Cotmania. Vol. IX. 1933-4
Archive: SDK Sydney Decimus Kitson Archive
Date: 16 Jul 1933-25 Jul 1934
Reference Number: SDK/1/2/1/9
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Description
Volume IX is composed primarily of article clippings, correspondence, records of sales at Christie’s and Sotheby’s auction houses, and short journal entries detailing visits to see works by or attributed to Cotman. These syncopated journal entries, which sometimes utilise a personal shorthand, record visits to Norwich, Gordale Scar, and Malham Tarn. The articles which are regularly inserted into the volume are mostly from The Times and The Sunday Times. Primarily concerned with the contemporary exhibition of watercolour paintings, a few of these articles strikingly maintain the significance of early English Watercolour works over those produced by the Pre-Raphaelites and the Modernists.
Much of the correspondence which Kitson includes in the volume is with museum curators and keepers (V&A; British Museum; Bowes Museum) and alludes to a couple of Cotman works which are now part of the collection in Leeds ('Barnard Castle from Towler Hill' and 'Coalbrookdale'). The references to Barnard Castle are accompanied by a sketch plan of the area, and appear in correspondences which record attempts to find the spot Cotman painted from. Other Cotman works that are mentioned in the volume appear under the titles of the ‘sculptor’, ‘Landscape with figures by a pool’, ‘A Woody landscape’, and ‘Thabley Castle’.
Further points of interest in the volume are a transcription of a short biography of Cotman and references to Kitson’s involvement in the Walpole Society.
Page: p. 1 recto
Transcribed biography of J. S. Cotman and itemised record of Cotman works and related artefacts
Page: p.8 recto
Inserted typed Letter to Kitson from Frank Leney on headed paper with hand-written annotation
Page: Insert of p.10
Page: p. 11 recto
Page: p.14 recto
Four newspaper clippings of articles and obituaries, and a set of notes in Kitson's hand.
Page: p. 15 recto
Two clippings, one from The Times Literary, and the other from the Daily Telegraph.
Page: p. 21 verso
Page: p. 22 verso
Clipping from the Journal of the West Yorkshire Society of Architects, and Kitson annotation.
Page: p.24 recto
Journal entries describing visits to three galleries, and the purchase of a water colour.
Page: p. 25 recto
Page: p. 25 verso
Page: p. 25 verso
Continuation of article on p. 25 verso, short clipping on Sydney Kitson, and annotation by Kitson.
Page: p. 26 recto
Page: p. 26 verso
