Edward Burra: Cultural Immersion

Edward Burra - Dockside Cafe, Marseilles, 1929, © Estate of Edward Burra, courtesy Lefevre Fine Art Ltd, London

I recently enjoyed an exhibition of the work of Edward Burra. (Tate Britain, London until 19 October)

Burra painted satirical watercolours of French bohemians in the Roaring Twenties and the vibrant club scene during the Harlem Renaissance. He painted unsettling images of Spain as it descended into civil strife, and East Sussex in turmoil during World War 2. After the conflict, he painted British landscapes disfigured by industry and commerce. He had a knack for finding the nexus of social and historical change, immersing himself in culture, directing his acute eye to human foibles and foolishness.

Burra was born in London in 1905 into a wealthy banking and legal family. Diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and suffering from anaemia, he turned to painting as ‘a kind of drug’ that relieved the pain. He found it was physically easier to work with watercolours flat on a table, rather than with oils at an easel.

Edward Burra - Minuit Chanson, 1931. Photograph: © Estate of Edward Burra, courtesy Lefevre Fine Art Ltd, London

Having studied at Chelsea Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art, Burra, who had learned French at an early age, travelled to Paris. He visited the museums and galleries; feasted on the cinema, literature and music; soaked up the cosmopolitan nightlife in the cafes and clubs of Montparnasse and Montmartre; took trips to the sunny south, to Marseille, Toulon and Cassis. 

We visit a mirrored dancehall, an underground gay bar, a grubby dockside hangout - where high-society smoothies rub shoulders with shady lowlife and flat-capped gangsters. Bobbed women in cloche hats and dark eye-shadow chatter conspiratorially, hold cigarettes nonchalantly, down cocktails eagerly - at Le Café du Dome, Le Select, Le Boeuf sur le Toit. Eager customers crowd into the listening booths at the new record store on Boulevard Clichy. Burlesque dancers serve at the teashop. Uniformed sailors stand chatting to the diffident attendant. It's all rather emancipated, permissive, decadent.

In 1933 Burra sailed to New York and stayed in Harlem for several months. (He would return throughout the ‘30s and ‘50s.) He was besotted with the nightlife, drinking and dancing; with Club Hot-Cha, the Apollo Theatre and the Savoy Ballroom. He collected 78 RPM records and would listen to jazz while he painted - to McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, Cab Calloway and Clarence Williams; to Billie Holliday, Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald. In his work he captured the syncopated glamour of the band; the joyful strutting on the dancefloor. He portrayed people hanging out on the doorsteps of brownstone tenements, a train passing by on the elevated railway. 

Burra’s pictures were not always accurate records of reality. Rather he freely integrated his memories with his imagination.

‘When I go back there, I’m always puzzled by what I’ve left out.’

Edward Burra - Harlem 1934, © Tate

An independent spirit, one afternoon he walked out on his family home in Rye without saying a word. His parents only discovered he had been in the United States when he returned weeks later. 

In the 1930s Burra travelled to Spain, visiting Barcelona, Grenada, Seville and Madrid. Again he immersed himself in the country’s art, literature and music. And again he learned the language. Inspired by Spain’s history and tradition, he painted strutting matadors and proud flamenco singers, austere governesses and sophisticated society hostesses. But he also became aware of the tensions on the street as Civil War loomed. Initially sympathising with the Fascists, his work grew darker and more surreal. The Grim Reaper, demons and the Devil stalk the cityscape, overseeing destruction and decay.

Edward Burra - War in the Sun

At home in Sussex during World War 2, with his medicine rationed and his movement restricted, Burra felt isolated, hemmed in. His paintings stayed depressed and downbeat. We are shown a claustrophobic world, distorted by trucks and military paraphernalia, crowded with soldiers in sinister carnival masks.

Burra was an elusive character. Garrulous and gossipy with his friends, he was guarded and reticent with strangers. He rarely gave interviews, and he refused to explain his art. 

Burra: I never tell anybody anything… So they just make it up. I don’t see that it matters. 
Interviewer: What does matter?
Burra: Nothing.

Looking back on Burra’s artistic journey, I was struck by his ability to locate himself in the hotspots of cultural change. He regarded what he found with a mixture of affection and cynicism; with the acuity of an eternal outsider. He teaches us to seek out the melting pots, the frontiers and borderlands; to learn the language and soak it all up; to participate and yet retain some distance. 

In the 1960s, as Burra’s frail health deteriorated further still, he took long driving tours of Britain with his sister Anne. Once more, he was alert to change. Whilst depicting the beautiful hills, valleys and moorland that he saw through the windscreen, he also recorded the power stations, pylons and petrol stations; the motorways, diggers and brash advertising hoardings. This was an uneasy landscape, a countryside in distress. He was an early prophet of environmental decay.

 Burra died in 1976, aged 71.

Edward Burra - Picking a Quarrel, 1968-69 © Estate of Edward Burra, courtesy Lefevre Fine Art Ltd, London

'I'm just a woman, a lonely woman,
Waiting on the weary shore.
I'm just a woman that's only human,
One you should be sorry for.
Woke up this morning alone about dawn.
Without a warning I found he was gone.
How could he do it? Why should he do it?
He'd never done it before.
Am I blue? Am I blue?
Ain't these tears in these eyes telling you?
Am I blue? Why, you'd be too.
If each plan with your man done fell through.’
Ethel Waters, ‘Am I Blue?’ (H Akst, G Clarke )

No. 525

The Havering Council Spy Planes: Jeopardy (Whether Real or Imagined) Stiffens the Sinews and Focuses the Mind

Roger Mayne - Boys Against a Wall, Dublin 1957

‘Jump off the cliff and learn how to make wings on the way down.’
Ray Bradbury

Over the long hot summers of my childhood, my brother Martin and I would play cricket, collect grasshoppers and dig holes in the back garden.

