GUY TAPLIN
1. Herring Gull carved and painted driftwood 74 x 60 x 23 cms 291⁄8 x 235⁄8 x 9 ins
GUY TAPLIN
www.messums.com 28 Cork Street, London W1S 3NG  Telephone: +44 (0)20 7437 5545
Foreword On some far distant shore one grain of sand salutes my memory. I always say that art must add to life, and this is especially true of how I live and work, so much so, that sometimes, I’m not sure where one stops and the other begins, and vice versa. The fact is, while my work starts with what I find by chance, it grows as part of the process of finding this stuff in the first place. Obviously, artists find their inspiration and materials in lots of places, but I like to think I take this to a whole new level, because I’ve always found my raw materials washed up on the shore, or in skips or on waste ground; they’re usually just a fragment of something that was once needed and used, but is now forgotten, but not by me. Naturally, there are some places I’ve always found to be particularly rich pickings, like the Tendring Peninsula in northeast Essex, not far from where I have my studio. It’s a maze of creeks, mudflats and sand bars, where derelict barges at deserted wharfs now belong only to tides and the weather. So I help myself to any scrap metal and wood that speaks to me. In fact, when I’m putting together an exhibition, I spend a huge amount of time just sourcing raw materials. It’s effectively part of my creative process, always has been. Sometimes, when I’m picking my way along the shore and skips, I’m mistaken for a Traveller, looking for brass and copper to sell. Perhaps for this very reason, some of these people stop and tell me some wild stories. Once I was at Jaywick, looking for inspiration, when a dog walker stopped and struck up a… well, I guess you could say, conversation. He told me he’d been in the army (some branch of the armed forces, anyway) and that he’d seen the dead come to life, and a flying saucer land at Rendalsham Forest. I wasn’t clear if these two events were actually connected, so I just nodded. I guess this encouraged him though, because then he told me that his wife’s neighbour had had sex with an alien (which seemed oddly specific). He ended his story, rather disturbingly, with a comment about his daughter seeing a local boy he didn’t like,
2. Preening Sanderling
carved and painted driftwood 33 x 18 x 12 cms 13 x 7 1⁄8 x 43⁄4 ins
and that if the boy hadn’t cleared off to Brightlingsea, he’d planned to “lose” the boy on the marshes. So, lucky the boy moved, I suppose (!). Around Jaywick and Seawick, close to my studio at Point Clear, the locals prefer the sea wall to the nearest dump, and their castoffs – bits of boats, painted doors, old furniture – wash down almost right by my studio. Several pieces in this show have bases that came from materials I found there, having become weathered
It is no accident that his job in Regent’s Park, which first triggered his fascination with birds, coincided with a period when he had become very interested in Zen Buddhism. It is not going too far to say that these carvings are the visual equivalents for the sound of one hand clapping. Edward Lucie-Smith
washes up and I find bits I can imagine were marked by World War, if not by Vikings, or even Romans! Sometimes, time seems to stop when I’m out there searching, an experience that keeps to the right side of weird, thanks once again, to some people I meet. One day I met a “diddicoy” (a Traveller, but not necessarily Romani) who had a tear drop tattooed under one eye, a wellknown mark of men who’ve done prison time, or even killed. (If that’s not a conversation starter, I don’t know what is!) Obligingly showing me the handcuff marks on his wrists, he told me how he’d broken into an off-license and instead of clearing the till and legging it, he decided, since he was there, to have a drink. When they finally arrested him, he was still there, legless. So naturally he went inside for a spell, but he didn’t seem to mind too much. Maybe he’d had a good time. Anyway, I certainly enjoyed his story: I gave him 20 quid.
