One hundred or so works were hung, from floor to ceiling, in the flat at Oxford Gardens. Looking back at our old catalogues now, I’m amazed at the range and quality of the shows. The works were loaned on consignment by the London galleries I’d once framed pictures for and who now generously opened up their storerooms to us. We had paintings by Howard Hodgkin, David Hockney, Patrick Procktor, Victor Pasmore, Henry Moore, Christopher Wood, Augustus John, Bridget Riley – an astonishing list of modern British masters. Between us we knew plenty of first-time collectors who wouldn’t dream of walking into an intimidating West End gallery but were happy to come to our private views, with their drinks, nibbles and log fires.
We’d zip on a dress, slip into a pair of stilettos and, armed with a bottle of champagne, a blue duplicate book and a sheet of red dots, we’d sell paintings by the dozen. Our shows became so successful that galleries became reluctant to loan works to us as we were depleting their inventory, leaving us with no option but to take the plunge and open our own galleries.
I called Mum, proud to tell her that I had my eye on a space on Blenheim Crescent, just off Portobello Road. ‘Portobello Road?’ she said, sounding rather disappointed. ‘Oh Nessie, why aren’t you opening on Cork Street?’
Regardless of Mum’s disdain, I opened The Vanessa Devereux Gallery in 1986, a 200-square-foot shoe-box of a space next door to the Travel Book Shop, the very shop that Julia Roberts would stumble into a decade later.
How I loved my morning walk from Oxford Gardens down the Portobello Road, nodding to stallholders as they arranged their fruit and vegetables and saluting to shopkeepers as they raised their protective window grills. Reggae would be pulsating from basement flats, while rich smells of coffee and freshly baked bread wafted from the Moroccan cafes and the pungent aromas of hams and cheeses tempted me into Garcia’s, the Spanish supermarket. The air rang with traders warming their voices up before singing out their bargains. As I neared Blenheim Crescent, the Salvation Army would be opening its doors to welcome in rough sleepers to take their breakfast and their morning pledge, while publicans arranged tables on pavements nearby to tempt them back to the devil.
Soon after opening the gallery, Dominique Taylor, Richard’s former PA who had recently separated from Roger Taylor, the drummer in Queen, came to work for me. Dom relished doing all the admin I loathed. She was my saviour. Over the five years of the gallery’s existence we were joined by a succession of three young directors, Sarah Howgate, Thomas Dane and Rose Lord, all of whom had different skills and confirmed my belief that you’re only as good as the people you work with – they all went on to have meteoric careers in the art world.
The space was small but our rent was low, so we could afford to take risks, and nobody was dictating who or what we should show. Much of what I did in the gallery was instinctive: we would go to degree shows and other galleries, both commercial and public, and we talked to art-school tutors, collectors and artists, asking them who they rated.
We didn’t take on a single artist who came to us without a recommendation. However, I always wanted artists to feel we were on their side, so I made sure I answered each request with a considered response – a decision I cursed when we became more successful and the requests mounted. However, this courtesy has paid off over the years, as time and again I’ve been approached by artists thanking me for encouraging them early in their careers.
There was one damaged soul who became incandescent with rage when we turned down his request for an exhibition. Dominique and I were out one morning and Sarah Howgate was on her own when he entered the gallery and starting screaming obscenities at her. Sarah did her best to calm him down but, instead of leaving through the door, he turned and ran at the shop window, hurling himself through the thick plate glass. Sarah called me half an hour later to tell me what had happened next. She was finding it hard to see the funny side of the story.
The artist had staggered back inside and then whipped off all his clothes before running upstairs and clambering onto the roof. There he stood, bloody and naked, shouting abuse and drawing a large crowd on the pavement below. The police were called and managed to wrestle him back into the gallery, before covering him with a grey packing blanket and bundling him into a waiting squad car. ‘All in a day’s work,’ I explained to poor, traumatised Sarah.