Our house backed onto a school playing field, and sometimes Jeff Richards and the Chergwin boys would gather on the other side of the fence, so that we could throw mud bombs at each other. 

Harmless fun. Though our elderly neighbour, flat-capped Mr Holland, a veteran of the First World War, would look up from his loganberry bushes to warn us of the danger of hidden stones.

 ‘You’ll take someone’s eye out with that!’

Often Martin and I would clamber up the lilac tree and over the back fence, to join Jeff and the Chergwins in the school playing fields. There, under a bright yellow sun, we would compete in our own Heath Park Road Olympics: racing around the running track, jumping in the sandpit, boxing without gloves. 

Technically we were not allowed on the council fields, and when occasionally a light aeroplane flew overhead with its lights blinking, we all threw ourselves face down onto the grass, so as not to be identified in the photographs.  

‘Dive! Dive! Quick! It’s the council!’ 

In retrospect, I guess those were not Havering Council spy planes. They were just regular flights making their approach to a nearby airfield. But the sense of danger, the fear of being identified as trespassers, made it all seem so thrilling.

‘Art is an adventure into an unknown world, which can be explored only by those willing to take risks.’
Mark Rothko

In the world of work, we may also find that we perform better when there is a certain amount of risk – of losing a campaign, of being fired from an account, of missing our numbers. The jeopardy stiffens the sinews, focuses the mind.

Similarly, a rivalry can get the juices flowing. I recall from ‘The Last Dance’ documentary that Michael Jordan would perceive, or even invent, slights, insults or disrespectful gestures from opposing players, so as to motivate himself and his teammates. 

Without conflict, competition or peril, there is always the danger of complacency. The effort drops. The pace slackens. The focus drifts.

And so, whatever the task or endeavour, we would all do well to embrace urgency and intensity; to introduce opposition and jeopardy; to reflect on risks and rivalries - whether they be real or imagined.

‘If you practise poetry the way I think it needs to be done, you're going to put yourself in jeopardy.'
Amiri Baraka

'I'm all mixed up inside,
I want to run, but I can't hide.
And however much we try,
We can't escape the truth and the fact is...
Don't matter what I do,
It don't matter what I do,
Don't matter what I do,
Don't matter what I do,
Don't matter what I do,
Because I end up hurting you.
One more covered sigh,
And one more glance you know means goodbye.
Can't you see that's why
We're dashing ourselves against the rocks of a lifetime.
In my mind different voices call.
What once was pleasure now's pain for us all.
In my heart only shadows fall.
I once stood proud, now I feel so small.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
The long hot summer just passed me by.’
Style Council, ‘Long Hot Summer’ (P Weller)

No. 524

A Bout de Souffle: Strategic Spontaneity

Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo

‘Instead of finding something a long time before, I’ll find it just before.’
Jean-Luc Godard

The 1960 crime drama 'A Bout de Souffle' (Breathless) was written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard. His first full-length film, it was one of the key works that ushered in French ‘nouvelle vague’ cinema.

Patricia: I want to know what's behind your face. I've looked at it for ten minutes now, and I still know nothing, nothing, nothing. I'm not sad, but I'm scared.

The movie is remarkable for its cool detachment and moral ambiguity; its natural feel and documentary style; its freewheeling conversations and precipitous pace. In its making, Godard embraced looseness and liberation, a kind of Strategic Spontaneity.

Michel: Don't use the brakes. Cars are made to go, not to stop!

Jean-Paul Belmondo plays petty criminal Michel, who steals a car in Marseille and then impulsively kills a policeman on a country road. He is tall and dapper, sporting a jacket and tie, silver chains, sunglasses and fedora. He walks with a swagger and a Gauloises glued to his lips.

Michel: If you don't like the sea... or the mountains... or the big city... then get stuffed!

Michel is also reckless and erratic, sexist and cynical, a fantasist who styles himself on Humphrey Bogart.

Michel: There's no need to lie. It's like poker. The truth is best. The others still think you're bluffing, so you win. 

Jean-Paul Belmondo

Michel flees to Paris, hoping to call in a loan that will fund an escape to Italy. There he hooks up with one-time girlfriend Patricia, played by Jean Seberg. She is an American student, an aspiring journalist who sells the New York Herald Tribune on the grands boulevards. With shorn blonde hair, wearing a pleated skirt, stripey shirt and shades, she seems modern and carefree. But she is gripped by youthful anxieties. 

Patricia: If I could dig a hole and hide in it, I would…I don't know if I'm unhappy because I'm not free, or if I'm not free because I'm unhappy.

We spend time with Patricia and Michel as she pursues various journalistic assignments, and he chases down his money. They watch a Western together at the cinema and pass through a crowd welcoming President Eisenhower to Paris. They walk and wait and smoke; drive around the streets, hang out in her apartment and make love. Periodically he buys a newspaper to see if the police are closing in on him. 

Patricia: It's sad to fall asleep. It separates people. Even when you're sleeping together, you're all alone.

All the time they talk. They discuss cultural and gender differences, Patricia’s grammar and where to place a poster in her apartment. They consider fear of aging, the shortcomings of modern architecture and the nature of their relationship. 

Patricia: You know you said I'm scared, Michel. It's true, I'm scared. Because I want you to love me. But at the same time, I want you to stop loving me. 

Film Poster - Breathless

Godard captures the irregular rhythms and logical inconsistencies of young people’s everyday speech. The conversation ranges from macro to micro; from profound to trivial; from engaged to detached. The protagonists are often melodramatic and solipsistic, caught up in their own private worlds, oblivious to broader social concerns.

Patricia: We look each other in the eyes, and it means nothing.

Godard set out to create a documentary feel. He briefed cinematographer Raoul Coutard to shoot on a hand-held Cameflex camera with minimal crew and limited lighting. Most of the movie had to be dubbed in post-production, because the Cameflex was noisy and incapable of synchronized sound. Street scenes were filmed without permits, Coutard hiding in a postal cart with a hole for the lens. 

