1. Bruce Taylor: A lost page of British Modernism

'Every form, even every line, represents a figure, no form is absolutely neutral'   
Mondrian, Circle, p. 42.


TACHISME & ABSTRACTION LYRIQUE IN ST IVES? 

An ink drawing on paper:

Bruce Taylor, Drawing, 1959.

signed 'Bruce Taylor' and dated '1959' in pencil.

This is very probably one of a series of 'drawings for sculpture'; in a vein that Taylor experimented with during the late 50s, soon after he moved to St Ives in 1956.

Intriguingly, the lines display a hybrid quality that combines the incisiveness of pen with the fluidity of a brush.

TAYLOR'S ORIGINALITY

1. Compared with drawings by contemporary British sculptors — by Moore, Hepworth, Chadwick, Armitage and others — Taylor's 'drawing for sculpture' is distinctive in that it does not strive to represent the outer appearance of an object (projected sculpture), but rather notates lines of energy that refer simultaneously to the subject matter (in this case, perhaps, a hybrid living organism, — abstracted and reconfigured by a secular Vitalism,  evident in the sculpture 'May bug' — and, simultaneously, to the material  processes needed to cut and release this form from sheet metal, with the oxy-acetylene cutter.

Taylor's 'drawings for sculpture' invite comparisons with the work of European artists such as Wols, Hartung, Michaux, Fiedler, Ribeyrolle (variously grouped under the labels of Abstraction Lyrique, Tachisme and Art Informel); with little or no equivalent among their British contemporaries.

Although Taylor very probably attended Herbert Read's lecture on Tachisme at the Pernwith Society in July 1957 [Review: St I. T. & E., 26 July 57], I am not  suggesting direct influences from these artists, but, rather, affinities and a convergence; evident in his development of discrete MODES of REFERENCE that embraced both figuration and Abstraction and reconciled them in his work.

[See Soulages quoted in Charbonnier, 1959: 'Cette peinture qui se passe de la figuration est cernée par le monde et lui doit son sens', p.158)].

Seen against the work of Maillol, Lipchitz, Gonzales, Giacometti and Picasso, Taylor's work appear more European than that of his St Ives contemporaries, furthermore, it does not mimic the work of neither Moore, Hepworth or Epstein. 

Working with both MASS and STRUCTURE, FIGURATION and GEOMETRIC ABSTRACTION — in WELDED STEEL and in BRONZE — Taylor's works invites to be read alongside the work of his European contemporaries, and with reference to the debate that defined Abstraction not as independent from nature, but as complex transpositions and transmutations from the real, as x (?) pointed out in 1954. 

This juxtaposition casts a new light on the history of post WWII Art in Britain; where the dominance of US notions of Modernism, led to the neglect of European developments.

2. In this remarkable photomontage (below) Taylor combined a 'tachiste' drawing/painting with photography to produce a remarkable photomontage; quite unlike the work of any of his contemporaries, including the very experimental Henderson. 

This may have been an single isolated experiment (an 'idiolect', in the terminology of linguists) short-circuited by contemporary attitudes to photography that excluded  it from Art. In any case, this is the only example (perhaps one of two?) photomontage(s) that has survived, alongside a silk-screen print that, intriguingly, incorporates the same drawing, magnified. The back of the sheet onto which it was printed, however, was used for making a drawing in a different style, in 1963, whilst working for an  exhibition at Arnolfini that same year. 

There is no evidence that Taylor ever exhibited this photomontage, due to the exclusion of photographs from fine art exhibitions .

The Penwith Society of Arts, for instance, did not accept photographers as members, and a photographer with artistic ambitions, like the late Roger Mayne, had to battle (unsuccesfully) with the Art establishment to get photography established as fine Art and with Kenneth Clark to secure funding for an exhibition of photographs as Art. 

In St Ives and elsewhere in the UK photographers had to resign themselves to being called upon to photograph artists and their work, but not to exhibit as artists, alongside them. 

