paintings, a folly of a castle decorated in mock-Gothic
night sessions with John Gingell and Mike Crowther,
by William Burges, a bog-standard shopping centre
fellow artists and teachers, drinking homemade pear
and problems with damp in many of the houses.
wine, we would set the world to rights.
Beyond Cardiff were the ‘Valleys’, where a lot of our
students came from and where the fast-declining coal
gift. Lying in a corridor was a heap of old iron. It was
industry offered little future.
a little etching press with beautiful gearing, the bed no
bigger than fourteen inches across, but it would be my
The Art School, however, was expanding and
Cardiff School of Art gave me another significant
had a new building on the Newport Road. This was
very own. No one seemed to want it, and I managed
my apprenticeship in teaching where I had to learn
to buy it off Cardiff Borough Council in 1971 for its
a lot very quickly. The manner of fostering our bright
scrap metal value – £3. I was a printmaker, with my
young things was as different from the way I had been
own press.
taught as chalk and cheese. At Cardiff I was never
allowed near the print room (locked away somewhere
Chris taught at Cardiff regularly until 1973, and
like a museum) and had to bone up quickly on colour
continued to do occasional days there and also at
theory and other Basic Design tenets. The party
other art schools in later years, including the Royal
line was that art education had to change radically
College of Art from 1976 to 1994, where he taught
to prepare artists and designers for a world of
Printmaking and Drawing, and the Central School
conceptualism, abstraction and multimedia. We were
of Arts & Crafts from 1984 to 1986, where he
strongly of the opinion that what had been the staple
specialised in teaching Printmaking, until he
diet of art education up till then was for the chop. Life
became Professor of Printmaking at the RCA
drawing had been abandoned, and drawing in general
in 1998. Ever since the Renaissance, artists have
seemed to rely too much on idiosyncratic individual
run studios, and passed on their knowledge to
skills. It felt as though the traditional approach to art
assistants, who in turn set up studios of their
education would be consigned to history, just like the
own, but, in post-war Britain, teaching became
coal industry.
a parallel career that could sap the creative will.
It gave Chris enough to live on, but it did not make
I never moved to Cardiff, preferring to keep
my roots in London and commuting for my two days
him a professional artist.
a week teaching. The tedious car journey along the
incomplete M4, or by the snail train, allowed me
deals, and make partnerships. With the £200 he
time to put on the appropriate personality for my
had won for the Kingsley, Manton and Palmer
destination. In Cardiff I embraced the teaching
Prize for Lithography at his Diploma Show, he
revolution and worked enthusiastically with colleagues,
went into business in 1968 with a Royal College of
some of whom became my greatest friends. The joy
Art silk-screen technician, Ian Campbell, to set up
of the job at Cardiff (apart from being paid) was the
a workshop in London, Autographics. They started
sense of invention and making something new. At late
in a poorly ventilated basement underneath a
To achieve that meant being ready to do
Splatt in der Gherumphambugelsplatt, 1969. Silk screen, 60 x 90 cm
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small sums. There was little room for the development
My drawing books were to become very
of an artist’s ideas.
important as a means of searching for the way forward
The relationship with G&M was never easy.
(right). In them I felt able to expand ideas and try out
Most of the work I made for them was in the vein
the seemingly impossible. They were very subjective,
of my late RCA productions. The ideas were mad,
serendipitous and explosive, full of written notes,
scatological and incorporated just about everything,
sketches, observations and dreams. The drawing book
including the kitchen sink. Working up new ideas was
established itself as the place for free thinking and the
difficult. The anxiety for every artist is the question of
essential tool for moving forward. That continues to
how to generate new work. Periods when ideas tumble
the present. The ideas that are generated there enter
out are followed by lean times when nothing seems
all aspects of my work. Overheard snatches of
to be worth very much. I was to learn that being
conversation (recently greatly expanded by the
professional meant finding ways to invent and create
ever-public mobile phone), glimpses and memories
whatever the weather.
of architecture or behaviour, random words that come
One way I discovered was to stick my big
into head – all are put down and are stored in the
nose into a lot more than was considered customary
bank of material. Some of the drawings take on a
for artists. So I submitted to the G&M steamroller,
life of their own and are filleted out of the books to
publishing my first prints with them in 1968
become works in their own right. In 2008 I published
(pp. 58, 59). I revelled in the pressure from the
a book with the Royal Academy – The Multitude
silk-screen business – up to a point. The idea was
Diaries – that presents a selection with its own
to edition artists’ prints and carry on some of the
inner logic.
pioneering work from the Royal College of Art, but
the commercial necessities (Flower Power posters
Chris was dissatisfied with the way things were
and T-shirts) led Autographics to a dead end.
going. Although his work was popular, and he
was earning a living from teaching, making and
The exuberant Splatt in der
Gherumphambugelsplatt (pp. 60–1) was the result
selling work, there was a danger that the riotous
the paper. Chris had to do more than perfect the
of a chaotic weekend visit to Rotterdam with John
fecundity of his imagery would become merely
skill of mirror-writing words so that they would
Gorner. It marked a change from ideas that were
entertaining. The jokiness of his surreal
come out the right way round. He needed to plan,
more clearly about the here and now, but my
juxtapositions and the sexy and scatological
and to compose. The solution lay in the nature of
relationship to the silk-screen process never fully
behaviour of his characters drew the inevitable
printmaking itself.
recovered from Autographics until very recently, when
comparisons with Rowlandson and Hogarth.
I started working with water-based screen-printing at
But he did not want to be known as a comic
figurative artist; he was also a narrative artist. His
Peacock Visual Arts in Aberdeen. The fumes given off
artist. However spontaneous the results may look,
scenes are dramas or stories in themselves, but his
by solvent-based screen inks, beloved by some at the
both the etching and lithography process demand
RCA essay ‘Kierkegaard’s Bath’ had shown that he
RCA and used at Autographics, were very strong, and
careful planning, since the image the artist creates
could write as well, although an early attempt at a
I developed an aversion to them.
on the plate or stone will come out in reverse on
novel proved unsuccessful. The term ‘publishing’
Opposite Birth of Venus, 1976. Etching, 45 x 45 cm
It was already clear that Chris was not only a
Above Drawing Book Page, 1974. Pencil drawing, 36 x 22 cm
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A–Z, 1985. Etching with hand colouring, 50 x 70 cm
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just the right kind of greenhouse for me to cultivate my work by showing it at the annual Summer Exhibition to audiences of 200,000 people or more. The institution has evolved into a very different place from the moribund, Picasso-hating years of the 1950s. Founded by George III in 1768, the Royal Academy is a great public institution that is also entirely private, in that it receives no government funding, and is run by its own self-selecting artist members, the Royal Academicians. Originally membership was limited to forty, but by the time Chris was elected the number had risen to eighty, plus an increasing number of senior members over the age of 75. At any one time there must be a minimum of fourteen sculptors, twelve architects, and eight printmakers, including engravers, draughtsmen and painters. This last group was allowed to join the Academy in their own right in 1853, in recognition of their importance as people who helped reproduce the artists’ paintings and made them accessible to a wider public. Although Chris does not make engravings in this traditional sense, he was elected as an engraver.
Essentially, the Royal Academy still does
what it was set up to do: to hold an annual exhibition where work could be sold, and raise funds to run the Royal Academy Schools, where students study free. The Royal Academy Schools now run the only three-year, full-time, postgraduate, fine-art course in Britain, awarding their own Diploma. The Academy also has a very important library and an art collection, not just of the ‘Diploma’ works that each RA is required to present on election, but of works given by
Doing the Academy, 1996. Watercolour painting, 60 x 85 cm
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