Page 20 - Studio International - March April 1975

them up and replanted them all in one
plot at Weimar where they grew and
multiplied exceedingly. Lethaby's ideas
became formalized. His individual
workshop/studio ideas were merged with
true Germanic thoroughness into an all-
embracing creed. The Bauhaus sold this
prescription of Basic Design throughout
the world. But, like all theories, it died the
death. Edward Johnston, the famous
calligrapher, went to Lethaby to enrol at
the Central. Lethaby said: 'You'll be
taking the class on Monday. Teaching it'.
`But I don't know what to do !"That's
why I want you to teach'. I took all
Lethaby's methods and updated them
and brought in new ones. Lethaby was
very much against personality
development. Anonymity is the hall-
mark, and of me too. This is why I
haven't really been successful as a
professional artist. Each time I've got to
the scaffold I've decided to come down.
Halliwell was splendid. I never had to
bother again with the mothers' wondering
why their children didn't have jobs.
Moving Forms 1974. Ink drawing, 25 32 in. Between Halliwell, Eric Fraser,
Toni del Renzio and Gertrude Hermes
`thug'. I saw the War looming up and good taste on to these students so that at we had them up to such a standard that
that I would be unemployed; my security least they'd get something different from there was a queue of employers waiting
was tenuous. When the Principalship of the depressed environment they had. for them.
the Camberwell School of Arts and Kenneth Clark, who I think is always I made it a condition when I was
Crafts came up I applied and got it. My likely to be wrong, sensed that a frightful appointed to Camberwell and (after the
father said : 'Until this generation no attack was going to be made on the Right War) to the Central, that 1 would have
Johnstone has ever been a servant. You by Bolshevist art coming from Paris, so he complete charge of the appointments and
are a servant of the London County set up the Euston Road School with the the organization of the School without
Council'. However William Ritchie was full support of Clive Bell and the 'New any interference from anyone, including
overjoyed that I should have reached such Statesman'. He got together Pasmore, the Ministry of Education. I was lucky
a dizzy height at Camberwell because it Coldstream and Claude Rogers. Jane that I didn't have to do more than seven
had a long association with the Clark said: 'K. says when he's going to years teaching altogether, just 13 months
Pre-Raphaelites, Robert Browning, the buy a picture he consults three people : full-time, the rest part-time. So I had
South London Art Gallery and Dulwich. Harry Moore because he's so sound, time to paint. An artist at the top of the
He told me to get an act: 'Whatever your Mary Kessel because she's so discerning School gave my staff great confidence. A
staff look like . . . long hair, dirty shirts or and senses the right things, and Victor presence. My staff never had such
unbuttoned trousers . . . you must have a Pasmore because he's so dotty'. I didn't freedom in their life. I never taught. I
respectable suit, a black hat, a black know anyone in London with a just guided. Myself, I don't think I had
umbrella, a sober tie'. I did. knowledge of French painting, so I went any theories about teaching. I taught as
I was determined to counteract this and saw Pasmore's pictures and I thought, L'Hôte taught me, as an artist. But I got
superior elitist notion disseminated by the this is the bloke for the good taste as many good artists together as I could,
Bloomsbury set that no real artist could department. Then I got Norman Dawson and let them get on with their job. Cross-
have anything to do with art teaching. and dropped him amongst Pasmore's fertilization, like putting Alan Davie in
Middle-class, moneyed, 'artistic', good taste. Another man appeared, the jewellery department. And I got
supporters of the 'New Statesman and Toni del Renzio. He had run a magazine things done with Tomlinson there, and
Nation' . . . London provincialism at its called 'Polemic', one of the early under Herbert Morrison the LCC was
silliest. 'Don't touch it, Wilfred' School. magazines on modern art. He was a autonomous, of course. I would never
So I completely ignored the Bloomsbury typographer. Before I started at have got the Jeannetta Cochrane Theatre
set as fatuous and Augustus John as a lot Camberwell I spent the summer in built with a Tory Council. They were like
of romantic havers. Then I had to think Selkirk with Guthrie Thompson, the the Groucho Marx song: 'No matter what
out a policy. What staff had I got ? One printer and editor of the 'Selkirk it is, I'm against it !' Which is a splendid
brilliant thrower of pots with a brother Advertiser', learning all I could from him attitude.
who was a dud, blocking any progress. I about printing and, by the end, he had My efforts at Camberwell and the
wrote under his name: 'Dispatch as soon been able to give me a rough Central were art problems wherein I
as possible'. But I got him to dispatch understanding of the problems. I wanted to prove conclusively that the
himself, which is far nicer: never touch staggered the Council by my exact artist, if he wished, can organize, direct,
the body! Vivian Pitchforth was an estimates of costing because an artist's influence and control any department
excellent teacher of drawing. In Book supposed to be a bloody fool, you know. down to the man at the door, provided he
Production I had a really sound Things began to move. I revived the idea is an artist. Way down, art . . . my own
perfectionist, Eric Fraser. I had a Head of doing finely printed books at painting . . . gave the inspiration. The
Printer who was dead already, but had Camberwell, with the encouragement of students did the rest. I was practising
excellent technicians in his Department. T. S. Eliot. Even my bone-headed printer being an artist all the time. There's a
A deputation of threatening mothers approved of this idea. Then, last, I got chap, Long, who went to Honolulu and
came to see me and said that none of their Albert Edward Halliwell. Halliwell was left a watch there. Then he went
children had got jobs. 'Ladies', I said, 'I the best I'd seen in Britain with the somewhere else and he did something
promise you before long they will all be Bauhaus idea. Now the Bauhaus didn't there. He went trailing round the world.
employed'. I saw that I'd have to get grow out of Walter Gropius, it grew out And that's all! Well, I used to practise
somebody who could link illustration to of Lethaby and the Central School of that every day for about 13 years, little
printing and somebody who could link it Arts and Crafts. William Lethaby saw exercises on my desk, on my blotting pad,
to (what was then called) commercial that the craftsman could become in the while I listened to parents, to my staff,
art . . . I had to get a man with supremely future the designer for industry. He to the School cleaners, to the caterers, to
good taste so that he would percolate planted the roots, the Germans lifted prospective employers of my students .. .

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