Francoise Gilot, SURVIVING pICASSO

I’m currently working my way through the book ‘Life With Picasso’ written by one of his many muses Francoise Gilot who was also an artist.  She had to work hard to develop her career beyond the baggage of her 10 year entanglement with HIM.  She is unique in that it was she who ended the relationship, much to Picasso’s annoyance so it seems.  He instructed her dealer, the famous Daniel-Henry Kahnwieler to dump her (which he did) and broke off contact with their 2 children.  She is still alive, now aged 99 and lives in New York.

The book was originally published in 1964 and republished in 2019 which tells you something – it’s a significant work.  In her introduction to the 2019 edition, Lisa Alther states that Picasso launched three unsuccessful lawsuits trying to prevent its publication, and 40 French artists and intellectuals, some of whom were former ‘friends’ of Gilot signed a manifesto demanding the book be banned.  It’s likely the objections revolved around gender issues, a woman succeeding in a man’s world although Gilot believes they were simply ingratiating themselves to Picasso.  Some of those signatories later admitted that they hadn’t read the book.

Gilot 'Fire Spirit', oil on canvas, 2011

Gilot was only in her early 20’s when she met Picasso in 1943 – he was about 40 years her senior.  Against the wishes of her parents (in particular her violent father) Gilot gave up her law studies to pursue a career in art.  She was banished from the family home and lived with her grandmother, who supported her whilst the relationship with Picasso evolved in secret. 

It is suggested by many observers of the time that Gilot’s influence on Picasso was greater than the other way around.  In an interview with The Guardian in 2016, it was put to Gilot that being involved with an artist of such magnitude threatened to overwhelm her own style and development.  She responded “No, in art subjectivity is everything; I accepted what [he] did but that did not mean I wanted to do the same.”

In August 2019 an exhibition of her monotypes was held at the MacGryder Gallery in New Orleans.  Over the years she has experimented with many mediums, styles and techniques displaying a confident use of colour and texture. 

Gilot, 'Polarities' monotype, 2009

Commenting on Gilot’s exhibition at the MacGryder, Jess Civello said “Using lithographic inks, solvents and equipment, but painting directly onto plexiglass rather than stone or metal plates, Gilot was free to improvise, adding layers of translucent texture with pass after pass of inking and wiping clean the plate. Collaging different exotic textured papers onto the base sheet further enhanced her finished vision, resulting in unique paintings on paper with various symbolic themes that have an organic sense of movement to them.”

The book provides us with a vivid portrayal of both Gilot and Picasso.  She describes how Picasso would manipulate the market for his work – playing one dealer off against another.  He would invite 2 competing dealers to his studio, make them wait an hour before inviting one of them into his ‘inner sanctum’ whilst the other sweated it out.  Oh, to have that much power as an artist!!

Gilot, 'My Grandmother Anne Renoult', oil on canvas, 1943

Gilot also gives a vivid account of how Picasso would manipulate people, including how he enticed her to leave her grandmother and live with him.  He argued that every positive action can have a negative consequence “the genius of Einstein lead to Hiroshima”, he said.  Emotional blackmail was also part of his armoury.

So how did Gilot survive Picasso?  By being strong-willed, talented and financially independent thanks to the support of her grandmother.

References;

The New York Times

The Guardian

“Life With Picasso”, Francoise Gilot & Carlton Lake, New York Review Books, 1964 (republished 2019)

Martin Creed - When Nothing Matters?

What should we find in the toolbox of any successful artist?  Talent? (maybe). Networking skills? (you bet). Hard work and dedication? (of course). A gregarious nature? (it helps). And nerve? (well in the case of British artist Martin Creed – absolutely.)

There’s no point getting worked up about the stuff that pours out of Creed’s studio, he has been successful for many years and has work in collections that include the Museum of Modern Art in New York.  A composer and performer as well as an artist, Creed who was born in 1968 achieved worldwide notoriety in 2001 when he won the Turner Prize with an installation of a light going on and off in a room.  The jury praised the work saying, they "admired the audacity in presenting a single work in the exhibition and noted its strength, rigour, wit and sensitivity to the site".

