Flipping Phipson
A brilliant new publication from Croydon Natural History and Scientific Society has flipped the coin on an otherwise completely obscure artist, Evacustes Phipson (1854-1931). The work published by Croydon in April 2020 as part of their regular series of ‘Proceedings’ is immensely useful for London Metropolitan Archives where we hold more than fifty watercolours by this interesting and prolific artist. Jeremy Smith takes us on a tour of Phipson’s life and career.
LMA’s graphics collection holds work from throughout Evacustes Phipson’s career, from his youth to old age, and his work is very consistent. All are in watercolour and are compact self-contained works which normally depict old, humble, picturesque buildings, often on street corners. They are very carefully drawn and seemingly of great accuracy (only occasionally leaving out some signs of modern life) and most are finished off with the title, artists’ name and date in his very distinctive and exceptionally neat handwriting.
It will be immediately seen that as well as offering a high level of information about the streets and buildings depicted, they are little works of great charm and personality. The latter is something Phipson seems to have had in abundance. The Croydon authors (John Hickman, Carole Roberts, John W. Brown and Stephen Williams) explore in detail the personal life, beliefs and interests of this idiosyncratic man. Born Edward Arthur Phipson in Birmingham, he was a committed socialist (though supporter of no political party), who advocated communal living and campaigned for wholesale land reform. He deplored taxation. A regular writer of ‘letters to the editor’, he spills more about his views on gender equalities and orthography than his views on art, or London or architecture.
Drawing the streets of our towns and cities was an important way for Phipson to earn some money to support his ethical activities - and his two daughters. He would approach town and borough libraries, building up a relationship with many of them to supply drawings of interesting buildings, in many cases buildings at risk. At least ten London borough archives or library collections are lucky enough to be holders of works by Phipson and he sold more than one hundred drawings to the V&A.
He is very likely to record streets that would otherwise pass unrecorded – indeed streets that would have to wait more than half a century until artists like Geoffrey Fletcher would turn attention to them again (see for example Phipson’s drawings in Spitalfields of Sclater Street and Cheshire Street, which are on the London Picture Archive as record numbers 285171 and 285170). From the early 1900s he had the idea of making drawings for reproduction as colour postcards, which were published as part of the extensive and very successful ‘oilette series’ by Raphael Tuck and Co. of London.
It is slightly surprising to find that other than the postcards series he seemingly had no relationship with book publishers, or illustrated magazines or engravers, at least so far as his London drawings are concerned.
As well as revealing extensive information about the life and utopian views of Evacustes Phipson, the Croydon authors give extensive commentary on his over 300 watercolours of Croydon (where he lived from 1917-1920) and the surrounding areas, nicely arranging some of them as on the ground tours, with supporting maps and there is an excursion to Streatham where Phipson struggles to disguise the signs of encroaching suburbia.
And there may be a Phipson of a place you are familiar with outside London and its environs. Phipson made drawings up and down the country amounting to many hundreds in all (usefully listed in full in an Appendix to the Croydon publication).
Further reading
Proceedings of the Croydon Natural History and Scientific Society Volume 21 Part 1 (April 2020): Evacustes Phipson: His life and utopian views, and an introduction to the Croydon paintings by John Hickman, Carole Roberts, Stephen Williams, John W. Brown