:00:17. > :00:22.This is the story of a painting. A painting that once hung in the
:00:22. > :00:26.Prime Minister's official rooms at Number 10 Downing Street. But it is
:00:26. > :00:31.also the story of how,you and me, the people that actually paid for
:00:31. > :00:34.the picture, have rarely had a chance to see it, to enjoy it. The
:00:34. > :00:38.Badminton Game helped to launch the career of Wiltshire artist David
:00:38. > :00:44.Inshaw. However, after John Major's government disappeared, so did the
:00:44. > :00:48.painting. It was packed off to a storage vault and it has scarcely
:00:48. > :00:58.been seen since. In fact, it is one of thousands of paintings - art
:00:58. > :01:16.
:01:16. > :01:21.work owned by the public - but I am surrounded by beautiful art,
:01:21. > :01:26.all of it publicly owned. But all of it kept hidden away here in a
:01:26. > :01:29.secret vault. I cannot help but feel sad. Yes, these paintings are
:01:29. > :01:36.beautifully looked after but they do not feel terribly loved. And the
:01:36. > :01:41.point of art is to be seen. It is reckoned that across the country
:01:41. > :01:44.there are something like 200,000 paintings in public ownership.
:01:44. > :01:49.Incredibly, more than 80% of that vast collection is actually not on
:01:50. > :01:54.display. In this programme, I am tracing the story of just one of
:01:54. > :02:01.those paintings. And the young artist who created it while he was
:02:01. > :02:03.an art teacher in Bristol. In the 1960s and Seventies, Bristol had an
:02:03. > :02:12.incredibly vibrant, artistic and cultural community, which revolved
:02:12. > :02:14.around the foundation of the Arnolfini Gallery. The gallery had
:02:15. > :02:21.an energetic attitude of bringing big institutional art names here to
:02:21. > :02:23.the West, to a completely new audience. This was also a matched
:02:23. > :02:28.with an incredibly exciting commitment to sniffing out young
:02:29. > :02:37.fresh talent. And providing unknown artists with an appropriate stage
:02:37. > :02:42.on which to exhibit their work. David Inshaw taught printmaking at
:02:42. > :02:47.West of England College of Art. Like many others, he dreamed of
:02:47. > :02:49.success and of the freedom it could bring. His work began to attract
:02:49. > :02:59.interest from many quarters, including the Arnolfini, where he
:02:59. > :03:00.
:03:00. > :03:06.became a regular exhibitor. I went to teach in 1966 at Bristol. I was
:03:06. > :03:10.a student, really. I was still struggling with things I was doing
:03:10. > :03:13.as a student. I had not resolved anything. I had been at art school
:03:13. > :03:17.for seven years and had tried all sorts of approaches. Quite a
:03:17. > :03:21.variety of approaches. They all fitted together. They all had their
:03:21. > :03:25.romantic element to them. But when I started teaching, I was still a
:03:25. > :03:31.student and I was still searching for the beginning, really. In 1969,
:03:31. > :03:33.we had an exhibition, a big exhibition of Peter Blake's work.
:03:33. > :03:43.That coincided with David's own first exhibition at Arnolfinin when
:03:43. > :03:43.
:03:43. > :03:47.most of his work was pop art based. So he hadn't really got going.
:03:48. > :03:52.Indeed, I was rather dismissive of that first exhibition. David went
:03:52. > :03:57.to live in Devizes. In many respects, I think he wanted to be
:03:57. > :04:01.away from everything. He did feel a little alienated on all sides. I
:04:01. > :04:04.think he felt he was not living up to the London expectations and I
:04:04. > :04:10.think he was not living up to the Bristol, the more Cornish
:04:10. > :04:17.expectations, which were more to do with abstract, lyrical work. He was
:04:17. > :04:22.somewhere in between, I think. David Inshaw's early work might
:04:22. > :04:26.have been influenced by Pop art, but his style gradually changed.
