying to solve existential, philosophical issues in terms of contemporary theosophical and mystical groups, including the London Art Theosophical Circle , to which Robinson belonged. The artist was also closely associated with Maurice Meterlink and shared his philosophical views. Robinson creatively experimented with form and color to create a mood. The figures of women depicted in his paintings leave the viewer in a state of anxiety, he is fascinated by them, but they seem to him inaccessible to understanding by ghosts ^[13] .

Robinson was associated with the Birmingham group of artists known for her tempera experiments. He was not directly related to the Pre-Raphaelites or Symbolists, but was under their strong influence ^[14] .

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  Frederick Kaylee Robinson. A Winter Evening, 1900

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  Frederick Kaylee Robinson. The word

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  Frederick Kaylee Robinson. The Call of the Sea, circa 1900

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  Frederick Kaylee Robinson. The Farewell, circa 1918

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  Frederick Kaylee Robinson. Illustration for The Blue Bird by Maurice Meterlink

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  Frederick Kaylee Robinson. Illustration for The Blue Bird by Maurice Meterlink

• Schupbach, William. Acts of mercy: the Middlesex Hospital paintings by Frederick Cayley Robinson (1862-1927). - London: Wellcome Trust, 2009 .-- 18 p.
• Brown, David (Introduction). Frederick Cayley Robinson, ARA, 1862-1927. - London: The Society, 1977 .-- 15 p.