Francis St John Corbet Gore

The following obituary first appeared in The Times on 15 May 2010.

St John Gore, CBE, art historian (born 8 April 1921; died  23 April 2010, aged 89)

For 30 years St John Gore — invariably known as Bobby — was adviser on pictures to the National Trust, playing a key role in the development of its collections and preparing properties for opening to the public. He showed a deft touch by insisting on the inclusion of gift shops and restaurants, innovations that have subsequently become commonplace at historic houses.

It was while recovering in a military hospital in Italy during the Second World War that his career as an art historian really began. Gore, who had risen to the rank of captain in the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, was wounded during the Italian campaign but fortutiously found himself in a neighbouring hospital bed to Horace Buttery, a well-known picture restorer.

Inspired, he explored as much of southern Italy as he could on foot, seeking out works of art and fuelling his love of art and of sightseeing, the great joy of his later life. During his walk, he reached Arezzo in quest of Piero della Francesca’s fresco cycle. He was picking irises when he strayed across two German soldiers. Thinking quickly, he arrested them and delivered them to the authorities, presenting a curious sight as he followed them down the hill, irises in one hand and an unloaded pistol in the other.

Francis St John Corbet Gore was the eldest of three sons of Francis Gore and Kirsteen Corbet-Singleton. His father had been gassed in the First World War and spent much of his time in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) for health reasons. He died when Gore was 16. Gore was educated at Wellington and RMA Sandhurst and in 1939 was commissioned into the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, serving in North Africa as well as Italy.

After the war he studied under Anthony Blunt at the Courtauld Institute of Art. From 1950 to 1955 he was employed by Sotheby’s and then in 1956, on Blunt’s recommendation, he became the National Trust’s adviser on pictures, the second holder of that title. His particular forte was the study of European paintings.

He prepared Clandon, in Surrey, and Chartwell, the former home of Sir Winston Churchill, in Kent, for public opening. He catalogued the paintings at houses such as Saltram in Devon, and Polesden Lacey in Surrey. In all his work for the trust, he was a purist, acutely aware of the importance of all elements being in historical and aesthetic harmony. He was respected by Pat Gibson, chairman of the trust, who appointed him in the mid-1970s to set up curatorial services in all the regions. Gore did this by shrewd selection of the right people, inspiring considerable loyalty by his evident dependence on those who helped him. He set up the arts panel, which met regularly at Uppark in Sussex. This panel advised staff and trustees on the curatorship and conservation of historic properties.

Gore was part of a team, highly respected by James Lees-Milne, who did much to establish the National Trust, which included Sir Brinsley Ford and Martin Drury. In 1974 Lees-Milne described Gore as “very sweet, appreciative and delightful company. His only minus is over-solicitude, which most decent people would reckon a plus.” In all his work he possessed a firm will under a tentative exterior.

Gore succeeded Robin Fedden as secretary of the Historic Buildings Society, also part of the National Trust, in 1973, serving until 1981. Gore retired from the trust in 1986, becoming honorary adviser. When Blunt was denounced as a former Soviet spy in 1979, Gore wrote to commiserate. Blunt replied that affection remained while malice evaporated and, with no further mention of the furore, embarked on his admiration of Pietro da Cortona, an architect he had lately discovered. Gore concluded that Blunt was a dual personality, able to switch instantly from one persona to another.

Gore was a member of the executive committee of the National Art Collections Fund from 1964 to 1997, a trustee of the Wallace Collection from 1975 to 1989 and of the National Gallery from 1986 to 1994.

He published the Catalogue of British Pictures in the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts (1974) and contributed to a number of exhibition catalogues for the Royal Academy, Apollo and Country Life. He was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and appointed CBE in 1986. He enjoyed his role as honorary secretary of the Society of Dilettanti, succeeding Brinsley Ford. For relaxation he enjoyed Proust, Wodehouse and Hergé’s Tintin. He was a respected host with perfect manners and what one friend described as the “best private palate in London”.

He was married three times, first in 1951 to Priscilla, daughter of Cecil Harmsworth King, owner of Mirror Group Newspapers. They were divorced in 1975. In 1981 he married Lady Mary Strachey, who died in 2000. Last year he married Mary Barrow and she survives him with a son and daughter from his first marriage.

The following obituary first appeared in the Daily Telegraph on 13 May 2010

St John (Bobby) Gore, who died on April 23 aged 89, was one of the first of the postwar generation of British art historians and made a distinguished contribution to the study of European painting; as Historic Buildings Secretary for the National Trust, he laid the foundations of the Trust's reputation as an expert custodian of historic houses.

