Edward Reginald Frampton , “Stone Walls Do Not a Prison Make, Nor Iron Bars a Cage”

Edward Reginald Frampton - Ariadne on the Isle of Naxos

Frampton was the son of a Brighton stained glass artist. He first saw the work of Burne-Jones at his posthumous exhibition at the New Gallery in London 1898-9, where 'that wonderful display struck Reginald Frampton with the force of a very revelation, opening his eyes to the supreme possibilities of the human form in decoration' (Aylmer Vallance, The Paintings of Reginald Frampton, ROI, The Studio, no. 75, Dec. 1918, p. 67), whilst on trips to France he discovered Puvis de Chavannes. He became a member of the Tempera Society in 1907, founded six years earlier to revive the forgotten technique. Rudolf Dircks in The Art Journal of 1907 (p. 295) described him as '...very much in the spirit and method of the early Christian painters. Nothing is more outside the quick competitive temper of the prevailing modern spirit, and nothing is more in harmony with the spiritual beauty of the world of romance, imagination and symbolism in which Mr. Frampton's art lives'. 
Frampton here depicts Ariadne pining for her lover Theseus, who abandoned her on Naxos after she saved him from the Minotaur. The strong flat colours seem almost completely without highlights or shadows.

Edward Reginald Frampton - Isabella and the Pot of Basil

Tempera on canvas; signed

The subject is from John Keats’ poem of the same name. Isabella, pledged to another man, instead falls for Lorenzo, her brothers’ servant. When her brothers discover their tryst they murder him. Isabella learns of the crime from Lorenzo’s ghost, and exhumes his body to bury his head in the pot of basil, which she spends the rest of her days tending obsessively.
Vallance writes, 'In the Isabella, the idea which the artist intends to convey is that Isabella, having exalted her devotion to her murdered Lorenzo into a very religion, does not hesitate to set the pot of basil, containing his head, in the most sacred of all places, the very midst of the altar'.

Sussex, Mount Caburn from Itford Hill

A Madonna of Brittany c. 1913

Edward Reginald Frampton - Ariadne on the Isle of Naxos

Tempera on canvas; signed

St. Dorothy, 1904 - Edward Reginald Frampton

Edward Reginald Frampton - Flora of the Alps 1918

http://www.artmagick.com/pictures/artist.aspx?artist=edward-reginald-frampton

Edward Reginald Frampton - A Pearl 1920-2

Edward Reginald Frampton - Cumberland Idyll 1920-2

Edward Reginald Frampton - The Annunciation

http://www.magnoliabox.com/art/99276/The_Annunciation

Edward Reginald Frampton - Brittany

Edward Reginald Frampton - The Voice of Pan

http://www.art.co.uk/products/p11786169-sa-i1423180/edward-reginald-frampt-the-voice-of-pan.htm?sorig=cat&sorigid=0&dimvals=5033011&ui=3f1f4dc4fb4d47edb857647d1fbaf80c

Edward Reginald Frampton - A Carol

http://www.art.co.uk/products/p12258393-sa-i1640671/edward-reginald-frampt-a-carol.htm?sorig=cat&sorigid=0&dimvals=5033011&ui=3f1f4dc4fb4d47edb857647d1fbaf80c

Edward Reginald Frampton - Ridophe

http://www.art.co.uk/products/p12260348-sa-i1640672/edward-reginald-frampt-ridophe.htm?sorig=cat&sorigid=0&dimvals=5033011&ui=3f1f4dc4fb4d47edb857647d1fbaf80c

Edward Reginald Frampton - The Angel of the Sea

Price Realized £53,775

signed and dated 1906 (lower left)
oil on canvas
48 x 27 in. (121.9 x 68.6 cm)

The son of a stained-glass artist, Frampton was educated at Brighton Grammar School, where he was an exact contemporary of Beardsley. He then attended the Westminster School of Art (again like Beardsley), and after working with his father for seven years, spent lengthy periods studying in Italy and France. His highly formalised style owes much to his involvement with stained glass (which continued at least until 1918), and he acknowledged the influence of the early Italians, Puvis de Chavannes and Burne-Jones. The Burne-Jones retrospective exhibitions at the New Gallery in 1892 and 1898 were great formative experiences.

