Tag: Oil Painting on Canvas

Pain and Pleasure at the Rijksmuseum (June 2024)

by adamhalevi, posted in Amsterdam, Art, Cesar Boetius, Dutch Art, Flemish Art, Jacques Jordaens, Oil on Canvas, Oil Painting, Portraiture, Rembrandt, Rijksmuseum, Thérèse Schwartze, Vermeer

obscure gems, camera-obscured vermeers and an unwatchable nightwatch…

I am a very fortunate and privileged person. In 1987 I and my then-girlfriend visited the Alhambra Palace in Granada, and had the entire place to ourselves. The stillness of the Court of the Lions in particular, with its serene Solomonic atmosphere, only disturbed by the wing flutters of doves and the chirping of swallows was a transcendental experience.

About ten years later, I had an equally powerful-yet-serene artistic moment of solitary good fortune in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, when I had its famous collection of nine Vermeers all to my lonesome. This was especially lucky, as few great works of art demand peaceful contemplation more than those of the genius from Delft. It was probably no more than five minutes, but easily sufficient time to appreciate a unique opportunity for private quality time with nine of the finest paintings ever conceived.

Young Italian Woman with Puck the Dog – Thérèse Schwartze (1884/5 – oil on canvas). Ashamed to say that I had never heard of Thérèse Schwartze, but I’ll never forget her now after being thrilled by this life-size study of attitude and poise…

But that was then, and now things have changed for the worst, at both the Alhambra and the Rijksmuseum.

Both places are victims of their own massive popularity and their increased accessibility due to an exponential rise in mass-tourism. And, both places resorted to the same “remedy” for dealing with the ever larger crowds of people wanting to see their glories – the dreaded time-slots…

I have visited Amsterdam many times since 1997, but because I knew I could never repeat that incredible Vermeer encounter, I had avoided the museum – until last week.

We were in town for 48 hours and our hotel was next door. Everytime I stepped out onto the street, there was the great red-brick edifice, staring me in the face, taunting me. So, I gave in, and booked a 10 am (and first of the day) slot on my iPhone for the second day. Get there early I thought, and I might just have a chance of beating the crowds to the Vermeers, even if only by a minute or two, it would be worth the €20 for the ticket.

A Young Woman Warming her Hands Over a Brazier: Allegory of Winter – Cesar Boetius van Everdingen (1644-48 – oil on canvas)
Again (although here I was aware of the painting), I had only a vague knowledge of this exceptionally gifted Dutchman. As with the Schwartze above, the painting in the flesh (so to speak) is unbelievably compelling. These iPhone photos, don’t convey a fraction of their power in real life...

How wrong I was. I got to the entrance at 9.45 (15 minutes before the official opening time) and, much to my pleasant surprise was allowed in. However, my cheerfulness was instantly doused, the moment I entered the grand vestibule, to discover it full of people – mostly grouped in tour parties, with tour guides, whose competing, amplified voices, filled the space with a kind of strident, oddly-American-accented hiss.

On my way to the Vermeers I passed large classes of school children, many spread out, sitting on the floor spaces, surrounding their teachers, like bees around a queen, but all (teachers and children) dressed in white lab-coats. And no, I haven’t a clue either, but it all added to overall feeling of organised pandemonium.

Having navigated my way past these sizable (and voluble) obstacles I eventually made it to the gallery containing the Vermeers, but of course, I was too late. I don’t know when wouldn’t have been too late, seeing as I had entered the museum 15 minutes before the official opening time, but I’m guessing, some time around three in the morning? How/why/where all these people came from – hundreds of them – in yet more tour-guide parties, between me and getting anywhere near the paintings, is a mystery. But whatever, I wasn’t going to see the Vermeers – not that I would have wanted to given the football-crowd environment engulfing them.

