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New Statesman
a day ago
- Entertainment
- New Statesman
David Gentleman's pensées for the novice artist
David Gentleman. Courtesy of Pelican Books Among the 400 or so instructional letters sent by Lord Chesterfield to his illegitimate son in an attempt to school the young man in 'the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman' there is one, dated 1747, that touches on the importance of art. 'I find that you are a tolerably good landscape painter, and can present the several views of Switzerland to the curious,' he wrote, 'I am very glad of it, as it is a proof of some attention.' Attention, the nobleman thought, was the key attribute not just of art but of life itself, since 'the world is a country which nobody ever yet knew by description'. Attention is also one of the elements stressed by the artist-designer David Gentleman in his own book of instruction, Lessons for Young Artists. Gentleman's is a more humble endeavour than Chesterfield's and is notable for its simplicity, but he too believes that to understand the world you need to be in it. He is now 95 and this charming, illustrated volume presents a distillation of some the wisdom gained during a near 80-year career. That span has seen him become one of Britain's most ubiquitous though least-known practitioners. On leaving the Royal College of Art in 1953 he set himself against teaching as a way of subsiding being an artist, as many of his peers did, and relied instead on commissions, for whatever was needed and wherever they came from. His first was for a set of wood engravings for a book called What About Wine? and, thanks to his versatility and inventiveness, they have kept coming. He hasn't always warmed to them, and one brief for an American company was, he later learned, for pesticides that had turned out to be poisonous for the farmers who used them. 'I realised that besides finding interesting and well-paid work, it ought to be responsible, too,' he notes. But, as he says in one of the short commentaries that explains each of his artistic nuggets, jobs are a necessity and, faced with a workaday task, 'I just had to get it done.' The reward, he says, was slow accumulation that eventually led to recognition and a reputation. Nevertheless, it was 20 years before he held an exhibition of his work. It helped that Gentleman was not just the son of two painters but was taught at the RCA by John Nash and Edward Bawden. It is a bloodline that links him directly to a group of figures who transformed British art in the first half of the 20th century, Paul Nash and Eric Ravilious among them. In the 1920s and 1930s the RCA was committed to the idea of allying art and design. Its principal, William Rothenstein, was determined to steer the students away from producing 'dreary imitations of Morris designs' and towards work that had a 'more alert spirit'. It was an ethos still prevalent when Gentleman studied there, and this heritage – and spirit – has long been apparent in his work. Indeed, Gentleman confesses that Bawden's influence in particular was in danger of becoming a little too insistent. When he noticed that there were echoes of his teacher cropping up in his own work, he 'consciously tried to avoid them'. This was not to denigrate Bawden but to make sure his own pictures were original rather than an imitation, however reverential. What makes Gentleman a significant figure is both the range and the quality of his work. He has found a form of artistic demotic that, certainly to Britons of a certain age, has a comfortable familiarity that nevertheless sparkles with imagination. Between 1962 and 2000, he created 103 stamps for the Post Office. His designs ranged from British trees, birds and building types to stamps commemorating the Battle of Britain, 50 years of the BBC, and the launch of Concorde. He has designed posters for London Transport and the National Trust and is responsible for a redesign of the Trust's oakleaf and acorn logo. He has created dustjackets for Faber & Faber and the New Penguin Shakespeare series – a staple for innumerable schoolchildren. He is responsible too for the platform murals at Charing Cross Tube Station showing the building of the Eleanor Cross, a 13th century stone monument; the commission came in 1975 with no brief from London Transport other than 'it had to explain how Charing Cross got its name'. He responded with a bande dessinée of 'medieval' wood engravings that were then expanded to life size. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Perhaps his most untypical work was with the placards he designed for the Stop the War Coalition following the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Using a typographical 'No' spattered with blood, he took advice from Tony Benn, whom he had first met when the latter served as postmaster general and Gentleman started designing stamps. For good measure, Gentleman was responsible for coming up with the 'Bliar' slogan too. So the guidance here comes from a long-lived and engaged mind. What Gentleman offers is the antidote to swathes of contemporary art-think and -speak. There is no talk in his book about 'meaning' or 'profundity', much less the wilful obfuscation and vapidity of much contemporary and conceptual art. Instead he proffers modest advice that in less authentic hands would be mere cracker-barrel slogans. Start with a pencil, he counsels, and draw quickly and then you'll get the essentials without being distracted by detail; sketch whatever is to hand; embrace the accidents of watercolour; return to motifs in different weathers and times of day; choose unlikely angles; look up. Attention, attention, attention. His pensées may not be worthy of Montesquieu but they are straightforward and have a validity that is applicable beyond the mere making of images: 'Keep your expectations slight'; 'Just get on with it'; 'You don't have to like, or be good at, everything'. And he accompanies these crisp strictures with a generous helping of his own pictures – drawings in pencil, pen and ink, wood engravings and lithographs, commercial designs and fully fledged watercolours, many from his travels. Some are from his patch of Camden Town in London (as in the view of Euston and King's Cross from the Regent's Canal, pictured above) and others are of the unshowy Suffolk countryside around the cottage he has owned for more than 40 years in a village ten miles from the coast. These pictures are invariably endearing, both observant and skilled, and, in his more considered watercolours, full of detail too. Part of their appeal is that they show a man in tune with the craft tradition; his are indisputably hand-eye works. And while David Gentleman must have looked into his soul many times over the years, he is far too good natured and well mannered to bother the viewer with what he has found there. Art, for him, is not knotted self-expression, revelation or provocation: 'We make art because it is interesting,' he says. It is not highfalutin, but it is a better definition than many. Lessons for Young Artists David Gentleman Particular Books, 192pp, £20 Purchasing a book may earn the NS a commission from who support independent bookshops [See more: Samuel Pepys's diary of a somebody] Related
Spectator
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Spectator
The Alfred Hitchcock of British painting
Carel Weight, the inimitable painter of London life and landscape, was my godfather. I remember a clownish-faced elderly man with an air of mild quizzical enquiry, who for 16 years held one of the most important teaching jobs in Britain. In charge of painting at the Royal College of Art when David Hockney passed through, Weight taught the 'Pop People' (as he called them) – Peter Blake, Patrick Caulfield and R.B. Kitaj – as well as Bridget Riley, Leon Kossoff, John Bellany and the singer-songwriter Ian Dury. Weight himself never received the critical recognition he deserved. He was overshadowed to a degree by abstract expressionism, which crash-landed from the US in the 1950s. His day may yet come. David Bowie was a collector, as was Kenneth Clark, the Civilisation presenter and National Gallery director. A delightful new memoir, The Worlds of Carel Weight by his close friend Robin Bynoe, exalts an unfairly neglected master. All Weight's artist associates and Royal College alumni are here, from Francis Bacon, John Minton and Olwyn Bowey to the Soho habitué Diana Hills, the long-suffering lover of the kitchen-sink painter John Bratby. Weight's star pupil for a while was my aunt Maret Haugas, a refugee from the Baltic who in 1960 was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Weight sent Maret many letters and postcards enquiring after her welfare: 'I always knew that you had a very great talent which wanted to get out.' He was, as Bynoe says, 'avuncular'. Beneath his bear-like amiability, though, Weight was a troubled man. His imagination was haunted by ghosts. As a child in the early 20th century he was sent to live with a foster mother in World's End at the shabby extremity of Chelsea. He was also an official war artist in post-fascist Italy, where he painted scenes of displaced humanity on fire-blackened streets. When he died in 1997, at the age of 88, the obituarists couldn't quite decide what sort of painter he had been. His work suggests influences – Munch, Turner, German expressionism – yet eludes any glib art-historical category. With Walter Sickert he shared a taste for scenes of jeopardy in dowdy, broken-down locations. 'We are all ultimately alone,' he liked to say. One critic called him 'the Alfred Hitchcock of British painting'. Weight liked women. He appointed Mary Fedden as the Royal College of Art's first female tutor, no doubt because her still lifes were reassuringly figurative, but he was politic enough to tolerate aspects of pop and the new. His urban fantasias with their big dippers and Heath Robinsonian flying machines in some ways foreshadowed the Victorian folk oddity of Peter Blake, who revered him. If Weight was out of sympathy with some of his intransigent pupils (William Green, for example, made giant aggressive abstracts by riding a bicycle over hardboards saturated in paraffin), he nevertheless gave them the freedom and self-confidence to explore, and the respect was mutual. Bynoe was amused to find a copy of Ian Dury's album New Boots and Panties among Weight's collection of Schubert and opera. 