June Mendoza

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Disc's Archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen seventy nine, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:31

This week, our castaway is the portrait painter June Mendoza. June, I know you were born in Australia. Whereabouts?

June Mendoza0:38

In Melbourne.

Presenter0:39

And I know you have a musical background.

June Mendoza0:42

Yes, I have. Both my parents professional musicians.

Presenter0:45

How much of their musical talent rubbed off on you?

June Mendoza0:48

Well, I I will never find art. I mean, my passion is music but, of course, with two very busy musician parents, they never taught me to play, and they didn't send me to anybody else either.

June Mendoza1:00

So that was a very serious gap.

Presenter1:02

So you stick to discs.

June Mendoza1:03

Yes.

Presenter1:04

You play while you're painting.

June Mendoza1:06

Yes, I do. It's no way to listen, but I do.

Presenter1:09

And do you play your choice or your sitter's choice?

June Mendoza1:12

Well, if I have a sitter, I ask them what concert they would like, if I happen to have it in the music library.

June Mendoza1:20

I uh get their choice out, and of course this enlarges my repertoire, because I get something I mightn't have listened to, but when I'm by myself, of course, I make my own choice.

Presenter1:28

Right. What's the first one you have here for the Desert Island?

June Mendoza1:31

The first one is uh the Paganini Violin Concerto, number one. Itzak Pellman is playing it, and uh may we start from the cadenza, please?

Presenter1:40

Right.

Presenter2:42

A part of the first movement of the Paganini First Violin Concerto, Itzak Pellman, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Lawrence Foster.

Presenter2:51

With two busy musicians as parents,

Presenter2:54

Your mother a pianist? And your father?

June Mendoza2:56

And your father?

Presenter2:59

As a result, was your childhood rather unorthodox?

June Mendoza3:02

Yes, I think you've hit the mark very much so there. They were both musicians in theatre.

June Mendoza3:07

And I didn't see much of my father after a very early age, but I followed my mother through with her musical friends, her theatrical friends. I spent an enormous amount of time backstage because she worked with opera, with ballet, with musical comedy, with revue.

June Mendoza3:25

But you name it, she did it, really.

Presenter3:27

Did you ever go on tour with her?

June Mendoza3:29

Yes, yes um several times oh, particularly one of the most remarkable experiences I've ever had in my life was when she was working with various Russian ballet companies, and she took me on tour with those. Well, of course you can imagine what an absolutely magnificent introduction this was to colour, design

June Mendoza3:48

The sound, the the movement to go with the sound, just the whole ballet world, orchestral and balletic.

Presenter3:55

Had you ambitions to be a dancer?

June Mendoza3:57

No, I'm too clumsy. My nickname as a child was Bulliphant.

Presenter3:59

My nickname is Charlie.

Presenter4:02

But they let you fill up a corner on the stage.

June Mendoza4:04

Oh yes, there were various because eventually I turned into an actress for a while, but there were various small extra parts which a child could take, for instance, in the crowd scenes of Petrushka and the Russian family in La Boutique Fantasque, and I w when I was on tour with her they allowed me to do these parts.

Presenter4:25

When did drawing and painting become important?

June Mendoza4:29

I really couldn't tell you. There was no starting point that I could recognise at all. I was one of those lucky people who you know how a child draws, and I just kept on drawing. It was just there. Right through your childhood? Yes, really.

Presenter4:44

And did you go to art school?

June Mendoza4:45

Yes.

June Mendoza4:47

I left school at an appallingly early age, and then there was art school to come, because this was quite obvious that that should be the next thing. And I went on a tour with my mother for another Russian ballet company tour.

June Mendoza5:04

so that it would bide the time for me to go to art school two years too young, really, for the normal age for the course.

Presenter5:09

For the north.

Presenter5:11

What's your second record?

June Mendoza5:13

My second record is

June Mendoza5:15

The Ravel Piano Concerto. I love the textural colours of Ravel, and I used to think that I would love to be able to give that sparkling texture.

June Mendoza5:26

to my painting.

Presenter6:28

Ravel's piano concerto in G major, Julius Kachin with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Istvan Kirtisch.

Presenter6:35

So you were at art school?

Presenter6:38

Did this mean that you had given up?