It’s hard now to imagine how provincial the London art scene was in the mid-1980s, a time when most people’s idea of good art didn’t extend beyond traditional sporting prints or Victorian watercolours. Showing contemporary artists, and especially those from abroad, was considered rather racy. I relished pushing the boundaries of good taste, and leapt at the opportunity to show artists from other cultures.
When the American writer Andrew Solomon introduced me to a group of unofficial Soviet artists, I couldn’t resist the challenge of becoming the first UK gallery to show their work. Rather than struggle with complications around shipping and customs, we invited Sven Gundlach and Irina Nakhova to come to London and produce their work here. The freedom offered by the city was there to test their self-control, and to add to our woes, Sven’s wild Soviet sexual allure certainly didn’t help them keep their eye on the job at hand. While researching this book, I emailed Andrew to ask him if he knew what had happened to Sven and Irina. He hadn’t heard from them for years, and thought Sven had given up as an artist. I looked up Irina and it was rather gratifying to see that she had been selected to represent Russia at the 2015 Venice Biennale.
We also exhibited works by Lee Jaffe, whom I’d dismissed as too cool for school when we were in his New York loft. He’d painted a series of stunning studies of blind blues musicians on rough handmade paper. He had gone from New York to Jamaica, where he’d played harmonica with Bob Marley, the only white man to have ever played with the Wailers. OK, Lee, I admit it: you’re pretty cool after all!
My gallery director Thomas Dane championed the Spanish sculptor Pep Duran Esteva, who worked in an old Barcelona shoe factory. We showed artists as diverse as Sonia Boyce, whose work investigated the theme of being a woman of colour, and Bridget McCrum, an elderly sculptor from Devon who carved birds from monumental blocks of stone and made them soar.
During our opening month, we held exhibitions by four emerging artists: Sunil Patel, Margaret Hunter, Emma McClure and Pete Nevin. Pete mentioned that he thought the girl who was working in the studio next door to him had ‘something about her’, so I decided to pay her a visit.
Just entering Tracey’s studio was an experience in itself. Streams of tracing paper toilet roll were hanging from the ceiling to the floor and I had to weave my way through them to get to the back of the room, where Tracey was sitting cross-legged on a cushion, drawing. Each strand of paper had been covered in delicate pencil drawings of naked bodies or animals. We chatted for an hour or two, her tentative confidence slowly emerging through her crooked but electrifying smile. I knew then that she possessed some intangible quality, and I kick myself now that I didn’t recognise her potential and invite her to join my stable of artists. I did, however, help to get her career going by writing a letter of guarantee so she could rent her first flat, and also by introducing her to the collector Stuart Evans, whom I took to her studio later that week. I’d convinced Stuart to stop buying art by dead modern British artists and have the courage to collect young emerging ones and he embraced the challenge with enthusiasm, buying an oil painting. It was Tracey Emin’s first sale.
Witnessing the impact that a sale can have on an artist was one of the most rewarding aspects of running a gallery. As soon as the collector had committed to a work, I would call the artist with the good news, which meant, more often than not, that they could cover next month’s rent. When you buy a work, you’re playing a role in the creative process by both enabling an artist and encouraging them to continue.
In those days I’d spend hours in freezing studios as we selected works for shows, regretting that I hadn’t remembered to wear gloves and thick-soled shoes. Trust b
etween artist and dealer is paramount as you discuss which pieces to hang and which ones to set aside and possibly rework. This process takes time, and lifelong friendships can be formed in the process. I felt as if I was taking a little of the artist’s soul away with me as I carried their works to my van.
In 1987 I found myself sitting at dinner next to a quietly spoken, modest man called Robert Loder, whom I could tell also took pleasure in the absurdity of life. Before long we realised we shared an interest in art and he told me that he’d just donated his collection of prints to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. In 1959 he’d spent a year in Johannesburg, working with Trevor Huddleston, the celebrated bishop who was involved in the fight against South African Apartheid. He had developed an interest in African art and formed the African Arts Trust. Later on, he and the sculptor Anthony Caro set up the Triangle Workshop, bringing artists from different countries together to explore new ideas.
‘Blimey,’ I thought, ‘this man knows his onions.’
