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AUTOGRAPHICAL
SKETCH "An interest in poetry in the 1940's led
to a discovery of Surrealism. This was a milestone for it made
me want to paint pictures which around 1944, 1945, I began to
try my hand at. A little later, in greedy quest for more Surrealism
I made rare trips to London to visit the London Gallery which
was run by the poet E.L.T. Mesens. I never met Mesens, he was
ever away in Paris or Brussels. I do recall seeing George Melly,
then the Gallery 'dogsbody'. Some fifteen years on, in the early
'60's, he and I became firm friends. Surrealism for me was home.
I was among friends at last, having been away in a foreign land
all my life. The spell of it then cast remains a frisky imp haunting
my life. Towards the end of the '60s, twenty and more years after
those days. Eric Thacker and I together wrote and illustrated
two off-beat novels Musrum and Wintersol. We also collaborated
to produce WOKKER, a strip cartoon featuring a mercurial hero
who embodies the seemingly contradictory characteristics of mischief
maker and an innocent abroad, dismayed by the prospect of existence.
In the 50's I worked in the machine shop at Thos. Green &
Son, Engineers, North Street (long ago bankrupt). |
| portrait
of Tony by Michael Woods |
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For
a period I drove the overhead gantry crane lifting castings on and off
the various machines and so on. Between lifts, most drivers read the racing
page. Not me. Much to the amusement of my workmates I painted what they
called, 'Daft pictures'. Perforce, they had to be small - have you ever
been in the cramped cabin of a crane? At that time much of my work was
painted under the eye, so to speak, of Paul Klee, then as always one of
my heroes. Towards the end of the 60s my activities as a painter virtually
petered out. Apart from the occasional 'dabble' I haven't painted since
then. From then up to the mid '70s when I began to build assemblages,
I was busy with my collaboration with Eric Thacker. I composed as well,
an album of alphabets, Seven Secret Alphabets, which Cape published in
1972. An illustrated collection of 'aphorisms and insults', a kind of
ongoing notebook, also occupied my time. This was published with the title
Flick Knives & Forks by Transformaction, Harpford, in 1981. My collection
of social realist drawings, which have been described as 'bitter' were
published with the title A View from Back o' Town. Now, assemblage is
the thing. It seems to me 'the assemblage' is more real, therefore more
powerful than 'the painting'. Anthony Earnshaw |
Welcome:
This is the official website to the artist Anthony Earnshaw,
the majority of work produced by Tony is included in this site. Navigation
to certain categories is by the Nav Bar (above), we have also included
a search facility that makes looking for certain pieces of work a much
simpler task (top
left).
Sections
of catergories completed - Publications,Wokker,
OB's & Reviews and Exhibitions & Biography. |