Michel: Once you look for someone, you never find them.

For interior sequences, Godard dispensed with a complicated dolly and instead pushed Coutard around in a wheelchair. In the editing, he employed jump cuts, abruptly propelling the action from one sequence to another.

Patricia: I’m shutting my eyes tight, so everything goes black. But I can’t do it. It’s never entirely black.

Having drafted a traditional screenplay for the first 14 minutes of action, Godard dispensed with it and decided to write each day’s script the night before. He conducted only brief rehearsals, so as to encourage natural performances. Shooting days could range from 15 minutes to 12 hours, depending on how many ideas he had had that morning. 

Patricia: I was just thinking…I can’t decide.
Michel: Thinking about what?
Patricia: I don’t know. Otherwise, I wouldn’t hesitate.

Jean Seberg

Earlier this year, the only known script of ‘A Bout de Souffle’ was put up for auction. (Kim Willsher, The Guardian 20 March 2025) This document comprises just some 70 pages of Godard’s handwritten notes and synopses of various scenes.

In a 1968 edition of Cahiers du Cinéma, Godard explained his approach to writing the script. 

‘I had written the first scene and, for the rest, I had a huge number of notes corresponding to each scene. I said to myself, this is outrageous! I stopped everything. Then I thought about it … Instead of finding something a long time before, I’ll find it just before. When you know where you’re going, it should be possible. It’s not improvisation, it’s last-minute fine-tuning.’

Godard’s techniques for shooting realistic characters and spontaneous behaviour may seem familiar to us. Most movies and theatre productions today seek some sense of naturalism and authenticity. But they were revelatory 65 years ago.

Patricia: I’m not thinking about anything. I’d like to think about something, but I can’t seem to.

I’m sure there’s a lesson here for us in the world of commercial communication. Sometimes, in endeavouring to control outcomes, we can over-plan. We dissect the detail, micromanage the process, manicure the execution. At its worst, this can eradicate the opportunity for serendipity and happenstance. It asphyxiates the idea. 

Michel: Are you scared?
Patricia: It’s too late to be scared.

Perhaps we too should embrace a little Strategic Spontaneity. Instead of finding something a long time before, we should try finding it just before.

Michel: Informers inform, burglars burgle, murderers murder, lovers love.

Inevitably, at the end of 'A Bout de Souffle,' Michel gets his comeuppance. He embraces his fate like one of his film noir heroes. And he has a rare moment of clarity about his flawed relationship with Patricia.

Michel: When we talked, I talked about me and you talked about you, when we should have talked about each other.

'We say to ourselves when we are twenty,
We are the kings of the world,
And that forever
There will be in our eyеs
All of the blue sky.
It’s the timе of love,
The time of friends
And of adventure.
When time comes and goes,
We think of nothing
Although we are injured.
Because the time of love
Puts in your heart
A lot of heat
And happiness.’
Francoise Hardy, ‘Le Temps de L’Amour’ (L Morisse, A Salvet J Dutronc)(Translated)

No. 523

Hiroshige: Disposable Creativity

Utagawa Hiroshige - ‘Cherry Blossoms on a Moonless Night Along the Sumida River’ Colour woodblock print triptych 1847-48.
Photo Matsuba Ryōko

I recently attended a splendid exhibition of the woodblock prints of Utagawa Hiroshige. (‘Artist of the Open Road’ is at the British Museum, London until 7 September 2025.)

‘[My] drawings present completely true-to-life landscapes to give people just a moment
of pleasure without the inconvenience of a long journey.’
Utagawa Hiroshige

Hiroshige was born in 1797, into a low-ranking samurai family in Edo, present-day Tokyo. It was a time of social upheaval, as Japan experienced urban expansion, famine and foreign military incursions. His work, however, offered reassurance, capturing the pleasures of bustling city life, the tranquillity of remote landscapes, the quiet calm of the country’s flowers and wildlife.

‘Suffused with scent,
each falling drop of dew releases
the chrysanthemum's perfume!’
Anonymous (1700s–early 1830s) Poem inscribed on Hiroshige's 'Pheasant and chrysanthemums'
 
Early morning visitors admire the plum garden at Kameido. Pleasure boats pack the Sumida river as fireworks explode overhead. A wealthy merchant family treads carefully through the newly fallen snow. An elegantly dressed woman clutches her fan in her teeth, pausing to adjust her sash. When a sudden rainstorm catches people unawares, they scurry for shelter. Geese settle on the fields as the evening bell tolls, and cherry trees line the street in springtime. The full moon lights a view of Edo Bay.  

'The mountains of Kai Province stretch into the distance: high peaks, low valleys, the pure running waters of the Katsura River, the magnificent views changing every ten or twenty paces – beyond words to describe, beyond my poor brush to capture.’
Utagawa Hiroshige

 Utagawa Hiroshige - 'Gion Shrine in the Snow'

Hiroshige’s images are vibrant, crammed with detail and nuance. They are also observant, witty and sympathetic. Employing bold colour gradation to give the appearance of three-dimensions, he juxtaposes large foreground subjects with distant landscapes, drawing us into a scene.

‘Sailing right along
on a three-day crescent moon,
the long-eared owl longs
for an earful of music:
the pines humming in the wind.’
Hachijintei (active 1810s–30s) Poem inscribed on Hiroshige's 'Owl on pine branch'

The samurai government had banned foreign travel since the 1630s. And so, by Hiroshige's time, domestic journeys were hugely popular. People made pilgrimages, sightseeing and business trips, along the Eastern Coast Road connecting Edo with Kyoto, the emperor's capital. Or they took the more challenging Central Mountain Road through steep passes and over precarious suspension bridges.  

We see samurai lords with their attendant retinues en route to pay their respects to the shogun. Fishmongers set up their market stalls at the waystation. Crowds of female musicians flock to the shrine at Enoshima Island. Sailboats ferry travellers across the bay. Poets visiting Mount Kanō, relax at the inn after an evening bath. While outside the rain pours persistently down.  

