SANDY MOFFAT: Poets Portraits, The Lillie Art Gallery Milngavie, Glasgow

2018 January.

SANDY MOFFAT self portrait

Forty years ago when the young Sandy Moffat set out to create powerful portraits of seven of Scotland's poets, he could have had no idea that he was to immortalise them for generations to come. 

Long a friend and fan of that remarkable generation centred around Hugh MacDiarmid who met in Edinbro's famous Rose Street pubs, he aimed to position them in their home surroundings,

 be it George Mackay Brown in Orkney, 

Sorley MacLean shadowed by the Cuillins, 

or Edwin Morgan in his Glasgow University study with his Paolozzi print & Modernist chair. 

First launched at Glasgow's THIRD EYE Centre in February 1981, despite their fame, many of these key pictures have not been seen together for many years. Now, till Feb 8th they are at Milngavie's LILLIE GALLERY. 

Make sure you visit. Nothing prepares you for the power of these images. Strong, simplified, assured of stroke, each mark describes a memorable, sensitive, pensive personality at one with his surroundings. And despite their solitary stance - apart, alone in thought - they each pulsate & radiate rich colour, as though the better to communicate their words, their optimistic message. 

I reviewed the Third Eye 1981 show for the Glasgow Herald, but re-reading my words, I'm aware that I overlooked the profound importance of Moffat's pastel & charcoal sketches to the entire project. These swiftly caught studies with their soft line, are the key to its success. "All portraits begin with the live encounter between sitter & artist. These portrait were labours of love." 

He began with MacDiarmid. Moffat was, he told me, well aware he was "just in time". MacDiarmid was 86 & already battling cancer when Moffat visited him at home at his Brownsbank cottage, near Biggar, in 1978. He died shortly afterwards. 

"I went with Neal Ascherson, and immediately got down to work while Neal engaged him in conversation. He was in good form. We'd taken a decent bottle of malt whisky which he said was the best pain-killer. The body had gone, but the brain was still very, very active. I drew them for a couple of hours as they talked. His wife Valda said, 'You should put your false teeth in." But he said, Oh no, no. Sandy can do that; an artist can always do things like that.'  "I kicked off with the pipe and chair of course, but I wanted the finished painting to be about MacDiarmid's vision for Scotland, a kind of history painting if u like. The landscape behind moves from the Borders where he was born, to the Shetlands where he lived in the 1930s." 

The finished picture, titled Hymn to Lenin, 1979, contained figures like Lenin & Mayakovsky, relating to the Soviet Revolution, which was a crucial event for MacDiarmid, plus John MacLean - emerging from the side of MacDiarmid's chair. Tatlin's Tower. "The picture is a straight-forward homage," Moffat said in 1981.  

It is a magnificent picture, the dry oil handled very like Kitaj. Moffat was a great admirer of Kitaj, who along with Peter de Francia encouraged him in the Poets project.  

As Moffat explained, "Drawing and the finished painting are different things. Painting takes time. I'd like to be able to make a painting like a drawing, that is a cherished ambition. To have all the elements one has in drawing, the spontaneity, the vigour, the sense of design. But the point is to produce a painting that is a work of art & not just just a superficial likeness of someone."

Soon Moffat had the idea of putting all the poets together in Milne's bar. Moffat has a romantic idealistic view of his student days haunting the Bohemian atmosphere where his heroes gathered and talked. "The poets took on the world and we wanted to be like them. They were political, unlike the painters. They linked art & politics in a wholly challenging way. ... These poets played a leading role, both in their verse & prose in shaping the artistic conscience of this country." 

The main figure here is Sydney Goodsir Smith,  who died before the series started. He is centre stage. "It seemed right as he was always the life & soul of the party."  

In the intervening years Moffat went on to teach & inspire many many painting students at Glasgow School of Art, retiring in 2005 after 25 years there. 

A committed portraitist, & dedicated to his task, he is credited with encouraging and steering the resurgence of figurative painting at GSA. 

Last year Moffat tackled a new canvas: Scotland's Voices, as a companion piece to the Poets' Bar.  This latest picture, full of hot colour and joyous music, celebrates Hamish Henderson as he toured Scotland with his tape recorder in the 1950s recording traditional songs. Here around a campfire, with references to the Penny Wedding in the background, are musicians & singers: Aly Bain, Dolina Maclennan, Willie Scott, Belle Stewart, Jeannie Robertson ..." At last the women get a look in!! 

Most folk who see this show will not know the back story to its creation. Nor the hicups along the way!   

It began as a Scottish Arts Council commission - allowing Moffat the luxury of time & money, a touring exhibition &  knowing the 7 pictures would stay together.  But in April 1985 the SAC decided to dispose of its collection!  The oils were up for bids and dispersed, with Brown going to Orkney Stromness Academy (where it has got very wet)

Norman MacCaig to Edinbro City Art Centre, & Sorley's portrait  to the Isle of Skye. Happily the rest belong to the SNPG but are not now generally on show. 