'I particularly like the song where he says 'fuck' a lot,' he told Bynoe. The late Queen acquired at least one canvas by Weight. 'Hamlet', 1962, by Carel Weight. © HARRIS MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY / © ESTATE OF CAREL WEIGHT. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 2025 / BRIDGEMAN IMAGES Weight 'grew up in the shadow of the impressionists', writes Bynoe. His two portraits of Orovida Pissarro, granddaughter of the French impressionist Camille Pissarro, are unquestionably mid-20th century British masterworks, but defiantly representational. Weight was impatient of fashions and 'movements'. Bynoe gives a memorable picture of the rackety Victorian house where he lived in south-west London with his partner Helen Roeder. A practising Catholic, Roeder took pity on a former prostitute called Janey Winifred Hearne, who, says Bynoe, counted Graham Greene among her clients. Janey became a permanent lodger at the 33 Spencer Road house. Visitors found her an unsettling presence. She had a violent streak and on one occasion went for Weight with a carving knife. Weight's 1961 portrait of Janey, 'Jane 1', shows a seated woman in funereal black with a mass of straggly dark hair. The painting suggests that the world is always on edge in Weight. The haunted, contorted figures in his work 'remind one of nothing so much as inmates on day release', writes Bynoe. Weight loved London buses and with Bynoe frequented a Chinese restaurant that he liked in Putney. In his bedroom he slept under a large self-portrait by Bellany (who called Weight 'The Prof'). Bynoe himself appears in three Weight paintings. Weight's chief concern in his last days, says his friend, was how to escape his room in Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. 'Have you got a car?' he asked. 'We'll make a dash for it.'
Vancouver Sun
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Vancouver Sun
Vancouver music teacher pursues lifelong dream to study at Oxford at age 79
Vancouver music teacher Susan Evans dreamed of studying music at Oxford University in her teens. Now she has been accepted to pursue graduate work in music theory at age 79. The only catch is the nearly $50,000 in tuition fees to study at the prestigious school. So the aspiring grad student is the subject of a GoFundMe campaign to help cover costs. It's just one more challenge for the pub owner's daughter, who originally Hals from Pontypool, Wales, to take on. She's been clearing career hurdles all her life. 'I grew up with classical music all-around but didn't pursue a music degree because I wanted to work in film,' said Evans. 'Attaining a (Masters) in film at the Royal College of Art in London in the swinging '60s was very exciting. Early jobs I had included working on one of director Mike Leigh's earliest films and editing on Led Zeppelin's 1976 concert film The Song Remains the Same.' When the silver screen tarnished, Evans went on a spiritual retreat at a the Indian ashram founded by Rajneesh. Souring on that experience, she moved to Tokyo working as a copywriter for Japanese advertising giant Dentsu. When her husband's job brought the family to Vancouver, she found yet a new career path with old origins. Get top headlines and gossip from the world of celebrity and entertainment. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sun Spots will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. 'Music was my first love and maybe not following it was a mistake, so I started teaching piano,' she said. 'Once I was back into it, I couldn't stop. By 2021, I had a UBC (bachelor's) in music and a very successful studio in North Vancouver with many, many truly excellent students.' Sensing she had peaked in that professional capacity, Evans was at yet another career crossroads. Not wanting to retire, she contemplated what else she could do. 'I didn't know what to do with myself and needed some kind of purpose, because I don't ever want to retire,' she said. 'Deciding I would really love to explore the philosophy and essence of music theory, I applied to Oxford and Cambridge knowing I would never get in. To my huge surprise, both accepted me, so here we are moving back to my home country for a year.' Among those helping Evans to realize her dream is Roxie Jin. The administrator at the Vancouver International School of Music in White Rock had worked with Evans at the school's now-closed North Vancouver campus. When she encountered a story about her former colleague on Google News, Jin hatched a plan to help with fundraising. 'I decided we could contribute our ticket proceeds from the three year-end student recitals,' said Jin. 'She attended every show giving an inspirational speech at the beginning to students and parents, which was lovely. I greatly admire her spiritual power, vast skills and knowledge as a piano teacher. She really delivers results.' Former student Selina Hung echoes Jin's thoughts. Having studied with her since Grade 7, Hung and her former teacher have kept in touch as friends. 