THE ROLE OF ARCHITECTURE IN MY RECENT PAINTINGS

BY JOHN A WALKER (copyright 2015)

Although figures and narratives are crucial subjects in my recent
paintings, which are usually based on memories and documentary
photographs, their settings have increasingly involved the depiction of
streets and buildings. These I have found challenging to paint because
they so often require the capture of perspectives and intricate detail.
Yet the streets and buildings have powerful personalities in their own
right that contribute to the mood or context of a painting and so they
have proved essential to the compositions. Below are some examples
with commentaries.

Life in the ruins (2014), oil on linen, 71 x 107 cm

-------------------------------------------------------A composite composition depicting the post WW2 world of the late
1940s and the early 1950s when children played in cobbled streets and
on the bombsites in working-class areas of British towns. At that time,
few residents owned cars and therefore children could play in streets
and alleyways safely. In the foreground is a paper boy with a heavy
delivery bicycle. This was a part time job I did later on as a teenager in
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the fishing port of Grimsby.

Holme Hill Primary School (2012) oil on linen 66 x 96.5 cm

----------------------------------------------------------------------------I attended this school from the ages of five to eleven (1943-49). It was
located at the corner of Heneage Road and Wellington Street, Grimsby
and was a short walking distance away from my home in Newmarket
Street. The Victorian building was designed by the London architect
Charles Bell in 1876 and functioned as a primary school until 1967. It is
now a grade II listed building. The buildings style is Gothic Revival and
it is constructed from red brick and limestone. It has an attractive
three-storey clock tower. To the left of the school in the painting is the
Sir Moses Montefiore Synagogue built in 1885-89. As a schoolboy I was
unaware of the buildings religious function and that Grimsby had a
Jewish community. To the right of the painting I appear aged five or six
wearing a brown check shirt and short brown trousers. This image is
obviously based on a family photo.

'Going to Sunday school Grimsby circa 1947' (2014) oil on linen, 30.5 x
107 cm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------This painting depicts mostly children walking towards the Central
Methodist Hall, a grand imposing building with a copper dome in
Duncombe St, Grimsby to attend a Sunday morning school. The Hall
dominated the working class houses nearby. It was designed by the
architect Arthur Brocklehurst of Manchester and was built during
1934-36. It remained a religious building until the 1980s. It is now a
concert venue and community centre run by a charitable trust.
(Currently threatened with closure.) Beyond the Hall is a tall red brick
building that was a cinema called The Regal (1937-2004). Its frontage
was located on Freeman St. We often queued in the street outside
waiting to gain entrance because the cinema was very crowded during
the 1940s and 1950s. It is now closed. Opposite the cinema was a
public house called The Freeman Arms that was popular with
fishermen and notorious for fighting and prositution. The pub still
exists. My paternal grandmother Lily Walker, a widower, lived at 79
Duncombe St on the right of the painting. In this row of houses can be
seen the entrance to a passageway that gave access to a shabby
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courtyard and more terrace houses. An indication of how crowded

together the people were. The courtyard was served by a single water
tap located in the middle. The red brick terraces in the painting have
now all been demolished. On the horizon beyond Freeman St and
Railway St is a red brick flour mill - Victoria Flour Mill - then called
Spillers dating from 1889. It still exists but no longer functions as a
mill.

Going to a Christmas party, (2013) oil on linen, 76 x 102 cm

-------------------------------------------------------------------During WW2 my aunt Lily Munslow worked as a conductress on
Grimsby buses. The buses emerged from huge garage situated at 42
Victoria Street South which had previously been a tramway depot
(1920s) and before that a hangar for seaplanes. At the rear of the
garage, high up under the roof, was a large staff canteen where at
Christmas time parties for children of the bus companys employees
were held. Lily took me to one circa 1944 or 45 when I was six or
seven. I dont remember much about the party but I do recall being
impressed by the strange venue, the cavernous space and oily smells
of the garage itself.

The paperboy and the policeman, (2013) oil on linen, 71 x 107 cm

----------------------------------------------------As a teenager during the 1950s I earned pocket money delivering
Sunday newspapers in the East Marsh district of Grimsby close to
Freeman Street. The paper round and several more were owned by a
very ill shopkeeper - W. Barnett & Sons (who sold and repaired
bicycles) - located at 140 Victor Street. The painting features a
composite of two streets one of which is Hamilton St. The industrial
building with the chimney on the left was a soft drinks bottling factory
- W. M. Hill & Son - which dated from 1890. The company closed down
in 1967 and the building became derelict and is due to be demolished.
The corner house with fancy brickwork on the left of the painting
belonged to the owner of the factory.

