Millet: The Dignity of Labour

Millet - The Angelus. 1857-1859

I recently attended a small, one-room exhibition of the art of Jean-Francois Millet. (‘Life on the Land’ is at The National Gallery, London, until 19 October.)

Born in Normandy in 1814, into a prosperous farming family, Millet helped work the fields as a child. Having studied painting in Cherbourg and Paris, in 1849 he moved to the village of Barbizon. At a time when people were deserting the country for cities and factories, he celebrated the industry and integrity of the rural peasantry. 

Millet - The Sower 1814 - 1875

In a gloomy barn, a winnower shakes a wide, shallow basket, to separate the wheat from the chaff. In the moonlight, a milkmaid steadies herself, as she carries a copper pitcher, secured to her shoulder by a leather strap. On a bleak hillside, a sower stumbles across a field, throwing grain from his heavy sack. Two sawyers toil in harmony, facing each other across an imposing tree trunk. A line of women stoops under their hefty loads of faggots. An exhausted goose girl rests her head on her staff, ignoring the honking birds at her feet. A barefooted shepherdess, propping herself against a tree, directs a wistful gaze towards us from under her hood.

Millet rarely used posed models, instead working from quick life sketches. Faces were not painted in detail. Character was conveyed through physicality, posture and bearing; through stretch and strain, twist and turn. These realistic, unsentimental images suggest quiet resolution, silent dignity.

Millet - Norman Milkmaid. 1871

The star of the show is 'The Angelus,' created in 1859. It’s sunset, and, as the Angelus bell chimes in a distant church, a husband and wife set aside their fork, cart and basket of potatoes, and stand in the fields with their heads bowed. He, in a teal jacket and clogs, has removed his black felt cap; she, wearing a blue apron and yellow headscarf, clasps her hands in prayer.

‘The idea for ‘The Angelus’ came to me because I remembered that my grandmother, hearing the church bell ringing while we were working in the fields, always made us stop work to say the Angelus prayer for the poor dead, very piously and hat in hand.’

Jean-Francois Millet

Millet - THe Goose Girl at Gruchy. 1854-6

Nowadays we understandably expect employment to be challenging, fun, inspiring. We want careers where we can learn, develop and grow. And yet, at a fundamental level, work offers purpose, meaning, identity; a feeling of fulfilment as an individual, and a sense of belonging to society. 

We should remember the inherent dignity of labour.

'Oh, I'm out here trying to make it,
Woman can't you see?
It takes a lot of money to make it,
Let's talk truthfully.
So keep your love light burning,
Oh, you've gotta have a little faith.
You might as well get used to me
Coming home a little late.
Oh, I got work to do
I got a job baby.
I got work to do.
I got work to do.
I'm taking care of business, woman can't you see?
I gotta make it for you, I gotta make it for me.
Don't wanna make you feel I'm neglecting you,
I'd love to spend more time, 
But I got so many things to do.
Oh, I got work to do
I got work baby.
I got a job baby.
I got work to do, everybody's got work to do.’

The Isley Brothers, ‘Work To Do’ (O'kelly Isley / Ronald Isley / Rudolph Isley)

No. 535 

Good Night, Oscar: Where Is the Line and When Do You Cross It?

Sean Hayes and Rosalie Craig as Oscar and June Levant in 'Good Night, Oscar'

‘It’s not what you are; it’s what you don’t become that hurts.’
Oscar Levant

Doug Wright’s splendid play ‘Good Night, Oscar’ (The Barbican Theatre, London until 21 September) considers (in Wright’s words) ‘the thin line between entertainment and exploitation; the cost of entertainment to the individual; censorship and what constitutes acceptable humour in our increasingly tender age.’

Oscar: What the world needs is more geniuses with humility. There are so few of us left.

It’s 1958 and Jack Paar, the smooth-talking host of NBC’s The Tonight Show, is asked by studio executive Bob Sarnoff to defend his decision to invite Oscar Levant as a guest. Levant is an accomplished pianist, composer and raconteur. But he is also unreliable, irascible and outspoken.

Jack: Folks are in bed, watching the TV screen through their feet, and Oscar jolts them awake. They know he’s a goddamn lion, and all I’ve got is a whip and a cane-back chair. And for that they’re willing to pay five hundred bucks for a twenty-one inch Zenith, and go to work groggy every morning. All in the hope that they’ll catch him saying something on television they know damn well that you can’t say on television. That’s the moment no one wants to miss.

When we meet Levant, we discover a morose man, with poor posture and shabby clothes. A superstitious hypochondriac, prone to mood swings and addicted to pills, he suffers obsessive compulsive disorder, and has a ritualised way of smoking a cigarette and preparing coffee. He is always in search of ‘a new audience for old stories.’

