Dame Shirley Bassey and the Audience of One

Some years ago I was representing the Agency at a dinner marking the 50th anniversary of Haymarket Media Group. A very smart affair in the ballroom of one of the Park Lane hotels, it was hosted by the company’s founder Lord Heseltine.

I was attending alone and didn’t know any of the other guests at my table – which was well located, close to the stage. Before too long, as the wine and conversation flowed, we were all getting along famously.

After dessert was served, Heseltine announced that there would be some entertainment. I hadn’t been expecting this. And so I was particularly thrilled when he invited the legendary songstress Dame Shirley Bassey to join him onstage.

Dressed in a figure-hugging silver gown of sequinned silk, ‘the girl from Tiger Bay’ confidently swayed, shook and shimmered. And with her big-hearted vocal delivery, she launched into one of her signature numbers.

'The minute you walked in the joint,
I could see you were a man of distinction.
A real big spender,
Good looking, so refined.
Say, wouldn't you like to know what's going on in my mind?’

The very definition of glamour, Bassey was instantly in total command of her audience. As she reached the song’s chorus, she directed an elegant arm towards the eponymous Big Spender and pointed precisely.

I shifted a little uncomfortably in my chair and focused on the stage. Yes, it was true: with her radiant smile and alluring gaze, Shirley was looking directly at me.

Blimey.

‘So let me get right to the point.
I don't pop my cork for every man I see.
Hey big spender,
Spend a little time with me.’
'Big Spender’ (C Coleman / D Fields)

On reflection, I imagine there were a lot of people in that ballroom that felt that Shirley was pointing at them. And that is perhaps the key to her appeal. She has a tremendous voice, bewitching style and a luminous personality. But she also sings as if you two are alone; as if you are an audience of one.

I recall reading once that President Bill Clinton’s charisma derives from his ability to make you feel like you are the only two people in the room. Ignoring the crowds milling around him, he grasps your hand, fixes you with a beaming smile and looks you straight in the eye. Regardless of politics or reputation, it’s hard not to be beguiled.

'In the particular is contained the universal.'
James Joyce

There’s a lesson here for all of us in the world of business and brands.

When we address a room, or a meeting, or an audience of any kind, we should always avoid bland generalisations and universal banalities. Rather we should speak as if the conversation is personal, intimate, one-to-one. We should deal in the individual and specific; illustrate and exemplify. Because, as the old marketing aphorism puts it:

'When you try to speak to everyone, you end up speaking to no one.’

At the end of the splendid evening, the tall, rather dapper Heseltine gave a graceful speech in which he recognised many of the people who had helped his business along the way. Amongst others, he singled out his local NatWest bank manager, who had stuck by him in the early days, through tough times. The chap happened to be sitting nearby, and I noticed he was clearly touched. As if in an audience of one.

'I, I who have nothing,
I, I who have no one,
Adore you and want you so.
I'm just a no one, with nothing to give you, but oh
I love you.
You, you buy her diamonds,
Bright, sparkling diamonds.
But believe me, dear, when I say
That she can give you the world,
But she'll never love you the way
I love you.
You can take her any place she wants,
To fancy clubs and restaurants.
But I can only watch you with
My nose pressed up against the window pane.
I, I who have nothing,
I, I who have no one,
Must watch you go dancing by,
Wrapped in the arms of somebody else.
Darling it is I
Who loves you.’
Shirley Bassey, ‘I Who Have Nothing’ (C Donida / G Rapetti / J Leiber / M Stoller)

No. 464

Frida Kahlo: ‘I Paint My Own Reality’

“Self-Portrait with Hummingbird and Thorn Necklace” by Frida Kahlo. By Courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

I recently watched a thoughtful documentary about the life and work of artist Frida Kahlo. (‘Frida Kahlo’ 2020, directed by Ali Ray)

Kahlo painted magical realist works that were forthright, beautiful and challenging. And she created a unique identity that was resilient, independent and inspiring. Having endured extraordinary physical and mental turmoil, she demonstrated how creativity can be a vehicle for making sense of one’s suffering. It can be a means of survival. 

'I am my own muse. I am the subject I know best. The subject I want to know better.'

Frida Kahlo was born in 1907 and grew up in Coyoacán, a fashionable suburb of Mexico City. Her father was German and her mother was of mixed indigenous and Hispanic descent. She suffered from polio as a child and consequently her right leg was shorter than her left. The condition gave her a limp and an enduring sense of difference and isolation.

'Don’t build a wall around your suffering. It may devour you from the inside.'

Kahlo was admitted to a good school, thrived at the sciences and was on track to becoming a doctor. However at 18 she was involved in a terrible road accident - a tram crashed into the bus on which she was travelling home. She broke her spinal column, collarbone, ribs and pelvis, and had 11 fractures in her right leg. Her right foot was dislocated and crushed, and her shoulder was put out of joint. The incident sentenced her to a lifetime of pain, surgery, medical corsets and leg braces. 

