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JL. So you had a
spiritual affinity with the countryside which you never had with the
town.
RA. No I wouldn't say
that, in the town one experienced the people. In the country I
experienced the growth of the trees and the wind, sun and air which were
like two points of the same energy but seen from two different
directions.
JL. Do you think that
your appreciation of the country was all the keener because you lived in
town?
RA. Yes definitely,
there is no doubt about it.
JL. Because your work
is predominately pastoral isn't it lyrical and pastoral?
RA. Yes.
JL. In a way you went
from - how long were you at Loughborough?
RA. Three years at
Loughborough College of Art.
JL. And then you did
the National Diploma.
RA. That's right.
JL. And from there
you went on a scholarship to The Royal Academy Schools for four years in
London. So what was the London experience, as an experience like -
before we talk about the art school?
RA. The actual
experience of living in London.
JL. You had digs in
London?
RA. Yes - initially
London had no direct influence except that after the first term my
Grandmother thought I was starving myself to death, so she paid my train
fare, so that I could return at weekends. This kept me in touch with my
roots. I think these regular weekend journeys on steam trains were
later to influence my paintings - particularly the structure of them.
The images that flashed on to the retina as the train sped on, acted
like the shutter of a camera. Six or seven of these views would later
appear in one painting.
JL. Were you unhappy
there?
RA. No I wasn't
unhappy at all. I wasn't eating properly and so I was beginning to
waste away or the family thought I was.
JL. If you had your
life again would you do this? Would you go back to London?
RA. Yes.
JL. You would - you
don't regret that?
RA. No regrets.
JL. You don't think
you were contaminated by false visual influences and all that?
RA. No.
JL. When did you
paint the plate of mushrooms?
RA. That was painted
in 1956 and at Loughborough. At the time I remember there was a small
earthquake which travelled down the Pennines and shook the mushrooms on
the table.
JL. So these are all
Loughborough pictures?
JL. "Harvest by a
river", the pen and ink drawing of the house where you were born.
"Loughborough Public Library". Portraits of your grandparents,
mushrooms, windmill and begonias. These were pre Royal Academy? And
these are Academy pictures are they? - "Garden Allotments", "Hollyhocks
and Honesty" and "Chrysanthemums"?
RA. "Chrysanthemums"
was exhibited at the R.A. Summer Exhibition 1960.
JL. So there is a
considerable stylistic shift here isn't there?
RA. It's changing.
JL. I mean these look
like art school pictures in one sense.
RA. In one sense, but
there's a new kind of seeing taking place - there's more poetry.
JL. They remind me of
two things, one the Hop Paintings of Townsend - are you familiar with
them?
RA. No.
JL. Oh yes, he did
paintings of Hop Pickers in Kent.
RA. If there were any
influence I would say it came from Alan Reynolds.
JL. Yes, the
Umbelliferous Heads. Do you think in spite of that, in these pictures
you were returning to the themes of your childhood?
RA. Definitely, these
allotments in the background are very typical of the Midlands,
Leicestershire, Leicester and Loughborough.
JL. Are they?
RA. Oh yes.
JL. You painted these
in the holidays or in London?
RA. The studies had
been done in the holidays or weekends, and then I would paint them in
London.
JL. And this, with
respect dingy Euston Road feeling as if the allotments in Leicestershire
were sort of housed in Euston Road Station or something? That was the
influence of the Royal Academy too was it?
RA. Yes, it is
possible. It was rather dark and yellow down in the Academy Schools -
in many ways it had that railway station feeling.
JL. What do you think
you were really trying to do in these picture/paintings - like this one
of Chrysanthemums? Do you really know, would you know then?
RA. I don't think I
would know it in actual words what I was looking for. I think there was
a certain magic in the air, I know there was a definite excitement about
painting those pictures which took me, being in the city, it took me
out, it took the spirit into the country. The actual putting on of
paint, I put a piece of paint next to the white stalk and the vibrations
would take me into the allotments and fields.
JL Did you do these
fairly quickly?
RA. No, it took quite
a while.
JL. It's the
influence of "Cézanne".
RA. Yes, "Cézanne" -
laughter?
JL. But you worked
from sketches.
RA. Worked from
sketches - Yes.
JL. Were you in this
one, were you trying to express any kind of .........I have the word
ecstasy in mind, I cannot express it, there's a sense of life, of
organic life looking heavenwards, reaching upwards.
RA. That's very well
put - Yes.
JL. Is that what you
were trying to express?
RA. I wasn't
conscious of it then, when you move onwards to the "Mother and Child"
you have the beginnings there.
RA The Mother’s Love For Her Child; Oil on canvas 77 × 64 cm, 1961. Artists Collection. Photo Allan Grainger.
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Honesty
Chrysanthemums