 Oscar: Underneath this flabby exterior, there’s an enormous lack of character.

We also learn that Levant has recently been committed by his wife June to the Mount Sinai mental health facility, and that he’s only been released today on a four-hour pass.

Oscar: She’s a cunning woman, my wife. She drove me crazy, then had me committed. Talk about your perfect crimes… 

Jack Paar hosting The Tonght Show

When a sceptical Sarnoff asks Levant to sketch out the interview in advance of the show, Levant is incensed.

Oscar: You’re gonna kill the one thing you’ve got going for you? Spontaneity?

Sarnoff explains that some themes are out of bounds.

Bob: There are just a few topics we’d like you to avoid – the same ones you’d avoid at, say, a dinner party.`
Oscar: I don’t go to dinner parties…I don’t like it when people watch me eat.

Sarnoff perseveres, and contends that a chat show should not take viewers by surprise, shock them, or make them uncomfortable.

Oscar: You know what people do when they’re surprised, uncomfortable and shocked?...They laugh.

Finally, for complete clarity, Sarnoff demands that Levant steers clear of politics, religion and sex.

Oscar: You just took the whole world off the table!...What else is there? Take away the big three, there’s nothing left. What’re we gonna joke about? The weather?... 

At length Parr and Levant embark on the interview, and, perhaps inevitably, Levant ignores all the warnings, and cracks jokes about politics, religion and sex.

Oscar: You know what a politician is, don’t you? A man who’ll double cross that bridge when he comes to it.

Oscar: We have a great deal in common, [my wife] and I. Neither of us can stand me… I asked her once if she’d ever divorce me. ”Nah,” she told me. “I’m a good Catholic. I’d murder you instead.”

Oscar: Oh, sex is a topic I can’t resist. I’ve been married for nineteen years, so I’m very nostalgic about it.

After the show, as the recriminations fly, it’s left to Levant’s wife to point out that culpability does not entirely reside with Levant.

June: You don’t book a zebra and then bitch about its stripes. My husband makes people laugh. But laughter’s not innocent, Mr Sarnoff; don’t pretend it is, because that’s a lie. It always comes at a cost. To someone.

Oscar and June Levant

We in the world of commercial communication may recognise the themes explored in ‘Good Night, Oscar’. On the one hand, we don’t want to disturb or upset our audiences. And we are bound to be ‘legal, decent, honest, and truthful.’ On the other hand, we aim to cut through: to earn attention, admiration, affection, recall.

It’s incredibly difficult for Clients and Account Teams to draw the line: to define the parameters of what is acceptable. And while Creatives may not actively seek to cross that line, they will understandably endeavour to dance on it.

Oscar: Analyzing a joke, it’s like dissecting a frog. When you take it apart, you find out what it’s made of, but you kill it in the process.

I’m not sure this is an area where rigid distinctions and literal limitations help that much. Ultimately, what is called for is taste and judgement; an appreciation of where culture is right now; and a commitment to  truth.

Oscar: The best jokes? The ones worth tellin’? They’re dangerous on account’a they tell the truth.

'If I expected love when first we kissed,
Blame it on my youth.
If only just for you I did exist,
Blame it on my youth.
I believed in everything,
Like a child of three.
You meant more than anything,
All the world to me.
If you were on my mind all night and day,
Blame it on my youth.
If I forgot to eat and sleep and pray,
Blame it on my youth.
And if I cried a little bit when first I learned the truth,
Don't blame it on my heart,
Blame it on my youth.
Nat King Cole, ‘Blame It On My Youth’ (O Levant / E Heyman)

No. 534

Zambian Chimpanzees with Grass in Their Ears: Stop Making Sense

Edwin J. C. van Leeuwen et al / Animal Cognition

I read recently (Rhys Blakely, The Times, 9 July 2025) that Zambian chimpanzees have taken to placing blades of grass in their ears. This practice seems to have no practical purpose. It’s just a fashionable trend or fad.

Dr Jake Brooker of Durham University, co-author of a study published in the journal Behaviour, commented:

‘This isn’t about cracking nuts or fishing for termites. It’s more like chimpanzee fashion. It mirrors how human cultural fads spread: someone starts doing something, others copy it, and it becomes part of the group identity, even if it serves no clear purpose -  and even if it’s sometimes uncomfortable.’

The chimpanzees with grass in their ears were observed in one tightly bonded group at the Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage. As juveniles they had been rescued from the illegal pet trade, and their time in captivity may account for their modish behaviour.

