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

Sidney Poitier: The Lonely Leader

Sidney Poitier. Photograph: Bob Adelman/AP

Interviewer: You were here in search of fame and fortune.
Poitier: I was here in search.

The 2022 documentary ‘Sidney’, directed by Reginald Hudlin, tells the story of Sidney Poitier, actor, film director and activist.

‘I never thought about what I looked like. I would only see what I was.’

Curious to learn, determined to succeed, resolute in the face of bigotry, Poitier played a succession of compelling film roles in the 1950s and ‘60s, that forged a path for Black actors in the decades that followed. As a Hollywood pioneer, he had to navigate without maps, to plot his own route through the political and social dilemmas of the time. He prompts us to reflect on the loneliness of leadership and the enduring role of values in decision making.

‘I am artist, man, American, contemporary. I am an awful lot of things. So I wish you would pay me the respect due.’

Born in 1927, in Miami, Florida, the youngest of seven children, Poitier was raised on Cat Island in the Bahamas, where his father was a tomato farmer.

‘The world I knew was quite simple. I didn’t know there was such a thing as electricity. I didn’t know that there was such a thing as having water come into the house in a pipe. I learned by observation what the world was like. I saw creatures, I saw birds and I had to figure out for myself what they were.’

When Poitier was 10 years-old, his family moved to Nassau, where he saw his first car, mirror and movie. He fell in with some rough kids, and so was sent to Miami to live with his brother's family. It was here, aged 15, that he had his first experience of racism.

‘From the time I got off the boat, Florida began to say to me: you’re not who you think you are.’

 After run-ins with the Ku Klux Klan and the local police, Poitier realised he had to get out of town.

‘Within a matter of a few months, I had to kind of switch my whole view of life. I began to learn who had the power, and I would witness the application of that power.’

Still from The Defiant Ones - Sidney Potier and Tony Curtis

Arriving in New York, Poitier slept in a toilet cubical at the bus station and found a job washing dishes. Having seen an ad in the paper, he applied for a role as an actor at the American Negro Theatre, where he was auditioned by the founder Frederick O’Neal.

‘He said: ‘Why don’t you stop wasting people’s time and go get yourself a job as a dishwasher or something?’ That’s the moment I became an actor.’

Poitier’s mind was made up. Every night an elderly Jewish waiter at the bar-and-grill where he was working helped him to improve his reading with the aid of a newspaper. And he studied the radio broadcaster Norman Brokenshire in order to remodel his Bahamian accent. 

‘I was born with a curiosity that got me into an awful lot of trouble when I was a kid, but it certainly stood me in good stead when I became an adult. I hope that curiosity stays with me all my life.’ 

At length, Poitier was admitted to the American Negro Theater, where he was spotted by a producer and given a leading role in a Broadway play. This in turn led to him being scouted by 20th Century Fox, who offered him a screen test in Hollywood.

‘Acting offered me an area where I could be an exhibitionist, where I could give vent to some of my frustrations, where I could pour out some of my confusion and other ills into a fictitious character. I thought: this is something that gives me a badge of distinction. I can be many things here. And the areas of life – socially and otherwise – that were restricted to me, I had ways of retaliating in this kind of illusion.’

The Poster for Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

In Poitier’s first major role, ‘No Way Out’ (1950), he played a young doctor in an LA hospital tending to a white bigot. The part broke with the film convention of characterising Black people as funny, lazy or stupid.

‘There were people in the industry who didn’t have the courage to make a film like that about Black people. There was a habit pattern of utilising Blacks in the most disrespectful way.’

Despite his breakthrough, Poitier soon found himself back in New York washing dishes. 

‘I still had faith in myself and faith in the future.’

Poitier was not prepared to take any role. He turned down a part in ‘The Phenix City Story’ (1955), because it required him to play a janitor whose murdered daughter was thrown on the lawn. There was no opportunity for his character to respond.

Poitier asked himself what his father would have done in the same position.

‘Reginald Poitier would never have allowed a child of his to be thrown on the lawn and not have something to say about it.’

This recourse to his parents’ values was to guide Poitier as he encountered challenges and choices throughout his career.

 ‘I cannot play that if I’m the son of the man I believe I am. I could not play that if my mother is the mother that I think she was.’

