182
PARTISAN R:EVIEW
not lying on its side, but on its back with its head twisted around. Still
the effects of that trip never really faded. But until my
Shelter Drawings
during the war I never seemed to feel free to use what I learned on that
trip to Italy in my art-to mix the Mediterranean approach comfortably
with my interest in the more elementary concept of archaic and primitive
peoples. I feel the conflict still exists in me. And I ask myself is this
conflict what makes things happen, or will a synthesis eventually derive?
And does all date from this conflict which developed in Italy?-
"Actually Roger Fry's
Vision and Design
was the most lucky dis–
covery for me. I came on it by chance while looking for another book in
the Leeds Reference Library. Fry in his essay on
Negro Sculpture
stressed
the 'three-dimensional realization' that characterized African art and its
'truth to material.' More, Fry opened the way to other books and to the
realization of the British Museum. That was really the beginning.
"My father had always been very opposed to the idea of my being
an artist. He had begun as a farmer, doing whatever a boy of nine
does in becoming a farmer-scaring crows, I suppose-but later had
turned to coal mining. He educated himself: knew the whole of Shake–
speare, taught himself engineering to the point where he could have
become manager of the mine in which he worked. His eyes, however, grew
bad; he never became blind, but then his sight was poor enough to inter–
fere with his further advancement. He wanted me to do what my older
brother, Raymond, and sister, Mary, had done: to go to York Training
School to become a teacher with a secure livelihood.
''I had always wanted to become a sculptor-at least since I was
about ten. However, my first art teacher at Castleford upset me a great
deal; she said I drew figures 'with feet like tassels.' I recall exactly what
she referred to: figures with feet in the air, like early Gothic drawings–
suspended in the air, not connected with the earth. This upset me ter–
ribly. But
~he
was succeeded by a Miss Gostick who became my ally
in the argument with my father which persisted from my fourteenth
to my eighteenth year.
"In 1916 I joined the Army-went to France, was slightly gassed
at the Battle of Cambrai and invalided home. On recovering I was
given a course at Aldershot and became a bayonet instructor.
"It was in those two years of war that I broke finally
away ·~
parental domination which had been very strong. My old friend, Miss
Gostick, found out about ex-servicemen's grants. With her help I ap–
plied and received one for the Leeds School of Art. This was understood
from the outset merely to be a first step. London was the goal. But the
only way to get to London was to take the Board of Education examina–
tions and to win a scholarship. Finally I won a Royal Exhibition to the
Royal College of Art in London.
"Leeds School was very proficient in teaching tricks of getting