‘They don’t have to stay as alert or spend as much time searching for food. That may give them more cognitive room for play, experimentation and copying each other.’
Dr Edwin van Leeuwen, Utrecht University

The grass-in-the-ear trend is in fact a revival. It was first seen more than a decade ago among a separate group at the Chimfunshi refuge. The best fashions - like smocks, white socks and doing your top button up - always come back.

Chimpanzees have often been seen engaging in seemingly pointless activities – such as throwing rocks at trees, or creating collections of stones. In east Africa chimps have been recorded drumming with syncopated jazz beats (whereas in west Africa they prefer a 4/4 rock rhythm).

And it’s not just monkeys that are fond of fashion. Orcas living in the Pacific Northwest were recently observed wearing ‘salmon hats’: swimming around with dead fish on their heads.

Such eccentric behaviours may not have a functional survival benefit. But they could still have a purpose. Researchers have observed that they enable self-expression and strengthen social bonds. Shared rituals signal membership of the group.

Those of us working in the communication business should be mindful of this. Our strategies tend to assume that consumers are entirely sensible, practical, predictable. 

The truth is we all do daft things. Our behaviour is often inconsistent, illogical, absurd. 

‘It is human nature to think wisely and act in an absurd fashion.’
Anatole France

Sometimes we need to stop making sense.

'Pretty women out walking with gorillas down my street.
From my window I'm staring while my coffee goes cold.
Look over there (where?)
There, there's a lady that I used to know.
She's married now, or engaged, or something, so I am told.
Is she really going out with him?
Is she really gonna take him home tonight?
Is she really going out with him?
Because if my eyes don't deceive me
There's something going wrong around here.’

Joe Jackson, 'Is She Really Going Out With Him?'

No. 533

Emily Kam Kngwarray: Paint What You Know

Emily Kam Kngwarray, Ntang Dreaming 1989
National Gallery of Australia. © Estate of Emily Kam Kngwarray / DACS 2024, All rights reserved

I recently enjoyed a survey of the work of Australian artist Emily Kam Kngwarray
(Tate Modern, London until 11 January 2026)

‘I keep on painting the place that belongs to me – I never change from painting that place.’
Emily Kam Kngwarray

Born around 1914 in the Northern Territory, Kngwarray spent much of her adult life watching cattle and sheep, working in kitchens and minding children. She spoke little English. In her mid-60s, she took a course in batik - decorating cloth using wax and dye – and by the early 1980s, her art was recognised and exhibited internationally. In 1988, she turned to painting - on large canvases, in thin, quick-drying acrylics. She was incredibly productive, creating some 3,000 paintings in the last six or seven years of her life. (She died in 1996.)

Emily Kam Kngwarray, not titled, 1981
National Gallery of Australia. © Estate of Emily Kam Kngwarray / DACS 2024, All rights reserved

In amongst the sinuous lines, the shimmering dots, daubs and dabs of white, red, yellow and ochre, we can make out foliage and flowers, seeds and skeletons. Through the organic scrawls, we can detect emu tracks, branches, insects, lizards and yams. We marvel at the heat and dust, the starry nights; the repeated rhythms and pulsating patterns; the constellations of colour. We may be looking at the earth or the sky; close-up or far-away. The images seem to vibrate. They are alive, haunted by ancestral spirits. 

Kngwarray’s mesmerising, dizzying work expressed the depth of her relationship with her Alhalker home country, a land of low-lying ridges and rocky outcrops, woodlands and sandplains, waterholes and watercourses; a land she never left. She painted what she knew.

‘The pencil yam grows in our country – it belongs to us – the anwerlarr yam. They are found growing up along the creek banks. That’s what I painted.’

Emily Kam Kngwarray, Kam, 1991. Collection of National Gallery of Victoria, Naarm /Narrm / Melbourne, purchased from Admission Funds, 1992. © Emily Kam Kngwarray / Copyright Agency. Licensed by DACS 2025. Courtesy National Gallery of Australia, Canberra and Tate Modern, London

Kngwarray teaches creative people to seek inspiration on their doorsteps; to regard more closely, and consider more deeply, their local culture and lands. There is beauty in the everyday, enchantment in the ordinary, magic in the familiar.

'Many times I've been told,
Speak your mind, just be bold.
So I'll close my eyes,
Look behind,
Moving on, moving on.
So I'll close my eyes,
And the tears will clear,
Then I feel no fear,
Then I'd feel no way.
My paths will remain straight.
Home again,
Home again.
One day I know,
I'll feel home again.'
Michael Kiwanuka, ‘Home Again’ (M Kiwanuka / M Leroy)

No. 532

Learning to Abstract: Art Helps Us See the Bigger Picture

Lucie Rie - Bowl

'The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.’
Aristotle

I read recently about a study into the impact of art on our day-to-day thought processes. (Rhys Blakely, The Times, 6 May 2025)

A team of researchers from the University of Cambridge recruited 187 visitors to an exhibition of work by ceramicist Lucie Rie at the local Kettle’s Yard gallery.

