West Hidden Paintings


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This is the story of a painting. A painting that once hung in the

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Prime Minister's official rooms at Number 10 Downing Street. But it is

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also the story of how,you and me, the people that actually paid for

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the picture, have rarely had a chance to see it, to enjoy it. The

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Badminton Game helped to launch the career of Wiltshire artist David

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Inshaw. However, after John Major's government disappeared, so did the

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painting. It was packed off to a storage vault and it has scarcely

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been seen since. In fact, it is one of thousands of paintings - art

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work owned by the public - but I am surrounded by beautiful art,

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all of it publicly owned. But all of it kept hidden away here in a

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secret vault. I cannot help but feel sad. Yes, these paintings are

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beautifully looked after but they do not feel terribly loved. And the

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point of art is to be seen. It is reckoned that across the country

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there are something like 200,000 paintings in public ownership.

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Incredibly, more than 80% of that vast collection is actually not on

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display. In this programme, I am tracing the story of just one of

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those paintings. And the young artist who created it while he was

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an art teacher in Bristol. In the 1960s and Seventies, Bristol had an

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incredibly vibrant, artistic and cultural community, which revolved

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around the foundation of the Arnolfini Gallery. The gallery had

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an energetic attitude of bringing big institutional art names here to

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the West, to a completely new audience. This was also a matched

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with an incredibly exciting commitment to sniffing out young

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fresh talent. And providing unknown artists with an appropriate stage

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on which to exhibit their work. David Inshaw taught printmaking at

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West of England College of Art. Like many others, he dreamed of

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success and of the freedom it could bring. His work began to attract

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interest from many quarters, including the Arnolfini, where he

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became a regular exhibitor. I went to teach in 1966 at Bristol. I was

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a student, really. I was still struggling with things I was doing

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as a student. I had not resolved anything. I had been at art school

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for seven years and had tried all sorts of approaches. Quite a

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variety of approaches. They all fitted together. They all had their

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romantic element to them. But when I started teaching, I was still a

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student and I was still searching for the beginning, really. In 1969,

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we had an exhibition, a big exhibition of Peter Blake's work.

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That coincided with David's own first exhibition at Arnolfinin when

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most of his work was pop art based. So he hadn't really got going.

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Indeed, I was rather dismissive of that first exhibition. David went

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to live in Devizes. In many respects, I think he wanted to be

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away from everything. He did feel a little alienated on all sides. I

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think he felt he was not living up to the London expectations and I

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think he was not living up to the Bristol, the more Cornish

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expectations, which were more to do with abstract, lyrical work. He was

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somewhere in between, I think. David Inshaw's early work might

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have been influenced by Pop art, but his style gradually changed.

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His first break in 1972 was to sell, to the City Art Gallery in Bristol,

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a painting of a young woman standing in a graveyard. When I

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bought Our Days Were A Joy And Our Path Through Flowers at the

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Arnolfini, sometimes I used to walk around the galleries and I used to

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watch the reaction of people to the pictures. I noticed that people

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coming into that gallery would go through it fairly fast,

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uninterested, not too long looking at the labels rather than the

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pictures. But when they came to David's there was a pause. And they

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were obviously intrigued. What is happening? What is this girl doing

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in a churchyard? David himself said that he wanted it to represent the

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spirits of the dead coming through and this young girl, he could not

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believe she was such a lovely, vibrant girl. He could never

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believe that she would ever perish. That painting was quite quick

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because it had to be finished for the exhibition at the Arnolfini.

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probably took about two months. I cannot imagine how I could have

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done it in two months. I must have worked on it all the time. But that

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technique developed over a period of time. It was based on

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photography, on observation and it was based on screen printing

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because I would screen print and then paint over that. So that kind

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of image was arrived at through all those different processes. So it

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has that sort of moment in time feeling. A snap almost, like a

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snapped photograph. The painting was named after a poem by Thomas

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Hardy. One of the typically English influences on Inshaw's work, along

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with cricket, the countryside and the music of Edward Elgar, with

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whom his great grandfather had been at school. I was fascinated by it.

