4759

Harold Sidney Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere 1930

Half-length slightly to the right, full-face, wearing a black great-coat with a blue velvet collar over Court dress with heavy gold braiding, holding the hilt of his sword in his left hand, all against a black curtain with a green border on the right edge

Oil on canvas, 112.4 x 82 cm (44 ¼ x 32 ¼ in.)

Inscribed lower left: László / London / 1930   

Laib L16467 (800) / C23 (19): Lord Rothermere 

NPG 1929-31 Album, p. 19

Sitters’ Book II, f. 63: Rothermere 8th July 1929

Sitters’ Book II, opp. f. 66: Rothermere July 21st / 1930

Magyar Nemzeti Galéria (Hungarian National Gallery), Budapest

At the time this portrait was painted Lord Rothermere was an extremely popular figure in Hungary. The Treaty of Trianon of 1920, in which Hungary lost more than two-thirds of her pre-war territory to Romania, provoked Rothermere to write an article on this perceived injustice, which he published in his newspapers.^[1] The response was huge, and from 1927-1938 he led a campaign to draw attention to the plight of the eleven million Hungarians by then living outside Hungary’s borders and to restore the lost territory. Lord Rothermere indeed became a national hero; mementos were made with his name and likeness, statues were raised and plaques unveiled. So great was his popularity, some even advocated that he should be invited to fill the throne of Hungary, empty since the death of Charles IV in 1922. De László was a strong supporter of the campaign for revision of the treaty and offered to paint Lord Rothermere in 1928.

A letter from de László’s close friend István Bárczy, Keeper of the Minutes of the Hungarian Ministerial Council, gave an account of Lord Rothermere’s son’s visit to Hungary in 1928: “Mr. Esmond Harmsworth was in Hungary for ten days. He was welcomed as if he were foreign royalty, but with such enthusiasm as I have never before witnessed. We watched the procession of his entrance from one of the balconies of the Gellért Hotel…Some 50,000 people marched past him with great enthusiasm; in Szeged there were 60,000, in Debrecen 80,000. The government officially distanced itself from all this, not wanting to offend certain British sensibilities.”^[2]

Bárczy went on to explain that the government wished de László to paint Rothermere’s portrait to hang in the Hungarian Parliament. However, it was not politically wise to commission de László directly, and it was decided that: “The President - the Speaker - would have the portrait painted on behalf of the Parliament […]  The Prime Minister too thinks that this would be the most suitable solution, as the government cannot officially support Lord Rothermere’s campaign. Doing so might harm the sympathy which he [Rothermere] enjoys in the British Conservative circles of Baldwin and Chamberlain.”^[3]   

A letter to de László sent a few months later by the Hungarian League for Revision, the Hungarian National Association and the Federation of Social Clubs, suggests that it was they who eventually officially ‘commissioned’ the artist: “We are happy to think that by your thoughtful act we are offered an opportunity to show our gratitude to an unselfish and noble champion of Hungary’s just cause, and that at the same time a work of art by our greatest portrait painter will be added to the Hungarian National Gallery … we appeal to you Sir, to paint this portrait and we feel greatly indebted to you for giving us a masterpiece which we value beyond the ordinary standard of works of art.” ^[4] 

In June 1929, de László, again, made his intentions clear to Elek Petrovics, the Director of the National Hungarian Museum of Fine Arts: “I shall very soon start on the painting of Lord Rothermere’s portrait and that I gladly offer the portrait of this selfless and noble hearted warrior for the cause of Hungary to the Hungarian nation. It would be a great satisfaction to me if you were to accept this gift of mine and if you would find a place for it in a state-owned collection. Please be kind enough to use your best judgement for making arrangements for my offer.”^[5] The portrait was eventually successfully completed, and copy of it by the Hungarian artist József Mányai^[6] remains in the collection of The Inner Temple, London.

De László painted portraits of many members of the Harmsworth family, including the sitter's brother, Lord Northcliffe, in 1908 [4764], his mother, Mrs. Alfred Harmsworth [6909] and his three sons, Vyvyan [4746], Vere [1737] and Esmond [4744]. Vyvyan and Vere were both killed in action in the First World War.  According to Bourne,^[7] towards the end of his life Lord Rothermere hung the three de László portraits of his eldest sons and of his mother on the wall facing the end of his bed at his home, Stody House, in Melton Constable.         

