My Little Kafkaesque Story..
My Little Kafkaesque Story.
My ‘Portrait of a Dead Witch’, a 9ft x 7ft painting from 1983, is of the Witch computer. The Harwell Dekatron/Witch computer was built in 1949 and first ran in 1951, it was titled Witch (Wolverhampton Instrument for Teaching Computing from Harwell) when it moved from Harwell to Wolverhampton and Staffordshire Technical College in 1957. From 1973 to 1997 the defunct machine formed part of the exhibition in Birmingham Museum of Science and Industry, where in ’82 I encountered it. The Witch was ‘rediscovered’ in 2008 and has now been restored by the National Museum of Computing in Bletchley Park, Milton Keynes, being rebooted in November 2012, becoming the oldest digital working computer, (so no longer dead). This computer filled a room in the Birmingham museum with banks of valves and its ticker tape print out, it was assembled from components more commonly found in a British telephone exchange. Over a day I did drawings of the computer in my sketchbook in the Birmingham museum. My humorous though ambivalently sinister painting had an abacus and Babbage’s brain in a glass dome on a table in front of the computer. The painting was an homage to this sad unused broken machine neglected and abandoned in a museum like an ancient relic. I was interested in how quickly and badly 20th century technology dated compared with, say, the 19th century working steam engines in an adjacent gallery in the Museum of Science with their polished brass pistons. I wished to give this dead computer new life once again though with a level of menace. The Witch was a diabolical contraption, a dusty hunk of electric and mechanical hardware that reminded me of the disturbing 1950s Quatermass science fiction television series that so impressed me as a child. The title ‘Witch’ also resonated as ‘other worldly’ and an autobiographical reference as I come from Burnley with its stories of the Pendle Witches and local superstition. The painting was exhibited at Leicestershire Schools and Colleges Show in 1984 and then bought by Leicestershire Local Education Authority as part of the Leicestershire Artworks Collection, the collection simply referred to as Artworks.
The Leicestershire Artworks Collection was established in 1947 to provide schools and colleges with original contemporary works of art. Artworks officer Lisa Webb states, “The scheme encourages and explores ways which art can be applied across the curriculum, and inspires innovative projects involving artists working with students and local communities, which give teachers the confidence to use art in schools in a pro-active way”. I was very proud to be part of this progressive, social and educational art initiative.
In April 2015 I noticed on the Internet that the painting had been sold in October 2014 at Golding, Young and Mawer auction house inLincoln! The Sherrier Centre of Leicestershire Heritage Services who administer the Artworks collection informed me that the painting had been on loan to Newbridge High School in Coalville and become their property when the school converted into an Academy. The Newbridge High School Academy Trust auctioned off the painting. I would have thought that my painting of the Witch computer would have been of interest not only to the art department but also to science and technology staff and students at the High School/Academy, given how technology has developed and that today’s mobile phones would be more powerful than this computer that filled a whole room. The painting, bought for £400 in 1984, (about £1,200 in today’s money), which was at the time I thought a modest sum. Originally asking £800 I was persuaded to reduce my price as it was for a public collection. However, the painting was auctioned off by the Academy for the knock down price of £75!
I wondered how a painting bought with public money for a public collection could then be sold off by an Academy, which is essentially a private company. The Academy informed me that the painting had been on long-term loan – over 20 years – from Leicestershire the Artworks Collection. The Academy stated, “When the school converted, the Local Authority inspected all works of art and removed some items from us. The remaining Artwork including the painting in question, remained with the Academy. The Academy did not purchase the painting as assets were transferred to the academy upon conversion”.
When a Local Authority-maintained school becomes an Academy, the Academy ‘inherits’what were Local Authority-controlled assets. The Government estimate that each Academy would cost around £20 million of public money to set up, some have cost much more and with the land and buildings transferring to the sponsors who run the trust, some sponsors have gained £200 million worth of assets without investing a penny. However, I would maintain that my painting and the other Artworks do not come into this category of Local Authority fixed assets that the Academy automatically ‘inherits’on conversion but these works were on loan to the School prior to conversion and seem to have been donated or gifted to the school by the local Authority ‘inspectors’after they had finished cherry picking the Artworks on loan to the school. Why didn’t the ‘inspectors’take back all the Artworks of their collection? It would have been clear that this new Academy did not want these Artworks as in less than two years the Academy had auctioned them off.
Wishing to understand the legality of this process, I enquired with Leicestershire County Council. Astonishingly, they informed me that they have no documentation on purchasing this painting and their solicitor was categorical that they neither owned, nor loaned, nor gifted the painting and that Newbury High School before it became an Academy purchased the painting directly – presumably from me – using school funds, presumably in 1984. This is contradictory to my understanding, what the Sherrier Centre maintained and the statements of the Academy such as “Ownership of your painting was passed to us by Leicestershire Arts upon our conversion to an Academy”.
The Local Authority also stated that they have no evidence of the School’s purchase, as records of this purchase would be with the School Governors.
The County Council not having records of their purchase of this painting does not surprise me as data protection and retention of information rules prohibit the County Council from keeping financial records for more than seven years. This was something of a paradox, on one hand not having any records means that the Council did not purchase the painting and on the other (the Academy not having any records) means that the School definitely did purchase the work. Something of a Catch 22. Or a bit of ‘misdirection’ from a bureaucratic conjuror.
