THIS IS TODAY

THIS IS TODAY Archigram, Derek Boshier, Bernard Cohen, Magda Cordell McHale, Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, John Plumb, Richard Smith, Ian Stephenson

GAZELL I ART H O U SE

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CONTENTS Foreword by Mila Askarova .....................................................3 Exhibition Overview..................................................................7 This is Today by Rosie Ram...................................................11-14 Artworks: John Plumb.............................................................2, 10-13 Bernard Cohen............................................................15-17 Richard Smith.....................................................20-23, 63 Ian Stephenson..........................................................26-29 Archigram.........................................4-5, 30-35, 46-47, 61 Sir Eduardo Paolozzi........................................4,38-41, 48 Magda Cordell McHale.........................................6, 42-43 Derek Boshier............................................................49-55 Artist Biographies...........................................................56-60 Credits & Thanks..................................................................62

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John Plumb Blenheim PVA and vinyl tape on board 1962 190.5 x 128.7 x 6.3 cm Price upon request

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F oreword : T his I s T oday M ila A skarova

“He said an artist would look over his shoulder, standing in his studio, while he was working away. The artist would provide feedback and direction. He would then go over to the artist’s studio and do the same.”

- A recollection of an independent artist working in London in the 1960s This Is Today , the gallery’s largest group show to date, introduces the concept of creative lateral interdependency and opens an important dialogue between then and now. Celebrating the 60th anniversary of This Is Tomorrow , the first and seminal Independent Group exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery, the title of our exhibition pays tribute to the importance of institutional support back then and support mechanisms surrounding artists today.

An air of unity, bold statements and hope in a brighter future were prevalent after social and political change in post-war Britain and influenced the nature of artistic endeavors – both in theory and practice.

From architectural mappings, implementing the novelties of technological advancement, to rich color palettes, expressed in a confined yet experimental way, artists of the day were celebrated and supported.

The selection of works by Archigram, Derek Boshier, Bernard Cohen, Magda Cordell McHale, Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, John Plumb, Richard Smith and Ian Stephenson, is based on the varying degrees of influence these artists had on one another and on the broader creative industry of the time, ranging from architecture and graphic design to fine art and film. Their influence forms part of a larger, single narrative of British creative development from the late 1940s to mid-1970s.

From contemporary artistic practice to the impact a wider audience engagement has on both their creative output and institutional support, I hope this exhibition draws parallels and recognizes the cyclical nature of eco systems both in and outside the arts.

Most of all, we would like to address the importance of nurturing and developing these systems, to best accommodate future generations of artists.

I would like to thank the artists, their estates and representatives and their families for agreeing to be part of this exhibition.

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Archigram Archives White Painting Plug-in City University Node, Elevation 1965 Digital scan 64,000 x 22,000 pixels approx.

Peter Cook, Š Archigram 1965 Sir Eduardo Paolozzi Untitled Head Bronze c. 1957-8 142 x 87 x 50 cm Price upon request

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Magda Cordell McHale No. 12 Oil on canvas 1958-1960 155.7 x 105.5 x 3.8 cm Price upon request

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This Is Today :

Archigram, Derek Boshier, Bernard Cohen, Magda Cordell McHale, Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, John Plumb, Richard Smith, Ian Stephenson

Gazelli Art House presents This Is Today , the largest group exhibition the gallery has held to date, celebrating the influence of artists working and living in Britain during the 1950’s and tracing the developments in their individual bodies of work throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

This is Today features artists, who were making work parallel to the influences of Western Abstract Expressionism, serving as the precursor to Pop Art. Working in different mediums, the selection of artists present an overview of the expansive outreach that Britain had in the development of new ideas and movements at the time, crossing over to the fields of Architecture (Archigram), Collages and Drawings (Paolozzi), Film (Boshier), Sculptures and Paintings (Cordell McHale, Cohen, Smith, Stephenson, Plumb).

The exhibition also marks the 60th anniversary of This is Tomorrow , an exhibition held at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1956, which presented the Independent Group (IG), of which two of the exhibiting artists - Paolozzi and Cordell McHale- were prominent founding members alongside others. The IG carried out their sessions (1952 to 1955) at the Institute of Contemporary Art then located on Dover Street in the place of the current Dover Street Market (currently acrros the road from the gallery).

