nina hamnett the best tits in europe part 11

 



by the hand. He was some important diplomat's 
aide-de-camp, and was covered with medals of all 




THE PLOUGH, MUSEUM STREET 



kinds and gold braid. I was introduced to him and 

we became the centre of interest of all the old ladies 

and gentlemen. My friends still had my flat in 




Great James Street and I thought that I would stay 
there. When I got there I found that they had gone 

 (the First World War the restaurant of the Hôtel de la Tour Eiffel at 1 
Percy 
Street, London W1, became a favourite haunt of Augustus John,Wyndham 
Lewis, Nancy 
Cunard and their literary friends. T. E. Hulme's Poet's Club, including 
the subsequent founders of Imagism, F. S. Flint and Ezra Pound, met 
there in 1910, and Wyndham Lewis launched the Vorticist 
magazine Blast there in 1914. Both Lewis and Roberts produced decorations for the restaurant, and 
Roberts describes it in his posthumously published memoir 'The "Twenties"'. This group portrait shows the Vorticists Cuthbert

 Hamilton, Ezra Pound, William 
Roberts, Wyndham Lewis, Frederick Etchells (holding the first issue of Blast), Edward Wadsworth, Jessie Dismoor

 and Helen Saunders, the waiter – Joe – and the Tour Eiffel's proprietor,

 Rudolph Stulik. Roberts commented on the evenings at the restaurant in his article 'Wyndham Lewis, the Vorticist

' in The Listener on 21 March 1957: 'In my memory la cuisine Française 

and Vorticism are indissolubly linked.' 

Wyndham  Lewis had been living in Percy 
Street since 1914 and having most of his meals next door at the Tour Eiffel. He soon 
became a favourite of Stulik's, who, according to Roberts, used to tell him: 'I vould 
[sic] do anyting [sic] for Mr Lewis.' In the earlier part of 1915 Lewis was deeply involved with his new 
magazine Blast and the promulgation in it of Vorticism. He had 
gathered a group of adoring, and 
not so adoring, artists around him. From his next-door flat he swept 
them round to 
Stulik's for dinner on a number of occasions, the meals being paid for 
by a mixture 
of Stulik's individual style of accounting – which allowed his rich 
clientele to pay for his impoverished, but talented, clientele 
– and by these talented young people earning their keep. That is, in the
 case of Lewis 
– and later Roberts – making paintings for Stulik's growing, but 
artistically haphazard, collection.

The White Tower first opened as a restaurant in 1896. The building soon became The Eiffel Tower restaurant, becoming inextricably linked with artists and bohemians, in particular the Post-Impressionist and The Vorticist movements, throughout the 20s and 30s. The restaurant was immortalised in William Roberts’ painting, now in the possession of the Tate Gallery, “The Vorticists at the Restaurant de La Tour Eiffel”.
The restaurant remained in the hands of owner Rudolf Stulik until 1943, when it passed into the care of Greek restaurateur Yanni Stais and it became The White Tower in 1949.
For over forty years The White Tower enjoyed a reputation for excellence and was enthusiastically lauded by some Soho gourmets as “the greatest Greek restaurant in the world’. Yanni presided over what had become one of London’s most famous restaurants until his death in 1983, and The White Tower remained on the site until The No.1 Cigar Club took up its residency in 1997.)

away and had taken the key with them. 

 I went to 
the Eiffel Tower where I found Tommy Earp. 
Tommy said that he had a spare room at Regent 
Square  

and I could stay there until I could get my 
key from my friends. I had dinner at the Eiffel and 
we decided to call on the way back to Regent 
Square, 

 on a friend of ours who lived in Bedford 
Square.  

We rang her up and she asked us to come 
and see her. When we arrived she unfolded a tragic 
story. Her father had gone away that morning 
leaving a very old mahogany box in the drawing- 
room, containing bottles of brandy and wine, but 
the key could not be found. We all gazed at this 
very solid looking box, with its iron lock and enor 
mous keyhole. Silently Tommy took the poker, I 
took a corkscrew, our hostess took a nail file, and 
another girl took a fork and got seriously to work on 
the box. We wrenched and dug and poked furiously 
for about ten minutes with no success at all. Finally, 
Tommy attacked the hinge with the poker and it 
showed signs of opening but, alas! the box lifted 
from the ground and then dropped down with a 
thud and a dreadful noise of smashing glass. Out 
of it poured a long river of red liquid. Tommy, with 
great presence of mind, seized a tumbler and held 
it between the lid and the box. He filled the glass. 
From another portion of the box a small stream 
trickled along the parquet floor and made rivulets, 
which formed into a small lake. This was all very 
disheartening. We shared the glass. It tasted like 
 

brandy, red wine, and mahogany. Later on our 
friend went out to replace the bottles. She bought 
whisky and red wine. Next morning she found 
the key of the box in an envelope addressed to 
her brother in the hall. The bottles did not con 
tain whisky but brandy. After this disaster we 
went to Regent Square. Some time before, the 
flat had been shared by  

Aldous Huxley and his wife. 
Upstairs lived two elderly ladies. They made, 
sometimes in the evenings, a great deal of noise. 
The landlord was a retired vicar. Aldous wrote a 
letter complaining of the noise and asked him if he 
would be kind enough to ask the ladies to stop their 
nocturnal " bombinations "; the French slang for 
raising hell and disturbing everyone is to faire la 
bombe, and this word was an invention of his. The 
Vicar wrote a pained letter back and said that he 
was quite certain that the Misses A. were quite 
incapable of committing any kind of abomination. 
The flat was, at this time, shared by Russell Green 
and his wife. Russell had been a contemporary of 
Tommy's at Oxford. Facing the Square was a large 
room with two windows and book-cases with very 
fine books. First editions of Restoration Plays and 
all kinds of rare and interesting works. By the 
window was a telephone and in front of the fire was 
a large wicker " Oxford " armchair. Near the door 
was a divan on which Tommy slept. As I had 
travelled all day and was tired I said that I would 
like to go to bed. Tommy gave me a bottle of Bass 
to drink, if I was thirsty during the night, and went 
into the kitchen, saying that he was going to cook 




 

earp

 some onions. He showed me my room, which was 
at the back and facing some roofs. I had been 
foolish enough to register my luggage only as far as 
Calais and had no clothes at all except what I had 
on. I had to sleep in a very old,, short, and ragged 
chemise. About five a.m. I woke up choking. The 
room was full of smoke and smelt as if something 
was burning. I did not take this very seriously as I 
thought that Tommy had probably burnt the 
onions. I tried to sleep and suddenly there was a 
banging on the door and I heard Tommy say, 
" Don't you think that you had better get up, you 
know the house is on fire." I jumped out of bed and 
opened the door. In burst flames and smoke. The 
smoke was so thick in the passage that I could not 
breathe, and I seized a towel, which I stuffed into 
my mouth, and held my nose. I found my way 
downstairs, still in the very short chemise and, stand 
ing at the bottom of the staircase, was the vicar with 
his hat on. I found out afterwards that the reason 
that he wore his hat was that he usually wore a wig 
and during the excitement was unable to lay his 
hand on it. I felt slightly embarrassed and so, I 
think, did the Vicar. I saw an umbrella-stand and 
hat-rack and on it hung a clergyman's top coat. I 
grabbed it and put it on as, after the fiery furnace 
upstairs, I felt rather cold. Russell Green had gone 
to the nearest fire alarm and sent for the Fire 
Brigade. He came back and he and his wife and I 
took some of the clergyman's chairs and sat in a row 
just inside the front door waiting for the firemen. 
They arrived in a few minutes and laid on the hose, 



We still sat on our chairs and rested our feet on the 
hose pipe. Tommy never came down at all. He 
was upstairs in the kitchen handing the firemen 
beer. We asked them if they considered that it was 
a good fire and one fireman said, " Not  arf, burnt 
the 'ole bloomin' floor out.  We asked Tommy 
afterwards why he did not come downstairs, and 
pointed out to him the risk he was taking of being 
burnt to death. He had, apparently, not thought of 
that and explained that he objected to " Personal 
injury.  I suppose he meant fighting his way 
through the flames and smoke. The fire, fortun 
ately, did not get as far as the kitchen, although it 
raged outside. Suddenly, Russell Green remembered 
that he had left the manuscript of his novel up 
stairs and I realized that my passport was in my 
room. We took each other by the hand and went 
upstairs through the flames and smoke. He found 
his manuscript and I snatched my passport from 
the dressing-table, which I was able to feel my way 
to. It was impossible to even open one's eyes, the 
smoke was so thick. To have one's lungs filled with 
smoke is a most disagreeable feeling and I hope that 
I shall never be in another fire. Apparently it 
started by Tommy having gone to sleep, probably 
having left a lighted cigarette end on the floor. 
The whole of the floor of his room was burnt out 
before he woke up. It was only when the sleeve 
of his pyjamas became singed that he woke up. 
He was very ill for days afterwards. A great many 
of the books were destroyed, but fortunately he was 
insured. I felt awful and arrived at a friend's flat at 




about eight a.m. She said, " Where on earth have 
you been to, you smell like a smoked herring? " I 
said, " I am." I had a bath and was regaled with 
brandy as I felt very sick. 

The next day I found my friends who had my 
flat and got the latch-key and stayed there. I had 
to arrange about my show and get my water- 
colours framed. I had hardly any money and felt 
very gloomy. I could not pay for the frames so 
decided to visit a kind uncle who had a business in 
the city. He was the brother of my terrifying aunt. 
I explained my troubles and he was kind enough 
to lend me the money (I have never paid him back, 
I am ashamed to say, but I will some day) to pay 
for them. My luck was in a very bad way as the day 
my exhibition opened there was a coal strike. I 
had a good private view, that is to say, all kinds of 
people came, but all I sold during the whole show 
was one drawing for seven guineas. Nancy Cunard 
was in London. She asked me to a luncheon party 
that her mother was giving in 

 Garlton House 
Terrace. During the morning I had arranged to 
do a drawing of 

Stulik, the proprietor of the Eiffel 
Tower Restaurant. I worked for several hours and 
did a drawing in pencil which, although I don't 
think a good drawing, is, at any rate, an excellent 
likeness. It occurred to me that I might as well 
take it to the luncheon party and show it to Nancy, 
as she knew Stulik so well. I arrived, feeling rather 
nervous, and left the drawing in the hall with my 
coat. The footman showed me into a drawing- 
room. I had never seen Lady Cunard before, but, 







 

of course, knew her at once by her resemblance to 
Nancy* She was perfectly charming and I felt at 
once at my ease. I met Lord Inchcape above  and Lady 
Cynthia Asquith and then Aldous Huxley, the Sit- 
wells and several other people came in. I sat next 
Lord Inchcape at luncheon and was rather fright 
ened, but Lady Cunard is such a wonderful hostess 
that no one could possibly feel nervous for more 
than a second. After luncheon she sat beside me 
and asked me what work I had been doing. I said 
that I had spent the morning drawing Stulik and 
she said how much she would like to see it. I said 
that I had got it with me. I fetched it from the hall 
and they all liked it very much. Lady Cunard 
asked me if I would do a drawing of Nancy, and 
how much would I charge ? I said boldly, " Ten 
guineas and I arranged a sitting a few days later. 
I did, I think, quite a good drawing and got my 
cheque the next morning. If only more patrons of 
art would treat artists in this way we would not be 
so frequently " in the soup.  

I visited my exhibition every day and felt gloomier 
and gloomier. In the evening I went to the Eiffel 
Tower and wondered if I should ever get back to 
Paris. After the show closed, some kind person 
bought a small picture and I took the first train 
back to Paris. During this visit to London I had 
looked with interest at the river and the dirty streets, 
and began to think that I might be able, some day, 
to paint them. I felt, however, that I had not yet 
got all that I could from Paris and that I should 
have to stay there for still some years. I had my 

 



 Ethelbert and Elizabeth White - Portrait by Nina Hamnett (1918)

water-colours sent back to France. It is impossible 
to find out the reasons for people buying pictures. 
I had excellent criticisms and the pictures were very 
bright and gay. I have since sold them nearly all 
and destroyed a few that I did not like. It is really 
the greatest mistake to destroy one's drawings or 
paintings. The last time I was in Paris, three and 
a half years ago, I went to the studio where the 
Pole still was, bought a bottle of wine, and burnt 
about fifteen oil paintings and two hundred drawings 
in a fit of rage. I have learnt a lesson since, as, not 
so very long ago, a man turned up and said that he 
would like to buy some drawings. He looked 
through dozens of drawings and finally asked me if 
I had any oil paintings. I looked in cupboards and 
in corners and found some, and at last came to a 
still-life, that I had very nearly put into the dustbin. 
I took it out and showed it to him. He gazed at it 
for some time and asked me how much I wanted for 
it. I said " twenty guineas. " He thought for some 
time and said, " I will give you fifteen guineas 
down." I said, " Yes." Having not seen it for 
s some years I realized that it was not so bad as I had 
thought. frys painting of nina 

I still lived in Modigliani's studio and painted 
portraits of any kind of odd-looking person that I 
could find. A friend of my Pole's had been to 
Marseilles and there had found a Tunisian who was 
a very tough character. He had brought him back 
to Paris to be his cook, valet, and general servant. 
He had very black eyes, in one of which was a cast. 
He wore a check cap and a blue linen suit, no collar 


and espadrilles. He would suddenly appear late at 
night at the Parnasse to fetch his master home. One 
suddenly turned round on the terrasse and saw him 
standing like a statue. I asked him if he would 
come and sit for me and one afternoon I heard a 
knock on the door. The staircase was very long 
and, as a rule,, one could hear people pounding and 
groaning up the staircase. He sat without moving. 
He was quite terrifying, as, like Landru, 

 he never 
blinked his eyelids. I became almost hypnotized 
and had to ask him to rest about every quarter of an 
hour. I did a good painting of him, which was 
eventually accepted by the Salon d'Automne. I 
sold it the other day to Miss Ruth Baldwin, and it 
now hangs near the cocktail bar in her house in Chel 
sea. If one paints a good picture it is a little sad to 
think that one will never see it again. I am not 
actually speaking of that one, but some of mine have 
gone to America and Africa and some have been 
bought by people that I do not even know. I think 
writers are so much luckier than painters. In the 
first place it costs them nothing to write. To paint 
costs money. If one paints a good picture, even a 
very good one, it may have a success at an exhibition 
and be sold, and it is never heard of again until 
one is dead, or, perhaps not even then. If a writer 
writes a book its reputation, if it is a good one, goes 
on for years and the writer continues to get money 
for it. Kmetty_Janos portrait of Hamnett

An extraordinary man came daily to the Cafe 
Parnasse. He was very tall and frequently wore a 
top-hat, a tail coat, and white spats, and carried 




over his shoulders a pair of field-glasses, and he wore 
an eyeglass. He did not seem to know anyone. 
We could not make out what his nationality was. 
He appeared to be so conceited that the Arab and 
the Pole nick-named him " Mezigue "; this is the 
argot for " I," " me.  " Sezigue " is the argot for 
" he " him  just as " tezigue " is for " thou," 
" thee." One day Ortiz spoke to him and found that 
he came from Chili. His father was a merchant from 
Lancashire, who had gone to Chili and married 
there a Chilian lady. We picked him up and found 
him quite mad but very funny. He had come to Paris 
to study opera singing. We pointed out to him that 
Paris was not the place to study and that he ought 
to go to Milan. This had not occurred to him be 
fore. Later on in the evening he sang; he had a 
most wonderful voice of a very beautiful quality and 
most awfully loud. It shook the whole cafe. He 
sang us " Pagliacci " and other operas. He was, ap 
parently, quite broke and had only one other suit 
of clothes besides the top-hat. He confessed shame 
facedly to us that he earned his living by accompany 
ing Cook's tourists round Paris in a char-a-banc. 
He spoke English very well, but not so well as 
Spanish, and I asked him if he would come and sit 
for me in his top-hat. He was delighted and I 
bought a large canvas in order to paint him life- 
size. I arranged him sitting down with his legs 
crossed and holding his stick and the top-hat. In 
the background I put a Moroccan rug, which was a 
very beautiful colour; reds and blues. This rug I 
bought from one of the carpet-sellers who infest all 

 

continental cafes, and who will walk up and down 
in front of the terrasse selling rugs. We had one 
particular carpet-seller who also sold coats and 
necklaces and sometimes had really beautiful things 
for almost nothing. One day he was pestering a 
very drunken American and the American said, 
" Go away, I don't want any of your goddam 
stinking carpets' and our Moroccan answered, in 
a deeply pained voice, " Sir, it is not the carpets that 
stink, it is me." In the background of my portrait 
I put my guitar and a pot of red flowers on the 
floor. The white pot, his white collar, and the 
spats were the only white spots in the picture. The 
canvas was over five feet high, and I had to work 
like the devil, even to cover it up. My Pole was 
painting in the next room and now and then came 
and gave me criticisms. He was an extremely in 
telligent man and knew a great deal more about 
painting than I did. The top-hat was indescribably 
difficult, not only the drawing, but the shadows, 
they were so intensely black. I used no black at all 
in my palette but only dark blue, and had to paint 
the rest of him in a much higher key than I would 
otherwise have done. He was a splendid model 
and very vain, and it was almost impossible to 
stop him posing when he had once begun. One 
day his Father arrived and I was asked to meet 
him. He was a charming old gentleman of seventy- 
six, but he did not look as old. He had long 
fair whiskers and dressed in a dark blue-serge suit. 
He had rather a nautical appearance. He could 
not understand why I wanted to paint his son, 

 



whose face certainly was not what the English 
workman would describe as an " oil painting." He 
said, "I have seven sons, this one is the best, you 
can imagine what the other six are like/' I very 
much wanted to know but I did not like to ask him. 
I sent his portrait and four others to the Salon 
d'Automne. I saw Othon Friesz, 

 whom I knew 
quite well and who liked my work and, knowing 
that he was on the committee, asked him to look 
out for them. This is done in Paris as elsewhere. 
I received a notice, to my astonishment, to hear that 
they had all been accepted. I went to the Varnish 
ing Day and found, to my surprise, that they were 
not in Friesz's room at all. Each member of the 
committee has a special room, where he can hang 
the paintings of the people that he approves of. I 
looked round the Salon and found that all mine 
were very well placed in a group " On the line in 
the Salle of Andre Lhote. This was very odd, as 
apparently Friesz had not. been able to find my 
pictures on the day that the committee had judged 
them, but they had been discovered by Lhote, who 
was not on speaking terms with Friesz at the time and 
he had placed them in his salle. I had met Lhote 
one day in 1920 at the Rotonde with Wassilieff, but 
I don't think he had even seen my work and cer 
tainly did not know my name, so that I considered 
that it was a great compliment I had a few press 
notices in the French papers and one in Polish that 
was very complimentary, I decided to have a 
 One man show.  I had met Monsieur Lucien 
Vogel at the Boeuf sur le Toit. He had a very nice 








Gallery in the Rue St. Florentin, just behind the 
Place de la Concorde. I showed all my water- 
colours that had been in London, the ones from the 
Salon, the paintings of Gollioure, and some draw 
ings. It really looked quite nice. In Paris artists 
nearly always get a well-known critic to write a 
notice. I had made the acquaintance of a promi 
nent critic-editor who said that he would be de 
lighted to write one for me. He came up to my 
studio. The Pole hated him, he had a dreadful 
voice. He wrote to me asking me to visit his office 
he was the editor of an important art paper I 
arrived one day in the Boulevard Raspail to see his 
article. I think it mentioned my name once. It was 
a long discourse on English painting and nearly all 
about Roger Fry and P. Wyndham Lewis. He then 
demanded two thousand francs. I was furious and 
told him what I thought about him. He then told 
me what he thought of me and opened the door, 
pushed me out, and kicked the door to with his foot, 
so I had no notice. Cocteau and Radiguet came 
to the show and were most awfully nice. Gocteau 
said, as he said about anything that he appre 
ciated, that the drawings were, " Plus vrai que le 
vrai" And Radiguet said the most charming 
things: I think he had the best manners of anyone 
I have ever met. Brancusi came also and was very 
sweet. I think he thought they were too realistic, 
which, of course, they were. I sold very few, as it is 
very difficult to sell pictures in Paris if you are not 
French, and have not got a picture-dealer to back 
you. As, however, it often happens one sells more 





pictures after a show than during it, and during the 
few weeks after I did quite well. 

I visited the home of my friend the Countess quite 
often. She was very kind to me. One day she 
invited me to a dance. I had some quite good 
evening dresses that Marie and Nancy had given me 
and so, fortunately, I could go out looking quite 
respectable. I arrived about eleven p.m. There 
were mostly French people there, very chic women, 
and Miss Elsa Maxwell was playing the piano with 
great vigour. I danced a lot and when the people 
began to leave, the Countess said to me, " Don't 
leave but stay on, we will get rid of the dull respect 
able people and have some fun, avec des amis. 
Leading out of the ball-room was a small room 
where supper was laid. There were only about ten 
people remaining. Lady Michelham who, alas! is 
now dead, the Marquis de Segur, Cecile Sorel, 
Madame M., a beautiful Russian, and several others 
whose names I do not remember. I wore a most 
beautiful dress that the Countess had given me. It 
was long and straight and was covered all over with 
golden spangles, which looked like fishes 3 scales. . . . 
It fitted quite tight and exposed the lines of the 
figure to view and I was very much pleased with 
myself. The Marquis de Segur played the piano. 
He played very loudly and we pelted him with 
oranges, Cecile Sorel 

 and myself. She was a most 
marvellous person, magnificently dressed, with a 
most interesting face. I had seen her act and was 
very much impressed with her. She was very nice 
to me. She seized a large ham and said to me. 



" Hold the bone while I carve it." I was at the 
other side of the table and grabbed the ham bone 
and pulled, as she had the fork in the ham. The 
bone was only an imitation one and came out in my 
hand and I fell over backwards. It was one of those 
very grand hams that had been filleted. She then 
grabbed me by the shoulder of my dress and said, 
" Take this off and dance." This amused me as I 
thought of WassiliefFs studio and my performances 
there, but I said nothing and did not dance. Lady 
Michelham was charming and asked me to come 
and see her at her home at Passy.  

I knew that she 
had the most wonderful pictures and was delighted. 
The party ended about four a.m. and I went home 
to Montparnasse. Some days later I went to see 
her. She had an enormous apartment and the foot 
man showed me into a small room leading into a 
big drawing-room. I sat and waited. There were 
cases containing the most wonderful pottery and on 
the wall the sketch for Gainsborough's  Hay Cart 
which is in the National Gallery. The sketch I 
thought very much more beautiful than the finished 
picture. The finished picture had, unfortunately, 
been so much cleaned that half the paint had been 
removed also. Lady Michelham  

came in and sent 
for some cocktails. We had a long talk about life 
and gossiped about our friends. She then asked me 
if I would like to see the rest of her apartment. We 
went into a huge ball-room with a very fine Law 
rence portrait of a lady and many other splendid 
specimens of the English School. In a flat, glass 
case, in the middle of the room were the most 

 



wonderful jewels. There was one about an inch 
and a half long. It represented a semi-nude man. 
His torso was composed of a natural pearL The 
head had been modelled in gold but the pearl was 
so shaped that it represented perfectly the body of a 
man. I don't think he had legs but a fish's tail that 
was made of gold. There were other jewels in the 
rest of the design. The case was filled with equally 
beautiful pieces of jewellery. I said, with a gasp, 
cc Whatever are these? " As a matter of fact I had 
already guessed. Lady Michelham, whose memory 
was very bad, said, " I can't remember the man's 
name." I said, " Benvenuto Cellini," and she said, 
"Yes, that is his name." I said that I must be 
going, and she said, " Before you go my maid will 
give you a little box." I guessed that it would 
probably contain some clothes, as all my women 
friends were most thoughtful and kind and realized 
the importance of clothes, consequently I always 
looked well dressed. If one is smartly dressed, even 
if one lives in a garret, one can always ask more for 
one's pictures. The maid handed me a cardboard 
box about a foot and a half in length and a foot wide 
and three inches deep, which was so heavy that I 
could, only with difficulty, lift it. I placed it on the 
pavement outside and waited till a taxi appeared. 
"When I got it home I opened it and found four 
most splendid evening dresses. They were covered 
in beads and that was why the box was so heavy. I 
tried them on and they fitted me perfectly. They 
were long and straight and all being French models 
would, to-day, have been most fashionable.