and burnished by their journey. Understandably, this part of the coast isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s fertile hunting grounds for me. Further along at St Osyth, there’s a naturist beach, where, one cold winter’s day, I found a panel on which someone had written that they’d been kidnapped and were being held captive in Clacton. I’m pretty sure it was a joke. And it was a nice bit of wood. My studio is at the head of four estuaries: the Thames, Crouch, Blackwater and the Colne. Here, the detritus of literally centuries
3. Egret
carved and painted driftwood 104 x 47 x 23 cms 41 x 181⁄2 x 8 7⁄8 ins
I’ll always rely on my local hunting ground; I know the land and customs, after all. But there’s another place that’s a treasure trove of both raw creative materials, and magically, birds. Off the south coast of Portugal there’s a chain of barrier islands that run for about thirty miles: some have fishing villages; others are deserted. I always go to a little town on the coast, Olhão, and stay at this hotel, which, before tourism, used to be a brothel (it was one the biggest ports on the Algarve, after all). Every day, I’d buy salami, bread, cheese and wine at the Pinço Doce (Portuguese Co-Op), then take a ferry or water taxi to the Ihla Deserta, the southernmost point of the country. There used to be a fishing community on the island (now long gone) and in winter, the island is swept by storms. Veined by estuaries and sandbanks, it’s also home to sherwaters, gulls, terns, spoonbills, storks, stone curlews, etc. It’s a paradise for bird watchers and known for some of the loveliest beaches in the Algarve. But I go to a part of the island where there’s only a broken down jetty, and no one combs its beaches, because instead of shells, it’s littered with old boats.
When walking on the beach I’ve often found pieces of driftwood which have been worn by the sea into half-bird or half-fish shapes. Guy sees this too and somehow completes the process that nature has begun. Mary Fedden
When I land there, if I’m in luck and the tide is on the make, I can walk up the creek bed, disturbing shoals of small fish and crabs. Walking a bit further up the beach, the higher sandbanks are lined with sun-bleached wood and whale vertebrae, their twisted tonal forms offset by the plastic detritus of the modern world: Barbie dolls, phones, and lighters. When I came to the head of the creek I came upon several disintegrating boats, where I found inspiration and materials for The Flying Sanderlings on Green Rivet Boat Panel, and Tern Panel. I have been going to these islands for thirty years and they never fail me. When I arrive back in town, the Fado bars fill with fishermen and new arrivals, from Angola to Estonia. Meanwhile, my hotel room fills with driftwood. But the owners are great: they know me by now and never say anything. Evening falls and swifts and bats soar over the roofs. Eventually, I’ll pack up my finds, and send them back on the next EasyJet to Southend, no fuss. When I get them to my studio, their transformation begins, and I handle each piece of wood remembering the Portuguese birds I watched, sanderlings and terns. They start to become birds almost of their own accord. I wouldn’t say “hatched” but there is usually something in the piece of wood that speaks to me of a certain bird, and I only have to remove the bits that aren’t bird-y to find it. So that’s how a lovely piece of blue boat, washed up on a beach and long forgotten finds its way to Cork Street, framing sculptures of birds that once, in real life, possibly perched on its gunnels. There is one last place I should thank for some of these pieces. A place close to home, but not, on the face of it, where you might find anything remotely related to a swan. If you get off at Chelmsford and go into countryside, you’ll find a place where they could have filmed Deliverance. There, in the middle of nowhere,
4. Heron
carved and painted driftwood 127 x 64 x 26 cms 50 x 251⁄4 x 101⁄4 ins
there’s this old brickworks, a long narrow building, now mostly deserted, except for a shed nearby, where I can buy good scrap timber. One time, walking towards the brickworks, I saw a young Achilles of a lorry driver standing by a Jack Russell that had been tied up to a drainpipe with a bit of string. In passing he told me he’d just made a delivery and coming out of the sheds seen a man kicking the dog, so he laid into him. To clarify, Achilles said he was an Essex boxing champion. Looking around, I saw that there were drops of blood on the ground, but no man.