'I've had a lot of music teachers and never met anyone as enthusiastic about piano or as passionate about classical music, which really motivates students to do their best,' said Hung. 'I'm very excited for her getting into Oxford because I knew that she had always wanted to return and pursue the opportunity. You don't meet a lot of people driven to pursue their passion at her age, so it's a dream come true.' Evans chafes slightly at the mention of age as it regards to her plans. While the professors reviewing her Oxford application initially took note of it, she said as the admissions interview continued, it became an animated discussion of her thesis and research and the years simply melted away. What was supposed to be a rushed 20-minute process turned into a lively discussion running more than 40 minutes that the professors were sorry to end. Noting that the twenty-something students she could share classrooms with might initially appraise her as unique, Evans finds that the novelty fades away when everyone dives into the subject matter and engages in learning. 'I've always felt that the purpose of life is to experience as much as you can and there is no point in just sticking to doing one thing forever,' said Evans. 'Fine if it suits you, but it's not my way. I've got my money's worth out of life and wouldn't be sad if it was done, but I'm quite happy to continue learning and experiencing more.' She says that once people stop seeing her through the lens of her age, they began to see the person and peer in front of them. Achieving a 62-year delayed goal of studying at Oxford is a 'bucket list item' achieved. sderdeyn@
The Herald Scotland
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Jasleen Kaur on her Turner Prize, education and a mural in her honour
The Glasgow-born artist won the Turner Prize last year and that is just the latest thing she has done since leaving Glasgow for London and the Royal College of Art to study for a master's degree 17 years ago. To make things even more special for her, the Berkeley Street mural sits near the Gurdwara that she attended at least twice a week when growing up. The mural has been completed by another GSA graduate in Molly Hankinson, who took inspiration from the Alter Altar installation that made Kaur the youngest nominee and winner of the prestigious art award. Despite that success, the artist remained in complete disbelief of what was happening, but she admits it is providing her with an opportunity to reignite a relationship with her home city. Jasleen Kaur and Molly Hankinson in front of the mural (Image: Robert Perry/The Herald) She said: 'It came as a surprise. I wasn't expecting it at all but what it does is rekindle some relationship with the Glasgow School of Art, which is where I did my undergrad and therefore my connection to the city. 'I moved away 17 years ago so there's something special about those connections being maintained and being cemented in some way. 'The mural also totally came out of the blue. It is being made by an artist called Molly and I was invited to come see it in the morning and it is part of her practice and a series of murals in the city. It is quite a shock to see a massive face of yourself on a building. 'I'm not a fan of being in the spotlight so the idea makes me quite nervous actually, however when I went this morning, I didn't realise it was on Berkeley Street. That is the street where the Gurdwara I went to growing up is on. I'd have been on the street twice a week at least so there's something significant about that in the city. 'It is amazing artists are being given paid opportunities in the city and artworks can be out of galleries and institutions because it's such a barrier for people accessing art. I didn't grow up accessing art, I didn't go into galleries and museums so just seeing it in the street is really important for kids and families and communities. 'It is fun and it is nice to support other artists and what they are doing in the city.' The Turner Prize award-winning exhibition was at Glasgow's Tramway and combined personal and cultural artefacts such as family photos, a classic Ford Escort draped in a doily, choral voices and bottles of Irn-Bru to reflect on Scottish Sikh identity and communal histories. Read More But how has life changed since winning the Turner Prize and being thrust into a spotlight that she admits she is not a fan of? 'It has been such a massive whirlwind', she admitted. 'I was on maternity leave when I was nominated and just when I started installing the show is when I got a bit of childcare in place so a lot has happened in the last year. 'The things that feel really lifechanging is I have support from an amazing gallery and I can take a bit of time out from teaching because I teach part time in an Art University as well. 'Those things when you have your own family and you are working several jobs to make things make sense are fundamental. I don't take it for granted.' With Kaur admits it has been important for her to continue her work and not worry about working multiple jobs at a time while looking after young kids, aged six and two. The mural is also something she can show them on return visits to Glasgow, where she admits that she would love to return to on a more permanent basis one day. She continued: 'It is really odd and that is one of the things I find the hardest to get my head around, what my kids see me doing. 'How much can change in a couple of generations? I get so emotional and sentimental about that because as someone who didn't have access to the arts or the creative industries, I'm really grateful for the education I got because that state funded education was critical for me. 'I do worry about the state of the arts in all bits of education from nursery to higher education. It is because of that education I have access to things so I have to thank. Jasleen Kaur poses with the mural (Image: Robert Perry/The Herald) 'I moved away to London to study my masters. I was supported by the Scottish Government to study at the Royal College of Art so I moved away young and as these cities do, you build relationships and friendships and networks and you end up staying. 'I'd like to think I'd come back to Glasgow at some point.' The state-funded education is something she remains passionate about and she insists she would not be where she is in life it was not for that. That is why she is concerned about the rising costs in education – particularly outwith Scotland where universities remain publicly funded – and is worried it is stopping people from making their mark. Her own story is an inspiring one and while she finds herself struggling to accept that tag, she admits her story is the perfect example of why state-funded education matters. She continued: 'I'm not comfortable in that position when so many people are inspiring. I can make a case for what it means to have really good state funded education. I think that's my story. I don't think there is exceptionalism, I don't think it is a fluke or talent, it is being supported and being educated and having the access and there not being a financial barrier. 'Talent is part of it but it is not the whole thing. There's so many extremely talented people who can't get a shoe in and there are extremely untalented people who are at the top so it's not about talent, it's about something else. 'There is amazing alternatives. As universities become unattainable because of financial pressures, especially outside of Scotland, there has been much more alternatives art school models set up. Reach out and apply to those where you could access something for free and go for it. It is your network and your community that will keep you practicing. 'With the way things are going, they are going to be really important alternatives.'
Times
28-06-2025
- Times
Ten essential tips on how to draw, by a leading British artist
The English artist and designer David Gentleman, 95, has been drawing, painting, illustrating and engraving for more than eight decades. He still sketches every day without fail, looking out from his studio window in central London, or walking at home or abroad with a sketchbook, a pencil, a paintbox and a few brushes packed into a small bag. Since graduating from the Royal College of Art in 1953, he has completed hundreds of commissions — among them the National Trust's oak-leaf logo, the 1970s New Penguin Shakespeare paperbacks, the 100m-long mural at Charing Cross Underground station (1978), dozens of stamps and travel books. Here, he shares his advice on developing a drawing habit for life. How to begin? This is one of the most difficult questions. I would always start small, choosing something nearby to draw — a tree or the view from the window. Keep your expectations slight. And begin with a pencil — a soft pencil is easiest and lightest, although light or hard graphite pencils or charcoal sticks are worth trying out. Have a go at what catches your eye. For me, that's barns and trees; light and dark; near and far — just a few lines to suggest distance. The most valuable thing about drawing is that it makes you look harder at the world around you. It enhances your power of attention. I like going out on foot and drawing what I see on the street, things like cranes, curved streets, canals, trees and traffic. But it's important to vary it from time to time. It may sound mundane, but even taking a bus ride can be fruitful. If you sit at the front of the top deck and take in your surroundings from this higher vantage point, you have the whole landscape ahead and you'll see things — buildings, trees, the skyline, people — in a new light. A scene doesn't have to be picturesque to make a good picture. Juxtapositions are interesting; prettifying a scene isn't. It isn't about trying to make something beautiful. For example, the duomo at Monreale in Sicily is a wonderful spectacle, and drawing it was the perfect way of enjoying and gradually understanding the complicated patterns of its structure. A Fiat parked in the foreground wasn't exactly majestic, but it struck me as an expression of Italy's more recent industrial strength. On display were two kinds of Italian brilliance. • The power of the pencil — by Hockney, Emin, Gormley and more Mistakes come in all shapes and sizes, but they aren't to be feared. Often they are reversible: with oils, you can paint