Three Portraits of Notables of Antwerp – Jacques Jordaens (1635/36 – oil on canvas)
If, like me, you’re a sucker for the wow-factor possible from supreme painting technique, then this virtual triptych of life-size portraits, by yet another artist I barely knew of (Flemish this time, not Dutch) is the exhibit for you. While it might not have the subtle deftness of The Night Watch, for example, they’re packed with empathy, presence and attitude – and most importantly of all, have no unsightly screens, and rarely any people between them and you!

So, as a second prize I tried for the Rembrandts but fared little better, and ultimately settled for distant side galleries and the often surprisingly superb consolations on offer, which comprises most of the illustrated story accompanying this post.

In short, do visit the Rijksmuseum next time you are in Amsterdam, but be prepared to make do with side galleries and supposedly “minor” exhibits. Fortunately, being one of the greatest art galleries on the planet, insures that there are plenty of allegedly “lesser” gems of outstanding and memorable value on offer, to enjoy in relative peace and harmony.

The other side of the Rijksmuseum coin. Somewhere behind all of that lurks The Night Watch. There has to be a better way…

THE DUKE, THE DUCHESS, THE LOO AND THE BATHROOM (and me) (part I)

by adamhalevi, posted in 11th Duke of Devonshire, Adam Green, Ben Uri Art Gallery, Chatsworth House, Group Exhibitions, Israel, Jewish Chronical Magazine, Landscapes of Israel, Oil on Canvas, Oil Painting

The amusing tale of how i acquired my most illustrius patron…

Although I failed to make the big time as a fine artist, I did nevertheless manage to acquire one or two illustrious clients/patrons, and the most prominent of these was a certain Andrew Robert Buxton Cavendish, 11th Duke of Devonshire.

In 1983, a couple of years following my graduation from Saint Martin’s, I had just been part of a major exhibition at the Ben Uri Gallery in London’s Soho (all, landscapes of Israel). However, despite a healthy number of sales, I was left with about a dozen canvases, several of which I thought were far better paintings than most of those that had been purchased.

My page from the Jewish Chronicle colour magazine’s article on the “Four Young Artist’s show at the Ben Uri Art Gallery in Soho.

About that time I read an article in the paper about the Duke of Devonshire covering a trip he had recently made to Israel, in which he was revealed as being a keen admirer of the Jewish State – making him a very rare beast indeed within the ranks of the British upper class. But for this fact alone I might have not have given the Duke much more thought, but the piece also discussed his passion for 20th century art and his support for aspiring British artists. While I was well aware, that his ducal palace of Chatsworth, had one of the finest private art collections in Europe, the fact that he was a collector in his own right was news to me. Thus I thought, as an aspiring British artist, with a hat-full of 20th century landscapes of a place he liked, might it not be worth my while approaching him. After all, what did I have to lose, except a wasted letter?

And so, after some research on how to address such an august personage in writing, I wrote to “[His] Grace”, at his home at Chatsworth in Derbyshire* It was a short letter, and to the point, appealing both to his love of art and his affection for the State of Israel. I also enclosed a handful of photos of my paintings, and a copy of a magazine with an article about me and my exhibition at the Ben Uri.

The late Duke and Duchess (Andrew and Debs, to their friends – Debs being originally Deborah Mitford, the youngest of the famous, and infamous “Mitford Girls“) in the Chatsworth library, with Hans Eworth’s fine copy of Holbein’s original portrait of Henry VIII.

About a week later, I was deeply engaged in my morning visit to the smallest room in the house when the telephone rang. I heard my mother answer it (I was still living at home in 1983), and then a few seconds later she banged on the door and demanded I take phone from her, immediately, whispering loudly, “It’s the Duke of Devonshire!”

Twice in my life I have been compelled to hold seminal, life-changing conversations while seated on the lavatory – the first being this one, with the Duke of Devonshire, and the second, with the publisher-to-be of my book, King Saul. I’ve often mused, that if I’d spent more time on the loo, I might have enjoyed greater success in my professional life!

Fortunately, given my state of indisposition, the conversation with His Grace did not take too long, and by the time it was over, he had invited me, and two examples of my oil paintings to his London home, the following week.

