In our first Jot on the artist and cook Scotson-Clark, we referred to the time he spent working in the City just after he had left school. After reading further into his very autobiographical book we now know much more after about this period in his life. It seems that one of his jobs was as a clerk in ‘ a very old-established wine business ‘. He describes the premises with the eye of a painter:

‘ The office was spacious, with large windows. In the winter a comfortable fire burned in the large open grate in the outer office. Green silk curtains screened the lower part of the windows from the vulgar gaze of the passer-by, and corresponding green silk curtains screened the upper part of the desks from the customers or visitors who chanced to call. The ledgers were so large that it was as much as I could do to carry them from the safe to my desk. Quill pens had retired in favour of steel ones on my entry, as had the sand-box in favour of blotting paper. There was no evidence of wine about the place—that would have been vulgar—but the atmosphere was charged with a delicious blend of the sweet aromae of wine, brandy and corks, that came up from the cellar…’

Scotson-Clark then goes on to describe the process of wine-tasting performed by the chief of the business, ‘a most polished gentleman if the old school’.

‘ I have often him with six or seven glasses of wine before him—each glass with a hidden label on the foot, reject four o five on the bouquet alone and then the remaining ones would be tested and arranged in their order of merit before the labels were looked at. And then came the final test of colour. A special old Waterford glass was used for this. It was most beautifully cut, though the lip was as thin as a visiting card. The stem was a trifle dumpy because it had been broken many times and blown together again, and with each repair , so had the stem shrunk. Then there was a special glass for claret, one with an out-turned lip. He liked it because it distributed the bouquet. Now the dock glass you will remember is slightly larger at the bottom than at the top, the alleged object being to concentrate the bouquet so that it escapes just below the nostrils…The glass should be wide enough at the top to admit the nose of moderate proportions, for the bouquet of the vintage is of great importance as the taste.

Champagne should not be taken from a tumbler except as a “corpse reviver” in the forenoon, and at that hour and, for that purpose, an inferior wine is as suitable as a good one, especially if it be “Niblitized”, that is, has incorporated in it a liqueur glass of brandy and a squeeze of lime, with the rind dropped in the glass. Neither the palate nor the stomach is in a fit condition to receive champagne before 8 p.m., and then it should be taken from the thinnest of thin glasses, either of the trumpet or inverted mushroom shape….On principle I am against hollow stems, except as curiosities. Nor do I like coloured glasses, except for hock which is apt to be slightly cloudy

George Frederick Scotson-Clark

Some cooks may be artists in their own way, but artists are rarely cooks. But if this little book, Eating without Fears, a minor  best-seller in 1924 ( we have a third edition which we found in the Jot 101 archive at HQ) is any indication, the fin de siecle artist, G. F. Scotson –Clark was certainly both, albeit in a very minor way.

Scotson-Clark, the son of a famous organists and composer was the same age as his fellow illustrator and friend Aubrey Beardsley, and was in the same class with him at Brighton Grammar School.  But while Beardsley left school to pursue a brilliant but short career, his friend decided to try his luck in the City ( his biographers described him as a ‘ businessman ‘), only to change direction at the age of twenty when he emigrated to the United States. Here he may well have continued as a businessman for all we know, but what we do know is that his natural talent for drawing ( he appears to have been self-taught) saw him supplying art work for several American newspapers and magazines, including the New York Sunday World. He also designed posters for The Outing and worked as a stage and costume designer.

Then, in 1897, aged twenty-five, Scotson-Clark returned to England, where he remained until his death. He continued to design posters, mainly for the theatre, and his interest in the Music Hall is strongly evident in perhaps his best-known ( and certainly most expensive book), The Halls, which appeared in 1906. Scotson-Clark, though talented as a graphic artist , lacked the amazing originality of Beardsley, hence perhaps his comparatively low-profile as an illustrator today. His plates for The Halls, for instance, are strongly influences by the ‘ Beggarstaff Brothers ‘ who were very popular at around the same time.