Poitier also had to reckon with the Cold War paranoia about communism that had swept the nation in the 1950s. As a friend and admirer of the singer, actor and activist Paul Robeson, he was monitored by the authorities. When he played a tough juvenile in the school drama ‘Blackboard Jungle’ (1955), he was asked to sign a loyalty oath. He refused.

‘There are some things that you have to say ‘no’ to. My integrity was more important than to play politics.’

Poitier pressed on. In the 1958 movie ‘The Defiant Ones,’ he and Tony Curtis were cast as two escaped convicts shackled to each other and forced to cooperate in order to survive.  

Joker: You know what I mean, boy? 
Noah: Yeah. And I got a needle sticking in me right now. Joker, don't call me ‘boy’.

In the closing scene, Poitier’s character spurns an opportunity to escape on his own, so as to save his white friend. Some in the Black community felt this was a sell-out. He was to face such scrutiny throughout his career. 

Still from In The Heat of the Night - Sidney Potier and Rod Steiger

Poitier continued to take roles that dealt with race and equality. The film version of  the Lorraine Hansberry play ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ (1961) shone a light on the lives of a Black Chicago family coming to terms with issues around housing, financial opportunity and assimilation. And ‘Paris Blues’ (1961) (in which he featured alongside Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Louis Armstrong and Diahann Carroll) contrasted American racism with Paris's open acceptance of Black people.

‘Through the eyes of the average American, unfortunately, it was impossible for them to see me.’

Ultimately it was a rather sweet role that earned Poitier an Academy Award for Best Actor. In 1963’s ‘Lilies of the Field’ he starred as an itinerant worker who helps some nuns build a chapel. He was the first Black male to win the Oscar.

‘It was a turning point, truly a turning point, in a Hollywood that had chosen to articulate us, Black people, as entirely different than we were.’

As the Civil Rights struggle intensified, Poitier joined other actors on marches and in TV interviews. (They included Sammy Davis Jr, Marlon Brando, Diahann Caroll, Charlton Heston, Burt Lancaster, Lena Horne, Paul Newman. and his great friend Harry Belafonte.) While on one voter registration initiative in Mississippi, Ku Klux Klan members tried to drive Belafonte and Poitier off the road.

‘I became interested in the Civil Rights struggle out of the necessity to survive.’

1967 was a landmark year for Poitier, as he starred in three commercially and critically successful movies. Dressed in a dark suit, crisp white shirt and narrow tie, he looked elegant, graceful, precise and composed. He sported a stern, reflective expression, which could at any moment break into a luminous smile.

In ‘To Sir, with Love’, defying the convention of the wise white mentor, Poitier played a teacher at a tough school in the East End of London. In ‘In the Heat of the Night’, he was Virgil Tibbs, a Philadelphia detective investigating a Mississippi murder, alongside a prejudiced police officer (Rod Steiger).

Gillespie: Virgil? That's a funny name for a n****r boy that comes from Philadelphia. What do they call you up there?
Virgil Tibbs: They call me Mister Tibbs!

‘In the Heat of the Night’ featured a scene in a hothouse where a plantation owner slaps Tibbs in the face. In the original script Tibbs was to respond by walking stoically out. Poitier demanded that his character should strike the plantation owner back. It was a slap that was heard around the world.

In the third of the three classic 1967 movies, the social drama ‘Guess Who's Coming to Dinner’, Poitier played a man in a relationship with a white woman (Katharine Houghton), who brings him home to meet her parents (Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy). It was extremely rare for any movie at the time to depict an interracial romance. Marriage between the races had historically been illegal in most states in the US, and was still illegal in 17 states until June 1967 (six months before the film was released). 

 John: Dad, you're my father. I'm your son. I love you. I always have and I always will. But you think of yourself as a colored man. I think of myself as a man.

Looking back at Poitier’s career, it’s striking how he was constantly confronted with dilemmas over roles, scripts and characterisation. Words and gestures, relationships and motivations, actions and reactions were all weighted with meaning. He was always having to judge where to draw the line.

’I think it’s all too easy for anyone not a participant in the cultural clashes of that era to unfairly dismiss films like ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,’ forgetting just how revolutionary they were in the context of their times.’