Utagawa Hiroshige - Nihonbashi asa no kei 日本橋 朝之景 (Nihonbashi - Morning Scene)

‘These break my heart:
red leaves coating a ground of green moss,
and cool winds crossing a sky of evening rain.
Bai Juyi (AD 772–846) Poem inscribed on Hiroshige's print ‘Between the Leaves’

The mass-production of colour woodblock prints during Hiroshige’s time enabled ordinary people to buy beautifully made but disposable images at modest prices. His best-selling designs may have been printed up to 15,000 times before the woodblocks wore down. And publishers would issue multiple variants.

Hiroshige also created designs for well over 500 uchiwa, inexpensive hand-held fans. These elegant, fragile objects - oval-shaped and set on fixed ribs with a handle - were used in the warm weather for just one season and then discarded.
 

Utagawa Hiroshige - Sudden Shower over Shin-Ōhashi Bridge and Atake, 1857

I was struck by this phenomenon of Disposable Creativity: with his affordable, accessible prints, Hiroshige was producing fleeting moments of beauty for average citizens in the midst of their hectic lives. This should perhaps inspire those of us working in the contemporary communication sector. We may be engaged in hard-nosed commercial transactions. We may occupy an insignificant part of consumers’ everyday experience. But we can still aspire to leaving our audiences with a precious moment, a brief intimacy, a fragile beauty. 

‘As, throughout the night,
more and still more dew sprang up
on their horsetail mat,
the rabbit's missus likewise
could not remain long in bed.
Kawanoya Yukisa, Poem inscribed on Hiroshige's 'Rabbits and horsetail beneath the moon'

After Hiroshige's death in 1858, European and American artists and collectors admired his work as part of the nineteenth-century movement known as Japonisme. At the exhibition you can see a faded Hiroshige print owned by Van Gogh, and the meticulous trace he made of it, so as to paint his own oil copy.  Ultimately Hiroshige’s transient art has endured.

'When the night draws on,
Crevices deep down to me.
At last my memories are free,
That let my fish loose.
Trace the spiral alone,
Here in the fifth lake.
Shadows and the silence,
Time creeps on the night.
 Fish and miller or deep sea.
Fish with eyes of blue.
Feeding on the blue seeds,
Swimming through my mind.’
Nobukazu Takemura, 'Let My Fish Loose'

No. 522

Lose that Hangdog Expression: Optimists Are More Effective Workers

Winslow Homer - Hunting Dogs in Boat (Waiting for the Start)

I read recently about a study into the impact of dogs’ emotional disposition on their efficacy at work. (Rhys Blakely, The Times, 9 April 2025)

A team from the University of Bristol tested 66 sniffer dogs to establish the positivity of their outlook. Dogs were deemed to be ‘optimistic’ if, having encountered a bowl containing food in one location, they anticipated that the same bowl in a different location also contained food. 

The dogs were then set a range of sniffing tests. The optimistic dogs were discovered to be more confident and playful, and consequently more effective in the tasks.

This research tallies with my own experience in the world of work. I found that successful teams are fuelled by optimism. A sunny disposition precipitates curiosity, promotes engagement, forges partnerships. It prompts people to go the extra mile and sustains them through tough times. Indeed, I would go so far as to say: positive people have bigger, better ideas.

'Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.’
Groucho Marx

Having said this, the University of Bristol researchers observed that pessimistic dogs do have their value. Downbeat dogs are more cautious when making decisions, and so in the trial they gave fewer ‘false positives’: they were less likely to indicate incorrectly that something smelt suspicious.

We should perhaps conclude that, while high performance teams should for the most part be made up of optimists, they should also contain a few pessimists. The occasional sceptic challenges assumptions, provokes debate and insures against groupthink.

'The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true.’
J Robert Oppenheimer

'Black eyed dog, he called at my door.
The black eyed dog, he called for more.
A black eyed dog, he knew my name.
I'm growing old and I want to go home.
I'm growing old and I don't want to know.
I'm growing old and I want to go home.
Black eyed dog, he called at my door.
The black eyed dog, he called for more.’

Nick Drake, 'Black Eyed Dog'

No. 521

Luther Vandross: Make It Your Own

I enjoyed a recent documentary about the life and work of Luther Vandross. (‘Luther: Never Too Much’, 2024, directed by Dawn Porter)

‘I want to be remembered as a premier singer of our day, not as the love doctor.’
Luther Vandross

Vandross was a soul singer, songwriter, arranger and producer. Gifted with a smooth velvet tenor voice, which could quiver excitedly and then settle securely on a simple refrain, he sang of love sought, cherished and lost, and so charmed his way into the hearts of millions. His career was marked by single-mindedness and self-belief; by pragmatism and versatility; and by an ability to seize new opportunities in his own distinctive style. 

‘I’m going to focus my entire life and whole energy into [music]. And there is no other consideration. So rejection will just have to happen. And if it happens, it’ll happen, and I’ll keep on going.’

'All of the band was on time for rehearsal
And played everything just right.
Then came the news telling me not to worry,
The show is selling out tonight.
Well, the lights went on, and suddenly the crowd began to scream,
And as you could well imagine, it was like living a dream.
Oh, but when the lights went down and the standing "O" was done,
I was just another lonely guy who didn't have no one.
Give me your love, give me your love, give me your love.
I wanted your love, your love baby, your love baby, your love.’
‘I Wanted Your Love'

Vandross was born in Manhattan in 1951. Though his beloved father, an upholsterer and singer, died of diabetes when he was 8, he had a happy childhood.

‘The funniest thing is, if there’s enough love in your house and in your home and in your life, poor, rich, none of that stuff registers.’

Raised by his mother, a nurse, on the Lower East Side and then the Bronx, Vandross delighted in watching Motown acts on the TV and drew pictures of the Supremes in art class. Having taught himself to play piano by ear, his love of music was crystalised when his sisters took him aged 13 to see Dionne Warwick at the Apollo Theater, Harlem. 