Presenter6:40

Theatre ambitions at all. You you you talked of

Presenter6:43

having done some stage work as an actress.

June Mendoza6:46

Yes, I think Roy I wafted into the theatre because it was so much my home background. So

June Mendoza6:54

I did various things, but mainly straight plays, in which there were fifteen year old parts.

Speaker 46:59

Mm-hmm.

June Mendoza6:59

And uh I went on tours with these and

June Mendoza7:03

In the meantime, I was still drawing. In fact, I was young enough to not take either too seriously, but just was having a lovely time. Thank you very much.

Presenter7:12

To what were you applying your drawing and painting? Were you illustrating or using that as part of your living?

June Mendoza7:20

Yes, uh a bit like the theatre business. The art business also is oh, the variety was enormous at one stage. I mean, I've channelled since then. But you did illustrations, you did illustrated strips. I was even doing one with women with busts and machine guns and car races, you know, the real whodunit sort of thing.

Presenter7:42

Yeah.

June Mendoza7:43

I must say when I got into early illustration work,

June Mendoza7:47

Again, the theatre thing was enormous help because if they wanted some theatre illustrations they came to me for it.

Presenter7:54

You were very busy. And I believe you were equally busy w when you came to England, which you did while you were still in your teens.

June Mendoza8:01

Yes, well, it was it was rather a continuous line. I mean, I had a bit of a a potter with the theatre.

June Mendoza8:07

I worked with Lupino Lane.

June Mendoza8:09

About the last

June Mendoza8:11

Time he did that famous show of his, me and my girl.

Presenter8:14

The Lambeth Ward

June Mendoza8:15

The Lambeth War

June Mendoza8:17

I went for the audition which Lupino Lane was taking, and there was this raw girl trying to break into the theatre there.

June Mendoza8:25

And he said, Sing your numbers, you see. So I sang my my little audition number, and he said, Would you sing Me and My Girl for me? So, of course, I sang Me and My Girl, and I sang the

June Mendoza8:37

The bells are ringing for me and my girl, you know that one.

June Mendoza8:40

And at the end of it there was a long pause, and Nib said, Don't you know the other one? I'd sung the wrong Me and My Girl, for Me and My Girl. He hooted with laughter and said somebody who was absolutely fresh to the show, and I got the job.

Presenter8:54

Good. Let's have another record.

June Mendoza8:57

The next one is the third cello suite.

June Mendoza9:01

Bach's, J. S. Bach.

June Mendoza9:03

Casals, please. And I have a very special reason for wanting this one. Of course I want all the Bach suites. But the number three, I have a a cello playing daughter.

June Mendoza9:14

And she amazed me one day by playing this as a student, and I had no idea that she had so much music in her.

Speaker 49:29

I love I love

Presenter10:20

The Bach, Cello Suite No. Three, played by Casalt, and The Fifth Movement.

Presenter10:27

You talked about your your daughter being a challenge. You have, in fact.

Presenter10:30

Quite a large family.

June Mendoza10:32

Well, I have four. Yes. That's enough, thank you.

Presenter10:35

Yeah.

Presenter10:36

Right, back to your career. You've arrived in England and you're just as busy as you were in Australia.

Presenter10:42

You did some singing with bands.

June Mendoza10:44

Oh, that is a terrible thing to bring up. This was a very short, sharp part of my life.

June Mendoza10:50

And uh I was always rather difficult because of course I'm a lady base like my mother and like daughter number one.

Speaker 410:55

Number one.

June Mendoza10:56

So they had to take it up a third while I sang it down an octave, and that wasn't very convenient for a start.

Speaker 411:00

Yeah.

Presenter11:01

Yeah, yeah.

June Mendoza11:02

But yes, I did do a little bit. I didn't have the confidence for it, so it was a very short career.

Presenter11:02

Yeah.

Presenter11:07

So that's radio. Some television, too?

Presenter11:11

And were you back with the illustration? You worked for some of the well-known uh well, not comics, they're rather high-class comics.

June Mendoza11:17

They were comics all right. They they were girl and eagle.

June Mendoza11:21

Which were the

Presenter11:23

Which were the strips you worked on?

