RIP, Jill Barklem & Brambly Hedge

We we sorry too to hear of the death of childrens' graphic books writer and illustrator Jill Barklem, at the early age of 66. I have long enjoyed her series of books of BRAMBLY HEDGE with their endlessly fascinating illustrations of the mice who live there, in the series of four books charting the seasons: SPRING STORY, SUMMER STORY, AUTUMN STORY, WINTER STORY. The mice live in their little houses, so splendidly detailed, in the tranquil hedgerows and the illustrations of trees show how they have stores, and bedrooms, and lovely cosy living rooms, by the fire, as the community of mice live amid the wild roses, brambles and elderberries of a hedgerow. 


In the winter they have a Snow Ball with lots of marvellous observation too. 

She wrote the stories and did all the illustrations. The hobbits' homes in the LORD OF THE RINGS series gives one a flavor of their underground retreats. 

Children of all ages would find her books endlessly fascinating and they have been huge bestsellers and led to merchandise like Royal Doulton figures to stationery. 

RIP, continued ...

Alan Aldridge (1943-2017), age 73.  Graphic artist whose album covers and posters saw him hailed as a 'Young Meteor' of the Sixties. I vividly remember his fantastic art work on Penguin paperbacks, I had his "Illustrated Beatles Lyrics" book, and his "Sunday Times" colour supplement covers, like that handpainted mini car in 1965. 

He also did album covers for Elton John, The Who, Cream and others. One of the original hippie artists then, who - like Klaus Voorman - got into The Beatles inner circle. He looked the part too with that hair and tache. His airbrushed, psychedelic images were part of the scene then and defined the era. A quintessential 60s figure: talented, working class, handsome with long hair and a penchant for velvet suits. He also did posters for films like Warhol's CHELSEA GIRLS, and the logo for The Hard Rock Cafe. His private life was suitably colourful too, having seven children by three different women. Rock'n'Roll ! 

Sir Gerard Kaufman (1930-2017), aged 86. He enjoyed a long career as Labour MP spanning 46 years, including being Father of The House of Commons, and held most senior posts in opposition during Labour's wilderness years. He was Harold Wilson's "media fixer". The waspish MP loved cinema, music, and was a critic, writer ("My Life in the Silver Screen"), The confirmed bachelor was a regular on television. His Jewish parents had fled Tsarist Russia but the scholarship boy was soon on the rise to Oxford, and on to working in newspapers, before becoming an MP.

Bill Paxton (1955-2017), aged 61, after complications after surgery. The amiable actor was was working to the end, having amassed 93 credits, including early roles in THE TERMINATOR, ALIENS, APOLLO 13, TOMBSTONE as well as leads in TWISTER, and in Cameron's TITANTIC and TRUE LIES, 

Hockney: 60 years work at the Tate

RIP, continued ...

Dick Bruna (1927-2017), aged 89. The Dutch artist and illustrator was the creator of the white rabbit Miffy who featured in all those popular childrens' books, which he wrote and illustrated. Miffy was a very simple design and much loved. I even had a cat I named Miffy.

Alec McCowen (1925-2017), aged 91. Another of England's premier actors, with a long a career on stage with lots of television and cinema roles - he actually clocked up 87 screen credits. I saw him on stage in EQUUS. Early roles included in Losey's TIME WITHOUT PITY in 1957, A NIGHT TO REMEMBER, the hilarious THE WITCHES in 1966, Cukor's TRAVELS WITH MY AUNT, Hitchcock's FRENZY, STEVIE, PERSONAL SERVICES, Scorsese's THE AGE OF INNOCENCE and THE GANGS OF NEW YORK and more. An out gay actor, he insisted his late partner was mentioned in his "This Is Your Life" TV programme.

Al Jarreau (1940-2017), aged 76. The smooth jazz singer won 7 grammy awards, and is perhaps best known for the MOONLIGHTING theme song. I loved his hit "We Are In This Love Together" and his 1981 album BREAKIN' AWAY.

