Letters

Letter to Andrew Lambirth, 2000



September 2014

Dad was a prolific letter writer. Somewhat weirdly he photocopied every letter he sent. I have many childhood memories one of which is that dad was always going to the corner shop to photocopy his letters. I grew up thinking that's what you did - you wrote a letter then you photocopied it. Can you imagine! This is obviously in the day before emails which is great as he sketched on the letters a fair bit, obviously not possible on emails. I'm currently going through 10+ boxes of letters, writings, lectures as well as things ripped out of magazines, Private View cards etc. What's great with the letters is that there are copies he adjusted and tweaked, re-arranging paragraphs, sentences and thoughts, often repeatedly, giving a great insight to his thought process.

Allen Jones and Ian Keen were in the same year as dad at Hornsey College of Art. Allen obviously carried on painting and Ian went back to college to study anthropology, moving to Australia with his wife Libby in 1974. Twenty seven years of regular letter writing followed,
each letter containing a rough balance of family stuff and art stuff. Thoughts on galleries, people, works of art, his work processes, observations on his health, my brother and I at various stages of our lives and so on. Fascinating. My aim is to get some of dad's letters published at some point. Editing them heavily, separating the personal from the professional where possible, extracting the most interesting...