What occurred there, goes down as one of the more interesting and eccentric episodes of my professional life, and will comprise part II of this little tale…

*(all those wondering why the seat of the Dukes of Devonshire is in Derbyshire please see here)

COME FLY WITH ME?

by adamhalevi, posted in Air Travel, Ben Gurion Airport, Chile, Coquimbo, Israel, Italy, Kinneret, Lake Garda, Lod Airport, Oil on Canvas, Oil Painting, Sea of Galilee, Seville, Seville Alcazar, Spain, Tel Aviv, Tongoy, travel

in my dreams at least

With all due apologies to Greta Thunberg and her righteous minions, the thing I’m missing most during these dystopian times is travel – in particular, travel by air. I find myself staring up at the eerily silent skies above our Spanish home, longing for the return of vapour trails scratched out by distant aeroplanes, like small gleaming arrowheads, hurtling toward myriad destinations. Raised in the 1960’s and 70’s, I am an unreformed creature of my era and my conditioning, brought up to regard jet travel as the ultimate expression of independence and the gateway to adventure. And deprived of it now I feel caged in and frustrated, to the point where I find myself craving the most mundane of things, like the regular noise of the jet engines approaching and leaving our nearby airport, and even the smell of aviation fuel at the airport itself.

One of my most vivid childhood memories, is from my second ever flight in July of 1967 to Tel Aviv, on arriving at Lod Airport (as it was then – since renamed Ben Gurion) late at night. There were no airbridges in those days at Lod, and I can never forget, as we walked down the stairs, onto the floodlit apron, being instantly engulfed in a blanket of humid, oven-hot air, laced with the scent of kerosene. These intense sensations – startlingly alien to a little boy from north London suburbia – had a deeply intoxicating effect that lives with me to this day.

However, attitudes and perceptions have greatly altered in recent years, and what I still look back on as a happy memory that shaped my future, would, in these apparently more enlightened times, be considered by some as a scarring and damaging episode, which condemned me to life as an environmental criminal.

Nevertheless, during the 80’s and 90’s, when my painting career was in full swing, flying opened up an almost infinite canvas for my colour-hungry brushes, as expressed below in eight examples from those exuberant and innocent times. And so I would hope, even the most virtuous of those reading this piece, would at least own that some good came out of what they might otherwise regard as merely evidence of my multiple re-offending…