This is Today serves as recognition of historical influences on the contemporary artists, the developments in the current structures of the industry, as well as the relationship between the influencers and support mechanisms that are in place today. It reiterates the importance, relevance and security of institutions, curators and critics acting as facilitators of the new and the contemporary.

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John Plumb Jaffa Acrylic on cotton duck 1965 188.4 x 131.9 x 5.3 cm Price upon request

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T his

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R osie R am

T oday

The Second World War reduced Britain to rubble. In its wake, through the late 1940s and early 1950s, austerity dominated economic policy, rationing persisted, and bomb-damaged buildings decorated the streets. The national spirit, however, retained a sense of hope in the face of despair.

This was an opportunity to re-imagine and rebuild the country’s future using the technology and collective effort harnessed during the war. In contrast to the austere reality of Britain stood America, whose affluence and commercial power burgeoned after the conflict. Images of American prosperity spread via Hollywood films and glossy magazines, depicting its popular culture and commodities.

In Britain such images contributed to the sense that a technologically enhanced future was within sight. Artists in the decades that followed were faced with the question of how to conceive of this future, with its possibilities of interconnectivity and inclusive culture.

In this economic climate collaboration offered artists a sustainable form of practice in which resources, space and ideas could be shared. What is more, it allowed them to work across disciplines, a necessary strategy for those keen to address contemporary issues such as mechanisation, industrialisation, commercialisation and mass communication. In the 1950s, a collaborative and cross-disciplinary approach was adopted by the Independent Group (IG; 1952-55), a cohort of artists, architects, theorists and designers whose activities spliced art with popular culture, science and technology. Among their ranks were artists Eduardo Paolozzi (1924-2005) and Magda Cordell McHale (1921-2008); architects Alison (1928-93) and Peter Smithson (1923-2003); and the writer-critic Lawrence Alloway (1926-90). Exhibitions featuring artists affiliated with the IG included This is Tomorrow at London’s Whitechapel Gallery in 1956. The show was organised by architect, writer and sculptor Theo Crosby (1925-94) with the intention of bringing together artists and architects to work on twelve unique installations. His aim was to overcome the boundaries between art and other disciplines, particularly its segregation from architecture. This approach, Crosby argued, would be necessary “if our culture is not merely to survive, but come truly to life.”

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This is Tomorrow depicted an ambivalent view of the future, optimism tempered with anxiety, expressed by references to accumulation, reproduction and Americana. The most celebrated exhibits were those by Group 2 and Group 6. Group 2, comprising Richard Hamilton (1922-2011), John Voelcker (1927-72) and John McHale (1922-78) with help from Magda and Frank Cordell (191880), built a “Fun house” populated with images from cinema, popular culture and mass media. This stood in contrast to Group 6’s exhibit “Patio and Pavilion,” which was the work of Paolozzi, Nigel Henderson (1917-85) and the Smithsons. “Patio and Pavilion” had a post-apocalyptic feel with a makeshift wooden structure, decorated flooring obscured by sand, and strange objects littering the ground. Discussing their installation on the BBC’s Third Programme (1956), the Smithsons explained, “we worked on a kind of symbolic habitat.” The Smithson’s saw exhibition-making as an opportunity to construct alternative realities, temporary environments within the gallery. In the following decade Archigram (1961-71) viewed magazine-making in a comparable way, using the format as a space within which to envisage new architectural possibilities free from the dictates of modernism.

The IG’s collaborative ethos and social ethics were fostered by the group’s connections to the Central School of Arts and Crafts and The Royal College of Art (RCA). These institutions served as vital sites of knowledge exchange in the postwar period, permitting interdisciplinary practice and the cross-fertilisation of ideas. Adopting a model comparable to the Bauhaus, the Central School engaged teachers in technical fields from outside their immediate areas of expertise. With its workshop-centric approach, the school trained students to be both artists and craftsmen, echoing the Bauhaus’ non-conformist spirit and lack of disciplinary boundaries. In the early 1950s Paolozzi taught textile design there and made use of the school’s open facilities and liberal atmosphere.

