Being Bertie

Albert 'Bertie' Wainwright was a student at the Leeds School of Art around 1914; he was still an art student in 1918. Wainwright and his school friend Henry Moore's creative talents were nurtured and encouraged by Alice Gostick, art teacher and potter at Castleford School. Gostick encouraged Wainwright to apply to Leeds. One of Wainwright's first exhibitions was at Leeds Art Gallery in 1919; critics compared his work to Aubrey Beardsley but 'more wholesome'. Wainwright's sexual orientation was perhaps not general knowledge, but the comparison tapped into Beardsley's connections to Oscar Wilde and his milieu and the fallout of Wilde's trial for 'gross indecency'. Wainwright's artistic output was immense. He exhibited paintings and illustrations, wrote stories and plays, some for broadcast, designed pottery, costumes and sets and lectured in art. It is interesting to compare the course of his relatively low-key life with the renowned international status of his one-time friend Henry Moore. Perhaps Wainwright's sexuality, male homosexuality was illegal in Britain until 1967, forced him to remain circumspect. He was not by nature a self-advertiser, but locally he had his backers such as Sir Michael Sadler, Vice-Chancellor of Leeds University, and Frank Rutter, art critic and Curator of Leeds Art Gallery. For most of his life, he lived and worked in his native Yorkshire, and he was reportedly a man of good humour and a personality that made him good company. He became a member of the Leeds Arts Club, embedding himself in Yorkshire's artistic and cultural scene. 

Wainwright, still an art student during WW1 and in touch with socialist and ideological thinking, may have entertained the notion of being a conscientious objector. Still, he enlisted in the Royal Flying Corps in February 1918, joining the newly formed Royal Air Force later that year. He was promoted to Corporal (124144) in July 1918; his trade was a Fitter/Rigger. In March 1919, he transferred to the RAF Reserve.

Until 1920 he and Moore corresponded and were good friends, but this relationship inexplicably ended abruptly. His London debut at the Goupil Gallery took place in 1921, and he exhibited widely during the 1920s and 1930s. Wainwright had great success as a playwright, producer, costume and set designer. His second play in 1926, Michael Gabriel, was produced by the Little Theatre in Leeds. The plot may offer some insight into Wainwright's feelings at the time. It introduces a lonely boy, a dreamer, who left his matter-of-fact home life finding himself at a magic well where he conjures up a playmate, Michael Gabriel. Michael finds the rough and tumble of real life too much and retreats back to his own 'shining people' whence he came. Wainwright's child-friendly plot may reflect his experiences of isolation caused by his sexuality and a yearning to belong. Contemporary audiences found Wainwright's plays thin on story and plot but appreciated the conspicuous costumes and impressive sets and production of his plays. He continued to produce and design plays across the West Riding, creating a growing reputation on the stage. His shows included his own and the whole gamut of stage work, including Greek tragedies through contemporary playwrights; among his most ambitious were the theatrical sets and costumes for the 1927 Kirkstall Abbey Miracle Play.

In 1927 he was temporary art master at his old school at Castleford. In the same year, he made his first trip to Germany. He fell in love with interwar Germany painting and drawing the people and little-known landscape of the country. Germany tolerated a transgender, gay subculture to a greater extent than Britain. Wainwright's work does not reflect this overt gay culture. Still, he included signs and hints, hidden references, to his true sexuality throughout his work, including the tenderness he depicts athletic boys in various settings, especially outdoor activities. Wainwright, as a teacher, organised exchange trips for young men between the UK and Germany. He was able to innocently paint and draw adolescent boys, seeing in them a beauty not usually tolerated by Society. An appreciation of his work in the Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer lauded especially his design work and guardedly mentioned his 'watercolour portraits of young people'. Wainwright's visits to Germany and Austria dried up as the ascendency of Hitler and the Nazis began to change the laws and liberal attitudes towards minorities and subcultures.

In 1939 Wainwright described himself as a Commercial Designer; this may reflect his theatrical and illustrative work, which included books produced by the Leeds publisher the Swan Press. In 1943 Wainwright was appointed as art master in Bridlington. He was also working on military camouflage as a camoufleur. One of the sites he worked on was the top-secret Starfish Decoy site at Elsham Wolds in North Lincolnshire. 

Due to meningitis complications, Wainwright collapsed on a bus near Harewood.  His Wesleyan sisters Maud and Hilda destroyed much of his legacy to 'protect his reputation'. They assiduously burned his intimate diaries and more revealing drawings. At least some were saved by a Manchester dealer who had acquired Wainwright's work before his death. He left behind many sketchbooks which provide a glimpse of gay love in mid-century Britain, intended as private ruminations. The work that survives expresses tenderness and compassion between men that would have been intolerable to Society at the time. In recent years Wainwright's reputation has been reassessed, and he was afforded an exhibition at the Hepworth in Wakefield in 2014.

Wainwright was born on 4 May 1898 in Castleford, West Riding, the son of William Wainwright, a Mechanic, and Ada Wetherill. He died near Harewood on a bus travelling between Bridlington and Harrogate on 31 August 1943.