3. Taylor's position between (or rather within) both figuration and abstraction — at a time when artists in St Ives were pressed to situate their work either in one or the other strand — and his refusal to accept this problematic DUALISM (challenged in France by, among others, Pignon, Atlan, Picasso, and others), is interesting; for it invites us to reflect about some of the assumptions upon which this dualism rested.

4. Taylor's concerns about the threat of destruction, as the arm race escalated and the Cold War set in, were inspired by what he had seen at first hand, when his unit liberated a concentration camp in Germany (Belsen?), and soon after by the experience of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is reflected in the titles of some of his works: War Head, Warrior, Sentinel...

Taylor's reference to and his representation-celebration of organic life, in all its forms — both vegetal, animal (insects, mammals, hybrids) and his totemic representation of man as a resisting agent (in Sentinel, Warrior, etc.) — represent a fourth key feature of his work. 

This is particularly significant at a time when an artificially-induced DUALISM was causing an arbitrary rift between the exponents of Figuration and those of Abstraction, on the basis of simplistic theoretical assumptions; as Abstraction was being claimed as the attribute of the new US-led, international 'avant garde' [See Documenta 1 (1955) and 2 (1959)].

5. Finally, it is important to note that, whether for print-making, welding, kiln-firing or bronze casting, Taylor made all his work himself; only resorting to a foundry for a few larger commissions. In this way, Taylor shared with Hans Hartung, in his early works, the desire to retain a direct link between the materiality of process and personal expression. 

These considerations have inspired this project to write Taylor back into the history of 20th century British art; for, as Peter Davies, remarked, upon seeing the works I have gathered, Taylor was undoubtedly 'the last St Ives artist of significance waiting to be re-discovered'. 

*  *  * 

4. Drawing for Sculpture: Between Figuration and Abstraction

The reference to the world, in Taylor's drawings and in his sculptures, is complex and ambiguous.

Henry Moore had noted:'My drawings are done mainly as a help towards making sculpture — as a means of generating ideas for sculpture, tapping oneself for the initial idea; and as a way of sorting out ideas and developing them' (Read,1949:xlii)). Many sculptors since Rodin have used drawing for similar purposes.  

Unlike Rodin, Maillol and Henry Moore, whose practices were rooted in the experience of  the life class, Taylor's work was grounded in his study of life-forms — especially insects — that he gained, working as a keeper of enthomology at Halifax Museum before being conscripted into WW2.

Instead of representing an idea, or expressing a 'feeling', Taylor's drawing strives to articulate patterns of life energies.

Taylor's drawings — that, on the surface, may appear abstract and self-referential — were developping ideas for sculpture, in response to his environment; especially animal life forms (and among them insects, which he encouraged his children to observe, appreciate and respect). He also responded to more abstract problems, which are reflected in the few aphorisms that were included in the catalogue notes of his 1966 Arnolfini solo exhibition.

Taylor's approach to drawing for sculpture was very different from that of Henry Moore and Hepworth; for his drawings do not look like (for they do not attempt to represent the external appearance of) any of his sculptures-to-be, but generate their own (elliptically referential) pictorial space in the search of appropriate dynamic sculptural forms.

Based on the limited evidence available, it would seem that Taylor may also have used drawing to explore ideas in response to existing sculptures, after they were made. One may speak, thus, of drawings 'for' and of drawings 'after' sculptures, along a visual path of exploration.

Taylor's drawing (above, top) may be compared and show more affinities with — in style if not in its aesthetic concerns, with continental Tachisme — in particular the work of Hans Hartung:

Hans Hartung, Painting, 1956.

— than with the work of Nicholson, Hepworth, Lanyon, Heron, Scott, Frost and other St Ives painters and  sculptors.