Those times were changing. Following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr in 1968, there were riots in cities across America. Belafonte and Poitier fell out over Belafonte’s proposal for a rally in Atlanta. Poitier thought it would be a distraction. The two didn’t talk for years.

‘It’s difficult when you’re carrying other people’s dreams. So you have to hold onto the dream that’s inside yourself, and know that if you are true to that, that’s really all that matters.’

Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte

The era of Civil Rights evolved into the era of Black Power. In the early ‘70s Black audiences chose to watch Blaxploitation movies like ‘Shaft’ and ‘Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song.’ These featured tough Black protagonists in gritty urban settings; storylines with violence, sex and drugs. Poitier’s noble, besuited, idealized characters suddenly seemed less relevant.

‘Given the quickly changing social currents, there was more than a little dissatisfaction rising up against me in certain quarters of the Black community, a cultural wave that would crest when the New York Times published an article titled ‘Why Do White Folks Love Sidney Poitier So?’ According to a certain taste, I was an Uncle Tom, even a ‘house negro’, for playing roles that were non-threatening for white audiences, for playing the noble negro who fulfils white liberal fantasies.’

Poitier wanted to play more varied parts. But, as the only major actor of African descent being cast in leading roles at the time, he also felt obliged to set an example. 

‘If the fabric of the society were different, I would scream to high heaven to play villains and to deal with different images of Negro life that would be more dimensional . . . But I'll be damned if I do that at this stage of the game. Not when there is only one Negro actor working in films with any degree of consistency.’

Poitier felt trapped and isolated.

Interviewer: Did you feel that pressure?
Poitier: You can’t help but feel it. You know it’s there all the time. You know that there is a community of people watching to see if you carry a banner that they feel is close to their hearts and to determine whether you are representative of their imagery of you, whether you should be welcomed or not.
Interviewer: Was it lonely?
Poitier: Of course it was lonely. It was lonely.

Poitier played Tibbs in a couple of sequels to ‘In the Heat of the Night,’ but from this point on, he took fewer acting roles. 
 
‘I’ve climbed all the mountains I intended as an actor.’

Sidney Poitier, center, supporting the Poor People's Campaign at Resurrection City, a shantytown set up by protesters in Washington, D.C., in May 1968.
Chester Sheard / Getty Images

In 1969, along with Barbra Streisand and Paul Newman, Poitier formed First Artists Production Company, with a view to developing movie projects for themselves. He made a point of employing Black people behind the camera as well as in front of it. 

‘What we all really wanted was to be able to make movies of our choice, make them ourselves, choose the material.’

In 1972 Poitier made his directorial debut with a Western that focused on the relationship between Black Americans and Native Americans in the nineteenth century: ‘Buck and the Preacher.’ He went on to direct a series of successful comedies: ‘Uptown Saturday Night’ (1974), ‘Let's Do It Again’ (1975) , ‘A Piece of the Action (1977), ’Stir Crazy (1980).

‘The comedies that I made, we tried to design them so that the people who are going to sit there are going to see themselves in an embracing way.’

In 2002, Poitier received the Honorary Academy Award for his contribution to American cinema. Later in the ceremony, Denzel Washington won the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance in ‘Training Day’, becoming the second Black actor to win. In his victory speech, Washington acknowledged Poitier:

‘I'll always be chasing you, Sidney. I'll always be following in your footsteps. There's nothing I would rather do, sir.’

Poitier died in 2022, at the age of 94.

‘I truly, truly try to be a better person tomorrow than I was today. Not a better actor, but just a better human being. And when I die, I will not be afraid of having lived.’

Sidney Poitier was a man of great talent and integrity. He broke down barriers and beat a path for others to follow. As a pioneer, he was endlessly confronted with dilemmas, and forced to calibrate his decisions on his own. He was the Lonely Leader, demonstrating that a set of deeply held values can help steer a course through troubled waters. 

‘Everything I knew in terms of values, in terms of right and wrong, in terms of who I was values-wise, had to come from my parents. I was always watching them, their treatment of each other, how they cared for each other, how they behaved with their friends, how they behaved with other people in the village. And I would behave as close to that as I could. Because I would see the results of their behaviour.’

