Edward Ardizzone

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Disc's Archive. This programme was archived without the music, so we've rebuilt the original show by using music from the B B C Gramophone library.

Speaker 30:14

The extracts are all from the music originally chosen by the castaway.

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Details of the music can be found on the Castaways page on the Desert Island Discs website.

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For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 1972.

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Desert Island Discs

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As usual, the castaway is introduced by Roy Plumley.

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This week our castaway is an artist. He's the watercolourist and illustrator Edward Ardizoni, R.A.

Presenter1:02

Monsieur Adizoni, are you a gregarious man?

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Yes, I'm afraid I am.

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Could you adjust yourself to solitude?

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I don't know.

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I would have frankly I would tell her no.

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In choosing these eight records for your exile, did you have any particular plan?

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Well, yes, I think I had a slight plan. The fact is, being landed on a desert island is a traumatic experience.

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Then you think about that, and then you choose music which you think might

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at least assuage the horrors of being left alone.

Edward Ardizzone1:40

Uh

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and a desolate place.

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What's the first one you've chosen?

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The first one I've chosen is a bronze, the opening of the second piano concerto.

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The opening of the Brahms' second piano concerto, Richter with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Erich Leinsdorf.

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What's your second disc?

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It's the Jupiter Symphony of Mozart. Of Mozart, which is so marvellous, to be so moving and so

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Well, I don't know.

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will make life in a sense worth living.

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The opening of the second movement of Mozart's Jupiter Symphony, number 41.

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The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Thomas Beacham. mister Artizoni, you were born in China, were you not? Well, I was born not in China proper.

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I was born in Haiphong, which was then French territory, Tonkin. Yes.

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Your father was a china hand?

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Uh well, he was a man who knew China well, but he was then in charge of one of those stations where they pass on messages, you know. Relay station. Relay station, that's it. Yes. Ardizone, of course, is an Italian name, isn't it? Yes, it is indeed, but he was French by nationality.

Edward Ardizzone4:42

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

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How old were you when you came to England? Five years old.

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Was there artistic talent in the family?

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Well, my mother was a Miss Irvey.

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And she studied painting at Colerossis in Paris in eighteen eighty, which was quite an unusual thing for girls to do in that day. Indeed. And my grandmother was born at sea, and he was a very good amateur watercolourist.

Speaker 45:13

Date.

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And his father was a clergyman, Lawrence Kirby, who was a very well-known amateur painter, and he was the direct descendant of Joshua Kirby, who was Gainsborough's bosom friend and a painter. Yes, so it was in the blood. Did you show interest very early? Oh, very early. I used to draw ships all the time, if I remember rightly. As a very small boy, of course. This was your ambition, as a small boy, to become an artist? It possibly never occurred to me.

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I thought I'd go out East and become a rubber planter or something like that, like my uncles, you know. Yes. What in fact happened to you when you left school? What really happened to me is I had to get a job.

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I had a job in the city in the China and Japan trading company. That went bust, and I got a job in the Eastern Telegraph Company as a statistical clerk.

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Now, during those years when you were working in the office, were you also drawing? All the time. I used to.

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Yeah.

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Three nights and four nights a week I used to go to the Westminster School of Art and learn life drawing under a man called Bernard Meninsky, who was a wonderful teacher. Mhm. And when and how did you escape from your commercial career? Well, my father, you see, gave me

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Mistakenly so, I think from his point of view, he gave me five hundred pounds.

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He gave all his children, well five of us, five hundred pounds each.

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So we should start a little nest egg. Yes. Well, I immediately threw up my job, you see, said to hell with this, I'm free Of course the poor old boy nearly had a fit. How old were you at this time? Twenty six.

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Well, I think this is the point where we break off your next record. What's that to be?

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Also the Emperor Concerto. Beethoven. Beethoven, of course, Beethoven. Beethoven's always a must, you know.

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Somehow it's a sort of moment of freedom when you hear it.

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Part of the first movement of the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5 The Emperor, Rudolf Serkin a soloist with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein.

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Now you were free from commerce. What was your first ambition as an artist? Was it portraits, like Oh no, to be a great painter, yes. Oh, no, not portraits particularly.

Edward Ardizzone8:24

Oh no, to be

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But, you know, paint great paintings like Foussain and so on.

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Yes. Is that what you started doing?

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Well, not really. I did paint little tiny paintings.

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True enough. And then of course very, very quickly, I mean the

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The necessity of making money. Yes, the 500 pounds wasn't going to last very long. Oh, it didn't last very long. I got married on the strength of it, too. Did you start to make sales?

Edward Ardizzone8:49

Five hundred pounds.

Edward Ardizzone8:51

Oh, it did not.

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Well, I the Caddy sing

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that my first break

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was to get a whole series of tiny watercolours shown

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by a a very clever pole called Ossiakovsky at the Bloomsbury Gallery.