One group of visitors was invited actively to consider and then rate the beauty of the objects they viewed. (Rie’s art was chosen because it prompts quiet contemplation.) The other group was simply asked to match line drawings of the artworks with the real things.

The respondents were then tested on how they process information – whether in a practical or abstract way. For example, does ‘writing a letter’ just mean putting pen to paper, or does it mean sharing your thoughts? Is ‘voting’ just marking a ballot paper, or influencing an election? Is ‘locking a door’ inserting a key, or securing a house?

The researchers found that those in the ‘beauty group’ were 14% more likely to choose the more abstract interpretations. These same respondents also reported feeling moved, enlightened and inspired.

Professor Simone Schnall, senior author of the study (which was published in the journal Empirical Studies of the Arts), observed that taking time to contemplate art induces ‘psychological distancing’, a stepping back from your own thoughts, allowing for greater clarity and a healthier perspective. 

‘Our research indicates that engaging with the beauty of art can enhance abstract thinking and promote a different mindset to our everyday patterns of thought, shifting us into a more expansive state of mind. One snaps out of the mental trappings of daily life and focuses more on the overall picture.’

Professor Schnall concluded that art can help free us from the everyday anxieties of the social media age.

'People today are often tethered to their devices, and we usually think in very concrete terms when we’re doing something on a screen. It’s becoming much rarer to zone out and just let the mind wander, but that’s when we think in ways that broaden our horizons. Admiring the beauty of art may be the ideal way to trigger the abstract cognitive processes increasingly lost in a world of screens and smartphones.’

This research should resonate with Strategists, because the ability to abstract is fundamental to our craft. The best Strategists can distance themselves from events and survey the scene. They can observe patterns, movements, trends and directions in diverse datasets and variegated consumer behaviour. They can identify and articulate the unifying idea in seemingly separate executions. They can review the options and see the bigger picture.

The best Strategists take a step back, in order to move forward.

On a more melancholy note, though the mode of thinking differed across the two groups in the study, the mood did not. Art can expand your mind, but it can’t make you happier.

'Expand your mind
To understand
We all must live
In peace together.
Extend your hand
To help the plan
Of love through all
Mankind on Earth.’

Lonnie Liston Smith & The Cosmic Echoes, ‘Expansions'

No. 531

Ellen Terry: ‘All Divine Things Run on Light Feet’

Julia Margaret Cameron’s photograph of Ellen Terry at the age of 16

Ellen: I’ve never understood why ‘theatrical’ should be a term of abuse… Nobody says of music that it’s too musical, why then do they say of theatre that it’s too theatrical?

Recently, I very much enjoyed ‘Grace Pervades’, a new play by David Hare that reflects on the nature of theatre and the acting life. (The Theatre Royal, Bath. Now over, but there’ll be a London transfer to the Theatre Royal, Haymarket from April 2026.)

Irving: Did you know that in Shakespeare there are seventeen ‘no’s to every one ‘yes’?... All his power is in the negative.

We meet Henry Irving (Ralph Fiennes), the towering figure of the nineteenth century British stage. He is lofty, awkward and gloomy, has a leg that drags slightly, and a deep voice that pronounces ‘god’ as ‘gud.’  

Irving: My critics accuse me of being dour… An evening in my company can on occasions be very grim.

Irving has built his formidable reputation on Shakespearean tragedies and historical pageants. And he is rather dismissive of modern writers like Ibsen, Strindberg and Shaw.

Irving: Too small. Too petty. Not large enough… People arguing isn’t theatre. People making points. 

Irving, planning to establish a new theatre company at the Lyceum in London (‘A company of equals in which I am the boss.’), enlists Ellen Terry (Miranda Raison) to join his players. She, by contrast with the great actor-manager, is cheerful, spontaneous and talkative; and her performing style is light, airy and understated.

Ellen: People say, ‘Oh she’s so natural,’ as if I were making no effort. It infuriates me…They don’t seem to realise floating is a technique.

Terry refuses to be a slave to tradition. In preparation for playing Ophelia, she visits an asylum, and she proposes to break with convention by playing her mad scene in white. She also tries to persuade Irving to put on more of Shakespeare’s comedies.

Ellen: Nobody needs to be told that life is terrible. They know it already. Tragedy is for people who don’t understand life and need it explained to them. Comedy is for those who already know.

