Reginald ("Rex") George Vicat Cole (1870–1940) was an English landscape painter.
Life
Vicat Cole was the son of the artist
George Vicat Cole and Mary Ann Chignell. He was educated at
Eton and began to exhibit in
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
in 1890. In 1900 he was elected a member of the
Royal Society of British Artists
The Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) is a British art body established in 1823 as the Society of British Artists, as an alternative to the Royal Academy.
History
The RBA commenced with twenty-seven members, and took until 1876 to reach fi ...
.
His preferred subject matter was the landscape of the area surrounding
Bolton Abbey
Bolton Abbey Estate in Wharfedale, North Yorkshire, England, takes its name from a 12th-century Augustinian monastery of canons regular, now known as Bolton Priory. The priory, which was closed in the 1539 Dissolution of the Monasterie ...
in the Yorkshire Dales. In 1900, he married Hannah Gill, the daughter of a Yorkshire farmer. In 1901, an exhibition at Dowdeswell's Gallery collected his work under the title "A Year in Wharfedale". He taught at
King's College London
King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV ...
with
Byam Shaw, and together they opened their own establishment, the
Byam Shaw and Vicat Cole School of Art, in Camden Street,
Kensington
Kensington is an area of London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, around west of Central London.
The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up by Kensingt ...
in 1910. At the outbreak of the
First World War
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
Vicat Cole and Byam Shaw enlisted in the
Artists Rifles
The 21 Special Air Service Regiment (Artists) (Reserve), historically known as The Artists Rifles, is a regiment of the British Army Reserve. Its name is abbreviated to 21 SAS(R).
Raised in London in 1859 as a volunteer light infantry unit, ...
although Shaw soon transferred to the
Special Constabulary
The Special Constabulary is the part-time volunteer section of statutory police forces in the United Kingdom and some Crown dependencies. Its officers are known as special constables.
Every United Kingdom territorial police force has a speci ...
. After Shaw's death in 1919 Vicat Cole was Principal until his retirement in 1926.
In 1905, Vicat Cole and his family began to rent the cottage of
Brinkwells near
Fittleworth
Fittleworth is a village and civil parish in the Chichester (district), District of Chichester in West Sussex, England located west from Pulborough on the A283 road and south east from Petworth. The village has an Anglican church, a primary s ...
in
Sussex
Sussex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈsʌsɪks/; from the Old English ''Sūþseaxe''; lit. 'South Saxons'; 'Sussex') is an area within South East England that was historically a kingdom of Sussex, kingdom and, later, a Historic counties of England, ...
, where he found the inspiration for many of his paintings and drawings. Between 1917 and 1921, Cole sub-let the property to
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, (; 2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestr ...
, who composed his last major works there.
Vicat Cole was especially known for his paintings of trees, and he wrote and illustrated a book on ''British Trees'' (1907), and another on how to depict trees in art, ''The Artistic Anatomy of Trees'', published in 1915. He also wrote a book on
Perspective, and planned another on ''The Streets of London'', which was never published, although the manuscript survives, as do over two hundred works intended as illustrations. His one-man show "London Old and New" at Robert Dunthorne's Gallery, Vigo Street, London, in 1935, included panel paintings of nearly all the City churches, and large canvases of ''London from Waterlow Park'' (now in Southampton Art Gallery), ''St Paul's from Bankside'' and ''St Martin-in-the-Fields''. Throughout the first three decades of the twentieth century he exhibited landscapes at the Royal Academy's annual exhibitions.
He collapsed and died in 1940 in Sussex whilst helping to rescue a family whose car had become stranded in flood water. The school of art he founded became part of
Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design
Central Saint Martins is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London, a public art university in London, England. The college offers full-time courses at foundation, undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and a variety of short ...
in 2003.
Vicat Cole's son, John Cole (1903-1975), trained at the Vicat Cole and Byam Shaw School of became a landscape painter who specialized in representations of old shop-fronts. Like his father, grandfather, and great grandfather (George Cole, 1810-1883), he exhibited at the Royal Academy, and became a member of the Royal Society of British Artists.
Sources
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References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Vicat Cole, Rex
1870 births
1940 deaths
People educated at Eton College
Academics of King's College London
19th-century English painters
English male painters
20th-century English painters
Artists' Rifles soldiers
Academics of the Byam Shaw School of Art
Rother Valley artists
People from Fittleworth
British Army personnel of World War I
20th-century English male artists
19th-century English male artists
Territorial Force soldiers