ACHZIV – 1982 – oil on canvas: Of all the dozens of beach paintings in Israel I made, this one, most successfully, captures the feel of the water and the intensity of the light and harshness of the colours, epitomised by the silhouetted figures against the sea.
BATHERS AT KINNERET – 1982 – oil on canvas: As mentioned before on these pages, the Sea of Galilee has proved a fertile source of inspiration for my art, over many years. This typical Shabbat scene, of three generations is hugely evocative for me. I’m particularly pleased with the way I captured the large bulk of the grandmother, deftly negotiating the stones, while carrying her grandchild with almost nonchalant aplomb.
HOTELS, SAND, SEA AND SKY (Tel Aviv) – 1992 – oil (impasto) on canvas: Tel Aviv is an addiction for me. I crave to be there when away, and yet the place drives me half-nuts when I’m there; partly through sensory overload and partly through it’s 24/7 urban intensity – like New York City, on steroids. It’s of no surprise to those familiar with Israel’s second city, that National Geographic regularly lists it in its top 10 “beach cities” of the world. This is the closest I ever got to revealing its brutal-yet-beautiful physicality in paint. One can almost feel the hot summer breeze, and taste of salt in the turbulent air – and as for the light…
OUTSIDE THE ALCAZAR (Seville) – 1985 – oil on canvas: “I fell in love with Seville” is one of those traveller’s clichés, like “I love Paris” (which I do not), or “I love Rio” (which I need to visit again to be certain). But in my case, this is the truth, partly, perhaps because I also experienced romantic love in Seville; twice. Generally, I’m not one for painting anything through rose tinted spectacles, but in the case of Seville, it’s virtually impossible not to. Perhaps that’s why I’ve sold every single painting I ever made of the place. People just love a bit of rose, and bit of ochre, and touch of sienna, and certainly a great deal of violet…
JOLANDA AT GARDA – 1983 – oil on canvas: If anywhere in the world can compete with Seville for romance, then the Italian lakes is that place. But, whereas the feel of Seville is defined by strong colours, bright light and deep shade, the Italian lakes are bathed in subtle, seasonally shifting tonalities. If Seville is all about the passion, than Lake Garda, seen here in mid-winter, is all mellow contemplation. Love takes many forms, after all.
DIDO AT COQUIMBO (Chile) – 1992 – oil on canvas: Sadly, this photo is slightly out of focus, but the painting remains the one I was most pleased with from our time in Chile. The region of Coquimbo (in common with much of the southern Atacama Desert) had just experienced its heaviest rains for over 40 years, resulting in the greatest cactus flowering most Chileans had ever witnessed. I’ve rarely felt more privileged as a traveller, before or since, and together with the Sinai Corral Reef remains the most wonderous display of nature I have ever seen.
DIDO AND LYNNE AT TONGOY –1992 – oil on canvas: Back in 1991, when we were there, Tongoy was somewhere between a sleepy fishing village, and an even sleepier seaside resort. It felt a bit like entering a scene from a Steinbeck novel, and I half expected to see the skeleton of a giant marlin lying on the pearly white sands. It was off season, and we (and the fishermen too of course) had the place to ourselves. A precious and serene memory.

SURFACE DEEP

by adamhalevi, posted in Adam Green, Expressionism, Impressionism, Israel, Kibbutz Ayelet Hashachar, Kinneret, Landscape Painting, Oil on Canvas, Oil Painting, Palette Knife Painting, People studies in Landscape, Sea of Galilee

expressive impressions

The “problem” of figures in landscape fascinated and challenged me in equal measure. After all, without the notion of a literal narrative theme to the picture, the human figure always seemed to be merely an additional element – actually part of the landscape that she/he inhabited. This was not to depersonalise the figure so much as to find a way to harmonise all the elements of the image, whether vegetation, rock, sky or/and living figures.

The Tiyul (Tour) Party – 1983 – oil on canvas – 102 x 153cm This was my first palette knife figures-in-landscape painting. It was on my-then-typical rose madder ground, and at the sketch stage when I decided to “attack” the canvas with the knife. It was applied in one session, lasting about 3 hours – I realised immediately, that speed, in combination with paint application was key. This remains my all-time favourite painting that I ever executed in oils.

From the time of the Impressionists onward, artists have found increasingly ingenious – even gimmicky – ways of resolving the problem. Artists like Renoir and Monet would blend their pictorial elements through a uniformity of paint daubs, and later, Seurat by “distilling” those daubs into dots. Then, Picasso and Braque contorted and warped their figures into the very space they inhabited, leading finally to Matisse, whose contrary method was to turn everything into a jigsaw of flat shapes.

The Swimmer – 1983 – oil on canvas – 122 x 122cm I found water to be a natural “animated” environment for my new “animated” figures. By now I had moved to a deep black ground, setting off increased colour contrasts.

My earliest representational combinations of figures with landscape in oil paint were none of the above, but both romantic, and traditional, whereby the figures inhabit their environment rather like actors on an enormous stage. And, while this was great for creating a form of visual counterpoint and deeply spatial scenic drama, it ignored the potential of the paint itself for creating a vivid, “living” surface.

Waiting to Jump – 1983 – oil on canvas – 92 x 61cm My new way of painting coincided with one of my longer trips to Israel. The previous picture, this painting, and the one below are all in and around the pool at Kibbutz Ayelet Hashachar, in the Galilee.