Though very different characters, with very different approaches to their craft, Irving and Terry strike up an enduring partnership, which makes the Lyceum venture a roaring success. Terry is even emboldened to offer Irving some advice.

Ellen: I have a feeling that your acting could be improved if from time to time you directed your gaze at the other actor.

I was taken with Terry’s description of her own naturalistic acting style. 

Ellen: I put in just as much effort as anyone else, but I aim to excel at not letting it show.

For Terry, ease, grace and spontaneity are fundamental to her technique. 

Ellen: Myself, I never leave the dressing room till the last possible moment. I put down the newspaper I am reading, or the light novel, I fly down the stairs, sometimes I confess I even take the banisters, and then at the last possible moment – I pass. I pass from one world to another. I cross the invisible line between the real world and the imagined. 

In the field of commerce, it’s quite common for executives to make very public displays of their effort and industry. Confronted with a crisis, they are overwrought, melodramatic, histrionic. Their stress is contagious, their pessimism infectious. And inevitably they have an adverse impact on morale.

Ellen: I don’t regard actors who sweat and spit as especially accomplished. Grunting and heaving. That kind of behaviour belongs more properly on a building site.

I have always admired those who display calm under pressure, who radiate positivity and poise; cool-headed confidence and serene unflappability. I worked for many years at BBH with the incomparable Jon Peppiatt. He made every problem seem soluble, every barrier passable, every goal possible. As AA Gill wrote of the work of PG Wodehouse:

‘Success is not achieved, it is underachieved.’

John Singer Sargent, Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth, 1889, Tate Britain, London, UK.

Henry Irving is widely credited with making theatre respectable in Britain. A hard taskmaster, at the Lyceum he raised standards of both performance and staging, significantly increasing the numbers of actors, stagehands and designers. Motivating his staff with better pay and lavish parties, he was also a master of publicity, cultivating the press and royalty. In 1895 he became the first actor to be awarded a knighthood. He died in 1905, aged 67, having suffered a stroke at the end of a performance of Becket at the Theatre Royal, Bradford. Legend has it that his last lines on stage were ‘Into thy hands, O Lord, into thy hands.’ 

Ellen Terry was Irving’s leading lady for more than two decades. Touring extensively with him in Britain and America, she was much loved by the public, and was immortalised in a painting by Sargent. After Irving’s death, she performed the plays of Shaw and Ibsen, appeared in silent films and lectured on Shakespeare’s heroines. Her career lasted nearly seven decades. She is particularly remembered for her naturalistic style. In ‘Grace Pervades’ she quotes Friedrich Nietzsche:

‘All divine things run on light feet.’

'On the roller coaster ride
That my emotions have to take me on,
I heard a newborn baby cry
Through the night.
I heard a perfect echo die
Into an anonymous wall of digital sound,
Somewhere deep inside
Of my soul.
A natural beauty should be preserved like a monument to nature.
Don't judge yourself too harsh, my love.
Or someday you might find your soul endangered.
A natural beauty should be preserved like a monument to nature.’
Neil Young, 'Natural Beauty'

No. 530

The Mystifying Mentor: Choose Carefully, Listen Selectively

Giovanni Boldini: Conversation at the Café 

I had arrived early for lunch, and so found myself listening to the conversation at the next table.

Two polished American women, one mature and the other in her twenties, were meeting for the first time. The younger woman was keen to establish her credentials with a quick trot through her resume.

‘Well, what can I say? I’m from Upstate New York, I was educated at Notre Dame and Columbia, and I’ve settled in London after studying at the LSE. I totally love the UK and I’m not going back. I’m in sports marketing now. I’m pretty self-confident, so it suits me.’

The mature woman remained silent, staring intently at her companion, her head inclined to one side. The younger woman continued.

‘When I first came to this city, I rented in Shoreditch. That was not good…’

She seemed suddenly distressed at the memory.

‘So I found myself in Kensington, which is fantastic. I tend to weekend in the Cotswolds. Heavenly. In fact, I had a birthday celebration there last weekend. It was quite indulgent actually. I hosted some girlfriends at a wonderful country house with a pool and a spa. On the Friday we dined at a cute country pub and then on Saturday we hired in a chef to cook dinner. We had such an elegant time.’

At this point the mature woman raised a hand.

‘Let me stop you there, Lauren. First of all, you should never apologise for spending your hard-earned money. It’s important for a woman to be ostentatious with her wealth.’

Lauren nodded appreciatively. I realised that I was witnessing a mentoring session.

‘Secondly, I notice that you’ve said “I am” a number of times. “I am American. I am self-confident. I am in sports marketing.”… Do not start any sentence with “I am.” It boxes you in, limits your horizons, constricts your growth. You should be whoever or whatever you want to be. You should always be the best advocate for yourself.’

