Jan Gordon died age 61 at 48D, Clanricarde Gardens, Bayswater, London in February 1944.
Jack Bilbo wrote an obituary, "Salute to Jan Gordon", in the October 1944 issue of The Studio magazine.
“I remember when he and Cora used to sit in my den on Saturday afternoons when the gallery was closed, when we exchanged travel experiences from Spain and Yugoslavia, from Mexico and Scandinavia, or talked about artists and paintings, how the four walls of my little room seemed to move away into far distances.”
Another obituary of Jan Gordon, published in the Glasgow Herald of February 4th 1944, observed that "Mr Gordon's many-sidedness had a touch of the Italian Renaissance." "He was trained as a mining engineer, but a Bohemian streak in him soon tempted him to Paris and the Quartier Latin."
Perhaps the best epitaph for the life the Gordons led can be found in Cora's "The Artist as a Traveller", published in October 1950 as part of a collection of "original contributions towards a philosophy of travel." It begins with, "The artist is a privileged traveller, for his is the only quest that is almost bound to be successful. In other respects, too, artists on their travels enjoy more privileges than other mortals. For one thing the simple people of this world seem to have an innate sympathy for them, at worst a sort of tolerance." It is a delightful meditation on all of their travels together. See: http://janandcoragordonart.blogspot.com/2015/03/cora-gordon-on-artist-as-traveller-1950.html
Apologies, missed this! Fantastic, would love to learn what you discover and it sounds like a fine topic for a book.
Ml Muldoon
22-May-2020 21:23
Am doing a bit of research on Jan and Cora’s trip to the Aran Islands in 1931. Thanks for the information. Might have left it a bit late to ask if anybody remembers them but that Sunbeam bike and sidecar would have made quite an impression. Ml Muldoon