June Mendoza11:25

Well, I did some historical strips, Joan of Arc, and all sorts of separate illustrations and

June Mendoza11:34

The story of Petrushka back to the theatre, things on Covent Garden, which they asked me to illustrate and I took over from that marvellous artist, John Worsley. He he used to do Belle of the Ballet, and I took it over from him.

Presenter11:46

You actually drew Belle of the Ballet. I remember. Belle of the Ballet.

June Mendoza11:47

Belle of the Ballet for about three years. Heaven help me.

Presenter11:51

Graph.

June Mendoza11:52

What a solid, hard job that was, too

Presenter11:52

What is the size?

Presenter11:55

Now, sooner or later you had to make up your mind what you wanted to do. You were doing about seventeen things.

June Mendoza12:01

Yes, right.

Presenter12:03

How did it come about when you eventually decided?

June Mendoza12:05

Well, unusually there was really a particular moment when the switch came.

June Mendoza12:13

And I was at odd school still.

June Mendoza12:16

And I happened to be working on a large picture of a cellist, strangely enough.

June Mendoza12:22

And I also at the same time I had a screen test coming up for Sir Michael Bulken.

June Mendoza12:27

and I had the last sitting on this painting to do just in my art class.

June Mendoza12:33

And I didn't want to miss it, so I did the last sitting on the chalist, and I didn't go to my screen test, and I turned round and looked at the whole thing and said, Who are you fooling? If you couldn't be bothered going to the screen test, forget it, dear.

Presenter12:45

Your unconscious seem to be making the decision for you.

June Mendoza12:48

I think so, I think so.

Presenter12:50

Record number four.

June Mendoza12:52

Record number four. Now, on this island, I've got to have some blood and guts, so I think the Balio's Requiem.

June Mendoza13:00

Recently I was working with

June Mendoza13:02

orchestras. I had uh a a pass to just go to the rehearsals and draw whenever I wanted to. I was working with the L S O and they were rehearsing the Requiem.

June Mendoza13:13

And I was standing in the middle trying to concentrate on doing little sketches with this amazing noise going on around me. So please may I take that with me too?

Presenter14:21

An excerpt from the Berlier's Requiem from the Latri Mosa, the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Colin Davies.

Presenter14:30

When was it that portrait painting took precedence over all other forms of drawing and painting?

June Mendoza14:36

I think it's the same answer, Roy. I don't remember, really. I was drawing faces as a child.

June Mendoza14:42

And

June Mendoza14:43

Certainly I remember the first oil painting. That was, again, back to the ballet tour with my mother, and one of the fellows in the orchestra was an amateur painter, and he had some paints. He said, Come up and have a go, if you wish. Set up a pop plant. And I said, No, thank you very much. I'd like to paint you.

June Mendoza14:58

So we were off, I suppose?

Presenter15:00

It's something that must take a lot of time to to get established, for word to get around.

June Mendoza15:07

Yes.

June Mendoza15:08

I don't suppose you think about that very much. You just keep painting. And really, from my own experience, anyway, it is a very lone thing. You do a good painting, and you'll get another one. You do a bad one, and you won't.

Speaker 415:19

Uh

June Mendoza15:20

So at what point you are established it's almost impossible for you to say.

Presenter15:24

Now your career at that point, this early point in your portrait painting career, was interrupted when you went off to spend some years abroad.

June Mendoza15:32

Yes, yes. My husband and I were posted to the Philippines.

June Mendoza15:37

and we had two very small children, and while we were there we had two more.

June Mendoza15:42

But of course, the conditions there are beautiful for having children because you have other people to do a lot of the housework.

June Mendoza15:49

That was a marvellous experience, because for the first time really, with all this domestic help, I had time to get down to daily painting of people.

Presenter16:00

So in a way, although it looked like an interruption, it really got you organized.

June Mendoza16:03

That was the first time, really, I hadn't realized till then just how many other facets of life had intervened.

Presenter16:09

Next record.

June Mendoza16:11

Next record is The Trout Quintet Schubert, please.

Presenter17:15

Part of the second movement of the Schubert Piano Quintet in A major, the Trout, Clifford Curzon and members of the Vienna Octet.

Presenter17:24

How well do you have to get to know some one before you can paint him?