Lauren looked a little puzzled, but gamely accepted the advice.

‘Oh, that’s really very helpful. Thank you so much.’

This exchange gave me pause for thought. 

We’re all encouraged to do a little mentoring nowadays. I do some myself. It makes sense for people who have been down the road before, to highlight for the next generation the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. Mentors offer fresh perspectives, prompt self-awareness, build confidence.

But some mentors may be less relevant to contemporary tasks and careers. Some may have a very particular perspective. Some may talk well-intentioned gibberish. 

If you’re looking for a mentor, you should not assume that old heads are wise heads; that all advice is good advice. You should choose carefully and listen critically. 

The women continued with their discussion – earnest, intense, focused. 

I was distracted over lunch. How on earth was I going to navigate the challenge of never saying “I am“ again?

‘Let me down easy,
Though your love for me is all gone.
Let me down easy,
Since you feel to stay is wrong.
I know it's all over,
Except the last goodbye.
Let me down easy,
When you pass by me.
Say hello once in a while,
When you pass by me, baby,
Does it hurt so much to smile?
We promised that we'd still be friends 'til the very end.
I'm begging you, baby, please, let me down easy.’

Bettye Lavette, ‘Let Me Down Easy’ (W Holloway)

No. 529

The Kashmere Stage Band: Seeing the Future Inside of Us

Kashmere Stage Band

The splendid 2010 documentary 'Thunder Soul' (directed by Mark Landsman) tells the story of the legendary Kashmere Stage Band, as its alumni gather to play a tribute concert for their beloved leader, Conrad ‘Prof’ Johnson. 

Interviewer: Where does the feel to play come in?

Conrad Johnson: Well, I would say that the feeling comes, many times, from my demanding it.

In the late ‘60s and ‘70s, Johnson, a teacher at the Kashmere High School in Houston, Texas, coached the institution’s Stage Band into an  elite outfit. His success demonstrates that strict discipline, high expectations and inspirational vision can create a compelling cocktail, and that music education plays a special part in shaping young lives.

‘The focus was on moving forward. Get your education. There’s nothing that you can’t do. You’ve seen what has happened in the past. Now you take what has happened, you take it and you move forward.‘

Kashmere Stage Band member

In his youth Johnson had performed as a musician in the clubs of Houston, and had at one point played with Count Basie. He chose to pursue a career in education, and, once established at the Kashmere High School, formed its Stage Band. 

‘I got the idea to start a band and build a band out of young people that was equivalent in sound and in appearance to that of the professionals.’ 

Conrad Johnson

Johnson was a strict disciplinarian, and he demanded high technical standards. 

‘When they first come to me, regardless as to what kind of tone they have, I work to develop that tone. And that’s the first step. Learn to play the instrument. Then the music.’

Conrad Johnson

‘You came into this room with your focus, ready to play. Do not come into this room late. Do not talk. Do not interrupt. Do not this, that. I don’t care if it’s chewing gum. You cannot. And when that man says stand up, everybody stood up in synch. It was like a military sergeant.’

Kashmere Stage Band member

Conrad “Prof Johnson directing a band member

As the ‘60s drew to a close, Johnson sensed that the mood in his predominantly Black school was changing. The Civil Rights struggle had evolved into the period of Black Power. There was growing spirit of confidence, independence and resolve. 

‘This was the ‘70s. We were just coming out of the Civil Rights movement. And so there was a lot of pride. There were a lot of good things going on.’

‘Our parents had fought long and hard and it was time for us to shine.’
Kashmere Stage Band members 

Johnson determined to channel this new mentality into the Kashmere Stage Band.

‘Prof knew it was a time for change. He had all these kids in the band that had all this high energy. They wanted to play funk.’
Kashmere Stage Band member

‘I try to give them a chance to express themselves in the way that they are.’
Conrad Johnson

Many schools in the United States at the time had their own Stage Bands. These mostly white orchestras played sanitised, somewhat anaemic versions of pop and jazz standards. Johnson, by contrast, wrote original jazz compositions that absorbed the influence of James Brown, Sly Stone, Parliament and Funkadelic. The Kashmere sound was founded on intense rhythms and urgent harmonies, fierce beats punctuated with sharp stabs of funk.

 ‘At a time when they were still saying that ‘Black kids couldn’t learn, Black kids were inferior, they were violent’, the Kashmere Stage Band was our representative.’
Kashmere Stage Band member

Johnson also decided to introduce a performance element to the Band. He choreographed the guitarists to shuffle, the drummers to sway, the brass section to dip, twist and turn. The Band became a thrillingly precise, living music machine. 