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I think I was more fascinated by the public's response to it which

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was extraordinary. I think most people who were not familiar with

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the Thomas Hardy poem, they were genuinely responding to what they

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saw and being very moved by it. this is where I was expecting to

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see the painting, where it has been for the last four decades, in the

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City Art Gallery. But as luck would have it, a few short months ago, it

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was removed from display and taken to the museum's storage vault to

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make room for another hang. So there we are, yet another hidden

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painting. Bristol Museum is a different place altogether. I feel

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a sense of belonging to Bristol. It's a town I've always loved very

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much. I was really pleased when they bought it. It has done the job

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while it has been there for nearly 40 years. The fact that they have

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taken it down has upset me. It was like my toe hold in the art world.

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It's again like one's been slightly airbrushed out of things. It is

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part of the collection, it's a permanent part of the collection.

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They keep other parts of the collection up, and I think it

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fitted very well into that room. I think it looked wonderful in that

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room. I was very proud of it. So I was upset. And the fact that people

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did respond to it and still do they still find something in it, it

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gives them help and a feeling of belonging to something, I think it

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is sad that it has been removed. I love the work. I think it is a

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marvellous work. I really admire that sort of romantic sensibility

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and the way that he paints nature is fantastic. It will come back on

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display at some point. I am very happy with the work that we have

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hung in its place, which is a new acquisition by Megan Davies and it

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has been waiting to go on display. As I say, this gallery, it moves

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around. The works in it move around. So we will see David Inshaw again

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at some point. There will be one or two letters been written asking

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about it. It will certainly come back again. Since I bought it, in

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1972 I think, it must have been on view for three quarters of the time.

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So it is not a bad record. At least, we the public, who ultimately had

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paid for the painting, had an opportunity to get to know the

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painting through its long years of display here. But the next work

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that David Inshaw created was to change his career for good and had

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an extremely chequered history. Inshaw was in love with both the

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young women who are the focus of this picture. In fact, it is fair

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to say women have always played a significant part in his life and

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work. I think we got the dresses especially for the painting. The

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colours that we chose. We got the dresses from Biba and the shoes

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from Anello & Davide. So it was what was contemporary at the time.

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People have said it has a Victorian quality, but that was because Biba

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had that sort of Victorian edge to it. One of the subjects of the

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Badminton Game, Gillian Pollard, was a student at the Bristol Art

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College where he was teaching. But by the time the painting was

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finished, they would have split up. Partly over the other girl, but

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also because Gillian wanted to give up being Inshaw's muse and

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concentrate on her own art. To be quite honest, I had never played

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badminton before. I had played tennis. Well, not properly. In fact,

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I still cannot play badminton properly. Sorry, you're one of the

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most famous badminton players in the history of art, and yet you

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can't do it! But we were having great fun. The thing I knew about

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was dancing. We were wearing dancing shoes. I was wearing a

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dress more suitable for dancing, and so was my partner. And if

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anything, we were more dancing there than playing a game of

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badminton. Who is the other girl in the picture? There is you and who

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is the other lovely? I actually met the other girl in the picture as a

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waitress at Floyd's. That is how we came to meet. We had this very good

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friendship. So when I got to the point where I thought I just cannot

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do any more modelling for David, I just can't go on spending all this

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time with him. I had to get on with my own work. I naturally thought, a

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good model that would help would be my friend. I did suggest that to

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him. This is the first time, really, when he took the photographs, he

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met her. I was having a relationship with the two women. It

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was more complicated than that as well. I was driving backwards and

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forwards to Bristol to teach. You know, my whole life was in this

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turbulent, chaotic state. I always remember the day when I was

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supposed to meet him in Bath in front of the cathedral. I got on my

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bus, got to here, and I walked across towards the cathedral. It

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was not just David there. It was also my friend. I knew that the

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only way she could have got there first thing in the morning was to

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come via David. So that was the first realisation that there was

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something going on. The fact that we were all involved in that

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painting, I suppose is something that we will always remember. It is

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nice that, you know, Gill went to Australia for a long time, but she

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came back and we renewed our friendship. Things had happened.

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But I did not know that was going to happen. I do not think I would

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keep in touch with people. But it is lovely that it renews itself.