Arrival at Thornton Abbey Gatehouse, (2013) oil on linen, 71 x 107

cm.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------As a teenager I sometimes cycled with a friend to Thornton Abbey,
a ruined Augustinian monastery (founded 1140 and suppressed in
1539) located close to the River Humber in North Lincolnshire about 16
miles from the town. King Henry VIII once visited the monastery. The
Gatehouse, built from brick in 1377-82, is the best preserved section of
the ruins. It was a picturesque place to visit and provided a goal for a
days outing in the countryside. Given the youth of the cyclists and the
fact that they are travelling towards the vanishing point on the
horizon, it would seem they are heading for the future but,
paradoxically, the building towards which they are heading dates from
the distant past.

'Boy running to escape bullies' (2015) oil on linen, 112 x 81 cm.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------This painting depicts an incident from my last year at Holme Hill
primary school circa 1949. Cornered at leaving time by a group of
bullies who wanted a fight, I proposed an alternative: that I could
escape from the school even though they were guarding all the
entrances. I succeeded by running through a classroom - a class was in
progress - in the neighbouring school Wintringham Grammar School,
whose impressive frontage was located in Eleanor St. It is the red brick
building depicted in the painting. After I passed the 11 plus exam, I
began attending Wintringham. The building dates from 1895 and was
designed by the well known Grimsby architect Herbert Charles Scaping
(1866-1934). It had a swimming pool and many other facilities. It was
once a reason for civic pride and for a time it was used as an art
college but, sadly, it is now a ruin.

'Star struck', (2015), oil on linen, 81 x 111.5 cm.

---------------------------------------------------------------This painting recalls a moment in February 1956 (when I was aged 17,
a horny teenager without a girlfriend) in the Ritz Cinema, Grimsby
Road, Cleethorpes (a luxurious cinema built in 1937 which closed in
1982 and was demolished in 1993) when I fell in love with Kim Novak.
The American actress (b 1933 of Czech heritage) was playing the part
of Madge Owens, a fictional character in the technicolor, CinemaScope
film Picnic (Columbia Pictures, 1955). Her co-star in this romantic
melodrama was William Holden and the director was Joshua Logan.
Picnic was adapted from a play and novel by William Inge. Novak had
appeared in some films before Picnic but it was the one that made her
world famous. It was the first time I had seen her. Clearly, Hollywood
was employing Novak because of her extraordinary, cool, physical
beauty; therefore, it was ironic that Madge is a 19 years old Kansas
beauty queen who resents the fact she is admired only for being
'pretty'. Madge has a wealthy suitor whom she does not love. She is a
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teenager on the cusp of womanhood. Her own sexual passion is

aroused in the film by the charming personality and muscular body of
a drifter called Hal (Holden).
Watching Novak/Madge I was entranced by her youth and beauty
and consumed by a longing and sensual desire for her. This is obviously
a very common psychological/cinematic experience after which
millions become adoring fans. However, I did not join a fan club or
travel to America to stalk her (as some obsessive fans do) because my
rational mind reminded me that I did not know Novak as a real person
and that my chances of meeting her and becoming her lover were
virtually nil. Our 'love affair' was totally one sided - she was
completely unaware of my existence and infatuation. I also realised
that when seeing Novak on screen I was not watching a documentary
about her but her playing the part of Madge - a fictional being who did
not actually live in Kansas. Furthermore, my intense emotional
response to Novak/Madge was to a screen image, a pictorial
representation, not to a living human being and that my desire for her
was doubly impossible which made it even more poignant and tragic.
Novak/Madge, in short, was an unobtainable object of desire. (This
was before the days of video recordings and DVDs, so I could not even
possess a copy of the movie to watch over and over again. In the 1950s
one never knew when one might see a favourite film again.) I left the
cinema still glowing from the encounter with the screen goddess but
profoundly sad and frustrated because of the futility of my desires.
The experience recalled in this painting is a tribute to the power of
moving pictures - plus sound and music - projected onto a huge screen
in a darkened auditorium. I have surrounded her head with a whiteyellow border or halo to signify the quasi religious aura or charisma
typical of major movie icons. Her face is enlarged and floats in front of
the screen to symbolise the process of emergence and engulfment that
reaches out from the screen and overwhelms the viewer. At the time
of writing (2015) Novak is 81. She is a keen painter and sometimes
depicts in a surrealist fashion self-portraits and scenes from her films
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(such as Vertigo). Before she became a movie star, Novak was an art
student and model in Chicago.