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Now they were tiny and very dark.

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Very strange.

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By the great good fortune, one of those pieces of luck, one of the art critics of the then new statesman and nation, passed by, looked in, liked them, and really gave me half a page right up.

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was so splendid because it meant then when I tried to do an illustration

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When I went to see a publisher that didn't just throw me down the stairs, they looked at my funny little drawings seriously. Yes. So that was the start of your career. That was really. And it shoved me all on to illustration. Yes. Little things. How many books have you illustrated now? Oh, I suppose at at least a hundred and fifty. They're more now. Yes.

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Yeah.

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So by some very distinguished authors. Oh, indeed. I mean, of course, many of them for children. People like Eleanor Fargeners won. Robert Graves's poems. Yes. James Reeves, the poet. In illustration, is there cooperation between the artist and author? Or does the artist just take the manuscript away and work on it in his own? I think you take the right thing.

Edward Ardizzone10:12

I think

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is to take the manuscript away, and then you have to fight about it afterwards. But in fact, I've only once had the author

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Quarrel with my drawings.

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Only once in my whole time. Yes.

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You have a very distinctive and individual style, very easily recognizable. Your figures are are round and chubby and your shading is. I hope they're not all round and chubby, but you say they are. Well, just taking a quick look.

Edward Ardizzone10:41

Well

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And your your shading i i is crossed hatch. Uh did these these sort of

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Individualities develop early in your career? Well, they right at the beginning, I doodled all the time in the office. Yes. Little things. I really am a draftsman that way. I've taught myself doodling. Yes.

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Of course an illustrator doesn't draw from life. Oh, no, he can't.

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You see, an author's story is afterwards not life.

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It's his idea of life. It's a simulation. Therefore, the illustrator can't draw from life. He's got to.

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Jaw the story of the author.

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He's got to get inside the author's skin, if you know what I mean.

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Now as well as illustrating a number of other people's work.

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You've also illustrated your own. You are author of a number of children's books. Oh, well, that's a different matter. That's fun.

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That's quite a different thing. That started

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In the early thirties, and my daughter was five, I think, and my son was

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three and a half or something like that, and I had to tell them a story.

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And I told them a story out of the blue of Little Tim and the Brave Sea Captain. Then I was damned broke and I said, We must make some money. So I

Edward Ardizzone11:54

Then

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Wrote it out.

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and drew it in a big sketchbook and tried to sell it, and thank God it sold.

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Because it now sells more than it ever did then. Yes, and that was the first of them. That was the very first, and that came out in 1936.

Edward Ardizzone12:08

Naples

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And you've done an illustrated autobiography of your early years The Young Artisonians. That's right.

Edward Ardizzone12:15

Oh yes.

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Do you enjoy writing as much as drawing? No. No, I find writing always difficult.

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Yeah.

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I I think writing a children's book's rather different, because it's only fifteen hundred words, and of course they go with the pictures. Yes. But to write for yourself is much more difficult. Now I have this awful business. I pick up a pen and think of a wonderful phrase, but the time I put the nib on the paper I've forgotten. It actually made me.

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Do you work in London? Yes. Do you work regular hours?

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I always have, but I don't think I work quite such regular hours now, and I'm getting older. You've travelled a great deal, haven't you? Oh, fairly much, yes. Well, the war was responsible for that to a great extent. And I've been to India for UNESCO and I've been to Australia.

Edward Ardizzone12:58

Yeah.

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and I hope to go to Australia again.

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Next year. Good.

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Let's have your fourth record. What's that to be?

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Oh, it's a Rossini. It's the overture of the how do you pronounce it, the channel?

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Generantala. Generantal. Canderella. Yes, I know, but I ought to have gotten right when I did.

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Part of Rossini's overture to La Cena Rentola, Carlo Maria Giulini conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra. Now you mentioned your travels in the last war. You had a distinguished career as an official war artist. Was this your idea or were you co-opted as it were? I was co-opted and I think the person responsible is now Lord Clerk.

Presenter14:44

I'd had a number of exhibitions in London, you see, of watercolours, of qu quite a number, and he obviously thought I was a suitable man. Yes. You're one of the few artists who's been permitted to sketch in the chamber of the House of Commons.

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Well, I was asked to do that by the Press Gallery. They wanted a a picture to give

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Winston? Yes.

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On the fifth but or something like that, I know.

Edward Ardizzone15:04

Yeah.

Edward Ardizzone15:06

I know.

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And um

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John Rosenstein suggests it by name.

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And I went and did it, and I drew Winston, and I drew the front bench. They were all there, and I had Winston standing up and rubbing his tummy, like he always did, you know, by the box in front of him. There was Eden next, Eden with his feet on the table.