In the months immediately after the accident, Kahlo resumed her childhood interest in art. A mirror was installed above her sick bed so that she could paint at a special easel while lying on her back. 

'The most powerful art is to make pain a healing talisman.’

In 1927 Kahlo joined the Communist Party, through which she met the painter Diego Rivera. He was a key figure in the Muralist movement, which, in the wake of the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), sought to establish a new national art form by drawing on indigenous, pre-Hispanic culture. The couple married in 1929 and in the early 1930s travelled together in the United States. 

'The most important thing for everyone in Gringolandia is to have ambition and become 'somebody,' and frankly I don't have the least ambition to become anybody.’

Eager to set herself apart from conventional American society, Kahlo adopted native Tehuana dress: braided hair, colourful embroidered blouses and long floral skirts. Her art also underwent a transformation. She rejected European traditions and, inspired by Mexican folk culture, created work that was intentionally naïve. Her pictures told stories in the style of votive paintings: small devotional works on metal (to protect them while hanging from damp walls), typically depicting a dangerous incident and the survivor’s gratitude. 

'At the end of the day we can endure much more than we think we can.’

Henry Ford Hospital, 1932 by Frida Kahlo

In 1932, while living with Ribera in Detroit, Kahlo suffered a miscarriage. She subsequently recorded the event in ‘Henry Ford Hospital.’ 

Kahlo lies naked on a hospital bed, tethered by red threads to a piece of medical equipment, a teaching model of the female reproductive anatomy, a pelvis bone and her unborn foetus. She is weeping.

'My painting carries with it the message of pain.'

Kahlo and Ribera returned to Mexico, but their relationship was turbulent. He was consistently unfaithful and she had affairs with, amongst others, the exiled Leon Trotsky. She also turned to drink.

‘I drank to drown my sorrows, but the damned things learned how to swim.'

In 1939 the couple divorced, but remarried a year later. Soon after the separation, she painted ‘The Two Fridas’ (1939): two versions of herself sit side-by-side, holding hands against a stormy sky. One is in white European dress, the other in colourful Tehuana costume. Both have their hearts exposed, and they are connected by an artery. Mexican Frida, with a healthy heart, grips a small portrait of Rivera. European Frida, with a broken heart, clasps forceps and has blood from a severed vein spattered over her dress.

'There have been two great accidents in my life. One was the tram, the other was Diego. Diego was by far the worst.'

Frida Kahlo, Heart to heart … The Two Fridas (detail) 1939.
Photograph: Museo de Arte Moderno/De Agostini Picture Library/G Dagli Orti/Bridgeman Images

Kahlo created 150 paintings over her lifetime, of which a third were self-portraits. 

She stares out from these pictures, unsmiling and resolute, usually with her head at a three quarters angle. Her distinctive unibrow and the hair on her upper lip defy stereotypes of beauty. While her face remains fixed, the elements around her change. There are ribbons, flowers and braided crowns; dogs, spider monkeys, parrots and butterflies. There’s lush vegetation and a dead hummingbird suspended from a thorn necklace. It is as if she is saying: I am consistently me, but I am endlessly complex.

'I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.'

'What the Water Gave Me' (1938) presents Kahlo’s pictorial biography from her perspective in a bathtub. Her legs and feet stretch out before us and on the surface of the grey water we see an empty Mexican dress, a seashell full of bullet-holes, the artist’s parents and two female lovers. There’s a skyscraper bursting forth from a volcano, a dead woodpecker and a small skeleton resting on a hill. A faceless man holds a rope that throttles a naked female figure in the distance. 

It’s as if we are being invited to share Kahlo’s bath; to witness her darkest private reflections.

'Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?'

Frida Kahlo, What the Water Gave Me

Kahlo was not prepared to be boxed-in or categorised. In the same year as she painted 'What the Water Gave Me' the leading surrealist writer, Andre Breton, visited Mexico and pronounced her pictures ‘pure surreality.’ But she maintained her independence from any art movement.

'They thought I was a surrealist, but I wasn’t. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality.'

Kahlo returned again and again to the theme of her pain. 

In ‘Broken Column’ (1944) she painted her spine as a classical column, cracked and fragmented. Standing in a barren landscape, she is naked but for a white skirt and metal corset, her face and body pierced by nails. Again she is weeping. But her gaze is defiant, resolute - like a martyr.

Self Portrait with the Portrait of Doctor Farill, 1951 - by Frida Kahlo

In her last signed self-portrait, ‘Self Portrait with the Portrait of Doctor Farill’ (1951), Kahlo depicts herself in her wheelchair alongside a painting of the surgeon who that year had performed seven operations on her spine. Her palette carries the image of a heart and her brushes drip with blood.

'Passion is the bridge that takes you from pain to change.'

Clearly Kahlo used her art to provide some relief and distraction; to understand her pain; to navigate her sadness. ‘The only way out is through.’

In the 1950s Kahlo's health deteriorated further. In 1953 she had her first solo exhibition in Mexico, and she died the following year. She was 47.

