H.S.Williamson

Born 1892, died 1978.

I met Harold Williamson in Norwich around 1978 when I think he was in his eighties. He had been Principal of Chelsea School of Art, and, as I knew him best, a great British poster artist. He was a great admirer of William Roberts whom he had employed at Chelsea as a supervisor of drawing. He loved the work of Ceri Richards who he knew well and the walls of the house in Norwich provided a veritable monument to the latter's many changes of style. Mr. Williamson was a lively and wise man who was utterly devoted to classical music and listened to Radio Three virtually all day."In many ways" he told me I wish had been a musician and not an artist."
 
The Imperial War Museum owns several of his works when he was an official War Artist on the Western Front with a particular emphasis on the depiction of the role played by animals. He told me he passed the awful time in the Trenches reading Ruskin. "Nothing affected," he said, "it just gave you hope."
 
It is consistent with his great love for music that he was responsible for this wonderful booklet produced 1951 and printed in lithography by Cowell's of Ipswich. It provided in sequence a clear and devoted account of the sheer excitement when an orchestra take up its instruments to play. On p.3 he has devised a diagrammatic representation of patterns in sound and vision of the Orchestral playing.

Thanks to Matthew Williamson for information.