Peter Dadswell - Art and Music

Painting has not been high on my personal agenda over the Summer after two ten day spells in hospital followed by restricted mobility and the recent operation on my neck. Unfortunately there is still a slight health problem that needs attention so it may be a little longer before I can get my act together properly!

I have managed to do some smaller scale pictures – Servalan from the TV series Blakes Seven ( Jacqueline Pearce), Alison Balsom, the Trumpeter, and Dance Fantasy. I have also made two sketches of Cannes and La Napoule in the South of France from photos Christine took on our last holiday but these need further attention  and are not yet shown.

My motivation has been re-ignited, however, by going back to look at the work of Lucian Freud following his recent death, Dylan Lisle, Tom Phillips and an abstract artist, Victoria Horkan, who  I met briefly towards the end of last year. I can’t wait to get going again but I guess I must wait a little longer!

Audacious, outrageous, controversial, politically incorrect and unorthodox are some of the words I would use for one of the most amazing characters I ever met in the music industry. Terry Oates, music publisher extraordinary, who died on 16 April 2011, had an enormous impact on my career in the business and I will never forget him. Terry was above all a musician, who passionately championed his songwriters and composers and his honesty and integrity were beyond question. Yes, he could be adversarial and stubborn, but he was also charming, generous, loyal and compassionate with a wicked sense of humour and a constant twinkle in his eye.

He was also physically imposing when we first met –  tanned, muscular and immensely proud of his tough East End beginnings. Terry, like me, had also been a trumpet player and this quickly helped to establish a great rapport with him. I admired his instinctive ability to recognise and attract immense creative talents such as Jimmy Webb, Harry Nillson, Denis King, George Fenton and many others. He had a long relationship with Henry Mancini who he met and worked with early in his publishing career. One of his first signings as an independent music publisher was Status Quo and in the 1980s he was closely associated Louis Clark’s highly successful “Hooked on Classics” series of recordings. His composers were part of his extended family and many were close friends.

Mandy, Terry’s wonderfully loving and caring wife, was always the perfect foil and business partner for such an entertaining extrovert.  Their music publishing company, Eaton Music, has always been the envy of so many in the music industry and was an inspiration to others who aspired for such success. I will always cherish numerous fond memories of the fun, kindness and support they both gave to me, particularly when I became ill. I also learnt so much from them and always appreciated their constant guidance and encouragement. My thoughts are with Mandy and Terry’s family at this time.

An Art Exhibition by Amber Anderson, Hayley Merrington and Peter Dadswell and an extraordinary end to the year!

Thanks to Elizabeth Mitchell D’Anna and Alan Roxborough of the Pall Mall Galleries, our group show took place at the Royal Opera Arcade Gallery, 5b Pall Mall, London SW1Y 4UY from 13 to 24 December 2010.

Amber is a young illustrator, currently studying at Camberwell College of Art. She draws inspiration from animals; Her style of work is influenced strongly by renaissance woodcut illustrations, producing a modern twist on work with a classical feel. Amber is also making a name for herself as a window artist, and attracted much attention from passers by in Pall Mall.

Hayley has a BA (Hons) in Graphic Design from Central Saint Martins. The majority of her work focuses on fables and stories, with each illustration evoking a strong sense of narrative. Aesop’s fables were the inspiration for many of the pieces appearing at the ROA and proved very popular with our visitors. She predominantly works with ink, pencil and watercolours plus digital painting.

The show also featured some of my paintings; the three of us originally met through the inspirational Head of Art at Wilmington Grammar School for Girls, Rosie Gardner. Amber and Hayley are exceptionally talented and I am confident that they will become very successful in the future.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time at the Gallery and the tremendous help, support and advice given by Elizabeth and Alan; we simply could not have managed without their expertise. Despite the atrocious weather, we all sold our work and hope there will be further spin-offs now that it has been more widely exposed. We had great fun and would like to thank everyone who helped make the exhibition a success – our families, friends and everyone else who came to see and buy the pictures.

Music has always been at the heart of my painting but for a while literature momentarily pushed it to one side as I have obsessively been reading Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy. I have been unable to put these books down and Chris has been equally captivated by them. The unconventional heroin of these stories is Lisbeth Salander, a computer hacker with a photographic memory, a complex character who weaves in and out of complex series plots undergoing much in a thrilling series of adventures.