London,spring 2017

London is gearing up for spring, bad weather and transport problems getting sorted, it will be quite a season for theatre and art folk.

The big new David Hockney exhbition opens at the Tate, and runs till May. Expect the crowds back, as they were at his Royal Academy exhibitions in recent years.
Few British artists have made a bigger splash than Hockney, so, after six decades keeping the art market (all those posters and books) afloat, the 79-year old enjoys a major retrospective of his work at The Tate, iconic swimming pools and all. 9 Feb to 29 May.

Lots of theatre revivals: we will be booking for the new BOYS IN THE BAND, led by Mark Gatiss, coming into town this month. 

I am seeing DREAMGIRLS on 22 February, Amber Riley is the latest Effie and she has been getting rave reviews.

Imelda Staunton returns (after her GYPSY success) in a major revival of Albee's WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? - Albee died last year, and it will be interesting to see another actress as Martha - most people now only know the Elizabeth Taylor version in Mike Nichols' 1966 film.

The latest HAMLET is that fascinating actor Andrew Scott (Moriarty to Benedict's SHERLOCK), but it seems the Almeida Theatre production is completely sold out already - but it should have live screenings to cinemas, as they did last year with Ralph Fiennes' RICHARD III.

The National are also doing a major new revival of ANGELS IN AMERICA, with an interesting cast led by Russell Tovey, Andrew Garfield, Nathan Lane etc. and the National are also tacking a new Sondheim FOLLIES later this year, Imelda will also be headlining that ....

Hockney style

As per other reports here, we first discovered David Hockney in the 1960s - that new age of the colour supplements, which featured him a lot. Not only the art, but we liked the look too - he actually looked like the work he produced. It was a very individual look for 1966, of course he had dyed his hair blonde and those round black glasses - as I saw myself then (as mentioned before, Hockney label). 

I was 20 in 1966 and had moved to central London, Bayswater - a short walk to trendy Notting Hill Gate, where I ventured into my first gay pub, in or near Pembridge Villas. A man with that look was there, it could only have been Hockney, maybe visiting from LA. I recognised him right away, but just had a drink and left. Perhaps if I had lingered, I may have been a pool boy myself?  Right: I have had this French poster framed, since 1974.

Jack Hazan's film A BIGGER SPLASH, daring at the time,  continued our fascination with David and his 1970s coterie. He later said he had not realised how much he had been filmed, but surely he must have realised there was a man with a camera in the shower with him ..... 

David of course is now 80 this year and has become the grand old man of British art, still painting and still smoking. The latest huge exhibition at the Tate Gallery opens this week and runs to May, we will be going of course. 

The Look continues: those blocks of colour, wearing odd socks, striped knitted ties, yellow flat caps, and lots of fancy rugger shirts in pastel hues, with baggy cargo trousers and tennis shoes, and cardigans.

London will be gearing up for Hockney fever again, as this latest exhibition gets underway.

2016 RIP

Last post of year. Yesterday's papers featured this terrific montage by Chris Barker, a graphic artist, showing 2016's casualties in a brilliant pastiche of Peter Blake's SGT PEPPER's iconic album cover. I am sure they won't mind my posting it here so more can see it. Below, with additions Liz Smith, George Michael, Carrie Fisher ...

Back to the Sixties at the V&A ....

We will have to trek up to South Kensington shortly to see this new exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum: YOU SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION: RECORDS & REBELS 1966-1970. Thats a mouthful .... The V&A site says:

This major exhibition will explore the era-defining significance and impact of the late 1960s, expressed through some of the greatest music and performances of the 20th century alongside fashion, film, design and political activism.