A lifelong supporter of both communism and Scottish nationalism, ever controversial, MacDiarmid is now considered one of the principal forces behind the Scottish Renaissance and has had a lasting impact on Scottish culture and politics. Edwin Morgan once said of him: 'Eccentric and often maddening genius he may be, but MacDiarmid has produced many works which, in the only test possible, go on haunting the mind and memory; casting seeds of insight and surprise.

The same can be said of Moffat's poet portraits.  They loiter in the mind, haunting the memory, their unique power emanating from faces well studied, well drawn, the human condition "forced into the centre of one's vision." In 1981 Moffat said he would like people to contemplate his paintings; "to come back again & again."

                                              I think he has his wish. 

 

RODIN at the MET, NY

NY's Met has one of the world's best RODIN collections, but for a good long while they have been located in a thro-way which links one main part of the Met with another. Used every day by hoards, it did not encourage slow looking! 

Now, to celebrate the centenary of his death, a new and thoughtful permanent display changes the dynamtic. Same place but new lighting, new colour, new hang, new juxtapositions with paintings by his friends Monet, Puvis de Chevannes, Renoir, Bastien-Lepage, etc etc etc make for a fitting sculpture gallery - and home for one of the most famous ever works of art The THINKER.  

U can buy a copy of it from Walmart for $60 and from the Met store for $225!! 

Photo of Rodin by Steichen

The one at the Met, modeled in 1880, cast in bronze in 1910, was comissioned by the Met. It epitomise Rodin's "ardent, enduring exploration of the human figure as he strove to imitate 'not only form, but life" explains curator Denise Allen. Even his toes breathe energy, coiled in tension yet ready to dream or leap.

The first Rodin show at the Met was in 1912 when Rodin was 72. 

It was also the first ever show there of a living artist - & R was so pleased he donated some work from his studio. That was the start of a large collection of around 100 marbles, bronzes, plasters, terracottas, drawings and prints of which half are on show here

             This photo from an excellent Met BLOG shows the space before - below u see it now.

The Rodin gallery, now christened  B. Gerald Cantor Sculpture Gallery, in honor of their major 1980s gift, is divided into 2 - Heaven & Hell.

Hell comes first with its almost black, but sometimes greeny-black, big bold bronzes. 

 The half way point is marked by the beautiful classic Age of Bronze 1876

                                     here being removed, then re-installed to great effect.

Then heaven - with white marble lovers: Cupid & Psyche, Pygmalion & Galatea, sensuous Orpheus & Eurydice 1887, the erotic lovemaking of Eternal Spring.

140 years ago what did the pubic make of it all ?? I know my grandmother had sepia reproductions of these sculptures in her bedroom in the 1920s according to my mother, who herself went on to be a sculptor of the nude figure. The pix were still there when I was a child.

There is no defined path thro the show - explore it any way u want. Here above is Pygmalion & Galatea 1889. Marble. 

The walls are hung with related paintings. Here the Seine at Vetheuil 1880, by Monet - his friend. 

while right next door are the Monet and Impressionist rooms. How wonderful to get them to oneself!

See photos of a gallery's transformation for Rodin at The Met in this Now at The Met blog post.

          The curators responsible for this transformation are seen here.  Congratulations to all.

for more information see Rodin at The Met,

Here are lots of photos for your delight 

and - The extraordinary range of The Met's holdings of Rodin's work is highlighted in an adjacent gallery (gallery 809) with a selection of drawings, prints, letters, and illustrated books, as well as photographs of the master sculptor and his art. This focused presentation introduces visitors to the evolution of Rodin's draftsmanship and demonstrates the essential role of drawing in his practice. It also addresses Rodin's engagement with photographers, especially Edward Steichen (1879–1973), who served as a key intermediary in bringing Rodin's drawings to New York.

see more  pix of the Met and also Rodin being set up 

MORTON KAISH, catalogue essay for The BUTLER Institute of American Art, Ohio and New York's NATIONAL ARTS CLUB, 2017

Beach Walk by Morton Kaish.

Distinguished. Professional. Admirable. Esteemed. If this makes MORTON KAISH sound like an old master, think again. His relish for blazing rapturous color, vigorous brushwork & intricate handling, produces paintings that radiate joyful exuberance; their glow and energy that of a young painter. 

Kaish loves color. "I try to surround myself with buoyant, optimistic color. "We artists sit here with a palette filled with color. For heaven's sake let's use it!" 

Sea Garden 

The results are romantic but never sentimental. He is by his own admission "a glass is half-full guy." This is especially evident in his landscape and flower pictures, 30 pictures from 30 years 1986-2016.

The flowers are not your usual formal 'arrangements' but a compression of color and texture which began in Ireland. "We went there in 1979, staying in remote Donegal to paint the emerald landscape but it rained day after day! So I ran out, picked wild flowers, put them on an old chair." 

That Irish chair has stayed with Kaish as one of his key motifs. The flowers change - he adds a passion flower here, a hollyhock there - but the chair stays. "Being an artist leaves you in charge of the world," he told me. "You can re-order it however you want!" 

Chilmark. 

