In the 1980s polytechnics went out of fashion and were re-branded as universities. In 1892 Borough Polytechnic was opened by Lord Rosebery to provide practical instruction to people in the area. One of the speakers at the ceremony rather patronisingly hoped that “the Polytechnic would do its share towards perfecting many a valuable gem found in the slums of London”.
There was a broad curriculum including farriery. This was discontinued in 1933 because it was too difficult to get horses into the building. The polytechnic today is called London South Bank University but here we are seldom much interested in today.
Borough Polytechnic employed David Bomberg to teach art from 1945 to 1954. Bomberg and his pupils are often referred to as the Borough Movement. You may not have heard of Bomberg or his Movement but Frank Auerbach was a pupil and his “thick paint” style is typical of Bomberg and his group. Auerbach paid this tribute to his teacher: “the most original, stubborn, radical intelligence that was to be found in art schools”. Reading between the lines he was an awkward bugger who paid no attention to fashion and ploughed his own furrow.
Waterhouse & Dodd, in Albermarle Street, rediscovered the Borough Movement with an exhibition in 2015. They have unearthed further examples by a dozen artists including Bomberg himself. It runs from 9th May until 2nd June and should be well worth a visit. I don’t know the prices but it might be a way to get the Auerbach look on the cheap. Also it will be interesting to see how the work of these artists developed in later life when many of them migrated from thick to thin paint. The artists are; David Bomberg, Dennis Creffield, Sheila Fell, Anthony Hatwell, Cliff Holden, Edna Mann, Leslie Marr, Dorothy Mead, Edward Middleditch, Miles Richmond, Harman Sumray and Joe Tilson. You can see their works online here.
I am not sure that Waterhouse and Dodd “rediscovered” the Borough Movement as recently as 2015. Although David Bomberg and his followers were very unfashionable for many years, Bomberg himself became much more appreciated from, probably, the 1980’s onwards (the major biography of him was published in 1988). At his best he could be a very powerful painter and I bought a landscape by him in about 1998 – for a not inconsiderable price. The prices paid for his work have increased considerably since (more generally, early 20th century British painting has been the best investment I have ever made and I wish I had bought more of it).
Of the other painters in the exhibition, Miles Richmond was my uncle and is also undergoing a reappraisal and promotion through one of the other West End dealers. Bomberg ended up in Ronda in Andalusia and Miles and my aunt Susanna went to live near him at the end of his life. I used to stay with them in their house outside Ronda in the 1970s where there was a flourishing artistic community in the most beautiful surroundings. We used to ride through the countryside and up to Ronda, sometimes on a horse but also by mule and donkey. I borrowed a horse from Alastair Kilmarnock, who lived in a Moorish house in Ronda overlooking the valley (and where Miles helped establish an art school with him), and had the unique experience, for me at least, of riding out and, later, back through the double height doors with stabling just inside the entrance portico.
Some years ago Miles Richmond painted an enormous view of London from the roof of the Polytechnic which I assume is still there.
I will go and see the exhibition so thanks for pointing it out.
I have asked W&D to send you a catalogue.