Page 17 - Studio International - November 1965

One establishes oneself on firmer ground by being of countryland that are within the London area, were
here and getting the information first hand and getting most admired because they made life more pleasant,
the feel of the place. Also, there hasn't been anywhere providing as they did, more breathing space and a
in Europe that I've been where I have felt that I wanted human scale for living.
to settle down and work. And at the moment, New Smith I think one of the reasons for leaving England
York is providing enough for me so that I don't feel is the standards set up because of the regard for
that I want to go back to London. So this has taken tradition, such as those shown in the movie, Nothing
over and I am quite happy to stay here as long as I But the Best. They were absolutely appalling, and
can make it. those are the kind of statuses that still exist that reflect
Glaser When you say that New York is providing the point of view of something like Country Life
enough, do you mean its social and cultural mani­ magazine.
festations in the broad sense that Dick meant or do Glaser You seem to be still fighting the old class war.
you mean specifically the kind of painting that is being Smith Yes. I think there is a class structure within the
made by New York artists? arts too, in England. Literature is considered top art,
Jones I meant it in a general sense. I feel that my own the most important, or the one taken most seriously.
problems are not that directly related to my environ­ And then comes theatre, then music, ballet and finally
ment. Rather, one mainly carries them around in one's painting, in that order.
head and they get thrashed out in the privacy of one's Phillips But painting seems to have gained a higher
studio, regardless of where that is. But it's during the position in the last few years. More attention is paid
times when one is switched off, or one is relaxing and to it now in the reviews and magazines.
meeting people that one gets the benefit of being in a Jones I think one of the reasons painting rates low in
centre like New York where more is going on and this hierarchy is that it's more vulnerable and somehow
there are more people doing things that you respect. everyone feels he can be a critic before a picture. But
Glaser Peter, why are you here? this is a general thing since I have seen the same thing
Peter Phillips Partly, I am here for the same reasons happen over here. I don't know how this attitude came
as Dick and Allen. But for a good many years I've about, or at what point painting ceased to be like the
wanted to come, mainly because of the romantic fine arts. It may have something to do with its loss of
vision of America that I shared with other young people professional status that accompanied its fostering as a
in England. I can remember, when I was very young, pastime that anyone could do in Victorian times.
my aunt sending me comic books of Superman and Smith I think the reason people treat it lightly and make
Captain Marvel, and this started the fantasy. Then I jokes about it is that the visual arts are the most radical
went to the children's matinee performances at the arts of the twentieth century and inevitably disturbing,
ABC Minors and I saw the Bowery Boys movies which so that one of the ways of ignoring them or putting
added to it, and there were other images of America them down is to ridicule them. I was also thinking
that one was almost bombarded with, and they built that in England, another reason for this attitude might
up a romantic vision of America which I knew was not be that all the painters seem to be under forty. Every­
the real thing. So I wanted to go over and see what it body seems to be very young and somehow when one
was really like. thinks about British painting, unless you have become
From the cultural point of view I didn't really become very historically minded, you don't think about the
aware of American painting until some time later when generation before mine.
I saw the second big show of Abstract-Expressionists Glaser You are talking only about your own circle,
in London in 1959, which knocked me out. Before but the world knows the names of Henry Moore, Ben
then I didn't think there was any such thing as Nicholson and Francis Bacon a good deal more than
American painting. It was so completely new and it it knows the name of your generation.
renewed my interest to come over here and see every­ Jones That's three, but then you start to run out. You
thing. Then I got the opportunity with the Harkness don't tend to run out after three when you are going
fellowship and this paid my way over here so I could through American painters of some stature of the last
work. And my attitude towards the cultural environ­ twenty or thirty years, or before that, of French painters.
ment here is similar to Dick's and Allen's. Glaser What is your feeling about the British artists
Glaser There seems to be a general feeling amongst other than these three 7 There is, after all, that whole
all of you that the aspect of the United States that generation of painters such as Roger Hilton, Terry
appealed to you primarily was the wildness, the Frost, William Scott, Victor Pasmore, Trevor Bell,
kookiness and the way-out quality of its popular Peter Lanyon and Alan Davie. What about those
culture. You mentioned your attraction to the movies, people? Don't they have any relevance to your
jazz and comic books. background 7
Jones I think Dick was right when he said America is Smith No, I think they have failed us, really. They have
a place of our own time. For example. an old building provided very little that one could accept. Somehow
here is from 1880 or 1907, and that's pretty good. every generation has to make a clean sweep of the
Glaser Are you regretting the force of tradition in criteria of the generation before and this they failed to
England? do. For my time Abstract-Expressionism was a clean
Jones Not entirely, and it is difficult for a Londoner or sweep, but the generation over forty in England was
any person from any environment to really judge it still painting Cornish landscapes or pseudo-Braques
until he has left it. I was interested to find an extra­ or whatever. Then they were swept up by the Abstract­
ordinary influx of American painters on holiday in Expressionist revolution, though revolution may be too
London this past summer, and I was quite impressed strong a word. They were now painting freely painted
to hear them say such things as 'Isn't London really a paintings and imitating, rather weakly as it were, the
modern city 7'_ And those things that you had thought Americans.
were provincial, such as the parks and the large areas Jones The only painters who survived that were those
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