I must have painted dozens of such “theatrical” images when one day, I was confronted by a sketched ground for yet another scene of young people in Israel, and made a change of plan. It was a simple thing really, but with exciting consequences for the evolution of my art. I simply put down my brushes and picked up my favourite, medium-sized, trowel-shaped palette knife, and made the whole finished painting with that instead. The resulting picture was a revelation to me, with the paint, and the surface of the canvas elevated from a means to a pictorial end, to the end itself. In the process, the figures were transformed from “actors on a stage” into animated, vibrant entities, at one with their landscape. Suddenly, my pictures, and the figures within, looked alive.

The Jump – 1983 – oil on canvas – 122 x 105cm

Looking at these pictures now, with objectivity borne of time and distance, the significant influence of Impressionism is hard to dispute, yet my own, innate Expressionist instincts are equally evident, and even now, that still gives me a tingle of excitement and pride. Ultimately, they’re not half-bad, and that is all that really matters.

Family at Kineret – 1983 – oil on canvas – 122 x 98cm Kineret (The Sea of Galilee) was a recurring theme / backdrop to my Israel-sourced images. It’s atmospherics (light, colour and water) are an artist’s dream.

MOODY BLUES AND STORMY HUES…

by adamhalevi, posted in Adam and Dido, Adam Green, Boulogne-sur-mer, Oil on Canvas, Oil Painting, Palette Knife Painting, Seascapes

…AND HOW I DERIVED SOMETHING POSITIVE FROM OUR MOST NEGATIVE EPISODE

The past twelve Covid-19-infested months included, by far the bleakest time my wife Dido and I have shared together was our enforced eight-month sojourn in Boulogne-Sur-Mer, back in the early 1990’s, described in earlier posts ( here and here).

The Distant Breakwater – oil on canvas – 1995

Yet, few circumstances, however dire, are so unremitting that they totally lack the odd moment of emotional uplift. And for us, in Boulogne, these moments were generally provided during our regular weekend strolls across the local beach.

The Harbour Entrance – oil on canvas – 1995

The proverbial bracing sea air (even when tainted by the odours emitting from the local fish cannery on the southerly breezes); the angry waters of the English Channel, inky blue-black beneath a vast sky of tumbling clouds; distant rain squalls appearing like grey curtains drawn across the serrated horizon; and shafts of silver sunlight occasionally breaking through the blanket of cumulous like spotlights illuminating a white flecked, cobalt stage in perpetual motion – all conspired to blast us temporarily from our glum mental state.

The Fish Cannery – oil on canvas – 1995

In a way similar to how blues music comforts and eases the spirit, by both reflecting back, and articulating the nature and source of the angst, so those tumultuous blue-tinged scenes reminded us of our innate love for life and the adventures it offers. The three palette-knifed oils here, painted a year or two later in my southern Spanish studio, celebrate those precious moments that gave us the reason and the energy to persevere. A particularly apposite recollection I think for these troubled times…

WALKING AWAY – AGAIN

by adamhalevi, posted in "Walking Away" Painting Series, Adam Green, Art, Bormio, Ein Kerem, Oil on Canvas, Painting from Photographs

another look at the art of painting from photographs…

The two pictures presented below have both featured in previous posts (here and here), but neither with their template photographs. The “Walking Away” is particularly interesting to me as it has the penned grid over the girl drawn onto the photo itself. Generally, as far as I recall, I would use a sheet of tracing or acetate paper over the photo so as not to ruin it. But, for some reason I didn’t bother in this case. The fact that I only “gridded” the girl is reflected in the relative freedom of the landscape painting. The skiing scene mountain-scape by contrast is much more faithful to the original photo, in form, if not in tonality.

Both pictures present further evidence of what is possible using the humble snap, in terms of expressive potential and dramatic interpretation.

