RHS Chelsea 2015 Designers : Dan Pearson BEST IN SHOW 2015

Dan Pearson (born 9 April 1964) is an English garden designer, landscape designer, journalist and television presenter. He is an expert in naturalistic perennial planting.

Early life

Pearson was brought up in an Arts and Crafts house on the Hampshire-Sussex border. His father is a painter who taught fine art at Portsmouth Polytechnic and his mother taught fashion and textiles at Winchester School of Art.

He had a weekend gardening job for Mrs. Pumphrey at Greatham Mill Gardens, Hampshire that cultivated his interest in gardening. He decided against going to Art College, and dropped out of his A levels (backed by his parents) to be able to go to the RHS Garden, Wisley, at 17. During 1981–1983, he became an RHS Wisley Trainee, Certificate Course, aged 17. While at Wisley his mother introduced him to Frances Mossman, for whom he designed a garden. Dan then went to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh for a year to work in the Rock Garden and the Woodland Garden. Pearson then completed the three-year Kew Gardens course. Then he went back to maintaining Frances Mossman’s garden – Home Farm in Northampton. He also had student scholarships to study wildflower communities in the Picos de Europa, Spain, and in the Himalayas.

Pearson then set up his Garden Design business in 1987.

Career

Since 2002, he has been designing a number of gardens as well as giving lectures around the world, including the U.K., Italy, the U.S.A. and Japan.

He has designed gardens for Jonathan Ive, Paul Smith art dealer Ivor Braka, Russian businessman Vladislav Doronin. Carlo Caracciolo (the late owner of the Italian newspaper l’Espresso) and his colleague on The Guardian newspaper, Nigel Slater (this garden was a joint effort with Monty Don). He has also restored the landscape at Althorp House (post Diana’s death) post 1997 and worked on the landscape for the Millennium Dome. Dan has now done five show gardens at RHS Chelsea Flower Show. In 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996 (with an outstandling roof garden), and 2004 (for Merrill Lynch). He has also worked at the Botanic Garden of Jerusalem. He designed the Roof Garden of Roppongi Hills, Japan in 2002.

Pearson is a tree ambassador for The Tree Council and a member of the Society of Garden Designers. In 2011, he was elected an honorary fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects and was a member of the jury for the 2011 RIBA Stirling Prize.

He has a working relationships with some of the most known architects practising in the UK including Zaha Hadid, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, David Chipperfield Architects and 6a Architects, London, which led to Pearson being elected Royal Designer for Industry in 2012.

At the Garden Media Guild Awards of 2011, he was awarded the prize for ‘Inspirational Book of the Year’.

Another large project was the Tokachi Millenium Forest Garden, in Shimizu, Hokkaido, which was featured on BBC Radio 4 programme Designed in Britain, Built in Japan. Another project is Maggie’s Centre in Charing Cross, London.

The Garden Museum in Lambeth, London held an exhibition on his work, between 23 May 2013 to October 2013. Pearson has created a new planting design for the border in front of the Museum.

He is also working as horticultural advisor for Thomas Heatherwick’s Garden Bridge, over the Thames in London.

Television career

Pearson has presented and appeared in several TV series on BBC2, Channel 4 and Channel 5. In 1992, he presented the first garden makeover programme, Garden Doctors. A book of the same name later followed the series. He presented Dan Pearson: Routes around the World on Channel 4, a six-part travel and horticultural series, by Flashback Productions, in 1997.

In 2008, the BBC filmed a 12-part series, A Year At Home Farm, in Northampton, which Dan had been designing the gardens for since 1987. A book later followed the series.

He appears occasionally on BBC’s Gardeners’ World, and also regularly talks on radio.

Writing

Pearson has written for such newspapers as The Guardian, The Telegraph (during 2003-2006), and The Sunday Times on the subject of landscaping and home gardening. He has been the garden columnist for the The Observer Magazine since 2006. He sits on the editorial board of Gardens Illustrated magazine. His writing also includes Gardeners’ World magazine, and various magazine and newspaper articles.

Bibliography

• Pearson, Dan (1996). Garden Doctors (A Channel Four book). Boxtree Press Ltd. ISBN978-0752210292.

Co-authored with Steve Bradley

• Pearson, Dan (27 Feb 1998). ‘The Essential Garden Book’. Conran Octopus Ltd. ISBN978-1850299196.

Co-authored with Sir Terence Conran

• Pearson, Dan (4 Jan 2001). The Garden: A Year at Home Farm. Ebury Press. ISBN978-0091870324.

• Pearson, Dan (28 September 2009 (hardback) 3 October 2011 (softback)). Spirit: Garden Inspiration. FUEL. ISBN978-0956356291.

Introduction by Beth Chatto

• Pearson, Dan (7 March 2011). Home Ground: Sanctuary in the City. Conran Octopus. ISBN978-1840915372.

Personal life

Pearson has a brother called Luke, who is a product and furniture designer, and a partner in the company ‘Pearsonlloyd’.[19][20]

In 2010, he moved from Peckham in London to a property with 20 acres of land in Somerset.

Chelsea 2015

For the 2015 show, Laurent-Perrier and Chatsworth have come together to create a unique show garden, marking Chatsworth’s debut at Chelsea. The garden will showcase a shared heritage in gardens and nature, and family dwellings in beautiful grounds.

Taking the prominent ‘triangle’ position, which can be viewed from all three sides, Dan Pearson (retuning to RHS Chelsea Flower Show after more than a decade) has created a representation of a small – less trodden – part of the 105 acre Chatsworth Garden. In line with Pearson’s passion for naturalism and the wilder side of gardening, the exhibit is inspired by Chatsworth’s ornamental Trout Stream and Paxton’s rockery. Planting reflects the lightness, freshness and delicacy of the 200-year old family owned Champagne House.

People : David Hockney, Perhaps The 20th Century Artist And Designer Who Has Made The Biggest Splash …

http://www.aaronsgayinfo.com/Fartclassic.html

David Hockney, OM CH RA (born 9 July 1937) is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer. He lives in Bridlington, East Riding of Yorkshire, and Kensington, London. Hockney maintains two residences in California, where he lived on and off for over 30 years: one in Nichols Canyon, Los Angeles, and an office and archives on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood.

An important contributor to the Pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century.

Life

Hockney was born in Bradford, England, on 9 July 1937 to Laura and Kenneth Hockney (a conscientious objector in the Second World War), the fourth of five children. He was educated at Wellington Primary School, Bradford Grammar School, Bradford College of Art and the Royal College of Art in London, where he met R. B. Kitaj. While there, Hockney said he felt at home and took pride in his work. At the Royal College of Art, Hockney featured in the exhibition Young Contemporaries—alongside Peter Blake—that announced the arrival of British Pop art. He was associated with the movement, but his early works display expressionist elements, similar to some works by Francis Bacon. When the RCA said it would not let him graduate in 1962, Hockney drew the sketch The Diploma in protest. He had refused to write an essay required for the final examination, saying he should be assessed solely on his artworks. Recognising his talent and growing reputation, the RCA changed its regulations and awarded the diploma.

A visit to California, where he subsequently lived for many years, inspired him to make a series of paintings of swimming pools in the comparatively new acrylic medium rendered in a highly realistic style using vibrant colours. The artist moved to Los Angeles in 1964, returned to London in 1968, and from 1973 to 1975 lived in Paris. He moved to Los Angeles in 1978, at first renting the canyon house he lived in and later bought the property and expanded it to include his studio. He also owned a 1,643-square-foot beach house at 21039 Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, which he sold in 1999 for around $1.5 million.

Hockney is openly gay, and unlike Andy Warhol, whom he befriended, he openly explored the nature of gay love in his portraiture. Sometimes, as in We Two Boys Together Clinging (1961), named after a poem by Walt Whitman, the works refer to his love for men. Already in 1963, he painted two men together in the painting Domestic Scene, Los Angeles, one showering while the other washes his back. In summer 1966, while teaching at UCLA he met Peter Schlesinger, an art student who posed for paintings and drawings.

On the morning of 18 March 2013, Hockney’s 23-year-old assistant, Dominic Elliott, died as a result of drugs, drinking acid and alcohol at Hockney’s Bridlington studio. Elliott was a first- and second-team player for Bridlington rugby club. It was reported that Hockney’s partner drove Elliott to Scarborough General Hospital where he later died.

Work

Hockney made prints, portraits of friends, and stage designs for the Royal Court Theatre, Glyndebourne, La Scala and the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Born with synesthesia, he sees synesthetic colours in response to musical stimuli. This does not show up in his painting or photography artwork, but is a common underlying principle in his designs for stage sets for ballet and opera—where he bases background colours and lighting on the colours he sees while listening to the piece’s music.

Portrait

Hockney painted portraits at different periods in his career. From 1968, and for the next few years he painted friends, lovers, and relatives just under lifesize and in pictures that depicted good likenesses of his subjects. Hockney’s own presence is often implied, since the lines of perspective converge to suggest the artist’s point of view. Hockney has repeatedly returned to the same subjects – his parents, artist Mo McDermott (Mo McDermott, 1976), various writers he has known, fashion designers Celia Birtwell and Ossie Clark (Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy, 1970–71), curator Henry Geldzahler, art dealer Nicholas Wilder, George Lawson and his ballet dancer lover, Wayne Sleep.

On arrival in California, Hockney changed from oil to acrylic paint, applying it as smooth flat and brilliant colour. In 1965, the print workshop Gemini G.E.L. approached him to create a series of lithographs with a Los Angeles theme. Hockney responded by creating a ready-made art collection.

The “joiners”

In the early 1980s, Hockney began to produce photo collages, which he called “joiners”, first using Polaroid prints and subsequently 35mm, commercially-processed color prints. Using Polaroid snaps or photolab-prints of a single subject, Hockney arranged a patchwork to make a composite image. An early photomontage was of his mother. Because the photographs are taken from different perspectives and at slightly different times, the result is work that has an affinity with Cubism, one of Hockney’s major aims—discussing the way human vision works. Some pieces are landscapes, such as Pearblossom Highway #2, others portraits, such as Kasmin 1982, and My Mother, Bolton Abbey, 1982.