Guy’s great skill is that his work doesn’t tell you everything. The confidence of his modelling, the elegance of line, the capture of movement goes so far and then lets you do the rest. Michael Palin
But my afternoon was about to get even more interesting. A black Mercedes pulled up and four men got out, all wearing dark overcoats, gloves and bouncer boots. They just stood there, looking at us, not saying a word. I decided that was my cue to leave, and as I moved off, Achilles yelled to me, and when I turned, shouted ‘Box on!’ which, when you think of it, is sort of a metaphor for life, mine anyway. One last surprise was in store when I got to shed where I often go to buy sacrificial timber – the planks that protect wharfs from the impact of big merchant boats – I saw a man operating a 6-foot circular saw on a long ramp. The man wore a sock on one foot; the other covered only by a bloody rag. He said he’d cut the front of his big toe off earlier. I offered to run him to hospital, but he said no, he’s too busy. I looked outside. There’s no one now, no men, no Mercedes, just the Jack Russell still tied to the drainpipe with a bit of string. So I leave the heart of darkness and return to Wivenhoe. Every so often I wonder if I’m getting too old for all this. But then I’ll hit one of my treasure grounds, and something on the ground will fly out to me. So I agree with the lad: “Box on!” Guy Taplin
5. Spoonbill
carved and painted driftwood 102 x 50 x 35 cms 40 1⁄8 x 195⁄8 x 133⁄4 ins
6. Bee-Eater Panel
carved and painted driftwood 92 x 92 x 35 cms 361⁄4 x 36 x 133⁄4 ins
The heart and soul of environmentalism lies in reconnecting people to the living world… Short of actually being out there, in that living world, Guy Taplin’s bird sculptures are some of the most wondrous proxies of reconnection I’ve ever seen. Jonathan Porritt
7. Greater Black-Backed Gull
carved and painted driftwood 41 x 93 x 29 cms 161⁄8 x 365⁄8 x 113⁄8 ins
8. Eider Duck carved and painted driftwood 25 x 45 x 24 cms 9 7⁄8 x 173⁄4 x 91⁄2 ins
9. Canada Goose
carved and painted driftwood 33 x 82 x 38 cms 13 x 321⁄4 x 15 ins
10. Six Storm Petrels
carved and painted driftwood 73 x 58 x 58 cms 283⁄4 x 227⁄8 x 227⁄8 ins
11. Four Shorebirds carved and painted driftwood 50 x 61 x 25 cms 19 5⁄8 x 24 x 9 7⁄8 ins
12. Four Curlews carved and painted driftwood 53 x 76 x 39 cms 20 7⁄8 x 29 7⁄8 x 153⁄8 ins
13. Fourteen Terns on a Boat Panel
carved and painted driftwood 116 x 86 x 17 cms 451⁄2 x 335⁄8 x 63⁄4 ins
14. C arved Wooden Figure of a Swan
gesso coated driftwood 74 x 104 cms 291⁄8 x 41 ins
15. Brent Goose
carved and painted driftwood 23 x 58 x 24 cms 9 x 22 7⁄8 x 91⁄2 ins
16. Ten Curlews
carved and painted driftwood 109 x 99 x 58 cms 427⁄8 x 39 x 227⁄8 ins
17. Ten Dunlin Boat Panel
carved and painted driftwood 47 x 85 x 18 cms 181⁄2 x 331⁄2 x 71⁄8 ins
18. Four Peeps carved and painted driftwood 24 x 26 x 17 cms 91⁄4 x 101⁄4 x 63⁄4 ins
19. Under Sandling
carved and painted driftwood 33 x 24 x 18 cms 13 x 9 1⁄2 x 71⁄8 ins
20. Four Godwits
carved and painted driftwood 69 x 74 x 33 cms 27 x 291⁄8 x 13 ins
21. Ten Winged Sanderlings
carved and painted driftwood 37 x 50 x 29 cms 145⁄8 x 195⁄8 x 113⁄8 ins
