The Lesson
As my first year of post-graduate studies was coming to a close an opportunity came to light that I was fortunate enough to secure.
One of my Printmaking instructors, a young American guy named Bud Shark, worked part time at the Slade. He also worked part time during the academic year, and full time during the summer, at Petersburg Press, on Portobello Road in the Notting Hill district of London’s Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
In those days (early 70’s) it was still a pretty rough and tumble area---working class, with lots of “antique markets”---mostly junk/second hand shops and light industrial stuff, and large houses which had been subdivided by landlords into multi-occupancy rentals during the early years of the 20th century. It was crowded. In the 19th century it had been a center of brick and tile manufacture and pig farming.
Notting Hill was the site of “race riots” in 1958 that were instigated by white racist “Teddy Boys” as a reaction to the large influx of Caribbean immigrants to the area in the 1950’s. Today, of course, it is very chic and up-market. The famous annual Notting Hill Carnival has taken place continuously since 1965---not without some problems along the way---but it has grown every year and now attracts over a million visitors to the two-day West Indian-flavored street festival who pump nearly a hundred million pounds into London’s economy every August.
Since it’s earliest days in the 1820’s Notting Hill has had a reputation for attracting artists and alternative cultures so perhaps it was a fitting place for Petersburg Press to be established. Petersburg Press was a professional fine art publishing house that specialized in producing hand printed lithographs and intaglios for the current blue chip artists from the USA and Europe.
There were two post graduate printmaking students at the Slade that year who were skillful enough to be employed as printer’s assistants in the production of high-quality, hand-printed artworks. One was me. The other, my closest friend at the Slade, was John Utting. Unfortunately there was only one position available. Together we decided the position would be awarded by a flip of a coin. I chose “heads”, John “tails”. I won, and started work the next day.
We spent the summer with three other master printers editioning ten different color lithographs by the American Pop artist, James Rosenquist. The plates had been made in New York by the master printer Maurice Sanchez and he came over to London to supervise the project and to print the editions with the rest of us.
I recall that one of the plates was damaged on an ancient British press that the two English printers were using when they were only half way through the edition. Since the goal was for 100 identical prints there was a bit of a panic as to what to do about it without starting over from scratch. What the management at Petersburg did was to fly Rosenquist over to London.
He arrived at the studio with some Pimm’s (a gin-based mixer for the kind of drinks the Queen has on her yacht), and a couple of boxes of Cuban cigars. We all launched into the Pimm’s and the cigars and watched as Rosenquist set up a fresh printing plate and one of the undamaged prints, and proceeded to duplicate the precise image using an airbrush. What was uncanny wasn’t just that he duplicated it perfectly but that he had to airbrush the image as an inverted mirror-image of the printed copy since the presses we were using were “direct” litho presses and they inverted an image on a plate when it was printed onto paper. It’s complicated……Suffice it to say not many artists have the skill set to be able to do what Rosenquist did that afternoon. We processed the plate when he had finished and the edition was completed without further problems.
When that project came to an end Bud Shark and I were assigned to a new project involving the poems of W. H. Auden and the lithographs of Henry Moore. Moore and Auden had known each other since the 1930’s and both greatly admired one another’s work, so the plan was for Moore to illustrate a selection of Auden’s poems with original lithographs.
Bud and I launched into the project with a great deal of enthusiasm, arriving at Moore’s home in the village of Much Hadham, Hertfordshire, by 6:30 every morning to find Moore waiting for us in a small studio adjacent to the house. Although Bud and I were both young we were impressed with how eager Moore, at 77, was to get started every day. He always had a pot of tea and McVitie’s biscuits for us and after we wolfed things down he set to work, not stopping until his secretary knocked on the door at 1 PM with “Henry, your lunch is ready.” Then we were back at things from two to 5 PM or so. This went on for 6 weeks with Sunday’s off.
Again, Moore’s energy was pretty impressive. He had spent the winter battling a bout of pleurisy but was determined to address this suite of prints with the same vigor he put into his huge sculptures. The original plan was for both him and Auden to sign the editions but unfortunately Auden died that winter and the project became one that was dedicated to Auden’s memory.