Creed (on the right) with his first band Owada  (Artimage)

He has been a member of bands producing one note compositions and songs featuring minimalist repetitive lyrics such as “Nothing” and “Fuck Off”.   Creed comes from a musical background – his parents played the cello and piano.

In his 1999 BBC series “This Is Modern Art”, artist Matthew Collings argues that artists who emerged in the 1990’s (such as Creed) were accepting of the nothingness in contemporary art because their sensibilities had been formed at art school by 1980’s blankness, they found normal the ‘icy white nothingness that art had become.’

Collings takes Creed to task over the work “Screwed Up Sheet of A4 Paper”.  Creed said he wanted to make something from a piece of paper and a sphere seemed the most obvious shape.  He likes that it seems to disappear when you “put it in the world.  It looks like a reasonably well made sphere”.  Collings laughs, “No it’s not, it’s just a screwed up piece of paper”.  He asks what’s the concept, how does he make a screwed up piece of paper into a sphere and then a work of art?  Creed responds “I don’t call it a work of art, it’s a sphere – a ball of paper”.  Is Creed being disingenuous?

Creed gives all his work numbers as titles.  He doesn’t want to distinguish between any of them. He says he doesn’t have any philosophical basis to make decisions about a work of art or life, or any basis at all to make decisions.  Deciding on what coloured shirt to buy is a challenge.  He starts from nothing.

Work No 701 (2007)

Charlotte Higgins from The Guardian had her work cut out trying to discover what makes Creed ‘tick’ as an artist.  He claims to make no distinction between producing his work and life, such as buying a pair of trousers.  “It’s all about trying to live, you know”.  He finds everything in the world profound and claims not to know what art is. “It's a magic thing because it's to do with feelings people have when they see something. If the work is successful, it's because of some magic quality it has." A magic quality the artist has put into it? Asks Higgins.  "It's not in the work," he says. "People use the work to help them make something in themselves. So the work is a catalyst." 

Knowing that Creed can be brought to tears by Beethoven, she asks him if a pair of trousers can make him cry.  "No," he concedes. "But I don't sit listening to a pair of trousers for 40 minutes."  Higgins was getting nowhere.

Work No. 200 (2007)

In 2014, Creed held a massive retrospective at London’s Hayward Gallery titled “What’s The Point Of It?” This included a row of nails banged into a wall, a huge video of a penis slowly becoming erect before deflating again (for the over 18s), and if you think that’s tasteless, I’ll spare you the details of 2 other videos. There’s a Ford Focus which suddenly comes alive with doors, bonnet, and tailgate opening, radio playing, engine running – getting the power windows to operate was a work in progress. Critics argue that Creed treads a very fine line between the mindfully simple and simple minded.

Work No. 1686 (2013)

In reviewing the exhibition, the Guardian’s Tim Adams states “you can't help feeling you might need quite a low bar for knowingness, a spotless mind for innocence, a Buddhist master's understanding of joy, to appreciate it fully.”  Thus with his difficulty in making judgements, on deciding whether one thing is more important than another, Creed simply gives that ‘thing’ a number and adds it to his collection.

Perhaps a century on from Duchamp, nothing has changed.

References;

“This Is Modern Art”, BBC Channel 4  (1999)

The Guardian

Utopian Architecture

It’s amazing what the human imagination is capable of when given full rein.  I was thinking of this whilst contemplating the Metropole Project of French architect Etienne-Louis Boullee (1728-1799).  He studied classical French architecture and specialised in the neoclassical style that evolved from the mid18th Century.  He designed a number of private houses from the 1760’s including the Hôtel de Brunoy (below - demolished in 1930).

An idealist by nature, Boullee was a reluctant architect, his first passion was painting but he was driven to architecture by his practical father.  Later, Boullee became a teacher on the subject and wrote many essays. “He practised architecture with paper projects, beautifully rendered in pencil and wash, and only at the very end of his life, retiring to his country estate from the events of the Revolution, did he prepare them for publication.”  But they remained largely ignored and his essays unpublished until the 1950’s when his reputation as the “elder statesman of the radical Enlightenment in architecture” became established.

Later in his career, Boullee designed buildings of “majestic nobility” so enormous that they could hardly be constructed today, even if the funds were available.