‘Which do you think is more interesting, welded sculpture or moulded sculpture?’ he asked. I should have confessed that I hadn’t a clue but instead launched into some spurious answer, gesticulating wildly with my hands and catching the tip of my nose with my little fingernail in the process. As I dabbed at the bleeding wound with my napkin, Robert smiled but not wanting to humiliate me said nothing, and I adored him from that moment on. We became firm friends, and when I later asked him if he would be director of my gallery, he said yes.
Robert and I would visit exhibitions together at least once a week, and I came to be profoundly influenced by his enthusiasm for the role that artists play in our lives. He recognised that visionaries are often outsiders and forgave their eccentricities, supporting them by offering spaces in which they could experiment, as well as with the occasional purchase. He not only encouraged disheartened artists to continue, helping them articulate their vision, but also connected them to collectors and galleries. It was thanks to him that I showed Fred Pollock, Beezy Bailey and Louis Maqhubela, all of whom are still respected artists.
Early on in our friendship, I confided in Robert that I had a phobia of some social interactions. One example was that I tended to freeze when asking the girls behind the front desk at Sotheby’s and Christies for directions because they had an uncanny knack of making me feel unworthy. He smiled at me and said, ‘I was taught a rule of thumb when I was your age and it hasn’t failed me yet.’
‘Tell me,’ I laughed, expecting him to crack some joke, but in fact he gave me an astonishingly simple tip, which still helps me almost daily.
‘Almost inevitably,’ he said, ‘people are the size they make you feel. If they make you feel funny, they usually have a good sense of humour themselves. If they make you feel boring, they’re inevitably mind-numbingly dull. And if they make you feel smart, they’re usually pretty clever.
Anyway, those posh auction house girls aren’t interested in adding “MBA” to their names – they’re just after their MRS.’
Robert had become acquainted with an extraordinary group of intellectuals who were trying to undermine the hideous South African regime from within. These included the Nobel Prize-winning author Nadine Gordimer, her husband, the art dealer Reinhold Cassirer and their neighbours, Sydney and Felicia Kentridge. Sydney was a respected barrister who made his name representing the family of Steve Biko at the inquest following Biko’s death in police custody. When Reinhold asked Robert if he could recommend a London gallery who would hold an exhibition for Sidney’s son William, Robert suggested the Vanessa Devereux Gallery.
Born in 1955, William Kentridge studied politics and African studies at university and went on to study art at the Johannesburg Art Foundation, after which he studied at the Ecole Jacques Lecoq, a school in Paris that specialises in miming, movement, and physical theatre. Three years later, after two low-key shows at the Market Gallery in Johannesburg, this quietly spoken man walked into my tiny space wearing what I now know to be his uniform of black trousers and a white shirt and carrying a huge roll of drawings under his arm. He unfurled the roll and showed me his mesmerising charcoals.
‘This one, The Kiss, is a metaphor for the relationship between F. W. de Klerk and President Pinochet of Chile,’ he explained. ‘And that’s a self-portrait of me, as I fall from the picture in despair.’
I looked on in silence.
‘And this image of a suburban swimming pool filled with the detritus of consumerism is pretty self-explanatory. Johannesburg is a strange place to be right now,’ he went on. ‘Every year we fortify our houses against the masses, with incremental precision – our walls a little higher here, some extra razor-wire there. Creeping fear is so insidious.’
His drawings were tough, lyrical and stunning, and I was desperate to show them. We had one small hurdle to overcome – the embargo on South African sports, goods and culture. I knew that this work was important and needed an international audience, so William and I decided to simply go ahead and have the exhibition – to hell with any backlash.
Working on the Marrakech Biennale twenty years later, I was confronted with a similar dilemma when I had to decide whether or not to show an Israeli-born artist after there had been some negative coverage in the Arab press around her inclusion. I referred then to the South African cultural embargo, an initiative that had proved that denying a country a cultural voice has no bearing on its political outcome – in fact, the opposite is true. Unless it is state-sponsored, art from even the most extreme regime should never be censored.
