Williamson

© Beth Williamson 2008
discussion regarding the way that Ehrenzweig gave feedback to students about their work
Barton pointed out that ‘he gave you his own very personal response to it – responses so
personal that some students did think that perhaps they were being psychoanalysed – but the
more intelligent or honest ones realized that it was he that was undergoing a process of self
analysis as a personal response to their work in order to search out the emerging imagery and
help them to realize it themselves.’ (Email from David Barton to this author 29/09/2008).
Interestingly, John Steers (another of Ehrenzweig’s ATC students (1965/6)) informed me that he
never felt this to be the case (John Steers in conversation with this author 28/03/2008 and
following email 09/10/2008). Tony Collinge also intimated that his own experience of teaching
with Ehrenzweig was similarly framed – he felt he had been through psychoanalysis. He said
that, “In a way it was as if I’d been through a kind of psychoanalysis myself and I gradually felt
the better for it. It was all a maturing and developing experience.” (Letter from Collinge to this
author 07/06/06) Ehrenzweig’s son told me that Ehrenzweig underwent a period of analysis
himself before leaving Vienna in 1938. (Anthony Ehrenzweig in conversation with this author
11/04/2006.) To date, I have been unable to establish any further details of that period in
Ehrenzweig’s life.
10
Anton Ehrenzweig, ‘The Mastering of Creative Anxiety’ in Ruth Armer et al., Art and Artist
(Berkley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, London: Cambridge University Press,
1956): 51.
11
Ehrenzweig in William Johnstone, William Johnstone, (London: London School of Arts and
Crafts, 1959): n. p.
12
David Barton has often referred to his mischievous nature. He told me on several occasions
how other members of the Faculty referred to Ehrenzweig in similar terms, calling him a Puck.
(Puck is the mischievous character in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.)
13
Michael Culme-Seymour, ‘Foreword’ in Johnstone, Points in Time: 10.
14
Ehrenzweig in Johnstone, William Johnstone: n. p.
15 Johnstone, Points in Time: 116.
16 Ibid.: 220.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.: 109.
19 Ibid.: 221-2.
20 Victor Pasmore, ‘A Developing Process in Art Teaching’ in The Developing Process (Durham:
King’s College, University of Durham, 1959): 3.
21 David Lewis, ‘Introduction’ in Eric Atkinson, The Incomplete Circle: Eric Atkinson, Art and
Education (Aldershot: Scolar, 2000): 22.
22 Ibid.
23 Richard Coleman, ‘Introduction’ in The Developing Process: 1.
24 For some helpful reflections on these different approaches see David Thistlewood, A
Continuing Process (London: ICA, 1981)
25 Richard Coleman, ‘Introduction’ in The Developing Process: 2.
26
Ibid.: 3.
27
Richard Hamilton, ‘Work in progress towards a new foundation of art teaching as developed
at the Department of Fine Art, King’s College, Durham University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and at
Leeds College of Art’ in The Developing Process: 19. Also available in Richard Hamilton,
‘Diagrammar’ in Collected Words 1953-1982, (London: Thames and Hudson, 1982): 169.
28
Email to this author from David Barton 30/04/2007.
29
Email to this author from David Barton 29/09/2008.
30
Anton Ehrenzweig, ‘Conscious Planning and Unconscious Scanning’ in Gyorgy Kepes (ed.)
Education of Vision, (London: Studio Vista, 1965): 32-33.
31
Norbert Lynton, ‘The World in a Grain of Sand’ in Harry Thubron (London: Austin/Desmond
Fine Art, 2007): n. p.
32
Email to this author from David Barton 29/09/2008.
33
For more on this see Rainer K Wick, ‘The History of the Bauhaus’ in Teaching at the
Bauhaus, (Osterfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2000): 29-51.
34
Kepes: ii.
35
Anton Ehrenzweig, ‘The Morality of Craftsmanship’ in The Listener , vol. LXVIII, no. 1748,
(Sept 27 1962): 470-472.
36 Kepes: iii.
37 Ehrenzweig, ‘Conscious Planning and Unconscious Scanning’ in Kepes: 27.
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