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Desert Island Discs
Presented by Roy Plomley
British painter best known for depicting London street scenes, pubs, shops and junk yards, particularly in Hammersmith.
Eight records
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The keepsakes
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In conversation
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The recording
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Speaker 2
This download is the only extract the BBC has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley.
Ruskin Spear RA
When were you first hung at the Royal Academy? Round about 1932, I should.
Ruskin Spear RA
Or even before. Could have been uh twenty eight. Or very early on. Quite early on. I was very fortunate uh in having a very good art master called Edgerton Cooper.
Ruskin Spear RA
at Hammersmith.
Ruskin Spear RA
I began to get my work in the academy and I was getting three in every year.
Ruskin Spear RA
I believe when you were appointed associate of the Royal
Speaker 2
Royal Academy, you were the youngest associate.
Ruskin Spear RA
There. Yes, yes.
Speaker 2
Uh
Ruskin Spear RA
Nineteen forty-four.
Speaker 2
And you gave your first one-man show when? The
Ruskin Spear RA
Yeah.
Speaker 2
One. Hit.
Ruskin Spear RA
in the Leicester Galleries in Leicester Square. Yes. That was a a a little late, wasn't it? It was a little late, and one or two critics mentioned uh how serious a painter I must have been to have hidden my light uh under a bushel for so long.
Ruskin Spear RA
You love
Speaker 2
to paint hammersmith streets, pubs, shops, junk yards.
Speaker 2
Life around you.
Ruskin Spear RA
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2
Now there was an atmosphere rather of of gloom and murk in i in your work at that time, wasn't there?
Ruskin Spear RA
Well, uh just
Ruskin Spear RA
Prior the war with Hitler and so forth and and during the war and after the war, London really looked
Ruskin Spear RA
Damn gloomy.
Ruskin Spear RA
It was even a worse kind of gloom than uh Sickert had to paint uh in Camden Town.
Speaker 2
Yeah.
Ruskin Spear RA
Were you influenced very much by Sickert as a young painter?
Ruskin Spear RA
Oh, very much indeed, because um well anyone who s looked at Sickert can see that he was one of the great draftsmen o of our moment, I think. Was there anyone else who influenced you particularly? Bonnard.
Speaker 2
Yes.
Ruskin Spear RA
Do you try to work regular hours?
Ruskin Spear RA
I can only work now in the mornings. Um in the afternoons I I I find it uh very difficult to concentrate. Do you work on several pictures at once? Uh I I've usually got about
Speaker 2
About six going in the studio, yes. You believe in in putting back into art as well as taking art. You you've always liked to teach young artists.
Ruskin Spear RA
Well, you see, when when I left college, one had to take a teaching job to exist ap apart from the music that I was doing. It it uh eked out something. And um
Ruskin Spear RA
Once you get used to being in with a group of young people talking and trying to paint.
Ruskin Spear RA
Uh you get as much out of it as as you put into it.
Speaker 2
Yes. Yeah.
Ruskin Spear RA
Get as much out of
Speaker 2
It is as you
Ruskin Spear RA
Uh
Speaker 2
Yeah. Uh
Ruskin Spear RA
Pupil
Ruskin Spear RA
Uh
Speaker 2
Yeah.
Ruskin Spear RA
Where do you teach?
Ruskin Spear RA
I teach at the Royal College at the moment and Hammersmith in the evening. How much of the time? About half a week. Do you? Uh
Speaker 2
Uh Yeah.
Ruskin Spear RA
Uh
Speaker 2
Yeah.
Ruskin Spear RA
Uh
Speaker 2
We haven't talked about your work as a portraitist. Now, your portraits aren't exactly representational. There was a lot of fuss, for example, about a portrait you painted of Sir Winston Churchill.
Ruskin Spear RA
Yes, well, um
Ruskin Spear RA
That's happened once or twice. Of course, with Churchill
Ruskin Spear RA
He disliked many sorts of paintings. He disliked Sutherland's picture of him, as we all know.
Ruskin Spear RA
I have painted other pictures which have caused trouble too. I painted Princess Margaret which was... I was finally asked to take it away from the Academy after a week.
Ruskin Spear RA
But uh anyone else?
Ruskin Spear RA
Princess Anne with the white hat uh two years ago seemed to go down quite well uh and was quite acceptable, although there was a certain um satirical flavour about it.
Speaker 2
Got it.
Ruskin Spear RA
Uh
Speaker 2
As a Royal Academician, you're on the Selection Committee. Is that a very wearing job?
Ruskin Spear RA
Uh
Speaker 2
Well it's
Ruskin Spear RA
It takes three weeks and uh we have eleven galleries to hang up there.
Ruskin Spear RA
I I forget how many pictures we see and reject.
Speaker 2
Yeah.
Ruskin Spear RA
and make doubtful and accept, but it is a very difficult job and
Speaker 2
Uh
Ruskin Spear RA
Many a strong man has had to go away for six months afterwards to recuperate.
Speaker 2
And heartbreaking everything.
Ruskin Spear RA
Yeah.
Speaker 2
Now there's a great boom at the moment in in in prices for the pictures of successful British painters, which which must be nice for the painters, but do you rather resent your paintings being bought for investment, for becoming Part of the property is easy.
Ruskin Spear RA
Uh
Ruskin Spear RA
Well
Ruskin Spear RA
I've had chaps who've come to the studio and haggled with me for a painting and got me to lower the price and then I've found it in a gallery three months later at say three times the price. I haven't really liked that very much.