This was a large photograph, and thus atypical for me, as I generally preferred small snaps. I guess that in this case, I felt the figure to be central to the composition and so required the extra detail a larger photo offered. For those interested, the scene is just above the village of Ein Kerem, in the hills just to the west of Jerusalem. The Hadassah University Hospital is at the top left, famous for its synagogue adorned with Marc Chagall’s fabulous twelve stained glass windows, depicting the Twelve Tribes of Israel.
“Walking Away” – 1982 – oil on canvas
This was the more typical small postcard-size snap I preferred to use for making large “blown-up” paintings. The tight containment of the image helped my decision-making processes and prevented me getting distracted by extraneous detail. In this case, I only retained five of the skiers as I felt it accentuated the drama of the moment, and the moodiness is also increased by a tonal shift from a highly photographic cyan (almost indigo) screen to a deep gradation of (mostly) dark cobalt.
“Bormio 3000” – 1983 – Oil on Canvas

PAINTING FROM PHOTOGRAPHS – mundane craft or true modern art?

by adamhalevi, posted in Art, Banyas / Banias / Panias Falls, David Hepher, Galilee, Haifa, Israel, Jerusalem, Oil on Canvas, Saint Martin's School of Art, Uncategorized

Photography has played an ever-growing role in my picture-making since the first day of the second term, of my second year at Saint Martin’s School of Art. It was a bleak winter’s day in 1980 and I remember feeling particularity depressed about the direction – or lack of direction to be precise that my painting was taking. For the past four terms at the school I’d walked a wobbly tightrope between the pressure to emulate my tutors’ abstract expressionism, and my own innate passion for making representational images. The resulting stream of paintings echoed this dichotomy, rarely convincing as abstract or figurative; more often than not, a clumsy, unresolved mishmash of the two forms. If, as occasionally happened, I turned out a pleasing picture, it was always more by luck than by design, with me clueless as to how or why I had achieved this. 

THE COACH PARTY (detail) – 1980 – oil on canvas
This was the first painting I made after my talk with David. It was huge (the foreground figures were to-life scale) and liberating in equal measure. I was rarely happier or more stimulated when working on a painting.

Then, on that winter’s day in 1980, while I was pacing back and forth, dreading the coming weeks and months, a new tutor called David Hepher walked into my studio space, and my art career was changed forever. David, unlike all the other tutors at Saint Martin’s was a figurative artist and to this day I have no idea how he came to be teaching there, but for me, his sudden appearance was as timely as that of an Old Testament angel. I distinctly recall his expression as he first set eyes on my paintings – large canvases full of expressively, heavily painted figures of young people hurtling boldly through a romanticised Israeli landscape.

RESTING AT MONTFORT (detail) – 1980 – oil on canvas
This was the third painting in what I still think of as my “Hepher Series”, and I was already discovering, as he surely knew I would, that “copying” would provide its own form of interpretation…

A warm quizzical smile came across his face like that of someone unexpectedly bumping into an old friend. Then I remember that he sat down on my rickety paint-spattered moulded plastic chair. During the previous four terms at the school not one tutor had ever smiled this kind of smile when looking at my pictures, let alone sat down in my space. By the end of the ensuing conversation it became apparent that he was almost as relieved to see my work in that school, as I was thankful that he was now teaching there.

The Banyas Waterfall – 1981 – oil on canvas
One of my favourite spots on Earth; the source of the River Jordan, and almost believably, as the Macedonian soldiers believed two centuries before Christ, the birthplace of the god Pan. Notice the way I played with tonality and shadowing to create more drama…

The first thing he asked me was who my favourite artists were, and when I said Vermeer and Hopper he looked curiously at my wild and frenzied pictures. He then reminded me of Vermeer’s reliance on the camera obscura for achieving these perfectly painted captured moments and asked me why I didn’t use my own photos in a similar fashion?

CHURCH OF SAINT MARY MAGDALENE & GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE – 1982 – oil on canvas
This painting was commissioned, paid for and then returned back to me as a gift, when my patron’s new girlfriend took against it. It could even yet prove to be the first and only painting I sell twice!