'The time has come
For closing books and long last looks must end.
And as I leave
I know that I am leaving my best friend.
A friend who taught me right from wrong,
And weak from strong.
That's a lot to learn,
What can I give you in return?
If you wanted the moon,
I would try to make a start.
But I would rather you let me give my heart.
‘To sir, with love.’’
Lulu, 'To Sir with Love'  (D Black / M London)

No. 515

Sienese Painting: ‘One Must Worship Him and Not This Wood’

Lando di Pietro, Head of Christ (Fragment of a Crucifix) (1338). Detail from Photo by Ben Davis.

I recently visited an excellent exhibition that gathers the work of four artists working in Siena in the first half of the 14th century. (‘Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300-1350’ is at the National Gallery, London until 22 June.)

With tender expressions, intimate gestures and garments of glistening gold, Sienese painters humanised the bible stories and introduced visual storytelling to Western art. Duccio, Simone Martini and the brothers Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti opened the doors to the Renaissance.

By the late 1200s Siena was thriving. Situated on the pilgrimage route between Canterbury and Rome, it was on the Silk Road and one of Europe’s first banking centres. Ruled by ‘the Nine,’ a council of officials elected every two months, it also benefitted from stable government.

In 1260, at the battle of Montaperti, a smaller Sienese army defeated that of its neighbour and rival Florence. Since the Virgin Mary was thought to have intervened on Siena’s behalf, a number of public buildings were duly built in her honour, including the striped marble cathedral, the hospital and the town hall. Siena became known as ‘The Virgin City.’

Duccio ‘The Annunciation’ 1307/8-11. Egg tempera on wood. Nationa Gallery

At the exhibition Sienese devotion to the Virgin is evident in grand altarpieces, narrative cycles and intimate objects for private contemplation. Mary shudders when she learns of her destiny from the Angel Gabriel. She holds her newborn baby to her cheek as it reaches for her veil. She is distraught on discovering her youthful, defiant son teaching in the temple. She faints at the foot of the cross as blood trickles from Christ’s wounds. She helps to lower his dead body and clasps his corpse in its tomb. She regards us with benign grace.

Dressed in shimmering silk and cloth of gold, bishops, angels, soldiers, saints and sinners act out their own dramas amid rocky landscapes and pink-walled towns. They have sculptural solidity and psychological intensity. They move and gesticulate. They show emotion. 

Everywhere we see examples of exquisite craftmanship. Sometimes the artists painted marble to suggest Christ’s tomb or the rock of the Church. Sometimes they employed sgraffito, a technique by which a top layer of paint is scratched away to reveal gold underneath. Textiles from far and wide are delicately reproduced.

Simone Martini ‘Madonna and Child’ ca. 1326

I was quite taken with a fragmented polychrome head from a crucifix made by Lando di Pietro. Once located on the church altar, the crucifix was split into pieces by Allied bombing in 1944. Inside the broken sculpture’s head, restorers found a parchment containing a prayer, the author's name and the date. The script concludes:

‘In the year of Our Lord 1337 was completed this figure in the likeness of the crucified Jesus Christ, living and true Son of God. And one must worship him and not this wood.’ 

Lando’s insistence that, though he was proud of his work, his artistry derived from a higher authority, prompted me to think of the world of commercial communication. 

Sadly, in our industry it is not uncommon to confuse the proper order of things. Sometimes, in our enthusiasm for producing the best work, we place creatives on a pedestal above our Clients and brands. It’s important occasionally to remind ourselves that, no matter the personnel or the project, the talent serves the idea, and the idea serves the brand.

Duccio ‘The Crucifixion’; the Redeemer with Angels; Saint Nicholas; Saint Gregory 1311–18

Siena’s golden age did not endure. In the late 1340s half of its population was killed by the bubonic plague. The city was subsequently conquered and absorbed into the Florentine state. Sic transit gloria mundi.

'It's not the way you smile that touched my heart.
It's not the way you kiss that tears me apart.
Many, many nights roll by.
I sit alone at home and cry over you.
What can I do?
I can't help myself.
When, baby, it's you.
Baby, it's you.’
The Shirelles, ‘Baby It’s You’ (B Williams / B Bacharach / M David)

No. 514

The Face: Not Just Words, But Pictures. Not Just Music, But Style

Sade Portrait by Jamie Morgan

I recently enjoyed an exhibition considering the story of The Face magazine. (‘Culture Shift’ is at the National Portrait Gallery, London until 18 May.)