Interior, Metropolitan Church. Those ‘ants’ at the bottom are people

“In his important theoretical designs for public monuments, Boullée sought to inspire lofty sentiments in the viewer by architectural forms suggesting the sublimity, immensity, and awesomeness of the natural world, as well as the divine intelligence underlying its creation.”

Bibliotheque Nationale

Boullée’s mature work combines abstraction of geometric forms with a suggestion of ancient works to create a new concept of monumental building that would possess the calm, (no doubt enhanced by the subtle use of light) and the beauty of classical architecture while also having considerable expressive power. Perhaps I’m being overly practical here, but issues of heating and lighting come to mind.

Metropole Project 1781

---

Commissioning the Prussian architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel to build your palace was perhaps not the greatest of ideas.  In 1838, he was asked to design a country retreat for Alexandra Feodorovna, wife of Nicholas I of Russia and it was to be perched on a precipice overlooking the Black Sea in Crimea.

Perspective of the Palace Complex in its Landscape Setting, Heinrich Mutzel, after Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Scottish National Gallery

Apparently, Schinkel’s plans were to blend classical and oriental designs. “Long colonnades, covered in mosaics and studded with precious gems, would be interwoven with gardens, culminating in an Ionic temple at the centre, beneath which would be housed a museum of local antiquities.”

Interior Perspective of the Great Hall, Looking Towards the Garden Court , Heinrich Asmus; after Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Scottish National Gallery

An exhibition called “Visionary Palaces” was held in 2016 at the Scottish National Gallery which included reproductions of Schinkel’s designs.  I’m trying to imagine attending such an exhibition and losing myself in these fantastical designs, especially if the reproductions were large scale.  You may not be surprised to learn that Schinkel’s Crimea design was “politely declined”.

Crimean Museum, Beneath the Temple Pavillion in the Centre of the Palace Complex, Viewed Looking Towards the Grand Pool in the Imperial Garden Court, W. Loeillot; after Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Scottish National Gallery

---

Fast forward to 1956 and the 89 yo. Frank Lloyd Wright unveils his 1.6 km (mile high) tower “The Illinois” proposed for a site in Chicago.  It was to consist of 528 floors and use nuclear powered lifts.  In the wake of the September 11 attacks, perhaps not such a great idea.  Was this a case of delusions of grandeur of which many older men are accused?  Or the final megalomaniacal statement in a remarkable (and some say egotistical) career?

References;

The Lyncean Group of San Diego

Apollo – The International Arts Magazine

The Architectural Review

Oasis In A City

Let’s begin with a quote from the book “Melbourne’s Garden” published in 1946 to commemorate the centenary of Melbourne’s Botanical Gardens which were founded under the direction of Charles Latrobe, Superintendent of Port Phillip. 

“….for Melbourne’s million and a half The Gardens means only one thing – the hundred acres of landscape that flanks the Yarra on the south, within sight of the heart of the city, yet a sanctuary for peace and meditation.”

As a prelude to my exhibition of paintings “Refuge” which opens at Tacit Galleries on 5th May, I am taking a look at the Gardens both past and present and what they mean to me. I can recall that one of the few times I experienced any inner peace as a child was when I visited these gardens with family – it was as if I had entered another world.

Three factors were thought to have contributed to the success of the gardens; contours, soil and climate.  The hilly terrain was considered unsuitable for housing and these hills drained into a chain of useless marshes next to the Yarra River.  So the Yarra was rerouted and the marshes transformed into an ornamental lake whilst the terrain was landscaped to provide the vistas we enjoy today.  Melbourne’s temperate climate is considered ideal in supporting a vast variety of botanical species – although climate change is having an impact.  Recently a 150 year old white oak near F Gate collapsed from heat stress and this clearly had a distressing impact on the staff of the Gardens.

In 1846 the first superintendent of the gardens John Arthur planted the first elm trees and erected the first fence to keep out the goats, and 50 years later William Guilfoyle planned the vast landscape that has made the gardens famous.  “Botany has become a broader and broader study through the years, and it matters not from which branch of the sciences this knowledge has come, the botanical staff of the gardens has applied each new advance to the purposes of the gardens themselves”.