Taylor could have seen reproductions of works by Hartung in a catalogue of an exhibition of his paintings at the Kleemann Galleries, in New York, in 1957, that found its way to St Ives. In 1949 the Hannover Gallery, in London, had shown Hartung's works alongside works by Peter Foldes. The catalogue preface was written by Denys Sutton, who was listed as one of three owners of Hartung's works in England (the other two were David Sylvester and E.C. Gregory).

[Thirty years passed, however, before the Tate Gallery acquired lithographs by Hartung and, later still, two (late and far from his best) paintings; currently relying on a private loan to represent his work].

ART EDUCATION
In 1953, after completing a two years course at Corsham, Taylor may have seen the Opposing Forces exhibition at the ICA which presented new trends from Europe alongside works by American artists. 
My concern, here, however, is not to establish direct influences, but rather, to suggest some affinities and a convergence, and a distinctiveness from the work of his British contemporaries. Even if Taylor did not see Hartung's works, or photographs of his work, his practice situates him in a European tradition of abstract gestural ink drawings and painting that dated back to the 1920s (with Kandinsky, Hartung, Miro, and others).

Taylor's more incisive calligraphy, however, differs significantly from the fluid lines of Hartung's painting (above), achieved with Chinese calligraphic brushes and ink, given to him by his friend Zao-Wou-Ki.

Taylor's action drawing evokes the definition of painting as an 'action' with paint, subsequently theorized by American art critic Harold Rosenberg, in The Tradition of the New (1962); although Taylor did not endorse Action Painting, which, according to the testimony of one of his pupils, he regarded as 'too facile'.

The recent re-discovery of an abstract print by Taylor, dated 1959, shows affinities with the calligraphic work of Michaux, Hartung, Rebeyrolles and the continental exponents of 'Art Informel':

Some of Taylor's seemingly 'abstract' forms were, in fact, evolved from life forms and from his own, intuitive and inspired 'actions' with ink, in response to natural objects and to life energies; which he freely transposed into what could be characterised as 'abstract' form. But as suggested by Mondrian's remarks, Taylor's seemingly 'abstract' drawings are not self-referential, but are directly linked with the natural world of phenomena, which he explored through different modalities of 'reference'.

Should we see, here, an effect of D'Arcy Thompson's influential shift from a descriptive to an analytical approach of form, that emphasized its hidden organizing principles, with reference to an intuitive, secular form of Vitalism? 

Viewing Taylor's drawing against the background of automatic writing (Henri Michaux), and gestural abstraction (Mathieu, Wols) helps us situate him in relation to Tachisme, Gestural Abstraction, Art Informel and Abstraction Lyrique; but not to identify him with those trends. 

In Foyers Actifs, Wols draws a fluid network of lines and points that evoke the fluid path of a micro organism moving in space. A writing of life 'en devenir…'

Michaux's drips and splashes of ink onto paper:

echo the experiments of Mi Fei, during the XIth century, discussed in Pierres (1971) by Roger Caillois. 
As his pupil Michael Dennis recalls,Taylor devised an experimental way of drawing directly onto clear film; coating the film with charcoal powder, drawing by scratching the charcoal, then pouring black paint; allowing it to run and coat the exposed film; then brushing the dust away to reveal the 'drawing'.

This silk-screen print reproduces this process:

(picture to come)

Although more gentle and spontaneous — presenting less 'friction' — this process conceptually bears comparison with the cutting lines into sheet metal with the oxi-acetylene cutter to reveal the form by 'drawing'.

By comparison, Mathieu's calligraphic abstractions are only 'decoratively gestural':

In the absence of extensive statements by Taylor, however, we are left to 
speculate about the problematique that guided the making of these works.

Two of the seven aphorisms published in the catalogue of his 1966 Arnolfini exhibition 

'The act of creating the image is more important than the object created'.
and:

'The object created only signposts the direction taken by the artist'
highlight Taylor's interest in process over and above the finished artefact. 

However, they do not give anything away.


