Viva Lewes Issue #114 March 2016

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Beautiful art, affordable prices Destiny by featured artist Ursula Stone A friendly welcome awaits you at the Chalk Gallery Chalk Gallery 4 North Street <strong>Lewes</strong>, BN7 2PA t: 01273 474477 w: chalkgallerylewes.co.uk
art John Bratby A life laid bare When the Jerwood Gallery in Hastings chose to mount an exhibition devoted to John Bratby, an artist who lived in the town for 16 years until the day in July 1992 when he died in the street of a heart attack walking home from the fish and chip shop, they decided to do things a bit differently. Aware that Bratby had been both extraordinarily popular and prolific – a 1965 exhibition included 47 pictures of sunflowers all painted in under three months – the Jerwood knew that there must be a lot of Bratbys out there somewhere. So last October they appealed to the public and staged a ‘Bring your own Bratby’ day. It was a phenomenal success and there were over 300 submissions. A publicity stunt? Well, perhaps. But for once it seemed not only allowable but entirely appropriate for an artist who, as Julian Hartnoll writes in the small booklet that accompanies the exhibition, ‘knew how to use the press. Every detail of his life, every nuance of his career, every row he was involved in hit the headlines’. Everything but the kitchen sink, including the kitchen sink (until 17th April) brings together 60 paintings, all of course from private collections. The ‘Kitchen Sink Group’ was a term coined by the critic David Sylvester in an Encounter article in December 1954. Intended satirically, Sylvester later complained that the term was ‘hijacked by cultural journalists to serve as a designation for a supposed movement’. And though Bratby was one of the artists Sylvester meant, he claimed that he had never once painted a kitchen sink. Bathroom sinks, perhaps, but not kitchen sinks! The early Bratbys, typically depicting members of his family in simple domestic interiors amongst the detritus of everyday existence – dirty milk bottles, Corn Flakes packets – are, to my mind, his best work. One can’t help but think that fame and over-production did him no favours. But there are pleasures along the way. Holy Land, for example, a 1961 still life of exotic fruit, reminiscent of Renato Guttuso, and Three Lambrettas and two portraits of Jean, a twelve-foot-long tour de force. (Jean, by the way, was his long-suffering, first wife. A fellow artist who, when she died in her studio cottage at Birling Gap in August 2008, was accorded an obituary in the Daily Telegraph under the heading: ‘Royal Academician who was not to be put off painting by the tiresome antics of her artist husband’) In 1967 Bratby embarked on a portrait series intended, ostensibly, to ‘celebrate individualism at a time when it was in jeopardy’. He cast his net wide, not to say indiscriminately. In 1985 alone he approached 233 people. Among those on show in Hastings are Paul McCartney, Arthur Askey and Claire Rayner. The final room displays photographs, letters, scrapbooks, painfully candid diaries. ‘Some elements of this exhibition may not be suitable for children’, we are warned. But a life laid this bare isn’t an entirely comfortable experience for anyone. And yet, perhaps, with Bratby you couldn’t do it any other way. David Jarman Jerwood, Hastings, until April 17th Self Portrait and Kitchen Things, John Bratby (1976-78) ©The Artist’s Estate 41
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Page 4 and 5: WHERE BOOKS, IDEAS & CREATIVITY BLO
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Page 9: Matt Carr has designed a few covers
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Viva Lewes Issue #114 March 2016

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