‘I knew from that moment that I wanted to be able to affect people the way that she affected me that day.’

With high school friends, Vandross formed the Shades of Jade, insisting that they each invest $23 on emerald-green patent leather shoes. He performed at the Apollo as part of the vocal harmony act Listen My Brother, and subsequently appeared with the group in the first season of Sesame Street. He dropped out of Western Michigan University so as to pursue his career.

‘I really did not want a Plan B. I said it’s going to be this or I’m going to be 80 trying to do it.’

Gradually Vandross made a name for himself as a backing singer. During the recording of the soul-inflected 1975 album ‘Young Americans’, David Bowie was so impressed with Vandross’ ability to make up vocal parts on the spot, that he asked him to arrange the whole album, and adapted one of Vandross’ songs into ‘Fascination.’  

David Bowie and Luther Vandross

For much of the ‘70s Vandross provided backing vocals for the great talents of the day, including Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway, Chaka Khan, Bette Midler, Diana Ross, Carly Simon, Barbra Streisand, Donna Summer, Chic and Sister Sledge. He also took lucrative work singing advertising jingles - for brands such as Miller and Lowenbrau beers, Mountain Dew and Juicy Fruit; NBC, KFC and Burger King. When asked to communicate that Gino’s Pizza was sizzling hot, he invented his signature quivering vocal styling.

Throughout this period, Vandross worked hard and earned good money. And yet solo success did not come easily, and his efforts with his own band Luther were unsuccessful.

‘I have a sound in my head, and I want to get it out.’

All started to change when Vandross featured as lead singer on two 1980 hits by the French-Italian studio group Change. ‘The Glow of Love’ and ‘Searching’ were propulsive dance numbers that perfectly showcased his smooth, sensuous vocal delivery. The band wanted him to sign on for a second album, but he resisted.

‘Flower's blooming, morning dew
And the beauty seems to say,
It's a pleasure when you treasure
All that's new and true and gay.
Easy living and we're giving
What we know we're dreaming of.
We are one having fun
Walking in the glow of love.’
Change, 'The Glow of Love' (D Romani / M Malavasi / W K Garfield)

Finally, Roberta Flack, on hearing Vandross conducting a phenomenal sound check for one of her gigs, insisted that he make his own way in the world.

‘Luther Vandross likes to say that I fired him. But I never really fired him. What I did was encourage him to believe in his own ability to produce his first album.’
Roberta Flack

At last Vandross broke through on his own terms. He recorded a succession of stunningly good modern soul albums, channelling the sophisticated spirit of the Philadelphia sound. These records featured irresistible floor-fillers and heart-rending romantic ballads: ‘Never Too Much’, ‘I Wanted Your Love’, ‘I’ll Let You Slide’, '’Til My Baby Comes Home.’

Vandross then set about organising his legendary touring act. Wearing sequinned sports jackets and spangly shirts, silk bow ties and flamboyant pocket handkerchiefs; with carefully choreographed dance routines from glamorously attired backing singers, he put on a show. In the pursuit of excellence, he could be a hard taskmaster.

‘Excuse me. I’m not playing the lottery. Get it right!’

In the documentary Vandross’ long-term bassist and writing partner, Marcus Miller, observes that Vandross kept his musicians in check too. 

‘There’s one point in the song [‘Superstar'] where he goes: ‘Keep it right there. Keep it right there.’ …He was telling me and the rest of the guys who like to play jazz: Don’t jazz this thing up. Keep it right there. Play it easy.’
Marcus Miller

Luther’s second album

'Long ago
And oh so far away,
I fell In love with you
Before the second show.
And your guitar
And you sound so sweet and clear,
But you're not really here.
It's just the radio.’
‘Superstar' (L Russell, B Bramlett)

Vandross was a master of the cover version, recording distinctive interpretations of the Temptations’ ‘Since I Lost My Baby’, The Carpenters’ ‘Superstar’, Brenda Russell’s ‘If Only for One Night,’ and Dionne Warwick’s ‘Anyone Who Has a Heart.’  

‘I try to do songs that I think I can do differently, that I think fit me. Sort of like when somebody chooses what to wear when they are going to go to the Academy Awards or something. They choose that special thing.’

At the 1987 NAACP Image Awards, Vandross performed an extraordinary rendition of the Bacharach and David song ‘A House Is Not a Home’ - with Dionne Warwick, who originally made the number famous, present in the audience. On film you can see her joy as Vandross puts his own individual stamp on the classic number. Finally, overwhelmed, she wipes a tear from her eye.

‘What I loved more than anything else about hearing the songs that he decided he wanted to record of mine, was that he made them his own.’
Dionne Warwick

I was quite struck by Warwick’s observation. In the world of commercial creativity, we often inherit other people’s concepts. We are asked to reinvent or reinvigorate an incumbent campaign, to breathe new life into a tired brand. We have to pick up where others have left off. Vandross teaches us that we should always seek to stamp our work with our own identity, enhancing it with our own ideas and interpretations. We should strive to make it our own.

‘A chair is still a chair, even when there's no one sitting there.
But a chair is not a house, and a house is not a home,
When there's no one there to hold you tight,
And no one there you can kiss goodnight.
A room is still a room, even when there's nothing there but gloom.
But a room is not a house and a house is not a home,
When the two of us are far apart
And one of us has a broken heart.’
’A House Is Not a Home’ (B Bacharach / H David)

Every year from 1981 to 1994, Vandross achieved at least one top 10 R&B hit, and he went on to achieve hitherto elusive crossover success. He worked with his heroes - Dionne Warwick, Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder - and collaborated with the next generation of female R&B singers - Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson. 

‘Fame and fortune… Fortune is cool, fame is not always so cool.’
Marcus Miller

And yet Vandross was a troubled man. He was unlucky in love and uncomfortable discussing his sexuality. He revealed that his most personal lyric was in his song ‘Any Love.’

