Like looking through someone’s underpants drawer…

I’m sitting in my tiny apartment with the Spain-Germany game on in the background (to see if oracle Paul, the psychic octopus who places his eight legs on different flag markers to articulate his predictions  — and who made UK headlines this morning by predicting a Spanish win — is correct) and I’ve just seen a red fox climb up onto the wall under my window.  At first I thought it was a small and very nimble dog, but apparently red foxes in England — even in the city — are as common raccoons are in the States.  Nonetheless, I was still stunned and in my shock moved too slowly to catch a picture. Here’s a version of what I saw…

A version of what I saw from my window....

But back to the subject at hand…

Today I finished up Graham Bell’s early letters and discovered that he was, in fact, not a fan of Bolton.  Indeed, judging by his tone, I’d say he was quite severely traumatized by the experience of spending three weeks there working for the Mass Observers.  He refers to the city as “grisly” and “indistinguished” and more to the point, that the food “is too horrible” even to describe.  But Bell does have a sense of the good that his work might do in bringing the plight of the industrial working class to into the consciousness of the nation.  Indeed, at the end of one of his letters, Bell does write that he wishes to return to Bolton and keep painting in order create works for the local art gallery.

[aside:  Spain has just won a spot in the final...clearly oracle Paul the octopus IS the 8th wonder of the world]

I then moved on to files, files, and more files of William Coldstream’s collected correspondence.  Rather than reading letters written by him, I was reading letters written to him by friends, family, and colleagues. In looking for a gem (namely, any letter written to him by Tom Harrisson, Charles Madge, Humphrey Jennings, or anyone else associated with Mass Observation), I stumbled across so many tidbits of information that I never would have found otherwise.  So much can be discovered by the serendipity involved in reading through stacks of communications that were — in many cases — never intended for public view (hence the title of today’s post…)

William Coldstream (center) with his good friends Wystan (W.H.) Auden (right) and Benjamin Britten (left)

Included in these files of letters are messages from Sir Kenneth Clark, W.H. Auden, Clive Bell, Vanessa Bell, John Bratby, Alberto Cavalcanti, Lawrence Gowing, and Duncan Grant, amongst others.  I think what struck me most, however, was a letter authored by a complete stranger.  Responding to Coldstream’s 1937 article in the BBC magazine The Listener (entitled “How I Paint”), the writer wanted to tell the painter that he was grateful for what Coldstream had argued about the nature of painting in general and, more specifically, the need for realistic visual representation.  A failed painter himself, the writer informs Coldstream that the depression he feels over the state of the arts in Britain (abstract and alienating) was temporarily lifted by Coldstream’s words.

Unfortunately, I only got to the “G” file (alphabetical by sender) by 5pm this afternoon when the archive closed for the day.  Tomorrow, we move on to the “H” file and perhaps some “Harrisson” entries!

And, in case you are curious, here’s oracle Paul…

Oracle Paul the Octopus...at work