Claude Bendall (1891-1970)

Claude Bendall (1891-1970) was born in Boscastle on the North Cornish Coast. His father was a schoolmaster and a concert pianist and Bendall grew up to be both a gifted painter and pianist. He studied piano under the Polish composer and pianist, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, who had swept the world with his playing as well as his dynamic personality. Paderewsky declared that Bendall had a prodigious musical talent and his father gave him the opportunity of becoming a concert pianist or an artist. Having decided to become an artist, his father sent him to Paris for two years to study at the Sorbonne in Paris (1908-10). Bendall exhibited in Paris and, on his return, started illustrating high class magazines as well as becoming an art editor for a short time. He served in the British Army for four years during the First World War but, after the war, found it difficult to make a living as many of the magazines, by whom he had previously been commissioned, had ceased publishing.

Although he had exhibited at the Walker Art Gallery between 1920-25 and elsewhere, Bendall decided that he wished to adapt his artistic style and technique to reflect the influences of French Impressionism. When he was approaching the age of 40, he met his future wife, Barbara. She became his source of inspiration as a model, a tireless helper in his studio and protected him from daily concerns, even to the extent of taking in paying guests and contributing articles to journals and magazines in order to maintain their income, whilst encouraging Bendall to concentrate on developing his new artistic technique. Her generosity was rewarded. After several months Bendall announced to her, “I think I’ve done it”. He submitted the work to the Royal Academy in 1943, it was accepted and, to his and their pleasure, it was hung 'on the line', the best position in the exhibition. He was even more pleased when he went to the private viewing and discovered that the painting had already been sold. Bendall’s unique method of painting involved the use of a small metal file to lay the paint onto the paper. This allowed him to create a particularly detailed, highly worked and intricately coloured picture surface. He exhibited over 30 works at the Royal Academy over the next 16 years (1943-59). In 1946 he submitted three paintings to the RA, all of which were accepted and, a week later, the RA’s President, Sir Alfred Munnings, KCVO, PRA, RWS, RP (British, 1878-1959) notified Bendall that the RA Committee had recommended that his painting, Reminiscence, a portrait of his wife Barbara, was to be purchased for the nation under the Edward Scott Bequest.

Bendall lived and worked in a converted oasthouse, called Nepicar, near Wrotham in Kent. He travelled to France and Ireland where he liked to paint the colourful life of gypsies. He received many portrait commissions and held many exhibitions during his life but became ill and was unable to paint after 1965. He died five years later, in 1970.