John Plumb (1927-2008) was a student at the school from 1952 until 1955 under Victor Pasmore (1908-1998) and William Turnbull (1922-2012), both of whom subsequently produced exhibits for This is Tomorrow . The RCA shared the Central School’s experimental culture, encouraging students embrace technology and accident. Richard Smith (b. 1937) attended the school from 1954 until 1957, Hamilton taught there between 1957 and 1961, and Derek Boshier (b. 1937) was a student from 1959 until 1962, before lecturing at the Central School in 1963.

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John Plumb Bermuda PVA and acrylic emulsion on cotton duck 1966 187 x 187 x 4.6 cm Price upon request

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Just as Bauhaus students had seen theatre as a medium through which to unite several artistic elements in space and time, so the IG viewed curating. Consequently, the group’s output did not centre on the production of singular artworks, instead members came together to create shows.

In 1953 Henderson, Paolozzi and the Smithson’s staged Parallel of Life and Art at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. They approached the exhibition as an opportunity to combine their encyclopaedic interests, furnishing the gallery with images from disparate sources hung at varying angles and heights. By photographically reproducing these images in black and white, the group were able to impose a uniform style on the eclectic material. Their approach was inspired by Fernand Léger’s Ballet Mécanique (1924), a cinematic celebration of repetition, movement, and multiplicity. The influence of this piece, and the IG’s reading of it, resonates in Boshier’s film work of the 1970s with its examination of duality, parallels and rhythm.

Not only did This is Tomorrow ask its contributors to re-imagine the future of Britain, it also insisted that they reassess their identities as artists, architects, designers or theorists. In doing so, the exhibition marked a turning point in British art history, a loosening of the disciplinary boundaries and a widening of the field of art.

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Theo Crosby, ‘This is Tomorrow’, Architectural Design, vol.26, October 1956, p.334-6.

ii Quoted in Victoria Walsh, “Reordering and Redistributing the Visual: The Expanded ‘Field’ of Pattern-Making in Parallel of Life and Art and Hammer Prints,” Journal of Visual Culture 12, vol. 2 (2013): 223-4.

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Bernard Cohen White Painting Oil on canvas 1959 213 x 183 cm Price upon request

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Bernard Cohen Duke Green Oil on canvas 1959/60 168 x 198 cm Price upon request

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Richard Smith Double Cross (Green) (D) Acrylic, oil and charcoal on canvas 1977 120 x 120 cm Courtesy the artist and Gimpel Fils Price upon request

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Richard Smith Both Halves (A) Acrylic and oil on canvas (2 Parts) 1977 120 x 120 cm and 140 x 140 cm Courtesy of the artist and Gimpel Fils Price upon request

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Ian Stephenson Protopalette 1 Oil on paper with paper palette collage mounted on board 1961 36.1 x 35.5 x 2 cm

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Ian Stephenson Protopalette 2 Oil on paper with paper palette collage mounted on board 1961 36.1 x 35.5 x 2 cm

Ian Stephenson Protopalette 3 Oil on paper with paper pa collage mounted on board 1961 36.1 x 35.5 x 2 cm

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Ian Stephenson Protopalette 4 Oil on paper with paper palette collage mounted on board 1961 36.1 x 35.5 x 2 cm

Ian Stephenson Protopalette 5 Oil on paper with paper palette collage mounted on board 1961 36.1 x 35.5 x 2 cm

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Ian Stephenson Protopalettes 1962 55.8 x 47.8 x 2 cm

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Ian Stephenson Parapalette Study Oil on paper and paper palettes 1963-64 43.5 x 48.7 x 2 cm

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Archigram Archives Plug-In City Model 75 x 75 x 26 cm Š Archigram 1993

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Archigram Archives Instant City in a Field, Elevation Digital scan 72,000 x 19,000 pixels approx.

