ROBERT JOBLING 1841 – 1923
Robert Jobling was born in Newcastle, and worked in a glass factory. He then worked painting the actual fabric of ships and houses before evening classes at the Newcastle School of Design helped him to make the decision to become a professional artist. He showed his work at private galleries in the town and combined Fine Art and Industrial exhibitions in Bedlington, Sunderland and Gateshead. His first exhibit at a major gallery was in Scotland at the Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts in 1874. The difficulties of exhibiting and selling in the Tyneside area led to Jobling, Hedley and other local artists, notably Henry Hetherington Emmerson, setting up their own artists societies, firstly the Newcastle Life School in 1878; the Borough of Tynemouth Art Club held its first exhibition in 1883, the same year that members of the life School formed the Bewick Club. He was elected Vice President of the Bewick Club. On the death of the President, Henry Hetherington Emmerson, in 1895 Ralph Hedley was elected to replace him rather than Jobling. Feeling slighted, he resigned from the Club and spent increasingly more time in Staithes.He was a founder member of the Staithes Art Club in 1901 when doubtless his in depth experience of the setting up and running of art clubs was found to be most useful. He was also instrumental in setting up two new clubs, the Art Circle and the Pen and Palette Club and in the
movement to build a municipal Gallery. The Laing Gallery opened in 1904, financed by Alexander Laing, a local wine and spirit merchant. Jobling and Hedley must have been reconciled. When the latter died in 1913 it was Jobling who stood next to his coffin. Then, at long last and too late he became president of the Bewick Club himself. The establishment of the Laing had made the Club somewhat superfluous, and its exhibition in 1914, in aid of the Belgium Relief Fund, was its last until after the war in 1919. It was then supplanted by the Northern Society of Artists.
The same year that Hedley was given the Presidency of the Bewick Club, Newcastle Daily Chronicle reported, ‘At Staithes he has found new types and fresh characteristics… There is brighter colour, too, further south than is usually to be seen upon our bleak coast, and Mr. Jobling’s pictures, in
consequence have gained in warmth and brilliance… The young women of Staithes are accustomed to carry their burdens on their heads and not on their shoulders, as they do in Cullercoats, and in this way they possess an upright carriage and a graceful swinging movement, which Mr. Jobling portrays
admirably.’
The paintings of his Staithes period have all the plein air realism combined with the strong, free brush work which is so typical of the group as a whole. He captured the translucence, the reflective qualities and the constant motion of the sea and the protectiveness of the two cliffs, Cowbar and Penny Nab, which cradle and sometimes strongly shadow Staithes. The life of the village and its hinterland were caught on canvas, in watercolours and in sketches as he portrays the people of the village at work and at rest. Look out for examples where 'restorers' have overpainted his beautifully impressiomist faces to produce features which are detaled in a way which looks at odds with the loose style of the rest of the painting. Paintings which have been cut down sometimes appear on the market. Unlike some members of the Staithes Group, Jobling always balanced his compositions very carefully.
His initial involvement with Staithes came about through Isa Thompson (who had been visiting Staithes since 1889), his second wife and also a talented artist, whom he married in 1893.
During the 1880s Isa lived in Cullercoats and Robert Jobling moved to the nearby village of Whitley with his first wife, Annie Chambers (who died in 1892), and their four children. They were both key members of the Cullercoats Colony of artists.
Robert exhibited at every available Newcastle venue and the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, the Royal Society of Artists Birmingham, the Walker Gallery Liverpool, the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of British Artists and the Yorkshire Union of Artists.
Bibliography:
Staithes Group Centenary Exhibition, Rosamund Jordan 2003
A Romance with the North East, Robert and Isa Jobling, John Millard, Tyne and Wear
Museums, 1992.
The Artists of Northumbria, Marshall Hall, 2nd Edition, Titus Wilson & son Ltd., Kendal,
1982.
The Staithes Group, Peter Phillips, Phillips and Sons, Marlow1993
The Yorkshire Union of Artists 1888 – 1922, Dennis Child, Leeds Philosophical and
Literary Society Ltd, Leeds 2001
The Dictionary of British Artists 1880 – 1940, J. Johnson & A. Greutzner, Antique
Collectors’ Club, Woodbridge 1976 © Rosamund Jordan 2005
