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Ronda Virgen, 2004 Detail |
Red studio painter misses out on show
The artist Miles Richmond died last month after putting the final touches to a retrospective of his work, writes Gerald Isaaman
MILES Richmond, an artist who, like his inspirational tutor David Bomberg, never achieved the true recognition he deserved, has died within days of a new exhibition of his work opening at the Boundary Gallery in St John’s Wood.
The show, due to start tomorrow (Friday), which he personally supervised with gallery owner Agi Katz, will go ahead, displaying 40 of his significant paintings and charcoal drawings, which partly tell the story of a remarkable life that has ended at the age of 85.
They include works from Richmond’s days in Albert Street, Camden Town, where he bought a house in 1967, built his own hideaway on the roof and, after Matisse, called it The Red Studio. It was his home for 25 years.
And also on view will be work from his years in Ronda, in southern Spain, teaching alongside Bomberg, the pioneering Jewish artist, neglected by critics until after his death in 1957.
Richmond had first met him at Borough Polytechnic, in Southwark, south London, in 1947, and initially thought him a charismatic charlatan.
Bomberg declared: “Painting has led me to question the assumption that we simply look out at the world. My research suggests that we both look out and look in, and the world is literally within the mind of our complex identity.”
When I interviewed Richmond 18 months ago, he told me: “Painting for Bomberg was a kind of fundamental research into the way the world works, what is the nature of matter, what is the relationship between mind and matter.
“They were the kind of things that concerned Bomberg, not making a success as a painter.”
Those early days were a vital time when Bomberg equally inspired other young pupils moonlighting from more famous art schools, among them Leon Kossoff and Frank Auerbach, who went on to achieve international recognition, Auerbach still painting today in Camden Town.
But that level of triumph never came the way of Richmond, despite being the founder of the Borough Group of artists, now part of London’s art history. “I hope that this exhibition will help to remedy that lack of recognition,” says Agi Katz.
“We only met two years ago when we put on an exhibition of Bomberg’s work, and Miles came and talked about the master. Miles’s death has really shocked me but, while I am sad, I am also delighted to be putting on this exhibition of his work. And to be doing so with his blessing, as he was actively involved in planning it from the start.”
Spanning a continuous working life of more than 60 years, the Richmond exhibition brings together paintings from the life studio at the Borough Polytechnic under Bomberg’s tuition, from the late 1940s, to his more recent work in Spain and the north of England, where he spent his final years living in Middlesbrough.
His paintings and drawings will be on sale at the gallery, priced from £1,000 to £10,000. Some members of his family (he was married twice and had six children) will be attending the exhibition.
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