‘Nobody worked for The Face for the money. You did it because you believed in the magazine and for the creative freedom that came with that belief.’
Chalkie Davies, Photographer

In the 1980s and ‘90s The Face provided an electrifying glimpse into the world of music, clubs and street-fashion. It presented ideas and images from the vanguard of cultural change. And it rewrote the paradigm of youth-targeted periodicals: not just words, but pictures; not just music, but style.

‘Live photos…so many of them were cliches. I didn’t want to see Roger Daltrey’s tonsils. His jacket was more interesting to me.’
Nick Logan, Founder

Nigel Shafran, Moonflowers concert on board the Thekla, Bristol, 1991

The Face was founded by Nick Logan, who had previously edited the weekly music paper the New Musical Express, and had launched the teen pop title Smash Hits.

Logan spotted an opportunity for a youth-targeted monthly style magazine with a broader range of content than the dedicated music publications. It would be more visual than the music weeklies - the so called ‘inkies’ - and more serious than the teen magazines. 

‘The premise which made The Face unique was that youth and pop culture should be treated with the sort of reverence and critical intelligence that prior to May 1980 was almost exclusively associated with the highbrow.’
Richard Benson, Editor

The first issue of The Face appeared on newsstands in May 1980, a year into Margaret Thatcher’s first premiership. Its name was inspired by ‘60s mod culture – a ‘face’ was someone who wore the right clothes, had the right haircut and taste in music. The first cover featured Jerry Dammers of The Specials.

‘I went into a bank in London in need of some cash, but didn’t have any ID and they wouldn’t cash my cheque. So I went to a newsagent, bought a copy of the first Face magazine and took it to the bank and showed it them to prove I was Jerry Dammers. They couldn’t really argue with that, and they cashed the cheque.’
Jerry Dammers, Musician 

Girls on Bikes by Elaine Constantine

Though Logan was working with modest budgets, since it was an independent publication he could offer collaborators creative freedom. And so he attracted a group of gifted, hungry young writers, designers and photographers. 

 ‘The Face in the beginning was like the Wild West. Nick had very little money. He relied on young, energetic creatives, and responded to people with enthusiasm and vision.’
Sheila Rock, Photographer

‘Everything was very collaborative. Fuelled by naivety and poverty. We were all broke and on the dole.’
Robin Derrick, Art Director

Neville Brody, the art director in the early years, had experience designing record sleeves, and quickly established a distinctive brand look: integrating hand-drawn typefaces into experimental layouts and introducing radical cover crops.

‘Interviews were never pre-structured and imagery was never pre-imagined. Ideas came from everyone. It was beautiful in that sense: there were no boundaries as to what you could contribute.’
Neville Brody, Art Director

Kate Moss by Corinne Day

As a large format magazine, using quality paper, The Face could showcase photography in a way hitherto unimagined in a music publication. 

‘Previously, the journalist was king: they had all the time and the ‘snappers’ had ten minutes at the end. The Face inverted that. The image became king… Suddenly music press photographers had space, style, respect and a glossy outlet for our best work – the kind of respect and page count that fashion photographers had enjoyed for years.’
Jill Furmanovsky, Photographer

 At the exhibition one gets a real sense of the vibrant creative culture in the early days of this entrepreneurial start-up. Photographers painted backdrops, sourced props, borrowed clothes and styled their subjects themselves. There was a buzz about the place.

‘The whole magazine was art directed, designed and sent to production in a week. It was mad. We’d do at least two or three all-nighters. Bike messengers would be waiting to rush a layout over to the printer while we were still trying to design it.’
Neville Brody, Art Director

The Face found an endless supply of creative inspiration in the booming club culture of the time, a hotbed of youthful ideas and attitudes.

‘From month to month, and then from year to year, The Face not only documented what was happening underground, but also asked if sometimes those clubs might not have bigger meanings that went beyond just drinking and dancing. The writers and editors shared two unspoken beliefs. First, that clubs are places in which the young and creative try on new ways of enjoying and expressing themselves that feel right for the times. And secondly, clubs can be the best places in which to hunt out the new music and ideas that may eventually infiltrate everyone’s everyday lives.’
Richard Benson, Editor

With success, The Face employed photographers with fashion training, who executed more ambitious stories and collaborated with dedicated stylists.

