Viva Lewes Issue #160 January 2020

THIS MONTH’S COVER ARTIST
Julian Bell, who among other
things teaches at the Royal
Drawing School, believes
in the craft of drawing. The
school was set up, he tells me,
in 2000 because there was a
fear that the practice of drawing
was being marginalised,
and it needed supporting. Last
autumn Thames and Hudson
published a book which
emerged from the school, and
was “compered” by Julian,
called Ways of Drawing.
Besides working as a painter,
Julian writes and lectures. But
the painting comes first. And
the drawing, for him, always
comes before the painting.
His most recent exhibition,
called When the City is Built,
“depicted London through
the eyes of four or five people
passing through the city. I
love stories,” he says, “though
it’s not important for viewers
to know precisely the story
I’m thinking of. I mocked up
metropolitan scenes – like the
interior of a tube carriage –
getting friends to pose in my
studio in the country.” His
method is to draw and redraw.
“I am a drawing-led artist,”
he says. “The seeds then blossom,
thinking about colour.
Choosing the colours, at that
point, is a piece of cake. And a
pleasure.”
So why London? “I haven’t
lived there for 40 years. On the
other hand, my whole life has
been spent going up and down.
And London is the big one.”
He says the capital feels
livelier than it was when he
and his wife Jenny lived there
in the 1970s, “when more of
the city’s life went on behind
closed doors. Now, more life
takes place on the streets. It’s
become a world city.”
The pictures exude warmth.
“Well, I’m no satirist, I’m
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