Man wh a Blue Srf – Mart Gayford Art Cric

Contents:

• MAN WH A BLUE SRF: ON STG FOR A PORTRA BY LUCIAN FRD, BY MART GAYFORD
• MAN WH A BLUE SRF: ON STG FOR A PORTRA BY LUCIAN FRD BY MART GAYFORD

MAN WH A BLUE SRF: ON STG FOR A PORTRA BY LUCIAN FRD, BY MART GAYFORD

There is a ic scene, about halfway through art cric Mart Gayford's patient acunt of stg for Lucian Frd for seven punishg months, when the two men are speedg down Bayswater Road a taxi. Frd sudnly asks Gayford where he n buy bathroom sl, anx that he may have gaed a pound or two weight.

Gayford is taken aback, until the artist explas that every ounce unts when you spend 10 hours a day on your feet dartg back and forth before the nvas.

MAN WH A BLUE SRF: ON STG FOR A PORTRA BY LUCIAN FRD BY MART GAYFORD

It mt ed take stama, Gayford reflects, to be a tly great pater like Frd. And no matter how fascatg s revelatns of the artist's workg life and his pungent views on patg, what rri the narrative is this dialogue between the two, which Frd is vividly surprisg, potent and dynamic, while Gayford is steadily attentive and rpectful, ocsnally worryg about his appearance a mock‑Pooterish Frd famoly guards his privacy, avoidg the prs, visg mms by night and givg only two TV terviews, to my knowledge, the last quarter-century. And though he has talked to other art crics over the years, notably Robert Hugh and William Feaver, Gayford is the first to rerd the daily rual of stg.

Gayford is a reful scribe, notg everythg said wh plsible tegry (even though, prumably, no tape rerr was ed, sce he only cid to wre the book after the patg was fished). A va man would never have nfsed to everythg that Gayford regards as vany: his disappotment when another portras gets last-mute attentn for a show; his anxiety about whether his ear hair, "protdg the manner of the late Leonid Brezhnev" will be noticed and rerd for ever. It be a game of grandmother's tensn ratchets as Gayford yearns for the stgs to e to an end and Frd grows jumpier at the prospect.