I remember a couple of things about Henry Moore---this pioneer of 20th century sculpture. Firstly, although he wasn’t a tall or big man, his fingers were an inch longer than mine, and I have big hands. I used to think that he must have been analyzing the world in 3D before he could talk, grabbing things---toys, rocks, stuff around the house---and perhaps that led him to a career as a sculptor. But maybe that’s too romantic a notion.
Secondly, I was impressed by his modesty and selflessness. He asked me regularly how my own artwork was going, what I was doing, who my teachers had been as a student at The Slade, what artists I admired. And an a few occasions when he was “stuck” with a drawing he was producing on a stone or plate, he would motion me over and ask things like “Do you think this passage is better if I leave it dark or should I lighten it up a bit?”
The first time he asked my opinion I was kind of shocked. I mean, here was Henry Moore asking a 25 year old art student for advice. But, he was genuinely “stuck” and wanted another artist’s opinion. When he did respond to my suggestions he would try them out, saying “thanks” or “no, I think I liked it better before”, and then he’d move ahead with the image. So I knew he was being genuine and treating me and my opinions with respect. I have never forgotten that.
When Moore passed away in 1986, I heard the British art critic, John Russell, who had championed Moore for decades, speaking about him on the BBC. And he relayed a story that Moore had told him years before which had made an impression on Moore personally.
As a child in Yorkshire Moore regularly attended Sunday School with his siblings, seven in total. And the lesson one day involved a story about Michelangelo working in his studio in Florence. He was sculpting an aging satyr from a block of marble when a passerby stopped and watched him through the open door. After some time Michelangelo said, “Well, what do you think?” The answer from the bystander was succinct.
“If he’s an old satyr would he have all those teeth?”
Michelangelo thought for a moment, positioned his chisel and hammer, and with a swift whack, knocked out a tooth, turning towards the bystander and said “You are right---too many teeth”.
From that Sunday School lesson, Henry Moore sought and respected the opinions of his colleagues and students throughout his life and, with John Russell’s BBC interview, I realized he passed that lesson on to me.
© Kent Jones 2019
As my first year of post-graduate studies was coming to a close an opportunity came to light that I was fortunate enough to secure.
One of my Printmaking instructors, a young American guy named Bud Shark, worked part time at the Slade. He also worked part time during the academic year, and full time during the summer, at Petersburg Press, on Portobello Road in the Notting Hill district of London’s Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
In those days (early 70’s) it was still a pretty rough and tumble area---working class, with lots of “antique markets”---mostly junk/second hand shops and light industrial stuff, and large houses which had been subdivided by landlords into multi-occupancy rentals during the early years of the 20th century. It was crowded. In the 19th century it had been a center of brick and tile manufacture and pig farming.
Notting Hill was the site of “race riots” in 1958 that were instigated by white racist “Teddy Boys” as a reaction to the large influx of Caribbean immigrants to the area in the 1950’s. Today, of course, it is very chic and up-market. The famous annual Notting Hill Carnival has taken place continuously since 1965---not without some problems along the way---but it has grown every year and now attracts over a million visitors to the two-day West Indian-flavored street festival who pump nearly a hundred million pounds into London’s economy every August.
Since it’s earliest days in the 1820’s Notting Hill has had a reputation for attracting artists and alternative cultures so perhaps it was a fitting place for Petersburg Press to be established. Petersburg Press was a professional fine art publishing house that specialized in producing hand printed lithographs and intaglios for the current blue chip artists from the USA and Europe.
There were two post graduate printmaking students at the Slade that year who were skillful enough to be employed as printer’s assistants in the production of high-quality, hand-printed artworks. One was me. The other, my closest friend at the Slade, was John Utting. Unfortunately there was only one position available. Together we decided the position would be awarded by a flip of a coin. I chose “heads”, John “tails”. I won, and started work the next day.
We spent the summer with three other master printers editioning ten different color lithographs by the American Pop artist, James Rosenquist. The plates had been made in New York by the master printer Maurice Sanchez and he came over to London to supervise the project and to print the editions with the rest of us.
