In the Landscape: Hampstead and Beyond
Tom Fairs
Installation view from the exhibition
Tom Fairs
In the Landscape: Hampstead and Beyond
January 5 – February 11, 2023
Tom Fairs (b. 1925) was married to the English novelist Elisabeth Russell Taylor (1930–2020) from 1963 to his death in 2007. In 2019, Russell Taylor shared personal details about her husband’s artistic life and upbringing in a letter to the painter Bobbie Oliver, a longtime friend of the couple. What follows are highlights from this letter, edited for clarity.
On His Early Life
“Tom was born into a very poor family in a very drab neighborhood and, curiously, because this is not always the case with poor children, he was aware of being poor and humiliated by it. His father was a socialist and talked about it, but no one in the family knew anything about art or read anything. Tom joined an anarchist group when he was at Hornsey [School of Art]. He read [Peter] Kropotkin and [Jiddu] Krishnamurti.
“He spent a lot of time out of doors. There were fields beyond the house. His father was a gas fitter (I think), his mother a seamstress. He left school at fifteen to be a post office messenger boy and was ‘discovered’ because he joined a sketching group within the post office. He used to travel to the Lakes alone and climb when he was about sixteen to eighteen.
“I don’t believe he looked at painting until he went to Hornsey, where he had an excellent relationship with a teacher. I think he may have been advised to do stained glass because it was something for which he might get paid. At the RCA [Royal College of Art] he wrote his final essay for graduation on medieval symbolism.”
On His Life as an Artist
“When he was teaching he had Fridays off. He used this day, and Sats and Suns, to go out for a coffee in the morning and read. He read a lot of popular science, science fiction, and slightly dotty ideas. He felt that what constituted conventional wisdom was a drain on the imagination. In the last 20 years of his life he continued this way, drawing in the morning and painting after lunch and a nap. He had from the start sketched in the open.
“We took all our holidays to see painting and sculpture. He never felt anything but love and admiration for Bonnard. Among his favorite modern painters: Kitaj, Auerbach, Soutine—curious for working in such a different way from the way he worked and what he produced…. He loved Giacometti.
“We used to go into the country every weekend for the day and he would sketch from the front seat of the car. I would go and get the eggs from the farm and he would sit drawing the outbuildings. When I got back into the car I often found him pencil in hand hitting at the image he had made. I would say: ‘Can I go on now?’ and he would find that completely inappropriate of me for not realizing that this hitting of the drawing was part of the process!
“Tom admired anyone who was serious about drawing and painting. It didn’t matter if the person doing it didn’t achieve great works of art, it was the doing that mattered.”
On his Life as a Teacher and in Retirement
“He did not associate with artists or show anyone his work. You were the only one who came to the house, stayed, talked to him at length. Of course when he was at Central [Central School of Art and Design, now Central Saint Martin’s] he spent long periods talking to others who taught there. Cecil Collins was important to him years ago. Tom was not keen on men. He felt much more comfortable in the presence of women.
“For some years Tom ran the stained glass department at Central. Later he was asked to rethink some of the ways in which theater design had taken; the Central wanted to get back to the days when leading artists (think Picasso) were part of theatrical productions.
“[Our] attic flat is within close proximity to Hampstead Heath where, in his years of retirement from teaching, Tom sketched daily.
“In the last years of his life he used to sit in the living room with the TV on after supper but not paying attention to programs, loathing them all in fact! He found popular culture degenerative. He would ask me to bring up half a dozen sketch books which he would go through, altering some and deciding which he would turn into a painting.”
Untitled, c. 1970’s, oil, oilstick on canvas, 30 x 36 in (76.2 x 91.4 cm)
Signed lower right: Fairs
Untitled, c. 1970’s, oil, oilstick on canvas, 30 x 36 in (76.2 x 91.4 cm)
Signed lower right: Fairs
Untitled, c. 1970’s, oil, oilstick on canvas, 30 x 36 in (76.2 x 91.4 cm)
Signed lower right: Fairs
Untitled, c. 1970’s, oil, oilstick on canvas, 30 x 36 in (76.2 x 91.4 cm)
Signed lower right: Fairs
Untitled, c. 1980’s, oil, oilstick on canvas, 30 x 36 in (76.2 x 91.4 cm)
Untitled, c. 1980’s, oil on paper, 22 x 30 in (55.9 x 76.2 cm)
Signed lower right: Fairs
Untitled, c. 1980’s, oil, oilstick on paper, 24 x 29 in (61 x 73.7 cm)
Signed lower right: Fairs
Untitled, c. 1980’s, oil, oilstick on paper, 8 1/4 x 11 1/4 in (21 x 28.6 cm)
Signed lower left: Fairs
Landscape Montgomeryshire
on mat, 8 3/8 x 10 in (21.3 x 25.4 cm)