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the 1970s, David Inshaw cut a romantic figure. He was associated

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for a while with a group of artists based in the West of England who

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called themselves the Brotherhood of Ruralists. They included Peter

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Blake, the grand old man of British Pop Art who had famously designed

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the cover of The Beatle's album Sergeant Pepper. The ruralists saw

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themselves as kindred spirits, rather like the Pre-Raphaelites of

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the 19th century. They're quite disparate, the group of friends

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they came together. They came together for different reasons.

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Obviously, ruralist aspect, the landscape was one of them. And

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their own enthusiasm for a particular periods of English

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painting, and so forth. So they had that in common. But crucially it

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was the aspect of friendship and the actual fun of recreating the

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Brotherhood of Ruralists and a reflection of the PRP that had gone

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wrong before. The general public seemed to be very sympathetic to

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what we were trying to do. We has some very successful exhibitions.

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In the last exhibiton we had, that was an Arts Council exhibition,

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which started at the Arnolfini, went to Birmingham, then went to

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Glasgow and London. It was a travelling show and it was really

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successful. Everyone loved it. ruralists were really the end of a

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great tradition. I mean, beginning with William Blake, going through

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to Samuel Palmer, going through to the early Paul Nash, and Graham

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Sutherland. I mean, these artist still kept, I am sorry to use it

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again, the romantic sensibility. The ruralists was a nice episode.

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It was good to have friends you could socialise with, and talk

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about things with. But after about four years, I began to think it was

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a trap. Things were not moving at all. They were more interested in

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illustration. I just did not feel it was me any more. So I kind of

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left. But the others went on doing it and I think they have been

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trapped in their own success in a funny sort of way. I do not think

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it was important at all as a group. They were not the Newlyn School or

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St Ives. It was a group of artists coming together. It was

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individually important to them or, and particularly to David, whose

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work was to develop, perhaps more than any of the other artists after

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that period. But I do not think you can call it a movement of

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significance to British art as a whole, no. Looking at Inshaw's

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paintings from the Seventies you will find similar trees, fields and

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gardens, all filled with similar figures, usually women. They all

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combine to seduce the eye and lift the spirit. The most significant

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work from the period was the Badminton Game. Like many others,

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it was a cocktail of different places and elements brought

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together to create an atmosphere. It is a landscape that speaks of

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the past, but it's an imaginary one that has been reassembled to

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express values that are timeless. I would expect that you would expect

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me to be standing in front of the picture by now. To be describing it

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to you in detail, to be encouraging you to see it in the flesh. Because

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it is only when you see a picture for real that you get that sense of

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presence, that sense of scale you simply cannot get from seeing it as

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a reproduction in a book. I always think it is like the difference of

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seeing a film on television as opposed to seeing a film in the

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cinema. But it is not going to be possible. Let me tell you why. The

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work attracted considerable attention and was featured across

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the centrefold of the Sunday Times magazine. The exposure brought

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enough inquiries to keep David Inshaw busy for 20 years and

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allowed him to give up teaching. The Badminton Game was then bought

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by the Tate to add to its prestigious national collection.

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And David Inshaw's status was assured. His career moved on to

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another level. Those paintings that I did at the time - in the 1970s

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and right up through to the Eighties - they were composed, they

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were invented, they came out of my imagination, I suppose. The trees

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in the painting came from the trees I could see from the little room

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that I was painting in. I used to use a pair of binoculars to look at

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the trees. There was an acacia tree, a monkey puzzle tree, and I could

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see them through the window, and I put them in a painting by looking

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at them through the binoculars. house is extraordinary. Houses

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often have faces, but that one really, really does have a face.

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This girl, Christine Butler, who lived in Evesham, they lived in

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amongst a sort of Victorian industrial complex. And either side

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were these Victorian red-brick warehouses with high cupolas on top.

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I obviously imagined them more mysterious than they are. I took

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photographs of them later and they were not quite as like that. But

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they were the basis for the painting. It is a long time ago.

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There is no way I could go back to painting like that. It was almost a

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different person from where I am now. It is a struggle that goes on.

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IN fact, the struggle is harder because you have to keep moving.

