Edward James
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For other people named Edward James, see Edward James (disambiguation).
Edward James (1907 - 1984) was a millionaire of an American railroad family of Irish descent, whose British (Scots) mother was reputedly the natural grand-daughter of the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII). James was educated briefly at Eton, and then at a private school in Switzerland, then at Oxford where he was a contemporary of Evelyn Waugh and Harold Acton. James was an art patron and surrealist who moved to Mexico in 1947 to grow orchids. After the orchids were destroyed by a freak snowstorm in 1962, he decided to switch to experiments in architecture.
He built a monument to surrealism called "Las Pozas", just outside of Xilitla.
In 1912 he inherited the West Dean Estate in Sussex, on the death of his father, which he subsequently bequeathed as the West Dean Foundation, a centre for the preservation of traditional arts and crafts.
Edward James's first sponsorship of note was in publishing John Betjeman's first book of poems when at Oxford University.http://www.johnbetjeman.com/biograph.htm He worked with Brian Howard on the Glass Omnibus.
In the 1930s James divorced his wife Tilly Losch and joined a social set in England which included the composer Lord Berners and the Mitford sisters.
James is best known as a passionate and early supporter of Surrealism, a movement that was born from the political uncertainty and upheaval between the wars. Rejecting the bourgeois' dominating rationality, surrealists escaped into a world of fantasy and irrationality. He sponsored Salvador Dalí for the whole of 1938 and his collection of paintings and art objects that subsequently came to be accepted as the finest collection of surrealist work in private hands. He also provided practical help, supporting Dalí for about two years and allowing Magritte to stay in his London house to do some paintings.
His intellectual interest in surrealism is demonstrated by his sponsorship of Minotaur, a lavish Surrealist magazine published in Paris. His refurbishment of Monkton House, close to West Dean House, is a Surrealist dream, (it includes a large sofa to which Dali gave the form and colour of Mae West's lips) but his most fantastic surrealist creation was realised in the Mexican rain forest. Here he built a series of unfinished palaces, temples and pagodas, populated with exotic creatures such as flamingos and boa constrictors.
At Xilitla in Mexico from the 1940s, where he was proud to be considered a 'brujo', he gave his English estate at West Dean to a charitable trust in 1964.
[edit] External links and references
- Surreal Eden:Edward James & Las Pozas by Margaret Hooks (Princeton Architectural Press, NYC 2006)
- Margaret Hooks writes about the extraordinary life of Edward James and his creation of Las Pozas, a song to surrealism in subtropical Mexico http://www.margarethooksbooks.com/
- E. James, The Glass Omnibus, privately printed London 1934.
- In the 1930s his passion for surrealism led to commissions for René Magritte and Salvador Dalí, both of whom painted him. The works are too numerous to list here.
- Nocola Coleby (ed), A Surreal Life: Edward James. Exhibiion Catalogue, Royal Pavillion (Brighton 1998)
- http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/exhibitions/littleartists/lobster.asp
- http://kspark.kaist.ac.kr/Dali/Dali.htm
- http://www.abcgallery.com/M/magritte/magritte59.html
- http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/modern/highlight_item?acc=1970.426
- http://www.westdean.org.uk/index.htm
- Concrete Jungle, by Gini Alhadeff
- From Sep 2003 edition of Travel & Leisure - Las Pozas, the fantastical sculpture garden of British aristocrat Edward James—an improbable architectural folly begun at Xilitla, in the wilds of Mexico, in 1949—remains a Surrealist's paradise