After her passing, Kahlo became an icon of individuality. She was admired and adored for her fierce resilience and independence; for her beautiful mind; for painting her own reality.

'I used to think I was the strangest person in the world. But then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me, too.’

'Across the evening sky, all the birds are leaving.
But how can they know it's time for them to go?
Before the winter fire, I will still be dreaming.
I have no thought of time.
For who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?
Sad, deserted shore, your fickle friends are leaving.
Ah, but then you know it's time for them to go
But I will still be here, I have no thought of leaving.
I do not count the time.
For who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?
And I am not alone while my love is near me.
I know it will be so until it's time to go.
So come the storms of winter and then the birds in spring again.
I have no fear of time.
For who knows how my love grows?
And who knows where the time goes?’

Sandy Denny, ‘Who Knows Where the Time Goes?’

No. 463

Shifters: Making Something Beautiful Out of Broken Things

‘Two little Black kids
destined to oppose each other
push each other
shift each other
until they could be formed again.’

I recently watched ‘Shifters’, a fine play by Benedict Lombe now running at the Bush Theatre. (Directed by Lynette Linton. Until 30 March, and sold out I’m afraid. It will be a crime if it doesn’t receive a West End transfer.)

Dre: So why are you looking at me like that?
Des: How do you know how I’m looking at you when you haven’t looked at me once?

‘Shifters’ is a touching philosophical rom-com that focuses on the evolving relationship between Dre (Tosin Cole), a working class British-Nigerian, and Des (Heather Agyepong), the British-Congolese daughter of a neurologist. They first encountered each other at school in a small town near Crewe, and they have been friends, lovers, soulmates.

When we meet them at the start of the play, at a funeral, they are both 32. Dre, who has remained in that same small town, now owns a restaurant. Des has a new life in New York as an artist and illustrator. They haven’t spoken to each other for eight years.

Dre: You didn’t stay.
Des: You didn’t ask.
Dre: I’m asking now.

Over the course of the play we learn through flashbacks what has passed between them. And we explore the idea of true love, fate and free will.

Des: If every decision you made led you to where you are now – that means there are paths you didn’t choose, right? So if you chose a different path, you’d probably have a different life, in a different world, with a different person, right? So that means there has to be more than one out there for us.

Heather Agyepong (Des) and Tosin Cole (Dre) in 'Shifters' at Bush Theatre. (Photo by Craig Fuller)

It’s easy to see why Dre and Des were first attracted to each other. They are both similarly quick witted, charming and funny. And they are also amusingly different. They spar over their contrasting social and cultural backgrounds, their tastes in music and food.

Dre: Our house looks like your house gave birth to it.

Their intimacy is revealed in the way they switch so naturally between humour and seriousness; in the way they dance so comfortably together; in the way they occasionally adopt each other’s language; in the way they clearly know each other’s character.

Des: You smile when you’re happy. You smile when you’re sad. And when you’re angry and scared and upset, you just keep smiling … like you don’t think it’s safe to stop.

But we also learn that their relationship has been impaired by their experiences of family trauma, grief and abuse.

Des: One day you have a mum. Next, you don’t. But no one tells you – how to remember that she was yours. And you were hers. And you belonged - to someone.

These individual tragedies clearly prevented their romance from blossoming. And catalysed their separation.

Des: Maybe this is the moment you can both sense that something is ending that never truly began.

So, can their love be rekindled?

Dre is, on the face of it, outgoing, relaxed, positive - always asking ‘Why not?’ He views the world simply, sentimentally, romantically. We note that his restaurant serves a fusion of west and central African cuisines. He believes that this encounter at the funeral is their opportunity to start again.

Des: What I feel, deep in my bones, is that soulmates are real – then Des you have always been mine. You always believed in me. And I believe in you. And when you believe in someone, it’s not just for a moment or for a while. It’s forever.

Heather Agyepong (Des) and Tosin Cole (Dre) in Shifters at Bush Theatre. Photo credit Craig Fuller

Des is the deep thinker of the two, a self-confessed ‘recovering perfectionist.’ She is cautious, introverted, deeply rational.

Des: If we say there are only two choices, what about all the rest? All the other ways of doing things?
Dre: I dunno – maybe decisions wouldn’t get made if there were too many choices?
Des: Maybe decisions shouldn’t be the most important thing?
Dre: How would anything get done if there were no decisions?
Des: You’re asking the wrong questions.

Des suspects that the powerful recollection of their first love has constrained her ability to form new partnerships; that her past has infected her present and haunts her future. She ponders the concept that ‘memory shapes our reality.’

Des: Even now, as I’m trying to remember the conversation I had with her, my mind’s already modified it.

She resists the idea that she and Dre are destined to be together. She wants to be independent; to remain in control; to release her future from her past.

Dre: You think you can control how much you love someone?
Des: I think we can control anything if we try.

This leaves Des in a quandary.

Des: I’m just stuck, at this crossroads, looking at all these paths in front of me, and I can’t – move.