As the next work — a photomontage — confirms, Taylor was more concerned with process and experimentation than with direct transposition of visual data. This probably explain his small oeuvre, as well as his lack of interest in promoting his work among commercial galleries.
His friend Alan Davie remarked to him that he did not know why Taylor had not been 'picked up' by galleries and achieved international recognition.

[Davie was fortunate that Peggy Guggenheim spotted one of his painting in the window of an art shop in St Ives, where impoverished Davie used to leave works in payment for art material.]

Taylor's work show a free, inventive approach to drawing, radically different from that of all other St Ives artists.

IDIOLECT: PHOTO-PAINT MONTAGE & INSTALLATION

This remarkable photomontage is a case in point. It overlays a tachiste ink drawing/painting onto a view of roof tops (seen from Taylor's studio at 36, Fore Street, in St Ives) set up as an installation:

The drawing/painting component in this work represents the gestural strand in Taylor's work, that we find echoed in three silk-screen prints, one made from the same drawing featured in the photomontage:

The yet untraced Drawing for sculpture, from 1956, exhibited at the Drian Gallery in 1958, may have been the starting point of this series.

This experimental process enabled Taylor to explore his own form of gestural abstraction, that distinguished him from the painterly approach of his British contemporaries.

The original work on film used in the photomontage (probably too fragile) does not appear to have survived.

The probable (and tragic) skipping of a large plan chess, full of prints and drawings, after the death of his third wife, caused a large proportion of his work on paper to be lost.

The view in the background
In 1958 Taylor photographed a sculpture by his friend Roger Leigh for the catalogue of their joint group show at the Drian Gallery, in London, against the same backdrop of roof tops.
Here, given its greater emphasis, we may surmise that Taylor may have incorporated this view of rooftops as a cubist motif. It also echoes a subject explored by Roger Mayne, in a composition of roof tops in St Ives.

The prejudice against photography [The 1963 statutes of the  Penwith Society show that membership was not open to photographers.]. This may explain why this work was never exhibited and remained in a portfolio for over fifty years.

Roger Maynes, a photographer with artistic ambitions, who visited St Ives, suffered this prejudice against photography as fine art.

Later on, in Painwick, Taylor used the back of the print (above)  to do one of a new series of blue drawings of the type illustrated below right (Pole Star).

This cross- and combined media approach deviated from — and challenged — the dualism encouraged by the Penwith Society, where artists were categorised under the labels 'figurative/traditional' and 'abstract/avant garde'; with a third category for 'craft', under which Taylor's name featured in 1956, before he was listed as sculptor.

Unlike artists like Miro, Rebeyrolle, Edouard Pignon, Vedova, Wols and others on the continent, Herbert Read, Alan Bowness and David Sylvester emphasized the differences between figurative and abstract; as had the artists anthologized in Unit One (1933) and in Circle, in 1937; although some artists (Moore and Hepworth) never denied the organic and metaphorical link of their works with nature.

By their sheer singularity and originality these two works by Taylor (the drawing and the photomontage) warrant a place in the history of St Ives Art, and in the history of British Art as well; even if the photomontage was a one off. For they opened up the basis for a artistic practice that showed an affinity with continental experiments, and in so doing complemented the experiments carried out by other St Ives artists. In the case of the photomontage, it pointed the way towards a mixed media practice that brought together painting, photography and installation into a new hybrid genre, along stylistic lines that were pioneered by the Independent Group in London.

The catalogue of Taylor's solo show at the Drian Gallery (London), in 1958, lists a 'Drawing for sculpture', dated 1956, that may be the one reproduced on the front cover of the catalogue:

'Drawing for sculpture' (?), August 1957 (Photographed from the catalogue).

for it, too, suggests a three-dimensional form in space, and bears some visual analogies with his sculpture 'May bug', included in the exhibition.

It also bears some affinities with the oil painting on masonite, 'Ore Stream' , also in the exhibition:

in which incisive calligraphic marks conjure up energy in motion: lines of energy generating a three-dimensional space.
Although seemingly devoid of references to nature, this dynamic calligraphic composition and its title nevertheless preserve an allusion to the natural world of rocks and mines.