Next door to the gardens is the National Herbarium which is basically the state’s botanical museum, containing specimens of every native plant found in Victoria and almost every known Australian native plant.  There are also representative botanical collections from around the world.  “A staff of professional botanists is engaged in the work of identification and classification not only for the purposes of the gardens themselves, but also for various government departments, for schools, farmers and the general public.”

The intention of my forthcoming exhibition is to take the viewer on a journey around the Gardens at different times of day and in different weathers.  I have sought to share the recuperative and consoling powers that nature has to offer us.  There have been many times I’ve visited these gardens for psychological recovery from the challenges of everyday life, such as losing one’s job, difficulties in relationships or even working one’s way through art school. 

Modern advertising often specialises in glamourizing the unattainable; that is, places that are rare, remote, costly or famous.  Yet here we have an exotic location right under our noses that we can visit at any time.  And the sun need not be shining to appreciate the mysteries of these gardens.   A visit on a quiet, drizzly day can be an oddly therapeutic experience as you get the feeling that you have the whole gardens to yourself – tearooms and all.  Thus one can absorb the almost surreal beauty of the gardens, the thought that has gone into the landscaping and the far flung vistas.

I found it a challenging experience roaming around the Gardens with my book in hand, trying to identify the locations of photographs from 75 years ago.  Annoyingly, there are no images of the tearooms and Craft Cottage in the book. Such are the transformations that have taken place that some locations are simply unrecognisable, which perhaps highlights the fact that Melbourne’s Botanical Gardens are a work in progress – and probably always will be.

Many thanks to my friend and fellow Gippsland artist Helen Timbury who found the book “Melbourne’s Garden” at an opp shop and bought it for me.

Reference:

“Melbourne’s Garden” by Crosbie Morrison, Melbourne University Press, 1946.   Revised 1957.

The Price Of Success; Jason Benjamin

Perhaps I should start this blog with a confession.  I have never seen Jason Benjamin’s work in the flesh, so to speak.  And now he is gone.  His body was found in the Murrumbidgee River by police on the 16th February after he had been reported missing.  He was 50.  According to his Sydney dealer Ralph Hobbs, Benjamin had his ups and downs but he seemed excited about an upcoming exhibition and decided to travel to outback New South Wales to produce some paintings and poems for it.

Although predominately a landscape painter, Benjamin was a regular finalist in the Archibald and in 2005 he won the Packing Room prize with his portrait of actor Bill Hunter, titled ‘Staring Down The Past’.  His other subjects included musicians Paul Kelly and Tim Rogers.

Staring Down The Past, oil on linen, 180 cm x 240 cm (Art Gallery NSW)

Born in Melbourne, Benjamin spent periods of his childhood in the US and Mexico and studied at the Pratt Institute in New York City from the age of 19, but found it stifling.  Afterwards, he juggled work and art studies before returning to Australia in the early 1990’s.  He has won a number of awards including the Mosman Prize (3 times) and the Kings School Art Prize for landscape painting in 1997.

I Can't Let Go, 2004, multi-plate coloured etching (Etching House)

Despite spending up to 70 hours a week painting in his studio, he was able to balance this with his marriage and the demands of 2 children.  He once said that “if you have a richer life – full of experience, communication, challenges – then you’ve got more to paint”.  He describes his landscapes as “romanticized versions of reality” and apparently has been called a photo-realist painter, which just goes to show how little some people know about art.  Although he did use photography as part of his source material.  He appears to have been a fine draftsman, but there is also a rich tonality and mood inducing colour in his work. 

There Is No Easy Ride (Western plains NSW), oil on linen, 120 x 180 cm (Tiffany Jones Fine Art)

For those of you who know the paintings of Thomas Cole and Frederick Church, you may not be surprised to learn that they were influences on Benjamin.

Hobbs believes Benjamin’s romantic landscapes were always telling stories that were close to him. "He felt life very intensely so it wasn't just about painting trees and skies, it was a layered story of love loss, romance all through these works," he said.

"When he was in a landscape he wasn't just creating images of it, he was really feeling what it was to be in this place."

Success came early to Benjamin and it appears he may have had trouble dealing with it.  He was only 18 when he exhibited in his first group show in Manhattan. Tim Olsen, director of Olsen Galleries thought there was a melancholy in his work that paralleled his own life. “He got distracted by the promise of big money and lost his way a bit, but that's what happens with young talent.  Jason didn't know how to deal with success. It's an enormous tragedy."