I recall that one of the plates was damaged on an ancient British press that the two English printers were using when they were only half way through the edition. Since the goal was for 100 identical prints there was a bit of a panic as to what to do about it without starting over from scratch. What the management at Petersburg did was to fly Rosenquist over to London.
He arrived at the studio with some Pimm’s (a gin-based mixer for the kind of drinks the Queen has on her yacht), and a couple of boxes of Cuban cigars. We all launched into the Pimm’s and the cigars and watched as Rosenquist set up a fresh printing plate and one of the undamaged prints, and proceeded to duplicate the precise image using an airbrush. What was uncanny wasn’t just that he duplicated it perfectly but that he had to airbrush the image as an inverted mirror-image of the printed copy since the presses we were using were “direct” litho presses and they inverted an image on a plate when it was printed onto paper. It’s complicated……Suffice it to say not many artists have the skill set to be able to do what Rosenquist did that afternoon. We processed the plate when he had finished and the edition was completed without further problems.
When that project came to an end Bud Shark and I were assigned to a new project involving the poems of W. H. Auden and the lithographs of Henry Moore. Moore and Auden had known each other since the 1930’s and both greatly admired one another’s work, so the plan was for Moore to illustrate a selection of Auden’s poems with original lithographs.
Bud and I launched into the project with a great deal of enthusiasm, arriving at Moore’s home in the village of Much Hadham, Hertfordshire, by 6:30 every morning to find Moore waiting for us in a small studio adjacent to the house. Although Bud and I were both young we were impressed with how eager Moore, at 77, was to get started every day. He always had a pot of tea and McVitie’s biscuits for us and after we wolfed things down he set to work, not stopping until his secretary knocked on the door at 1 PM with “Henry, your lunch is ready.” Then we were back at things from two to 5 PM or so. This went on for 6 weeks with Sunday’s off.
Again, Moore’s energy was pretty impressive. He had spent the winter battling a bout of pleurisy but was determined to address this suite of prints with the same vigor he put into his huge sculptures. The original plan was for both him and Auden to sign the editions but unfortunately Auden died that winter and the project became one that was dedicated to Auden’s memory.
I remember a couple of things about Henry Moore---this pioneer of 20th century sculpture. Firstly, although he wasn’t a tall or big man, his fingers were an inch longer than mine, and I have big hands. I used to think that he must have been analyzing the world in 3D before he could talk, grabbing things---toys, rocks, stuff around the house---and perhaps that led him to a career as a sculptor. But maybe that’s too romantic a notion.
Secondly, I was impressed by his modesty and selflessness. He asked me regularly how my own artwork was going, what I was doing, who my teachers had been as a student at The Slade, what artists I admired. And an a few occasions when he was “stuck” with a drawing he was producing on a stone or plate, he would motion me over and ask things like “Do you think this passage is better if I leave it dark or should I lighten it up a bit?”
The first time he asked my opinion I was kind of shocked. I mean, here was Henry Moore asking a 25 year old art student for advice. But, he was genuinely “stuck” and wanted another artist’s opinion. When he did respond to my suggestions he would try them out, saying “thanks” or “no, I think I liked it better before”, and then he’d move ahead with the image. So I knew he was being genuine and treating me and my opinions with respect. I have never forgotten that.
When Moore passed away in 1986, I heard the British art critic, John Russell, who had championed Moore for decades, speaking about him on the BBC. And he relayed a story that Moore had told him years before which had made an impression on Moore personally.
As a child in Yorkshire Moore regularly attended Sunday School with his siblings, seven in total. And the lesson one day involved a story about Michelangelo working in his studio in Florence. He was sculpting an aging satyr from a block of marble when a passerby stopped and watched him through the open door. After some time Michelangelo said, “Well, what do you think?” The answer from the bystander was succinct.
“If he’s an old satyr would he have all those teeth?”
Michelangelo thought for a moment, positioned his chisel and hammer, and with a swift whack, knocked out a tooth, turning towards the bystander and said “You are right---too many teeth”.
From that Sunday School lesson, Henry Moore sought and respected the opinions of his colleagues and students throughout his life and, with John Russell’s BBC interview, I realized he passed that lesson on to me.
© Kent Jones 2019