While I’d already been using photographs for the past year or so as a form of rough reference, in the same way I worked from my sketchbook, David convinced me  to try something “bolder”, in his words, but hugely controversial; especially within such a temple of conceptualism and abstract expressionism as Saint Martin’s. He suggested that I take my favourite photographs and copy them as faithfully as possible in oils, like huge painted photographic enlargements. He felt certain that in this way I would find the inner artistic peace I was craving.

MOUNT MERON FROM SEFAD – 1983 – oil on canvas
In a similar way to the Casino painting below, I seem to have slightly shifted the angle of the tombstones, and altered the line of telegraph poles – I’m guessing to increase the sensation of being drawn down into the valley, before being swept up again toward the distant mountain.

And cutting a long story short, David’s empathetic advice proved successful, even though the pictures I went on to produce with this new method ensured that I would prove even more of a problematic enigma for most of his colleagues. Presented here are several of the large canvases I painted as a direct result of David’s tutelage. Some them have appeared on this site before, but never side-by-side with the “offending” snaps! 

THE OLD BRITISH CASINO – HAIFA – 1985 – oil on canvas
In some ways this is the most faithful photographic copy I made in the entire series of pictures (the removed fisherman notwithstanding), yet the subtle shift in angle and perspective is stark – and effective – I think?

    “WORKERS IN THE FIELD”

    by adamhalevi, posted in Adam Green, Apple Picking, Art, Communist China, Druze, Ian Simpson, Israel, John Edwards, Kibbutz Volunteering, Kibbutz Yiftach, Oil on Canvas, Saint Martin's School of Art

    AND THE “LITTLE RED” ICE LOLLY

    I think I’ve mentioned before on these pages how, very occasionally, I had my uses to the powers-that-be at Saint Martin’s School of Art. While generally I was shunned by most of the tutors for my work being “hopelessly representative”, every-so-often, when they required the services of someone with common-or-garden drawing and painting skills they came to your’s truly.

    The story of my mural in Covent Garden was the most high-profile example of this expediency, but there was another occasion when my usefulness to the school was probably far more significant.

    Apple Pickers at Rest – oil on canvas – 48″ x 72″ (122 x 183 cm) 1980 – the painting that caught the attention of the Chinese delegation…

    It was shortly after the Easter break in 1981 when St. Martins received a visit from a delegation of Communist Chinese dignitaries from their ministry of culture, led by the minister himself. Although I was blissfully unaware at the time, the visit was part of a drive by China to open up access for their top students to elite academic institutions in the UK and North America. I subsequently discovered that their “shopping list” of British institutions comprised, Oxford and Cambridge, University College London, Imperial College, the LSE, the Royal Ballet School, and (incredibly to me at least) Saint Martin’s School of Art. I was equally ignorant of the fact that the visit mattered at least as much to my school as it did to the visitors, as even back then, foreign students were a lucrative source of revenue.

    …A detail from the painting, with the ice lolly “mistaken” for a Little Red Book at the top of the image…

    Thus, in effect, I was an unwitting cultural/commercial ambassador for St. Martin’s. The fact that my work was the polar opposite of everything that St. Martin’s stood for mattered not. That it was “safe”, accessible, “good of its kind” and most important of all, unlikely to be considered “decadent” by our communist guests mattered a great deal. When I later asked my head tutor John Edwards, why they didn’t simply visit the Slade School or the Royal Academy Schools, where nearly all the art was like mine, he pointed out that St. Martin’s was “so much more than a mere school of painting”. And that its fashion and film departments, in addition to its art and sculpture “made it uniquely attractive” to the Chinese. “In truth”, he added, “the art department was the least significant element” of the school and the main thing was “not to rock the boat”. As things turned out, not only did my work prove the steady ship my superiors had hoped, one of my pictures actually ended up pleasing our visitors more than anyone could have predicted.

    “Workers in the field…” – actually local Druze hired labour – with ice lollies.

