Seaside Circus

John Smith Willock 1887 - 1976

Summary

An outdoor seaside circus scene, with semi-circular rows of deckchairs in foreground facing a stage in the centre. A pianist sits in a small booth at the foot of the stage to the right. The ringmaster and two women performers are on stage, one walking the tightrope and carrying a parasol. The curtained booth to the rear of the stage inscribed 'WESTERN CIRCUS' across front and side. A fairground stall in the background to right, is inscribed 'AUTOMATIC ARCADE'. John Smith Willock was born in Weaste, Lancashire in 1887. In 1903-4 John Smith Willock gained a City Council scholarship to attend day classes at the Municipal School of Arts, All Saints, Manchester. He went on to be a pupil teacher at Oldham School of Art. He was awarded a 3 year scholarship to the Royal College of Art whilst a student but he was unable to accept because he had to work in Manchester to support his family. At the outbreak of the First World War he joined up and served in France where he met fellow comrade and artist Charles Cundall. He returned and took up a teaching career at Hyde and Bury Grammar Schools. He would later become Head of the Manchester Design School. He was a close friend of artist Edgar Rowley Smart. He was a member of the Society of Modern Painters and his work was exhibited at the Atkinson Gallery in Southport, the Ferens Gallery in Hull and the New English Art Club. This painting was purchased in 1935 from an exhibition by the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts at Manchester Art Gallery. In a letter to the gallery dated 9th March 1935 he writes of 'Seaside Circus' "This first of all is a memory composition built upon a small travelling circus stationed at Cleveleys, north Blackpool, in the summer of 1933. I was struck at the time by the possibilites of it as a design and particularly the feeling of the 'invented core' formation of the canvas chairs and the stage. The actual scene of the two tightrope walkers may or not have been fact but that I'm hazy about as the design seemed to want it as I built it up".