{"id":3671,"date":"2024-12-11T06:54:02","date_gmt":"2024-12-11T14:54:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/?p=3671"},"modified":"2024-12-11T06:54:04","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T14:54:04","slug":"on-the-ingratitude-of-artists-receiving-a-guaranteed-income-from-a-benefactor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2024\/12\/on-the-ingratitude-of-artists-receiving-a-guaranteed-income-from-a-benefactor\/","title":{"rendered":"On the ingratitude of artists receiving a guaranteed income from a benefactor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

(\u201cVanessa Bell in a Deckchair\u201d by Roger Fry)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes 1883-1946, Economist, Philosopher, Statesman:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The autumn of 1925 found Keynes, as usual, complaining of overwork (\u2018too much to do, no leisure, no peace, too much to think about\u2026\u2019). A substantial commitment was organising the London Artists\u2019 Association, in homage to both art and friendship. The idea was to give the leading Bloomsbury painters and their prot\u00e9g\u00e9s – a group headed by Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell and Roger Fry – a guaranteed income, so they could paint without worrying about money. Perhaps Keynes saw it as a way of compensating Duncan for the loss of his inheritance. He persuaded Sam Courtauld and two other businessmen to join him in guaranteeing the members an income of \u00a3150 a year. The Association held their first London show, at the Leicester Galleries, in April 1926. It was hailed by their relentless publicist Clive Bell as \u2018an event of capital importance \u2026 no less than the reassertion of an English school\u2019. By 1929, 7000 works of art, worth \u00a322,000, had been sold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the start tensions dogged the Association\u2019s life, which reflected those between Tilton [Keynes\u2019s house] and Charleston [country home of the Bloomsbury\u2019s]. Keynes wanted to bring in non-Bloomsbury painters like Matthew Smith and Paul Nash, partly to strengthen the financial basis; Duncan, Vanessa and Roger Fry objected to his interference. Keynes was right, for many reasons, not least because he foresaw that Duncan and Vanessa would get tired of subsidising the non-earners. But it was a fixed idea at Charleston that Keynes had no artistic judgement: his role should be to pay up and leave artistic policy to them. \u2018If one wants to do something\u2019 Vanessa wrote to Roger Fry, \u2018[the only way] is not to listen to a word he says, to let him talk, keeping one\u2019s attention firmly fixed to one\u2019s own ideas, & the repeat them regardless of what he\u2019s said.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

cross-posted at Substack: https:\/\/michaelrushton.substack.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(\u201cVanessa Bell in a Deckchair\u201d by Roger Fry) From Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes 1883-1946, Economist, Philosopher, Statesman: The autumn of 1925 found Keynes, as usual, complaining of overwork (\u2018too much to do, no leisure, no peace, too much to think about\u2026\u2019). A substantial commitment was organising the London Artists\u2019 Association, in homage to both art […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3671","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-issues","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/image-4.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3dIW5-Xd","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4655,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2026\/02\/reading-brink-lindseys-the-permanent-problem\/","url_meta":{"origin":3671,"position":0},"title":"Reading Brink Lindsey’s The Permanent Problem","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"February 23, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Brink Lindsey\u00a0takes his title\u00a0from one of my favourite essays, John Maynard Keynes\u2019s \u201cEconomic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren\u201d (which I wrote about\u00a0here). Keynes, in 1930, wondered what lives might be like in\u00a0our\u00a0present. 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Hyperallergic reports: The City of New York will put some artists to work this summer with a $25 million program inspired by the New Deal\u2019s Works Progress Administration (WPA). Announced yesterday, May 6, the recovery program will pay\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/depression.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/depression.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/depression.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/depression.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3005,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2024\/04\/why-public-funding-for-the-arts-a-personal-view\/","url_meta":{"origin":3671,"position":2},"title":"Why Public Funding for the Arts: A Personal View","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"April 18, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u00a0wrote a book\u00a0looking at how different ways of moral and political theorizing drew different conclusions regarding whether the state should, or should not, subsidize the arts. At the very end of the book I give something of a personal view. There is a review circulating that is terribly confused about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/image.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2830,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2023\/02\/keyness-grandchildren\/","url_meta":{"origin":3671,"position":3},"title":"Keynes’s Grandchildren","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"February 15, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"John Maynard Keynes's \u201cEconomic Possibilities for our Grandchildren\u201d was first published in The Nation and Athen\u00e6um in two parts, October 11 and 18, 1930 (it is reprinted in his Essays in Persuasion). In it, Keynes tries to put to one side the contemporary fluctuations and uncertainty in the world economy\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/keynes-and-grant.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/keynes-and-grant.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/keynes-and-grant.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/keynes-and-grant.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1119,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2014\/03\/a-cautionary-note-on-the-social-and-economic-value-of-the-arts\/","url_meta":{"origin":3671,"position":4},"title":"A Cautionary Note on the Social and Economic Value of the Arts","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"March 14, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Arts Council England has released a new report on The Value of Arts and Culture to People and Society: An Evidence Review. What to make of it? From the foreword by the Chair of the Council, Sir Peter Bazalgette: Of course the inherent value of arts and culture is, in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"think of the grandchildren","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/keynes4-300x290.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1999,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2016\/03\/time-has-come-today\/","url_meta":{"origin":3671,"position":5},"title":"Time has come today","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"March 1, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"At the Washington Post, Philip Kennicott looks at changes in how people work and play, and implications for cultural organizations, especially museums. I'm not sure all of the claims made by people he cites add up. First, from Elizabeth Merritt, of Center for the Future of Museums. 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