‘I felt like the music wasn’t enough. Because there were people listening to the band that weren’t musicians. It wasn’t enough. So I put the show into it. And no one had thought to do that.’ 
Conrad Johnson

The Kashmere Stage Band won a succession of state and national competitions. They toured Europe and Japan and recorded eight albums, which were subsequently extensively sampled by hip-hop artists and DJs, including DJ Shadow and the Handsome Boy Modeling School. One number featured on the soundtrack of the movie 'Baby Driver.' 

‘The other bands were technically good. But they didn’t have the feel. They didn’t have the soul.’

‘Winning just gave us a sense that we were invincible when it came to competition.’
Kashmere Stage Band members

In the wake of the Stage Band’s countless victories, Kashmere High School’s football, track and basketball teams excelled. Its officer training corps, drama and debating sides won championships. And grades and scholarships rose across the board. A rising tide lifts all boats.

‘The Kashmere Stage Band gave the community part of its identity.’

‘It made everybody proud because we were kicking it.’
Kashmere Stage Band members

It’s clear that Johnson’s influence on his young students extended well beyond music and performance. He taught them life skills as well as technical skills.

‘I was kind of shy. I would basically hide behind my instrument. That’s where my power was. I didn’t have that thing that would get out and tell cats: ‘I’m here.’ I didn’t possess that. So my vehicle for that was the Band.’

‘People would make remarks like: ‘A girl on a trombone? Trombones are for boys. Girls don’t play trombone.’ They made me want to play it even more so.’

‘I grew up a straight-up thug… That man kept me alive. He moulded me into a whole different expression.’ 

‘He reached into our soul. He could see the future inside of us.’
Kashmere Stage Band members

Kashmere Stage Band with Conrad “Prof Johnson in pinstripe suit on left

In 1978 Johnson became dispirited by the politics, petty squabbles and jealousies that success brought with it. A new principal had withdrawn funding and, after a thirty-seven-year career, Johnson decided to retire.

‘I think that any school administrator that goes for taking music out of the system should be fired.’
Conrad Johnson

In 2008, thirty original members of the Kashmere Stage Band, all in their mid-50s, reunited for the first time in over three decades to pay tribute to their legendary leader, then 92 years old. In the documentary you can see that he was bowled over by the performance. 

Conrad ‘Prof’ Johnson died a few days later.

‘I gave them pride. I gave them honour. I gave them exceptional performance. And they knew it. And they appreciated it…But we had to work to do it now. It didn’t just come natural.’
Conrad Johnson 

'If you want me to stay,
I'll be around today,
To be available for you to see.
But I am about to go,
And then you'll know,
For me to stay here, I got to be me.

You'll never be in doubt,
That's what it's all about,
You can't take me for granted and smile.
Count the days I'm gone,
Forget reaching me by phone,
Because I promise I'll be gone for a while.

And when you see me again,
I hope that you have been
The kind of person that you really are now.
You got to get it straight,
How could I ever be late,
When you're my woman taking up my time?’

Sly and the Family Stone, 'If You Want Me to Stay’ (S Stone)

No. 528

Jenny Saville: ‘If There’s a Narrative, I Want It in the Flesh’

Reverse © Jenny Saville. All rights reserved, DACS 2025. Courtesy Gagosian

I recently enjoyed a retrospective of the work of Jenny Saville. (‘The Anatomy of Painting’ is at the National Portrait Gallery, London until 7 September.)

‘I started to think about not just the anatomy of the body, but about the anatomy of a painting.’
Jenny Saville

Born in Cambridge in 1970, Saville burst onto the British art scene following her acclaimed 1992 degree show at the Glasgow School of Art. Her monumental nudes, created with thick layers of oil paint, confront us with curved hips and rolling flesh; plump tummies and soft breasts. This is the human body raw and real, liberated from insecurities, glorying in its imperfections.

'I want to be a painter of modern life, and modern bodies, those that emulate contemporary life, they're what I find most interesting.’

Drift by Jenny Saville, 2020-2022 © Jenny Saville, Courtesy Gagosian

Saville is inspired by art history. She also employs photography and draws on images from medical texts. Generally working with her canvas spread out on the floor before her, she paints with radiant colours, soft flesh-tones lifted by luscious pinks, yellows and reds. She straddles naturalism and abstraction, constructing her own reality. And in so doing, she reframes the female nude.

'There is a thing about beauty. Beauty is always associated with the male fantasy of what the female body is. I don’t think there is anything wrong with beauty. It’s just what women think is beautiful can be different. And there can be a beauty in individualism. If there is a wart or a scar, this can be beautiful, in a sense, when you paint it.’ 

