Martin Battersby

Martin Battersby, c. 1928, aged 14 and the time he began work at Gill & Reigate

Early life Battersby was born in North London to Jessie Elizabeth Battersby (nee Tunbridge) (1888 - 1980) and George Albert Battersby (1886 - 1963). Battersby's parents were married at the prestigious Anglican church St George's, Hanover Square, London, on 29th July 1913, seven months' before Battersby was born. His parents never lived together. Battersby was brought up in an all-female household; his mother, his grandmother Sophia Tunbridge (nee Martin) and his aunt Phyllis. They lived together in Kilburn and later Golders Green.

Early Career 1928 - 1935 His father worked in the family business as a pawnbroker in North London but Martin was drawn to the visual arts from a young age. Battersby never attended university or art school, instead entering work at the age of 14. He trained as a draughtsman at the interior design company Gill & Reigate, beginning in 1928 and remaining there for five years. He claimed that this was the only formal training he ever received in life. As a draughtsman he learnt the history of design and the decorative arts from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. He also learnt the discipline of drawing inanimate objects. This knowledge and skills Battersby would employ with great dexterity in his future careers as an artist and muralist.

With the Depression of the late 1930s Battersby either left or was let go by Gill & Reigate. Working briefly at the London department store Liberty's he then embarked on a career as an actor, studying for four terms from 1934 to 1935 at the London drama school the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). In 1936 Battersby worked for a year as an actor in rep. theatre, touring England in a number of plays. The most significant of these plays was Death Takes a Holiday where he played opposite the South African actor Edana Romney.

The Theatre 1936 - 1950 His stage career was eclipsed by an interest in set design and painting and he worked for a year on the stage productions of the theatre impresario Emile Littler. In 1937 Battersby created the decor for the Littler production Floodlights, a revue starring the American actor Frances Day and British comedy actor George Lacy. Floodlights was staged at Battersby's local theatre the Golders Green Hippodrome.

The following year Battersby was commissioned to create the sets for the Old Vic production of Hamlet with Laurence Olivier in the lead role. This was to be the first of two experiences for Battersby of working with Olivier.

It was in this period that Battersby was introduced to the wealthy art collector and later gallery owner Arthur Jeffress. Jeffress introduced Battersby to the London art world and he was one of the first to commission a mural from Battersby. Battersby created a decorative scheme for the bedroom of Jeffress home Marwell Lodge in Owslebury, Hampshire. Jeffress would go on to hold numerous exhibitions of Battersby paintings at his galleries in the 1950s and 1960s.

This was followed by commissions for the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford.

Cecil Beaton 1945 - 1950 Battersby continued to expand his experience by working in the antiques trade and buying for his own eclectic collection. In the 1940s he worked as assistant to Cecil Beaton. He began in 1945 on Beaton's production of Lady Windermere's Fan. It was as Beaton's assistant that he worked for the second time with Olivier. Beaton's production of Richard Brinsley Sheridan play The School for Scandal starred Olivier and Vivien Leigh in the title roles. Leigh's dislike of some elements of Beaton's costumes designs caused tensions between Leigh and Battersby and in 1948 Battersby was forced to resign from the production. Beaton fell out with Olivier and Leigh over the 'Scandal saga' (as Battersby called it) and they were never to talk again.

Battersby work on Beaton's The Gainsborough Girls brought its own problems in production. Battersby resigned as Beaton's assistant from the production on the eve of its premier at the Theatre Royal in Brighton in 1950. Battersby and Beaton were to never speak again.

Other patrons included Audrey Pleydell-Bouverie, the Countess of Kenmare, Denis Martineau (for whom Battersby did seven panels at Mompesson House), and Valerie Hobson as a present for her husband, the British MP John Profumo.

The Decorative Arts 1960 - 1978 In 1960 Battersby moved to the south coast of England to the town of Brighton. From the 1960s onwards he began to develop his reputation as a collector, connoisseur and historian of the visual arts, decorating his home in Brighton in a typically lavish and eclectic way. In 1964 Brighton Museum & Art Gallery held the exhibition Art Nouveau: The Collection of Martin Battersby, the first exhibition in Britain dedicated solely to the subject.

In 1969, at the instigation of John Morley, his collection formed the basis for one of the first retrospectives in Britain of 1920s style when The Jazz Age was held. The exhibition was opened by Erté.

In 1965 Battersby established a design workshop and retail premises, Sphinx Studio, in Brighton. Battersby created designs which were hand-printed onto textiles and paper for home decoration and clothing. He also created unique designs for the French fashion house Christian Dior, Australian clothing company Cie, and The Beatles short-lived Apple Boutique on Baker Street, London.

In 1971, Battersby's business partner and boyfriend Paul Watson, committed suicide. Sphinx Studio closed soon after Watson's death. Martin Battersby, Jeans Trompe L'oeil, oil on board, c. 1978 Martin Battersby, Self Portrait in Black Leather, oil on board, c. 1980

Final Years 1978 - 1982 In 1978, Battersby severed links with Brighton and his former interests, and moved to Fulham, London. Battersby immersed himself in the queer leather scene centered on the Coleherne, Earl's Court, a gay pub close to his home. Battersby's life on the gay scene became a central theme in his artworks.

He created works for a number of exhibitions. In 1982 Martin Battersby was held at the Ebury Gallery, London. This exhibition displayed over 30 paintings and was a retrospective, displaying trompe l'oeil paintings from the 1940s through to his latest homo-centric artworks. That same year Battersby had an exhibition at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art (today the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art) in New York. For this exhibition Battersby included overtly homoerotic paintings and intimate pencil drawings of naked gay men.

Battersby had suffered a series of illnesses over 1981 and he died of cancer in a small hospital in the town of Lewes aged 68 in April 1982.

Publications The World of Art Nouveau, 1968. Art Nouveau, 1969. The Decorative Twenties, New York: Walker & Co., 1969. The Decorative Thirties, 1971. Art Deco Fashion, 1974. Trompe L'OEil, 1974.