Victor William (Peter) Watson (14 September 1908 – 3 May 1956) was a wealthy English art collector and benefactor. He funded the literary magazine, ''
Horizon
The horizon is the apparent curve that separates the surface of a celestial body from its sky when viewed from the perspective of an observer on or near the surface of the relevant body. This curve divides all viewing directions based on whethe ...
'', edited by
Cyril Connolly
Cyril Vernon Connolly CBE (10 September 1903 – 26 November 1974) was an English literary critic and writer. He was the editor of the influential literary magazine ''Horizon (British magazine), Horizon'' (1940–49) and wrote ''Enemies of Pro ...
.
Life and work
Watson was the son of William George Watson, later
Sir George Watson, 1st Baronet, and was the youngest of three children—his brother Norman was born in 1897 and sister
Florence
Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025.
Florence ...
in 1894. He was educated at
Lockers Park School
Lockers Park School is a day and boarding preparatory and pre-preparatory school for boys, situated in 23 acres of countryside in Boxmoor, Hertfordshire. Its headmaster is Gavin Taylor.
History
Lockers Park was founded in 1872 by Henry Monta ...
,
Eton College
Eton College ( ) is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school providing boarding school, boarding education for boys aged 13–18, in the small town of Eton, Berkshire, Eton, in Berkshire, in the United Kingdom. It has educated Prime Mini ...
and
St John's College, Oxford
St John's College is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford. Founded as a men's college in 1555, it has been coeducational since 1979.Communication from Michael Riordan, college archivist Its foun ...
.
Watson was an avid art collector acquiring works by such artists as
Miró,
Klee
Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...
, and
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...
, which were displayed in his Paris apartment in the 1930s. He was the principal benefactor of the
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) is an modernism, artistic and cultural centre on The Mall (London), The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. Located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps a ...
in London and also provided financial assistance to English and Irish painters including
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England under King James I. Bacon argued for the importance of nat ...
,
Lucian Freud
Lucian Michael Freud (; 8 December 1922 – 20 July 2011) was a British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists.
His early career as a painter was inf ...
and
John Craxton
John Leith Craxton RA, (3 October 1922 – 17 November 2009) was an English painter. He was sometimes called a neo-Romantic artist but he preferred to be known as a "kind of Arcadian".
Biography
Career
John was the son of musician Harold ...
. In 1930, society photographer, artist and set designer Sir
Cecil Beaton
Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton (14 January 1904 – 18 January 1980) was a British fashion, portrait and war photographer, diarist, painter, and interior designer, as well as costume designer and set designer for stage and screen. His accolades ...
began a lifelong obsession with Watson, though the two never became lovers. One chapter from
Hugo Vickers
Hugo Ralph Vickers (born 12 November 1951) is an English writer and broadcaster.
Early life
The son of Ralph Cecil Vickers, M.C., a stockbroker, senior partner in the firm of Vickers, da Costa, by his marriage in 1950 to Dulcie Metcalf, Vic ...
' authorized biography of Cecil Beaton is titled "I Love You, Mr. Watson".
In 1940, Watson provided funding for Cyril Connolly's ''Horizon'' and became its arts editor.
Stephen Spender
Sir Stephen Harold Spender (28 February 1909 – 16 July 1995) was an English poet, novelist and essayist whose work concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle. He was appointed U.S. Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry ...
was also involved with the magazine initially. Watson was art editor for the magazine between 1940 and 1949. He rarely contributed articles, but gave many opportunities for his friends to have their pictures reproduced in the magazine, and also encouraged ''Horizon'' to look beyond British Art, particularly to Paris. Watson commissioned articles on artists barely known at the time in England, such as
Balthus
Balthasar Klossowski de Rola (February 29, 1908 – February 18, 2001), known as Balthus, was a Polish-French modern artist. He is known for his erotically charged images of pubescent girls, but also for the refined, dreamlike quality of his ima ...
,
Morandi and Klee. He persuaded Picasso's dealer,
Daniel Kahnweiler, to comment on the contemporary art market; and he also got
Michel Leiris
Julien Michel Leiris (; 20 April 1901, Paris – 30 September 1990, Saint-Hilaire, Essonne) was a French surrealist writer and ethnographer. Part of the Surrealist group in Paris, Leiris became a key member of the College of Sociology with Geor ...
to write about
Giacometti
Alberto Giacometti (, , ; 10 October 1901 – 11 January 1966) was a Swiss sculptor, painter, draftsman and printmaker, who was one of the most important sculptors of the 20th century. His work was particularly influenced by artistic styles su ...
. Spender recalled to Connolly's biographer, Clive Fisher, that Watson hated "priggishness, pomposity and almost everything to do with public life," and he suspected that he had educated himself "through a love of beautiful works and of people in whom he saw beauty ...". He added "When I think of him then, I think of his clothes, which were beautiful, his general neatness and cleanness, which seemed almost those of a handsome young Bostonian."
Fisher writes that Peter Watson "was a figure of striking attractiveness; women in particular seem to have found his manners irresistible... almost everyone appears to have liked him." One of Watson's lovers was the American male prostitute and socialite
Denham Fouts
Denham "Denny" Fouts (May 9, 1914 – December 16, 1948) was an American male prostitute and socialite. He served as the inspiration for characters by Truman Capote, Gore Vidal, Christopher Isherwood, and Gavin Lambert. He was allegedly a lover o ...
, whom he continued to support even after they separated as a result of Fouts's drug addiction
Watson was found drowned in his bath on 3 May 1956 at his home in
Knightsbridge, London.
Some have suggested that he was murdered by his young American lover, Norman Fowler (11 May 1927– March 23, 1971).
[Hugo Vickers, ''Cecil Beaton'', London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1985.] Fowler inherited the bulk of Watson's estate and died 14 years later in the West Indies; he was also found drowned in his bathtub.
Watson's sister,
Florence Nagle
Florence Nagle (26 October 1894 – 30 October 1988) was a British trainer and breeder of racehorses, a breeder of pedigree dogs, and an active feminist. Nagle purchased her first Irish Wolfhound in 1913, and went on to own or breed tw ...
, was a race horse breeder and trainer. His brother Sir Norman
Watson, Baronet, (1897 - 1989), provided funding for the early development of
Lake Louise, a ski resort in
Alberta, Canada
Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...
.
Notes and references
{{DEFAULTSORT:Watson, Peter
English art collectors
1908 births
1956 deaths
20th-century English LGBTQ people
People educated at Eton College
People educated at Lockers Park School
Deaths by drowning in the United Kingdom