About this lot
Description
§ Paul Feiler (German 1918-2013)
Portrait of Bryan Edric Nevill Lyte, half length
signed with monogram and dated 44 (lower right); inscribed 'PAUL FEILER / MAY 1944 / BEN LYTE' to the reverse
oil on canvas, unframed
53.5 x 43cm
Footnote:
“Most of us perhaps owe an abiding interest to the enthusiasm of someone we met early in life, and Feiler has remained such for me” commented Bryan Edric Nevill Lyte (1925-2018), the steely-eyed sitter of the present lot, in his poignant 45-page account of his time at Eastbourne College. A talented sportsman, musician, and artist, Lyte, who was known during his school years by the acronym “Ben”, was a pupil of Eastbourne College’s Gonville House between 1939 and 1944. It was during this time, amidst the turbulence of the Second World War when the school had been evacuated from the south coast to Radley College, Oxfordshire, that Lyte first encountered Paul Feiler.
Born in Germany in 1936 to a family of doctors and lawyers, Feiler, then aged 18, made the contentious decision to abandon a nascent career in medicine to study under Randolph Schwabe at The Slade School of Fine Art. In 1939, following his graduation and under the increasingly leaden clouds of political tension, Feiler, who was considered to be an “enemy alien”, was forcibly interned on the Isle of Man, and later in Canada. After months of internment, during which time he taught English and Art, Feiler was granted passage back to England where, in 1941, he took up the position of Art Master at Eastbourne College.
Despite his commitments to the College and his pupils, Feiler continued to develop his own artistic talents and interests whilst working at Radley. Describing Feiler’s activities, Ben Lyte recalls the time dedicated by Feiler to capturing the “effects of sunlight upon the rusting corrugated iron roofs of farm buildings” and his preoccupation with the historical development of European art and architecture as evidenced in the surrounding conurbations of Nuneham and Oxford, which Lyte described as Feiler’s “meat and drink”. In addition to indulging his own interests, Feiler was known to have completed several portrait commissions at Radley, including several for masters or their wives and pupils for their parents; it is likely that the present lot was one such commission.
Although the portrait of Ben Lyte appears to be completely discordant with the gestural abstract works that he is now celebrated for, the work demonstrates both the early influence of Feiler’s education at The Slade School and the dexterous handling of a skilfully modulated colour palette that would be an enduring characteristic of his work throughout his career.
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