Graphic Journey Blog

Scarborough rock: Part 1: Beginnings

Having clocked up over 40 recorded interviews in my RSA RDInsights series, with a range of outstanding interdisciplinary designers, from Thomas Heatherwick to Kenneth Grange and from Margaret Howell to Sandy Powell, it was an odd sensation to have the tables turned on me. But last week, I was a guest on BBC Radio York's ŒDr Rock.

Illustration by John Richardson, design by Patrick Argent.

Dr Rock, aka Charles White, is an eccentric mix of practising chiropodist, environmental campaigner, DJ and successful biographer of rock legends Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis.

As a radio presenter in his guise as Dr Rock, he has had a wide range of guests on his show. From the world of pop, they include Mark Knopfler, Nils Lofgren, Bill Wyman and many more. He also likes to draw from the world of design and has featured Milton Glaser, Bob Gill, George Lois and Sir Peter Blake, just for starters. And now, embarrassingly, I am included among this illustrious company.

With his environmental activist hat on, Charles White has a far steelier side. Along with a group of equally minded friends, they formed the 'ŒSons of Neptune' in 1983, long before the 'ŒSurfers Against Sewage' collective. The Sons of Neptune quickly became a three-pronged spear in the side of Yorkshire Water ­ the utility company serving the region but woefully neglecting its environmental duties by spewing thousands of gallons of untreated effluent directly into the sea around Scarborough. Yuk!

For over three decades, Charles and his buddies have monitored Yorkshire Water¹s dodgy activities and have presented a whole mass of evidence against the company, eventually curtailing its activities via changes in the law, which have helped to prevent the spread of some very nasty bugs. A brief look at Yorkshire Water's Wikipedia page will show you just how neglectful the company has been over the years. Ironically, its vision is 'Taking responsibility for the water environment for good' ­ clearly all waffle.

Me with the legendary Dr Rock (Charles White)

You can hear Part 1 of my appearance and listen to my selection of music on Dr Rock here.

Working in the ever present past

Over the past 15 years, China has built hundreds of new cities. 

Here in the UK, it takes us four years to repair a clock tower. I’m talking about Elizabeth Tower, which houses Big Ben. It will cost £40 million, which includes a ‘full refurbishment’ with the addition of a new visitor centre at the bottom of the tower and installing a lift to the top. 

In addition to this £40 million, there is the planned renovation of the Houses of Parliament at a staggering estimated cost of £3.5 billion. As a Grade 1 listed building, you can bet your bottom dollar that figure will double as new things are ‘discovered’ during the renovation, meaning yet more renovation. The Houses of Parliament is a grossly outmoded building for modern politics. 

The moment a new politician walks into that Victorian, Potteresque, gothic fantasy, with its 100 staircases, more than 1,000 rooms and three miles of passages, something hits them – a massive sense of self-importance, privilege and ultimately a self-serving sense of right. Perfect for Jacob Rees-Mogg and his like, or the bewigged judges and the hereditary lords hanging out in the many heavily subsidised eateries and bars, all delighted to be embraced by the 19th-century backdrop, cosseted from the nasty realities of the outside world.

But we live in the 21st century and our politicians should reflect that, and they just don’t in this archaic building. And to shell out the enormous amount of money bandied about for the renovation is obscene when so much money is desperately needed in far more important areas. 

An average attendance in the House of Commons...

unlesss they happen to be discussing something really important, like their expenses and pay.

Far, far better to create a modern, environmentally sustainable parliamentary building fit for the 21st century, dispensing with the stockinged waiters, wigs and gowns and all the other antiquated trappings. Perhaps then many of the 800 peers would drop out of using the place as “the best club in London” as one peer said to me when I visited with him a few years ago, with many of them collecting their £300 per day for snoozing on the benches after eating subsidised booze and food.

Collecting £300 per day for a Lord is exhausting..

The Lords member's dining room.

And the Commons dining room.

Above a typical menu

Free taxies home for MPs after !!p.m. No smelly tube for them.

And while on politicians expenses here is Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt's new bathroom...

 

A snip at £44,000 for the taxpayer installed exclusively for Hunt's own personal use in his London penthouse office. I'm sure all those 1% pay rise nurses will be pleased for him. This is what I mean by self-serving. 

The parliamentary buildings sitting in such a fabulous location should become the most wonderful complex for the people, with money raised from both public and private sources.

An example of a 21st-century (aka 19th-century) occupant is Sir Robert Rogers (above), who when he retired recently as clerk of the commons was applauded by the house, which he described as “really, really moving”. But Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said: “I think applause is a bit modern for the House of Commons.” See what I mean. And here is Mr Rees-Mogg in his home setting...

Jacob Rees-Mogg's home blends perfectly with his work environment. 

And then there is the Buckingham Palace ‘emergency’ refurbishment, costing the taxpayer £369m. Don’t get me started on that.

William Nicholson: The magnificent master

William Nicholson

Back in 1968, I joined William Heinemann publishers as their art director, and the first thing the struck me was this.

Known as a ‘colophon’, it graced the spines and title pages of all of Heinemann’s books. What I didn’t know at the time was that it was an engraving by the artist William Nicholson. He became synonymous with Heinemann in the 1890s when he produced a series of woodcuts for An Alphabet and London Types. He also illustrated Margery Williams’ wonderful children’s book The Velveteen Rabbit.

The Velveteen Rabbit 1922

It was only then that I looked further and discovered his beautiful, sumptuous paintings. Even today, they seem to just get better, especially the portraits. They have a delightful stillness and richness about them, and the composition tends to be very graphic – probably why I like them so much. 

Portrait of Diamond Hardinge 1915

Mrs Stafford of Paradise Row 1906

Boy with the Caroline Mug 1899

The Yellow Lady

 Nicholson was born in Newark-on-Trent in 1872 to a reasonably well-heeled family. His father, also William, was a prominent Newark businessman running a major agricultural engineering company.

As is often the way, a teacher recognised the young Nicholson’s talent. He took lessons from the painter William Cubley, who had been a pupil of Sir William Beechey, who in turn had been a pupil of Sir Joshua Reynolds. In 1891, he attended the Académie Julian in Paris but returned to Newark after just six months, probably missing his girlfriend Mabel Pryde, who he’d met at art school. 

The pair eloped in 1893 and settled in a one-time pub in Denham, Buckinghamshire. They had four children, the most notable being Ben, who went on to become a renowned modernist painter and married Barbara Hepworth. There was also Anthony, who died of wounds during the First World War; Annie Mary (Nancy), who was yet another artist and who married the poet Robert Graves; and lastly, Christopher (Kit), who found his path in architecture and design. 

An Alphabet published in 1897

In the late 1890s, he turned his hand to engraving and printmaking, teaming up with his brother-in-law James Pryde. They became known as the Beggarstaff Brothers, producing simple, bold images and gaining much popularity; many leading magazines and periodicals were giving away coloured, stone-lithographed, frameable reproductions at the time, mostly sponsored by advertisers to promote products, Pear’s Soap being the most famous for adapting John Everett Millais’ popular painting Bubbles to help to flog its soap. 

Nicholson’s woodcuts led to a series for William Heinemann, including the classics An Alphabet Book and London Types. Nicholson adapted brilliantly to the medium, creating wonderfully stark graphic images in both book and portfolio form – still sought after today.

In 1918, Nicholson’s wife Mabel died during the Spanish flu epidemic, to be followed soon after by their son Anthony. Following Mabel’s death, he married his housekeeper Marie Laquelle in 1919: she had been his mistress for some time, and he had painted a notable nude of her as ‘Carlina’ in 1909. Following that, he married Edith Stuart-Wortley, also an artist and the widow of Sir John Stuart-Wortley. The relationship eventually petered out, and they separated. 

Carlina 1909 

In the summer of 1935, he took up with novelist Marguerite Steen; they had met in Andalucía, and they lived together at Nicholson’s mews studio in Apple Tree Yard, off Jermyn Street.Nicholson’s success had brought him money, a knighthood and a retrospective at the Tate Gallery. But by the early 20th century, he was out of step with the rapidly changing art scene and its plethora of new movements: the fauvists, cubists, surrealists and constructivists. Compared to these, Nicholson’s work was seen as rather old hat.

Still Life 1911

On the Downs (Wiltshire Landscape) 1924

The Windmill, Brighton Downs (Brighton Downs, Rottingdean) 1910

Judd's Farm 1912

William Nicholson

In 1939, he suffered a stroke, from which he recovered, but he had given up painting by 1942. He died at his home in Blewbury, Berkshire, in 1949 aged 77, living long enough to see the success of his son Ben.

Miss Wish Wynne (1882–1931), Actress, in the Character of Janet Cannot for the Play 'The Great Adventure'

Sir Max Beerbohm 1905

Unfinished portrait of Ben Nicholson

The Chinese Vase 1911

The Silver Casket 1919

Portrait of the Children of General John A Logan

Looking back at the breadth of his work today, one can appreciate the magnificent beauty and skill he imbued in every piece, be it painting, engraving, illustrating or designing for the theatre. 

Stephen Frankfurt: The big idea

Stephen Frankfurt 

Stephen Frankfurt was one of the original Madison Avenue advertising Mad Men. His ads were ‘ideas based’, using sharp, witty, well-crafted copy – rarely produced these days. One of the areas that he had a particular talent for was promoting Hollywood movies, and that was where I first heard of him back in 1963 when he created and directed the title sequence for To Kill a Mocking Bird: one of the most beautiful and tender introductions to a film. Had he done nothing else in his career, that single project would have marked him out as special.

Much has been written and discussed about the sequence. For me, it remains one of the most arresting opening title sequences to a film ever, even over the many titles of the mighty Saul Bass. But, interestingly, looking back at his advertising work now, one can see that he used a regular kit of parts to create his own particular signature when it came to advertising films – always a simple idea with a twist and often using closely cropped profiles of a face, as you will see in the following run of some of Frankfurt’s posters.

Above some of the feature film promotion posters that Frankfurt worked on many using recurring large imagery with the addition of a small graphic 'trigger'.

In 1968, Stephen Frankfurt became the president of Young & Rubicam Advertising – the youngest ever to hold the position. Along with the highly innovative agency Doyle, Dane and Burbank, he was at the forefront of conceptual advertising, which transformed television commercials from straightforward sales pitches into sophisticated, concept-driven mini works of art. The approach had a profound influence on the British creative scene.

Above just a sampling of press advertisements overseen by Frankfurt showing his love of simplicity, intelligent copy and beautiful imagery.

Stephen Frankfurt died in 2012 at the age of 80 following a struggle with Alzheimer’s. A sad end to a great career.

You can see the full title sequence from To Kill A Mocking Bird here

And a short film with Stephen Frankfurt explaining how it was achieved here

There is a rather good BBC documentary showing Frankfurt at work and play in the 1960s.

And there is a very good blog piece written by British advertising man Dave Dye.