:04:26. > :04:35.His first break in 1972 was to sell, to the City Art Gallery in Bristol,
:04:35. > :04:39.a painting of a young woman standing in a graveyard. When I
:04:39. > :04:42.bought Our Days Were A Joy And Our Path Through Flowers at the
:04:42. > :04:48.Arnolfini, sometimes I used to walk around the galleries and I used to
:04:48. > :04:51.watch the reaction of people to the pictures. I noticed that people
:04:51. > :04:54.coming into that gallery would go through it fairly fast,
:04:54. > :05:04.uninterested, not too long looking at the labels rather than the
:05:04. > :05:07.pictures. But when they came to David's there was a pause. And they
:05:07. > :05:12.were obviously intrigued. What is happening? What is this girl doing
:05:12. > :05:15.in a churchyard? David himself said that he wanted it to represent the
:05:15. > :05:24.spirits of the dead coming through and this young girl, he could not
:05:24. > :05:29.believe she was such a lovely, vibrant girl. He could never
:05:29. > :05:34.believe that she would ever perish. That painting was quite quick
:05:34. > :05:37.because it had to be finished for the exhibition at the Arnolfini.
:05:37. > :05:41.probably took about two months. I cannot imagine how I could have
:05:41. > :05:44.done it in two months. I must have worked on it all the time. But that
:05:44. > :05:47.technique developed over a period of time. It was based on
:05:47. > :05:50.photography, on observation and it was based on screen printing
:05:50. > :05:55.because I would screen print and then paint over that. So that kind
:05:55. > :06:00.of image was arrived at through all those different processes. So it
:06:00. > :06:05.has that sort of moment in time feeling. A snap almost, like a
:06:05. > :06:08.snapped photograph. The painting was named after a poem by Thomas
:06:08. > :06:11.Hardy. One of the typically English influences on Inshaw's work, along
:06:11. > :06:20.with cricket, the countryside and the music of Edward Elgar, with
:06:20. > :06:23.whom his great grandfather had been at school. I was fascinated by it.
:06:23. > :06:29.I think I was more fascinated by the public's response to it which
:06:29. > :06:32.was extraordinary. I think most people who were not familiar with
:06:32. > :06:42.the Thomas Hardy poem, they were genuinely responding to what they
:06:42. > :06:47.
:06:47. > :06:51.saw and being very moved by it. this is where I was expecting to
:06:51. > :06:56.see the painting, where it has been for the last four decades, in the
:06:56. > :06:59.City Art Gallery. But as luck would have it, a few short months ago, it
:06:59. > :07:05.was removed from display and taken to the museum's storage vault to
:07:05. > :07:15.make room for another hang. So there we are, yet another hidden
:07:15. > :07:18.painting. Bristol Museum is a different place altogether. I feel
:07:18. > :07:23.a sense of belonging to Bristol. It's a town I've always loved very
:07:23. > :07:26.much. I was really pleased when they bought it. It has done the job
:07:26. > :07:31.while it has been there for nearly 40 years. The fact that they have
:07:31. > :07:36.taken it down has upset me. It was like my toe hold in the art world.
:07:36. > :07:40.It's again like one's been slightly airbrushed out of things. It is
:07:40. > :07:43.part of the collection, it's a permanent part of the collection.
:07:43. > :07:46.They keep other parts of the collection up, and I think it
:07:46. > :07:50.fitted very well into that room. I think it looked wonderful in that
:07:50. > :07:54.room. I was very proud of it. So I was upset. And the fact that people
:07:54. > :07:57.did respond to it and still do they still find something in it, it
:07:57. > :08:04.gives them help and a feeling of belonging to something, I think it
:08:04. > :08:06.is sad that it has been removed. I love the work. I think it is a
:08:06. > :08:13.marvellous work. I really admire that sort of romantic sensibility
:08:13. > :08:18.and the way that he paints nature is fantastic. It will come back on
:08:18. > :08:22.display at some point. I am very happy with the work that we have
:08:22. > :08:27.hung in its place, which is a new acquisition by Megan Davies and it
:08:28. > :08:34.has been waiting to go on display. As I say, this gallery, it moves
:08:34. > :08:39.around. The works in it move around. So we will see David Inshaw again
:08:40. > :08:44.at some point. There will be one or two letters been written asking
:08:44. > :08:49.about it. It will certainly come back again. Since I bought it, in
:08:49. > :08:56.1972 I think, it must have been on view for three quarters of the time.
:08:56. > :08:59.So it is not a bad record. At least, we the public, who ultimately had
:08:59. > :09:05.paid for the painting, had an opportunity to get to know the
:09:05. > :09:08.painting through its long years of display here. But the next work
:09:08. > :09:18.that David Inshaw created was to change his career for good and had
:09:18. > :09:28.
:09:28. > :09:32.an extremely chequered history. Inshaw was in love with both the
:09:32. > :09:36.young women who are the focus of this picture. In fact, it is fair
:09:36. > :09:43.to say women have always played a significant part in his life and
:09:43. > :09:47.work. I think we got the dresses especially for the painting. The
:09:47. > :09:52.colours that we chose. We got the dresses from Biba and the shoes
:09:53. > :09:56.from Anello & Davide. So it was what was contemporary at the time.
:09:56. > :10:06.People have said it has a Victorian quality, but that was because Biba
:10:06. > :10:06.
:10:06. > :10:09.had that sort of Victorian edge to it. One of the subjects of the
:10:09. > :10:13.Badminton Game, Gillian Pollard, was a student at the Bristol Art
:10:13. > :10:17.College where he was teaching. But by the time the painting was
:10:17. > :10:20.finished, they would have split up. Partly over the other girl, but
:10:20. > :10:29.also because Gillian wanted to give up being Inshaw's muse and
:10:30. > :10:34.concentrate on her own art. To be quite honest, I had never played
:10:34. > :10:39.badminton before. I had played tennis. Well, not properly. In fact,
:10:39. > :10:42.I still cannot play badminton properly. Sorry, you're one of the
:10:42. > :10:46.most famous badminton players in the history of art, and yet you
:10:46. > :10:52.can't do it! But we were having great fun. The thing I knew about
:10:52. > :10:56.was dancing. We were wearing dancing shoes. I was wearing a
:10:56. > :10:59.dress more suitable for dancing, and so was my partner. And if
:10:59. > :11:05.anything, we were more dancing there than playing a game of
:11:05. > :11:11.badminton. Who is the other girl in the picture? There is you and who
:11:11. > :11:19.is the other lovely? I actually met the other girl in the picture as a
:11:19. > :11:24.waitress at Floyd's. That is how we came to meet. We had this very good
:11:24. > :11:27.friendship. So when I got to the point where I thought I just cannot
:11:27. > :11:34.do any more modelling for David, I just can't go on spending all this
:11:34. > :11:40.time with him. I had to get on with my own work. I naturally thought, a
:11:40. > :11:45.good model that would help would be my friend. I did suggest that to
:11:45. > :11:51.him. This is the first time, really, when he took the photographs, he
:11:51. > :11:55.met her. I was having a relationship with the two women. It
:11:55. > :12:00.was more complicated than that as well. I was driving backwards and
:12:00. > :12:07.forwards to Bristol to teach. You know, my whole life was in this
:12:07. > :12:11.turbulent, chaotic state. I always remember the day when I was
:12:11. > :12:15.supposed to meet him in Bath in front of the cathedral. I got on my
:12:15. > :12:20.bus, got to here, and I walked across towards the cathedral. It
:12:20. > :12:24.was not just David there. It was also my friend. I knew that the
:12:24. > :12:27.only way she could have got there first thing in the morning was to
:12:27. > :12:32.come via David. So that was the first realisation that there was
:12:32. > :12:35.something going on. The fact that we were all involved in that
:12:35. > :12:38.painting, I suppose is something that we will always remember. It is
:12:38. > :12:43.nice that, you know, Gill went to Australia for a long time, but she
:12:43. > :12:47.came back and we renewed our friendship. Things had happened.
:12:47. > :12:57.But I did not know that was going to happen. I do not think I would
:12:57. > :12:58.
:12:58. > :13:03.keep in touch with people. But it is lovely that it renews itself.
:13:03. > :13:07.the 1970s, David Inshaw cut a romantic figure. He was associated
:13:07. > :13:11.for a while with a group of artists based in the West of England who
:13:11. > :13:14.called themselves the Brotherhood of Ruralists. They included Peter
:13:14. > :13:21.Blake, the grand old man of British Pop Art who had famously designed
:13:21. > :13:23.the cover of The Beatle's album Sergeant Pepper. The ruralists saw
:13:23. > :13:31.themselves as kindred spirits, rather like the Pre-Raphaelites of
:13:31. > :13:37.the 19th century. They're quite disparate, the group of friends
:13:37. > :13:42.they came together. They came together for different reasons.
:13:42. > :13:44.Obviously, ruralist aspect, the landscape was one of them. And
:13:44. > :13:51.their own enthusiasm for a particular periods of English
:13:51. > :13:54.painting, and so forth. So they had that in common. But crucially it
:13:54. > :13:57.was the aspect of friendship and the actual fun of recreating the
:13:57. > :14:06.Brotherhood of Ruralists and a reflection of the PRP that had gone
:14:06. > :14:10.wrong before. The general public seemed to be very sympathetic to
:14:10. > :14:13.what we were trying to do. We has some very successful exhibitions.
:14:13. > :14:16.In the last exhibiton we had, that was an Arts Council exhibition,
:14:16. > :14:19.which started at the Arnolfini, went to Birmingham, then went to
:14:19. > :14:25.Glasgow and London. It was a travelling show and it was really
:14:25. > :14:28.successful. Everyone loved it. ruralists were really the end of a
:14:28. > :14:31.great tradition. I mean, beginning with William Blake, going through
:14:31. > :14:37.to Samuel Palmer, going through to the early Paul Nash, and Graham
:14:37. > :14:47.Sutherland. I mean, these artist still kept, I am sorry to use it
:14:47. > :14:51.
:14:51. > :14:54.again, the romantic sensibility. The ruralists was a nice episode.
:14:54. > :14:57.It was good to have friends you could socialise with, and talk
:14:57. > :15:04.about things with. But after about four years, I began to think it was
:15:04. > :15:09.a trap. Things were not moving at all. They were more interested in
:15:10. > :15:14.illustration. I just did not feel it was me any more. So I kind of
:15:14. > :15:19.left. But the others went on doing it and I think they have been
:15:19. > :15:24.trapped in their own success in a funny sort of way. I do not think
:15:24. > :15:28.it was important at all as a group. They were not the Newlyn School or
:15:28. > :15:30.St Ives. It was a group of artists coming together. It was
:15:30. > :15:34.individually important to them or, and particularly to David, whose
:15:34. > :15:41.work was to develop, perhaps more than any of the other artists after
:15:41. > :15:49.that period. But I do not think you can call it a movement of
:15:49. > :15:52.significance to British art as a whole, no. Looking at Inshaw's
:15:52. > :15:57.paintings from the Seventies you will find similar trees, fields and
:15:57. > :16:04.gardens, all filled with similar figures, usually women. They all
:16:04. > :16:07.combine to seduce the eye and lift the spirit. The most significant
:16:07. > :16:10.work from the period was the Badminton Game. Like many others,
:16:10. > :16:15.it was a cocktail of different places and elements brought
:16:15. > :16:18.together to create an atmosphere. It is a landscape that speaks of
:16:18. > :16:24.the past, but it's an imaginary one that has been reassembled to
:16:24. > :16:28.express values that are timeless. I would expect that you would expect
:16:28. > :16:33.me to be standing in front of the picture by now. To be describing it
:16:33. > :16:37.to you in detail, to be encouraging you to see it in the flesh. Because
:16:37. > :16:40.it is only when you see a picture for real that you get that sense of
:16:40. > :16:44.presence, that sense of scale you simply cannot get from seeing it as
:16:44. > :16:47.a reproduction in a book. I always think it is like the difference of
:16:47. > :16:53.seeing a film on television as opposed to seeing a film in the
:16:53. > :16:55.cinema. But it is not going to be possible. Let me tell you why. The
:16:55. > :17:00.work attracted considerable attention and was featured across
:17:00. > :17:03.the centrefold of the Sunday Times magazine. The exposure brought
:17:03. > :17:10.enough inquiries to keep David Inshaw busy for 20 years and
:17:10. > :17:13.allowed him to give up teaching. The Badminton Game was then bought
:17:13. > :17:18.by the Tate to add to its prestigious national collection.
:17:18. > :17:26.And David Inshaw's status was assured. His career moved on to
:17:26. > :17:29.another level. Those paintings that I did at the time - in the 1970s
:17:29. > :17:32.and right up through to the Eighties - they were composed, they
:17:32. > :17:35.were invented, they came out of my imagination, I suppose. The trees
:17:35. > :17:40.in the painting came from the trees I could see from the little room
:17:40. > :17:44.that I was painting in. I used to use a pair of binoculars to look at
:17:44. > :17:47.the trees. There was an acacia tree, a monkey puzzle tree, and I could
:17:47. > :17:52.see them through the window, and I put them in a painting by looking
:17:52. > :17:56.at them through the binoculars. house is extraordinary. Houses
:17:56. > :17:59.often have faces, but that one really, really does have a face.
:17:59. > :18:01.This girl, Christine Butler, who lived in Evesham, they lived in
:18:01. > :18:08.amongst a sort of Victorian industrial complex. And either side
:18:08. > :18:12.were these Victorian red-brick warehouses with high cupolas on top.
:18:12. > :18:17.I obviously imagined them more mysterious than they are. I took
:18:17. > :18:23.photographs of them later and they were not quite as like that. But
:18:23. > :18:27.they were the basis for the painting. It is a long time ago.
:18:27. > :18:31.There is no way I could go back to painting like that. It was almost a
:18:31. > :18:35.different person from where I am now. It is a struggle that goes on.
:18:35. > :18:39.IN fact, the struggle is harder because you have to keep moving.
:18:39. > :18:42.You have done so much, you used so many ideas and you are still
:18:42. > :18:46.searching for the one thing that is going to matter more than the
:18:46. > :18:49.Badminton Game did. Inshaw's career was on fire. The Arts Council
:18:49. > :18:55.bought one of his works, a piece called The Window, and private
:18:55. > :18:57.clients formed an orderly queue to buy his paintings. But life got
:18:57. > :19:04.even sweeter when Prime Minister John Major selected the Badminton
:19:04. > :19:08.Game to hang in Number 10 Downing Street. I have never met John Major
:19:08. > :19:11.so had no idea what he thought when he saw it. But apparently, he used
:19:11. > :19:15.to go round the National Gallery and the Tate after a day's work. He
:19:15. > :19:22.would take his detectives off and then go round and look at the
:19:22. > :19:25.paintings. He must have seen it and thought, why don't we have that?
:19:25. > :19:28.suspect it was relatively personal seal of approval from John Major. I
:19:28. > :19:35.hope it would reflect that he was the Prime Minister of Great Britain
:19:35. > :19:39.and this was a thoroughly English painting. And proud to be so.
:19:39. > :19:42.with a friend at Covent Garden and we had a drink at the interval.
:19:42. > :19:46.This woman from the Tate came and said, we've just hung your painting
:19:46. > :19:51.in Downing Street. I did not know who she was. I thought, really?
:19:51. > :19:53.That's weird. She said that John Major had chosen it. This was not
:19:53. > :19:57.the only time an Inshaw painting graced a government minister's
:19:57. > :20:02.office. The Window had been spotted by Arts Minister Hugh Jenkins 20
:20:02. > :20:05.years earlier following its purchase by the Arts Council. It
:20:05. > :20:11.hung in his ministerial office for two years and then spent over 20
:20:11. > :20:19.years on loan to Liverpool University. However, since 2003, it
:20:19. > :20:23.has been, guess what? Yes, locked away in the storage vaults. Of
:20:23. > :20:32.course governments come, and Government's go. When the curtain
:20:32. > :20:38.falls, it is time to get off the stage. In 1997, Tony Blair
:20:38. > :20:48.inherited the Badminton Game. It stayed at Number 10 for another six
:20:48. > :20:49.
:20:49. > :20:53.months before it was sent back to the Tate. So, all and good you'd
:20:53. > :20:56.have thought. A fine piece of art back in the hands of the people,
:20:56. > :21:04.exhibited for the world to see and to enjoy. But sadly it did not
:21:04. > :21:07.quite turn out that way. Apart from one brief showing as part of a Tate
:21:07. > :21:14.exhibition called Art At The Garden, the Badminton Game has remained in
:21:14. > :21:19.the vaults, apparently unloved but definitely unseen. According to the
:21:19. > :21:23.Tate, there are no plans to exhibit the painting at present. Now, what
:21:23. > :21:26.I fail to come to terms with is how come a painting that was once
:21:26. > :21:31.deemed good enough to grace the most powerful office in the land,
:21:31. > :21:34.is now languishing unseen in the vaults of the Tate Gallery. I would
:21:34. > :21:38.like to have asked the director of the Tate, but like his opposite
:21:38. > :21:45.number at the Arts Council who owns Inshaw's, The Window, he was not
:21:45. > :21:49.available to be interviewed. think the art's establishment can
:21:49. > :21:53.be snooty. Sometimes the fact that a work is popular, they somehow
:21:53. > :21:57.believe therefore that it is inferior because the public like it.
:21:57. > :22:01.I think that art should be for everybody. I would like to see
:22:01. > :22:04.those works exhibited. And if the public want to see them, it is a
:22:04. > :22:11.tragedy that they are then hidden away and they do not have that
:22:11. > :22:16.opportunity to get out and see them. I am not angry, no. You just shrug.
:22:16. > :22:20.Do you think that is life? Yes. The last time saw the Badminton Game
:22:20. > :22:23.was at an exhibition at the Tate based on the garden. I had not seen
:22:24. > :22:28.it for a long time. I was amazed, because it was almost like I had
:22:28. > :22:32.not done it. It was so long ago. But it was a very impressive
:22:32. > :22:37.painting. It was also hanging near Stanley Spencer painting, which is
:22:37. > :22:40.one of my favourites. It was nice to be hanging in the same room as a
:22:40. > :22:45.Stanley Spencer. But that was good. But the Tate is the Tate and that
:22:45. > :22:47.is the way it is run. We discovered that there are actually three
:22:47. > :22:49.different government art collections. There is the formal
:22:49. > :22:53.Government art collection, then the Arts Council has one and the
:22:53. > :22:57.British Council has one. And as you say, quite a lot of those works are
:22:57. > :23:00.in storage and have been for many years. That seems to be a terrible
:23:00. > :23:03.waste. We are in a difficult economic time where the money isn't
:23:03. > :23:07.the large amount to spend on paintings and other works of art,
:23:07. > :23:10.so there may be the case there that the one or two works that are never
:23:10. > :23:13.shown, that are never brought out of the basement, might be sold in
:23:13. > :23:17.order to allow new works to be purchased. The Arts Council told me,
:23:17. > :23:19.and it's a sentiment the Tate would echo should they ever give me an
:23:20. > :23:28.interview, that it would be short- sighted and irresponsible to sell
:23:28. > :23:36.work from the Arts Council Collection. It is the nation's
:23:36. > :23:38.future legacy and an important record of post-war art. These and
:23:39. > :23:44.other great institutions own Inshaw's best works but rarely show
:23:44. > :23:48.them. Making it more difficult for the artist to connect with those
:23:48. > :23:51.who admire his work. Inshaw continues to paint and although his
:23:51. > :23:54.style has changed, the influences on his more recent paintings remain
:23:54. > :23:57.the same as they were 40 years ago in the Badminton Game and Our Days
:23:57. > :24:05.Were Of Joy, the writings of Thomas Hardy and the landscapes of
:24:05. > :24:09.Wiltshire and Dorset. However, more recent paintings embrace a new
:24:09. > :24:15.sense of earthiness and reality. These days, the brushwork is looser
:24:15. > :24:19.and the images are less obsessive in their attention to detail. There
:24:19. > :24:22.are those that may say he is no longer fashionable. But in Inshaw's
:24:22. > :24:30.home town, that does not matter in the way that it might to curators
:24:30. > :24:32.of cutting-edge London galleries. But it does not have to be like
:24:32. > :24:38.this. Here in Devizes in the Wiltshire Heritage Museum, they
:24:38. > :24:41.display their David Inshaws with great pride. Using his evocations
:24:41. > :24:50.of local landscape as a way of introducing an element of the
:24:50. > :24:53.modern, amongst the or historical displays. The contributions of
:24:53. > :24:56.local taxpayers' help the museum to fund the acquisition of new art
:24:56. > :25:02.work and, so they get a chance to see the whole collection, works are
:25:02. > :25:08.rotated on a regular basis. This way the artist is happy and the
:25:08. > :25:11.museum's visitors are too. A lot of visitors that we have here and a
:25:11. > :25:14.lot of our members as well are much more traditional in the kind of
:25:14. > :25:19.things that they like and the kind of art that they would appreciate
:25:19. > :25:24.as well. This is the kind of thing you can show to children, you can
:25:24. > :25:28.show to the older members of society. They also feel that they
:25:28. > :25:32.can have some way into art as well. So the wonderful thing about David
:25:32. > :25:39.is that he is so accessible, not just to the modern artist, but also
:25:39. > :25:43.to younger generations and older generations as well. When I was a
:25:43. > :25:46.student, I used to go to the Tate. There were not many people there,
:25:46. > :25:52.but all Stanley Spencer's paintings, all his paintings were on the back
:25:52. > :25:56.stairs, the whole lot. You had to go and find them. The people who
:25:56. > :26:00.run the Tate have an agenda and I do not a fit in with that agenda.
:26:00. > :26:03.It is like being airbrushed out of history in a funny sort of way. I
:26:03. > :26:08.think their policy is to show a very narrow range of things because
:26:08. > :26:13.they have this agenda. They are not all-encompassing which I think we
:26:13. > :26:18.should be. Pictures are changed about. Some aren't seen, some come
:26:18. > :26:22.view. I'm sure some time in the future, it will come back on show
:26:22. > :26:27.again. You could say that of any painting. Why isn't so and so on
:26:27. > :26:33.view? But the collection has to be varied, it has to be large. You
:26:33. > :26:35.have to be able to draw from your collection so that the public see.
:26:35. > :26:37.Perhaps paintings like the Badminton Game, publicly-owned but
:26:38. > :26:40.hidden from public gaze, have simply fallen victim to changes in
:26:41. > :26:47.fashion in the art world where, apparently to be new and different,
:26:47. > :26:51.is incredibly important. But shouldn't gallery creators choose
:26:51. > :26:58.the best and the most exciting work on offer rather than being seduced
:26:58. > :27:02.solely by the shock of the new? And once chosen, shouldn't those works
:27:02. > :27:09.then be displayed where they can be seen by those who have paid for
:27:09. > :27:15.them? This extraordinary James Bond-like environment is the store
:27:15. > :27:21.of the Tate Gallery. And I am surrounded by probably millions of
:27:21. > :27:25.pounds worth of art that is rarely seen. But it is one picture in
:27:25. > :27:35.particular that I am after. And this is it. Finally, I get to meet
:27:35. > :27:46.
:27:46. > :27:50.Seeing it for real, is actually quite emotional. Because I just was
:27:50. > :27:55.not in any way prepared for the level of detail. There is almost an
:27:55. > :27:59.obsessive sense of embroidery. And also, the richness of the palette
:27:59. > :28:09.of greens. It makes it feel incredibly romantic, very, very
:28:09. > :28:09.
:28:09. > :28:11.evocative. It is actually as if it is in a fairy-tale. It is like a