Peter Cook, Š Archigram 1969

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Sir Eduardo Paolozzi Composizione per Parete Collage and mixed media on paper 1948 57.6 x 47.2 cm Price upon request

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Sir Eduardo Paolozzi Colloquio Collage and mixed media on paper 1949 57.6 x 47.2 x 2 cm Price upon request

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Sir Eduardo Paolozzi Torino, Church of the Carmine Collage and mixed media on paper 1946-7 49.4 x 38.7 x 2 cm Price upon request

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Sir Eduardo Paolozzi Butterfly Collage and mixed media on paper 1946 47.7 x 39.4 x 2 cm Price upon request

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Magda Cordell McHale Untitled (Woman) Monotype on onion skin paper 1955 78.3 x 66.7 x 3.7 cm Price upon request

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Magda Cordell McHale Untitled Monotype (VIII) Monoprint: red, black and yellow paint on paper Printed from a broken marble slab 1954 70.1 x 54.4 x 2.7 cm Price upon request

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Archigram Archives Instant City In a Field 1993 Model 121 x 61 x 50 cm Š Archigram 1993

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Sir Eduardo Paolozzi Vista del Santuari Collage and mixed media on paper 1946-7 39.4 x 47.2 x 2 cm Price upon request

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Derek Boshier Drawing lines around things is a sign of madness Ink and photo collage on paper 1972 33.9 x 28.9 x 3 cm Price upon request

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Derek Boshier Untitled Photo Lithograph with photo attachment 1973 58.5 x 80 cm Price upon request

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Derek Boshier Design for Cover of Black Dwarf Newspaper Ink and photo collage on paper 1970 28 x 22 cm Price upon request

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Derek Boshier Link 16mm film transferred to video, colour, sound; 14 min 1970

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Derek Boshier Change 16mm film transferred to video, colour, sound; 10 min 1973 Price upon request

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Derek Boshier Reel 16mm film transferred to video, colour, sound; 6 min 1973 Price upon request

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ARCHIGRAM Architects (1961-1974) Archigram dominated the architectural avant-garde in the 1960s and early 1970s with its playful, pop-inspired visions of a technocratic future after its formation in 1961 by a group of young London architects – Warren Chalk, Peter Cook, Dennis Crompton, David Greene, Ron Herron and Michael Webb.

Prosperous and self-satisfied after a decade of post-war reconstruction, British architecture – the “staid Queen Mother of the arts” as the critic Reyner Banham described it – chose to ignore these changes. Determined to develop their own approach, rather than risk being co-opted into the architectural establishment, the Archigram group inveighed against what Cook later described as “the crap going up in London, against the attitude of a continuing European tradition of well-mannered, but gutless architecture that had absorbed the label ‘Modern’ but had betrayed most of the philosophies of the earliest ‘Modern’.” Although most of Archigram projects remained unbuilt, its conceptual contribution has been considerable.

DEREK BOSHIER (B. 1937; Portsmouth, United Kindgom) British Painter, sculptor, designer, and experimental artists Derek Boshier first came to prominence with his paintings as a student at the Royal College of Art in London in the early 1960s, with fellow students David Hockney, Allen Jones, R.B. Kitaj, and others in the British Pop Art movement. In 1966 Boshier tWurned briefly to sculpture, producing elemental shapes made of perspex and neon, in effect a jazzy version of nascent Minimalism. During the 1970s, he experimented with different media, producing photographs, films, collages, constructions, books, posters and record covers. The diversity of this output was unified by his response to contemporary events, his insistence on the social context, his unmasking of the sinister aspects of advertising and his promotion of radical politics. His graphic work with popular music groups such as The Clash and David Bowie have brought his work to a wider audience.

