My story today about an artist is a sad one. It is a tale of rags to riches and back to rags. My featured artist is George Edward Handel Lucas who because of artistic ability at a very young age was labelled by some as an artistic genius.
E G Handel Lucas self portrait painted on is 26th birthday (1887)
It all began at No.87 Church Street in Croydon on May 4th 1861 when George Edward Handel Lucas was born. He was the fifth child. His father, Edwin Newton Lucas, was a tailor and men’s outfitter by trade and had his shop on London Road. In 1875 the shop closed and his father ran his business from home. His father’s love of classical music, especially the works of George Frederick Handel led to his son’s middle name. This love of music led to his father’s second job, as for two evenings a week, he gave singing lessons at is house, in order to boost his income.
Autumn and Winter by EG Handel Lucas (1879)
Despite his business and his music tuition the large family found it difficult to make ends meet. In 1868, Handel Lucas was enrolled at Whitgift Middle School, which at that time provided education from the age of seven to fourteen for sons of the poor of the parish. Handel Lucas loved drawing and painting from an early age and at the age of fourteen he exhibited at the Royal Society of British Artists. He was the youngest person to have ever achieved that. Lucas left full-time schooling at the age of fourteen. He set himself up in a studio in a lean-to at his family’s Church Street home and could now finally concentrate on his art.
A Bird’s Nest and Flowers on a Mossy Bank by EG Handel Lucas (1879)
Handel Lucas’ favoured art genre was floral painting and still life. He would spend hours on his depiction of the minutiae of the flowers. Slowly his work became known and from the money he accumulated from their sale he would fund his artistic training. Lucas studied life drawing in the evenings at Heatherley School of Fine Art and for a short time studied at the St John’s Wood Art School.
Roses from the Vicerage (1877)
In 1877, eighteen-year-old Lucas completed his painting entitled Roses from the Vicarage and he submitted it to the Royal Academy annual exhibition where it was sold on the opening day. The price realised was £30 which is the equivalent of £4500 in today’s money. Three years later, in December 1880, a reviewer wrote, in relation to the work that Lucas had exhibited at the Royal Academy:
“…I am not surprised to find that the critics are praising the works of that young artist, Mr. E. G. H. Lucas. I was certain when his `Roses’ was in the Royal Academy three years ago… that time was only needed for him to come to the front…”
Smarting from a Hard Hit by EG Handel Lucas
Lucas’ artistic output was small due to the time it took him to complete a painting. His attention to detail was such that his completed works rarely took less than six months to complete and in many cases, very much longer. He exhibited his work regularly from 1879 to 1891 at the Royal Academy annual exhibitions and often his work was positioned “on the line”, a rare privilege for an “outsider”. His work received many complimentary reviews in the press with one art critic stating:
“…Mr Handel Lucas… possesses in a more marked degree than any still life painter I have met with, that genius which a great writer has informed us is an infinite capacity for taking pains..”
“While the Cat’s Away the Mice will Play” by EG Handel Lucas (1881)
Soon he and his artwork became well known. Although his still life floral works took him so long to complete they sold well, he decided to concentrate on figurative painting. Although this was an idea which would increase his output he also knew there was still a demand for his floral paintings and such commissions brought in the money and were far more popular in comparison to his figurative works. It was all about supply and demand.
In 1895, Lucas married Clare Mary Stunell and they went on to have two daughters, Elsie Cecil Lucas born in 1899 and Marie Newton Lucas in 1900. These new additions added pressure on the family finances and the time he spent looking after his wife and children resulted on his output being as little as only two or three major paintings a year, and this in turn meant that their family income fell.
The artwork of Lucas with all its great attention to detail was adored by English art lovers in the last decade of the 1800s but at the beginning of the twentieth century the genre began to fall out of favour with the British public’s interest switching to Impressionism. Sales of Lucas’ work dwindled.
The Pears Annual
One light at the end of the tunnel for Lucas at this time was that the Pears Soap Company wanted to buy some of his paintings which they sought to incorporate in their well-liked annuals. Eventually they bought three of his paintings.
