Albany Fine Art : Biography of William WARE

William WARE

British, 1915-1997

Ware
Self Portrait

Born in London in 1915, William Edward Ware spent his years from four to 16 in almost continuous hospitalisation due to a severe childhood injury when he broke his back. He started painting at the age of nine, as a means of self-expression. At the age of 17 he was sufficiently recovered to begin his formal schooling and art studies at the Putney School of Art, from which he won a scholarship to Richmond Art School (1932-37), where he studied under Patrick Ferguson Millard (British, 1902-1977) and Albert Houthuesen (Dutch, 1903 - British, 1979).

He married the artist Eileen Aldridge (British, 1916-1990) in 1939. Their son is the artist Martin Ware.

Excused from World War II military service because of his childhood injuries, Ware worked in a plastics factory by day and painted and sketched the Blitz from the rooftops by night. Refusing to take shelter during air raid attacks, he depicted bombing raids and rescue and salvage crews at work with considerable artistic fluency and verve. His atmospheric and haunting images, in which human beings are minimised, are reminiscent of Impressionist views of London but, on closer inspection, reveal a more sombre tone.

1940 proved an important year for Ware. The Imperial War Museum, London, purchased the first of the 11 paintings of the London Blitz that form part of its permanent collection.

In the same year he held his first solo exhibition at Jack Bilbo's Modern Art Gallery in London and met David Bomberg (British, 1890-1957) who took a great personal interest in his work and introduced him to Horace Brodsky (Horace Ascher Brodsky, Australian, 1885 - British, 1969) who became a close friend.

Also in 1940, he exhibited at the Leger Gallery, London, alongside Sir Jacob Epstein (American, 1880-British, 1959), Duncan Grant (Scottish, 1885-1978), Ivon Hitchens (British, 1893-1979), Augustus John (British, 1878-1961), Oskar Kokoschka (Austrian, 1886-1980), Modigliani (Amedeo Clemente Modigliani, Italian, 1884-1920), Henry Moore (Sir Henry Spencer Moore, OM, CH, FBA (1898-1986), Victor Pasmore CH, CBE, RA (British, 1908-1998), John Piper (John Egerton Christmas Piper, British, 1903-1992), Michael Rothenstein (British, 1908-1993), Walter Sickert (British, 1860-1942), Christopher ‘Kit’ Wood (British, 1901-1930) and Jack Butler Yeats (Irish, 1871-1957).

Immediately after the war, in 1946, Ware established his own studio and gallery at 226 Fulham Road, London. In 1955, he was appointed Art Advisor to the Greek Shipping Line and painted murals on their ships Arcadia and Olympia, on whose maiden voyage he held a solo exhibition. In 1965 he opened the William Ware Gallery in Fulham Road, London, before moving to Sloane Street, in 1970 (-75). In 1974 he was commissioned to paint Dr Donald Coggan’s enthronement as Archbishop of Canterbury (in the King’s School, Canterbury). He moved to Burwash in East Sussex in 1978.

Ware exhibited widely over the years, at the Royal Academy, Royal Portrait Society, New English Art Club, Barbican Art Gallery, Royal West of England Academy, and many private galleries. He held a solo exhibition at own studio in Chelsea in 1961 and a retrospective exhibition in 1966-67. 11 of his war paintings are on permanent loan to the Museum in Docklands, London, and his war paintings were exhibited at the Pompidou Centre in Paris and in Barcelona in 1994. He died at Burwash in 1997.

In his review of Ware’s 1966 retrospective Max Wykes-Joyce, Art Critic of the New York Herald Tribune and Arts Review said, “In a recent discussion in a fellow painter’s studio, I heard Ware outline his theory of “art as magic”. The best of his work embodies that principle, for he is one of those fortunate people able to discern the mystery and excitement, in a phrase, the magical qualities, equally of a blast furnace and a Greek landscape, a person like Yehudi Menuhin and the sonoscope of Jodrell Bank, a bridge being built and a ploughed field. Long may he retain this power to teach, to move, and to delight."

Acknowledgement: We are grateful to Martin Ware for his help in compiling this biography.