1970’s,oil
Signed lower right: Fairs
, c. pastel on paper mountedUntitled, c. 1970’s, oilstick on paper, 8 3/8 x 10 in (21.3 x 25.4 cm)
Signed lower right: Fairs
Untitled, c. 1980’s, oil, oilstick, color pencil on paper, 8 3/8 x 10 in (21.3 x 25.4 cm)
Untitled, c. 1980’s, oil, oilstick on paper, 5 7/8 x 4 1/2 in (14.9 x 11.4 cm)
Untitled, c. 1980’s, oil, oilstick, color pencil on paper, 8 1/2 x 11 1/2 in (21.6 x 29.2 cm)
Signed lower right: Fairs
Untitled, c. 1990’s, oilstick on paper, 8 7/8 x 6 in (22.5 x 15.2 cm)
Signed lower right: Fairs
Untitled, c. 1980’s, oilstick on paper mounted to mat, 9 7/8 x 7 in (25.1 x 17.8 cm)
Sussex, 1980, oilstick, pastel on paper, 8 7/8 x 6 in (22.5 x 15.2 cm)
Untitled, c. 1990’s, oilstick on paper, 8 7/8 x 6 in (22.5 x 15.2 cm)
Signed lower right: Fairs
TOM FAIRS (1925-2007)
Born: London, England
Lived: Hampstead, England
EDUCATION
1948-50 Hornsey School of Art
1950-54 Royal College of Art, studied stained glass design
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2023 In the Landscape: Hampstead and Beyond, Van Doren Waxter, New York, NY
Tom Fairs and David Schoerner,Kerry Schuss Gallery, New York, NY
2019 Tom Fairs in Color: Paintings and Drawings 1997-2007, Van Doren Waxter, New York, NY
2015 Tony Feher/Tom Fairs, Kerry Schuss, New York, NY
2012 Tom Fairs, The Modern Institute, Glasgow, Scotland
Tom Fairs, Drawings June - July 2004, Kerry Schuss, New York, NY
2011 Drawings, Kerry Schuss, New York, NY
2008 Tom Fairs (1925-2007) Homage to Bonnard, The Mercer Art Gallery, Harrowgate, Yorkshire Grafton Art Gallery, London
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2019 Drawn Together Again, Flag Art Foundation, New York, NY
2018 Gaze, Van Doren Waxter, New York, NY
2016 Outside, curated by Matthew Higgs, Karma, Amagansett, NY
World Made by Hand, Edlin Gallery, New York
Drawings, Kerry Schuss, New York, NY
2014 Half Drop, Kerry Schuss, New York, NY
2012 Walled Garden, Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York, NY
2011 NADA Miami, Kerr y Schuss featured artist 1970’s to 2007
1970’s to 2007
The Beaford Centre, Devon
Dartington Hall, Devon
Covent Gallery, London
Everyman Theatre, London
Rowland, Browse & Delbanco, London
Dunkeld Gallery, Scotland
Hambledon Gallery, Dorset Illustrators Art, London
Rooksmoor Gallery, Bath
Rooksmoor Gallery, Bristol
Leeds Playhouse Gallery, Leeds
The Stables, Folkstone
Royal Academy Summer Exhibition annually since 1981
Ombersley Gallery, Worcestshire
Central School of Art and Design, London
Drew Gallery, Canterbury
Art for Offices, London
New Groton Gallery, Barnes
Business Art, Royal Academy, London
BIBLIOGRAPHY
2019 ---, “News,” Artforum online, August 16
2015 Cotter, Holland, “10 Galleries to Visit on the LES,” New York Times, April 17 Rhodes, David, “Not A Single Link too Loose: Tony Feher/Tom Fair,” Artcritical, April
2013 Smith, Roberta, “Tendrils of the Artist’s Essence”, New York Times, April 19
2012 Schwabsky, Barry, “Review of Tom Fairs at Kerry Schuss,” Artforum International, February Smith, Roberta, “Tom Fairs Drawings June-July 2004,” The New York Times, Art in Review, November 30 Plagens, Peter, “From Rooms to Revolutions,” Wall Street Journal, Volume CCLX No.123, November 24- 25 Heinrich, Will, “Tom Fairs: Drawings June-July 2004 at Kerry Schuss,” New York Observer, GalleristNY, December 11 Yau, John, “It’s Hard to Lie in a Drawing,” Hyperallergic, November 25
Simon, Jane, “Miami Beyond Art Basel,” Art Agenda, Review, December 8
2011 Johnson, Ken, “Drawings,” New York Times, June 3, 2011 review of exhibition at KS Art Higgs, Matthew, “Top Ten Shows 2011,” Artforum, December issue
Saltz, Jerry, “Reasons To Love New York,” New York Magazine, December 19 Smith, Roberta, “Roberta Smith’s Best of 2011,” The New York Times, December 18
TEACHING
1967-87 - Central School of Art and Design, London, taught set and costume design
PUBLICATIONS
Reyntiens, Patrick, The Technique of Stained Glass, 1966 Palmer, F, Encyclopedia of Oil Painting Material and Techniques, 1984 The Royal Academy Illustrated, 1985, 1988, 1994, 1995
STAINED GLASS COMMISSIONS
mid-50’s - early 70’s
Assisted Geoffrey Clarke on nave windows in Coventry Cathedral St. Hugh’s Church, Buntingford, Cambs. Ancrum Church, Roxburghshire, Scotland Convent of the Sacred Heart, Buntingford, Cambs. Holborn College of Law, London Commonwealth Institute, London Hotel President, London Our Lady of the Wayside Church, Birmingham Officer’s Club, Bahrain
Published on the occasion of the exhibition Tom Fairs
In the Landscape: Hampstead and Beyond January 5 - February 11, 2023
Design by Peter Kelly
Edited by Dorsey Waxter and Peter Kelly
Artwork photography by Charles Benton
Van Doren Waxter would like to extend special thanks to Bobbie Oliver for her unwavering support in the production of this exhibition.
VAN DOREN WAXTER 23 EAST 73RD ST NEW YORK, NY 10021 Phone 212 445-0444 info@vandorenwaxter.com www.vandorenwaxter.com
© VAN DOREN WAXTER, New York, NY.
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