Of course, ‘Shifters’ is a play about the enduring power of young love; the shadow it can cast over the rest of people’s lives.

Benedict Lombe

But it’s also, on a broader level, about the tension between fate and free will; between independence and belonging.

It suggests we should be aware of, and make accommodation for, the many external factors that impact our relationships: past tragedies and historic attachments. We should refuse to accept that our destiny is pre-determined, whilst at the same time not letting our autonomy deny us happiness. And we should be prepared to adjust our positions; to evolve, change and shift.

As Dre optimistically tinkers with an old record player he’s sure he can fix, Des quietly observes:

Des: I think we can still make something beautiful. Out of broken things. If we’re careful.

'When the road gets dark
And you can no longer see,
Just let my love throw a spark
And have a little faith in me.
When the tears you cry
Are all you can believe,
Just give these loving arms a try, baby,
And have a little faith in me.
Have a little faith in me.’

John Hiatt, 'Have a Little Faith in Me

No. 462

Hans Holbein: Successful Careers are the Product of Cultivated Relationships

Hans Holbein the Younger, Mary Shelton, later Lady Heveningham, c.1543?

I recently visited a fine exhibition of the work of Hans Holbein at the Queen’s Gallery, London (until 14 April).

Holbein painted the Tudor court in soft velvets, shining satins and luxurious furs; in elegant gable hoods, smart caps and expensive jewellery. With compelling precision he conveyed his sitters’ warmth and humanity, confidence and wit. At the show you can marvel at the vitality of his preparatory sketches, in coloured chalk - scribbled, scratched and smudged to achieve his desired effects.

I was particularly taken by the way Holbein managed his career, making good use of patrons and sponsors; establishing new connections as the economic and political climate shifted around him.

Born into an artistic family in Augsburg around 1497, Holbein trained with his father and then established himself in Basel, where he painted religious panels and portraits, and designed book illustrations.

During this period Holbein produced several portraits of Desiderius Erasmus, the celebrated philosopher and writer, and illustrated some of his books. Holbein’s relationship with Erasmus came in useful when in the early 1520s religious reforms hit the market for devotional images. The artist decided to try his luck in England, where the Tudor court of Henry VIII was flourishing. He arrived in 1526, carrying a letter of introduction from Erasmus to the lawyer, author and statesman Sir Thomas More. 

'The arts are freezing in this part of the world, and he is on the way to England to pick up some angels.[English coins]’
Erasmus

More thought Holbein’s work ‘wonderful’ and became his first patron in England. With Erasmus’ endorsement and More’s introductions, Holbein soon found work with a rich array of senior courtiers, merchants, landowners and diplomats.

Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/98-1543) - William Reskimer (?-1552) c.1532/34

But power and influence shifted rapidly in Henry’s orbit. When More refused to support the king’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon, the lawyer fell out of favour. He was executed in 1535. 

Holbein meanwhile established new patronage amongst the emergent power circles of the Boleyn family centred around East Anglia; and with Thomas Cromwell, the king's secretary. Cromwell commissioned Holbein to produce reformist and royalist images, and by 1536 the artist was employed as one of the King's Painters on an annual salary of £30.

Holbein created the defining image of Henry: standing in heroic pose, with ornate robes, direct gaze and his feet planted apart. He also drew and painted three of the king’s wives, his daughter Mary and son Edward. Through careful management of his connections, Holbein had made his way to the top of the artistic tree.

Holbein was particularly valued because his portraits were considered accurate. With the king periodically jettisoning his wives, his ambassadors found themselves scouring the royal courts of the Continent for potential new partners. Nervous about ‘whether their images were like to their persons,’ they trusted Holbein to paint them.

Hans Holbein the Younger, John Godsalve, c.1543 CREDIT: Royal Collection Trust/ His Majesty King Charles III 2023

On one such mission Holbein created a portrait of Anne of Cleves whom Henry subsequently wedded in 1539, at the encouragement of Cromwell. The king however was disappointed with Anne in the flesh, and he divorced her after a brief, unconsummated marriage. Cromwell (rather than Holbein) was blamed. He fell out of favour and was executed in1540.

Although Holbein had steered a course through the choppy waters of the Tudor court with admirable dexterity, his career never quite recovered from the demise of Cromwell. He took private commissions, produced miniatures and painted his final portrait of Henry in 1543. He died the same year at the age of 45. 

Of course, Holbein was an artist of exceptional skill. But his success also derived from a considerable gift for networking.

In pursuing our own careers today, we may like to think that we will thrive purely on the basis of our talent and industry; that our worth will be justly recognised by our corporate leaders. But we all need help navigating complex company structures and hierarchies; finding our way through changing industries and sectors. We would do well to nurture mentors, patrons and sponsors; people with experience who believe in us, who will open doors and set us on the right path. Because, as Holbein demonstrated, successful careers are the product of cultivated relationships.

