James Bolivar Manson

1879-1945

James Bolivar Manson was an artist and worked at the Tate gallery for 25 years, including serving as its director from 1930 to 1938.

Although his art policies were more advanced than previously at the Tate and embraced Impressionism, he stopped short of accepting newer artistic movements like Surrealism and German Expressionism.

At the age of 16, he left Alleyn's School, Dulwich, and, in the face of his father's opposition to painting as a career, became an office boy with the publisher George Newnes, and then a bank clerk, a job he loathed and lightened with bird imitations and practical jokes. In the meantime he determinedly studied painting at Heatherley School of Fine Art from 1890 and then Lambeth School of Art.

In 1914, he joined the London Group. From 1915, he showed work with the New English Art Club (NEAC). Because his work for the gallery was considered indispensable, he was exempt from military service; in 1917, he was promoted to Assistant Keeper. In 1919, Lucien Pissarro formed the Monarro Group with Manson as the London Secretary and Théo van Rysselberghe as the Paris secretary, aiming to show artists inspired by Impressionist painters, Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro; the group ceased three years later. In 1923, at the Leicester Galleries, Manson held his first solo show of work.

In March and April 1946, a memorial show was held at the Wildenstein Gallery in London with 59 works in oil, watercolour, etchings, drawings and pastel, dating from 1903 to 1945. A second show was held in August and September at the Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, with 58 works—32 oils, 14 watercolours and 12 pastels.

In 1973, a retrospective was held at Maltzahn Gallery, Cork Street, London. His work is in the Tate and many other galleries in Britain and abroad.