School’s Out Memories
In search of Mr Child I
have always loved both art and music. So in 1972 my parents sent me to Downe House, near Newbury which was renowned for its teaching of both. Fate was against
Susannah Fiennes Royal artist who toured with HRH Prince Charles was so inspired by a teacher that she sought him out at Marlborough
me however and for the fi rst few years of my senior school, I didn’t receive much of an education in art as the art teacher, Robin Child, had just left, the term I arrived, to teach at Marlborough. He had been replaced by a pair of bearded men, from whom we learned very little. Suffi ce to say: I scraped a C in O-level art. However, the music teaching was excellent. I was encouraged to switch from the violin to the viola and loved singing in the choir: Haydn’s Nelson Mass, Brahms’ Requiem, evensong Magnifi cats and Responses which I love to this day. I didn’t give up on Mr Child however and inspired by a girl in
the year above me, persuaded my parents to allow me to try for the Marlborough 6th form. An interview with the Master, Mr Ellis, (we discussed farming in Thomas Hardy) and 8 O levels later, I went there, and at last I found my mentor. The art room was a haven in which even the boys, who
were more at home on the soccer pitch, were captivated by Mr Child’s energy and focus on the art of looking. Each of us would take it in turns to pose for a lesson of 80 minutes. The emphasis was on intense scrutiny of the intricate shapes of light and dark that construct the form. “Look at the darkest dark, the lightest light,” said Mr Child. “There is only one person in the room who is really looking,” he would suggest, making us each long to be that one. The secret of his compelling approach was that he equipped us with tangible tools with which to represent the subject. In art history, we were taught the art of looking at pictures; how to read composition and colour harmony. After A levels, about 6 of us stayed on for the Oxbridge term
to concentrate on art – a kind of Foundation Course – and create our portfolios for entrance to art school. Uncertain that I wanted to commit to painting, I applied to read Art and English at Exeter. In retrospect, I can’t imagine
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it would have been satisfying to divide my time between 2 hugely demanding subjects. I opted for my fi rst choice, the Slade, where thanks to Mr Child, I was given a place without an interview, based on the strength of my portfolio. However, Mr Child’s structured approach to teaching was
absent in the Life Painting rooms at the Slade, once famed for their rigour under William Coldstream. A model posed in 45 minute sessions from 9-5 in the same
pose every day for a term. This provided a framework but, largely left alone by the tutors, we turned to each other for support. I was eager for guidance, and found it among some of my brilliant contemporaries, whom I still see, to this day. I learned most from the experience of painting with my
friend Mike Shaw, one winter, on the river every Saturday morning outside the Festival Hall. In theory, we painted in the picture together, but in practice I watched, and held the palette, while Mike mixed colours, discussing the logic of each mixture and its relationship to the other colours. It was the best lesson, and 30 years on, there is still paint on the steps that lead down to the water’s edge. I managed to stay on the full 4 years in the Life rooms.
So committed to the practice of painting from observation were we, that regrettably, we never spoke to the Printmakers working just along the passage, nor the abstract painters on the fl oor below. Our single-minded focus on painting from the model meant
that we left the Slade well-equipped with the “grammar” of painting but extremely narrow-minded in terms of respecting other disciplines. A more balanced approach might have been artistically healthier. But such was the complexity of learning the language of painting that an opportunity for total immersion in the subject was an enormous privilege, and one I would probably never have achieved without the inspiration of Mr Child..
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