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He rather sort of lying back, and there was old Cruikshank, a whole lot of others, all in that sort of attitude, and the press gallery, when they saw it, were horrified. They said, Good heavens, this great man talking everybody should be listening.

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See, but when Winston saw it, he thought it was marvellous. He came and shook my hand afterwards. He said, I like your painting, but I don't think Anthony will.

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He couldn't bear that portrait of his by um

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Sutherland.

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But he loved niotics there. He had it in his study at Chartwell from then on.

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Record number five, please. What's that?

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Well, now there it is oh, it's such a lovely thing it's the Shoubert song it's a trout, isn't it? So beautiful. But I see on the cover you've got three pretty girls.

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Now I know the trout reminds you of an English stream with trout in it and all the lovely things, but surely I also think I think of the pretty girls as well.

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We're a lovely thing to have on a desert island. You like to take pretty girls when you go fishing.

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Of course.

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I'd be fine then, that's what I.

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Now is therefore and therefore liver thee and thy stand thou neighbest half the wolves of the rollest

Edward Ardizzone16:45

I listen.

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And fish like spar in cloud like to the smooth and fish like spar in cloud like to

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Night fishermit their rule for land them all fastant, but sas with hunted blue, fisichtas fish line vant. So land them fast on her hand, so that the chinishter breached. So thanked ye for a midsine are at the nisht. So

Edward Ardizzone17:21

Ready for the signal

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Happy Full and Happy Designer

Edward Ardizzone17:29

I got a

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Schubert's song The Trout sung by Dietrich Fischer Diskar with Gerald Moore at the piano.

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Let's go straight into record number six.

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Well, I've chosen that the Glock. I think it's a marvellous piece. It's that Introduction to Orfeo Ed Euridici, and I've chose it for o the only reason, for nothing else, except I loved it very dearly when I heard it, and I'd love to hear it again and again.

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Beginning of the overture to Glux Offio et Uridice, conducted by

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Renato Fessano.

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Are you a practical man? Could you look after yourself on this island?

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I'm not very practical. My wife will tell you that.

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Could you build a shelter? I might. I might be able to build a shelter. Can you cultivate?

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I doubt it, but I could have a shot at it. That's simpler, surely. I have a garden, at least my wife gardens, but I can remember.

Edward Ardizzone19:23

What I have is

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Would you try to escape?

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Well, I might like bonfires.

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In the hope that somebody will pick me up, I certainly wouldn't build a boat and go, or swim. Right.

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Very sensible, I think. Let's have record number seven.

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Of Vivaldi the Four Seasons the Opening of the Spring

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From Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, The Academy of Saint Martin in the Fields conducted by Neville Mariner.

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Now we've come to your last record. Only one song so far.

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Only one song. Yes, it's true enough. No woman's voice. Well, it's not I'm not against women's voices. Some of them are lovely, but somehow or other I prefer.

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The man's voice.

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What's our last record to be? Our last record is the one of the Brandenburg concertos. It's the second movement of the first concerto. One feels it's a a music of resignation. One can sit back.

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And you've had it. You're there on that damned island, you know what I mean? And it'll comfort you. It's comforting.

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I I may be talking nonsense, but it's what I feel that might be so.

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The beginning of the second movement of Bach's first Brandenburg concerto played by Imuzici.

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If you could take just one of your eight records, which would it be?

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What a difficult choice but I think

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Uh uh the Beethoven. The Emperor. The Emperor, yes. And one luxury to take to the island with you. Oh, I'm going to have a hog's head of the very finest Highland malt whisky. That'll take a bit of time to get through. All right, yes. Yes, and there's a point.

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Yes. That's a point. If it could be wrapped up in paper.

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The hogshead. The hogshead, sheets and sheets of paper to protect it, good paper, you know, rag paper, splendid paper, and then wrap round with a plastic or waterproof sheet. And then have some paper to draw on.

Edward Ardizzone23:14

Yeah.

Speaker 423:14

Yeah.

Edward Ardizzone23:14

Uh

Presenter23:24

What are you going to draw with? Oh, charcoal. Charcoal. Make a fire, make some charcoal. All right.

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and one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare.

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Oh, Pickwick Papers. Pickwick Papers says everything. It has all Dickens in it. Yes. And the Fizz illustrations. And the Fizz illustrations, of course. Good.

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And thank you, Edward Ardizoni, for letting us hear your Desert Island Disc.

Presenter23:47

Well, I must thank you. I've rather enjoyed it. Good. Goodbye, everyone.

Edward Ardizzone24:02

The guest in this evening's programme was Edward Ardizzoni, the interviewer was Roy Plumley and the producer Ronald Cook.

Edward Ardizzone24:09

Next Saturday at seven o'clock the castaway will be the jazz violinist Stefan Grappelli.

Speaker 324:24

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.