‘I speak to myself sometimes, and I say, "Oh my,
In a lot of ways, you're a lucky guy,
And now all you need is a chance to try any love."
In my heart there's a need to shout,
Dying, screaming, crying “Let me out”,
Are all those feelings that want to touch
Any love?’
‘Any Love'

From an early age Vandross struggled with his weight, and periodically he went on crash diets. The media speculated endlessly about his sexuality and his see-sawing waistline. 

‘I was an emotional eater. If the music wasn’t sounding right, I ate to cope. Any excuse I could use, I would use to eat.’

Suffering from diabetes and hypertension, in 2003 Vandross had a severe stroke and fell into a coma for nearly two months. He died from a heart attack in 2005, at the age of 54.

Luther Vandross was a luminous talent, whose work still provides the soundtrack to our romances, celebrations and heartbreaks. His songs lift our spirits, gladden our hearts, and sustain us through tough times. He coaches us to be determined in pursuing a vision, to be agile in delivering a strategy; to be distinctive in execution. But there is another lesson to be taken from his life: we should appreciate people’s privacy; rein in our prurient curiosity. We should show some respect.

'I can't fool myself, I don't want nobody else to ever love me.
You are my shining star, my guiding light, my love fantasy.
There's not a minute, hour, day or night that I don't love you.
You're at the top of my list 'cause I'm always thinking of you.
I still remember in the days when I was scared to touch you,
How I spent my daydreaming planning how to say I love you.
You must have known that I had feelings deep enough to swim in.
That's when you opened up your heart, and you told me to come in.
A thousand kisses from you is never too much,
I just don't wanna stop.
Oh, my love
A million days in your arms is never too much.
I just don't wanna stop.
Too much, never too much, never too much, never too much.’
‘Never Too Much'

No. 520

The Untimely End to Claire’s Netball Career: Are You a Hands-On or Hands-Off Manager?

What Shall We Wear? The 1930’s Kit Debate

I was on the travelator at Waterloo station, walking behind two young women. They were clearly good friends, catching up, talking jauntily, laughing giddily. I couldn’t help overhearing a segment of their conversation.

Emily: I remember you were pretty good at netball at school, Claire. Why did you give it up?

Claire: Yes, I was excellent at netball, Emily. But one day Mrs Eliot, the PE teacher, had a real go at me for not competing enough. It’s true: I was basically just hanging around on the edge of the court. But Mrs Eliot shouted out in front of everyone: ‘Claire, you’re not doing anything!’ I kept my dignity, of course, and replied: ‘Mrs Eliot, I’m performing a management role. I’ve stepped back from frontline activities.’… And that was the end of my netball career.

With this the two young women chuckled and marched off towards the Northern Line.

Claire’s anecdote poses an interesting question: how much should promoted managers withdraw from, or stay involved in, core business tasks?

'Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done.'
Peter Drucker, Management Theorist 

Classically speaking, when you take a step up to a management role, you must also take a step back: setting the strategy, directing teams to deliver that strategy; empowering, encouraging and inspiring.

If you remain too hands-on, you risk getting in the way, cramping people’s style. The hands-on manager can sometimes paralyse a business, suppressing initiative, reducing self-confidence. People become afraid to act without specific instruction and approval.

'It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do. We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.’
Steve Jobs, Apple

And yet, if you step too far back from the day-to-day tasks, there’s another risk. You begin to lose touch with the ever-evolving market. Your views on the competitive landscape are pickled in the past. You become a little more assumptive about how things will play out. And your credibility with your team members begins to erode. Rust never sleeps.

'This is not a business where you can hand off and run by remote control.’
David Neeleman, Breeze Airways

I once approached my shrewd boss Simon Sherwood with a proposal to take a broader, more strategic role in the Agency. I’d had my fill of troublesome Clients, tedious meetings and tiresome pitches. I wanted to apply myself to more cerebral activity.
Simon regarded me with cool-eyed detachment:

‘Always remember, Jim, if you’re not facing income, you’re entirely expendable.’

I gave up on my proposal and returned to my desk. 

'My my, hey hey.
Rock and roll is here to stay.
It's better to burn out than to fade away.
My my, hey hey.
Out of the blue and into the black.
They give you this, but you pay for that.
And once you're gone you can never come back.
When you're out of the blue and into the black.
The king is gone but he's not forgotten.
This is the story of a Johnny Rotten.
It's better to burn out than it is to rust.
The king is gone but he's not forgotten.
Hey hey, my my.
Rock and roll can never die
There's more to the picture than meets the eye
Hey hey, my my.’
Neil Young, 'My My, Hey, Hey’ (Out of the Blue)

No. 519

Victor Hugo: The Creative Digression

Victor Hugo - The Town of Viandan with Stone Cross

I recently visited a fascinating exhibition of the drawings of Victor Hugo. (‘Astonishing Things’ is at The Royal Academy, London until 29 June, 2025.)

'There is nothing like a dream to create the future.’
Victor Hugo

Hugo was a renowned nineteenth century novelist, the author of ‘The Hunchback of Notre-Dame’ and ‘Les Misérables.’ He was also a poet, playwright and politician. And he was a talented artist.

Working in charcoal, pencil, and pen and ink, Hugo created satirical caricatures to share with friends and family. He also sketched extensively in his travel journals: detailed depictions of landscapes, windmills, cobbled streets and stairwells. A committed Romantic, he was particularly fond of drawing mournful gothic castles and turbulent ocean scenes. Here are spires, towers and turrets, shrouded in mist, looming over the villages beneath. Here are breakwaters, cliffs and causeways; shipwrecks, serpents and storm-tossed seas. 

'Even the darkest night will end, and the sun will rise.’

Hugo’s images could be rather gloomy. A disembodied hand reaches for the sky. A spider weaves its web while a town sleeps in the background. A toxic machineel tree throws a skull-shaped shadow. A mushroom cloud with a mysterious human face rises above the desolate countryside.