22. Bittern carved and painted driftwood 74 x 87 x 20 cms 291⁄8 x 341⁄4 x 77⁄8 ins
23. Running Curlew carved and painted driftwood 50 x 99 x 17 cms 19 5⁄8 x 39 x 63⁄4 ins
24. Heron
carved and painted driftwood 137 x 72 x 43 cms 533⁄4 x 283⁄8 x 167⁄8 ins
25. Eight Knot
carved and painted driftwood 33 x 41 x 31 cms 13 x 161⁄8 x 121⁄4 ins
26. Twelve Sanderling
carved and painted driftwood 30 x 47 x 23 cms 113⁄4 x 181⁄2 x 9 ins
27. Twenty Shorebirds
carved and painted driftwood 55 x 75 x 34 cms 215⁄8 x 291⁄2 x 133⁄8 ins
28. Six Sanderlings Boat Panel
carved and painted driftwood 78 x 60 x 15 cms 303⁄4 x 235⁄8 x 57⁄8 ins
29. Eight Shorebirds
carved and painted driftwood 55 x 71 x 30 cms 215⁄8 x 28 x 113⁄4 ins
30. Nine Shorebirds
carved and painted driftwood 60 x 61 x 41 cms 233⁄8 x 24 x 161⁄8 ins
31. Chough Panel
carved and painted driftwood 71 x 107 x 35 cms 28 x 421⁄8 x 133⁄4 ins
32. Four Knots
carved and painted driftwood 66 x 55 x 39 cms 26 x 215⁄8 x 153⁄8 ins
33. Four Sanderlings
carved and painted driftwood 27 x 29 x 22 cms 103⁄8 x 113⁄8 x 85⁄8 ins
Guy has an astonishing eye for what Gilbert White called the “air” of birds, just as he has for the unrealised potential of his bits of found wood. Richard Mabey
34. Six Curlews
carved and painted driftwood 57 x 76 x 35 cms 221⁄4 x 29 7⁄8 x 133⁄4 ins
35. Four Winged Egret
carved and painted driftwood 98 x 106 x 48 cms 385⁄8 x 413⁄4 x 187⁄8 ins
36. Preening Winged Egret carved and painted driftwood 86 x 55 x 24 cms 337⁄8 x 215⁄8 x 9 1⁄2 ins
37. Nine Peeps
carved and painted driftwood 40 x 56 x 22 cms 153⁄4 x 22 x 85⁄8 ins
38. Six Sandlings Panel
carved and painted driftwood 57 x 113 x 17 cms 221⁄2 x 441⁄4 x 63⁄4 ins
39. Four Winged Sanderlings
carved and painted driftwood 37 x 40 x 20 cms 145⁄8 x 153⁄4 x 7 5⁄8 ins
40. Nine Shorebirds
carved and painted driftwood 55 x 71 x 35 cms 215⁄8 x 28 x 133⁄4 ins
41. Four Godwits
carved and painted driftwood 61 x 77 x 29 cms 24 x 30 3⁄8 x 113⁄8 ins
I think birds are very close to where it all began. If you look at them long enough it all comes up in you. You try and cover it up. It isn’t always what you want to see. Guy Taplin
42. Eight Curlews
carved and painted driftwood 74 x 103 x 62 cms 291⁄8 x 40 1⁄2 x 243⁄8 ins
43. Six Turnstones carved and painted driftwood 50 x 60 x 36 cms 19 5⁄8 x 235⁄8 x 141⁄8 ins
44. Four Godwits carved and painted driftwood 90 x 93 x 28 cms 353⁄8 x 36 5⁄8 x 11 ins
45. Under Winged Egret carved and painted driftwood 94 x 54 x 27 cms 363⁄4 x 211⁄4 x 10 5⁄8 ins
46. Four Curlews I carved and painted driftwood 83 x 102 x 41 cms 325⁄8 x 401⁄8 x 161⁄8 ins
47. Four Curlews II carved and painted driftwood 63 x 90 x 32 cms 245⁄8 x 353⁄8 x 125⁄8 ins
48. Six Curlews
carved and painted driftwood 69 x 72 x 33 cms 27 x 283⁄8 x 13 ins
49. Twenty Robin Snipe
carved and painted driftwood 59 x 72 x 48 cms 231⁄4 x 283⁄8 x 18 7⁄8 ins
50. Tern Boat Panel
carved and painted driftwood 88 x 146 x 33 cms 345⁄8 x 571⁄2 x 13 ins
51. Eight Sanderlings
carved and painted driftwood 31 x 40 x 19 cms 12 x 153⁄4 x 7 1⁄2 ins
52. Hoopoe Panel
carved and painted driftwood 88 x 111 x 25 cms 345⁄8 x 433⁄4 x 97⁄8 ins
53. Four Ibis
carved and painted driftwood 97 x 113 x 58 cms 381⁄4 x 441⁄2 x 227⁄8 ins