Beyond literary symbolism, we could either view this work as a secular expression of Bergson's 'force vitale'; a notion that could also be applied to his other works, in which imagined life forms  are 'materialized', modelled in plaster or clay, then cast in bronze — Sea form, Sea Horse, etc. — or cut into steel ('May bug').

Should we see, here, an effect of D'Arcy Thompson's influential shift from a descriptive to an analytical approach of form — one that emphasised hidden organizing principles — with a hint of secular Vitalism? 

*  *  *

Since Taylor was primarily a sculptor, but produced paintings and drawings (as a way of developing ideas for sculptures), it is appropriate to examine how the two strands related in his practice.

'May bug', exhibited alongside 'Ore Stream', and a 'Drawing for sculpture', is very probably the work imagined/projected in 'Drawing for sculpture' and, may also relate to the 1959 abstract drawing (above, top), that may have been done afterward:

'May bug', 1957. Welded steel. 28". Photographed from catalogue.

or as part of the same series. In spite of appearances,Taylor's drawings are not self-referential, abstract constructions, unrelated to the natural world, but are, rather, projections and expressions of ideas, processes and energies in three-dimensional forms.

A note in response to May bug, penciled in the director of the Courtauld Institure director's copy of the Drian solo exhibition catalogue, reads 'sheet metal torn apart by oxy-acet. cutter. Spiky shapes… '.  

a reminder that 2D and 3D works should not be separated, but discussed relationally — as Picasso and Gonzales  advised — to explore their shared structural properties, and to discover how these manifest themselves across different media.

In Taylor's case we may also approach these drawings as 'action drawings' or as 'events' rather just as 'Drawing for sculptures', in the conventional sense; for they sustain our interest in quite different ways from conventional sculptors' drawings: as works in their own right.

What is new and distinguishes Taylor's drawings from the drawings of Hepworth and Moore — whose drawings are visual illustrations or projections of 'sculptures-to be' — is that they represent actions on materials and physical processes rather than the external appearance of 3D works. 
They are, in effect, less literal or 'retinal', and more conceptual; more 'abstract', in the semiological sense of the term, as defined by Mondrian and as explored by Marley Moss in Lamorna; albeit in a different (geometric) vein.

The drawing on clear film temporarily fixed on the window pane recalls, by its energy, the silhouette of an aborted sculpture that was too intricate in its form to allow the molten metal to flow in its narrow channels, like blood vessels, to its extremities. 

The result of such a failure in bronze is interesting, however; for there the channels and bleeds merge with and obscure the intended forms producing the sculptural equivalent of a ruin.

This accident must have appealed to Taylor, for he kept it and took it to France. His son-in-law, now in Australia, recalls arriving at Le Fourtou and seeing sculptures deliberately left outside the house, exposed to the elements, slowly rusting away, allowed to decay as part of their life cycle… 

3. Mapping Out the Works

MAPPING OUT THE WORKS

The main evidence we have to identify Taylor's works, and to determine the extent of his oeuvre, are the titles listed in exhibition catalogues. Unfortunately the lack of illustrations and information about sizes makes identification difficult; for only a handful of works are inscribed with a title and catalogues tend to include, at best, a single illustration, and, more often than not, none.

The catalogue of the Drian Gallery 1958 exhibition 4 Sculptors, 2 Painters, St Ives artists, with an introduction by Alan Bowness, lists 8 works by Bruce Taylor, numbered and titled, and includes one illustration. Sizes and prices are not given:

33. January, 1958

34. May-bug, 1957

35. April 1st, 1958

36. February, 1958

37. December, 1957

38. Crucifixion, 1958

39. March 30th, 1958

40. June 21st, 1958

Double page spread from the catalogue, showing eight entries and a photograph of what is very probably 'May-bug', a sculpture that was sold by the Belgrave Gallery to the Paisnel Gallery, soon after 1994. This work is now in a private collection.