'Don't know what I'd ever do without you,
From the beginning to the end.
You've always been here right beside me,
So, I'll call you my best friend.
Through the good times and the bad ones,
Whether I lose or if I win,
I know one thing that never changes,
And that's you as my best friend.’

Brandy, ‘Best Friend’ (K Crouch / G Mckinney)

No. 461

Claudette Johnson: A Brief Word About Posture and Presence

Claudette Johnson, Trilogy

In 1982 the artist Claudette Johnson was creating a portrait for her degree show at Wolverhampton Polytechnic. The woman she asked to model for her, dressed all in black, ‘put her hands behind her head and planted her feet wide – a position of supreme confidence.’ 

In 1986, now based in London, Johnson asked two other women to adopt poses that reflected who they were. One, wearing jeans and a plain blue sweatshirt, held her head slightly to one side and clasped her hands in front of her. She looked somewhat shy and reserved. The third model, in sharp red trousers and a white shirt, sleeves rolled to her elbows, put her hands on her hips and regarded the artist with a stern, perhaps suspicious, stare. 

The three large portraits were presented together in the piece Trilogy at a recent show at the Courtauld Gallery in London. (Now finished, I’m afraid. But you can still buy the excellent accompanying text: 'Claudette Johnson. Presence'.) They prompt us to consider the ways character and identity can be communicated through posture, bearing and disposition.

Born in Manchester in 1959, Johnson was a founder member of the BLK Art Group. She set out to ‘challenge the marginalisation of Black women’: their absence from art galleries, the passivity and sexualisation of their image when it did appear. She sought to present ‘women who were comfortable in their skin and who exuded an unselfconscious autonomy.’

‘I wanted to look at how women occupy space.’

Claudette Johnson , Blues Dance

A young woman at a blues dance keeps her eyes down, concentrating on the rhythm, lost in her own private reverie. Another with short hair confronts us with folded arms, resolutely silent. A lady in a headscarf reclines on a couch, her head resting on her arms, totally at peace. 

These are tender, intimate, respectful portraits. They have their own quiet authority.

More recently Johnson has turned her attention to Black men. A young lad in a tee shirt seems awkward, eager to get away. A chap in a vest with a necklace lies on a bench, looking past us with a wistful gaze.

Johnson works some parts of her paper with intense detail and leaves others to spare lines and strong colours: ‘solid areas of emptiness, making the absence as significant as what is present.’

Claudette Johnson's 'Reclining Figure' (2017) © Halamish Collection

On visiting the exhibition, I reflected on the many varied ways people present themselves in the world of work. Without perhaps thinking too much about it, through our posture and disposition, we can suggest apathy or aloofness, scepticism or enthusiasm. We can imply strength or weakness, confidence or vulnerability. Our demeanour can draw people in, or push them away.

Perhaps it’s worth considering the signals we’re sending out - as we enter a room, as the meeting gathers, before we even speak. Because our bodies have a language all of their own.

Claudette Johnson, Kind of Blue, 2020.
Gouache, pastel ground, pastel, 1.2 × 1.5 m. Courtesy: © Claudette Johnson and Hollybush Gardens, London. Photograph: AndyKeate

It’s not about adopting the ‘power stance’ beloved of politicians. But rather being conscious of who are and what we’re communicating. Johnson herself encourages creative people to find a mid-point between determination and doubt.

‘I think that as artists we tread a strange path balanced between taking pleasure in what we do and being critical of what we do…Without sufficient self-questioning the work can become self-congratulatory. Without sufficient love, the work cannot come into existence at all.’

'The first time ever I saw your face,
I thought the sun rose in your eyes,
And the moon and the stars were the gifts you gave,
To the dark and the endless skies, my love.
And the first time ever I kissed your mouth,
I felt the earth move in my hand,
Like the trembling heart of a captive bird,
That was there at my command, my love.'

Roberta Flack, 'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face'

No. 460

Auerbach’s New Monsters: ‘I Don’t Think One Produces a Great Picture Unless One Destroys a Good One in the Process’

Auerbach, Self Portrait 1958

I recently visited a small exhibition of charcoal drawings by Frank Auerbach. (The Courtauld, London until 27 May)

‘I feel there is no grander entity than the human being… I would like my work to stand for individual experience.’

The show presents large-scale portraits of the artist’s friends and lovers, and of himself - mysterious heads that loom out of the darkness, mournful and sad. Auerbach seems to be reflecting on the riddle of presence and existence; on the enigma of individual identity. And he teaches us a lesson about persistence in the quest for excellence.

'I am not interested in making pretty pictures, I want to make something that has impact, that leaves a lasting impression.'

Born in Berlin in 1931, when Auerbach was seven years old he was sent to Britain to escape Nazi persecution. His parents were subsequently killed at Auschwitz.