I have not been to the V&A for a long time, its such a massive place - but this sounds our kind of show, it runs until February next year. 1966-1970 was a crucial era for me, being 20 to 24 then, and living the London life, going to the Roundhouse (to see The Doors, Jefferson Airplane etc), the NFT, hippie underground clubs like the UFO, seeing 2001 in Cinerama and on acid, loving BLOW-UP etc  - I even lived off the Kings Road in Chelsea for a year or so then. 

It was not only the fashions, music, movies of the time that were so relevant, but that counterculture era in full swing. Perhaps the political significance of that time is too immense for a mere exhibition to encompass, as it will have to cover quite a lot, from the Paris revolutionaries to the US civil rights protests and the dawning of gay lib.

That perceptive critic Philip Hensher says there is little space given in it to feminism and the nascent gay rights movements: "The curious effect is to make it seem as if the revolutions of the late Sixties were a matter of most concern to heterosexual white people, and only at the margins were black and other non-traditional members of society allowed grudging admission". 

It does though capture some of the excitement and the liberation of that era. Being a young gay then I lived through it all, so will be able to see for myself before too long. 

As per the attached review, it seems a massive exhibition

https://www.creativereview.co.uk/decade-disruption-vas-say-want-revolution-records-rebels-1966-70/

headphones and all - well, at £16 a ticket ....

Steve Dinneen of CITY AM says:

The V&A’s David Bowie Is follow-up isn’t concerned with challenging stereotypes so much as celebrating them. Mannequins in Austin Powers getup blink with giant eyes; quotes form and disintegrate on the walls; psychedelic posters and record sleeves clutter every available surface.

It uses the same audio guide as David Bowie Is, detecting where you’re standing and fading in the appropriate music or speech, allowing the curators to micro-manage your personal soundtrack; Martin Luther King blends into advertising muzak blends into The Doors. There are objects of historical significance – the jacket John Lennon wore in the video for Imagine, the battered high-backed chair on which Christine Keeler posed naked for Lewis Morley – but Records and Rebels isn’t aimed at cultural trainspotters. Where it impresses most is in capturing the breakneck speed at which ideology, music and fashion shifted over these years, how a perfect storm of influences created a period of change unlike any before or since.

The first room looks at possible causes for the “revolution”; the erosion of trust in the establishment (evidenced here by the Profumo affair), the rise of the civil rights movement, the increasing popularity of LSD. The exhibition then races through various cultural movements – fashion, music, protest, consumerism – relying on punchy visuals rather than display cases and captions; one room features a Vidal Sassoon salon with a real-life model getting a hair cut, another recreates Woodstock, complete with faux-grass and beanbags. London is heralded as the capital of the world, with Carnaby Street its beating heart (hard to imagine now, with its rows of bland American chains).

The protest section is a highlight, a cacophony of recorded speech and angry music, divided into sections on Women’s Lib, the Black Panthers, Mao’s Cultural Revolution (illustrated with a Little Red Book and a creepy under-lit bust), France’s May 68 protests and, of course, Vietnam.

Everything is painted in broad strokes and primary colours – those hoping for nuanced discourse will leave disappointed. But nobody does mixed-media exhibitions like the V&A. Records and Rebels seamlessly fuses fashion, music, art and history into a dazzling, chaotic experience that will leave anyone under 60 with the distinct impression they were born into the wrong generation.

Hockney's bigger book

We got a lot of David Hockney's books over the years, starting with that 1978 nice Thames & Hudson retrospective on his career to then (right), followed by his books on paper pools, collages, sketches, his dogs and all those various exhibitions, as his art moved from London to Paris and Europe and on to America and back to the North of England in recent years, as per other posts on him, see label, plus of course that A BIGGER SPLASH film in 1974.. Now 79 Hockney is painting and smoking as much as ever - there will be a huge new exhibition at the Tate in London next year, after the one that just finished here Now we have an even bigger book:

Taschen are bringing out A BIGGER BOOK, and this IS  a coffee table tome, in fact it could be a coffee table, if you have £1,750 for the price, but it does comes with its own stand. It is 500 pages, large size, weighing 70lbs ... covering 60 years of David's ever-changing art from his Bradford art-student days to now, and it is signed by Hockney, could he have signed all 10,000 copies? 

