Dec 59
This is my best oil painting. From 2015 to about 2020 I painted about twenty, half a dozen of which I think of as truly well-painted. I know a beautiful painting when I see one and this one is not only well-painted but beautiful. Actually, I painted more than twenty but I destroyed a few I thought I could have painted better, because, as the saying goes: "It's the fish that John West rejects that make John West the best."
My mother was Françoise Wauters before I was born. She became Françoise Taylor when she married my father in Brussels in 1946. Had she not done so she may have become a celebrated 20th century European artist, or at least more recognised than she is today. When I was young, up to the age of about eleven or twelve, people said (especially my mother) that I was naturally gifted at drawing. When I started to be distracted by girls I drew less, mostly drawings of buildings in the style of Frank Lloyd Wright, in my opinion the greatest architect who ever lived. When it came to it and I was about to leave school with nothing much planned for my future life my mother told me to become an architect.
In a sense, therefore, I have drawn all my life. Several times during my career I wanted to see if I could paint as well as my mother drew. Each time I tried, I kept failing to create anything good. I went into depth trying to understand how to paint. The British National Gallery was the place I thought I could learn but I could never put it together. I actually copied El Grecos full size and then destroyed them for not being real. Apart from one which I gave to my brother. I then dropped what I'd come to think of as a stupid idea. Maybe my mother was right or perhaps she wasn't. It's one thing to have talent and another thing altogether to bring it to fruition. The lucky few are the ones who can.
However, about fifteen years after I retired I decided to try one more time. This picture – Dec 59 – is one of a few that have proved to me my mother was right. It is painted from a small snapshot I happened to show to my wife. She said I should make an oil painting of it. What bothered me most was painting grass. Very few artists have ever been able to paint grass properly. One is Andrew Wyeth. Another, more recent, is Daniel Sprick in Denver. Of course you can paint an area of grass and people know it's supposed to be grass. Almost every painting by George Stubbs (the celebrated horse painter) contains grass but Stubbs never painted a single actual blade, and Stubbs was a man who dismembered horse carcasses in his studio to paint them accurately. If I could, I would say to him: "Great, but what about the grass?"
The grass in 'Dec 59' is successful. Wyeth and Sprick probably have a method. I didn't. In this painting I developed a method of painting hair I could reproduce. On the rare occasions I show it to someone I ask them how they think I painted the hair. They are left guessing because a paint brush couldn't do it. It's a method I could reproduce but I can't reproduce a method of painting grass because I can't think of one. The best way I can explain it is with a reference to motor racing and Ayrton Senna describing this 'surreal experience' during 'the greatest qualifying lap in the history of the sport'. "I was no longer driving the car consciously. I was driving it by a kind of instinct, only I was in a different dimension." That dimension is perhaps how the brain enters a 'flow state'. I am by no means comparing myself to Senna but I remember that afterwards when I looked at my painting I didn't remember painting parts of it – the grass and rose bush especially. I can only say I understand what he meant. "How did I do that?" In my narrow field of oil painting it's extremely exhilarating.
As for the scene itself, the credit goes partly to my Belgian Uncle Jacques. A happy accident perhaps but it's his image. I don't mind taking some credit for decades later recognising it for what it is but so should Sandra. It took three months to paint. It's also the reason I gave up painting.
Some time in 2019 I tried to persuade Bolton School to put on an exhibition of my late mother's art. My late father had been a governor of the school and one of my mother's paintings was, and still is, hung in the main staircase up to the school's Great Hall. I had to threaten leaving the Old Boltonians Association before they would sit up and listen. The headmaster finally invited me to the school and we got as far as agreeing an approximate date and an exhibition space in the school. During the first months of Covid-19 in 2020, the school's three art teachers came to my house to begin the arrangements. I had 'Dec 59' propped up against the fireplace properly framed. As they got up to leave I told them I'm an oil painter and pointed to the painting. "That's one of mine," I said. A couple of them got up and went to look. "Very nice," they said then went back to the table to get their things. As Covid-19 took hold, my mother's exhibition fell by the wayside. I don't really blame the art teachers but what struck me most of all was how disinterested they were in a beautiful oil painting produced by the son of the woman whose art they were then in the process of arranging to exhibit.
A few weeks later the head art teacher phoned me to discuss how the school would present the exhibition. I spent about an hour listening to how the exhibition would need to address the curriculum, one point after another. At the end of the phone call I told her I hadn't really understood what she was looking for but I'd think about it.
I thought about it and decided my mother probably wouldn't want the masterpieces she created in occupied Belgium during World War 2 to be subjugated to an art teacher's checklist simply to justify it being seen by the public three quarters of a century later. Not long before, David Morris, the then Head of Collections at The Whitworth Gallery in Manchester had been to my house to look through the remaining works she'd produced and which my family had discovered when my father died. There and then he took a significant number into The Whitworth's permanent collection. He said he would come again and take more. The following year my sister and I went to see Alistair Hudson, an art establishment high-flyer then running Manchester City Art Gallery and The Whitworth. The new Head of Collections was there too. We reminded both of them what David Morris had said and never did. This new Head of Collections told us that if they went to look every time someone told them some grandparent of theirs was 'good at painting' they wouldn't have time to do anything else. "What if we told you we had a Picasso?" I asked. "Well yes," she said, "but Picasso has a name and your mother hasn't."
Anyway I haven't painted anything since about 2020 and won't ever. The painting 'Dec 59' is professionally framed and kept under a bed with a plastic sheet over it. The idea is that if anyone breaks into my house, or if the fire brigade comes with water cannons to put out a fire, the painting will be safe. When we go away, I take the painting with a few others just as good, to be stored in a trusted neighbour's house to keep them just as safe (hopefully). What remains is what to do with them long-term. You'll know what I mean by that. It's when I'm no longer able to worry about it. I'd like to imagine they'll belong somewhere. I will put labels on so that anyone who comes by them a hundred years from now will at least know what they are and where they came from.
In my opinion art is dead. I mean new art. Real paintings with cultural value will continue to exist but they will be theatre in public museums or stored away in private collections for their historical interest and monetary value. If the artist "has a name," all the better. I am still making images but with AI. We are reaching a point where artificial intelligence can create anything. It will make whatever you want. If you want a Mona Lisa that looks and feels like the real thing with someone else's face painted on in the style of Leonardo da Vinci you'll be able to have it. The only point in creating hand-made artworks now is if you enjoy doing it, especially in the company of others. Rather like horse riding in the age of the car. Its main value will be in the personal physical experience and the real live social connections it has to offer and which AI never will.
By the way, when I was still painting portraits I emailed Rory Stewart to ask if he'd like me to paint his portrait. He was an MP north of here so I suggested he could drop by to or from London and take a look at what I was doing. I assured him I didn't want to make 'loads of money' from it. I just thought he would be a good subject. He replied to say that as it happened he was having his portrait 'officially painted' by someone. I felt like writing back to say it won't be much good, but I didn't! He missed his chance.