The Cause of Many Troubles by EG Handel Lucas (1903)
His painting entitled The Cause of Many Troubles was bought by Pears in 1903 and was published in 1906. It depicts such things as playing cards, dice, a tombola, a picture of a racehorse and a flagon of beer. All items reminded us of gambling and the imbibing of alcohol and the perils of such pastimes. A further reminder of what these “hobbies” could lead to was the pistol affixed to the wall, which some mired in gambling debts, believed was the only way out. The Pears Soap Company paid Lucas £106 for the painting (around £15,000 in today’s money). It was an extraordinary amount.
Some of Life’s Pleasures by EG Handel Lucas (c.1908)
The second painting the Pears Soap Company bought from Lucas was one entitled Of Such is the Kingdom of Heaven and they paid him another substantial amount, £150 and yet it was never used in their publications. The third of Lucas’ works they bought was his painting, Some of Life’s Pleasures and it could well have been the antidote for his The Cause of Many Troubles painting for this was all about harmless and fulfilling pastimes such as painting, reading and playing a musical instrument. This painting appeared in the Pears Annual in 1909. The company bought it for £81 a considerably lesser amount that the previous two purchases had achieved. Lucas had no recourse but to accept this lower amount as he was desperate to clear his debts.
View from Pompeii over the Gulf of Naples to Capri. by EG Handel Lucas (1888)
Lucas became desperate with worry with regards his mounting debts and lack of sales. In 1908, it just became too much for him and he suffered a nervous breakdown. To reduce costs the family left Croydon and moved to Brighton. It was here that Lucas and two local photographers set up a new photographic project and started a company called The Handeltype Syndicate Company and Lucas filed a patent for their new photographic process. Sadly for Lucas, after twelve months, their company failed and the three men, together with friends and family who had financially backed them, lost all their money.
Foes in the Guise of Friends by EG Handel Lucas (1913)
Another of Lucas’ paintings which advocated temperance and warned of the perils of drinking was his 1913 painting entitled Foes in the Guise of Friends. The painting’s title says it all. It was this painting that had not been completed and was unsold and had been used as a bargaining tool by Lucas with his landlady who had been demanding money for the rent. He had no money, the landlady didnt want the painting and the family were evicted.
Haymaking by EG Handel Lucas
Finally, Lucas found work in the south London district of Streatham where he and his family went to live. His friend asked him to design Christmas cards for his Christmas card business. Lucas never lost his love of photography and a printing process called Handelchrome which he invented. It involved transferring a photograph onto glass and painting it from behind and he intended to use this technique as an aid for his portrait work. Sadly, this invention like many of Lucas’ ideas came to nought and he struggled to match his income and his expenditure.
Two Vases of Flowers by EG Handel Lucas
In the 1920s Lucas completed a number of paintings but he was unable to achieve prices for them that he had done thirty years earlier.
The Stolen Nest by EG Handel Lucas (1927)
He did however have one success when he was commissioned to provide a number of paintings which were then used as illustrations for the Brooke Bond Tea calendar, one of which was entitled The Stolen Nest which was published in the 1929 calendar. It is set on the banks of the River Wandle, a right-bank tributary of the River Thames in south London.
Portrait of Jesse Ward by EG Lucas (1927)
One of his best portraits was of the founder of The Croydon Advertiser, Jesse Ward.
In 1936, Lucas received the devastating news that his wife had been knocked down and injured in a road traffic accident. He suffered a fatal heart attack and died on April 4th 1936, aged 74.
I will end this blog about Edward George Handel Lucas with the words of an art critic in the 1890s when he described Lucas’ art as:
“…When the present and succeeding generations have passed away, this little gem of the painter’s art will survive to prove that one man in Croydon, at least, knew how to paint, and could unite patent toil with Heaven Born genius…”
The majority of information for this blog came from an article written by David Morgan for the Inside Croydon website in December 2023.
