James Bolivar Manson

James Bolivar Manson was born at 65 Appach Road, Brixton, London, to Margaret Emily (née Deering) and James Alexander Manson, who was the first literary editor of the Daily Chronicle, an editor for Cassell & Co Ltd and of the Makers of British Art series for Walter Scott Publishing Co. Manson's middle name was after Simón Bolívar. He had an older sister, Margaret Esther Manson, a younger sister, Rhoda Mary Manson, and three younger brothers, Charles Deering Manson, Robert Graham Manson (a musician and composer) and Magnus Murray Manson. At the age of 16, he left Alleyn's School, Dulwich, and, in the face of his father's opposition to painting as a career, became an office boy with the publisher George Newnes, and then a bank clerk, a job he loathed and lightened with bird imitations and practical jokes. which by that time was at 7 Ardbeg Road, Herne Hill, London. ==Marriage==

In 1903, Manson left the bank job, hanging his silk hat on a pole and encouraging his colleagues to aim stones at it. He married Laugher and they moved to the Latin Quarter in Paris, renting a room for £1 a month and economising in a shared studio with Charles Polowetski, Bernard Gussow and Jacob Epstein, who became a lifelong friend and with whom he studied at the Académie Julian, still dominated by the Impressionists' enemy, Adolphe Bouguereau; occasionally Jean-Paul Laurens tutored. After a year, the Mansons returned to London and their daughter Mary was born, followed two years later by Jean. They lived in the top two floors of 184 Adelaide Road, Hampstead, where his wife gave music lessons at the front and Manson set up a studio at the rear, working out the family's tight budget on the kitchen wall much to her displeasure. In 1908 they moved to a small house at 98 Hampstead Way, where they stayed for 30 years. Lilian succeeded Bernard Shaw's mother as music director at the North London Collegiate School for Girls; in 1910 The Times took notice of her revival of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, for which Manson designed and helped to make costumes. In 1910 also, he became a member and Secretary of the Camden Town Group. ==Employment at the Tate==

Lilian was a close friend of Tate director Charles Aitken and, in summer 1911, the Mansons stayed with him at a holiday home in Alfriston, Sussex. Manson had assisted Aitken with hanging a show at the Tate and the Director was sufficiently impressed to suggest Manson took the job of Clerk, vacant since its former occupant had been pilfering the petty cash. Lucien Pissarro formed the Monarro Group with Manson as the London Secretary and Théo van Rysselberghe as the Paris secretary, aiming to show artists inspired by Impressionist painters, Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro; the group ceased three years later. Although Frank Rutter, a Sunday Times art critic, praised advances in the gallery's position on art since its foundation, others—notably Douglas Cooper—who were familiar with contemporary European avant-garde art, such as Surrealism and German Expressionism (which was not represented at all in the Tate) considered it "hopelessly insular". ==Retirement==

At the age of 58, Manson announced his retirement: My doctor has warned me that my nerves will not stand any further strain... I have begun to have blackouts, in which my actions become automatic. Sometimes these periods last several hours.... I had one of these blackouts at an official luncheon in Paris recently, and startled guests by suddenly crowing like a cock.... His successor as Director, Sir John Rothenstein discovered that Manson had boosted his low salary by selling from the basement work, which was referred to by the staff as "Director's stock". Manson left his wife and home in Hampstead Garden Suburb in order to "get away from women" and make time to paint, alighting first in Harrington Road, South Kensington, and then, not long afterwards, up the road to Boltons Studios. He settled with Elizabeth (Cecily Haywood). From 1939, he showed at the Royal Academy. He died in 1945, having observed, "The roses are dying, and so am I." ==Legacy==

In March and April 1946, a memorial show was held at the Wildenstein Gallery in London with 59 works in oil, watercolour, etchings, drawings and pastel, dating from 1903 to 1945. A second show was held in August and September at the Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, with 58 works—32 oils, 14 watercolours and 12 pastels. ==Notes and references==