Curiously, both Local Authority and the High School (prior to conversion) deny owning this painting, yet both agree that the Academy owned the work at the point it was auctioned. I was at an impasse. The Academy referred me to the Local Authority if I have any more queries and, likewise, the Local Authority says I should be speaking to the Academy and refusing me any more freedom of information requests as ownership of the painting has nothing to do with them, which effectively blocks me from further enquires and shuts me up. Maybe it doesn’t matter who bought the work from me in 1984, the School or the Leicestershire LEA, the Local Authority would have the overriding ownership of the painting irrespective of who bought it initially. As an officer of the Department of Education has pointed out, if the School bought the painting it would have still been owned by the Local Authority as the School was a Local Authority-maintained school.
I felt something was remiss given this red herring placed in my path and the obfuscation of the County Council which has encouraged me to look into this further. What should have been transparent was looking rather opaque. However there does not seem anything illegal in what has been happening here, though it is unethical that art bought with public money for a public collection can be sold off or given away to private company or even just disposed of. Could the Council donate works from the Public Collection to their favourite GolfClub? Surely a Local Authority has a duty of care to its Council Taxpayers when dealing with public assets. However, in 2011, the Conservative-led Leicestershire Country Council had sold off over 300 works from this Artworks collection making over £170k. Leicestershire is not the only council to feel strapped for cash in this ‘tough economic climate’ and sold off the family silver. Bury raised £1.4m by selling a Lowry, Bolton sold their Millais and Picasso and Tower Hamlets controversially sold its Henry Moore.
Artists who sell work to public collections should be aware particularly those who offer a discount, as I did as it was for a public collection, that the work could be sold off or simply disposed of and not displayed in public. Also, if the public collection does not operate within the guidelines of the UK Museums Accreditation Scheme and the work is loaned to non-gallery spaces, it does mean risk of damage and neglect. The Leicester Mercury on November 9 2009 reported on ‘Leicestershire County Council trying to track down art collection’. It seems records were misplaced or lost. Councillor Hunt stated, “The difficulty is keeping track of where it all is”. There are numerous anecdotal stories of neglect. A friend found a signed limited edition a Jim Dine print in a broken frame stuffed in the back of a kiln cupboard at a school in Leicestershire where he was a supply teacher. No one at the school seemed to have a clue what it was and how it got there. Ignorance and philistinism are not words one readily associates with a school or a public art collection but in this case it seems inevitable.
In a couple of years time I will be 70 and to be able to borrow this painting of 1983 for a Retrospective would have been a great contribution to the show. The 80s was a significant and productive decade for me with six solo exhibitions, significantly the Shining City on the Hill, Transmission Gallery, Glasgow and Dirty Tricks, Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry. There were also six group shows including the British Art Show, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, national touring, 21 for 21, Ikon Gallery, Hong Kong Arts Centre, Critical Realism, Nottingham Castle and Invisible Man, Goldsmiths Gallery, London, and in 1984 I collaborated with Peter Lelliot on the Giro City Mural in Coventry. I was also a visiting lecturer at the Slade, Goldsmiths, Chelsea College of Art and Glasgow School of Art during this period. What is personally gallingis the price it was auctioned for, the equivalent of the original purchase price would be over £1,000 in today’s money. It’s clear that Lincoln is not the centre of the art market and though I do not sell a great deal, when I do, I sell my drawings for £300-£400 and recently sold a small painting 16”x 12’’for £600 through a gallery in Leamington. Who could tell what the true market value of the 9ft ‘Portrait of a Dead Witch’could be in the correct context?
I would be happy if the painting were bought because the buyer liked it or even as a possible investment, it would be good to know that it was being looked after and appreciated in its new home. It would be useful just to know where the painting is so that I can update my archive and back catalogue but the auction house or the Academy, if they know, will not tell me who the new owners are. My real concern is for the safety of this painting as the price it was auctioned for was ridiculously low – less than the value of the raw materials – I would have bought it back if I had known. The auction house has eventually passed on my details to the current owner. Over a month has passed and they have not contacted me, why wouldn’t the new owner not wish to contact the artist, particularly if the artist wishes to buy it back. I fear the worst that the painting has been cannibalised or is patching some shed roof in Lincoln! I thought that this painting was safe in a public collection but now it seems it is probably destroyed, at best it is lost.
For many artists this abuse of work is familiar and not particularly surprising. My painting is a tiny victim in a much larger story of creeping privatisation by stealth and a government obsessed with handing public assets to the private sector.
JY August 2015
Note: A shortened version of this text ‘Privatising Public Art’ was published in the Morning Star, 15th August 2015.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 18th, 2015 at 12:08 pm
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I made an FoI query to Leicestershire County Council
Their reply [1] says, in part:
“Newbridge High School (as it was at the time of the purchase of the painting)
bought the artwork using school funds and the work was therefore in the
ownership of the Governing Body of the school.
“When the School converted to become an Academy in July 2012, ownership and responsibility for the fixtures (including artwork purchased by the school) transferred to the Academy Trust.”
[1] https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/painting_by_john_yeadon_portrait