Whilst serving in the Army during the Second World War, Gore was wounded during the Italian campaign; and when he was recuperating in a military hospital in southern Italy he found himself in the next bed to Horace Buttery, a celebrated restorer of paintings. Urged on by Buttery, Gore discharged himself and, with Buttery's copy of Vasari's Lives of the Artists in his pocket, set off on foot to see as many works of art as he could before rejoining his regiment.

The adventures that followed gave him an enduring love of Italian art and sightseeing and determined the course of his life. It may also be why he often used to say that to understand and enjoy a work of art, you have to work at it.
 
Francis St John Corbet Gore was born on April 8 1921 and spent his childhood in Suffolk. His father had been gassed while fighting on the Somme and for the sake of his health was often abroad, spending long periods in Assam, where he worked as an engineer on a tea plantation. When in Suffolk he instilled in his son a love of field sports, and his death when Bobby was 16 was a devastating blow.

Bobby was educated at Wellington and went on to Sandhurst, where he was in the last intake before the outbreak of war. Commissioned into the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, he served in North Africa and Italy, where he was twice wounded.

Towards the end of his epic walk through war-ravaged Italy, Gore entered the confusion of no-man's land. Making a detour to see Piero della Francesca's great fresco cycle in Arezzo, he found it bricked-up and invisible – and on emerging from the church, he narrowly escaped the notice of a German army vehicle parked across the road.

A few days later, while picking wild irises, he came upon two forlorn young German soldiers who had become detached from their unit. Drawing his pistol, Gore arrested them and with flowers in one hand and pistol in the other, marched them into captivity. Afterwards, he found that his pistol was not loaded.

After the war Gore enrolled at the Courtauld, where he was inspired by the lectures of Johannes Wilde on Italian Renaissance art. He spent vacations on the Continent looking at pictures and completed the three-year course in only two. Five years at Sotheby's followed, where daily examination of pictures, good and bad, refined his judgment; but the lack of time for research caused him to realise that his future lay not in the art trade, but in the world of study and curatorship.

An introduction to the chairman of the National Trust, Lord Crawford, led in 1956 to Gore's appointment as the Trust's first Adviser on Paintings, a post he occupied for 30 years. In a characteristically elegant and self-deprecating piece he wrote for Apollo magazine in 1993, he described the job as "bringing felicity in abundance, but also – because I was dealing with artefacts and not human beings – a corresponding degree of anxiety".

From 1966 to 1974 he was also historic buildings representative for south-east England, where it fell to him to prepare Clandon Park and Churchill's home, Chartwell, for opening to the public. At both houses he created a gift shop and a restaurant, innovations that were to become standard features of houses open to the public. From 1974 to 1981 he was Historic Buildings Secretary (the post first held by James Lees-Milne and immortalised in his diaries) with responsibility for the presentation, curatorship and conservation of all the Trust's houses and their contents.

As Adviser on Paintings, Gore published catalogues of the pictures at Upton, Polesden Lacey, Buscot, Saltram and Ascott. He bequeathed to his successor his careful notes from 30 years' research on other collections, and established principles of conservation and curatorship by which the National Trust is still guided. He also found time to catalogue the British pictures in the Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts, and to write catalogues for numerous exhibitions, including several at the Royal Academy.

As Historic Buildings Secretary, he set up the Trust's first textile conservation workrooms and laid the foundations of a professional conservation service. Through the imaginative synthesis of traditional country house practices with modern science, this was tailored to serve the Trust's policy of showing its houses not as object-based museums, but as buildings in private occupation.

Gore realised – and was among the first to do so – how much the aesthetic appeal of an old house depends on the relationship between objects and materials that have aged together, and how easily that precious harmony can be disrupted by an over-cleaned picture or gilding too-zealously burnished.

In his private life he was an engaging companion whose sense of fun and impeccable manners won him many friends. This convivial side of his nature found perfect expression in his knowledge and enjoyment of wine and in his duties as secretary of the Society of Dilettanti, founded in the 18th century by a group of young men who had been on the Grand Tour. He delighted in the Society's arcane procedures, and his minutes, which he read out after dinner with mock gravity, were minor masterpieces of literary composition.

Bobby Gore was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries; a trustee of the National Gallery and of the Wallace Collection; and a member for 33 years of the executive committee of the Art Fund. On retiring from the National Trust in 1986 he was appointed CBE.

His marriage to Priscilla, daughter of Cecil Harmsworth King, was dissolved in 1975. In 1981 he married Mary Strachey, daughter of the 3rd Earl of Selborne. She died in 2000, and in 2009 he married Mary Barrow, a childhood friend, who survives him with a son and daughter of his first marriage.