Hobbs said Benjamin had his demons, “felt pressure greatly” and “found solace in addiction to help him through.But he was incredibly passionate about life and love … everything he did was an outpouring of emotion.”

We Just Knew He'd Be There (2014), oil on linen, 120 x 180 cm (Artsy.net)

Benjamin’s work has been exhibited in the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Parliament House Collection and in over 40 solo shows globally.  Actor Kevin Spacey is one of a number of Hollywood identities to have acquired his work.

References;

Tiffany Jones Fine Art

Australian Broadcasting Commission

The Guardian

Photography As Art

Hidden amongst all the high-tech razzamatazz of the Triennial at the National Gallery of Victoria was a small collection of black and white photos from the early 1900’s which are part of the NGV’s permanent collection.  For some reason, they really grabbed my attention.  Perhaps they represented such a sobering contrast to the “gee whizz” digital extravaganza that constituted so much of the Triennial.

Don’t get me wrong, the Triennial is certainly worth seeing for entertainment value quite apart from anything else. But I enjoyed this little pocket of ‘sobriety’. After viewing these photos by Stieglitz, Kauffmann and Haviland, I decided to hop online and see what else they had to offer.

John Kauffmann  The Street Corner  c1914  (NGV)

John Kauffmann was born in Truro, South Australia in 1864. Initially he was articled to an architect before leaving for England in 1887 and abandoned architecture for chemistry. In Switzerland he became fascinated by new photographic reproduction processes such as photogravure, worked in a Viennese portrait studio and studied zinc etching and the collotype process (a dichromate-based photographic process to print images in a wide variety of tones without the need for halftone screens) in Bavaria.

John Kauffmann  The National Bank  c1920  (NGV)

He returned to Adelaide in 1897 and appeared to have brought back the ideals of a European pictorial style of art photography with him.  His soft focus, romantic style where inessential details were diffused won much praise and he won awards both locally and internationally.  His work is said to have inspired Harold Cazneau.  He moved to Melbourne in 1909 and in later years his romantic style began to fall out of favour as photographers preferred a more direct representation of the Australian sunlight.

Paul Haviland was born in Paris in 1880 of French/American origin.He became part of a movement in the early twentieth century in the USA called pictorial photography, where artists sought to move away from the direct point and shoot method of photography and use skills and processes that presented photography as an art form.

Paul Haviland  New York By Night  1914  (NGV)

Alfred Steiglitz was the leader of this movement in New York which became known as the Photo-Secession.  Artists experimented with processes such as platinum prints, which produce rich and varied grey tones, and gum bichromate prints, where manipulation of the print during processing achieves effects such as brush strokes, and pigmented colour.

Another process developed was the photogravure, a photomechanical process, produced in ink, and therefore the final image can be any colour. They look remarkably like a photograph, but under magnification a fine irregular image grain similar to an aquatint grain can be seen.

Paul Haviland  New York At Night  1914

From 1903 to 1917 Stieglitz was the editor of Camera Work, a journal promoting the cause of photography and avant-garde art.  In 1908, he opened his Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession at 291 Fifth Avenue, New York which became known simply as 291.  Initially this gallery was a venue showing the work of photographers committed to the ideal of photography as a medium for artistic expression.

Alfred Stieglitz  The City Of Ambition  1910 (National Gallery of Art USA)

These photographers were pioneering the concept of photography as an art form.  With photography like this, objectivity diminishes and the imaginings take over – so perhaps this is a case of less equals more.  Some have described this as impressionist photography.  The NGV held an exhibition called 291 in 2008 and I wished I had seen it.

New Zealand born Australian pictorialist photographer Harold Cazneau is famous for his award winning picturing of a tree in the Flinders Ranges in South Australia in 1937, commonly known as Cazneau’s Tree.  But in the context of this blog, I thought the image below was more appropriate.

Harold Cazneau  Cabbies Bridge St Sydney  1904 (Art Gallery of NSW)

The composition is superb and there is an almost timeless quality to this image.  Men idling away the time, waiting for the next fare just as they do today.  Only the mode of transport is different.

