St Victor, Marseilles

Sir Henry George "Harry" Rushbury (1889-1968) was an English painter and etcher. Born the son of a clerk in Harborne, then on the outskirts of Birmingham, Rushbury studied on a scholarship under Robert Catterson Smith at the Birmingham School of Art from the age of thirteen. He worked as an assistant to arts and crafts artist Henry Payne, chiefly as a stained-glass artist, until 1912 when he moved to London, where he shared lodgings with fellow Birmingham student, Gerald Brockhurst, who is well represented in Te Papa's collection.

Rushbury was an official war artist during World War I, and took up etching and drypoint under the influence of Francis Dodd before studying briefly under Henry Tonks at the Slade School of Art in 1921.

He was elected a member of the New English Art Club in 1917, the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers in 1921, the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours in 1922, and the Royal Academy in 1936. In 1940 he was again appointed an official war artist until 1945. In 1949, he was elected Keeper of the Royal Academy and Head of the Royal Academy Schools,  a post he held until 1964. He was knighted in the same year.

The greatest influence on Rushbury's work was Muirhead Bone. He produced consistently technically excellent works, using diamond-point, burin and burr, of carefully observed and studied architecture, a genre made famous by Bone and to a lesser extent Dodd. With a few minute grooves and flecks cut in the surface of a copper plate, Rushbury could conjure extraordinary effects of mood and atmosphere.

Here Rushbury depicts the Abbey of St Victor, a local hero and early Christian martyr; Victor was a Roman soldier, and was martyred in the 4th century. The structure boasts imposing twin fortified and crenellated towers dating from the 12th century. The abbey was  built above the remains of a 5th century basilica and the reported burial site of Victor of Marseille, a Roman soldier martyred in the 4th century. The artist chooses a low viewpoint from the quayside (see masts on right), with steps leading up to an arched footbridge. On the higher level right, we can see the distinctive profile of the Abbey, as well as neighbouring buildings.

Te Papa owns two impressions of this print, both of which were presented to the National Art Gallery by Sir John Ilott; the other is 1950-0023-10.

See: Wikipedia, 'Henry Rushbury', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Rushbury

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art   May 2018