In the absence of signatures, and given the generic nature of the titles (except for two) it is virtually impossible to identify the works, their subject-matter and the nature of the artist's concerns. Cross-referencing with the catalogue of his solo exhibition at the Drian Gallery (the same year) suggests that the illustrated sculpture was indeed May-bug.

The catalogue  of a touring exhibition of St Ives artists organised by the Arts Council, in 1957: 

The Penwith Society of Arts in Cornwall. A Selection of Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture and Pottery. The Arts Council 1957, 

[Introduction by Philip James. 60 item priced catalogue. Includes work by Barns-Graham, Trevor Bell, Sandra Blow, Terry Frost, Hepworth, Heron, Hilton, Mackenzie, Peile, Bruce Taylor, Wells, Weske, Leach etc.]

shows that Bruce Taylor exhibited four works under three categories: drawing, sculpture and ceramics:

34.  Drawing for sculpture. Indian Ink: 19 1/2 x 12 in [10gns]

[This drawing could be the one illustrated below, post-dated, or one similar]

35. Drawing. Indian Ink. 8 1/2  x 25 in  [15gns]

50. Metal Sculpture. 16 in.  [18 gns]

60. Shell Form (earthenware Dish).  [£8]

At £8, the price for Taylor's ceramics exhibit — 'Shell form' — exceeded those of Bernard Leach's moulded jars [£4 & £5], lidded bowl [£5]; Janet Leach's 'decorated' stoneware bottle [£4]; William Marshall's teapot [£2.10], and Kenneth Quick's stoneware bottle [£2].

This may be explained by the fact that Taylor did not situate this ceramic in the domestic craft category, but had higher artistic ambitions. This did not prevent him from making popular pieces for sale to tourists (sea-gulls...).  

Given the limited number of works artists were allowed to show at the exhibitions of the Penwith Society, Taylor subsequently chose to exhibit under the two categories of 'Painting and Drawing' and 'Sculpture', in preference to ceramics (which placed him in the 'craft' rather than in the 'fine arts' category) at the tri-annually Penwith Society exhibitions.

A photograph in the St Ives Times and Echo (3.03.1959) shows Bruce Taylor and Barbara Hepworth opening an open air exhibition of sculptures by St Ives artists, that included the works of Roger Leigh, John Hoskin, John Milne, Denis Mitchell, Barbara Tribe and Brian Wall. 

The review credited Taylor for the considerable time and energy he had invested in making the exhibition possible.

I have found no record of which and how many works Taylor exhibited in that show.

The format for displaying the works was the same as that used at the first open air exhibition of sculpture that the Arts Council opened at Penzance in 1957.

Alongside drawings, paintings and sculptures Taylor produced ceramics,

including this large bowl: 

This may be the work (or similar to that) shown on a photograph taken by Taylor in his St Ives studio and exhibited in 1957 as St Ives Dish. An other version [from the same or a similar mould and bearing a different motifs] is dated 1956 and could have been made in the studio of Bernard Leach, where Taylor worked for a while, learning about ash glazes.

This platter, decorated with colored slip and sgraffito:

was perhaps made in France, where Taylor set up a ceramic studio with the intention to earn a living and also fund his sculpture-making. This was not to be. Ceramics occupied all his time and energies, for as long as his health allowed him, and provided only a modest income.

This 'urchin' vase:

from the artist studio (signed with what looks like a 'T' or a Japanese-style

character).

An anthropomorphic vase reminiscent of Cycladic votive figures:

Ceramic vessel. Earthenware, 1950s.

is strangely anticipatory of the cycladic series that Hans Copper produced from the mid 70s:

testimony to Taylor's capacity to experiment and innovate, without seeking to capitalise on it.

The ceramics he produced during the last years of his working life show him returning to the simple forms and ash glazes he had learnt from Leach in St Ives: