Page 18 - Studio International - March April 1975

William Johnstone: a survey

1. in conversation

By 14 I was determined to be an artist. Roger-Ducasse and he encouraged me to shifted from Paris to the early Pictish
This wasn't going to be easy because I go to Paris, too. I had a small sum of stones in the Queen Street Museum in
was a farmer's son. When I was ten my money I'd saved up since I was 14 and I Edinburgh. I painted like mad to sort out
father sent me with the shepherd to drive had a travelling scholarship. I'd met the all I'd learned in Paris, to see whether I
our lambs to Hawick. We spent two days girl who was to be my first wife, Flora could relate it to my own Scottish
on the road. Lamb sales at Hawick caused Macdonald, who said she'd introduce me heritage.
great excitement. The herds got drunk to André L'Hôte's studio. So I went Then we went to California. Financially
and chased the girls down the High Street, to Paris. I had no choice. This was August, 1928.
trying to turn them up, forgetting their The most vital art part of the century I knew from my wife about the advance in
sheep. Several days could go before they was in Paris, in the twenties. Paris was the modern painting in America which was
and their dogs were gathered together centre. The Jewish renaissance — the far beyond anything in England. She had
again and returned to the hills. And there creation of Israel inspiring Jews in almost worked with the cowboy painter Clayton
were the 'flapping' race meetings which every country in a way they'd never been Price at the Robert Louis Stevenson
are not held under Jockey Club rules : inspired before — had something to do house in Monterey. This cowboy on the
just a question of sharing the profits with it. The bright students were either at ranges had identified himself so much
between the owners at the end of the day. L'Hôte's studio or Fernand Leger's. I with the American landscape that he was
It was a great training for Cork Street. saw that no matter how hard you tried seeing it in a completely different way
My father said : 'Look a man in the eye so you couldn't escape Leger's powerful from a European. An intense
you can anticipate his questions.' personality. In an odd way he was really concentration such as you would find in
At school I had a very good English a kind of Pre-Raphaelite — so was Picasso : ancient Chinese art. He's one of the
master, William Ritchie.' He was a great the insistence on detail, the semi- unknown painters, here, Clayton Price.'
man, and he had a great power over me. sentimental approach; the bowler hat Dead now. My wife's family lost the lot in
He told me about William Blake, the that appears in Picasso's etchings was the slump so I did window-cleaning and
Irishman, and 'The New Age'. Of poetry bought by his father for him to go to all sorts of other jobs, but one term I
he said: 'The image is more important London to study the Pre-Raphaelites. taught at Cal Arts with Martinez. He was
than the rules.' Towards the end of 1918 Léger's a great giant. He represents full of the new Mexican School of
I went into the Army. Before sending us modern man . .. possibly more than painting, trying to propagate Communism
to France they had to lock us up in sheds anyone else in the new age that lies in as a new religion.
overnight otherwise there wouldn't have front of us now. In an oblique way his But politics is machination. The painter
been anyone left to travel. I was counterparts dealing with modern man as politician. That was a dreadful mistake,
lucky. My father was desperate for (simple in basis, confused and complex in because art is never any good as
labour, and I was sent home to the farm. his environment) were Laurel and Hardy, propaganda. Matthew Murphy, an old
But I wanted to paint, so I went to the art and Chaplin. But L'Hôte's teaching had frontiersman, had a very big collection of
school in Edinburgh. Henry Lintott2 was elasticity. He taught you to look. Then Navajo rugs and Indian drawings which
the only teacher there for me; he had no one day I met Julio Gonzales who said: are now, I think, in the Albuquerque
Scottish parochialism and he greatly `The only thing the Venus di Milo can do Museum. I saw the tremendous power of
encouraged me although he could be very for you is for you to stick pins in it'. So I the Indian mind uncontaminated by a
sarcastic and sardonic. Tom Scott,' the came right back to the stones on my thing called education. When the
Scottish painter, was very kind to me in father's farm. As a boy I'd been picking Catholic Church in its wisdom never
Selkirk. Tom said the painting at the up stone hammers and things like that allowed the common people to
Edinburgh College of Art was house from the prehistoric fort on the farm. understand the Latin Mass, the Church
painting. My cousin, Francis George Tom Scott used to tell me about them. I still retained its magic power .. .
Scott,4 had studied music with had to find my own tradition. My studies mystery . .. There must be something left
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