Walter-Ernest Spindler circa 1865-1940

Born in Berlin to English parents, Walter Spindler spent part of his adolescence in London before his father, William Spindler, a wealthy entrepreneur who had made his fortune in the chemical industry, settled on the Isle of Wight in 1881. Turning toward painting, the young man studied at the Royal Academy, where he took part for several years in its exhibitions, from 1892 to 1896, presenting portraits and symbolist compositions inspired by the Pre-Raphaelites. From 1893 onward, he also exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français, and later, in 1898, at the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts.

A committed Francophile, Spindler even established his studio in Paris in the 1890s, at 59 avenue de Saxe in the 7th arrondissement. He formed friendships with several French painters, notably Georges Clairin, whose portrait he exhibited at the Salon of 1894 (cat. no. 1689). Coming from a very affluent background, the artist was probably never obliged to sell his works and inherited the family empire upon his father’s death in 1889. His œuvre nevertheless remained prolific, as evidenced by his collaborations on the illustration of numerous books and poems by Oscar Wilde, Lord Alfred Douglas, and Jean Lorrain. In 1895, he illustrated The Gods, Some Mortals & Lord Wickenham by John Oliver Hobbes, the pseudonym of the Anglo-American writer Pearl Craigie.

The painter formed a deep friendship with Craigie, the daughter of the wealthy American entrepreneur John Morgan Richards. Spindler contributed to the decoration of her sumptuous villa known as Craigie Lodge on the Isle of Wight. Sharing a common attraction to literature and the arts, they maintained a turbulent relationship for several years. The Aberdeen Press and Journal even announced their marriage in February 1897, but the union never took place. Pearl Craigie was constantly responding to professional commitments, which ultimately took a toll on her fragile health, leading to her sudden death from cardiac arrest in 1906.

The appealing portrait presented here depicts the woman who was unquestionably Walter Spindler’s other great muse throughout his career: Sarah Bernhardt. A true icon of the artistic world of her time, she is shown here in bust-length profile, wearing a stage costume before an elegant red velvet curtain with golden highlights. While her sharp profile is somewhat softened and idealized by the painter’s brush, her distinctive red hair dominates the composition, wild and omnipresent, just as it would be worn by the actress the following year in her role as Cleopatra (fig. 1).

Spindler met Sarah Bernhardt as early as the 1880s and quickly became one of her close confidants. In 1887, he produced a series of thirteen watercolor portraits of the actress, and in 1893 he exhibited another oil version of her likeness at the Royal Academy (cat. no. 126). At the height of her fame, the tragedienne entrusted Spindler with the illustrations for her memoirs, published in 1907, which included numerous portraits. The following year, on one of his watercolors depicting Sarah Bernhardt as the Muse of Tragedy, Spindler added a few words that eloquently express the depth of his veneration for the woman who was almost his exclusive model and who exerted a powerful fascination over him:

“All my desires, all my will, come from her.”