Finally…London!

After roughly 20 hours of traveling, I finally reached London late late Saturday night.  A delay leaving Atlanta put me two hours late arriving in Amsterdam (I know, I know…going too far only to have to go back) and so I missed my connecting flight to Heathrow.  Instead of arriving at 4:30pm, I arrived around 8:30, cleared customs by 9:30, jumped on the Tube and — after an hour or so — arrived at Belsize Park Underground Station.  Belsize Park is a “suburban” neighborhood in North London…just about one mile north of Camden Town.  I have rented a very small apartment in this very pretty community spotted with parks and Victorian row houses.

Belsize Park, London, UK

Given the duration of my journey over the Atlantic, I spent much of Sunday sleeping.  But I did — in the afternoon — stroll down to the famous Camden “open air” markets, taking advantage of some very un-English warm and sunny weather.  Although once serving the only the “locals” with food and goods, the rows and rows of Camden market stalls are now VERY popular and attract thousands of tourists each weekend.  You can buy anything from jewelery to curries and everything in between.

Camden High Street, Camden Town, London, UK

Eating Lunch in Camden Town

Camden Town Market

Today (Monday) was my first day in the Tate Gallery archive.  After registering and having my photo taken (for security purposes), I was admitted to the reading room.  Because the reading room provides access to the archived collections, it is kept locked all the time.  You must knock on the door, show your face through a glass door, and then (provided you’re already a registered archive “reader”) be “buzzed” into the room.

Upon sitting down, I was presented with one of many files of letters written by the painter William Coldstream to his friend and confidant, Dr. John Rake.   I spent six hours transcribing about fifteen of these communiques.  Each of them reveals something about the frustration that Coldstream experienced as a realist artist during a time when abstraction and, more generally, a dedication to formalism seemed to eclipse any attempt at “visual objectivity.”  But Coldstream firmly believed that art had to serve a social purpose and that social import could only be registered through realistic representation.  In the early 1930s, Coldstream moved in and out of depression, often not being able to paint for weeks or months at a time.

When the archive closed at 5pm, I decided to take a walk to Bloomsbury and look for the original “School of Painting and Drawing,” established in 1937 by Coldstream and his colleagues Victor Pasmore, Graham Bell, and Claude Rogers.  Not surprisingly, this school was intended to promote an objective form of painting. Its first location was at 12 Fitzroy Street, around the corner from Coldstream’s own studio at 23 Fitzroy Square.  The school then moved a few blocks north to the Euston Road and thereafter was known as The Euston Road School.

William Coldstream's studio at 23 Fitzroy Square (now the Liberian Embassy)

314 Euston Road (now a plaza between two office buildings)

Yes, the building is long gone.  But at least we have the archive…

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