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You have done so much, you used so many ideas and you are still

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searching for the one thing that is going to matter more than the

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Badminton Game did. Inshaw's career was on fire. The Arts Council

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bought one of his works, a piece called The Window, and private

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clients formed an orderly queue to buy his paintings. But life got

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even sweeter when Prime Minister John Major selected the Badminton

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Game to hang in Number 10 Downing Street. I have never met John Major

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so had no idea what he thought when he saw it. But apparently, he used

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to go round the National Gallery and the Tate after a day's work. He

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would take his detectives off and then go round and look at the

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paintings. He must have seen it and thought, why don't we have that?

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suspect it was relatively personal seal of approval from John Major. I

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hope it would reflect that he was the Prime Minister of Great Britain

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and this was a thoroughly English painting. And proud to be so.

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with a friend at Covent Garden and we had a drink at the interval.

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This woman from the Tate came and said, we've just hung your painting

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in Downing Street. I did not know who she was. I thought, really?

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That's weird. She said that John Major had chosen it. This was not

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the only time an Inshaw painting graced a government minister's

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office. The Window had been spotted by Arts Minister Hugh Jenkins 20

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years earlier following its purchase by the Arts Council. It

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hung in his ministerial office for two years and then spent over 20

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years on loan to Liverpool University. However, since 2003, it

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has been, guess what? Yes, locked away in the storage vaults. Of

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course governments come, and Government's go. When the curtain

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falls, it is time to get off the stage. In 1997, Tony Blair

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inherited the Badminton Game. It stayed at Number 10 for another six

:20:38.:20:48.
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months before it was sent back to the Tate. So, all and good you'd

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have thought. A fine piece of art back in the hands of the people,

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exhibited for the world to see and to enjoy. But sadly it did not

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quite turn out that way. Apart from one brief showing as part of a Tate

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exhibition called Art At The Garden, the Badminton Game has remained in

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the vaults, apparently unloved but definitely unseen. According to the

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Tate, there are no plans to exhibit the painting at present. Now, what

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I fail to come to terms with is how come a painting that was once

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deemed good enough to grace the most powerful office in the land,

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is now languishing unseen in the vaults of the Tate Gallery. I would

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like to have asked the director of the Tate, but like his opposite

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number at the Arts Council who owns Inshaw's, The Window, he was not

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available to be interviewed. think the art's establishment can

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be snooty. Sometimes the fact that a work is popular, they somehow

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believe therefore that it is inferior because the public like it.

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I think that art should be for everybody. I would like to see

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those works exhibited. And if the public want to see them, it is a

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tragedy that they are then hidden away and they do not have that

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opportunity to get out and see them. I am not angry, no. You just shrug.

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Do you think that is life? Yes. The last time saw the Badminton Game

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was at an exhibition at the Tate based on the garden. I had not seen

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it for a long time. I was amazed, because it was almost like I had

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not done it. It was so long ago. But it was a very impressive

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painting. It was also hanging near Stanley Spencer painting, which is

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one of my favourites. It was nice to be hanging in the same room as a

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Stanley Spencer. But that was good. But the Tate is the Tate and that

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is the way it is run. We discovered that there are actually three

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different government art collections. There is the formal

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Government art collection, then the Arts Council has one and the

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British Council has one. And as you say, quite a lot of those works are

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in storage and have been for many years. That seems to be a terrible

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waste. We are in a difficult economic time where the money isn't

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the large amount to spend on paintings and other works of art,

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so there may be the case there that the one or two works that are never

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shown, that are never brought out of the basement, might be sold in

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order to allow new works to be purchased. The Arts Council told me,

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and it's a sentiment the Tate would echo should they ever give me an

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interview, that it would be short- sighted and irresponsible to sell

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work from the Arts Council Collection. It is the nation's

:23:28.:23:36.

future legacy and an important record of post-war art. These and

:23:36.:23:38.

other great institutions own Inshaw's best works but rarely show

:23:39.:23:44.

them. Making it more difficult for the artist to connect with those

:23:44.:23:48.

who admire his work. Inshaw continues to paint and although his

:23:48.:23:51.

style has changed, the influences on his more recent paintings remain

:23:51.:23:54.

the same as they were 40 years ago in the Badminton Game and Our Days

:23:54.:23:57.