Creation of the “joiners” occurred accidentally. He noticed in the late sixties that photographers were using cameras with wide-angle lenses. He did not like these photographs because they looked somewhat distorted. While working on a painting of a living room and terrace in Los Angeles, he took Polaroid shots of the living room and glued them together, not intending for them to be a composition on their own. On looking at the final composition, he realized it created a narrative, as if the viewer moved through the room. He began to work more with photography after this discovery and stopped painting for a while to exclusively pursue this new technique. Frustrated with the limitations of photography and its ‘one eyed’ approach, however, he returned to painting.

Later work

In 1976, at Atelier Crommelynck, Hockney created a portfolio of 20 etchings, The Blue Guitar: Etchings By David Hockney Who Was Inspired By Wallace Stevens Who Was Inspired By Pablo Picasso. The etchings refer to themes in a poem by Wallace Stevens, “The Man With The Blue Guitar”. It was published by Petersburg Press in October 1977. That year, Petersburg also published a book, in which the images were accompanied by the poem’s text.

Hockney was commissioned to design the cover and pages for the December 1985 issue of the French edition of Vogue. Consistent with his interest in cubism and admiration for Pablo Picasso, Hockney chose to paint Celia Birtwell (who appears in several of his works) from different views, as if the eye had scanned her face diagonally.

In December 1985, Hockney used the Quantel Paintbox, a computer program that allowed the artist to sketch directly onto the screen. Using the program was similar to drawing on the PET film for prints, with which he had much experience. The resulting work was featured in a BBC series that profiled a number of artists.

His artwork was used on the cover of the 1989 British Telecom telephone directory for Bradford.

Hockney returned more frequently to Yorkshire in the 1990s, usually every three months, to visit his mother who died in 1999. He rarely stayed for more than two weeks until 1997, when his friend Jonathan Silver who was terminally ill encouraged him to capture the local surroundings. He did this at first with paintings based on memory, some from his boyhood. Hockney returned to Yorkshire for longer and longer stays, and by 2005 was painting the countryside en plein air. He set up residence and an immense redbrick seaside studio, a converted industrial workspace, in the seaside town of Bridlington, about 75 miles from where he was born. The oil paintings he produced after 2005 were influenced by his intensive studies in watercolour (for over a year in 2003–2004). He created paintings made of multiple smaller canvases—nine, 15 or more—placed together. To help him visualize work at that scale, he used digital photographic reproductions; each day’s work was photographed, and Hockney generally took a photographic print home.

In June 2007, Hockney’s largest painting, Bigger Trees Near Warter, which measures 15 feet by 40 feet, was hung in the Royal Academy’s largest gallery in its annual Summer Exhibition. This work “is a monumental-scale view of a coppice in Hockney’s native Yorkshire, between Bridlington and York. It was painted on 50 individual canvases, mostly working in situ, over five weeks last winter.” In 2008, he donated it to the Tate Gallery in London, saying: “I thought if I’m going to give something to the Tate I want to give them something really good. It’s going to be here for a while. I don’t want to give things I’m not too proud of … I thought this was a good painting because it’s of England … it seems like a good thing to do.”

Since 2009, Hockney has painted hundreds of portraits, still lifes and landscapes using the Brushes iPhone and iPad application, often sending them to his friends. His show Fleurs fraîches (Fresh flowers) was held at La Fondation Pierre Bergé in Paris. A Fresh-Flowers exhibit opened in 2011 at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, featuring more than 100 of his drawings on 25 iPads and 20 iPods. In late 2011, Hockney revisited California to paint Yosemite National Park on his iPad. For the season 2012–2013 in the Vienna State Opera he designed, on his iPad, a large scale picture (176 sqm) as part of the exhibition series Safety Curtain, conceived by museum in progress.

Set designs

Hockney’s first opera designs, for Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in England in 1975 and The Magic Flute (1978) were painted drops. In 1981, he agreed to design sets and costumes for three 20th-century French works at the Metropolitan Opera House with the title Parade. The works were Parade, a ballet with music by Erik Satie; Les mamelles de Tirésias, an opera with libretto by Guillaume Apollinaire and music by Francis Poulenc, and L’enfant et les sortilèges, an opera with libretto by Colette and music by Maurice Ravel. The set for L’enfant et les sortilèges is a permanent installation at the Spalding House branch of the Honolulu Museum of Art. He designed sets for Puccini’s Turandot in 1991 at the Chicago Lyric Opera and a Richard Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten in 1992 at the Royal Opera House in London. In 1994, he designed costumes and scenery for twelve opera arias for the TV broadcast of Plácido Domingo’s Operalia in Mexico City. Technical advances allowed him to become increasingly complex in model-making. At his studio he had a proscenium opening 6 feet (1.8 m) by 4 feet (1.2 m) in which he built sets in 1:8 scale. He also used a computerized setup that let him punch in and program lighting cues at will and synchronize them to a soundtrack of the music.

Exhibitions

Hockney had his first one-man show when he was 26 in 1963, and by 1970 the Whitechapel Gallery in London had organized the first of several major retrospectives, which subsequently travelled to three European institutions. In 2004, he was included in the cross-generational Whitney Biennial, where his portraits appeared in a gallery with those of a younger artist he had inspired, Elizabeth Peyton.

In October 2006, the National Portrait Gallery in London organized one of the largest ever displays of Hockney’s portraiture work, including 150 paintings, drawings, prints, sketchbooks, and photocollages from over five decades. The collection ranged from his earliest self-portraits to work he completed in 2005. Hockney assisted in displaying the works and the exhibition, which ran until January 2007, was one of the gallery’s most successful. In 2009, “David Hockney: Just Nature” attracted some 100,000 visitors at the Kunsthalle Würth in Schwäbisch Hall, Germany.

From 21 January 2012 to 9 April 2012, the Royal Academy presented A Bigger Picture, which included more than 150 works, many of which take entire walls in the gallery’s brightly lit rooms. The exhibition is dedicated to landscapes, especially trees and tree tunnels. Works include oil paintings and watercolours inspired by his native Yorkshire. Around 50 drawings were created on an iPad and printed on paper. Hockney said, in a 2012 interview, “It’s about big things. You can make paintings bigger. We’re also making photographs bigger, videos bigger, all to do with drawing.” The exhibition moved to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain from 15 May to 30 September, and from there to the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, Germany, between 27 October 2012 and 3 February 2013.

From 26 October 2013 to 30 January 2014 David Hockney: A Bigger Exhibition was presented at the de Young Museum, one of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, showing work since 2002 and including Photoshop portraits, multi-canvas oils, iPad landscapes and digital movies shot with multiple cameras.

‘Hockney, Printmaker’, curated by Richard Lloyd, International Head of Prints at Christie’s, was the first major exhibition to focus on Hockney’s prolific career as a printmaker. The exhibition ran from 5 February 2014 to 11 May 2014 at Dulwich Picture Gallery before going on tour to The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle.

Collections

Many of Hockney’s works are housed in Salts Mill, in Saltaire, near his home town of Bradford. Writer Christopher Isherwood’s collection is considered the most important private collection of his work. In the 1990s, Isherwood’s long-time partner Don Bachardy donated the collection to a foundation. His work is in numerous public and private collections worldwide, including:

• Honolulu Museum of Art
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
• Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark
• Art Institute of Chicago
• National Portrait Gallery, London
• Kennedy Museum of Art, Athens, Ohio
• Tate Gallery, London
• Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art
• Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
• Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• Museum of Modern Art, New York
• Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
• Philadelphia Museum of Art
• De Young Museum, San Francisco
• Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo
• MUMOK, Vienna
• Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.
• Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

Recognition

In 1967, Hockney’s painting, Peter Getting Out Of Nick’s Pool, won the John Moores Painting Prize at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. Hockney was offered a knighthood in 1990 but declined, before accepting an Order of Merit in January 2012. He was awarded The Royal Photographic Society’s Progress medal in 1988 and the Special 150th Anniversary Medal and Honorary Fellowship (HonFRPS) in recognition of a sustained, significant contribution to the art of photography in 2003. He was made a Companion of Honour in 1997 and is a Royal Academician. In 2012, Queen Elizabeth II appointed him to the Order of Merit, an honor restricted to 24 members at any one time for their contributions to the arts and sciences.

He was a Distinguished Honoree of the National Arts Association, Los Angeles, in 1991 and received the First Annual Award of Achievement from the Archives of American Art, Los Angeles, in 1993. He was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the American Associates of the Royal Academy Trust, New York in 1992 and was given a Foreign Honorary Membership to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1997. In 2003, Hockney was awarded the Lorenzo de’ Medici Lifetime Career Award of the Florence Biennale, Italy.

Commissioned by The Other Art Fair, a November 2011 poll of 1,000 British painters and sculptors declared him Britain’s most influential artist of all time.

Art market

From 1963, Hockney has been represented by art dealer John Kasmin, as well as by Annely Juda Fine Art, London. On 21 June 2006, Hockney’s painting, The Splash sold for £2.6 million. His A Bigger Grand Canyon, a series of 60 paintings that combined to produce one enormous picture, was bought by the National Gallery of Australia for $4.6 million. Beverly Hills Housewife (1966–67), a 12-foot-long acrylic that depicts the collector Betty Freeman standing by her pool in a long hot-pink dress, sold for $7.9 million at Christie’s in New York in 2008, the top lot of the sale and a record price for a Hockney.

The Hockney-Falco thesis

In the 2001 television programme and book, Secret Knowledge, Hockney posited that the Old Masters used camera obscura techniques that projected the image of the subject onto the surface of the painting. Hockney argues that this technique migrated gradually to Italy and most of Europe, and is the reason for the photographic style of painting we see in the Renaissance and later periods of art. He published his conclusions in the 2001 book “Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters,” which was revised in 2006.

Public life

Like his father, Hockney was a conscientious objector, and worked as a medical orderly in hospitals during his National Service, 1957–59.

Hockney was a founder of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles in 1979. He serves on the advisory board of the political magazine Standpoint, and contributed original sketches for its launch edition, in June 2008.

He is a staunch pro-tobacco campaigner and was invited to guest-edit the Today programme on 29 December 2009 to air his views on the subject

In October 2010, he and a hundred other artists signed an open letter to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Jeremy Hunt protesting against cutbacks in the arts.

In popular culture

In 2005, Burberry creative director Christopher Bailey centred his entire spring/summer menswear collection around the artist and in 2012 fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, a close friend, named a checked jacket after Hockney In 2011 British GQ named him one of the 50 Most Stylish Men in Britain and in March 2013 he was listed as one of the Fifty Best-dressed Over-50s by The Guardian.