Good interview with him too in this week's "Sunday Times", by Lynn Barber. He is going to paint on for as long as he can, but he does have a good team of 9 to help him: 3 assistants, and other staff (housekeeper, gardener, those off-site running his office and archive). 
A BIGGER BOOK follows his 2012 Royal Academy exhibition, A Bigger Picture, in which the artist produced large images with the aid of an iPad. It unveils at Frankfurt's Book Fair in October, with Hockney present to introduce the new tome. 

Hockney, again

For UK viewers, that recent documentary on David Hockney, now on dvd, screens on BBC2 this coming Saturday, 14th March, at  9pm. 

It was shown at last year's London Film Festival, and had a cinema release in November. The blurb says:

HOCKNEY is the definitive exploration of one of the most significant artists of his generation. For the first time David Hockney has given access to his personal archive of photogaphs and film, resulting in an unparalleled visual diary of a long life. The film chronices his vast career, from his early life in working-class Bradford, where his love of pictures was developed through his admiration for the cinema, to his relocation to Hollywood, where his lifelong struggle to escape labels was fully realised. Paradoxically, this escape to live the American Dream did not break the ties to the childhood that formed him. We see his upbringing and life experiences give him the willpower to survive relationship problems, and later the AIDS epidemic, and also allow him to create some of the most renowned works of the past century. Acclaimed filmmaker Randall Wright offers a unique view of this unconventional artist who is now reaching new peaks of popularity worldwide, as charismatic as ever, and at 77 still working in the studio 7 days a week.  

I didn't imagine it would be as graphic as Jack Hazan's 1974 A BIGGER SPLASH (see Hockney label), which had unparalleled access to David too, capturing the younger Hockney at his early Seventies peak, and his then group of friends  - it uses liberal clips from the Hazan film, including that scene with David in the shower, and some clips from those various BBC documentaries that I liked on Hockney over the last 20 years or so, as it focuses on those early years. We do not see too much of the older Hockney or his recent works. 

We liked that A BIGGER SPLASH poster at the time, and that film is also on Blu-ray now. The recent Hockney books - that two volume biograhy by Christopher Simon Sykes - and those recent successful exhibitions were covered here, as per Hockney label. I like this Sixtes photo too ....... 
As mentioned before, I remember being in a bar in Notting Hill, it must have been mid 1966 (when I was 20) - and saw him there, he must have been on a trip over from America, that blond hair and round glasses made him totally individual, as of course blondes have more fun!  
Now he is the quite deaf Grand Old Man of British Art in his late seventies. ,,, as per my previous posts on him, and his recent exhibitions of those huge new pictures of his on British landscapes. David has now returned to California, following that tragic death of one of his assistants, It will be interesting to see the documentary again on television. 
It touches again on that late '60s/early '70s relationship with Peter Schlesinger, who seems depicted as Hockney's main long relationship, but he later spent more time with Gregory Evans or John Fitzherbert who are not mentioned in this new film but it is a dazzling kaleidoscope trawl in day-glo colours through the Hockney decades. 

Gary by Cecil

I was stunned and pleased to receive as a birthday present (thanks so much Colin) a sumptuous coffee table book on Cecil Beaton portraits with his comments on the sitters. We know he did not like Elizabeth Taylor and his waspish comments are here in full. One he did like was the young Gary Cooper, caught here in this terrific 1937 portrait showing maybe the most beautiful man of the 1930s. We like the older Cooper too in his '50s movies - right. and left: Beaton with Cooper. 

The book includes all those others too: Monroe, both Hepburns, Dietrich, Royalty, all the high society of that era from the 20s to the 60s including another fascination of Beaton's: Mick Jagger, Nureyev, Hockney etc. and of course Greta Garbo ..... and is compiled by Beaton's literary executor and biographer Hugo Vickers. 

