OTD in early British television: 27 January 1937
John Wyver writes: At Alexandra Palace on Wednesday 27 January 1937 painter and printmaker John Piper (above) discussed ‘The picture in the modern home’ with architect and designer Serge Chermayeff.
In London Galleries – Art and Modern Architecture, the two modernists reflected on works by, among others, Naum Gabo, Edward Wadsworth, and a figure that the PasB recorded as Lissitsay (sic), but who we would recognise as El Lissitzky. The broadcast was one of a series in which in the first months of the 405-line service Piper introduced a rich range of traditional and contemporary visual art on screen.
Accompanied by a selection of paintings brought to the studio, Piper first appeared on screen in The Autumn Galleries, on Saturday 7 November, just five days after the official start of the ‘high definition’ service. Canvases for this broadcast were borrowed from a number of the major dealers, including Thomas Agnew, and the Redfern, London and Mayor galleries.
At this point, the 34-year-old artist was a central figure in the contemporary art world, having founded the journal Axis with Myfanwy Evans in 1935, writing as the visual arts critic for The Listener, and exhibiting his own work with the cutting-edge Seven and Five Society. Evans and he were now living, as they would for the rest of their lives, in a recently-purchased rundown farmhouse near Henley-on-Thames, and they married later in 1937.
Two further broadcasts preceded the 27 January transmission. Modern Galleries – Pottery and Sculpture on Wednesday 18 November, and on Wednesday 13 January 1937 what was billed as London Galleries 1. For this latter show, we have a fuller list of the works that Piper showcased, which included Camille Pissarro’s ‘Crystal Palace’ (1871), Alfred Sisley’s ‘Lady s Cove before the Storm (Hastings)’ (1897, below), and what was probably Christopher Wood’s 1929 ‘Boat in Harbour, Brittany’.
London Galleries 2 followed on Wednesday 10 February 1937, with works by Seurat, Signac and Magritte, along with Paul Nash’s ‘Equivalent for the Megaliths‘ (1935). Overall, the selection feels perhaps more advanced than might be expected.
Piper presented two further broadcasts before talks producer Mary Adams must have decided that a different approach was called for. London Galleries 4 on Wednesday 10 March 1937, was a discussion on the state of modern ceramics with studio potter and Seven and Five Society member William Staite Murray. As Wikipedia informs us:
He rejected any need for functionality in his work, regarding his pots as pure art and giving them individual titles. In this respect, he was at variance with Bernard Leach and his followers, for whom functionality was a key tenet. Murray’s aim was to raise the profile and reputation of pottery to a level where it would be regarded as equal to painting and sculpture.
A fortnight later, Wednesday 24 March 1937, Piper presented London Galleries – Young Artists and Their Work, which showcased the creations of John R. Biggs, J.D. Denney, Margaret Kaye, Evelyn Brooks and Elizabeth Stephen. According to The History of Arts Education in Brighton website:
John Biggs was an educator and prolific illustrator and author, writing more than twenty books on various aspects of illustration, lettering, typography and calligraphy. He was Head of Graphic Design at Brighton from 1951 to 1974… During the 1930s Biggs was also employed by companies such as the highly design conscious Orient Line run by Kenneth Anderson.
Of the others, Denney and Stephen appear not to have left any traces of their practice, at least online today, but after the war Margaret Kaye was recognised as a significant stained glass and textile artist, and Evelyn Brooks created designs for Heal’s.
Following the transmission towards the end of March, artists showing in London galleries were integrated elsewhere in the schedule, notably in Picture Page, and John Piper went on make other kinds of transmissions from AP. But remarkably we have moving image archive of him in this early role showing off borrowed artworks from the art market of the day.
In early May, producer Dallas Bower persuaded Piper to re-stage a version of his London Galleries broadcasts for the BBC Television Demonstration Film that he shot on 35mm. This aimed to reproduce the style of early television broadcasts, but because it was made on film, for showing every morning from June so that television retailers had something to show to potential customers, this has survived.
The 90-second clip, from which the screengrab above comes, shows off Piper’s confident but somewhat flat delivery, and is a precious trace from this lost world. It begins with a wide shot of the studio, with the artist addressing the camera:
‘I believe what sound broadcasting has done for music, television may do for painting and sculpture. In the past few months I’ve been taking works from the London galleries to the Alexandra Palace and commenting on them and showing them.
[Shot change to Piper close-up (CU)] ‘In the comments I’ve made I’ve tried to be impartial but I’ve kept in mind the high percentage of so-called modern art always to be seen in London galleries nowadays.
[Shot change to Gainsborough] ‘This is a painting, a landscape, by the English master Thomas Gainsborough, from the Agnew collection. It’s an example of Gainsborough’s early style, before he went to Bath…
[Shot change to Piper CU] … and executed his famous portraits. And this is a masterpiece of another kind.
[Shot change to Picasso] ‘It’s a contemporary painting by a Spanish artist whose work, although he’s over fifty, his reputation is enormous [inaudible] His name is Picasso. This picture is very intense in colour and very lovely, I think quite as lovely as the Gainsborough in its own way.
[Shot change to Piper CU] ‘And finally this is a carving by the young English sculptor Henry Moore.
[Shot change to figure with Piper behind] ‘It’s a carving in wood. [Piper runs a finger along its back]
[Shot change to wide] ‘Moore is a Yorkshire man in his thirties and he has a rapidly rising reputation among critics and connoisseurs.’
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