Hockney was the subject of Jack Hazan’s film, A Bigger Splash (1974), named after one of Hockney’s most famous swimming pool paintings from 1967. Hockney was also the inspiration of artist Billy Pappas in the documentary film Waiting for Hockney (2008), which debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2008.

David Hockney: A Rake’s Progress (2012) is a biography of Hockney covering the years 1937–75, by writer/photographer Christopher Simon Sykes.

On 14 August 2012, Hockney was the subject of BBC Radio Four’s The New Elizabethans, presented by James Naughtie. In December 2012, The Sunday Times published for the first time works that it had commissioned Hockney to produce on a 1963 trip to Egypt and which had been shelved because of the Assassination of John F. Kennedy. Hockney had been paid in full but the works had never been previously published.

The 2012 album Mia Pharaoh, by American indie pop band Miniature Tigers, contains a song entitled “Afternoons with David Hockney”. Two versions of a song by British punk group Television Personalities, entitled “David Hockney’s Diaries” appear on the 1982 album They Could Have Been Bigger Than The Beatles and the 1984 album The Painted Word.

David Hockney Foundation

In 2012, Hockney, worth an estimated $55.2 million (approx. £36.1 m) transferred paintings valued at $124.2 million (approx. £81.5 m) to the David Hockney Foundation, and gave an additional $1.2 million (approx. £0.79 m) in cash to help fund the foundation’s operations. The artist plans to give away the paintings, through the foundation, to galleries including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Tate in London.

Books by Hockney

• 72 Drawings (1971), Jonathan Cape, London, ISBN 0-224-00655-X
• David Hockney (1976), Thames and Hudson, London, ISBN 0-500-09108-0
• Travels with Pen, Pencil and Ink (1978), Petersburg Press, New York, ISBN 0-902825-07-0
• Pictures by David Hockney (ed. Nikos Stangos) (1979), Thames and Hudson, London, ISBN 0-500-27163-1
• Blue Guitar: Etchings by David Hockney Who Was Inspired by Wallace Stevens Who Was Inspired by Pablo Picasso (1977), Petersburg Press, New York, ISBN 0-902825-03-8
• Photographs (1982), Petersburg Press, New York, ISBN 0-902825-15-1
• Hockney’s Photographs (1983), Arts Council of Great Britain, London, ISBN 0-7287-0382-3
• Martha’s Vineyard and other places: My Third Sketchbook from the Summer of 1982 (with Nikos Stangos), (1985), Thames and Hudson, London, ISBN 0-500-23446-9
• David Hockney: Faces 1966–1984 (1987), Thames and Hudson, London, ISBN 0-500-27464-9
• Hockney’s Alphabet (with Stephen Spender) (1991) Random House, London, ISBN 0-679-41066-X
• David Hockney: Some Very New Paintings (Intro by William Hardie) (1993), William Hardie Gallery, Glasgow, ISBN 1-872878-03-2
• Off the Wall: A Collection of David Hockney’s Posters 1987–94 (with Brian Baggott) (1994), Pavilion Books, ISBN 1-85793-421-0
• Hockney’s Pictures (2006), Thames and Hudson, London, ISBN 0-500-28671-X
• David Hockney: Poster Art (1995), Chronicle Books, ISBN 0-8118-0915-3
• That’s the Way I See It (with Nikos Stangos) (1989), Thames and Hudson, London, ISBN 0-500-28085-1
• Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the lost techniques of the Old Masters (2006), Thames and Hudson, London, ISBN 0-500-28638-8
• Hockney On Art: Conversations with Paul Joyce (2008), Little, Brown and Company, New York, ISBN 1-4087-0157-X
• David Hockney’s Dog Days (2011), Thames and Hudson, London, ISBN 0-500-28627-2

A Yorkshire Sketchbook (2011), Royal Academy of Arts, London, ISBN 1-907533-23-0

People : David Gentleman, Designer And Artist Of A Generation …. Coins, Stamps, Logos, Posters, Book Covers The List Is Endless

David Gentleman (born 11 March 1930) is an English artist. He studied illustration at the Royal College of Art under Edward Bawden and John Nash. He has worked in watercolour, lithography and wood engraving at scales ranging from the platform-length murals for Charing Cross underground station in London to postage stamps and logos. His themes include paintings of landscape and environmental posters to drawings of street life and protest placards. He has written and illustrated many books, mostly about countries and cities.

Biography

Gentleman was born in London, and grew up in Hertford, the son of artists who had met at the Glasgow School of Art. He attended Hertford Grammar School and the St Albans School of Art, did national service as an education sergeant in the Royal Army Education Corps in charge of an art room in Cornwall, and then went to the Royal College of Art. He stayed there as a junior tutor for two years before becoming a freelance artist. He resolved from the start never to teach, commute, or work with anyone else. He has lived and worked in the same street in Camden Town since 1956, and also in Suffolk, travelling only for work. He has four children: a daughter by his first wife Rosalind Dease, a fellow-student at the RCA, and two daughters and a son by his second wife Susan Evans, the daughter of the writer George Ewart Evans. His daughter Amelia is married to the Conservative politician Jo Johnson.

His work is represented in Tate Britain, the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Fitzwilliam Museum.

Works

Watercolours and drawings

Gentleman paints and draws landscapes, buildings and people, and uses drawing in his design work. Many of his watercolours have been made in London and Suffolk and around Britain, on extended travels in France, Italy and India, and during briefer spells in South Carolina, East Africa, the Pacific and Brazil. He has held many exhibitions of these works. Commissioned series of watercolours have included landscapes for Shell, several Oxford Almanacks for the Oxford University Press, and interiors of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for the FCO. His drawings and watercolours have been reproduced on textiles and wallpapers, dinner plates for Wedgwood and on a Covent Garden mug for David Mellor. His architectural drawings have appeared in House & Garden, The Sunday Times, New York Magazine, and on the RIBA’s series of Everyday Architecture wallcharts. His most recently published watercolours were made as illustrations for In the Country, 2014. In 2010, Gentleman was commissioned by Dulwich Picture Gallery to create a design for its Christmas Card.

Wood engravings and a mural on the Underground

Gentleman’s early wood engravings were for Penguin paperbacks, greetings cards, wine lists, press ads, and books – Swiss Family Robinson and John Clare’s The Shepherd’s Calendar. He engraved a series of 32 covers for the New Penguin Shakespeare series. His wood engravings appear on many of his stamps, and in a 100 metre-long mural, his most widely seen public work. In 1978, London Transport commissioned the platform-length Eleanor Cross murals on the underground at Charing Cross station. It shows, as in a strip cartoon, how the medieval workforce built the original cross, from quarrying the stone to setting in place the topmost pinnacle. Its wood-engraved images of stonemasons and sculptors, enlarged twenty times to life-size, mirror today’s passengers going about their day’s work.

Books

Between 1982 and 1997, Gentleman wrote and illustrated six travel books: David Gentleman’s Britain, London, Coastline, Paris, India and Italy, and more recently London You’re Beautiful, 2012 and In the Country, 2014. He also wrote and illustrated four books about a small child on holiday: Fenella in Ireland, Greece, Spain and the South of France.

Illustration

Gentleman has illustrated many books by other people, including drawings for the cookbook Plats du Jour. In 2009 he painted watercolours to illustrate Ask the Fellows Who Cut the Hay by George Ewart Evans. For the Limited Editions Club of New York he illustrated The Swiss Family Robinson, Keats’s Poems, The Jungle Book, and The Ballad of Robin Hood, and several books for children, including Russell Hoban’s The Dancing Tigers. He has designed many paperback covers and jackets: for Penguin Books, E. M. Forster’s novels and the New Penguin Shakespeare wood engravings; for Faber, many watercolours for Siegfried Sassoon and Lawrence Durrell novels; and for Duckworth, wood engraved or typographical designs for scientific and classical works.

Stamps, coins and logos

Between 1962 and 2000 Gentleman designed 103 stamps for the Post Office, making him the most prolific stamp designer in Britain at that time. These include sets for Shakespeare, Churchill, Darwin, British Ships, Concorde, the Battle of Britain, the Battle of Hastings, the BBC, Good King Wenceslas, The Twelve Days of Christmas, Social Reformers, Ely Cathedral, Abbotsbury Swannery and the Millennium.

His stamp designs included an album of experimental designs commissioned by Tony Benn, then Postmaster General to show how stamps could dispense with the large photograph of the Queen then mandatory, or alternatively replace it with a smaller profile silhouette derived initially from Mary Gillick’s coinage head. Over forty years later, the wider range of subjects, the profile and the simpler designs that it made possible remain a feature of all British special stamps

He won the Phillips Gold Medal for postage stamp design in both 1969 and 1979.

The Royal Mint have issued two of Gentleman’s coin designs. The first (issued jointly with the Monnaie de Paris in 2004) celebrated the centenary of the Entente Cordiale, and the second in 2007 commemorated the bicentenary of the Act for the abolition of the slave trade. Other miniature design commissions have included symbols or logos for the Bodleian Library, British Steel and a redesign of the National Trust’s familiar symbol of a spray of oak leaves.

Posters

Gentleman has designed posters for public institutions including London Transport (Visitors’ London and Victorian London), the Imperial War Museum, and the Public Record Office. A series in the seventies for the National Trust, used unconventional designs, photographs and photo-montages; some won design awards. Later, poster-like designs replaced words in his book A Special Relationship (Faber, 1979) on the US/UK alliance. Gentleman regretted that these images were not displayed as actual posters. On the eve of the Iraq war in 2003, Gentleman offered the Stop the War Coalition a poster saying simply ‘No’, which was carried on the protest march. Other march placards followed, including ‘No more lies’ and ‘Bliar’. His largest design was an installation in 2007 of 100,000 drops of blood, one for each person already killed in that war. The bloodstains were printed on 1,000 sheets of card pegged out in a vast square covering the grass in Parliament Square.

Lithographs and screenprints

Gentleman’s first lithographs were posters for a Royal College of Art theatre group production of Orphee and a student exhibition, and one of his first commissions was for a large Lyons lithograph. Between 1970 and 2008 he made suites of lithographs of buildings (Covent Garden, South Carolina, Bath) and landscapes (of Gordale Scar, of the Seven Sisters, and of Suffolk subjects). These lithographs were printed in colour and were essentially representational. In 1970 he made six more poster-like screenprints, Fortifications, published in New York. A number of these are in the collections of Tate Britain.