Cecil Beaton (1904–80) was educated at Harrow and Cambridge. His photographs first appeared in "Vanity Fair" and "Vogue" in the 1920s. During World War II he served in the British Ministry of Information, covering the fighting in Africa and East Asia. The foremost photographer of his day, he also designed the settings and costumes for numerous films and plays - GIGI, MY FAIR LADY, Streisand Regency flashbacks in ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER, and was a published and well-known diarist. Beaton was knighted in 1972. I will have to return to his many diaries ...

Hockney - that new documentary

Already shown at this year's London Film Festival, but opening in cinemas here on November 28 is HOCKNEY, this new documentary (by Randall Wright) on one of our favourites here, artist David Hockney. There is also a live Q & A from Los Angeles at selected venues, but I will be in Ireland that week so will have to rush to it on my return, and it is out on DVD on 15 December. 

I don't imagine it will be as graphic as Jack Hazan's 1974 A BIGGER SPLASH (see Hockney label), capturing the younger Hockney at his early Seventies peak, and his then group of friends. We liked that poster at the time, and that is also on Blu-ray now. The recent Hockney books - that two volume biograhy by Christopher Simon Sykes - and those recent successful exhibitions were covered here, see Hockney label. I like this Sixtes photo too ....... 
I remember being in a bar in Notting Hill, it must have been mid 1966 (when I was 20) - and saw him there, that blond hair and round glasses made him totally individual, as of course blondes have more fun!  Now he is the quite deaf Grand Old Man of Britsh Art in his seventies. ,,, as per my previous posts on him, at label.

Love is not the sweetest thing !

A trio of mesmerising star turn impersonations:  Derek Jacobi as painter Francis Bacon; Michael Douglas as Liberace; Helena Bonham-Carter almost as Elizabeth Taylor .....

I had been putting off seeing LOVE IS THE DEVIL and BEHIND THE CANDELABRA for some time, as I felt one may be too grim, and the other too camp - but they make up an astonishing double bill with a similar story arc: naive young man gets taken up by older artist who turns out to be a monster who tosses him aside when he has tired of him ... both stories capture facets of British and American gay life in the '60s and '70s and into the '80s perfectly .

In the 1960s, British painter Francis Bacon (1909-1992) surprises a burglar and invites him to share his bed. The burglar, a working class man named George Dyer, 30 years Bacon's junior, accepts. Bacon finds Dyer's amorality and innocence attractive, introducing him to his Soho pals. In their sex life, Dyer dominates, Bacon is the masochist. Dyer's bouts with depression, his drinking and pill popping, and his satanic nightmares strain the relationship, as does his pain with Bacon's casual infidelities. Bacon paints, talks with wit, and, as Dyer spins out of control, begins to find him tiresome. Could Bacon care less?

or as I said, on IMDB the other week: 

LOVE IS THE DEVIL, 1998. More artistic temperament in spades in this study of the painter Francis Bacon, and the man in his life, George Dyer, a small time crook. Again the casting is the thing: Derek Jacobi is uncanny as Bacon – as mesmerising as he was in I CLAUDIUS, while a pre-Bond Daniel Craig seems just right as the working class man out of his depth with Bacon’s Soho drinking pals who include Tilda Swinton - young David Hockney is depicted here too. John Maybury’s film  - I see it as a filmic version of Munch's "the Scream" - though cannot depict any of Bacon’s art but the film suggests their nightmare quality. The destructive relationship between painter and muse is caught as Dyer falls into alcoholism and pill popping, before his suicide. Grim is the word, at least Frear’s film on Joe Orton, another gay maverick artist, PRICK UP YOUR EARS had a lot of humour among the increasingly grim dramatics. 