References;

National Gallery Of Victoria

Sibling Nastiness; Salvador and Ana Maria Dali

I’ve discovered that Salvador Dali and Vincent Van Gogh have something in common, apart from being artists of course.  They were both born shortly after the deaths of an infant brother.  Both inherited the same Christian name as their deceased sibling and whether this accounts for their bizarre behaviour is open to conjecture, but it has been argued that Vincent was raised by a grieving mother.

In Dali’s case, the family, particularly his mother, grandmother and aunt, doted on him, wrapping him in affection and allowing him every indulgence.  Dali soon learned how to turn this situation to his advantage by regularly throwing tantrums in order to get his own way.

Dali had a particularly close attachment to his mother Felipa Domènech, an artist who drew competently and crafted exquisite wax figurines out of coloured candles.  Felipa’s death in 1921 when Dali was 16, and his disciplinarian father’s subsequent marriage to his aunt had a devastating effect on him and he looked to his younger sister, Ana Maria as the pivotal female figure and mother substitute in his life.

Figure At The Window (1925), oil on papier mache, 105 cm x 74.5 cm

Dali was 21 when he painted this scene and Ana Maria (three years his junior) was Dali’s only model until his future wife, Gala arrived on the scene. I love the cool light pervading this scene as well as the superb draftsmanship.  Ana Maria claimed that she didn’t mind sitting for hours for her brother and the experience gave her an appreciation of landscape.

Figura De Perfil (Figure In Profile) 1925, Oil on cardboard, 74 x 50 cm

Dali had been showing signs mental illness by 1929 and it was in this context that he first met Helena Diakanoff Devulina (Gala) who was a Russian immigrant, 10 years older than he and well known to the surrealists, and who became Dali’s lifelong partner until her death at the age of 88.  She became his muse, wife and (supposedly) business manager.  Both Ana Maria and their father detested her.  The fact that Gala was somewhat older and already married when she met Salvador was probably the main issue here.  According to The Guardian, during the Spanish civil war, Ana Maria was briefly arrested and imprisoned by the Republican forces and she believed Gala had denounced her falsely as having fascist sympathies.  The irony is that Salvador appeared to be one of Franco’s most enthusiastic supporters.

She also took issue with one of her brother’s notoriously unreliable memoirs where he wrote of a troubled childhood and a tormented relationship with their father.  She in turn published her own memoir in 1949 Salvador Dali As Seen By His Sister which left him enraged by her portrayal of his childhood as normal and happy.

Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized By The Horns Of Her Own Chastity, 1954, oil on canvas, 40.5 x 30.5 cm

This was Dali’s response to his sister’s memoir and is thought to be inspired by an image in a pornographic magazine. This time we see Ana Maria being assaulted by flying phalluses.

Dali survived for seven frail, miserable years following the death of Gala in 1982.  He was isolated (it’s claimed he drove away most of his friends) and was almost penniless.  He and Gala were spendthrifts with the concept of investing being foreign to them.  It was thought that fame, not money, was Dali’s primary motivation.  There are doubts as to the authenticity of many of his prints due to his habit of signing blank sheets of printing paper in his final years.

Salvador and Gala, Dali Museum

After decades of zero contact between them, Ana Maria visited her brother in hospital on what was thought to be his death bed in 1984.  The result was a raging argument between the two of them with Dali having her kicked out of the room.  They never met again and Dali died of heart failure in his home at Figueres in 1989.  Ana Maria survived him by five months. 

References;

BBC Omnibus

National Gallery of Victoria Educational Resource

The Guardian

The Everywhere Man; Jonathan Miller

A polymath (Greek: πολυμαθής, polymathēs, "having learned much"; Latin: homo universalis, "universal man") is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. WIKIPEDIA

Apparently Jonathan Miller (1934-2019) disliked being referred to as a polymath.  Too bad.  If a 90 minute BBC Arena documentary barely scratches the surface of your achievements, you’re a polymath.  He’s been described as having two brains, which enabled him to effortlessly waft between the worlds of science and the arts.  Medical practitioner, writer, comedy actor, stage designer, opera director, film and TV producer, darling of the chat show circuit (Michael Parkinson interviewed him several times, as did Clive James) and finally a sculptor – he did it all.