During his early years as an artist in post-war London, Auerbach produced a series of portraits in charcoal. This material offered a sharp edge with which to draw fine lines, and a soft texture which could be smudged and blurred. He spent months on each drawing, working and reworking it during numerous sessions with the sitter. He rubbed his pictures with his fingers, scrubbed them with a rag, scoured them with a hard typewriter eraser. Every morning the image would be reborn from the ghost of yesterday’s portrait, only to die again later that night. The paper became scuffed and thin, torn and worn through, and he repaired it repeatedly with paper patches - creating the impression of wounds and scars.

‘I don’t think one produces a great picture unless one destroys a good one in the process. And one doesn’t make a great picture by destroying a rotten one.’

When eventually Auerbach determined he was done, he would sometimes finish the work with a flourish of white, blue or red chalk.

'I get the courage to do the improvisation only at the end.’

The portraits, contoured and layered, have a haunted quality. Gloomy eyes, furrowed brows, heads turned down and to one side. These are sombre, melancholy figures, present and yet absent. They have been created in war-battered London, in a world overshadowed by the Holocaust.

'There was a sense of survivors scurrying around a ruined city.’

Auerbach, Gerda Boehm 1961

Auerbach’s Penelopean making and unmaking of his art seems somewhat obsessive. It must have been challenging for his sitters. But he was driven by a clear purpose; by a strong sense of working towards something more truthful.

‘To paint the same head over and over leads to unfamiliarity; eventually you get near the raw truth about it.’

Auerbach was a perfectionist. Sometimes, on seeing photographs of his pictures in exhibitions, he would ask for them to be returned so that he could make adjustments. He believed that he had to struggle if he was to create works that were genuinely fresh and distinctive.

‘What I’m trying to make is a stonking, independent, coherent image that has never been seen before… [that] stalks into the world like a new monster.’

We may think Auerbach’s perfectionism - his creative destruction - inappropariate to the world of commercial creativity. Clients need to be met. Deadlines need to be hit. Budgets need to be respected. Surely sometimes we must be happy with ‘good enough.’

Auerbach, EOW 1960

Yet I’m reminded of my experiences back in the day at BBH, when Creative Director John Hegarty would pass over countless scripts because they were not quite what he had in mind; not sufficiently compelling or different. (I kept in my filing cabinet a stack of unpresented, unproduced Levi’s scripts, imagining that one day this goldmine of creativity would come in useful.)

Hegarty was insistent on quality. He would not give up too soon; would not settle for less. And he was wont to say, many a time and oft’: ‘The good is the enemy of the great.’

It’s always worth being reminded that, in the face of pragmatism and practicality, when confronted with challenging budgets and pressing timelines, we should go the extra mile - if we truly want to achieve something distinctive, memorable and worthwhile; if we ever hope to create our own ‘new monsters.’

'I don't want half-hearted love affairs.
I need someone who really cares.
Life is too short to play silly games.
I have promised myself I won't do that again.
It’s got to be perfect.
It's got to be worth it.
Too many people take second best.
Well I won't take anything less.
It's got to be
Perfect.’

Fairground Attraction. ‘Perfect’ (T Shapiro / S Evans / T Martin)

No 459

Pesellino: Random Reflections on the Communications Industry Prompted by a Fifteenth Century Italian Master

A detail of Francesco Pesellino’s The Story of David and Goliath (around 1445-55) © National Gallery, London

I recently visited an excellent exhibition about the Renaissance painter Francesco Pesellino. (The National Gallery, London until 10 March. Free.)

Pesellino, born into an artistic Florentine family in 1422, trained with his father and later his grandfather, and then formed partnerships with other artists. He painted panels for devotional and decorative use. And his work, mostly considering religious themes, had bold colours, sensitive characterisation and strong narrative force. 

Casting a soft shadow, a blue-cloaked Mary bows her head as she learns from an angel of her solemn destiny. The elderly King Melchior sets sail for the Holy Land to pay homage to the new-born Christ, a casket of gold on his knee. Watched by Constantine’s court, an ox collapses dead to the ground, having heard the secret name of God. 

Wandering around this small one-room show about a mostly forgotten artist, I found myself reflecting on the contemporary communications business.

King Melchior Sailing to the Holy Land by Francesco Pesellino.
Photograph: © Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA (1955.940)

The painting ‘Virgin and Child’ presents a familiar subject. But it is exquisitely executed and marks a fascinating development in Florentine art. A youthful Mary, with elegantly curled hair, tenderly supports her baby Jesus on the shoulder and side, as he looks mournfully out at us. Pesellino gave this picture crisp outlines. It was a prototype, a design to be copied and adapted multiple times, addressing the booming market for devotional images for domestic display.

Our industry today is obsessed with change and difference. We constantly reinvent, revamp and replace. But back in the day the Catholic Church understood the cognitive power of the repeated image: the mesmerising quality of a consistent motif, echoing across time and space, sustained by the nuances of theme and variation.

At the heart of the exhibition are two wide wooden panels depicting the story of David and Goliath – vibrantly coloured and richly decorated with gold and silver leaf. David, in violet tunic and pink cape, appears multiple times: tending his flock, refusing to don armour, collecting shot, attacking the nine-foot Philistine warrior Goliath with his sling; and then in the second panel standing atop a carriage in his triumphal procession, brandishing Goliath’s severed head by the hair. 

