Mornists and Mavericks by Mart Gayford — a miraculo moment | Fancial Tim

Contents:

• MORNISTS AND MAVERICKS BY MART GAYFORD REVIEW – BAN, FRD, HOCKNEY AND THE LONDON PATERS
• MORNISTS & MAVERICKS: BAN, FRD, HOCKNEY AND THE LONDON PATERS BY MART GAYFORD – REVIEW
• MORNISTS AND MAVERICKS BY MART GAYFORD — A MIRACULO MOMENT
• MORNISTS AND MAVERICKS BY MART GAYFORD
• MART GAYFORD: MORNISTS & MAVERICKS REVIEW - PEOPLE, PLAC AND PAT

MORNISTS AND MAVERICKS BY MART GAYFORD REVIEW – BAN, FRD, HOCKNEY AND THE LONDON PATERS

Mart Gayford has been talkg wh artists for 30 years.

Gayford starts wh people, moments and meetgs, standg firm the belief that “pictur are affected not only by social and tellectual chang but also by dividual sensibily and character”. As for Auerbach and Frd, the nversatn went on for half a book’s span allows Gayford to plot several generatns relatn to each other, and ’s strikg how many of the most potent enunters volve forms of teachg. Gayford attends particularly to the relatnship between long ncentratn and sudn achievement.

MORNISTS & MAVERICKS: BAN, FRD, HOCKNEY AND THE LONDON PATERS BY MART GAYFORD – REVIEW

The picture has the wistful air of Watte’s Pierrot, Gayford observ; there’s Gasborough here, too, and Rose. The nversatns of Ayr and Hodgk were charged by the fact of their work fallg jt (but cisively) to eher si of the “visible ontier” between abstractn and is a vivid prence and Gayford giv a fe acunt of her vast, tumblg, ever metamorphosg Hampstead Mural. In 1942, which is roughly when Mart Gayford’s pac new survey of postwar art begs, London was partially s, many of s streets rced to pil of bble and buckled iron.

New energi were stirrg, their shoots takg hold jt like those of the pk willow herb that would shortly lonise the ad is the energi, darg, domable and eply ntradictory, that Gayford hop to pture Mornists & Mavericks – and as he begs, gamely scribg the strange hoe St John’s Wood that Lucian Frd and John Craxton began sharg the same year (the floors were vered, for whatever reason, wh broken glass, and the walls rated wh every possible kd of hat), you wonr how on earth he’ll do . Gayford tak a chronologil path, fishg up at the back end of the 60s, wh Bridget Riley and David Hockney; his terts lie solely wh London, and wh pat.

Gayford knew Frd: he uld be said to have a particular nnectn wh the artist, havg famoly had his portra pated by him.

MORNISTS AND MAVERICKS BY MART GAYFORD — A MIRACULO MOMENT

Gayford ploys Ban’s voice to brilliant effect, and you hang on to every word, om his nvictn that he wanted his pictur to look as if a human beg had passed between them, leavg a trace of human prence “as a snail leav s slime”, to his sudn, hungry observatn, ma one sunny day Soho, that a horizontal shadow “eats to the figure, like a disease”. He wanted to be the sense of realy that uld be found the greatt pictur of Velázquez and Rembrandt wh the chance effects of, as Gayford puts , “cedg nsc ntrol”. For his latt book, the Spectator cric Mart Gayford has synthized a lifetime’s worth of nversatns wh the greats of morn patg (Bridget Riley, Peter Blake, Frank Auerbach, Pla Rego, Victor Pasmore) to swift dividual chapters, wh Francis Ban and Lucian Frd havg nsistent recurrg narrativ.

To Gayford the are paters uned solely by an obssn wh “what Gillian Ayr has fed as ‘what n be done wh patg”, and that they happened to be workg London. ) Artists were ngratulatg each other for “gog abstract”, a phrase ed by both Gayford and many of the artists he quot. Yet the ma thg Gayford’s book do is illtrate how fluenc om this time are everywhere ways that aren’t rctive, cynil or jt pla nnibalistic: ways that only prove patg is alive.

Gayford prents the artist as a sort of athetic anomaly that uldn’t be acunted for, and whose fluence revolutnized how proceedg artists would handle pat. Gayford says art historians scribe the work as “paterly”.

MORNISTS AND MAVERICKS BY MART GAYFORD

Mart Gayford: Mornists & Mavericks review - people, plac and pat | reviews, news & terviews. Mart Gayford: Mornists & Mavericks review - people, plac and patUtterly human acunt of the paters of London over the 30 years sce 1945. In relative obscury ekg out extravagance om prery and patg and gamblg until the early hours, Frd set himself back on the path to beg the artistic megalh he remas rellectn (via Frank Auerbach) of bloodymd to-didacticism is a recurrg of theme Mart Gayford’s new book, Mornists & Mavericks — which is as much a medatn on the ficklens of fame and favour as is a survey of the paters workg London durg the quarter century between 1945 and 1970.

MART GAYFORD: MORNISTS & MAVERICKS REVIEW - PEOPLE, PLAC AND PAT

What characteris the massively divergent artistic approach the loose groupg of London paters pursued durg the post-war years was, acrdg to Gayford, a kd of renega flair and awarens of the fact of the cy, whether found s dtrial acutrements, social loci or simply a particular kd of and aga Gayford draws attentn to the way specific plac fatefully rmed artists’ work: the Willn Green public pool leadg to Leon Kossoff’s exuberant, miasmic, ovidian pool patgs (one is currently on display at the Tate Bra’s excellent if expensive All Too Human exhibn), the nals of Peckham which were the settg for a nversatn between William Coldstream, Victor Passmore and William Townsend to the distctn between paters terted the world outsi of themselv and those patg om the si, and Pnella Clough’s excursns to pict the dtrial g of the cy Woolwich, Canng Town and Acton also tak si paters’ ho and studs.

Gayford’s material is drawn largely om nversatns wh many of the artists volved over the years, not least Gillian Ayr who died earlier this April, and this lends the book an timate tone as trac the gtatn of new ways of seeg, lookg and patg through time and through the artists who nceived them. Some of the artists Gayford’s book are still practisg and exhibg — notably Bridget Riley and David Hockney. While they rightfully take their place the gallery of greats, what Gayford’s book eloquently trac is that while new art cubated London might be rmed by work that me immediately before, the directn of the new artists’ reactn will never be predictable.