When Saville had children, she found it time-efficient to focus on charcoal drawings. (‘You could start and stop with ease.’) With overlapping figures, her tender mother-and-child sketches capture an infant’s restless energy and a parent’s loving embrace.

Most striking of all are Saville’s repeated images of the human face. Painted on a huge canvas from a low-to-high perspective, the face becomes a strange, intimate landscape to be examined and explored. 

‘I enjoy working on a large scale, so that, when you’re up close, the painting goes beyond your body and it’s all about the paint.’

Latent © Jenny Saville. All rights reserved, DACS 2025. Courtesy Gagosian

Saville presents us with beaten, bruised and bloodied heads; damaged and dimpled skin; cut lips and scarlet birthmarks. Her subjects, mostly young women, look straight at us. They are at once vulnerable and strong. Are these real people? Are they victims? Are they conscious? These faces speak to us of the integration of physical and mental experience; of lives spent negotiating countless challenges. They seem very much of our age.

 'I do hope I play out the contradictions that I feel, all the anxieties and dilemmas.’

Saville reminds us of the old media principle: focus and weight. The impact of her themes is amplified by their scale and frequency. She encourages us to regard each other carefully and critically; to recognise the raw, visceral, articulate power of the human face.

'If there’s a narrative, I want it in the flesh.’

Messenger© Jenny Saville. All rights reserved

'I've been crying, because I'm lonely.
Smiles have all turned to tears.
Tears won't wash away the fears,
That you're never, never gonna return,
To ease the fire that within me burns.
You keep me crying, baby, for you.
You keep me sighing, baby, for you.
I want you to hurry,
Come on, boy, see about me.

I've given up my friends just for you.
My friends have gone and you have too.
No peace shall I find,
Until you come back and be mine.
No matter what you do or say,
I'm gonna love you anyway.
You keep me crying, baby, for you.
Keep me sighing, baby, for you
I want you to hurry,
Come on, boy, and see about me.’

Barbara Mason, ‘Come See About Me’ (L Dozier / B Holland / E Holland)

No. 527

Buried in Their Beanies: Protecting Individuality in a Corporate Career

Woollen caps worn by Dutch Whalers 17thh century, found near Spitsbergen. Photo © D. Cummings-Palmer

'It is important to foster individuality, for only the individual can produce new ideas.’
Albert Einstein

On a recent visit to the splendid Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, I came across a display of six hats that had been owned by seventeenth century Dutch whalers. 

In 1980 archaeologists investigating the graves of 185 whalers in Spitsbergen, northern Norway, found that many of the skeletons were wearing knitted woollen beanies. Some of the hats were plain, some had distinctive edging and others were striped. All were different from each other. Wrapped up against the Arctic’s biting cold, caked in snow and ice, the whalers could only be recognised by the colours and patterns of their caps. And so their headgear became highly personal.

It was quite natural that they should be buried in their beanies.

In their dedicated glass cabinet, the antique woollen hats looked surprisingly vivid, stylish and modern. They prompted me to reflect on individuality in the workplace.

'To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.'
Ralph Waldo Emerson

As you set out on your career, your employers tend to impose standard processes and practices. They train you to behave in certain ways, to adhere to certain values. They shape you to be a good company representative.

Nonetheless, in a creative business your true worth resides in your individuality: your distinctive way of thinking, your particular perspective, your unique take on the world. Because your difference helps build difference for clients and brands.

Close-up: Woollen caps worn by Dutch Whalers 17thh century, found near Spitsbergen. Photo © D. Cummings-Palmer

Sometimes it seems that companies are asking too much when they request authenticity in their staff, and demand that you ‘bring your whole self to work.’ Really what they’re seeking is your individuality. 

Because the most valuable employees are at once true to the corporate brand and true to themselves.  

So, hold onto your identity, retain your rough edges, and try taking the advice of Frank Sinatra: 'Cock your hat - angles are attitudes.'

'There are many, many crazy things
That will keep me loving you,
And with your permission
May I list a few?
The way you wear your hat,
The way you sip your tea,
The memory of all that,
No, no, they can't take that away from me.
The way your smile just beams,
The way you sing off-key,
The way you haunt my dreams,
No, no, they can't take that away from me.
We may never, never meet again,
On that bumpy road to love.
Still, I'll always, always keep the memory of
The way you hold your knife,
The way we danced 'til three,
The way you changed my life,
No, no, they can't take that away from me.
No, they can't take that away from me.’

Frank Sinatra 'They Can't Take That Away From Me’ (I Gershwin, G Gershwin)

No. 526