With such an artistic background it is not surprising that Frampton specialised in murals, carrying out schemes in a number of churches, often as war memorials, as well as some secular projects. Today, however, he is best known for his easel pictures, which he exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy (1895-1923), the New Gallery, the Royal Society of British Artists (member 1894) and the (Royal) Institute of Oil Painters (member 1904). He also belonged to the Tempera Society (1907) and the Art Worker's Guild (1912), and had a one-man exhibition at Baillie's Gallery in 1914. For many years his paintings consisted of literary, religious and symbolist themes, but latterly he turned more to landscape, still working in the rigidly schematic style. He sought his subjects widely, finding them in Sussex, Cumberland, the Channel Islands, Brittany (which also inspired some Gauginesque figure compositions) and the Bernese Oberland. He died suddenly in Paris in November 1923 on his way to Austria, and is buried in the cemetery of Saint-Germain. A memorial exhibition was held at the Fine Art Society the following year.

The present painting is dated 1906, and is closely related to a figure of an angel in a mural that Frampton had painted at All Saints Church, Hastings, about a year earlier. The angel in the mural is standing, but his head, torso, wings and the globe he is holding are all taken over. A study for the mural, making the point very clearly, is illustrated in Rudolf Dircks, 'Mr E. Reginald Frampton', Art Journal, 1907, p. 295.

In fact, we can trace the pedigree of the figure back further, since the standing angel in the Hastings mural owes an obvious debt to Burne-Jones. Frampton was clearly thinking of the famous Days of Creation (Fogg Museum of Art, Harvard) and the magnificent Angels of the Hierachy in a window in the south transept in the Chapel of Jesus College, Cambridge, dating from 1873. All these images would have been familiar to him, either from the Burne-Jones retrospective or from his close involvement with stained glass. A pilgrimage to see the great series of windows at Jesus would have been almost de rigueur for someone in his position.

Frampton was a keen sailor, and the present picture is characteristic in having a nautical theme. There are many other examples, among them The Passage of the Holy Grail to Sarras, exhibited at the New Gallery in 1907 and now in the Lloyd Webber Collection, The Voyage of St Brendan, which appeared at the New Gallery the following year and was sold in these Rooms in March 1995 and The Childhood of Perseus which was shown at the Royal Institute of Painters in Oil-Colours in 1911. None of these, however, comes so close to our picture as Navigation an allegorical figure seated on an island in the sea, surrounded by sailing ships, in much the same way as the Angel of the Sea is here. Both figures, moreover, pay homage not only to Burne-Jones but to Michelangelo, who of course was Burne-Jones's hero too. Navigation was exhibited at the New Gallery in 1909, and is reproduced in photogravure in Dircks's article.

Edward Reginald Frampton - A Maiden holding a Book and Flowers

Price Realized £19,120

signed and dated 'E. Reginald Frampton 1901' (lower left)
oil on canvas
23 x 8¼ in. (58.4 x 21 cm.)

Frampton was the son of a stained-glass artist, and his flat, schematic style clearly owes much to his father's work in that medium. He was also the exact contemporary of Aubrey Beardsley: both attended Brighton Grammar School where for theatrical productions Beardsley designed the programmes and Frampton the scenery. He studied at Westminster School of Art and assisted his father for seven years before spending lengthy periods of time undertaking study in France and Italy. The early Italian masters, Puvis de Chavannes and Burne-Jones all influenced him deeply.

This picture is typical of the easel paintings he produced on religious and symbolist themes. The subject is unclear, the attributes of book and flower being too generic to aid specific identification. Although both are found in depictions of the Annunciation, this picture appears too secular in tone to suggest that subject.

In addition to executing several decorative schemes for churches in the South of England, Frampton exhibited regularly at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, the Royal Society of British Artists, the Tempera Society, and the Art Worker's Guild, as well the more established venues of the Royal Academy, the New Gallery and the Paris Salon. A memorial exhibition was held at the Fine Art Society following his death in 1923.

Edward Reginald Frampton - The Passage of the Holy Grail to Sarras

1907

oil on canvas

122 x 152.5cm

Edward Reginald Frampton - Spring, 1914

Edward Reginald Frampton - Elaine

oil on canvas
signed 'E. Reginald Frampton'
25 x 15"
1921
(three years before his death)
RA 1921
Elaine - the lily maid of Astolat, guarding the shield of Lancelot
a subject from the Morte d'Arthur, or more likely Tennyson's version of it.

Elaine the fair, laine the loveable,
Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat,
High in a chamber up a tower to the east
Guarded the sacred shield of Lanceolot