Selected Exhibitions 2013 “Derek Boshier” National Portrait Gallery, London 2012 “The Artist as Film Maker: Derek Boshier” British Film Institute Theatre, London

4 films shown and “In Conversation” with William Fowler, Curator of Archives, British Film Institute 2007 “Pop Art Portraits” National Portrait Gallery, London 2006 “British Pop” Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain 2004 “Art and The Sixties” Tate Britain, London

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BERNARD COHEN (B. 1933; London, England) English Painter Bernard Cohen has described himself as “A storyteller and a creator of pictorial theatre”. His tensely wrought and unpredictably complex pictures hold a unique position within the canon of contemporary art. From the early 1960s he began producing paintings that were idiosyncratic and deliberately disparate in style. In the mid 1970s Cohen exchanged his earlier preferences for broad expanses of flat colour, spontaneously applied paint and soft focus, for a meticulous technique and a dense layering of patterns and motifs. In these paintings, which swarm vertiginously with textures, colours, stencilled and drawn shapes, Cohen found a way of relating his obsession with the procedures of painting to a range of social rituals, producing an art as complex in formal terms as in its metaphorical implications. His highly abstract works represent the on-going search for meaning in the broadest sense.

Selected Exhibitions 2015 BP Walk though British Art, Tate Britain, London 2015 Summer Exhibition (by invitation), Royal Academy of Arts, London Seven from the Seventies,

Flowers Kingsland Road, London 2013 Four Hundred Years of British Art: Highlights from the Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery

`Collection, Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery, Nashville, USA 2004 Art & the ‘60’s This Was Tomorrow, Tate Britain, London 1995 Artist in Focus, six paintings by Bernard Cohen from the Tate Gallery Collection, Tate Gallery, London MAGDA CORDELL MCHALE (1921-2008; Hungary) Artist, Futurist, Educator Magda Cordell McHale was a founding member of the Independent Group, a British movement that originated Pop Art, which grew out of a fascination with American mass culture and post-WWII technologies. McHale’s self-expression characterised both her academic and artistic endeavours. Although the latter part of her life was publicly devoted to her research into sociology and “futurist” studies, she regarded herself as a painter first and foremost. She conveyed something of her drive when talking of her art practice: “I’m a binge painter. I can go on for days until I’m limp and all wrung out. I have tremendous amounts of energy.” Her artistic works were characterised by expressive figuration and heavily influenced by the Art Brut of continental painters such as Jean Dubuffet and Wols. As a rare female voice at this time, McHale’s preoccupation with the female form explored

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existential questions. Her textured, impasto surfaces depict distorted forms that at once reflect the resilience of the human body and describe mid-20th-century anguish.

Selected Exhibitions 1961 Last exhibition of Cordell at ICA 1959 Class of ’59, The Union, Cambridge, UK 1956 This is Tomorrow, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK 1956 Paintings and Drawings by Magda Cordell at Hanover Gallery, London 1955 McHale showcased her monotypes and collages at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) SIR EDUARDO PAOLOZZI (1924-2005; Edinburgh, Scotland) British Sculptor, collagist, printmaker, filmmaker, and writer Sir Eduardo Paolozzi created some of the finest examples of British pop art. In the 1940s and 1950s, he made sculptures and collages that combined surrealism with pop culture and modern machinery. In the 1960s, he further incorporated machinery into his art. He spent the 1970s working on abstract art reliefs, and through the 1980s and 1990s took public commissions.

In the 1960s, Paolozzi further incorporated the theme of modern machinery into his art, through collaboration with industry engineering companies—which provided him with materials, equipment and workspace. Aluminum became Paolozzi’s new material of choice, as he littered his work with discarded machine parts. Fused together through drilling, bolting and welding, the sum total of the parts produced ground-breaking artwork with sharp geometric edges that still managed to be suggestive of the human form. Through his industrial sculptures and works on paper, Paolozzi made a social statement about man’s role in the age of technology.

Selected Exhibitions 2004 Paolozzi at 80, Dean Gallery, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh 1988 Paolozzi Portraits, National Portrait Gallery, London 1973 Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and touring 1971 Tate Gallery, London (Retrospective) 1968 Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 1960 30th Venice Biennale; retrospective in British Pavilion, then touring to Belgrade,

Paris, Bochum, Brussels, Oslo, Denmark, Amsterdam, Baden-Baden and Tübingen

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JOHN PLUMB (1927-2008; Luton, England) English Abstract Painter John Plumb was an English abstract painter who emerged in Britain after World War II. He was represented in the American Institute of Architects’ abstract exhibitions of 1953 and 1957, and in the Situation exhibitions in 1960 and 1961, alongside artists including Bridget Riley, William Turnbull, and Robyn Denny. At that time, Plumb gave an English approach to the 50s American abstraction, making bold, handsome, and colorful compositions, characterized by hard-edged, intense, single-hued shapes and an immaculately crafted finish, produced by methods that were partly improvisational. Plumb’s works reflected his admiration for American Color Field painting and hard-edge painting. In the mid-1960s Plumb produced paintings with large fields of a single color. These works had narrow, strips on the edge of different colors intended to optically enhance the emotional impact of the central, major, and usually intense hue. Plumb’s works are part of permanent public collections including The Tate.

