James Bolivar Manson - Employment at The Tate

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. Manson achieved by far the best results out of the four applicants taking the appropriate civil service exam, and, age 33, became Tate Clerk on 9 December 1912 with an annual salary of £150. His reluctance to take the job had been overcome by his wife, who wanted provision for their two daughters; he continued to paint intensely at weekends.

With the Keeper, he was jointly responsible for staff supervision, office administration and care of the collection. Manson is considered to have given Aitken a liking for French Impressionism and to have highlighted the Camden Town Group, even though its leader, Walter Sickert, was still outside the official canon. When a Sickert was offered to the Tate in 1915, Manson wrote, "tell the Trustees I think it is a very good Sickert—but the question is whether he is important enough for the Tate. I think not; but as an old friend of the artist perhaps I am a prejudiced judge."

In 1914, he joined the London Group. From 1915, he showed work with the New English Art Club (NEAC). Because his work for the gallery was considered indispensable, he was exempt from military service; in 1917, he was promoted to Assistant Keeper. In 1919, Lucien Pissarro formed the Monarro Group with Manson as the London Secretary and Theo 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. In 1923, at the Leicester Galleries, Manson held his first solo show of work. In 1927, he became a member of the NEAC. His reputation as an artist was primarily as a flower painter and art was his main ambition, but he was uncertain as to whether this would allow him to earn a full-time living— in 1928 he asked Roger Fry's advice on the matter. However, in 1930, he became Director of the Tate, a post which he held until 1938.

He also wrote art criticism, as well as an introduction to the Tate's collection, Hours in the Tate Gallery (1926) and books on Degas (1927), Rembrandt (1929), John Singer Sargent and Dutch painting.