‘If a band was going to feature in The Face, then they had to do something different. They weren’t just going to be lined up for five minutes against a wall for the photograph, but had to commit to a day in the studio.’
Sheryl Garratt, Editor

‘Killer’ cover with 13-year-old Felix Howard (March 1985)

This new generation of photographers included: Corinne Day, Glen Luchford, Nigel Shafran, David Sims, Juergen Teller. Using unconventional models and real-life settings, they excelled at capturing the thrill of youth and the intoxication of style. Day’s image of 16-year-old Kate Moss, which featured on the ‘3rd Summer of Love' cover in July 1990, set her on course to stardom.

‘I’d been consciously looking for a model, someone to be the face of The Face. Someone who reflected the demographic of our readership and projected the spirit of the magazine. Seeing the girl in Corinne’s image, I knew at once I had found her. It was Kate.’
Phil Bicker, Art Director

With the arrival of new technologies, The Face’s photographers experimented in radical image manipulation. And they established a reputation for innovative celebrity portraiture. Memorably they captured Shayne, Sade and Sinead; Bjork, Kylie and Kurt; Naomi, Liam and Jarvis.

The magazine had its highest readership in the mid-‘90s, in the midst of Britpop, the Spice Girls, the Young British Artists and New Labour. And its accomplishments prompted the launch of other style titles like Blitz and iD. 

Ultimately it fell victim of its own success, as an ever more crowded marketplace became more aggressive. 

The Face story teaches a whole host of marketing lessons. It encourages us to identify opportunities in a changing market; to rewrite sector paradigms; to find fresh young talent; to locate the source of new ideas and attitudes; to build brands around culture.

‘It was the benchmark for a magazine culture of things that came up from the kids, not driven by the establishment or commercial concerns.’
Elaine Constantine Photographer 

At its best The Face was thrilling, mystifying, seductive, even to someone like me, on the outside looking in. Perhaps its final lesson is that inspiration and aspiration don’t have to be arcane and exclusive.

‘Sons of tycoons or sons of the farms,
All of the children ran from your arms.
Through fields of gold, through fields of ruin,
All of the children vanished too soon.
In towering waves, in walls of flesh,
Among dying birds trembling with death.
Sons of tycoons or sons of the farms,
All of the children ran from your arms.
So long ago: long, long, ago.’
Scott Walker, ‘Sons Of’ (E Blau / G Jouannest / J R Brel / M Shuman)

No. 513

Paule Vézelay: No One Is a Prophet in Their Own Land

Vézelay’s oil-on-canvas Growing Forms (1946)

‘Art develops. The more you think about it, the more it changes.’
Paule Vézelay

I recently visited a splendid exhibition of the work of Paule Vézelay (The RWA, Bristol until 27 April), and supplemented it by watching a compelling 1984 interview with the artist by Germaine Greer (BBC, Women of Our Century).

 ‘What is important is the work. Is it original? Is it well done? Is it good?’

Vezelay was one of the first British painters of abstract art. She created joyous works inspired by natural forms. She experimented with shadows, silhouettes, colours, curves and movement. And, above all, she conjured up ‘living lines.’

‘After much study, practice and thought, I began to hope that, whether painted or drawn, my lines were ‘living lines’… and in my most optimistic moments I was content, feeling that these lines did indeed come from my hand and my Spirit…that they were inevitable.’

Born Marjorie Watson-Williams in Bristol in 1892, the daughter of a surgeon, Vézelay studied at the Bristol School of Art and, briefly, at the Slade School of Fine Art.

‘I’d already studied in art school for two years, and I didn’t want to be treated as a beginner at the Slade. They were very old fashioned, I thought… And I was bored to death.’

Paule Vézelay, Silhouettes, 1938. Photo England & Co ©Estate of Paule Vézelay

Vézelay’s early output was figurative. She had an eye for observing people and a fascination with the theatre. All was to change when she visited Paris in 1921. She was stunned by the quality of the art she found in the galleries and suddenly England seemed terribly provincial.

‘There wasn’t anything outstanding to my mind at that time in England.’