I also saw the Swedish film adaptation of the first novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo starring Noomi Rapace as anti social yet highly intelligent Lisbeth Salander and have now produced a visual account of this engaging character. I simply can’t imagine anyone else playing this role!

Jack Vettriano, the painter, is another non- fiction hero of mine, not so much for his technique, but because of his uncanny knack of coming up with clever ideas for pictures which instantly capture the viewer’s imagination. What are these mysterious characters up to? What’s going on here? He is currently exhibiting his latest work in his own gallery in central London and, yet again, he has come up with a diverse range of intriguing paintings where the light or shadow play a key role in each work. He has obviously affected the output of many other contemporary artists in one way or another! Vettriano has many imitators but no-one does it better!

In total contrast to the Jack Vettriano exhibition I have just stumbled upon another artist, Mark Clark, who has produced some of the finest drawings I have seen for a very long time. His tasteful life drawings of the female form and studies of faces and figures captured during his travels to India are, in my opinion, modern masterpieces – see www.markclark.net.

I have also been wrestling with a figure painting which in the female “life” category and creating a new series of abstracts which owe their existence to the influence of music.

I have been really struggling recently! Full of self-doubt, afraid of a blank canvas, lacking in inspiration, imagination and ideas – it’s one of those periods I really dread when nothing comes easily. There are some new paintings on the website – The Ship Song, Madonna, Camille O’Sullivan and Kate Bush (both new versions) and Michelle, the girl who for a time was in the Spice Girls line up. They are respectable, and I hope the portraits are recognisable, but I’m not really happy with any of them and will carry on tinkering until I lose patience!

What should I do? My skills are limited and there were times a few weeks ago when I wanted to give up as I felt totally inadequate. Should I simply continue to paint for myself or produce a different kind of art? Art and Music are inseparable to me and I can’t work without being inspired by music. Art from music has to be the way forward! Thankfully the crisis is all over now and I’m back on track again, due mainly to two unlikely incidents which restored my confidence in the traditional methods of making works of art – painting and sculpture.

Firstly, I saw a documentary recently about a large number of Chinese artists in the village of Dafen in South China who are amazingly talented, with great techniques, yet all they do is copy Western Art – Rembrandt, Leonardo, Velasquez , not to mention artists whose works are still in copyright such as Francis Bacon and Jack Vettriano! They work for a pittance and talked frankly about their desires and ambitions. Some were content with their ‘sweat shop’ existence but others were beginning to create original art, which gave them more satisfaction. It made me feel quite humble as I’m able to paint for pleasure as and when I want, whereas these individuals were labouring long hours, repetitively churning out their copies simply to earn a mediocre living.

Soon after this I saw the work of Paul Day, a British sculptor living in France, who produces amazingly complex work in a traditional figurative style, and is most well known for his Battle of Britain Monument, which is on the Victoria embankment near Westminster in London. It is a phenomenal piece of bronze sculpture and reminds me very much of Rodin’s work, particularly The Gates of Hell. I was eager to see the Monument at first hand and here are a couple of the photos I took.

Again, this tribute to those who died in the Battle of Britain reminded me of the sacrifice they made for the freedom that we all enjoy today. My perspective is intact once more!

And finally…..I went to an exhibition this week at Tate Britain called Rude Britannia, an exhibition of British art, including the satirical, political, comic, bawdy and absurd, from Hogarth to the present day, taking in Magill, Ralph Steadman, Beryl Cook, Gerald Scarfe, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Spitting Image, Private Eye and Viz amongst others. It made me laugh out loud on occasions; a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

I am fascinated by faces. Every year I visit the BP awards at the National Portrait gallery to see some of the very best of contemporary portrait painting. 2010 is no exception and there is some excellent work on display.

One of the greatest face painters that ever lived was Rembrandt van Rijn. We have just come back from a brief visit to Amsterdam and, by accident, the trip almost became a complete ‘Rembrandt Experience’. Firstly we passed through Leiden where the artist was born and spent his early life. On reaching Amsterdam there was the mandatory outing to the Rijksmuseum to see The Nightwatch (his largest picture) and also experience some more of Rembrandt’s wonderful paintings such as The Staalmeesters. The exquisite portrait of Maria Trip is also a masterpiece  not only for her face but also for the beautifully detailed pearls, the necklace, brooch and lacework on her dress.