John Maybury's film astonishes on many levels, capturing the selfish artist and the untidy (putting it mildly) studio, and all that drinking at the Colony and other drinking clubs. Jacobi is astonishing, whether cleaning his teeth with Vim detergent, putting shoe polish in his hair and applying mascara and powder before he heads off for an afternoon on the razzle, as Dyer sinks deeper into misery and booze and pills - Craig, as he was in LAYER CAKE and THE MOTHER and ENDURING LOVE is as solid as he was as Bond, James Bond.

BEHIND THE CANDELABRA, 2013: Before Elvis, before Elton John, Madonna and Lady Gaga, there was Liberace, pianist and flamboyant star of stage and television. Scott Thorson, a young bisexual man raised in foster homes, is introduced to Liberace and quickly finds himself in a sexual and romantic relationship with the legendary pianist. Swaddled in wealth and excess, Scott and Liberace have a sx-year  affair, one that eventually Scott begins to find suffocating. Kept away from the outside world by the flashily effeminate yet deeply closeted Liberace, and submitting to extreme makeovers and even plastic surgery at the behest of his lover, Scott eventually rebels. When Liberace finds himself a new lover, Scott is tossed on the street. He then seeks legal redress for what he feels he has lost. But throughout, the bond between the young man and the star never completely tears ...

Another terrific HBO movie (see THE NORMAL HEART, gay interest label) this Liberace movie is played for laughs as well as dramatics as ageing predatory older man ensnares rather naive young man. Scott (as depicted by Matt Damon) does not seem quite on the make, but is soon revelling in the glitz and glamour of the Liberace lifestyle. It is a shock to see Lee without his wig, as he and Scott get more involved, with Scott too having plastic surgery to look more like Lee, who talks of adopting him. 

Both actors turn in mesmerising performances, plus I did not recognise Dan Ackroyd or Scott Bakula (who delivers the zinger line to Scott: "Right now you are Judy at the Sid Luft obsese era"), while Debbie Reynolds was initially unrecognisable as Lee's mother, and Rob Lowe is the hilarious plastic surgeon. The tackier side of American showbiz is nicely depicted too. It is everything that Soderbergh's MAGIC MIKE should have been (see Mike label) ... while Damon has maybe his best role since THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY and Douglas is truly extraordindary as the great faker and master showman. Left: Soderbergh with Douglas. Liberace's 1955 film SINCERELY YOURS is reviewed at Liberace label. Also, its hardly unfair to depict Liberace like this, after all he had the nerve to sue - and win! - that British paper for casting aspersions on his masculinity! Douglas and Reynolds knew Liberace and his mother, so I imagine their portrayals are spot on. 

More camp showbiz excess is provided by BURTON AND TAYLOR, the BBC's 2013 biopic on the 1983 final teaming of the Great Lovers, who were selling themselves to the public, on stage in a doomed revival of Coward's PRIVATE LIVES. It was a last throw of the dice for Taylor to get Burton back into her orbit, even though he was poised to marry again. Helena (aided by great make-up, wigs, and those purple and lilac outfits) captures the capricious great star, forever late for rehearsals and seemingly not taking it seriously, to the annoyance of Burton and their director, but she delivers when she has to. She is also never far from the drinks trolley .... 

as Burton tries to avoid the booze and do the work. Bonham-Carter is fine as Taylor, but Dominic West suggests nothing of Burton's looks or voice to me, but does radiate a powerful presence, as he becomes horrified at the circus their play has become as the public come to see The Burtons ...

I saw The Burtons up close in 1970 at that Cinema City exhibition in London, as I have detailed previously - Taylor label - where they were with director Joseph Losey and critic Dilys Powell (left) as they were annoyed their SECRET CEREMONY film was a flop and being re-edited and sold to television. Eliizabeth looked marvellous in a gypsy type dress as she flashed that diamond, while Burton was in ranting mood in a safari suit!  The BBC film direted by Richard Laxton, captures a lot of their charisma and is jolly good fun.