BRIAN STONEHOUSE M.B.E. (1918-1998)

FASHION DRAWINGS

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This is an ONLINE GROUP. Works are not on display at the gallery. Please contact us if you would like to come and see something.

These drawings were all made while Stonehouse was living and working in New York. They are illustrated below in two sections; those made between 1952 and 1962, when he was employed by American Vogue (price range £175-£2750) and those made after 1962 when he was a freelance illustrator (price range £150-£675).

Each section is given a brief introduction. If you would like to read more about Stonehouse’s remarkable life, scroll to the bottom of this page where you will find a digital version of Brian Stonehouse: Artist, Soldier, War Hero, Fashion Illustrator by Frederic A. Sharf with Michelle Finamore, past Curator of Fashion Arts, Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

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FRAMING and SHIPPING

These works are all sold unframed and unmounted. Please contact the gallery if you would like to discuss framing.

Postage and packing is £25+vat to UK addresses and £50 to international addresses.
The works are sent in conservation grade presentation poster sleeves. They are safely packed using 100% recyclable materials.

CONDITION: these are working drawings from the studio of a busy illustrator. Some have minor creases or repairs. Some have been trimmed by the artist. Please contact us if you would like to discuss the condition of a particular drawing.

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BRIAN STONEHOUSE M.B.E. (1918-1998)

WWII SOE Secret Agent then Vogue fashion illustrator

Born in Devon, Brian Stonehouse spent his childhood in France but returned to England in 1932 to study at Ipswich School of Art. He was briefly employed as an underwear illustrator at British Vogue, but was conscripted into the Royal Artillery at the outbreak of war in 1939. Following a brief period as a gunner, and later a translator, the young artist and fluent French speaker caught the attention of the Special Operations Executive and was recruited in 1942 as a wireless operator with the code name Celestin.

Disguised as a French art student, a B2 suitcase radio concealed within his artist’s box, Stonehouse survived four months between July and October 1942 inside occupied France before being arrested by the Vichy French and Gestapo. Sentenced to death by ‘Nacht und Nebel’, Stonehouse was imprisoned in the Concentration Camps of Saarbrüchen, Mauthausen, Struthof Natzweiler and finally, Dachau. A natural survivor, he gained brief respites from slave labour by appealing to the vanity of his captors, sketching portraits of them and their families. After Stonehouse was liberated by the US Army on 29th April 1945, his drawings were to take on even greater significance, being used at the War Crimes Tribunals to help identify and convict Nazi perpetrators. In Britain, he was awarded a military MBE and continued to assist the military with interrogations in Germany as a Captain. General Eisenhower considered Stonehouse to have had ‘one of the most amazing experiences of the war’.

Stonehouse met American officer Major Harry Haller Jnr after the War. Haller was an energetic, well-connected Society figure. He and Stonehouse moved to New York and lived there together between 1946-1955. Haller’s social connections gave Stonehouse an immediate entrée into New York High Society and afforded him the opportunity to secure portrait commissions. He had a natural flare for capturing his sitters’ elegant clothing and accessories and he came to the attention of American Vogue’s editor, Jessica Daves. Daves still believed that Fashion’s story was best told by a mix of illustration and photography. And so, in 1952, Stonehouse became the first new fashion illustrator to be employed by American Vogue since the beginning of the War. Interest in fashion was strong after the drab War Years and Stonehouse found himself in the thick of fashion illustration’s golden decade. He became expert, with ‘Eric’ (Carl Erickson 1891-1958) and Rene Bouché (1905-1963) at conveying both the glamorous, couture look of the time and the emerging world of leisure-wear.

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BRIAN STONEHOUSE M.B.E. (1918-1998)

The freelance fashion illustrator 1962-1979

In 1962, Diana Vreeland succeeded Jessica Daves as editor of American Vogue. Under this new and radical editorship, fashion illustration was largely replaced by photography. Stonehouse left Vogue to become a freelance illustrator. He was resourceful. His time at the magazine had familiarised him with the world of advertising and marketing – essential to his illustrations had been a very practical understanding of ‘fashion-as-product’ – and such was his reputation that he had little trouble receiving commissions from department stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Lord and Taylor, from magazines such as Gimbels and luxury brands such as Elizabeth Arden and Dupont. Due to a studio fire few of his drawings from the Sixties survive. However, the drawings here show that by the Seventies his style had developed from the Frenchified, painterly look of the Fifties to something far leaner and more graphic, in line with fashion illustrators such as Kenneth Block (1924-2009) and ‘Antonio’ (1943-1987).

Throughout the Seventies, Stonehouse regularly visited the Illustration Society of New York, where he was provided with models and kept in close touch with developments in the illustration world. The latter half of the Twentieth Century saw a broadening of illustrative styles, with artists becoming less concerned with the accuracy of their drawing and giving more interpretive depictions of fashion. But despite the ability of the camera to capture clothing faithfully and in detail, Stonehouse’s work demonstrates just how valuable draughtsmanship continued to be; his economic and expert handling of line gives every bit of information necessary in understanding the cut of an outfit and the fall of a fabric.

Stonehouse returned to Britain in 1979 and re-established his portraiture practice with great success. He was commissioned by the Special Forces Club to paint the now famous portrait of their Patron, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and became a regular guest at Clarence House, conversing with HM in French. If you would like to learn more about Stonehouse’s extraordinary life, we encourage you to read …

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Brian Stonehouse: Artist, Soldier, War Hero, Fashion Illustrator

by Frederic A. Sharf with Michelle Finamore, past Curator of Fashion Arts, Museum of Fine Arts Boston.

This book is illustrated with works we sold to the author, who donated them to the MFA, Boston. He also funding the research and publication of the book.

CLICK HERE TO READ

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You can view a selection of works we have sold from previous Brian Stonehouse exhibitions HERE

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PRESS COVERANGE OF OUR 2014 BRIAN STONEHOUSE EXHIBITION