His other love affair is the coming together of sea and sky over a coastal landscape. "For me it's magical." It began on his honeymoon in Provincetown in 1948, and continues to inspire many dramatic paintings. 

Chilmark 2001 captures loose sweeps of tumbling coastal grasses beside quivering clumps of delicious wild flowers. "I wanted it to move," he explains. And it does. A big 6 ft 'Sea Garden" shows an intense stormy sky, set beyond pale cliffs while a flood of unique blooms cluster round a triumphant red hollyhock ?  spire. This, he says "takes a Chilmark moment to extreme. Our friends had this dream house on Martha's Vineyard with the Atlantic Ocean as backdrop." Wild Irises and West Wind 2012 are instances where one can actually feel a fresh breeze off the water. 

The Seattle Arboretum inspired another series of massed fields of flowers while a Manhattan allotment awash with hollyhocks is immortalized in Hollyhock Cantata. Kaish sometimes uses a combination of acrylic & oils, as in The Visitor, 2006, a rare vase arrangement which includes star-like spiky blue flowers amid pink & yellow roses as a single bee hovers. Another close-up, Lilies and Roses 2006, celebrates his daughter's favorite flowers. 

Kaish can do big and bold too. In 1998 he began to focus on a cherry tree, but rather than elegant or fragile, he set about giving it majesty. A single Cherry Bud, with scrumbling light over dark to create transparency, makes an impressive 5ft statement. New Day enlarges a tree stem while the major eye-catching Delicate Balance 1989 is nothing short of fierce. 

Morton is an accomplished printmaker and he employs etching and collagraph to create  assertive angry plants, like Iris Bound or Steel Thistle Rising 2002. Monotypes return him to upbeat Hudson Summer or a single happy Spring anemone. 

Landscape and flowers are just once aspect of Kaish's armory. This year's beautiful photogravures of giant magnolia blooms found in California, demonstrate that he continues to live an enviable creative life of travel and adventure.  

CLARE HENRY, former art critic Financial Times & The Herald; curator 1990 Venice Biennale. 

New York, November 2016. 

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO Edinburgh FESTIVAL ART? from ArtWork's 200th edition Sept 2017

ARTWORK isssue 200, September 2017 

THE EDINBURGH Art Festival (EAF) has the opportunity, and responsibility, to make Festival visual arts better than ever before. With a reported budget of £735,969, this year's EAF presentation for the Festival's 70th anniversary was lukewarm, mundane and disappointing. Moreover, after 14 years, it has become too selective, with aesthetics getting in the way of inclusivity.

The Edinburgh Festival is above all about inclusion: an all-embracing, exciting, delicious spicey mixture.
Edinburgh's three week bonanza is no place for a narrow, clique-ridden, élitist presentation. No place for spotlighting primarily obscure, out-of-the way conceptual environments or self-indulgent videos accompanied by esoteric, art-speak text which no self-respecting visitor will ever read.
The average tourist expects and requires an easy presentation of all available exhibitions and events so they can visit easily.

Unlike the Fringe, Edinburgh's art world is not big. It is however a broad church, ranging from the traditional to the cutting edge, from painting to sculpture and installation, from national galleries to commercial galleries, small workshops or studios. This is what visitors come to explore.
Funded as it is by public money, it is not for EAF to sit as judge and jury, deciding what sort of art should be included in their bespoke guide, which reduces our National Galleries and Museums to 'partner' level while excluding the prestigious 175 year-old Scottish Gallery, the Royal Scottish Academy, the Fine Art Society (dating from 1876) plus completely omitting many galleries young and old.
EAF's charges – £1000 for a mention in their brochure – are bad enough. “Too much for little return,” one director told me. But their selection process is scandalous. Yes, decide on quality, on high standards, but not on style, on category. It's also hugely detrimental to Scotland's art world.
Once the pop-up shows and events fade away after their few days in the sun, stalwarts like the Open Eye, who provide an exceptional standard with no subsidy whatsoever, are left to help artists emerging, mature and old.
When did all this happen? Who allowed it to happen? Why no uproar?
EAF began as a homegrown, loose amalgam of unpaid volunteers who had the simple, obvious idea of tying the visual arts together via the galleries while encouraging a use of new spaces: churches, libraries, warehouses, etc. The printed programme was small, cheap. Everyone chipped in.
I have heard many and varied complaints. Costing £165,700, the EAF commissions programme (excepting Paterson's Chessels Court structure) was also especially poor.
The visual arts are slowly sinking at Festival time, crowded out by comedy and gimmicks. It was not always so. In the 1980s art exhibitions featured on the front of the official Edinburgh Festival brochure. Can someone please tackle the festival director and, as was the norm, get the National Galleries back in that brochure?
The vast majority of visual art events, unlike concerts, plays, gigs etc, are free. Tourists, visitors should throng these open, ticket-less venues. Surely it is not too much to ask for a cheap, small, easily-available-everywhere list of all exhibitions? I'm told this could be done for as little as £2k. With a total budget of £735,969 – bloody hell, as a friend said, two thousand is very small beer.
CLARE HENRY