Bibliography

Surveys of Gentleman’s work

• David Gentleman, ‘Bridges on the Backs’, in Parenthesis; 14 (2008 February), p. 7-9
• The wood engravings of David Gentleman. Montgomery: Esslemont, 2000) ISBN 0-907014-17-8
• David Gentleman – Design. Brian Webb and Peyton Skipwith. (Antique Collectors’ Club, 2009) ISBN 978-1-85149-595-5
• Peter Tucker, ‘David Gentleman as book illustrator’, in The Private Library; 4th series, 1:2 (1988 Summer), p. 50-100
• Mel Calman, ‘The Gentleman touch’, in Penrose Annual; 69 (1976), p. 157-168

Books by Gentleman

• Bridges on the backs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961.
• Design in miniature. London: Studio Vista, 1972. ISBN 0-289-79791-8 New York: Watson-Gupthill, 1972. ISBN 0-8230-1322-7
• A cross for Queen Eleanor: The story of the building of the mediaeval Charing Cross, the subject of the decorations of the Northern Line platforms of the new Charing Cross Underground Station. London: London Transport, 1979. ISBN 0-85329-101-2
• David Gentleman’s Britain. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1982. ISBN 0-396-08145-2 London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1982. ISBN 0-297-78126-X, 1985. ISBN 0-297-78621-0
• David Gentleman’s London. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1985. ISBN 0-297-78574-5 Dodd, Mead, 1985. ISBN 0-396-08652-7 London: Orion, 1999. ISBN 0-7538-0700-9
• Westminster Abbey. (With Edward Carpenter.) London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987. ISBN 0-297-79314-4
• A special relationship. London: Faber and Faber, 1987. ISBN 0-571-14992-8
• David Gentleman’s Coastline. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988. ISBN 0-297-79314-4
• David Gentleman’s Paris. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1991. ISBN 0-340-58160-3 ISBN 0-340-51869-3 Paris: Gallimard,1991. ISBN 2-07-056619-6 London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000. ISBN 1-84188-052-3
• David Gentleman’s India. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1994. Delhi: Tara Press, 2005. ISBN 81-87943-71-8
• David Gentleman’s Italy. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1997 ISBN 0-340-64912-7, 1998 ISBN 0-340-64913-5
• London: Ebury, 2002. ISBN 0-09-188652-X*
• Ask the Fellows Who Cut the Hay. Framlingham, Full Circle Editions, 2010 ISBN 978-0-9561869-2-8
• London, You’re Beautiful: An Artist’s Year. Penguin 2012 ISBN 978-1-846-14473-8
• In the Country. Framlingham, Full Circle Editions, 2014 ISBN 978-0-9571528-5-4

Books for children by Gentleman

• Fenella in Greece. London: Cape, 1967.
• Fenella in Ireland. London: Cape, 1967.
• Fenella in the south of France. London: Cape, 1967.
• Fenella in Spain. London: Cape, 1967.

Books illustrated by Gentleman

• Betjeman, John. Illustrated poems of John Betjeman. John Murray, 1994. ISBN 0-7195-5248-6, 1997. ISBN 0-7195-5532-9
• Blunden, Edmund. The midnight skaters. C. Day-Lewis. London: Bodley Head, 1968.
• Brooke, Justin, and Edith Brooke. Suffolk Prospect. London: Faber & Faber, 1963.
• Brown, John Russell. Shakespeare and his theatre. New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1982. ISBN 0-688-00850-X Harmondsworth: Kestrel, 1982.
• Brown, John Russell. Shakespeare’s theatre. New York: Harper Collins, 1982.
• Clare, John. The shepherd’s calendar. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964.
• Evans, George Ewart. Ask the fellows who cut the hay. Full Circle Editions, Framlingham, 2010. ISBN 978-0-9561869-2-8
• Evans, George Ewart. The crooked scythe: Anthology of oral history. London: Faber & Faber, 1993. 1995. ISBN 0-571-17194-X
• Evans, George Ewart. The pattern under the plough: Aspects of the folk-life of East Anglia. London: Faber & Faber, 1971. ISBN 0-571-08977-1
• Evans, George Ewart. The strength of the hills: An autobiography. New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1985. ISBN 0-571-13550-1
• Evans, George Ewart. Where beards wag all: The relevance of the oral tradition. London: Faber & Faber, 1970. ISBN 0-571-08411-7
• “Francine” (Cosette Vogel de Brunhoff). “Vogue” French cookery. London: Peerage, 1984. ISBN 0-907408-86-9
• Gray, Patience, and Primrose Boyd. Plats du jour; or, foreign food. Harmondsworth, Middx: Penguin, 1957. London: Prospect, 1990. ISBN 0-907325-45-9 London: Persephone, 2007. ISBN 978-1-903155-60-8
• Grigson, Geoffrey. The Shell book of roads. London: Ebury, 1964.
• Haggard, F. Rider. King Solomon’s mines. Barre, Mass.: Imprint Society, 1970.
• Hoban, Russell. The dancing tigers. London: Jonathan Cape, 1977, 1979. London: Red Fox, 1991.
• Hooker, Jeremy, ed. Inwards where all the battle is: A selection of Alun Lewis’s writings from India. Newtown, Powys: Gwasg Gregynog, 1997. ISBN 0-948714-77-8 ISBN 0-948714-73-5
• Hornby, John. London: Oliver & Boyd, 1965.
• Jonson, Ben. The key keeper: A masque for the opening of Britain’s Burse, April 19, 1609. Tunbridge Wells: Foundling Press, 2002.
• Kipling, Rudyard. The jungle book. New York: Limited Editions Club, 1968.
• Langstaff, John M. The ‘Golden Vanity’. New York: Harcourt Brace, Jovanovich 1972. ISBN 0-15-231500-4 Tadworth: World’s Work, 1973. ISBN 0-437-54106-1
• Langstaff, John M. St George and the dragon. New York: Atheneum, 1973.
• Lees, Jim. The ballads of Robin Hood. Cambridge: Limited Editions Club, 1977.
• Moreau, Reginald E. The departed village: Berrick Salome at the turn of the century. Oxford University Press, 1968. ISBN 0-19-211186-8
• Notestein, Lucy Lilian. Hill towns of Italy. London: Hutchinson, 1963. Boston: Little, Brown, 1963.
• Pudney, John. Bristol fashion: Some account of the earlier days of Bristol Aviation. London: Putnam, 1960.
• Simon, André L. What about wine? All the answers. London: Newman Neame, 1953.
• Stallworthy, Jon. A familiar tree. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. ISBN 0-19-520050-0
• Steel, Flora Annie, ed. Tales of the Punjab, told by the people. London: Bodley Head, 1973.
• Stockton, Frank. The griffin and the minor canon. (With Charles Dickens, “The magic fishbone.”) London: Bodley Head, 1960.
• Vallans, William. A tale of two swannes. London: The Lion and Unicorn Press, 1953.
• Ward, Aileen, ed. The poems of John Keats. New York: Limited Editions Club, 1966.
• Woodgate, Leslie. The Penguin part song book. Harmondsworth, Middx: Penguin, 1955.
• Wordsworth, William. The solitary song: Poems for young readers. London: Bodley Head, 1970. ISBN 0-370-01118-X
• Wyss, Johann. Swiss Family Robinson. New York: Limited Editions Club, 1963.

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions of watercolours by Gentleman

• India, Mercury Gallery, London, 1970.
• South Carolina, Mercury Gallery, London 1973.
• Kenya and Zanzibar, Mercury Gallery, London, 1976.
• Nauru and Samoa, Mercury Gallery, London, 1981.
• Britain, Mercury Gallery, London, 1982.
• London, Mercury Gallery, London, 1985.
• The British Coastline, Mercury Gallery, London, 1988.
• Paris, Mercury Gallery, London, 1991.
• India, Mercury Gallery, London, 1994.
• Italy, Mercury Gallery, London, 1987.
• City of London, Mercury Gallery, London, 2000.
• David Gentleman: from Andalusia to Zanzibar, Fine Art Society, 2004.
• Recent work, Fine Art Society, 2007.
• David Gentleman at eighty, Fine Art Society, 2010.
• David Gentleman: London, You’re Beautiful, Fine Art Society, 2012.
• David Gentleman: In the Country, Fine Art Society, 2014.

Retrospective exhibitions

• Gentleman on Stamps, The British Postal Museum & Archive, London, 2009-2010.
• “The Kite Needs the String: the book illustration of David Gentleman”, Manchester Metropolitan University Special Collections, 2010-2011.

Hidden London : The Walkie Talkie Building, Home To London’s Sky Garden ….

20 Fenchurch Street is a commercial skyscraper in London that takes its name from its address on Fenchurch Street, in the historic City of London financial district. It has been nicknamed The Walkie-Talkie because of its distinctive shape. Construction was completed in spring 2014, and the top-floor ‘sky garden’ was opened in January 2015. The 34-storey building is 160 m (525 ft) tall, making it the fifth-tallest building in the City of London.

Designed by architect Rafael Viñoly and costing over £200 million, 20 Fenchurch Street features a highly distinctive top-heavy form which appears to burst upward and outward. A large viewing deck, bar and restaurants are included on the top three floors; these are open to the public.

The tower was originally proposed at nearly 200 m (656 ft) tall but its design was scaled down after concerns about its visual impact on the nearby St Paul’s Cathedral and Tower of London. It was subsequently approved in 2006 with the revised height. Even after the height reduction there were continued concerns from heritage groups about its impact on the surrounding area. The project was consequently the subject of a public inquiry; in 2007 this ruled in the developers’ favour and the building was granted full planning permission.

In their preliminary results for 2007, joint-developers Land Securities and Canary Wharf Group said 20 Fenchurch Street would be completed in 2011, however in 2009 during the depths of the Great Recession, the estimated completion was changed to 2014.

Previous building

The previous building at 20 Fenchurch Street was 91 m (299 ft) tall with 25 storeys and was built in 1968 by Land Securities. The architect was William H. Rogers.

