COMPUTER FAILURE, BLOG WRITING AND ART
There was a gap in my blog writing.
This was not that I had given up writing a blog, but a connection failure between the old and new worlds of the internet.
I still write with a Windows 95 computer and its 3 ½” floppy disk. This disk I hand on to Margreet when I have written something, who slips it into a gadget that she can connect with her modern Apple computer. Then she can deliver my words to the ether to be read by anyone who cares to do so.
But, as with most computers, hers had a glitch and had to be seen by Apple experts, who not only mended it, but also gave it an upgrade. In doing so, they disconnected its 3 ½” floppy disk route. (The Apple man, when hearing of my antiquated approach to computer technology, referred to me as a “cool dude”.)
Anyhow, that was all rectified, and I can continue to enjoy putting words together, as well as painting.
The painting part of my life has suddenly taken off. Not only do I have my private collectors buying but, through Offer Waterman (that very smart gallery at 17 St George Street, behind Sotheby’s in Bond Street), sales also go apace.
It so happens that in the 1950s I exhibited in the best London galleries and was thus quite well known at the time. I suppose I could have continued with that form of art when I painted what I saw, then putting paint to canvas. But I have an enquiring mind. So around 1959, after the period of “natural” painting, I would select an imaginative theme, then persevere until I had squeezed enough from it, not bothering too consciously about style and content, but letting imagination, nature and experience take its course. Always in my mind I wanted to create interesting paintings to look at, but with my imagination and that of the viewer paramount.
Around 1964 (I say 1964, but that is a general date encompassing 1963 to 1966), I painted a series on the theme of London’s dockland, and in a pretty vigorous manner. I never exhibited them or, I recall, even sold any. Now they seem to be all the rage, with some collectors liking them not only for their style and content, but also because no other artist, certainly with my way of painting, was working in London’s dockland at that time.
Which goes to confirm (I trust, and hope) that good art will always be recognised as such – eventually.
So this little burst of sales and recognition is rather unexpected. And I am delighted about it.