Were Of Joy, the writings of Thomas Hardy and the landscapes of

:23:57.:24:05.

Wiltshire and Dorset. However, more recent paintings embrace a new

:24:05.:24:09.

sense of earthiness and reality. These days, the brushwork is looser

:24:09.:24:15.

and the images are less obsessive in their attention to detail. There

:24:15.:24:19.

are those that may say he is no longer fashionable. But in Inshaw's

:24:19.:24:22.

home town, that does not matter in the way that it might to curators

:24:22.:24:30.

of cutting-edge London galleries. But it does not have to be like

:24:30.:24:32.

this. Here in Devizes in the Wiltshire Heritage Museum, they

:24:32.:24:38.

display their David Inshaws with great pride. Using his evocations

:24:38.:24:41.

of local landscape as a way of introducing an element of the

:24:41.:24:50.

modern, amongst the or historical displays. The contributions of

:24:50.:24:53.

local taxpayers' help the museum to fund the acquisition of new art

:24:53.:24:56.

work and, so they get a chance to see the whole collection, works are

:24:56.:25:02.

rotated on a regular basis. This way the artist is happy and the

:25:02.:25:08.

museum's visitors are too. A lot of visitors that we have here and a

:25:08.:25:11.

lot of our members as well are much more traditional in the kind of

:25:11.:25:14.

things that they like and the kind of art that they would appreciate

:25:14.:25:19.

as well. This is the kind of thing you can show to children, you can

:25:19.:25:24.

show to the older members of society. They also feel that they

:25:24.:25:28.

can have some way into art as well. So the wonderful thing about David

:25:28.:25:32.

is that he is so accessible, not just to the modern artist, but also

:25:32.:25:39.

to younger generations and older generations as well. When I was a

:25:39.:25:43.

student, I used to go to the Tate. There were not many people there,

:25:43.:25:46.

but all Stanley Spencer's paintings, all his paintings were on the back

:25:46.:25:52.

stairs, the whole lot. You had to go and find them. The people who

:25:52.:25:56.

run the Tate have an agenda and I do not a fit in with that agenda.

:25:56.:26:00.

It is like being airbrushed out of history in a funny sort of way. I

:26:00.:26:03.

think their policy is to show a very narrow range of things because

:26:03.:26:08.

they have this agenda. They are not all-encompassing which I think we

:26:08.:26:13.

should be. Pictures are changed about. Some aren't seen, some come

:26:13.:26:18.

view. I'm sure some time in the future, it will come back on show

:26:18.:26:22.

again. You could say that of any painting. Why isn't so and so on

:26:22.:26:27.

view? But the collection has to be varied, it has to be large. You

:26:27.:26:33.

have to be able to draw from your collection so that the public see.

:26:33.:26:35.

Perhaps paintings like the Badminton Game, publicly-owned but

:26:35.:26:37.

hidden from public gaze, have simply fallen victim to changes in

:26:38.:26:40.

fashion in the art world where, apparently to be new and different,

:26:41.:26:47.

is incredibly important. But shouldn't gallery creators choose

:26:47.:26:51.

the best and the most exciting work on offer rather than being seduced

:26:51.:26:58.

solely by the shock of the new? And once chosen, shouldn't those works

:26:58.:27:02.

then be displayed where they can be seen by those who have paid for

:27:02.:27:09.

them? This extraordinary James Bond-like environment is the store

:27:09.:27:15.

of the Tate Gallery. And I am surrounded by probably millions of

:27:15.:27:21.

pounds worth of art that is rarely seen. But it is one picture in

:27:21.:27:25.

particular that I am after. And this is it. Finally, I get to meet

:27:25.:27:35.
:27:35.:27:46.

Seeing it for real, is actually quite emotional. Because I just was

:27:46.:27:50.

not in any way prepared for the level of detail. There is almost an

:27:50.:27:55.

obsessive sense of embroidery. And also, the richness of the palette

:27:55.:27:59.

of greens. It makes it feel incredibly romantic, very, very

:27:59.:28:09.
:28:09.:28:09.

evocative. It is actually as if it is in a fairy-tale. It is like a

:28:09.:28:11.

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