In 1926 Vézelay moved to France on her own, to forge a new life and embark on a radical transformation of her work. Marking this new chapter, she adopted the name Paule Vézelay, ‘for purely aesthetic reasons.’

‘I’ve never pretended to be a man. Never… It certainly would have been easier for me as an artist if I had been a man.’

Vézelay dived headlong into the French capital’s artistic life. She became part of a circle that included Picasso, Matisse, Calder, Kandinsky and Miro. Abandoning figurative painting, she adopted abstraction and joined the Abstraction-Création movement. And she fell in love, with fellow artist André Masson, living and working with him for four years. Their engagement however was called off.

‘Unfortunately – or fortunately – I had reason to change my mind. And I changed it, which was very painful.’

She remained unmarried for the rest of her life.

Paule Vézelay pictured circa 1919. Photograph: Estate of Paule Vézelay/RWA

Vézelay’s art is full of floating biomorphic shapes, bright optimistic colours, airy spaces and sensuous, serpentine lines. 

‘[Curves] exist in nature and they exist in life. Why limit yourself to straight lines and angles?’

She sought to make work which lifts the spirit.

‘I dislike sad art. There’s enough real sadness in real life. I think an artist might create something joyful or happy or pleasing.’

Vézelay was always curious to try new things. She experimented with three dimensional pictures that featured threads or wires strung across the picture frame and hung in shallow boxes.

‘You’ve got to do a lot of thinking before you invent something which is rather new.’

On the outbreak of the Second World War, Vézelay moved, reluctantly, back to Bristol, where she served in the Home Guard and cared for her elderly mother. She also set about drawing bomb damaged buildings and barrage balloons (what she called ‘tough monsters’). And all the while she continued to produce abstract paintings. 

 ‘A line’s very extraordinary. It can be dark or light or curved or straight. And it can be a lively line, a dull line. But you’ve got to be able to control it with your hand, and that takes years of practice.’

After the war Vézelay had difficulty gaining recognition from England’s conservative art establishment. Nevertheless, she persisted. 

‘I start work at my easel and I know it’s bad, know it’s quite bad. But I think it’ll lead onto something better. So I go on. And I can always tear up the bad work I’ve done. It often does lead to something more complete and better. Bad work can lead to good work.’

Relief sculptures … Lines in Space No 51 (1965). Photograph: © The Estate of Paule Vézelay

In the 1950s, to supplement her modest income, Vézelay designed textiles for Metz & Co of Amsterdam and Heal's of London. 

‘I have a certain amount of faith in myself, confidence in myself.’

Vézelay exhibited occasionally and sold some of her pieces. But for the most part, not given to self-promotion, she remained outside the public eye. As Greer observed in the 1984 interview:

‘Her work is her life, and she keeps it about her as a living oyster keeps its pearl.’

In the interview we see an elderly Vézelay at home. She wears a smart silver necklace, has neat grey hair and a benign smile, listening patiently, replying precisely.

‘I like my work, strange as it may seem. I like my paintings. I like to keep them. I’m never in a hurry to sell them.’

 She emerges as a self-possessed, intelligent woman, with a steely determination to make up her own mind and forge her own path.

‘To draw a line is very difficult. It takes years before you can draw the exact line you want in the exact way, in the exact place that you want it to be.’

The story of Paule Vézelay reminds us of the Biblical aphorism: 

‘A prophet is not without honour, except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house.’
Mark 6:4 

Sometimes we are not properly appreciated by our friends, family and colleagues. Sometimes we must leave our home, our town, our country, our workplace, in order to break free from limiting assumptions and constraining conventions; in order to establish our own way in the world.

The Tate finally gave Vézelay a retrospective exhibition in 1983. She died the following year, aged 91.  

Greer: Would you say that yours has been a happy life?

Vezelay: I don’t know what you mean by happy. I did what I wanted to do. I wasn’t obliged to go and work as a typist in an office, or as a saleswoman, or as a children’s nurse. I’ve been very fortunate.

'When you're running out
And you hear them coming like an army loud.
No time for packing,
When you're running out.
You fall to the ground
But you're holding on.
Is this called home?
Land turns to dust,
This can't be home,
Time's running out for us.’
Lucy Rose, ‘Is This Called Home?’ (L R Parton)

No. 512