Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
An artist and official war artist, best known for his painting 'Falling Wall' at the Imperial War Museum.
On the island
Eight records
Piano Sonata No. 30 in E major, Op. 109
This one, the first movement of Beethoven's piano sonata, was the beginning of of a lovely series which contributed quite a lot to the the life I was leading at that time.
My own father had had a really rather a ba a bad stutter, although in the In the song itself there's not a great deal of stuttering. The idea of the stuttering lovers does do something to me.
Duke Ellington and His Washingtonians
I thought for the first time, you know, that I'd chosen something original. I think that was the first perception I had of, you know, what it meant that lifted this work out of the sort of normal category.
At the time there was a magazine, a rather good one, called Contact Books. They asked me if I would be interested in illustrating an article that they were publishing on uh Oklahoma. It was really quite an important commission for me.
It's um a piano trio that I've um over the years been enormously fond of... imagine you're at sea and you're learning something about Ravel.
Philadelphia Orchestra (conducted by Eugene Ormandy)
This brings back memories of the time when I was teaching at the Edinburgh College of Art... and so this is Sleeping Beauty, Memories of Memories of the Diagilev Ballet.
Certain sounds. hit one, you had to stop and and listen. They were very, very powerful. And Piaf's singing La Viengose was was one of these.
I've Got a Gal in KalamazooFavourite
Glenn Miller and His Orchestra
Roch Rohan actually was born in Kalamazoo. And I when I first heard this, I was absolutely staggered... when I and I put it on, um Roxanne immediately comes down from upstairs, and we gloat, if you like, uh on this on this wonderful song.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:58Can you describe that painting [Falling Wall] to me?
It shows a narrow lane with quite tall buildings on each side. Half way along into the picture the left side of the building is falling, directly threatening the two firemen who are operating the hose.
Presenter asks
2:07How did that come about [that you might have been under that falling wall]?
But the leader of the team said to me, We're not doing any good here... So he said, go back to the pump and he said, bring out the chap there and we'll get him to stay here and I want you to come with me into that building and climb to the to the roof. So I did that. I brought this man back and put him onto the onto the hose. And then we both us two walked across this this narrow lane and went in into a doorway. When the most absolutely terrifying noise I I think I've ever heard in my life occurred and w what had happened was that where we'd been standing was now full of r absol red hot brick which had fallen from the other side of the lane and sadly and awfully um killed the poor boy who'd um taken our place.
Presenter asks
3:07How long was it after that awful incident... that you were able to put it on canvas?
Well, I should think uh about two or three weeks. I had to get leave. I c I found it almost impossible to work.
The keepsakes
The book
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
James Joyce
The book that I'd like to take is by James Joyce. and it's called Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I've had it in my possession for a a long, long time. It did something to me when I first read it. It remains with me in in a in a very, very s strong, powerful way.
The luxury
But I'll tell you why. uh we have a tiny little house in in uh Hampton St Long Isle. and it has a very, very big sloping lawn of absolutely wonderful grass. I was really hooked on this lawn for quite a while, and then I started painting it. And you've no idea what happens to people when they're standing on a on a sloping lawn. So please, can I have a sloping lawn for my luxury object?
Presenter asks
4:24Why do you like a lump of cold metal [the burnt out fire engine]?
When I looked at this. Fire engine, the actual fire engine. It was surrounded by ash. And it took on, you know, the weirdest. significance in terms of the machine. That the most Awful example of the role the machine plays and the results.
Presenter asks
25:56What would you have recognised about [David Hockney] when you saw his work?
Well, there there was always an extraordinary professional quality about it. It was way ahead of its time in the sense that he was doing certain things and he was the only one doing it.
“I suppose it's a bit hard on any child when their mother and their father split up when he or she is at the age of five. You know I was left. Very very much alone.”
“It was the sort of apprehension that goes with you're faced with something that you desperately want to do, but you're not quite sure how to do it. But you you know, you want it so much that you really conquer the fear if if if you possibly can.”
“I want to show the violence. I want to show how it affected people who were actually involved in doing something else, taken unawares, for example.”