For many, he will be remembered for starring alongside Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Alan Bennett in the satirical comedy series Beyond The Fringe in the early 1960’s.  Others will remember him for his major documentary series covering topics as diverse as anthropology, zoology, atheism and mental illness.

He came from good Jewish stock.  His father was one of the pioneers of child psychiatry and an artist and his mother had her first novel published at 23.  His father carried out research into shell shock victims of the First World War.  He describes his parents as Bloomsbury Jewish intellectuals and there seems to have been little warmth in his upbringing.

From left, Jonathan Miller, Alan Bennett, Dudley Moore and Peter Cook. Beyond the Fringe.

At St Pauls College London, Miller studied biology alongside, and came firm friends with, such future luminaries as Oliver Sachs and Eric Korn.  “Three Jewish boys who were passionate about biology”, says Miller.  He adored the Natural History Museum.

Following in his father’s footsteps, Miller went to Cambridge in 1953 to study medicine. Whilst working as a house surgeon at University College, Miller was asked to take part in a late night review at the Edinburgh Festival (Miller always had a talent for comedy and was a wonderful mimic).  This ultimately led to him starring in Beyond The Fringe.  He was a very physical comedian and would gyrate around the stage. Eric Idle of Monty Python fame admired the mocking of authority in this series and it inspired him to seek a career in comedy.

Miller’s wife Rachel was described as the anchor, the serenity in his hyper manic life and Sachs believes he may not have achieved as much in his life without her.

Inevitably, Miller toured New York with the Beyond the Fringe team in 1962 and took advantage of the opportunity to mingle with New York intellectuals, writers and comedians – eventually writing for the New Yorker.

Upon returning to London, Miller decided to pursue a career in TV and film production as his life began to drift away from medicine.  As an outsider, not someone who had risen through the TV “ladder”, Miller felt he wasn’t bound by the normal conventions of interviewing people and documentary production.  He quickly became a top line director without any formal training and this led him to direct Alice In Wonderland for TV in 1966.  He believed the story to be about the attitudes of Victorian England to the “mystery and sanctity” of childhood.  He dispensed with the animal characters and wanted the production to be a melancholy journey to growing up. 

A scene from Alice In Wonderland with Anne-Marie Mallik as Alice and Peter Cook on the far left.

In 1968 he began a career as a theatre director at the Nottingham Playhouse.  He was highly regarded for never talking down to a young actor thus making him/her feel confident.  He wanted to explore a playful inventiveness in his directing – perhaps a benefit of not having been formally trained.  Later, he directed at the Old Vic at the invitation of Lawrence Olivier.  Miller believes that his training as a doctor – looking for minute details in how people carry themselves and talk when trying to diagnose them – assisted him in his directing career.

Miller didn’t abandon medicine entirely and in 1978 he produced the ground breaking series “The Body In Question” which was an investigation into the human body and the history of medicine.  Miller has been described as the consummate teacher, but a strong stomach was required as some of the footage was confronting. Later, he produced a program on the challenges of Parkinson’s disease.

Oliver Sachs believed that Miller never really left medicine, it’s just that the clinical life couldn’t contain him nor could the theatre/directing life.  In the early 1980’s Miller was directing Shakespeare for the BBC.  In 1979 he was approached by conductor Roger Norrington to direct an opera. Once again the lack of formal training proved no impediment and he has directed more than 60 operas where he is renowned for his innovation.  One performance of Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tuti featured a guy talking on a mobile phone.  In 1987 he directed Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado for the English National Opera starring Eric Idle and he dispensed with all references to Japan.  Instead he used the Marx Brothers film Duck Soup as inspiration.

In 1995 Miller relished the paradox of being a Jewish atheist directing Bach’s St Matthew Passion as a theatrical spectacle.

It was inevitable that Miller’s all-encompassing network of interests would include the visual arts.  He developed an interest in abstract sculpture and collage.

I have to confess that it wasn’t until the mid 1990’s that I became aware of Miller via his series “Madness”, screened on the ABC late at night, which presented a social history of mental illness.  Confronting and informative, it was unforgettable television.

His interests fell under 4 main categories; art, science, anthropology and philosophy, and the world is so much the poorer without him.

References;

BBC Arena

The Conversation - Jonathan Miller, The Man With Two Brains