Philip NAVIASKY

British, 1894-1982

NAVIASKY
Self Portrait (Date unknown)

Yorkshire portrait and landscape painter whose work was much respected during his lifetime and whose reputation is now being rediscovered

Philip Naviasky was born in Leeds in 1894, the son of Polish immigrants. He won a Junior Scholarship to the Leeds School of Fine Art in 1907 and, at the age of 18, became the youngest ever student to be accepted into the Royal Academy Schools. There he won a Royal Exhibition Award from the Board of Education to spend three years studying at Royal College of Art (RCA). He went on to teach at the Leeds College of Art.

Naviasky lived in Leeds nearly all his life but he travelled widely: in Ireland, the south of France, Austria, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Balearic Isles, Morocco, the southern United States and Mexico.

He is best known for his oil portraits of women and children, and for his atmospheric landscape paintings and sketches of the Yorkshire Moors but he also executed a number of prestigious portraits including those of…

… the politicians, Ramsay Macdonald, Britain’s first Labour Prime Minister (1924, 1929-31 and 1931-35); and Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden, the first Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer…

… the industrialists Lord Nuffield, the founder of Morris Motors (painted in the industrialist's office at the height of the Morris Motors’ success when the company produced half of all the cars sold in Britain); Lord Austin of Longbridge, founder of the Austin Motor Company; and Lord Brotherton of Wakefield, the industrialist and philanthropist …

… and others of 'The Great & The Good', including Lord Howard de Walden, Lord Moynihan, and Lord Ashbourne…

… and the most famous actress of the Edwardian era, Mrs Patrick Campbell.

However Naviasky did not just paint the rich and famous and many of his portraits, mostly unidentified, are of ‘ordinary’ West Yorkshire people.

He was a popular character and a well-liked man. Whilst out and about in Leeds he would often stop someone in the street whom he felt had an interesting face and invite them to come to his studio in Scott Hall Road to sit for him. And people used to queue up outside his home to be painted in return for a nominal payment. A local appeal has now been started to try and identify many of the ‘locals’ whom he drew and painted.

Naviasky painted portraits and landscapes in pastels, oils and watercolours and he created many drawings. One commentator has noted that Naviasky was admired for his ability to use colour almost "from the tube" to produce stunning effects in his portraits and suggested that one need only “look at the lips” to see the evidence of this.

He first exhibited at The Royal Academy (RA) when only 20 years of age, in 1914, and continued to do so for many years. Indeed he exhibited widely in the period 1914-40, including at The Royal Institute of Oil Painters (ROI) and The Royal Scottish Academy (RSA). He held a one-man show at the Harris Museum & Art Gallery, Preston, in 1932-33 and held many subsequent solo exhibitions.

He was fortunate in that he lived in Yorkshire when it enjoyed a particularly favourable artistic environment. Local artists who were able to establish their reputations without the need to move to London also included Jacob Kramer (Ukrainian/English, 1892–1962) and Harry Epworth Allen (British, 1894-1958).

A group of enlightened patrons, notably Sir Michael Ernest Sadler (British historian, educationalist, Vice-Chancellor of Leeds University and later Master of University College, Oxford) generously promoted and supported emerging Yorkshire artists (and built an extensive art collection) and the local art associations, such as the Yorkshire Union of Artists (YUA), West Riding Artists and local art clubs were also very active. Naviasky benefited from this upsurge of interest and appreciation and was, in turn, himself a keen supporter of the YUA.

A number of articles have been written about Naviasky in the Yorkshire Evening Post and Jewish Chronicle and his work is well represented in permanent collections around the UK including those at Leeds, the Manchester Art Gallery, Tyne & Wear Museum in Newcastle, the Harris Museum & Art Gallery in Preston, the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent and the Pannett Gallery in Whitby.

With some exceptions, Naviasky produced his best work in the first half of his career, before the Second World War. This shows the confidence, skill and verve which marked him out as an ‘artist to watch’ early in his career.

The art critic Brian Sewell owns a Naviasky portrait of this era, the Portrait of a Rabbi (1912), and he wrote an essay in the commemorative catalogue of the Ben Uri Gallery & Museum, The Ben Uri Story from Art Society to Museum and the Influence of Anglo-Jewish Artists on the Modern British Movement.

Portrait of Millie Naviasky Seated in an Armchair

Portrait of Millie Naviasky Seated in an Armchair
by Philip Naviasky (Date unknown)
© Private Collection

Naviasky was married to Millie, the daughter of a rabbi in Leeds, and they had a daughter, Sonia, who studied with her father and became an artist in her own right. Naviasky painted and drew both of them on many occasions. Failing eyesight forced him to stop painting in the 1960s and he died in 1982 at the age of 90.

Portrait of Sonia Naviasky
by Philip Naviasky (Date unknown)

Acknowledgement

We would like to acknowledge the assistance of Bradford City Museums in the preparation of this biography.

Add to Naviasky’s Biography

Philip Naviasky is an under-researched artist. To our knowledge no biography or catalogue raisonné exists and this is the first attempt to produce a concise biography. We would welcome further information. Please email: info@albanyfineart.co.uk

Philip NAVIASKY

British, 1894-1982

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