    On the afternoon of the visit, the art department was cleared of students except for me, and the delegation was brought up directly to my studio. There were about ten Chinese, all men and all wearing expensive English-cut suits, and they were led into the room by John Edwards and the principal of the school, Ian Simpson. After some words of introduction from John, the visitors began to notice my pictures, which wasn’t difficult, as at that time I was working on a series of monumental canvases. However – and it’s a moment I shall never forget – as their eyes (and I mean their eyes, for they turned their ten heads as if a single organism) landed on “Apple Pickers at Rest” they let out a collective “ahhhh…” and all broke into broad smiles. Then, the leader of the delegation (the minister himself as it later turned out) looked at me and asked, or perhaps stated, “workers in the field yes?”. I think I just nodded. He then walked up to the picture, and pointing at one of “workers” contemplatively holding a raspberry ice lolly, he turned to me, and grinning and nodding enthusiastically queried, “Little Red Book, yes?”. Before I could respond, he’d already uttered something to his compatriots, to which they all responded with an even bigger collective “ahhhh…”, followed by more smiles and nods of approval. Finally, after each shaking hands and bowing their heads to me in turn, the principal led them out of my studio to continue their tour. The last person to leave was John, who, as he walked out the door, turned around and gave me a big thumb’s-up.

    I was left feeling peculiarly frustrated, having been completely unable to explain what the painting was in fact depicting – a scene of Druze labourers, hired by the kibbutz on which I was a volunteer, enjoying a rest from picking apples with a refreshing ice lolly (ice popsicle). In retrospect, my being tongue-tied was a blessing, as Ian later informed me that the minister had described their visit to my studio as the highlight of their tour of the school and even inquired about the possibility of purchasing the painting. I declined this however, when it was made clear all the proceeds would be pocketed by St. Martin’s. After all, I thought, I had already done more than my bit for insuring the future prosperity of the school!

    FIRST AND nearly LAST – the evolution of my painting on canvas…

    by adamhalevi, posted in Adam Green, Art, Art Education, Art School, Oil on Canvas, Palette Knife Painting, St Martins, Uncategorized

    One of the many surprises thrown up by my recent digitisation of all my photographs of old artwork was how – once chronologically sorted – it vividly revealed the development of my painting skills – or, if not skills exactly; at least of my comfort with the medium of oil paint. Additionally, they exposed something even more interesting – at least to me – of the dramatic alteration in my spirits and emotions from that heavily pressured time at art school to my days as a confident, free painting spirit.

    The two paintings I have chosen for this piece graphically illustrate what I mean:

    Soho Buildings was the first painting I ever made on canvas, and how it shows! Thin washes, tentative drawing and clumsy composition. Looking at it now, even in photographic form, I can still feel my fear of the canvas, and my hesitant application of the paint. Plus there was the added pressure of being surrounded by – at least – equally talented artists, most of whom were already familiar with painting on canvas. So, I was desperate for it to appear like I knew what I was doing and that I was at ease with the process, which clearly shows in the picture. But, for all that, the painting has some merit; some lucky accidents; like the two white painted windows on the shaded side of the near building…something quite lyrical about them. Plus, it serves now as a powerfully symbolic and accurate reminder of my gloomy mindset during those first terrifying days at Saint Martin’s…

    SOHO BUILDINGS FROM SAINT MARTINS – oil on canvas – 1978

    Girl Fastening Sandal was painted in 1988 and is evidently, everything the Soho picture is not. By this time I was confident and comfortable with both the oil paint and the painting surface and, more crucially, unencumbered by being part of any “art scene” – I didn’t have to worry about peers and rivals watching me over my shoulder. Whereas, with the Soho painting it was all I could do to produce any kind of image on the canvas, with the Girl painting I was preoccupied with expressing the joys and thrills of both the subject and the paint itself. It should look almost as if the paint flowed directly from my mind to the palette knife; a visual stream of consciousness; like a happy, joyous thought. The two paintings here graphically represent a pretty dramatic 10-year transition from student to artist and from teenage hesitancy to adult assuredness.

    GIRL FASTENING SANDAL – oil on canvas – 1995