The building was formerly occupied by Dresdner Kleinwort and was notable for being one of the first tall buildings in the City of London, and for its distinctive roof. It was one of the towers nearest to the River Thames when viewed from the southern end of London Bridge.

In 2007, one of the upper floors was used in the drama series Party Animals.

Demolition of the previous building was completed in 2008. Despite the top-down method of construction, the old building was not demolished from the bottom-up, as a temporary structure was built, allowing Keltbray, the demolition contractor, to demolish the building from the top down.

Design

The new tower at 20 Fenchurch Street was designed by an Uruguayan architect Rafael Viñoly in a postmodern style. The top-heavy design is partly intended to maximise floor space towards the top of the building, where rent is typically higher.

The building utilises double and triple-glazed panelised aluminium cladding on its exterior.

The botanical gardens at the top of the building were claimed to be London’s highest public park, but since opening there has been debate about whether the gardens can truly be described as a ‘park’. The City of London’s former chief planner Peter Rees, who approved the structure, said: “I think calling it a sky garden is perhaps misleading. If people [are] expecting to visit it as an alternative to Kew, then they will be disappointed.”

The gardens span the top three floors, are accessible by two express lifts, and include a viewing area, terrace, bar and two restaurants. Fourteen double-deck lifts (seven low-rise up to the 20th floor, seven high-rise above the 20th floor) serve the main office floors of the building.

The south side of the structure is ventilated externally to improve efficiency and decrease solar gain, whilst the east and west faces incorporate extensive solar shading. There is a southern entrance in addition to the main northern entrance set back from Fenchurch Street.

Construction

In January 2009, Canary Wharf Contractors began piling on the site of 20 Fenchurch Street, signalling the start of construction of The Walkie-Talkie. Piling and ground works were completed in June 2009.

In January 2011, work at the basement level of the tower began. By the end of October 2011, the building was rising above street-level. December 2011 saw the tower’s core begin to rise. The concrete core was topped out in March 2012 and by July the structural steelwork was under way around the core. Structural steelwork topped out in December 2012.

Fire protection contractor Sharpfibre Ltd began applying fire protection to the structural steelwork in December 2012, completing in March 2013. Cementitious spray was applied to the steelwork, which was supplied directly to the entire building using a purpose-built mixing and pumping station located on the ground floor.

The building completed to shell and floor in April 2014 and the first tenants began moving into the building from May 2014 prior to final completion in August of that year.

Solar glare problem

During the building’s construction, it was discovered that for a period of up to two hours each day if the sun shines directly onto the building, it acts as a concave mirror and focuses light onto the streets to the south. Spot temperature readings including up to 91 °C (196 °F) and 117 °C (243 °F) were observed during the summer of 2013, when the reflection of a beam of light up to six times brighter than direct sunlight shining onto the streets beneath damaged vehicles parked on the street nearby, including one on Eastcheap whose owner was paid £946 by the developers for repairs to melted bodywork. The reflection also burned or scorched the doormat of a shop in the affected area. The media responded by dubbing the building the “Walkie Scorchie” and “Fryscraper”.

In September 2013, the developers issued a statement saying that the City of London Corporation had approved plans to erect temporary screening on the streets to prevent similar incidents, and that they were also “evaluating longer-term solutions to ensure the issue cannot recur in future”. In May 2014, it was announced that a permanent awning would be installed on the south side of the higher floors of the tower.

The building’s architect, Rafael Viñoly, also designed the Vdara hotel in Las Vegas which reportedly has a similar sunlight reflection problem that some employees called the “Vdara death ray”. The glass has since been covered with a non-reflective film.

In an interview with The Guardian, Viñoly said that horizontal sun-louvers on the south side that had been intended to prevent this problem were removed at some point during the planning process. While he conceded that there had been “a lot of mistakes” with the building, he agreed with the building’s developers that the sun was too high in the sky on that particular day. “[I] didn’t realise it was going to be so hot,” he said, suggesting that global warming was at fault. “When I first came to London years ago, it wasn’t like this … Now you have all these sunny days.”

Tenancy

In June 2012 the insurer Markel Corporation signed a tenancy agreement with the developers to move into 20 Fenchurch Street upon its completion. Markel, currently based on Leadenhall Street since 2001, was the first confirmed tenant of the new tower and will occupy the 25th, 26th and 27th floors.

Another insurer, Kiln Group, announced in September 2012 that it had agreed to become the building’s second confirmed tenant and Ascot Underwriting followed in November 2012. Other insurance companies that have taken space in the building include RSA, Tokio Marine, CNA Financial, Allied World, Liberty Mutual‘s European operations and Harry Townsend Corp.

Other lettings have been agreed with Vanquis Bank, Jane Street Capital, and lawyers DWF. Vinson & Elkins has signed a lease to take a floor of the building ahead of a summer 2015 move-in, meaning 90% of the available space is leased.

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People : Cedric Morris, Artist, Plantsman And Needs Remembering ….

Sir Cedric Lockwood Morris, 9th Baronet (11 December 1889 – 8 February 1982) was a British artist, art teacher and plantsman. He was born in Swansea but worked mainly in East Anglia. As an artist he is best known for his portraits, flower paintings and landscapes.

Early life

Cedric Lockwood Morris was born on 11 December 1889 in Sketty, Swansea, the son of George Lockwood Morris, industrialist (ironfounder) and Wales rugby international, and his wife Wilhelmina (née Cory). He had two sisters – Muriel, who died in her teens, and Nancy (born in 1893). His mother had studied painting and was an accomplished needlewoman; on his father’s side he was descended from the first baronet Morris, whose sister Margaret married Noel Desenfans and helped him and his friend, Francis Bourgeois to build up the collection now housed in the Dulwich Picture Gallery. Cedric was sent away to be educated, at St Cyprian’s School, Eastbourne, and Charterhouse School in Godalming.

He failed the exams to enter the army as an officer, and at the age of 17 he set out on a steamship to Ontario, Canada, to work on a farm. After a succession of jobs, including as a dishwasher and bell boy in New York, he returned to South Wales, and then entered the Royal College of Music, London, to study singing. But he gave up singing for painting, and went to Paris, where from April 1914 he studied at the Academie Delacluse in Montparnasse before the interruption of World War I.

During World War I he joined the Artists Rifles, but before embarking for France was declared medically unfit for action in consequence of the effects of a failed operation during his childhood. As an experienced horseman, however, he was allocated to the training of remounts at Lord Rosslyn’s stables at Theale, Berkshire. He worked in the company of Alfred Munnings, under Cecil Aldin. He was discharged from this when the army took over the Remounts in 1917.

Cornwall, Paris and London

Morris went to Zennor in Cornwall, where he studied plants and painted water colours. There he became friendly with the painter Frances Hodgkins, whose portrait he painted. At the time of the Armistice with Germany in November 1918 he was in London, when he met the painter Arthur Lett-Haines. Morris and Lett Haines fell in love and began a life-time relationship, and shortly afterwards Morris moved in with Haines and his second wife, Aimee. The trio planned to go to America, but in the event Aimee Lett-Haines left on her own, and the two men moved to Cornwall. They converted a row of cottages at Newlyn into a larger house and stayed there until the end of 1920, when they moved to Paris.

Paris was their base for the next five years, when they travelled extensively in Europe. Morris also studied at the Academies Moderne and La Grande Chaumiere. Morris had successful exhibitions in London in 1924 and 1926, and later in that year they settled back in Britain.

After staying with his sister Nancy Morris in Corfe Morris and Haines found a studio in London at Great Ormond Street to which they moved in 1927. Morris became a member of the London Artists Association and the Seven and Five Society, for which he was proposed by Winifred Nicholson and seconded by Ben Nicholson. He became especially friendly with the painter Christopher Wood, and renewed friendship with Frances Hodgkins. At the end of the 1920s Morris became involved with much commercial work designing textiles for Cresta Silks with Paul Nash and posters for Shell and B. P.

Country life

Morris chose the country life to pursue his passion for horticulture. Early in 1929 Morris and his companion took the lease of Pound Farm, Higham, Suffolk, and in February 1930 they gave up the London studio.

In 1932 the owner of Pound Farm, who was for a while a student, died and left it to Morris. Morris had resigned from the Seven and Five Society in 1930 and he resigned from the London Artist’s Association in 1933. There were many visitors at Pound Farm, including Frances Hodgkins, Barbara Hepworth and John Skeaping. Joan Warburton who was a student described Pound Farm as a paradise, mainly because of the spectacular gardens which Morris developed. She was also impressed by their spectacular parties.

Morris often went painting in his native South Wales, and in 1935 at the time of the Depression was moved by the plight of the people of South Wales Valleys. He initiated a major touring exhibition of Welsh art in 1935, and was a regular teacher at Mary Horsfall’s Art’s centre at Merthyr Tydfil. In 1935 he painted two large flower murals on board the liner Queen Mary. In late 1937 Morris and Haines joined the Hadleigh Labour Party after attending a meeting addressed by Professor Catlin.

East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing

Morris and Lett-Haines opened the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing at Dedham in April 1937. Within a year they had 60 students. Lucian Freud was one of his most noted students.

In 1939 the building at Dedham was destroyed by fire (with several of Morris’s paintings also destroyed) to the conspicuous enjoyment of Alfred Munnings. By the end of the year the school was reestablished at Benton End. Benton End was a rambling ‘Suffolk Pink’ farmhouse on the outskirts of Hadleigh, set in three or 4 acres (16,000 m²) of orchard. In addition to running the school, Morris indulged his passion for plants. He grew about 1000 new Iris seedlings each year and opened the house to display his collection, and used to walk the fields and hedgerows searching for softer colour variants of poppies. Morris’s work as a horticulturalist resulted in a number of plants being names after him.

Morris was intolerant of cruelty to animals and at Benton End had a running feud with a local gamekeeper who shot cats and dogs – until the latter tripped over his shotgun and shot himself.

Later life

In 1947 the Morris baronetcy came to his father from a distant cousin three months before his death and Cedric Morris succeeded his father in the same year to become the 9th Baronet Morris. He became a lecturer at the Royal College of Art in 1950.

From about 1975 Morris virtually gave up painting because of failing eyesight.

He died on 8 February 1982. His former pupil, Maggi Hambling visited him on the day before his death and afterwards drew a portrait of him. In 1984 the Tate Gallery held a retrospective exhibition of Morris’s work.