54. Four Turnstones carved and painted driftwood 45 x 48 x 25 cms 173⁄4 x 18 7⁄8 x 97⁄8 ins
55. Six Godwits carved and painted driftwood 72 x 89 x 53 cms 281⁄2 x 35 x 20 7⁄8 ins
56. Eight Curlews carved and painted driftwood 74 x 98 x 42 cms 291⁄8 x 385⁄8 x 161⁄2 ins
57. Four Curlews carved and painted driftwood 72 x 93 x 30 cms 281⁄8 x 365⁄8 x 113⁄4 ins
58. Preening Winged Ibis
carved and painted driftwood 83 x 48 x 29 cms 325⁄8 x 18 7⁄8 x 113⁄8 ins
59. Ibis Panel
carved and painted driftwood 62 x 153 x 22 cms 243⁄8 x 601⁄4 x 85⁄8 ins
GUY TAPLIN Biography 1939 1941
Born Whitechapel, London, March 5. Moved to Hereford, where his father worked in a munitions factory, returning to London shortly before the end of the war. 1944 A passion for birds began with the discovery of a nest in a Herefordshire hedgerow, later developed during a city child’s egg-collecting expeditions to Epping Forest and elsewhere. 1953 Joined the Post Office as a messenger boy. 1958 Sacked as a GPO cashier after a practical joke in Great Portland Street went awry (stamps worth £2000 got drenched). 1958–60 National Service, including a faked nervous breakdown in Cyprus and a spell in the Netley Psychiatric Hospital in Hampshire. Saw his first artistic posting as a sign painter. 1960–66 Worked as a brewery labourer, hairdresser, window cleaner, lorry driver, television deliverer, seat-belt fitter, lido lifeguard, flypitcher and market trader. 1966 Began a long apprenticeship in Zen Buddhism during which he visited Japan and contemplated becoming a monk. 1967–73 Big-buckled Taplin belts proved popular Flower Power fashion accessories in London, America and Japan. Later decorative designs included tables with brass palm tree supports. 1974 Turned down a job as manager of a Sloane Street fashion business. Became a municipal gardener. 1975–9 Started to whittle in wood decoy-like models of ducks and geese when working as the Bird Man of Regent’s Park. 1978 Bought bolt-hole house on the Essex coast. First one-man show, at the Portal Gallery, London; every exhibit is sold. 1979 Married the stained-glass artist Robina Jack. Set up as a bird sculptor with a warehouse studio first on Butler’s Wharf and then at Rotherhithe. 1980 Moved permanently to Wivenhoe, near Colchester. Showed in more and more solo and group shows across the United Kingdom and continental Europe (around 100 over the next two decades). 1985 Acquired a studio on the coastal marshes, at the head of the Colne and Blackwater estuaries. 1992 First Taplin birds cast in bronze at the Pangolin Foundry in Gloucestershire. 2001 First solo show with David Messum Fine Art, Cork Street. 2002 Courcoux Contemporary Art Ltd. 2004 Courcoux Contemporary Art Ltd.
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2010 2011 2012 2013 2013 2014 2015 2015 2015 2017
Messum’s, Cork Street. Messum’s, Cork Street. Messum’s, Cork Street. Courcoux Contemporary Art Ltd. Messum’s, Cork Street. Courcoux & Courcoux, Guy Taplin 25 Knot Out. Courcoux & Courcoux, A Family Affair. Messum’s, Cork Street. Courcoux & Courcoux, Sweet 16. Ruthin Gallery, North Wales. Messum’s, Cork Street. Messum’s, Cork Street. Messum’s, Cork Street. Dowling Walsh, Maine, USA Messum’s, Cork Street, The Nature of Home. Messum’s, Cork Street.