The next day, at Christine’s suggestion, we went to Rembrandt’s house (above)  where he lived whilst at the height of his powers and fame. This unexpected treat was for me one of the highlights of the short holiday, seeing where and how he worked – the collection of artefacts, the materials used by the great man and a demonstration (below)  involving the kind of tools and processes he adopted to produce those wonderful etchings. Surprisingly, we were allowed to take non-flash photos and, although the museum sells excellent postcards, it was great to be able to take our own. Again, by chance during a visit to the Oude Kerk (in the Red Light district) on the same afternoon, we came across the tombstone of Rembrandt’s wife Saskia.

Every time I visit the National Gallery in London I make a point of going to the Rembrandt rooms to study the paintings of this wonderful artist and now that I have visited Amsterdam to see more of his immense technical skills I am even more in awe of him.

Well, the Mick Jagger Centre exhibition is over and  the photos and paintings have been taken down. We would like to say a great big thank you to everyone who supported us and came along to view the show. We were thrilled by the enthusiastic response from the friends and others who purchased photos and paintings.

For me, the exhibition was a success on many levels and it was great to have so many people asking for more information about the paintings. As Trudi said in her biog, “every picture tells a story so let the music do the talking!” – it certainly did in a number of cases with several visitors asking me to talk even more about My Young Man, Antarctic Symphony, A Child of Our Time 2, Theresienstadt, Der Rosenkavalier and We Shall Overcome by giving some of the background and musical influences for these pictures.

The help received from Nicola, Ann and all the staff at the Mick Jagger Centre was also very much appreciated – nothing was too much trouble for them. Also a special personal thanks to Mike Gardner for coming to the rescue when we were setting up the exhibition! The entire experience was superb and all the arrangements excellent.

Charismatic, mesmerising, riveting, magical – I simply cannot find enough superlatives in my vocabulary to describe the recent Jacqui Dankworth concert held at the Mick Jagger Centre. The audience quickly became captivated by Jacqui’s singing, her incredible professionalism and the world-class musicians supporting her – Chris Allard (guitar), Alec Dankworth (bass) and Ray Dodds on drums.

Jacqui has an amazing talent – a voice to die for, with a great range, producing sounds full of colour and superb dynamics  – accompanied by enormous charm and stage presence. Surrounded by excellent musicians, there was so much to enjoy and admire; great jazz standards including Mood Indigo and Blue Moon coupled with more recent material composed by Jacqui such as Back to You, Beppo and also One Friend, a song she performed on a Paul O’Grady television show. She also paid tribute to her father, the legendary Johnny Dankworth, who died earlier this year, by singing two of his numbers – one of which she had co-written with him.

Despite her pedigree, although extremely well known in Jazz circles, Jacqui and her band are less familiar to wider audiences, but they are stars in my book, streets ahead of those lesser mortals made instantly famous by reality TV shows. There really is no substitute for hard work, years spent learning from experience and constant gigging no matter how big or small the audience.   They are truly magnificent musicians. Eat your hearts out, pop star wannabees!  Jacqui and her friends genuinely represent the very best of British musical talent with a real passion for and dedication to their art. At the end of the concert, this exceptionally gifted quartet was given a well-deserved rapturous ovation and they responded by treating us to Sittin’ on top of the World.

I would like to thank Jacqui and Alec Dankworth, Chris Allard, Ray Dodds and the fantastic team at the Mick Jagger Centre for a wonderful night out.

Let The Music Do The Talking – an exhibition of photographs by Trudi Knight and paintings by Peter Dadswell -  is open at the Mick Jagger Centre in Dartford throughout May 2010. The work is inspired by the music and the artists that create it. Every picture tells a story…so let the music do the talking!

The exhibition will run in the foyer of the centre for the whole of the month of May, during the Centre’s normal opening hours (9.30 – 21.30 Mon-Fri, 9.30-13.00 Sat, plus weekend evenings when there is a music event on). Entry is free, so why not come along and take a look? For confirmation of opening times, please ring the centre on 01322 291101 before travelling.