over what you've done. With pencils it's much the same. With pen and ink or watercolour you have to be more careful. But even if your line looks wrong, it's still worth keeping it going bit by bit: the work grows as you add to it, and that can take care of any mistakes. Once, when my son was playing the piano, I decided to draw him quickly. I drew three feet, but the one in the middle wasn't worth rubbing out: it added a sense of motion. Generally, it's worth not messing around. Eventually, you'll find that your 'style' — the result of all your small choices, experiments and mistakes — will emerge. I've never had any interest in consciously developing a style. I'm not even sure it is something you can decide to generate. It just happens: you evolve over time. So it's worth trying to be single-minded, energetic and yourself. When I began using watercolours, I found new ways to paint and draw through doing it regularly and experimenting. Memorably, this happened in 1995 in Bologna, when I was sitting in a café, slightly raised above the main square. I was alone, having a glass of beer and facing the duomo. It was a wonderful view. The square was full of life. I wanted to capture it — but nobody was standing still. I began a pen drawing. It had to be done very quickly. I couldn't have painted it. If I didn't move fast, the people I was drawing would be blocked off or disappear. Afterwards I added a colour wash (a little paint added to water): you can see it is slightly bigger than the drawings. This way of working has become one of the styles I most enjoy. • Read more art reviews, guides and interviews It's perfectly possible to take a photo of a scene and then spend hours back at home drawing it. But I think it's good to draw on the spot — scribbling what you see, before the moment passes. There are many more possibilities that arise when you do this; the scene changes, new people come past and new details come into view. There's also a liberation, a release, that happens when you work quickly. I think you often get better work this way. You don't have to draw particularly carefully to capture what you're after — you can do it in almost no time at all. You can spoil work by being too careful. I was once in Rio de Janeiro for just two days, and looked at the city from my hotel window. It was too tempting not to draw. The height of everything made me draw it on a vertical sheet of paper. The street at my feet was in deep shadow, while the cliff was gleaming. Had I seen it on a different day it might not have spurred me to draw the scene: it was the sun, there and then, that made me work. I've spent 50 years looking out of the same studio window, at the top of my house, five storeys up. I like the trees in front of me, and the parakeets and pigeons that land on them, as well as the crows and seagulls that float in circles above them and the Victorian and Edwardian architecture beyond them too. These views have changed over time: all the distant skylines have vanished as new buildings have got taller. But I'm interested every day in the changing weather, the clouds moving across the sky. Most days, a crow perches on the birch tree, usually on its own. One day, I quickly drew a pen and wash watercolour sketch and was pleased with the results — particularly the curve of its talons. After I graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1953, my first professional commission was a set of wood engravings for a book called What About Wine? I'd been interested in engraving ever since my father gave me a book of Eric Ravilious's work when I was about 17. The commission was a success, and I got more for engravings, but it's a laborious process and my enthusiasm for it has varied. So I have engraved only when I felt it was worth taking on, and have enjoyed it all the more for doing it in my own way, in my own style. I particularly liked engraving the complete New Penguin Shakespeare series in the 1970s, combining wood engravings with colour. Negative feedback can alert you to something you might not otherwise have noticed, and often there is something you can do to put it right. It's important to develop a capacity to be self-critical, because that's how you will gradually get your work closer to how you intended it to be. I seldom feel complacent about what I'm doing; this self-criticism is part of the continual process of working out how to do things better. One chilly February, I made some pictures of the Piazza del Campo in Siena, drawing in pen and ink as quickly as possible. I wanted to capture the piazza's overall D-shape, and kept drawing and redrawing until I felt happy with the outcome. I spent two days working like this. It can't be wished on you. Don't worry — just do what you can. I don't waste time thinking about how good or bad a drawing is. When I'm at work on a picture, I hope it will end up interesting, and I try to enjoy the process. That's about for Young Artists by David Gentleman is published on Jul 10 (Penguin £20 pp192). To order a copy go to Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members What's your advice on developing a drawing habit? Share your tips in the comments below