His grave in Hadleigh cemetery is marked by a Welsh slate headstone cut by Donald Simpson.

His painting style

Cedric Morris had a distinctive and often rather primitive post-Impressionist style, and painted portraits, landscapes and very decorative still lifes of flowers and birds.

As a portrait painter he produced notable studies of subjects such as Arthur Lett-Haines (1919; 1925; 1928), Anita Berry (1920), Hilaire Hiler (1920), John Banting (1923), Rupert Doone (ca. 1923), Mary Butts (1924), Barbara Hepworth (1931), Arthur Elton (1931), Rosamond Lehmann (1932), Audrey Debenham (1935), The Sisters [F. Byng Stamper and C. Byng Lucas] (1935), Gladys Hynes (1936), Millie Gomersall/hayes (1936; 1966), Lucian Freud (1940) (who painted him in the same year (National Museum of Wales)), Richard Chopping (1941), Mrs Ernest Freud (1942?), Belle of Bloomsbury (1948), as well as a striking portrait of himself in 1919.

List of some works in public galleries

• Frances Hodgkins 1917 [drawing], Tate Britain, London
• Self Portrait 1919 National Museum Cardiff (NMGW)
• A Roman Cafe, 1922 [drawing], National Museum Cardiff
• Patisseries and a croissant 1922 Tate
• Experiment in textures 1923 Tate
• Landscape:Vallee de L’Oueze 1925, National Museum Cardiff
• From a window at 45 Brook Street London 1926
• Djerba No.2, 1926, Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand
• Breton Landscape 1927 Huddersfield Art Gallery
• Portrait of Frances Hodgkins, 1928, Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand
• Herstmonceux Church, 1928, Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne
• Llanmadoc Hill, Gower, 1928, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea
• Sparrowhawks, 1929, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea
• Self Portrait 1930 National Portrait Gallery, London
• Solva 1934 Norwich
• Caeharris Post Office,Dowlais, 1935, Cyfarthfa Castle Museum, Merthyr Tydfil
• The Tips, Dowlais, 1935, Cyfarthfa Castle Museum, Merthyr Tydfil
• Antonia White 1936 National Portrait Gallery, London
• Millie Gomersall, 1936, The Minories, Colchester
• Lake Patzcuaro, 1939, National Museum Cardiff
• David and Barbara Carr, 1940 Tate Britain
• Stoke by Nayland Church 1940 National Museum Cardiff
• Lucian Freud 1941 Tate Britain
• Heron, 1941, Astley Cheetham Art Gallery, Tameside
• Peregrine Falcons 1942 Tate Britain
• Iris Seedlings 1943 Tate Britain
• Eggs 1944 Tate Britain
• Pontypridd, 1945, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea
• Belle of Bloomsbury 1948 Tate
• Paintings by Cedric Morris, October 1959, The Minories, Colchester
• Sir Cedric Morris Portraits 1919–1974, October–November 1974, The Minories, Colchester
• Colchester Art Society Sponsored Exhibition ‘Sir Cedric Morris’, 13 September-19 October 1980, The Minories, Colchester

List of plants named after Cedric Morris

• Iris (Sir Cedric Morris introductions)
• Papaver rhoeas Cedric Morris
• Sir Cedric Morris (Bare Root Rose)
• Sir Cedric Morris Hardy Geranium
• Narcissus minor ‘Cedric Morris’
• Zauschneria californica cana ‘Sir Cedric Morris’

 

People : Russell Page, Garden And Landscape Designer …. Designer To Royalty….

Montague Russell Page (1 November 1906 – 4 January 1985) was a British gardener, garden designer and landscape architect. He worked in Britain, western Europe and the United States of America.

Biography

Montague Russell Page was born in Lincolnshire, the second son of three children of Harold Ethelbert Page, a solicitor in Lincoln. He was educated at Charterhouse School in Surrey (1918–24), and afterwards studied in London at the Slade School of Fine Art in London University (1924–26), under Professor Henry Tonks. From 1927 to 1932 he studied art in Paris, and took some small gardening jobs in France.

He began his professional career with projects in Rutland (1928), and chateaux in France at Melun (1930) and Boussy Saint-Antoine (1932).

On his return to Britain Page was employed by the landscape architect, Richard Sudell, and he began remodelling the gardens at Longleat – work which would continue for many years.

Between 1934 and 1938 he contributed articles to the periodical, Landscape and Gardening.

From 1935 to 1939 he worked in partnership with Geoffrey Jellicoe. Page and Jellicoe designed the landscape and building for the ‘Caveman Restaurant’ at Cheddar Gorge on the Longleat estate in Somerset, and worked at Royal Lodge, Windsor; Ditchley Park, Oxfordshire; Holme House, Regent’s Park, London; Broadway in the Cotswolds; Charterhouse school.

During this period Page also worked at Leeds Castle, Kent (1936 and later); chateau Le Vert Bois, in France (1937); Chateau de la Hulpe, Belgium (1937); chateau de Mivoisin, France (1937 – 1950s).

During World War II Page served in Britain’s Political Warfare Department, in France, the United States of America, Egypt and Sri Lanka.

Page went on to design gardens in Europe and the USA. His clients included: Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor and Duchess of Windsor, Counts Sanminiatelli San Liberato, King Léopold III of Belgium, Sir William Walton, Babe Paley and William S. Paley, Oscar de la Renta, Marcel Boussac, Olive, Lady Baillie, PepsiCo, Baron and Baroness Thierry Van Zuylen van Nievelt and the Frick Museum. His works include the National Capitol Columns in Washington’s United States National Arboretum.

In 1947 Page married Lida Gurdjieff, a daughter of the spiritual teacher G. I. Gurdjieff; they had one son, David, but divorced in 1954.

In 1954 Page married Mme Vera Milanova Daumal, widow of poet Rene Daumal and formerly wife of the poet Hendrick Kramer; she died in 1962.

In 1962 Page’s autobiography, The Education Of A Gardener, was published.

Page died on 4 January 1985 in London.

Hidden London : The Queens Gallery

The Queen’s Gallery is a public art gallery at Buckingham Palace, home of the British monarch, in London. It exhibits works of art from the Royal Collection (i.e., those works owned by the King or Queen “in trust for the nation” rather than privately) on a rotating basis; about 450 works are on display at any one time.

The gallery is at the west front of the Palace, on the site of a chapel bombed during the Second World War, and first opened in 1962. Over the following 37 years it received 5 million visitors, until closed 1999-2002 for extension work carried out by John Simpson. On May 21 2002 the gallery was reopened by Elizabeth II to coincide with her Golden Jubilee. The extension added the current Doric entrance portico and several new rooms, more than tripling the size of the building. It is open to the public for much of the year

People : Thomas Gotch, Pre Raphaelite Painter, Designer Who Was A Key Participant Of The Newlyn School ….

Thomas Cooper Gotch or T.C. Gotch (1854–1931) was an English Pre-Raphaelite painter and book illustrator, and brother of John Alfred Gotch, the architect.

Gotch studied art in London and Antwerp before he married and studied in Paris with his wife, Caroline, a fellow artist. Returning to Britain, they settled into the Newlyn art colony in Cornwall. He first made paintings of natural, pastoral settings before immersing himself in the romantic, Pre-Raphaelite romantic style for which he is best known. His daughter was often a model for the colourful depictions of young girls.

His works have been exhibited at the Royal Academy, Royal College of Art and the Paris Salon.

Personal life

Thomas Gotch was born 10 December 1854 in the Mission House in Kettering, Northamptonshire. He was the fourth son born to Mary Ann Gale Gotch and Thomas Henry Gotch (born 1805), who was a shoe maker. He had an elder brother, John Alfred Gotch, who was a successful architect and author.

In 1881 he married fellow art student Caroline Burland Yates (1854-1945) at Newlyn’s St Peter’s Church. His daughter, Phyllis Marian Gotch was sometimes a model for her father. After completing his studies, Gotch travelled to Australia in 1883. Gotch and his wife settled in Newlyn, Cornwall in 1887. The couple and their daughter were key participants in the Newlyn art colony.

In addition to his time spent in France and Belgium while studying art, Gotch also travelled to Austria, Australia, South Africa, Italy and Denmark.

Thomas Cooper Gotch died in 1 May 1931 of a heart attack while in London for an exhibition, and he was buried in Sancreed churchyard in Cornwall.

Education

With his parents’ support, in 1876 and 1877 he first studied at Heatherley’s art school in London and then at Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp in 1877 and 1878. Then in 1879 Gotch attended Slade School of Fine Art with Alphonse Legros in London. Gotch met his friend Henry Scott Tuke and his future wife Caroline Yates at Slade. After their marriage, Thomas and Caroline studied in Paris at Académie Julian and adopted the plein-air approach of painting outdoors.

Career

In Newlyn he founded the Newlyn Industrial Classes, where the local youth could learn the arts & crafts. He also helped to set up the Newlyn Art Gallery, and served on its committee all his life. Among his friends in Newlyn was fellow artist Stanhope Forbes and Albert Chevallier Tayler.

In Newlyn, like other art colony artists, he used the plein-air approach for making paintings outdoors. He was also inspired by James McNeill Whistler’s techniques for creating compositions and paintings.

His style changed following an 1891-1892 a visit to Paris and Florence; His works were transformed from the Newlyn “rural realistic” style to a Pre-Raphaelite style that embraced more vibrant, exuberant colours and “returned to allegorical genre painting”. His first such painting was My Crown and Sceptre made in 1892, Commenting upon his new style, Tate said:

His new combination of symbolic female figures, decorative Italian textiles and the static order of early Renaissance art finally brought him recognition.

On the provisional committee for the 1895 opening of the Newlyn Art Gallery, Gotch exhibited The Reading Hour and A Golden Dream at the inaugural exhibition.

Chris Leuchars for Project Kettering has said of Gotch’s work:

Although Thomas Gotch is not widely recognised in international art histories, his position and friendships in Newlyn, and the mastery of his artwork, provide him some level of recognition in British painting history and his works make valuable contributions to collections around the world. He has work in key collections in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the United Kingdom.

Thomas Gotch was a recognised success during his lifetime and enjoyed considerable public acclaim. He was a regular exhibitor at London’s Royal Academy and contributed to numerous other national and international exhibitions. His works are still regularly exhibited and are often the subject of academic studies.