Harold Sydney Harmsworth, the second son of Alfred Harmsworth, was born on 26 April 1868.  In July 1893 he married Mary Lilian Share. He and his brother, Alfred, later 1st Viscount Northcliffe, built up a successful business in periodicals, but in 1894 they branched into daily journalism, buying the Evening News. Nine years later they founded the Daily Mirror. In 1910 Harold Harmsworth established the King Edward VII Chair of English Literature at Cambridge, and received a baronetcy. He became Baron Rothermere four years later. For the last year of the war he was Air Minister, and in 1919 was elevated to Viscount.

In 1914 he had disassociated himself from his brother to concentrate on the Daily Mirror, which by 1922 had a circulation of some three million. After his brother’s death in 1922, he acquired control of the Daily Mail and the Sunday Dispatch. He was founder of the Glasgow Daily Herald and the Sunday Pictorial, Chairman of Associated Newspapers Ltd and Director of Amalgamated Press Ltd. In 1928 he became honorary Bencher of the Middle Temple.  

Because of his attitude to the unjust Treaty of Trianon, to this day Lord Rothermere is remembered with gratitude and respect by many Hungarians. In the 1930s, mostly because of his hatred of the Soviet Union and his fear of a new war, the sitter became a strong advocate of an alliance with Germany, and became a supporter of Oswald Mosley’s British Union for Fascists. Lord Rothermere also developed personal links with Adolf Hitler, who he congratulated on the annexation of Czechoslovakia. However, as the Second World War loomed, these views were subsumed by his nationalism. He died on 26 November 1940 and was succeeded by his surviving son Esmond.  

PROVENANCE:  

Bequeathed by the artist to the Hungarian National Gallery, 1930

EXHIBITED:        

•Hungarian Fine Art Society, Budapest, Jubilee exhibition, December 1930-January 1931, no. 27
•Hungarian Fine Art Museum, Budapest, Exhibition of the New Acquisitions, 1931, no. 42

•Christie’s, King Street, London, A Brush with Grandeur, 6-22 January 2004, no. 117

LITERATURE:         

•DLA 1928 parcel, Igazságot Magyarországnak, p. 27, ill.

•DLA 1933 parcel, László Fülöp mesterművei a Pesti Hírlap Vasárnapjában, ill.

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, p. 371

•Bourne, Richard, The Lords of Fleet Street, The Harmsworth Dynasty, Unwin Hyman, London, 1990, pp. 83-4, 116-19

•Szűcs, György, “‘Pictura irredenta’: To The interpretation of an István Csók Painting”, in Annals of the Hungarian National Gallery 1997-2001, Budapest, 2002

•De Laszlo, Sandra, ed., & Christopher Wentworth-Stanley, asst. ed., A Brush with Grandeur, Paul Holberton Publishing, London 2004, ill., p. 180

•Succi, Dario, Francesco Guardi, Venice: the Punta della Dogana with the Giudecca and the Redentore beyond, Richard Green, 2007, ill. p. 20

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, p. 218, ill. 117

•Hart-Davis, Duff, László Fülöp élete és festészete [Philip de László's Life and Painting], Corvina, Budapest, 2019, ill. 152

•Field, Katherine ed., Gábor Bellák and Beáta Somfalvi, Philip de László (1869-1937); "I am an Artist of the World", Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, 2019, p. 58

•DLA030-0028, letter from Géza Paur to László, 30 October 1928

•DLA127-0002, letter from István Bárczy (undated, but probably from early June 1928)

•DLA162-0126, Pesti Hírlap, 8 January 1929, p. 12

•DLA043-0094, letter from Elek Petrovics, Director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, to de László, 12 June 1929

•DLA162-0056, Dr Hegedűs, Ádám, “Weekend László Fülöpéknél” [Weekend at de Lászlós], Pesti Hírlap, 3 September 1929, p. 10

•DLA162-0306, Pesti Hírlap, 19 August 1930, p. 8

•DLA162-0165, Pesti Hírlap, 10 October 1930, p. 8

•DLA162-0328, Pesti Hírlap, 20 December 1930 [page unknown]

•DLA162-0045, Pesti Hírlap, 3 January 1931, p. 7

•DLA162-0356, “A Szépművészeti Múzeum új szerzeményei” [New acquisitions of the Museum of Fine Arts], Pesti Hírlap, 21 March 1931, p. 6

•DLA162-0049, Pesti Hírlap, 3 July 1938, p. 9

CC & CWS 2008