 'Those who do not weep do not see.’

Victor Hugo - The Town of Vianden Seen Through a Spider’s Web, 1871

Hugo held strong political views. A royalist in his youth, he became an ardent republican, living in exile on the Channel Islands for nearly 20 years because of his opposition to Napoleon III. He imagined a United States of Europe, campaigned for the abolition of slavery and advocated the preservation of historic architecture.

'Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.’

Hugo was also strongly opposed to the death penalty. After the 1854 execution in Guernsey of a convicted murderer, he made a series of drawings of a hanged man, notably a work he titled ‘Ecce Lex’ (‘behold the law’). A few years later he gave permission for this image to be made into a print protesting against the execution of an American anti-slavery activist. 

Victor Hugo - Octopus, 1866–69

'No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.’

Hugo’s enquiring mind prompted him to conduct seances in the hope of contacting the spirits of the dead. He experimented with inkblots, fingerprints and rubbings; stencils, silhouettes and collage. He redesigned his own home. He collected and signed pebbles, and created pure abstract forms, which he termed ‘caches’ (‘stains’ or ‘accidental marks’). 

Hugo was also interested in unconscious creativity. Deliberately letting his hand move freely over paper, he would draw meandering pencil lines that suggested comical, sinister, outlandish creatures, an imagination running wild. Similar ‘automatic’ processes were adopted by the Surrealists in the 1920s.

'A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is visible labour and there is invisible labour.' 

Though they pursued Romantic themes, Hugo’s drawings rarely had any direct connection to his literary work. I suspect that his sketching was the product of a restless brain, a welcome alternative outlet for his ideas. They were in a sense a Creative Digression, a temporary departure, an opportunity to flex different imaginative muscles.

'Not being heard is no reason for silence.'

I was reminded of Joni Mitchell’s decision periodically to suspend her songwriting in favour of painting. Similarly, the poet Sylvia Plath painted and sketched throughout her life. Such parallel processes can enrich each other.

'An intelligent hell would be better than a stupid paradise.'

Victor Hugo, Taches-Planètes c 1850

 Perhaps anyone working in a creative profession should consider sometimes switching out of their chosen mode and medium, taking a break from the relentless quest for excellence, allowing the mind to run free for a while. We could all benefit from a Creative Digression. 

'Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace.'

'If you kissed the sun right out of the sky for me,
And if you told me all the lies that I deserve,
And if you laid all night in the rain for me,
Well, I couldn't love you more,
Just couldn't love you more,
I couldn't love you more.
And if you loved me 'til my eyes gave no more shine for you,
If you walked beside me all the long way home,
And if you wasted all of your time on me,
Well, I couldn't love you more,
Just couldn't love you more,
I couldn't love you more,
Just couldn't love you more.

And if you gave me all the things I'd never ask of you,
And if you showed me all the ways you have to cry,
And if you laid all night in the rain for me,
I couldn't love you more,
Just couldn't love you more,
Just couldn't love you more.’

John Martyn, ‘Couldn’t Love You More'

No. 518

Mary Tyler Moore: Authority May Be Conferred, But Leadership Must Be Earned

Still from: 05) Episode 8: “The Snow Must Go On” (Aired: 11/07/70 | Filmed: 08/14/70)

Mary: Mr Grant, you don’t seem to understand. In order to be in charge, you have to be able to exert authority. I’ve never been any good at that.

I’ve recently been re-watching one of my favourite TV comedies, The Mary Tyler Moore Show. 

Created by James L Brooks and Allan Burns, the series ran on CBS in the United States from 1970 to 1977. Mary Tyler Moore plays Mary Richards, a 30-year-old independent woman who, after a broken engagement, has moved to Minneapolis. There she gets a job as an associate producer on the news programme at local TV station WJM. 

In the opening title sequence, to the mellow tones of Sonny Curtis singing ‘Love Is All Around,' we see Mary driving her white Ford Mustang to Minneapolis, walking happily around the lakes and shopping streets, gleefully throwing her blue tam o’ shanter into the air.

Mary is a smart, optimistic, considerate Midwesterner, with magnificent fashion.  In brightly coloured shirt dresses, turtlenecks and trouser suits, she navigates the challenges of volatile office politics, unpredictable friendships and romantic entanglements, with grace, wit and fortitude.

 Lou: Mary, when someone does a terrific job, I believe in letting them know it….Good work, Murray!

 In Series 1 Episode 8 (‘The Snow Must Go On’) Mary is asked by her boss, tough but kind-hearted producer Lou Grant (Ed Asner), to take charge of the studio floor on the critical night of the Minneapolis city elections.

Mary faces a crisis of confidence.

Mary: You want me to be in charge, but that’s your job.
Lou: No, my job is telling you what your job is… Look, if it’s a question of extra money.
Mary: No, it’s not a question of money.
Lou: Good, cos there isn’t any.

Despite Lou’s belief in Mary’s ability, she continues to resist.

Mary: Mr Grant, really, I’ve never been any good at exerting authority. They’re probably not even going to listen to me.
Lou: What d’you say?

Mary’s concerns seem to be realised when, on taking to the studio floor, everyone ignores her.

Floor Manager: Who OK’ed this material?
Mary: Well, I did.
Floor Manager: What about Lou?
Mary: Well, I’m sort of in charge of the show tonight.
Newswriter: You’re in what?
Mary: Charge

The news coverage is fronted by vain, dim-witted anchorman Ted Baxter (Ted Knight). With slick hair, golden tan and bright blue blazer, he relies a little too heavily on his cue cards.

Ted: Welcome to WJM’s continuous election night coverage. And remember: We’ll stay on air until a winner is declared. Takes off glasses… Looks concerned.

To add to Mary’s problems, a state-wide blizzard wreaks havoc on the studio’s technology. The teletype system malfunctions, the phones go down, and Ted is forced to ad lib. He explains what the letters WJM stand for, does impressions of Hollywood screen idols, recites recipes and sings Danny Boy. And all the time the Mayoral votes are stuck on Turner 85, Mitchell 23.  