Over his artistic career Gotch was also a model for other artists. For instance, he modelled for illustrations of King Arthur’s Wood for Elizabeth Forbes.

People : Designer And Society Goddess, From Being Born On A Yacht To Designing Them ….

Anouska Hempel, Lady Weinberg (born 13 December 1941 as Anne Geissler; sometimes credited as Anoushka Hempel) is a New Zealand film and television actress turned hotelier and interior designer. She is a noted figure in London society.

Personal life

Hempel is of Russian and Swiss German ancestry and claims to have been born on a boat en route from Papua New Guinea to New Zealand. Her father emigrated to New Zealand and became a sheep farmer. Her family later moved to Cronulla, south of Sydney where he owned a garage. As a teenager in the mid-1950s, Hempel attended Sutherland High School. In 1962 she moved to England carrying only ten pounds.

Two years later, she married Constantine Hempel, with whom she had a son and daughter, a journalist and property developer who died in a mysterious car accident in Knightsbridge. Hempel and her second husband, theatrical producer Bill Kenwright, divorced after two years of marriage in 1980. Later that year, Hempel married financier Sir Mark Weinberg, with whom she has a son, Jonathan. She appears in a photographic portrait by Bryan Wharton on display in the National Portrait Gallery.

Acting career

Hempel’s first film appearance was in the Hammer Horror film The Kiss of the Vampire (1963). In 1969, she appeared in the James Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service as one of the “angels of death”. Thereafter she appeared in several films including Scars of Dracula (1970), The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins (1971), Go for a Take (1972), Tiffany Jones (1973), Russ Meyer’s controversial, soft pornographic film Black Snake (1973), Double Exposure (1977), and Lady Oscar (1979). In the 1970s, Hempel also auditioned for the part of Jo Grant in Doctor Who and appeared in the science-fiction TV series’ UFO and Space 1999.

In 1998, Hempel bought the UK rights to Tiffany Jones and Black Snake to keep them out of distribution. This effectively blocks all possible TV screenings and video releases of the films in the country.

Hotel and design career

Hempel is now a hotelier and designer. In 2002, she was ranked by Architectural Digest as one of the top 100 interior designers and architects in the world.

Hotels

To date, Hempel has established four hotels. Blakes Hotel was created in 1978 as one of the world’s first luxury boutique hotels. Based in South Kensington, it is well known for its design, quality of service and privacy. The hotel’s restaurant has become a destination in its own right, featuring a fusion of Hempel’s own favourite cuisines – Japanese and Italian. Her second hotel, the Hempel Hotel, is noted as a minimalist hotel. Blakes Amsterdam was opened in 1999, drawing inspiration from Amsterdam’s historic Dutch East India Company.

Hempel currently works as a silent adviser in her hotel company and is working on other hotels in Beirut, Santiago Chile, Lisbon, Istanbul and a new hotel for Baccarat in Rabat. Her showcase hotel “Warapuru” is set in the Brazilian rainforest overlooking the ocean, but opening has been delayed several years.Other recent openings include The Grosvenor House Apartments, on Park Lane and La Suite West in Bayswater, both in London. Blakes Hotel was recently sold to investors, following a renovation by the Anouska Hempel Design there are plans to design more Blakes Hotels around the world, with New York cited as the first possible opening.

Other designs

Hempel’s restaurant designs range from modern minimalist to theatrical. Her restaurant projects include Shy in Jakarta and Tom Aikens in London. She has designed retail stores for Van Cleef and Arpels(in London, Paris, Monaco, Beverly Hills, Osaka and Geneva) and Louis Vuitton, for whom she designed their flagship Paris store and items such as luxury fountain pens.Other stores include Henry Cottons in Milan and Lokum in London.

Hempel has also designed two yachts, “Beluga” her own personal yacht, a renovated 10 berth Turkish Gulet which has black sails; and San Lorenzo, a sleek minimal design for a private commission.

Hempel has taken private commissions for homes and landscapes, most recently a garden in honour of Princess Margaret in Oxford. Her own homes, Cole Park in Wiltshire and a large house in Ennismore Gardens, London, regularly appear in design magazines. Through a boutique in South Kensington, she has designed haute couture clothes for many famous women – including Princess Diana and Princess Margaret of the Royal Family.

People : Alexander McQueen , Fashion Designer, From Lewisham to Givenchy

Lee Alexander McQueen, CBE (17 March 1969 – 11 February 2010) was a British fashion designer and couturier. He is known for having worked as chief designer at Givenchy from 1996 to 2001 and for founding his own Alexander McQueen label. His achievements in fashion earned him four British Designer of the Year awards (1996, 1997, 2001 and 2003), as well as the CFDA’s International Designer of the Year award in 2003.

Early life and education

Born on 17 March 1969 in Lewisham, London, to Scottish taxi driver Ronald and social science teacher Joyce, McQueen was the youngest of six children. While he reportedly grew up in a council flat, the McQueens had lived in a terraced house in Stratford since McQueen was less than a year old. He attended Carpenters Road Primary School, started making dresses for his three sisters at a young age, and announced his intention to become a fashion designer.

McQueen later attended Rokeby School and left aged 16 in 1985 with one O-level in art, going on to serve an apprenticeship with Savile Row tailors Anderson & Sheppard, before joining Gieves & Hawkes and, later, the theatrical costumiers Angels and Bermans. The skills he learned as an apprentice on Savile Row helped earn him a reputation in the fashion world as an expert in creating an impeccably tailored look.

Career

While on Savile Row, McQueen’s clients included Mikhail Gorbachev and Prince Charles. At the age of 20, he spent a period of time working for Koji Tatsuno before travelling to Milan, Italy and working for Romeo Gigli.

McQueen returned to London in 1994 and applied to Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, to work as a pattern cutter tutor. Because of the strength of his portfolio he was persuaded by Bobby Hillson, the Head of the Masters course, to enroll in the course as a student. He received his masters degree in fashion design and his graduation collection was bought in its entirety by influential fashion stylist Isabella Blow, who was said to have persuaded McQueen to become known as Alexander (his middle name) when he subsequently launched his fashion career.

It was during this period that McQueen relocated to Hoxton, which housed other new designers, including Hussein Chalayan and Pauric Sweeney. It was shortly after creating his second collection,“McQueen’s Theatre of Cruelty”, that McQueen met Katy England, his soon to be “right hand woman”, when outside of a “high profile fashion show” trying to “blag her way in”. He promptly asked her to join him for his third collection, “The Birds” at Kings Cross, as “creative director”. Katy England continued to work with McQueen thereafter, greatly influencing his work – his “second opinion”.

McQueen designed wardrobe for David Bowie’s tours in 1996-1997, as well as the Union Jack coat worn by Bowie on the cover of his 1997 album Earthling. Icelandic singer Björk sought McQueen’s work for the cover of her album Homogenic in 1997. McQueen also directed the music video for her song “Alarm Call” from the same album and later contributed the iconic topless dress to her video for “Pagan Poetry”. McQueen also collaborated with dancer Sylvie Guillem, director Robert Lepage and choreographer Russell Maliphant, designing wardrobe for theater show “Eonnagata”, directed by Robert Lepage. The film “Sylvie Guillem, on the edge” produced by French production company A DROITE DE LA LUNE, traces whole history of the creation of the show, from first rehearsals which took place in Quebec until world premiere which was held in 2008 at Sadler’s Wells theater in London.

McQueen’s early runway collections developed his reputation for controversy and shock tactics (earning the title “l’enfant terrible” and “the hooligan of English fashion”), with trousers aptly named “bumsters” and a collection titled “Highland Rape”. In 2004, journalist Caroline Evans also wrote of McQueen’s “theatrical staging of cruelty”, in 032c magazine, referring to his dark and tortured renderings of Scottish history. McQueen was known for his lavish, unconventional runway shows: a recreation of a shipwreck for his spring 2003 collection; spring 2005’s human chess game; and his fall 2006 show “Widows of Culloden”, which featured a life-sized hologram of supermodel Kate Moss dressed in yards of rippling fabric.

McQueen’s “bumsters” spawned a trend in low rise jeans; on their debut they attracted many comments and debate. Michael Oliveira-Salac, the director of Blow PR and a friend of McQueen’s said, “The bumster for me is what defined McQueen.” McQueen also became known for using skulls in his designs. A scarf bearing the motif became a celebrity must-have and was copied around the world.

McQueen has been credited with bringing drama and extravagance to the catwalk. He used new technology and innovation to add a different twist to his shows and often shocked and surprised audiences. The silhouettes that he created have been credited for adding a sense of fantasy and rebellion to fashion. McQueen became one of the first designers to use Indian models in London.

Givenchy appointment

The president of LVMH, Bernard Arnault, caused a stir when he appointed McQueen head designer at Givenchy in 1996, succeeding John Galliano. Upon arrival at Givenchy, McQueen insulted the founder by calling him “irrelevant”. His first couture collection with Givenchy was unsuccessful, with even McQueen telling Vogue in October 1997 that the collection was “crap”. McQueen toned down his designs at Givenchy, but continued to indulge his rebellious streak, causing controversy in autumn 1998 with a show which included double amputee model Aimee Mullins striding down the catwalk on intricately carved wooden legs.This year also saw McQueen complete one of his most famous runway shows previewing Spring/Summer 1999, where a single model, Shalom Harlow graced the runway in a strapless white dress, before being rotated slowly on a revolving section of the catwalk whilst being sprayed with paint by two robotic guns. Givenchy designs released by Vogue Patterns during this period may be credited to the late designer. McQueen stayed with Givenchy until March 2001, when the contract he said was “constraining his creativity” ended.

VOSS

McQueen’s most celebrated and dramatic catwalk show was his 2001 Spring/Summer collection, named VOSS. The centre piece tableau that dominated the room was an enormous glass box. But because the room outside the box was lit and the inside of the box was unlit, the glass walls appeared as large mirrors, so that the seated audience saw only their own reflection. Finally, after an hour, and when the show began, lights came on in inside the enormous glass case and revealed the interior to be filled with moths and, at the centre, a naked model on a chaise longue with her face obscured by a gas mask. The glass walls then fell away and smashed on the ground.

