From Deanna Petherbridge

By email, 05/01/24

Dear Patrick

Thank you for writing to me and I recognise the determination and frustration behind your email because this is precisely what I've been doing myself for the last painful 18 months. (Organising an inventory of my works and writings and tidying up everything for my executors – as I don't have children myself). And getting shafted, ignored and up against brick walls and indifference. Like you, I have also been dealing with underpaid people, young ignorant and timid employers in institutions who are overworked don't reply and treat one extremely badly. All those older curators with experience and knowledge have been got rid off in favour of the former!

Let me be perfectly honest – I just can't see you myself with the drawings as I'm in VERY VERY bad shape with pain, distortion and extreme disability and I'm (hopefully, wishfully) approaching the last lap. I'm ancient. I just manage to type with my totally distorted hands in my agonisingly painful arms and shoulders (I have terrible arthritis and a raft of autoimmune diseases ) And the NHS is dysfunctional so my misery is extreme. My brain works – but nothing else.

However I do see the quality of your mother's work and these would be my suggestions:

1. Approach institutions in Belgium rather than this benighted and dysfunctional country where all our public institutions are at their lowest ebb. I'm on the mailing list of the BOZAR Centre for Fine arts, Rue Ravensteinstraat 23 Brussels (mailing@bozar.be) and am really impressed by their programme and intentions. It's always in English as well as French and Flemish. Propose an exhibition to them. Point out that her work was very expressionist, and that her war etchings are particularly fine and powerful – and her take on Bolton is quite unique! The Bolton wash drawings and prints are very ominous and say so much about northern industrial grime, but also about change . (Her work is so much more sophisticated than Lowry – but together they would make a wonderful show)! Stress the fact that she suffered, like every other female artist, from being overlooked, expected to give up on their careers or to choose less contentious subject matter, etc. In this regard I would also say to you that as an illustrator she had a variety of styles – but there is still a strong streak of powerful linearity running through the works. (The 1940's war etchings are very powerful) And you need to research who, where and when the books were published or the prints made. Where is the Belgium small town she drew (I can't find it on the site again).

This is really a research project. I have absolutely no idea of your own economic and social situation – but perhaps you could fund a small PhD art history project (for a woman graduate student) at the university? A project to get all possible information on her work historically and put together an expansive exhibition idea (Have you ever proposed a show in Bolton – or is it all desperate in the museum?)

2. In all the work you've obviously done on the archive, you need to supply information that is lacking on the website. Forgive me if this sounds bossy or rude. PRINTS need to be (have been) numbered as they are not unique like drawings and are part of editions or 'artists' proofs. It also means that you might have lots of duplicates and therefore could send off – or make gifts – to institutions without worrying that you are destroying a body of work. (I personally have given away as much as I could.)

3. As the important thing is to get the work into collections – I suggest that you really research all the other possible places in Belgium (and Holland?) which have prints and drawings collections from the great Brussels Museum to smaller places. For example the woman who ran the Drawing Centre in New York for years was (briefly) director of Antwerp museum (Catherine d Zegher) but seems to have been sacked or left under a cloud under covid. Try tracking her? I'm afraid NONE of my information is up to date because I am totally housebound and outside of everything these days.

4. If you attempt to sell anything to Europe there will be all sorts of problems about Brexit rubbish rules and payment of tax – so I hope you're thinking more in terms of an exhibition and gifts of works.

I just hope this has been of some help to you. I just can't offer anything else but good luck and persistence. I think the curious dog creature on the steps and the last animal surreal fantasy Christmas drawings are terrific. And surely the Belgians have some equivalent of our RAF Museum and all the branches of the Imperial War Museum? – for her really impressive war etchings. And have you tried suggesting gifts to any of these UK collections?

Forgive the emphasised words – I just can't explain anything more extensively.

Best wishes Deanna

Her reply above came after I had written this:

Dear Deanna,

This message is because of your interest in drawing. You won't remember me but I wrote to you after I had seen your exhibition at The Whitworth in Manchester to say how much I enjoyed it. I think that was around 2017. You did reply but all I remember is that you were disappointed with the response to the exhibition.

I am the son of Francoise Taylor who died in 2007 aged 87. See also Wikipedia. Francoise (nee Wauters) was a young Belgian artist during WW2 who then moved to England after marrying an English army officer, my father Kenneth Taylor, who was briefly attached to the Belgian army immediately after the war.

Kenneth died in 2011 and it fell to me [ Johnnie too but I kept things simple ] to clear out their house in Bolton. Obviously I knew my mother had been an artist but I hadn't known much about the work she produced before she was married and in the years immediately after. 1943 to about the mid-50s. It was all in a cupboard in their house because Francoise never cared much about promoting herself. I have most of it in my house now, in places such as under the bed and in wardrobes, but at least most of it is now in acid-free storage boxes with all the pictures separated by acid-free tissue paper (except when they are in book form but I should do that too). I have also had a few pictures professionally restored due to the paper yellowing.

Anyway, the point is that I am approaching 76 years old and I happen to be an Executor of my parents' Wills. I did not distribute the pictures to the beneficiaries because they are a collection and to disperse them to a dozen people or so would be the end of it. I do not know what the beneficiaries really think about the works my mother produced during her early years in wartime Belgium. They have not looked at them properly, but I have, and I am absolutely certain of their quality as drawings, whether they are engravings, etchings or burins. They are drawings and my mother excelled at drawing. They are world class and I think I know what I am talking about.

Not long after my father died I approached The Whitworth to ask if they would be interested in taking some of the pictures into their permanent collection. David Morris, the Head of Collections at the time, came to my house to look at them and immediately agreed to take a number, saying he would come back for more. For various reasons, including the gallery extension then taking place at The Whitworth and because he has since retired, he never came back. A few years after, I went to see Alistair Hudson who ran the gallery but he declined to take any more due to archive space etc (although he did say he would be happy to take a Picasso if I had one).

I would like to show you the drawings. I am not asking for anything except that you look at them and tell me what you think of them 'in the flesh'. I might then have a better idea what to do. Is there a way to do this please? They will all go in the back of my car.

Sincerely,

Patrick Taylor