AN ENGLISH PRIMITIVE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 813, 25 February 1955, Page 7

AN ENGLISH PRIMITIVE

By

NORMA

COUPER

PYAHE ability to recall oncanvas -] the features of an opulent age and to give them a haunting, improbable quality, make Eden Box the most talked-of artist in London today. She is an untrained, unorthodox painter whose "primitives" are sought eagerly. Eden Box (in private life, Mrs. Marston Fleming, the wife of a London University lecturer’ in metallurgy) began painting six years ago, when she heard that a friend was holding an exhibition by Sunday painters, Curious. as to what constituted a Sunday painter, she was told that anyone could be a ‘Sunday. painter; without necessarily ‘being a. publicly. successfulone. The idea thtilled ‘her and she bought canvas and equipment. It was.a creditable first effort, but she was reluctant.to own up to it. Consequently, the devised signature, E. Box, was put at the corner of the painting and off went Mrs. Fleming with her picture and the explanation that it was done by "an acquaintance in Norfolk." Of all the paintings in the show, hers excited the most interest and was sold immediately. She was asked if any more by the same artist could be produced in a hurry, and she made the truthful reply that she’d soon find out! She sped home and in two days had two more paintings ready. Close friends knew that Mrs. Fleming had not been out of London and- suspicion of the paintings’ origin soon became fact. The knowledgeable of the art world say that when general conditions of

living are violent, con-

troversial, inconstant and bewildering, public feeling turns to simplicity. The realists of painting still reflect. the times, but contemporaties whose imaginations rove in a more gentle era pass to an eagerly benevolent public a soothing memory. That could be the answer to Eden Box’s tremendous appeal, for in her paintings it. is a sense of tranquillity more than of simplicity that charms the viewer. She is. classified with French and American primitive artists and yet she has gone a step beyond the naiveté of the simple childhood scene or the uncomplicated depiction of the family portrait. Eden Box conjures up a nostalgic vision of an age that she never knew. e In her earl} forties, she has childhood memories of a post-war era hastening into ragtime and angular furnishings. It is her mother’s world of: Victorian and Edwardian comfort that comes alive through her paintings. There is the opulence, the plushiness of architecture, the complicated gracefulness of trained gowns, the extravagant suggestion of servants on every hand and the 12course dinner on the Sunday table. Eden Box uses no reference books; her paintings stem from a rich imagination and suggest a selective subconscious forever observing the trappings and trivia of a bygone age. ~Into these static, peaceful pictures she puts the animals of the. jungle; brings lions and tigers to sit benignly by a tea table, leopards to loll at the

feet of children in scenes of domestic calm. Animals fascinate her endlessly. She is so susceptible to their influence that scarcely a picture is without them. Legends or stories~ of animals evoke the desire to depict them on canvas, and friends habitually (these days) gather stories they think she could use..One of her most famous is "St. Mamas of Cyprus," depicting the legend of Mamas, the _ shepherd, carrying a lamb in his arms, riding on the back of a lion to answer the summons of the emperor. .

Eden Box has been : asked to exhibit her ‘ paintings in many distinguished shows, and one of her triumphs was to have an entire collection for show in the ultramodern Parsons Gallery in New York. This gallery is known the world over for its policy of presenting -only the most daring and, therefore, controversial, abstract and impressionistic paintings of the 20th Century. Eden Box thinks that there was a momentary aberration in their accepting her work, and in recalling the surprise and bewilderment of regular patrons, she neglects to mention that most of her exhibits were sold. One of her paintings was bought in London not long ago for the Dunedin Art Gallery, and she believes that there may be one or two others in private collections in New Zealand. Dr. Fleming spent a year in Uganda recently on work for the British Government, and his ‘wife was delighted to have the opportunity of living there in proximity to wild animals. While there she also studied the legends and stories of the country and has many plans for picturing them on canvas. She is working at present on a picture inspired by the true story of an African tribe where many of the women keep pet leopards. Travelling in Zanzibar, she was fascinated by the air of mystery of harem and palace life, and this has inspired a number of richly-colourf.11 pictures, Eden Box also accompanied her husband (who is a Canadian) on a trip to Canada and the United States, where she was able to meet one of her most appreciative "patrons"’-the film director Jean Negulesco. He already has a large collection of her originals, and follows her progress with keen interest. Many famous magazines have been bewitched by the strange quality of Eden Box’s paintings, and she has been featured several times as the most significant colourist of the present day. One picture, "The Lion on the Pavement," which illustrates perfectly her turn of fancy and which was used as the cover picture of a_ glossy fashion magazine, inspired a story of the same name by the writer Nancy Spain. The picture shows a richly-dressed family leaving for church from a tall, comfortable Vic-~ torian mansion and with them is an amiable, honey-coloured lion,

The critic Eric Newton described Eden Box thus in a recent issue of Time and Tide: ". . . a poet more closely related to the lighter side of Hilaire Belloc than to Lewis Carroll." She is small, dark-haired and dark-eyed (the heritage of Spanish forbears); with a calm, self-possessed manner. Her -beautiful home in Knightsbridge has a big back room turned into a: studio, with paints and canvases in gay disorder. The paintings themselves are nowhere to be seen in the rest of the house (which is furnished elegantly in period style), because she suffers embarrassment when visitors feel they must comment on her work. "I'm not éveryone’s meat," she says, "and its awful to watch them fumbling for a tactful word." Eden Box has. a grown-up daughter of her first marriage, who was married last year and is living in Chelsea, She took a while to get used to the phenomenal success of her mother, ard is still, as a matter-of-fact young modern, slightly dazed at the: public acclaim of "mother’s little hobby,"