H.I.'s cashmere dressing gown soaking in the bath last night. All I needed to do was throw in some flowers. I would have got a first for that at Art School.
Years ago, the Bath area was the home of the New Pre-Raphaelites. They were all successful enough to lead the imagined lives of the originals and would often be seen at very English Summer parties, being very English. You don't hear so much of them now that the children have grown up.
The artist Peter Blake was on the fringe of the movement, but couldn't shake off the rock and roll style which coloured most of his paintings, so I get the feeling he was never properly accepted as one of the group. This was probably just as well as he was never tainted by the dark suggestions involving inappropriate behaviour behind the closed doors of their shared house. Enough said about that.
I knew Peter Blake a bit - enough to say hello to him if I bumped into him in London or Bath. He was a nice, uncomplicated bloke, and - to unwillingly use the classic art school insult of the day - he was a better illustrator than he was a painter.
I knew his partner Jan Howarth better, as I had a somewhat mad relationship going with her sister, who also lived in Bath. The same house as me in fact.
Contrary to popular belief it was Jan who designed the cover of the Sergeant Pepper album, not Peter, although he was always happy to take full credit for it.
Jan lived in a massive, semi-derelict castle folly near Bath which she rented for peanuts. It was just the sort of place I would have loved. I was always trying to live in interesting places. In those days it was possible, but now... oh let's not go into all that again. I want a weekend off.
It always surprised me that Elizabeth (?) of the Ashgate Gallery Farnham managed to get him to show there regularly. It was such a funny little gallery, and he was a big London name.
ReplyDeleteI suppose he could have been a friend.
DeleteYes, you could easily have got a first for that. I got a first for "your tea is in the oven" written on a note stuck to a fridge. I have never heard of New Pre-Raphaelites, I always just thought they were called Pop Artists using ideas from America.
ReplyDeletePS I responded to your comment about The Offing.
DeleteI think they were called The Brotherhood of Pre-Raphaelites or something like that.
DeleteOh, good! You want a weekend off? That brings us right back to our bloggers’ bus trip. 🤓
ReplyDeleteMy pub has organised a charabanc trip to Swanage today. They asked me to come and I said that I would go to Swanage only to get away from them!
DeleteThere are two things that I remember about Jan's house; the string through the kitchen window that was pulled to close the flap whenever a pheasant wandered into the corn-baited trap and the fabulous adult swing hanging from a beam in the living room - I wanted one!
ReplyDeleteI didn't know the place that well, I only went there once. I drove past it recently. It is now a hotel or something I think. She was/is a beautiful woman is all I remember.
DeleteMore words please.
ReplyDelete(o).(I stopped by, too).
ReplyDeleteActually, a little more. It's nice to read about the kinder, gentler bit of life. Good you left the going on behind closed doors.
I hope that met your word count. :) Or your emoji count.
:) I understand. (o) I don't.
Delete(o) I stopped, I read, here's a pebble in the lake for you to know I was by.
DeleteThat's almost poetic considering there is not a single word used.
DeleteThis reminds me of a brilliant David Cameron (grrr...) story. A friend of his texted him to say that her father had just died. Thinking it meant 'lots of love', Cameron texted back with 'lol'.
DeleteI remember them, they lived as a 'commune' in the beginning at Wellow in the railway station's old buildings, you can still see it, it is a family home now. 'The Brotherhood of Ruralists'. Painted Silbury Hill and Avebury Stones as well but never Stoney Littleton barrow which was on the hill above. Gosh I fell in love with them in my younger days!
ReplyDeleteOh yes. How could I forget what they were called? Probably because I wasn't that interested in them. It all seemed a little too contrived to me, but I can understand the escapism. Do you remember the large fossil ammonite at the entrance to the long barrow? Well a few years ago someone stole it by hacking it off. They could have bought one from somewhere else rather than destroy that one.
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