No Sleep Tilson

A couple of films about Joe Tilson, the first culled from an episode of the BBC's Monitor arts programme in 1964, showing the artist in London during the full bloom of Pop.

 

The second film from the BBC's Private Landscapes series of artist profiles shows a more hirsute Joe 12 years older, disillusioned with consumer society, living and working in the Wiltshire countryside.

A Matter of Life and Death Masks

A trip to Edinburgh the other week turned up these life and death masks in the library of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. The first six could easily come from my family album.

Male Insane / Female Extreme Cunning

Male Celtic Type / Male English Type

Female Idiot / Female Idiot

Murderers: George Bryce / John Adam

Murderers: George Campbell / John Dempsey

William Burke / William Hare

Isambard Kingdom Brunel / Benjamin Franklin

Voltaire / Andrew Coombe

James Hogg / John James Audubon

Jacques-Louis David / Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Felix Mendehlsson / Joseph Hayden

John Keats / George Combe (phrenologist)

Another Green World

The Green Man 
Richard Hayman
Shire Publications, 2010

Nantwich, 1850s

Leominster Priory, 1123

Master Yoda, Dumblton, 12th century

Norwich Cathedral, 14-15th century

Queen Camel, Somerset, 15th century

All Saints, Evesham, 1850s

Armitage Shanks

Kenneth Armitage (1916-2002) was a British semi-abstract sculptor whose sense of humour enlivened his work in the 1950s and 60s, but this eventually prevented him from being able to let go of realism and his later works have a naff Pop quality that for me is far less successful.

These earlier works embody a playfulness that is just the right side of kitsch.

Linked Figures, 1949

Family going for a Walk, 1951

Children playing, 1953

Diarchy, 1957

Big Doll, 1969

Mouton Sun, 1959-63

Wall and Panderus, 1965

Slab Figure, 1961

The Sentinels, 1955-6

Joe Tilson

Joe Tilson (b.1928) was well known as part of the British Pop Art scene in London in the 60s. He grew disillusioned with consumer society and became part of the 'back to the land' movement when he moved from London to Wiltshire in 1972, where he created the work seen here. More Pop Magus than Pop Larkin.

He now lives and works mostly in Italy. Nice.