Derek Boshier: Clash art guru + original punk rocker!
//Daily Mail – Poem Of Hate, 1977. Ink drawing and newsprint, 55 x 75cm. © Derek Boshier, courtesy Flowers//
//Drawing for CLASH 2nd Songbook, 1978. Ink on paper, 30.5 x 22cm. © Derek Boshier, courtesy Flowers//
//Hi Consumers! Don’t Forget Nothing Lasts Forever, 1978. Ink and collage on paper, 46 x 54.9cm. © Derek Boshier, courtesy Flowers//
//Drawing for CLASH 2nd Songbook, 1978. 33 x 22.5cm. © Derek Boshier, courtesy Flowers//
“Without hesitation, CLASH 2nd Song book is a masterpiece of graphic art”
Guy Brett, writer/curator
Interrogating materials for the Derek Boshier monograph has brought home the meshing of the artist’s sensibilities with punk in the 70s.
In this period Boshier had eschewed painting for nearly a decade; Pop Art was left far behind in favour of alternative forms of expression.
//Queen, 1977. Collage, ink drawing and photographs. 32 x 84.2cm. © Derek Boshier, courtesy Flowers////
//Queen, 1977 – section 1. © Derek Boshier, courtesy Flowers//
//Queen, 1977 – section 2. © Derek Boshier, courtesy Flowers//
//Queen, 1977 – section 3. © Derek Boshier, courtesy Flowers//
The subversive social commentary contained in Boshier’s collages, assemblages and spiky graphics spoke to street-level concerns and – in such artworks as Daily Mail – Poem Of Hate, The Stun and Queen – were based around agit-prop attacks on the mundanity of everyday life, consumer and tabloid culture and the Royal Family to match any made by punk rockers of the same period.
//State Of Mind, 1976. Mixed media construction in a box, 45 x 41 x 7cm. © Derek Boshier, courtesy Flowers//
//Places – Garage, 1976. Mixed media assmeblage, 45 x 59cm. © Derek Boshier, courtesy Flowers//
So Boshier was absolutely on point when by chance he bumped into his former Central School Of Art foundation course student John Mellor near Oxford Street in London’s West End in the autumn of 1978.
Boshier – who was aware of The Clash as a long-term resident of their manor, the rotting inner city enclave of Notting Hill – teasingly referred to Strummer by his college nickname, but was instructed: “Don’t call me Woody. That’s not my name any more.”
A week later Boshier received a call from Caroline Coon, who had also studied under him at Central (in the 60s) and had recently taken responsibility for organising the affairs of The Clash after a falling out with their unpredictable manager Bernie Rhodes.
//The Stun, 1979. Print on newsprint. Framed: 52 x 45 cm. © Derek Boshier, courtesy Flowers//
//Drawing for CLASH 2nd Songbook, 1978. 33 x 22.5cm. © Derek Boshier, courtesy Flowers//
Coon and Strummer subsequently tasked Boshier with producing a music book to accompany the recent release of the group’s second long-player, Give ‘Em Enough Rope. In Boshier’s hands CLASH 2nd Songbook was taken out of the realm of throwaway pop ephemera to become one of punk rock’s most vivid visual documents.
//Front cover, CLASH 2nd Songbook, 1978. 31 x 22cm. © Derek Boshier, courtesy Flowers//
Derek Boshier: Rethink/Re-entry is published by Thames & Hudson in November. I am the editor and have contributed an essay on the artist’s engagement with music; the other contributors are curator/writer Guy Brett, art historians David Brauer, Jim Edwards and John A. Walker, artist and writer Christopher Finch, Tate Britain’s Chris Stephens and Prof Lisa Tickner of the Courtauld Institute.
The preface is by Boshier’s LA confrere David Hockney.