The model chosen by McQueen to be the centre of the show was the British writer Michelle Olley. (The show also featured Kate Moss and Erin O’Connor). McQueen said that the tableau was based on the Joel Peter Witkin image Sanitorium. The British fashion photographer Nick Knight later said of the VOSS show on his SHOWstudio.com blog:

“The girl in the box was Michelle Olley. She modelled for me in a story I did called Sister Honey… She was a writer and I remember she wrote a great piece on being the Butterfly Girl in the middle of that (McQueen) Glass Box show. I was sat on the front row, inbetween Alexandra Schulman and Gwyneth Paltrow. It was is probably one of the best pieces of Fashion Theatre I have ever witnessed.”

Alexander McQueen later described his thoughts on the idea used during VOSS of forcing his audience to stare at their own reflection in the mirrored walls for over an hour:

“Ha! I was really pleased about that. I was looking at it on the monitor, watching everyone trying not to look at themselves. It was a great thing to do in the fashion industry—turn it back on them! God, I’ve had some freaky shows.”

In Spring 2011, Michelle Olley was asked by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to contribute to their Alexander McQueen exhibition, Savage Beauty. She was interviewed by The Met about VOSS for the audio guide to the show. Olley’s detailed diary/journal of modelling for McQueen – written between 18–27 September as the show was being planned and staged – was included in the Met Museum website coverage of the Savage Beauty exhibition. The VOSS diary relates details of the show and encounters with McQueen, ending with how Olley returned home after the show to find:

“…a MASSIVE bouquet of flowers has arrived, with a note [from McQueen] saying, “Thank you for everything – you were beautiful! – Lee xxx” ”

Accomplishments

Some of McQueen’s accomplishments included being one of the youngest designers to achieve the title “British Designer of the Year”, which he won four times between 1996 and 2003; he was also awarded the CBE and named International Designer of the Year by the Council of Fashion Designers in 2003.

December 2000 saw a new partnership for McQueen, with the Gucci Group’s acquiring 51% of his company and McQueen’s serving as Creative Director. Plans for expansion included the opening of stores in London, Milan, and New York, and the launch of his perfumes Kingdom and, most recently, My Queen. In 2005, McQueen collaborated with Puma to create a special line of trainers for the shoe brand. In 2006, he launched McQ, a younger, more renegade lower-priced line for men and women.

McQueen became the first designer to participate in MAC’s promotion of cosmetic releases created by fashion designers. The collection, McQueen, was released on 11 October 2007 and reflected the looks used on the Autumn/Winter McQueen catwalk. The inspiration for the collection was the 1963 Elizabeth Taylor movie Cleopatra, and thus the models sported intense blue, green, and teal eyes with strong black liner extended Egyptian-style. McQueen handpicked the makeup.

Company

By the end of 2007, Alexander McQueen had boutiques in London, New York, Los Angeles, Milan, and Las Vegas. Celebrity patrons, including Nicole Kidman, Penélope Cruz, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Rihanna, and J-pop queens, such as Ayumi Hamasaki, Namie Amuro, and Koda Kumi, have frequently been spotted wearing Alexander McQueen clothing to events. Björk, Ayumi Hamasaki and Lady Gaga have often incorporated Alexander McQueen pieces in their music videos.

Personal life

McQueen was openly gay and said he realized his sexual orientation when he was six years old. He told his family when he was 18 and, after a rocky period, they accepted his sexuality.He described coming out at a young age by saying, “I was sure of myself and my sexuality and I’ve got nothing to hide. I went straight from my mother’s womb onto the gay parade”.

In the summer of 2000, McQueen had a marriage ceremony with his partner George Forsyth, a documentary filmmaker, on a yacht in Ibiza. The marriage was not official, as same-sex marriage in Spain was not legal then. The relationship ended a year later and McQueen and Forsyth maintained a close friendship.

McQueen received press attention after the May 2007 suicide of international style icon Isabella Blow. Rumours were published that there was a rift between McQueen and Blow at the time of her death, focusing on McQueen’s under-appreciation of Blow. In response to these rumours, McQueen told an interviewer:

It’s so much bollocks. These people just don’t know what they’re talking about. They don’t know me. They don’t know my relationship with Isabella. It’s complete bullshit. People can talk; you can ask her sisters … That part of the industry, they should stay away from my life, or mine and Isabella’s life. What I had with Isabella was completely dissociated from fashion, beyond fashion.

McQueen was an avid scuba diver and used his passion as a source of inspiration in his designs, including spring 2010’s “Plato’s Atlantis”. Much of his diving was done around the Maldives.

Death and memorial

McQueen’s death was announced on the afternoon of 11 February 2010. In the morning, his housekeeper found him hanging at his home on Green Street, London W1. Paramedics were called and they pronounced him dead at the scene.

McQueen died nine days after the death of his mother, Joyce, 75, from cancer. David LaChapelle, a friend of the designer, said that McQueen “was doing a lot of drugs and was very unhappy” at the time of his death. McQueen’s death came just days before London Fashion Week, although he was not scheduled to appear there.

McQueen left a note saying, “Look after my dogs, sorry, I love you, Lee.” The Metropolitan Police stated that the death was not suspicious, but did not confirm that the death was a suicide. On 17 February 2010, Westminster Coroner’s Court was told that a post-mortem examination found that McQueen’s death was due to asphyxiation and hanging. The inquest was adjourned until 28 April 2010, where McQueen’s death was officially recorded as suicide. McQueen, who had been diagnosed with mixed anxiety and depressive disorder, took an overdose prior to hanging himself. He had taken drug overdoses in May and July 2009. Prior to hanging himself with his “favourite brown belt”, the inquest recorded that he had slashed his wrists with a ceremonial dagger and a meat cleaver. Coroner Dr. Paul Knapman reported finding “a significant level of cocaine, sleeping pills, and tranquillizers in the blood samples taken after the designer’s death.”

On behalf of Lee McQueen’s family, Alexander McQueen [the company] today announces the tragic news that Lee McQueen, the founder and designer of the Alexander McQueen brand, has been found dead at his home. At this stage it is inappropriate to comment on this tragic news beyond saying that we are devastated and are sharing a sense of shock and grief with Lee’s family.

Lee’s family has asked for privacy in order to come to terms with this terrible news and we hope the media will respect this.

On 3 February 2010, McQueen wrote on his Twitter page that his mother had died the day before, adding: “RIP mumxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.” Four days later, he wrote that he had had an “awful week” but said “friends have been great”, adding: “now i have to some how pull myself together”. His mother’s funeral took place on 12 February 2010. McQueen is survived by his father, three sisters, and two brothers.

McQueen’s funeral took place on 25 February 2010 at St. Paul’s Church, Knightsbridge, West London. His ashes were later scattered on the Isle of Skye.

A memorial was held for McQueen at St. Paul’s Cathedral on 20 September 2010. It was attended by Björk, Kate Moss, Sarah Jessica Parker, Naomi Campbell, Stella McCartney and Anna Wintour amongst 2,500 other invited guests. On 18 February 2010, Robert Polet, the president and chief executive of the Gucci Group, announced that the Alexander McQueen business would carry on without its founder and creative director.

The BBC reported that McQueen had reserved £50,000 ($82,000) of his wealth for his pet dogs so they could live in the lap of luxury for the rest of their lives. He also bequeathed £100,000 ($164,315) each to four charities; these include the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home in south London, and the Blue Cross animal welfare charity in Burford, Oxfordshire.

Tributes

On 16 February 2010, pop musician and friend Lady Gaga performed an acoustic, jazz rendition of her hit single “Telephone” and segued into “Dance in the Dark” at the 2010 Brit Awards. During the performance, Gaga paid tribute to McQueen, by dedicating a song to him. She also commemorated McQueen after accepting her award for Best International Artist, Best International Female, and Best International Album. Gaga dedicated a song to him, titled “Fashion of His Love”, on the special edition of her third album, Born This Way.

Björk, wearing a McQueen outfit, sang her rendition of “Gloomy Sunday” at the memorial at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Various other musicians, who were friends and collaborators with McQueen, commentated on his death, including Kanye West, Courtney Love, and Katy Perry.

In March 2010, celebrities including Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss and Annabelle Neilson, among others, paid visual tribute to McQueen by wearing his distinctive ‘manta’ dresses. The ‘manta’ dresses, inspired by a scuba-diving holiday McQueen took to the Maldives in 2009, came from McQueen’s ‘Plato’s Atlantis’ collection of Spring-Summer 2010 which was at the time currently available to purchase. ‘Manta’ dresses had been worn by celebrities such as Daphne Guinness, Noot Seear, Anna Paquin, and Lily Cole prior to his death, and following the announcement that he had died, remaining stocks sold out despite prices starting at £2,800.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City hosted a posthumous exhibition of McQueen’s work in 2011 titled Savage Beauty. The exhibition’s elaborate staging includes unique architectural finishes and soundtracks for each room. Despite being open for only three months, it was one of the most popular exhibitions in the museum’s history. The exhibition was so successful that Alexander McQueen fans and industry professionals worldwide began rallying at Change.org to “Please Make Alexander McQueen’s Savage Beauty a Traveling Exhibition” to bring honour to McQueen and see his vision become a reality: to share his work with the entire world. The exhibition is set to appear in London’s Victoria & Albert Museum between 14 March and 19 July 2015.

McQueen is also given homage in the popular MMO World of Warcraft. There is an NPC dedicated to Alexander McQueen that is a Tailoring Trainer. This trainer is also the only one on the horde side that gives a special quest Cloth Scavenging.

Final show

Right before Alexander McQueen’s death, he had an eighty percent unfinished Autumn/Winter collection, 16 pieces, presented during Paris Fashion Week on 8 March 2010, to a select handful of fashion editors in a mirrored, gilded salon at the 18th-century Hôtel de Clermont-Tonnerre.

Fashion editors picked his final designs. Editors said the show was hard to watch because it showed how McQueen was obsessed with the afterlife. The clothes had a medieval and religious look. Basic colours that were repetitively used were red, gold and silver with detailed embroidery. His models were accessorised to show his love for theatrical imagery. “Each piece is unique, as was he”, McQueen’s fashion house said in a statement that was released with the collection.

After company owner Gucci confirmed that the brand would continue, McQueen’s long-term assistant Sarah Burton was named as the new creative director of Alexander McQueen in May 2010. In September 2010, Burton presented her first womenswear collection in Paris.