Francesco Pesellino (probably 1422–July 29, 1457), Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon

The panels are populated with elegantly attired foot soldiers and lance-wielding cavaliers; with dogs, falcons and a cheetah. The horses have opulent bridles and bejewelled reins. The ground is strewn with delicate flowers. The soldiers’ armour glistens in the light. 

I was struck by the episode in this story in which Goliath challenges the Israelites to choose one champion to face him in single combat, and so decide the war. I’m sure I read somewhere that this practice was quite popular in ancient times.

In the communications sector we expend vast amounts of time and money pitching for business. Even if we win, it usually takes a few years to recoup the loss. Wouldn’t it be more sensible if each agency simply nominated a creative champion to take on its competitors in single combat? 

Pesellino died of plague in Florence in 1457. He was just 35. Had he survived longer, perhaps he would have earned more than a page in Vasari’s ‘Lives of the Artists.’ And yet, like all great painters, his legacy is his work, and his ability to make us think.

'In my heart I will wait
By the stony gate,
And the little one
In my arms will sleep.
Every rising of the moon
Makes the years grow late,
And the love in our hearts will keep.
There are friends I will make
And bonds I will break,
As the seasons roll by
And we build our own sky.
In my heart I will wait
By the stony gate,
And the little one
In my arms will sleep.’
Joan Baez, ‘A Song for David'

No. 458

Impressionists on Paper: It’s Not What One Sees, But What One Can Make Others See

Edgar Degas. (Lyda (Woman with the spyglass)). 1869  ·  Gouache 

I recently attended an exhibition of works on paper by Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists. (The Royal Academy, London until 10 March)

The show features drawings, pastels, watercolours, temperas and gouaches from the likes of Degas, Cézanne, Morisot and Van Gogh. And it looks at how these late nineteenth century revolutionaries changed the way we regard such work.

Traditionally subjects for French art were taken from literature, history, myth or religion, themes approved by the official Salon – an institution that sought to control practices and standards. Drawings were considered part of the process of training, preparatory studies to be left in the studio.

The Impressionists, by contrast, were interested in contemporary affairs; in light, colour and atmosphere.  They took their inspiration from nature, the city and modern life; from careful observation of real people. And they recognised that works on paper had their own particular creative merits. 

Employing new colours and portable paint materials, they adopted unusual viewpoints and recorded their direct spontaneous responses, with quick, light, economical touches and flourishes. Sometimes they deliberately left an image unfinished.

‘You will see that they are trying to create from scratch a wholly modern art, an art imbued with our surroundings, our sentiments, and the things of our age.’
Edmond Duranty, novelist and critic, 1876

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Woman with a black feather boa c1892

At the exhibition we visit the market stall, the café and the pawn bank; the theatre, the race track and the circus. We take a trip to the seaside, wander down to the riverbank and join the apple harvest. We ride with Giuseppe de Nittis in his rented carriage, a tactic he adopted to capture fleeting impressions of Paris on the move. 

We also meet a vivid cast of characters. Toulouse-Lautrec presents a glamorous young woman with a black boa and formidable stare. Degas introduces us to a lady in a formal silk dress who regards us through a pair of binoculars, a steadying hand on her elbow; and to a matron sitting at the window, lost in thought, only half there. 

There is a spirit of liberation and experimentation about this work. Degas tried drawing on coloured paper. On a mint green sheet he sketched a dancer with her hands behind her head as she stretches and yawns. On pink paper he outlined a ballerina bending over with her back to us - reduced to a light cloud of tulle floating over a pair of stockinged legs.

Edgar Degas, Dancer Seen from Behind

For the first time, works on paper were exhibited and sold, and became the subject of critical reviews and art publications.

‘Watercolour has a spontaneity, a freshness, a spicy brilliance inaccessible to oil… and pastel has a bloom, a velvety smoothness, like a delicate freedom or a dying grace, that neither watercolour nor oil can touch.’
Joris-Karl Hoysmans, novelist and critic, 1881

This exhibition is all about immediacy and intimacy. It shows how a relaxed and experimental approach to techniques and materials can convey freshness and vitality.

I found myself wondering whether we, in the world of commercial communication, have lost some of this freedom. Everything is so realistic and finished nowadays, so perfectly staged - even at concept phase. There seems little room for imagination.

It’s a shame. As Degas observed:

‘Drawing is not what one sees, but what one can make others see.’

'All I want to do is see you again.
Is that too much to ask for?
I just want to see your sweet smile,
Smile the way it was before.
Well, I'll try not to hold you and I'll try not to kiss you,
And I won't even touch you.
All I wanna do is see you,
Don't you know that it's true?’
Depeche Mode, 'See You’ (Martin Lee Gore)

No. 457

The Demise of the Procurator Fiscal: Navigating the Compromise Between Fate and Free Will

Paparazzi from the 1960 film La Dolce Vita

There was a TV news item when I was a teenager. I only half remember the details. Nonetheless I can’t forget it.