Public collections include:
Tate Gallery Arts Council of Great Britain Contemporary Art Society London Zoo Royal Bank of Scotland National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh Society of Wildlife Artists Washington State University Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg Anthony Petullo Collection of Self-Taught and Outsider Art, Milwaukee
Private collections include:
Royal Collection; Lady Lavinia Bolton; Uri Geller; Guinness family; Michael Heseltine; Sir Timothy and Lady Hoare; Baroness Kingsmill CBE; Mark Knopfler; David Lean; Joanna Lumley; Lord McAlpine; The Earl of Medway; Mike Nichols; Michael Palin; Sian Phillips; Lord (David) Puttnam; Sainsbury family; Ridley Scott; Jon Snow; Richard Stilgoe; Una Stubbs; Sir Cive Woodward; The late Gerald Durrell; The late Dame Elisabeth Frink; The late Robert Mitchum; The late Jean Muir; The late Jacqueline Onassis; The late Squadron Leader Peter Townsend; The Duchess of Northampton; The Earl of Bute
back cover
60. Jackdaw Panel
carved and painted driftwood 78 x 98 x 22 cms 303⁄4 x 385⁄8 x 85⁄8 ins
Bird on a Wire
The Life and Art of Guy Taplin by Ian Collins
Bird on a
224 page hardback (285 x 240mm), published by Studio Publications, with over 250 colour and black and white illustrations. ISBN 978-1-905883-10-3.
Wire
Ian Co
£29.95 inc p&p.
llins
Guy Taplin is a phenomenon. His art is unique and his life reads like an adventure story, by turns astonishing, poignant and hilarious. Britain’s leading bird sculptor is likened by Michael Palin, in the foreword to this book, as a “magician”. Certainly there is something of the alchemist about him as, with a minimum of tools and techniques, he turns driftwood and other pieces of discarded timber into stands and flights of birds. With smears of paint, a stretch of highlighted graining to hint at wing or feathering, and a Published by corroded stair rod to suggest a leg, something more than a model image is somehow captured. Taplin’s elemental birds touch us as pure sculpture FINE ART PUBLICATIONS and as symbols of wild places and of the yearning human need to reconnect with wilderness. Now collected around the world, they are vessels for our dreams. Born in the East End of London on the eve of World War Two, and evacuated to Herefordshire before returning to Cockney country to roam the woods and hedges of Epping, Guy Taplin had an obsession with birds from the outset. But, after a near-lethal spell in the army, he careered through endless menial jobs, and found brief fame making hippy buckles in Swinging London, before hitting upon his vocation by happy accident. It is now almost a legend that, while caring for the ornamental waterfowl in Regent’s Park, and training to become a Buddhist monk, the Bird Man began on a whim to whittle crude, decoy-like images of his charges in wood, and then never stopped. Over the decades he has perfected his art through perseverance and passion. In this beautifully-illustrated volume, Ian Collins and many witnesses tell the artist’s startling story.
TAPL IN
Hailing from a long line of Broadland boat-builders, Ian Collins was born in Norfolk, raised in Cambridgeshire and now lives on the Suffolk coast at Southwold and in London’s Barbican. He is a writer and curator – his collaboration with Guy Taplin starting with a show for the 50th Aldeburgh Festival – and a contributor to numerous television arts documentaries. Ian is the author of a trilogy of books on the art of East Anglia – A Broad Canvas, Making Waves (a 2005 Book of the Year choice in the Times, Sunday Telegraph and Spectator magazine) and Water Marks – featuring many Messum’s artists, including Guy Taplin. As well as Bird on a Wire, his monograph on Guy complete with a foreword by Michael Palin, he has written others on Rose Hilton, John Craxton, James Dodds and John McLean.
CDXXIII
ISBN 978-1-910993-15-6 Publication No: CDXXIII Published by David Messum Fine Art © David Messum Fine Art
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Studio, Lords Wood, Marlow, Buckinghamshire. Tel: 01628 486565 www.messums.com Photography: Steve Russell Printed by DLM-Creative
50. Jackdaw Panel carved and painted driftwood 78 x 98 x 22 cms 303⁄4 x 385⁄8 x 85⁄8 ins
www.messums.com