June Mendoza17:28

As a very old hand at this, I suppose it's the chicken and the egg thing here, my experience now. I I think I must have had an instinct for this given me.

June Mendoza17:40

But after that you're experienced, and you don't know which comes first. Somebody walks in the door.

June Mendoza17:45

And it is your job.

June Mendoza17:47

to make a statement about them which is not your view of them.

June Mendoza17:50

But it's what they are telling you, and you ought to get it right. Sometimes you get it better than at other times, but You must not make a big mistake about them, and as you work with them you build up your knowledge of them, and more and more goes into the picture.

Presenter18:05

On an average, ignoring occasions when you have a lot of draperies or decorations or something, how many sittings do you normally give or normally require?

June Mendoza18:14

The main thing is to get that person it doesn't matter what he's wearing, there's the person underneath.

June Mendoza18:19

What he is, of course, perhaps has something to do with why he's got the robes well that ought to be in the face, the hands, and the body.

June Mendoza18:27

and the robes go afterwards. Now, once you've got the body sitting in those robes, you can paint the robes by themselves. So the answer is approximately.

June Mendoza18:38

Seven mornings?

Presenter18:41

And then, of course, as you say, you you do the robes on your own. How many portraits have you underwear at a time?

June Mendoza18:48

usually rotating about six, seven. Uh it gets out of hand if you've got about twelve. But sometimes you have to do that.

Presenter18:57

Of course, as one might expect, a lot of your subjects are theatre people.

June Mendoza19:01

Yes. And musicians, of course, especially musicians.

Presenter19:04

Special

Presenter19:05

Would you like to name a few of your favorite settlers? Yes.

June Mendoza19:07

Yeah.

June Mendoza19:09

Oh, goodness. Um Colin Davis, Charles Groves, and Joan Sutherland, Joan Sutherland, Leon Goosons.

Presenter19:13

And Joan Sutherland.

June Mendoza19:19

Goodness me, you've taken me by surprise.

Presenter19:21

Well, never mind. Let's get on with music again. Number six.

June Mendoza19:25

I would like the Boris Blacker variations on the Paganini theme. Now I had a record of this many years ago, and the most disastrous things happened.

June Mendoza19:36

I had American friends who loved music, and I lent them seventy six L P s of mine while I went on holiday, and this was when we were in Australia. We had a posting to Australia not so very long ago. They left them in the back of the car in the Australian heat.

June Mendoza19:51

for three days. So I had some very curly records when I came back home. Poor darlings, they tried to replace every single one.

Presenter19:56

When I came

June Mendoza20:00

And there was no way of getting the blacko back. It's out of print. Please, anybody listening who has a spare copy, I'd love to get it again.

Presenter20:08

Here's the BBC copy.

June Mendoza20:10

Oh

Presenter20:10

Good.

Speaker 420:39

Yeah.

Presenter21:12

The opening of Bolis Blaches

Presenter21:14

Orchestral variations on a theme by Paganini, played by the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Berlin, conducted by Ferenc Fritschai.

Presenter21:23

You've painted several members of the royal family in in recent years.

June Mendoza21:27

Yes, this year I had a chance to paint Prince Charles. Lovely experience. Thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Presenter21:34

On whose behind the corner?

June Mendoza21:34

Oh, this was for Gray's Inn.

June Mendoza21:37

for the legal profession.

June Mendoza21:39

Mind you, apart from thoroughly enjoying it, it's always a cliffhanger doing the the Royals. Poor dears, they have to sit so often for so many artists. You can't expect them to give you a a a great mass of sittings. Unfortunately I don't work from photographs. And so, with the small amount of sitting time that you actually get with them, from my point of view anyway.

June Mendoza22:00

It is really quite a cliffhanger to get what you need to get it right within that time.

June Mendoza22:06

But apart from the panic, I really enjoyed myself.

Presenter22:09

Ordinarily, how much do you work, as it were, on location? Do you go to people's homes, or do they come to your studio?

June Mendoza22:16

If it is an involved background, which of course must be theirs, not mine, then I do often go to other people's

June Mendoza22:25

locations. But my studio, of course, has all the right ingredients for lighting and

June Mendoza22:32

variations on light and consistency of light too, so we don't get a terrible

June Mendoza22:37

dull day where you can't see anything, so it really cuts their time to come to me quite often. But of course if it's somebody I'm interested in like my series of musicians, then of course I will go to them, because uh it's not a commission.

Presenter22:51

Yes, and of course there must be a temptation to go overseas too.

Presenter22:55

Arranged to do a few.

June Mendoza22:56

Oh, yes, please. I love doing that.

June Mendoza22:59

I've done quite a lot of work in the States and uh

June Mendoza23:02

Miss Blue Bell in Paris.

Presenter23:05

Oh yes, the lady dancing lady.

June Mendoza23:06

Oh yes, lovely character, lovely woman. This is another thing about this marvellous business of painting portraits.

June Mendoza23:14

If you want to go somewhere, it is really not too difficult to organize at least one painting.

June Mendoza23:21

To take you there.

Presenter23:23

Record number seven.

June Mendoza23:24

Ah now, one of my favourite ladies, as I can't have all sorts of other people, I've come down to Cleo Lane.

June Mendoza23:33

That marvellous scene with that gorgeous voice. And I also combine this with my love of Gershwin, and I adore the opera Porgy and Bess. And may I have the track My Man's Gone Now.

Speaker 423:43

Old man so old Sitting by the fireplace Lying all night long

June Mendoza23:53

Blah blah blah.

Speaker 423:58

By me the brain

Speaker 424:03

Telling me the same thing morning, noon and evening that I'm warm.

Presenter24:15

My Mountain's Gone Now by Cleo Lenn.

Presenter24:19

Your five years in the Philippines should have given you some ideas on survival in the tropics and how to manage on this desert island. It's just occurred to me.

June Mendoza24:28

Absolutely wrong, sir.

June Mendoza24:30

We went to the Philippines with two small children. We promptly had two more, and we had things called I mean, literally, servants, is what they're called there. We had more help.

June Mendoza24:42

for the shortest possible time than I've ever had before or since in my life.

Presenter24:47

Betty, I visualized you being able to thatch huts.

June Mendoza24:50

No, you dear, you've sent the gardener out, or whoever did the thatching for you. I learnt nothing about survival there.

Presenter24:51

Yeah.

Presenter24:53

The fetching for you.

Presenter24:57

Would you try to escape?

June Mendoza24:59

Oh yes.

Presenter25:00

Do you know about small boats? Are you a good swimmer?

June Mendoza25:02

Are you good?

June Mendoza25:04

Very short-winded. Very good swim for about ten yards. I'm not going to do very well.

Presenter25:09

Yes, we better make this an offshore island and not far off the shore either.

June Mendoza25:11

Yeah, so

June Mendoza25:12

of the shore either.

Presenter25:13

Your last record.

June Mendoza25:15

My last record is

June Mendoza25:17

Benjamin Britton's Spring Symphony. I think the songs are so beautiful, and I just love the finale of this work.

Speaker 426:03

What's the

Speaker 426:06

And set his country peace and put out these ones from the land.

Speaker 426:18

That's all my friends.

Presenter26:29

The finale of Benjamin Britton's Spring Symphony, conducted by Andre Prebin. If you could take only one disc out of the eight you've played us, which would it be?

June Mendoza26:39

Well, that's an impossible question, and you know it. I think I might take the Spring Symphony.

Presenter26:46

And you're allowed to take one luxury to the island. What's that going to be?

June Mendoza26:49

I suppose I'll have to paint, won't I?

June Mendoza26:52

Amaya allowed canvas and the brushes and the paint to go with it.

Presenter26:55

Yes, yes, what's the problem?

June Mendoza26:56

The whole set. Oh, love. The whole set.

Presenter26:57

The whole set.

Presenter26:59

And one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare, and we don't like big encyclopedias.

June Mendoza27:06

I think that I would take the Chronology of the Modern World. It's a a marvellous book. All the years are laid out with all the events that belong to that year.

June Mendoza27:19

on the same page, so that you can find out that Beethoven died, or that was the same year as Gainsborough painted the Blue Boy, or such and such a war started, or somebody came into power. And it goes through masses of years. Absolutely fascinating reading.

Presenter27:33

Good. And thank you, June Mendoza, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs.

June Mendoza27:37

Thank you very much, Roy.

Presenter27:39

Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 327:47

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