A crowd of journalists were badgering a senior Scottish legal officer who had recently resigned. There had been a scandal of some kind. The Procurator Fiscal seemed stiff, awkward, uncomfortable in the spotlight. He ignored their questions and made his way to a car. They persisted, jostling him and thrusting microphones in his face.

At length someone asked:

‘Did you jump or were you pushed?’

The lawyer paused for a moment and looked up:

‘I fell.’

And that was it. He retreated into his car and was gone.

Although I didn’t properly understand the context, I imagined there was a complex personal tragedy behind these words. And I had some sympathy for the outgoing Procurator Fiscal.

'Life calls the tune, we dance.'
John Galsworthy

Whenever something goes wrong in life, we all like to apportion blame; to allocate responsibility. Heads must roll. The guilty must be punished.

But often fortune has played a part in determining outcomes. We can be victims of circumstance; of bad luck, or a simple twist of fate.

'Life is a compromise between fate and free will.'
Elbert Hubbard

I encountered the same instinct to rush to judgement in the world of work.

When things went awry, management could be quick to compose a narrative about how we slipped and why we lost; to assign causes; to nominate scapegoats.

Of course, we should hold people accountable and we must learn from our mistakes.

But I confess I was never comfortable with inquests and investigations. I didn’t see the benefit in raking over the ashes, dwelling over disappointment.

'It's no good crying over spilt milk, because all the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it.'
Somerset Maugham

For the most part I preferred to move on, acknowledging the simple truth: we fell.

'They sat together in the park.
As the evening sky grew dark,
She looked at him and he felt a spark tingle to his bones.
’Twas then he felt alone and wished that he’d gone straight
And watched out for a simple twist of fate.’

Bob Dylan, ‘Simple Twist of Fate’

No. 456

Valentine’s Night: When Young Love Is Tongue-Tied and the Restaurant Experience Is Challenging

1950’s PAN AM Advertising Poster - Americans in London Resturant

The small local restaurant that I had booked for Valentine’s Night had been rearranged into neat, tight ranks of tables-for-two.

Though relatively full, it was quiet as my wife and I entered. But our arrival prompted turned heads and a low hum of debate and discussion. After a little while this died down and the awkward silence resumed. Until the next couple walked through the doors.

I deduced that the Valentines were struggling for conversation – young love can be tongue-tied - and that new diners at least provided a source of interest.

We settled down to our meal, which was rather good. But then the steaks turned up. My wife sampled hers and looked across at me in disappointment.

‘Is your steak OK? Mine’s completely tasteless.’ 

‘Well, it’s not great, but I’m sure it’ll be fine.’

I have an aversion to conflict. My wife on the other hand favours frank feedback. She summoned the young waitress.

‘Excuse me, can I have a word? I’m afraid my steak is completely lacking any flavour.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry, madam. I’ll talk to my manager.’

At this point a few of our fellow diners glanced up in our direction, delighted that they had some diversion. 

The senior member of staff was smart and professional. She adopted the HR crouch so that she could address us, sotto voce, on the same level.

‘I can promise you that our steaks are totally organic and locally sourced.’

‘I’m sure they are. But your chef should know that they have no flavour.’

I could sense that many eyes were now upon us. There was a continuous buzz of quiet commentary.

The manager chose to escalate the situation by summoning the chef from the kitchen. Looking none too pleased, he confirmed the exceptional quality of his meat.

‘Madam, we only buy the finest cuts. They’re ethically reared, hormone free and traceable.’

True to form, my wife held her ground.

‘I don’t doubt that at all. I’m sure everything about their provenance is beyond reproach. I’m not complaining. But I think you should know that your admirable steaks really have zero taste.’

By this time the whole restaurant was watching. We had become the evening’s entertainment. I shifted uneasily in my seat. I confess I found it all rather awkward

Of course, eventually peace was declared. Everyone agreed that the steak feedback was most welcome and that the exchange had been entirely worthwhile. Indeed we were given a free pudding - which only prolonged my discomfort.

At length we were able to beat a hasty retreat. And as we closed the door behind us I could hear the hum of commentary resume at a fever pitch.

So what lessons could I draw from our disappointing Valentine’s Night dinner?

From a professional perspective I learned that, if you want to attract disproportionate attention, you should consider an environment where people are bored, speechless or obligated.

On a personal level I concluded that you should never book a restaurant on Valentine’s Night.

'My funny Valentine,
Sweet comic Valentine,
You make me smile with my heart.
Your looks are laughable,
Unphotographable.
But you're my favorite work of art.
Is your figure less than Greek?
Is your mouth a little weak?
When you open it to speak,
Are you smart?
But, don't change a hair for me,
Not if you care for me.
Stay, little Valentine, stay.
Each day is Valentine's day.’

Chet Baker, ‘My Funny Valentine’ (Richard Rodgers / Lorenz Hart)

No. 455