Full Description
Scottish artist William Johnstone (1897-1981) has been significantly overlooked in the histories of British modernism, yet his role as the progressive Principal of Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts and subsequently the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London helped shape the the work and careers of artists such as Richard Hamilton, Victor Pasmore, Nigel Henderson, Alan Davie and Eduardo Paolozzi.
Drawing directly on Johnstone's personal archive as well as a range of newly researched primary sources, Beth Williamson studies Johnstone's ideas and his artworks within the context of his working relationships with other important British artists of the period. His dialogues with significant thinkers in the wider cultural field serve to illuminate these intellectual debates in a lively way.
Williamson considers these important relationships against the background of Johnstone's thinking and theirs, examining key texts, artworks, and moments in British art and art education in an international context, revealing Johnstone's intellectual formation considering its significance then and now.
Contents
List of figures
Acknowledgements
Timeline
Introduction: William Johnstone: Artist and Teacher
1. Journeys: From Edinburgh to Paris, circa 1919 to 1927
A Borders Childhood
An Edinburgh Education
William Richard Lethaby
Patrick Geddes
D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson
To Paris and beyond
André Lhote
Method and Materials
Elsewhere
2. Landscapes: Between America and the Borders, circa 1928 to 1949
Scottishness
An international artist
Johnstone in America
The nineteen forties
Abstract painting
Industrial design
3. Time: A Point in Time, 1929/1937
Time
Experiment
Chasm
Change
A Place in Time
Theosophy
4. Children: From Child Art to Man Art, 1941
A history of child art
Froebel and Ciek
Marion Richardson
Herbert Read
Johnstone and R.R. Tomlinson
Writing on child art
Creative Art in England
Children as Artists
Child Art to Man Art
New methods
5. Art School: Camberwell (1938-46) and Central (1947-60)
Interdisciplinarity
Responsiveness
Internationalism
Adventurous Experiment
6. Poets: MacDiarmid, Scott, Muir, 1930s and 1970s
A New Scottish Renaissance
Endarkenment: Unreasoned Relationship with Art
Re-emergence
7. Peers and Painters: Scottish Artists, 1960 to 1980
A Borders Return
Abstract Landscapes
Portraits and Patrons
Miraculous Objects
Plaster Reliefs
Tachism
8. Reflections: In Retrospect and Conclusion
Appendix
Bibliography