Over the next five years we held three exhibitions of work by William Kentridge. I went to visit him in South Africa and saw his technique for making stop-motion animated films first-hand. Robert and I spent a happy week in Italy with his family, helping with the harvest at the local vineyard. I learned about the role the arts play in politics and their importance in defining a nation’s identity and introducing humour at the darkest moments. I also learned how art can better create impact through raising questions rather than preaching didactic messages.
In mid-1980s London, galleries tended to show established artists and were clustered in Mayfair, on or around Cork Street. The Young British Artists were just leaving art school and the East End hadn’t yet become a gallery district. The Lisson Gallery was one of the few other galleries that dared to show young experimental artists. We wanted to celebrate young talent and give it a voice. We were perfectly positioned to do this in Portobello: it was not only inexpensive but it also had a somewhat anarchic atmosphere. To us, anything seemed possible.
Meanwhile, other interesting spaces were opening up in Portobello: Kitty and Joshua Bowler opened Crucial Gallery, Catherine Turner and Chris Kewbank at the Special Photographers Company, Anatol Orient’s pioneering ceramics gallery and Prue O’Day’s gallery, Anderson O’Day.
Understanding the power of a street gathering with performance art, live music and free wine, Anatol, Prue and I called a meeting with the other arts-interested people in the Portobello area, with a view to launching a festival. The idea of inviting all the galleries, bars and restaurants in the area to take part in a celebration of the arts was a popular one.
We launched the Portobello Arts Festival on a balmy April evening, opening with our first Kentridge exhibition. The response from the public was overwhelming. Halfway through the evening, I left Reinhold to deal with the crowds desperate to buy the works, and wandered out onto the street. As I walked down the busy road past countless animated faces, for a fleeting moment I felt as if I was at the centre of the universe.
***
London, July 2017
Beezy Bailey called me last month to tell me that Robert Loder had advanced colon cancer. I went to visit him that afternoon and we sat in his homely conservatory, surrounded by books, photographs and paintings.
‘What a rich and varied life the art world has offered us, Robert,’ I said, after a few minutes of contemplative silence.
‘Yes, it has rather,’ he said,
his eyes lighting up.
‘You have no idea how grateful I am for all your help in the early days of my gallery,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t have done it without you.’
‘Here, I’ve got something for you,’ he said, cocking his head while writing something in a copy of his book Making Art in Africa.
I looked him in the eye as he handed me the book. ‘Ah, Robert,’ I said, ‘you’re still as beautiful as ever.’ He smiled and we walked to the door. When he had closed the door, I sat on his front step and opened the book.
‘For Vanessa,’ he had written. ‘We had a good time on the journey.’
Yes, I agreed, thinking over the cast of characters from my world back then. We certainly did.
2
NECKER ISLAND DREAMING
Richard bought Necker Island in 1978. He was twenty-eight, and the island was a barren rock, just under one hundred acres of scrubland. Its only vegetation was a thousand barrel cacti, their red-tipped phalluses saluting the sun, and one solitary palm tree – it was the very image of a cartoon desert island. Where others saw logistical problems, as well as clouds of mosquitoes, Richard saw the natural beauty of the island – its screeching terns, scuttling hermit crabs, and warm, pristine sea. Any problems were viewed as mere challenges to overcome. The island’s Great House was built, ready for our first visit in the summer of 1985. This was the beginning of an annual pilgrimage, a tradition that continues to this day.
I remember the thrill of arriving on this remote island for the first time, nearly forty years ago. The journey to Necker was an endurance test back then, but it filled us with wonder. Were we really flying on a Virgin plane to Richard’s private Caribbean island? First we flew to Newark and checked in to the crew hotel. Though we were jetlagged, we couldn’t resist taking a car into Manhattan for a night out. We were up at the crack of dawn the next morning to catch a flight to Miami or Puerto Rico and on to Antigua, followed by a small onward plane to Beef Island in the British Virgin Islands and finally an hour-long rib ride to Necker. The second day of travelling was interminable, but our excitement just about compensated for our lack of sleep and the stress having to make so many tight connections.
One Hundred Summers Page 21