“A late developer, late in discarding teddy bear and comics (and to be honest, neither yet fully relinquished), no good at sports and an academic failure, sanctuary was sought in the art room at school, the harmless pursuit of the cissy.
Only on leaving school and home to attend a foundation course at Brighton was there a most delightful revelation, the sheer enjoyment of doing something that one was good at, being encouraged and valued for doing so. Drinking helped to unlock the inhibitions, artistic and otherwise of a painfully sensitive individual with feelings of chronic inferiority. Cannabis was another revelation. The still largely swinging seventies drew me west to Chelsea to study graphic design. I gained a first and acceptance at the Royal College of Art, suddenly the female art students sat up and gave me a more lingering appraisal.
Studying photography at the Royal proved a disappointment, for them and me. The then head of department would have been more suited to coaching a rugby scrum. I reacted, and on being awarded the MA refused it in disgust. (It turned up months later in the post.)
In the real world people don’t commission you, or buy your work because you have an MA, it’s because of who you know, because you happen to be in the right place at the right time, or because you are pretty or, more rarely, because they actually like your work. So the ‘rebel’, a shy, stoned pilgrim stumbled into this ‘real world’ with ambition to be a fashion photographer. Start at the top, ring Vogue:
“Hello, yes, but who are you?”
“Edward Bell, photographer.”
“Yes but, who are you?”
I was, around this time, summoned by Grandmamma, who wheedled this story from me. “Tell them that I employ a retired naval officer as my gardener and that his son takes photographs for Vogue.” Feeling an utter prat I did so and Vogue were charmed. After filling in an exhaustive questionnaire touching on my my mother’s maiden name and any previous convictions, I was taken to their bosom.
A photographic career was launched, but I was impatient with the technicalities of producing the perfect photograph; if a shadow fell in the wrong place, rather than adjust the lighting, I would airbrush, tint and montage. I was becoming an illustrator, which opened other avenues with other periodicals. For my own enjoyment, I was at the time painting larger than life portraits of friends – one of whom rented a room in my London flat. Whilst she titivated in a world without time, I was delegated to entertain impatient suitors. One such appraised my portraits and offered me my first show in a gallery. At this exhibition (having discovered the numbing effect of a drug called heroin) I was able to adopt a suitably aloof composure when introduced to ‘an important client’. This client was dressed in an insipid yellow, short sleeved shirt and bright red trousers, but most damning of all he wore dark glasses to examine the pictures. I was introduced to:
“David”
“David who?”
“David Bowie”
I stood corrected, and to my astonishment we got on together. He wanted an album design within the week. OK no problem. The image for ‘Scary Monsters’ was produced. Art directors knocked at my door : Japanese knocked at my door, “How much that one?…”, but I only really listened for the knock of my dealer (as in drugs, not art). Creativity was fading, a decision had to be made – drug and die or live and paint. Commercial work was abandoned along with the substances. Time out in Florence and Venice opened my eyes to ‘Big Art’, but you don’t compete with these chaps, you find your own way in this present world.
I now enjoy living in and painting the wild west of Ireland, and the majestic Shropshire scenery, and never tire of trying to capture the essence of the human form, trusting inspiration, whether of twist of hips, a pair of full lips, soaring sky, shimmering grass, an eye. My own work can stand or fall according to your own judgement rather than my explanation. Here I have endeavoured to paint a picture of the compost from which it has sprung.”
