Winchester College Publication English Watercolours from the Adam Crick Bequest | Page 2

Adam Crick – Collector
A
dam Crick (1957-2016) was a boy at Winchester
College who later returned to teach English at
the school. His first job after leaving Oxford, was as a
porter at the auctioneers Bonhams. He collected many
things and was also a bibliophile, but watercolours were
his chief passion as a collector. When young, he saw a
Francis Towne reproduced in an edition of Wordsworth’s
poetry. From that moment on, Towne’s distinctive
combination of delicate but determined line and daringly
unmodulated washes exerted a hold on Adam. When he
was eventually able to buy Townes, which in some cases
cost tens of thousands of pounds, he would describe
having a sick feeling in his stomach as the auction
hammer came down. But his buyer’s remorse did not last
long as he took pleasure in living with the works and in
showing them to his friends.
Here are two excerpts from postcards he wrote that
give a sense of the aches and triumphs of collecting: ‘On
Sunday the lure of watercolours drove me up to London
+ I saved an enormous amount of money by not buying
anything, though I saw a lovely John White Abbott – all
the w/c’s which I recognised from sales catalogues were
doubled in price.’ And, ‘I have been buying more pictures,
unbelievably (??): a small Rowlandson which I have
had on my mind for a decade and found by chance in a
London Gallery – and this small, jewel-like Towne which
I saw at an exhibition in Colnaghi – thought wonderful
but too expensive + regretted.’
In a copy of Timothy Wilcox’s Tate catalogue on Francis
Towne, Adam inscribed ‘…my favourite painter – who
seems to bring time itself to a standstill’. Adam loved
walking in the countryside and swimming in rivers and
the sea. Looking at these watercolours, we may imagine
for ourselves an exquisite moment of stillness in a walk
through nature.
It was important to Adam that boys in the College
should see the watercolours, but also that the general
public had access to them, which the new Treasury is
designed to do. Through his generosity, his collection –
and his sensibility – is here for everyone to enjoy.
Laurence Wolff
Head of Art History
Bound in a Nutshell, a volume
of Adam Crick’s poetry, is
available in Wells bookshop
on College Street
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Photograph
by Iona Wolff
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