Selected Exhibitions 2004 Art & the 60s: This Was Tomorrow, survey exhibition at Tate Britain, London 2002 Tate Unseen, an exhibition of work by living artists from the Tate collection, at The Gallery, Lincoln 1995 Plough Arts Centre, Torrington, Devon 1993 Bath Contemporary Art Fair with Artwenty 1973 Commonwealth Arts Centre Gallery, London RICHARD SMITH (B. 1931; Letchworth, Hertfordshire) English Printmaker and Painter In 1959 Richard Smith moved to New York to teach for two years on a Harkness Fellowship, where he produced paintings combining the formal qualities of American abstract painters, which made references to American commercial culture. His work gradually became more minimal, often painted in just one colour with a second colour used only as an accent. In trying to find ways of transposing ideas, Smith began to question the twodimensional properties of art itself and to find ways by which a painting could express the shape of reality as he saw it. He began to take the canvas off the stretcher, letting it hang loose, or tied with knots, to suggest sails or kites - objects which could change with new directions rather than being held rigid against a wall, bringing painting close into the realm of sculpture. These principles he carried into his graphic work by introducing cut, folded and stapled elements into his prints; some works were multi-leaved screen-printing, and others printed onto three-dimensional fabricated metal. His work has been exhibited in museums internationally.

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Selected Exhibitions 2015 Remembering Things Past, Islip Art Museum, New York, USA 2013 The New Situation – Art in London in the Sixties, Sotheby’s, London 2010 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London 1995 Out of Print, Nicosia Municipal Arts Centre, Cyprus 1975 Retrospective: Seven Exhibitions 1961-75, Tate Gallery, London 1970 XXXV Venice Biennale, Italy, Venice, British Pavillon IAN STEPHENSON (1934-2000; Browney, England) English Painter

“I am an English painter and do not want to be anything else. I love the tradition of an albion art and really my paintings have more to do with Constable’s snow than Tobey’s white writing. I have always known how I was to make pictures and speculations about the nature of painting stem from the style. The practice of painting is a defined discipline and desirably difficult.

Annealing and concealing colour. All of painting is camouflage, not least of all by means of subject matter whatever the sentiment. It is within the freaked skin of camouflage that the art resides. To be blessed with the contradictory nature of things. If there is no alternative to the way things are, then the picture must be more and more of what it is. Neural and neutral, the greyness scintillates. Overlapping and obliterated. Oblivion. Such is the practice of palimpsestial painting. Alas, it is as dilemmic as remembering to forget.

- Ian Stephenson (April 1974) Selected Exhibitions 2005 British Art and the 60s from Tate Britain, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia 2004 Art and the Sixties: This Was Tomorrow, Tate Britain, London 2003 Formal Situation Abstraction in Britain 1960- 1970, Tate, Liverpool, England 1992-3 Ready Steady Go, London and Arts Council Tour, England 1982 A Taste of British Art Today, Brussels 1979 The Royal Academy of Arts, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, Scotland

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Archigram Archives Instant City, Response Unit Framed work 71 x 51 cm Peter Cook, Š Archigram 1968

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Richard Smith Four Corners 3 Acrylic on canvas 1965 122 x 122.6 cm Price upon request

Exhibition Catalogue: This is Today 22 January – 6 March 2016 Published by Gazelli Art House 39 Dover Street London W1S 4NN Text by Rosie Ram, Independent Scholar Specialising in British Art (p. 11-14) Photography: © Oskar Proctor. Courtesy Gazelli Art House 62

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