Ted: I need new numbers. I can’t ad lib any more!

Through all this, Mary uses her charm to coax and cajole Ted to persevere. 

And then, at 2-30 AM, the exhausted and dejected team hear that Channel 3 has announced Turner as the winner. They demand that they do the same, so that they can sign off for the night.

Mary puts her foot down. They owe it to their viewers to wait for an official outcome. It would be dishonest to do otherwise. Faced with a restless workforce, she holds her ground.

Mary: Ted, if you declare a winner now, you’re fired.

Reluctantly the studio team gets back to work, and improvises a show. 

Finally, at 6-30 AM, they learn that the blizzard has calmed, and Mitchell, not Turner, has been officially declared winner.

Mary has been vindicated.

In just 25 minutes, this episode has demonstrated, with humour and style, a simple truth of working life. Authority may be conferred by a role or job title. But true leadership must be earned - by strength of character, by unifying and motivating, by making difficult decisions, by navigating a storm.

Mary: I guess I’m not so bad at being in charge after all.

'How will you make it on your own?
This world is awfully big,
And girl this time you’re all alone.
But it's time you started living,
It's time you let someone else do some giving.
Love is all around, no need to fake it.
You can have the town, why don't you take it.
You might just make it after all!’
Sonny Curtis, ‘Love Is All Around'

No. 517

Edvard Munch: The Anatomist of the Soul

Ill.23 The Anatomist Kristian Schreiner I 1928-29

I recently enjoyed an exhibition of portraits by Edvard Munch. (The National Portrait Gallery, London until 15 June.)

Munch is renowned for his images of anguish and alienation. But over his long career he also painted many intimate portraits of family, friends, lovers and patrons, along with a good number of self-portraits. 

Born in 1863 in the Norwegian village of Ådalsbruk, Munch came from a distinguished family of clerics and had an austere religious upbringing. When he was 5 his mother died of tuberculosis, and his older sister subsequently fell victim to the same disease - prompting a lifelong preoccupation with mortality.

'From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them, and that is eternity.’ 

In a naturalistic style, Munch paints his grey-bearded father puffing on a pipe, avoiding his son’s gaze. His soberly dressed aunt, black hair neatly tied, also looks down. His brother, studying to become a doctor, works with a skull on his desk. Here’s sister Laura on summer holiday by a lake. In blue striped dress and straw sun hat, she stares into the distance as the evening light fades. You can just make out the ghostly figure of another sister standing nearby. Munch has painted over her, emphasising Laura’s isolation.

 'Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye... It also includes the inner pictures of the soul.’

Edvard Munch - Evening (1888)

We see the Bohemian writers and artists with whom Munch socialised in Kristiania (modern day Oslo), Paris and Berlin. In gloomy cafes they discuss free love, atheism and women’s emancipation over cigarettes and alcohol. Artist Karl Jensen-Hjell leans nonchalantly on a walking stick, a cigar in his gloved hand. In jade green jacket and fedora, anarchist Hans Jaeger looks tired and sceptical, seated on his own with a drink to-hand. Playwright August Strindberg, with high forehead, buttoned up and serious, regards us with a severe stare. 

Munch was fond of double portraits, and here’s one of married couple Aase and Harald Norregaard - he in profile, she fixing us with her bright blue eyes. Aase was one of the few women in Munch’s life that didn’t threaten or disturb him. 

Munch called his work ‘soul art,’ since he was seeking to reveal inner feelings and motivations; to convey psychological intensity. In a lithograph self-portrait his disembodied head emerges from the black background with a blank expression, a skeleton arm running along the bottom of the frame. He was often prone to melancholy.

‘The greatest colour is black…It is the tabula rasa for pure expression. Nothing prostitutes it.

Edvard Munch - Hans Jaeger

Gradually Munch made a name for himself, and was commissioned to paint portraits by wealthy, liberal collectors. His naturalistic technique gave way to a more expressive style of bright colours and energetic brushstrokes. 

Munch was certainly not seeking to flatter his sitters.

'When I paint a person, his enemies always find the portrait a good likeness.'

With folded arms, banker Ernest Thiel looks proud and defensive. Painted against a bright red background, physicist Felix Auerbach is caught as if in conversation. 

Here’s a dandy in a white suit, the artist Ludvig Karsten, with whom Munch had a fractious relationship.

‘Strange guy that Karsten – the big wide-brimmed hat tilted to one side – that slightly roguish expression. The mouth always ready for some sarcasm.’

Edvard Munch - Ludvig Karsten

In his later years Munch asked his friend, the anatomist Kristian Schreiner, to take him to the morgue, so that he could observe an autopsy. In a subsequent lithograph, Munch portrayed Schreiner standing over the artist’s own dead body. Schreiner later recollected that Munch said:   

‘Here are two anatomists sitting together; one of the body, one of the soul. I am perfectly aware that you would like to dissect me, but be careful. I too have my knives.’

I like this thought.

In the world of commercial communication, we are often on transmit: presenting, projecting, persuading. Sometimes we would be wise to step back; withdraw, observe and listen; scrutinise and survey. 

Like Munch we too should seek to be ‘anatomists of the soul.’

'Doctor, my eyes have seen the years
And the slow parade of fears, without crying.
Now I want to understand.
I have done all that I could
To see the evil and the good without hiding.
You must help me if you can.
Doctor, my eyes
Tell me what is wrong.
Was I unwise
To leave them open for so long?
Because I have wandered through this world
And as each moment has unfurled
I've been waiting to awaken from these dreams.
People go just where they will,
I never noticed them until I got this feeling
That it's later than it seems.
Doctor, my eyes
Tell me what you see.
I hear their cries
Just say if it's too late for me.'
Jackson Browne, 'Doctor My Eyes'

No. 516