1971 – I was fourteen and we found a storage hut at school, next to the tennis court. We climbed in and nicked a few costumes. These were vintage clothes used for school plays. I stole a little black cape … Read More
In my adolescence, I visited the artist in a London flat. There was a room designated for the studio; I could not smell turps or white spirit; I could not see a Francis Bacon tsunami licking the prosaic off the … Read More
“What is art, Herr Schwitters” “What isn’t?” This was my opening quote in the art history exam in 1973. Kurt, neatly summing up the conceptualist ideology of 1970s art schools. For all of its egalitarian symbolism, Kurt’s quote was embedded … Read More
In 2021 I was asked to contribute to an exhibition in Hereford. I researched the year 1971 for the painting ‘The anchorhold 1971’ I used a version of a toy theatre and painted anchorholds in the theatre boxes, women kept … Read More
My first imaginary friend was a bluebird, directly lifted from a favourite storybook, with the power of speech and flight, much needed in large families. Another was a baby although I had a baby sister. This imaginary one was … Read More
NICK’S GIFT Review by Paul Green Becky Nuttall’s first collection is a delight to read. The poems range from vivid but unsentimental epiphanies of a sixties childhood to powerful evocations of a seventies adolescence in all its … Read More
I inherited my father’s art school portfollio, letters written to his closest friend, poems, lists and journals. I have the lovely poems he wrote for me, his funny postcards and random letters. I have disposed of … Read More
Conceptualism was the only theory available at my art school in 1973. Found objects, post modern irony and an ability to not stick around too long with an idea were highly marked. A desire to paint like Turner was … Read More
The White Horses of Tarquinia In 1966 we spent a summer in Italy; one quest was to find the white horses of Tarquinia. It became a bit of a mission. I have now found out they were … Read More
Once I was a young artist raised in the sixties and living the seventies. To the art school came the man raised in the twenties and living the Reformation; he is the assessor. He sallies forth into the studio and … Read More
On a bedroom wall in our house was a reproduction of Harlequinade. Harlequin and Columbine playing out their pantomime amidst twirls, slapstick, dogs, pursued by Pantaloon and Pierrot My father also pinned up a picture of Picasso’s Child with a … Read More