Art School Revolution

The Hornsey Film
Dir Patricia Holland
UK, 1970, 59 minutes 

Great film found on the Internet Archive of staff and students recreating the action and debate that took place during the student take-over of the art school in 1968. Almost fifty years later and much of the discussion still seems relevant, especially as the tentacles of corporate education close ever tighter.

Bonus sounds from Radiophonic demi-god Malcolm Clarke, reminiscent of Wendy Carlos on A Clockwork Orange.

Know UNESCO

Art Education: an international Survey
UNESCO, Paris, 1972

Pedagogical Sketchbook

Pegagogical Sketchbook
Paul Klee
Frederick A. Praeger, NY, 1953

Originally published as Pädogogisches Skizzenbuch, no. 2 in the series Bauhausbücher (Bauhaus books) during Paul Klee's tenure as professor at the school. Translated by Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, the book derived from the basic design course, where the approach taken in the 43 lessons was scientific rather than abstract, as Klee dedicates himself to the task of helping students to learn to see. A cornerstone of visual education, though not perhaps the most entertaining read.

Desk Jockey

Jean Prouvé
Ediciones Polígrafa, Barcelona, 2007

Architect and designer Jean Prouvé (1901-1984) created some wonderfully spare and elegant furniture for industrial clients and municipal commissions in his native France during the middle decades of the last century, a time when égalité and the aesthetics of the visual environment were still respected concepts. Particular favourites are his educational furniture for schools and colleges.

Prove it: dapper neckwear

Also of interest is this design for an open-worked steel panel (1946-52) used in Prouvé's and other architects' building designs. Possible inspiration for the interior of the TARDIS?

Play

Play
Its role in development and evolution
Editors: J.S.Bruner, A.Jolly and K.Sylvia
Penguin Books, London, 1976

What's the difference between kids and monkeys? Not a lot according to this book, which includes an interesting selection of essays ranging from dense scientific studies to short pieces by W.H.Auden and Dylan Thomas. 

Children's author Alison Uttley also has a small essay reflecting on the 'field games' and toys she and her friends made up during an idyllic childhood in rural Derbyshire at the very end of the nineteenth century. Laurie Lee would have recognised many of her recollections growing up a few decades later, but now it all seems lost in a hazy reverie.

Beat School

In 1961 British Pathe News paid a visit to Burgess Hill School, Hertfordshire, a progressive boarding school for artistic children. Traditional school uniform is replaced by shades, caps, quiffs and corduroy, and smoking is encouraged because it "calms the nerves". There are some very nice looking murals in the background. Subjects appear to include listening to jazz, smoking, abstract painting, motorbikes, doing the Twist and, erm, Elgar. Sounds like a groovy kind of place, Daddio.

The Art of Colour

The Art of Colour
Johannes Itten
Van Nostrand, New York, 1973

Originally published as "Kunst der Farbe", 1961, Germany.

Johannes Itten taught at the Bauhaus before he disagreed with Walther Gropius over the direction of the school toward mass production over individual artistic endeavor. He left and was replaced by Maholy-Nagy. Itten continued to write and teach at a number of other institutions.

Here are some students from Itten's harmonic colour combination art class. After voicing their dissatisfaction with the colour combinations they had been assigned, Itten allowed them to come up with their own combinations.

Every student produced different results and Itten realized that each had their own private conception of colour harmony, or subjective colour. He discusses the way the students' work reveals their 'auras' and 'painting personalities', a classic example of the modernist urge to categorize and order, with a dash of mysticism thrown in.

Itten's colour harmony diagrams have their own geometric beauty.

Everyday Problems

Everyday Problems of the School Child
Agatha H. Bowley
Edinburgh, E & S Livingstone, 1948

Published in Edinburgh, although Bowley was a school psychologist in Leicestershire, a notably progressive county in post-war education. Uncredited photographer of Leicester Day Nurseries, Schools and Youth Centres.

The chapters on deviant behavior seem uncomfortably familiar.