Midwife heading towards the West Marsh circa 1920 (2014) oil on
linen, 71 x 107cm
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------This historical painting depicts a midwife riding a bicycle set against an
industrial townscape of the 1920s. Like delivery boys, midwives have
recently become icons of popular culture in Britain. The composition
was based on an old documentary, black and white photograph. The
midwife has just crossed the old Corporation swing bridge that
spanned the Haven Dock in Grimsby. The dock dated from 1800 but
became part of the Alexandra Dock in 1879. It created a barrier
between the East and West Marsh districts of the town, hence the
need for the bridge (1872-1925) available to pedestrians and cyclists
only. The tug boat seen on the left was used to open and close the
bridge. In the background are buildings that have since vanished. On
the extreme left is a brick structure that was part of Marshalls flour
mill complex (1889 and 1906, demolished in the 1950s). Next to it is
the blank rear wall of the Palace Theatre (1904-79) a music hall and
later cinema. Adjoining the Theatre is the Palace Theatre Buffet which
is the only building still standing at the time of writing. Across the
bridge in the centre can be seen the Central Market square built in the
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1850s with a clock tower dating from 1870 (all demolished in the 1950s
and 1960s). On the right is an engineering works that no longer exists.
Modern Grimsby was a consequence of 19th and 20th centuries'
industrialisation but has since been subject to the opposite process of
de-industrialisation.

Geordie Girl in a red dress, (2011). Oil on linen, 90 x 120 cm

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------In 1956 I moved to the industrial, northern city of Newcastle upon
Tyne to study fine art at the University. I was tremendously impressed
by the city's architecture and monuments but, of course, it had its
slum areas. I met Margaret Clark at the art school. She lived with her
sister and parents in the poor, working class, West End district of
Elswick (178 Stone St) not far from the Scotswood Rd. The houses
consisted of two flats and she lived in an upper one. To reach an
outside toilet and coal bunker one had to descend a flight of steps into
a small back yard. (There were no gardens front or back.) It astonished
me that such an attractive and smartly dressed young woman could
emerge from such an unpromising environment.

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Romantic tryst at Seaton Delaval Hall circa 1959, (2013) oil on linen,
30 x 40 inches
-----------------------------------------------------------------------In the late 1950s I acquired a cheap old car and used it take trips into
the Northumberland countryside from Newcastle. One day I invited a
female art student (Pauline Armstrong) to a day out at Seaton Delaval
Hall, Seaton Sluice, in the hope of furthering a romantic relationship.
The stately home - 1718-29 - was designed in an English Baroque style
by Sir John Vanbrugh and housed portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds,
Godfrey Kneller and Benjamin West. However, the architecture and
setting proved gloomy and oppressive; the building was partly ruined
by fire in 1822 and the history of its aristocratic owners was an
unsavoury one. The place was not conducive to seduction.

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Glories of modern architecture: London Wall in the 1970s, (2013) Oil

on linen, 76.3 x 101.7 cm
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------By the early 1960s I was living in London. I can only recall visiting
London Wall once during the following decade. I found the
environment aesthetically sterile, inhumane and repulsive hence the
title is ironic. Nature had been virtually eliminated by the designers in the painting just one tree is visible. This part of the City of London
had been reduced to a wasteland by Nazi bombers in WW2 and the
new, international style modern buildings - oblong tower blocks or
slabs with curtain walling - were erected in the 1960s. High level
pedestrian walkways made from concrete appeared at their bases
whose purpose was to separate people from traffic. Amazingly, most
of these office blocks were soon outdated and were demolished to be
replaced by buildings in a post-modern style.

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'In Esher they encountered the ghost of Queen Victoria', (2013) oil on
linen, 71 x 107 cm
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------In recent years I have lived in the Surrey town of Esher. One of its
noted historic buildings is St George's church, a stone and brick
structure set in a graveyard. It dates back to the 16th century and for
300 years it was the town's Anglican parish church. The young Queen
Victoria often visited relatives at Claremont House near Esher and at
the church of she had her own box overlooking the nave. The white
door behind her ghost was a private entrance to the box. St Georges is
now used as an arts centre. I do not believe in ghosts but when visiting
the church and its graveyard I was often conscious of its Victorian
connection; hence, I devised a narrative to enliven an otherwise
traditional landscape scene.

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