“As an artist Derek Boshier has never lost his sense of wonder at the world” – David Hockney
The publication date of Derek Boshier: Rethink/Re-entry – the monograph of the great British artist I have edited – is confirmed as October 5.
Published by Thames & Hudson with a preface by David Hockney, Rethink/Re-entry contains 300-plus illustrations, from student exercises in the mid-50s to current works including the cover, a new portrait of Hockney and chapter openers especially designed by Boshier for the project.
//16 Situations in vitrine at Land Marks. Photo: Jasper Weinstein Sheffield//
I’m pretty late with this but there are still three or so weeks to go, so, if you have the opportunity, I recommend a visit to Hauser + Wirth Somerset, home until June 21 of the contemplative and poised exhibition Land Marks: Structures For A Poetic Universe.
Curated by historians Nicholas Olsberg and Markus Lähteenmäki, Land Marks presents 100 architectural studies and works constituting an investigation into the boundaries between sculpture and architecture and landscapes and cities.
The spell-binding space at Durslade Farm outside the village of Bruton provides the perfect setting; I am thrilled that the curators included Derek Boshier’s quizzical 1971 work 16 Situations.
Last week I had an exciting encounter with the rare and adventurous furniture designs produced by the late graphics master Barney Bubbles in the early 80s.
//Detail from 1965 showcard: Derek Boshier and 1965 works. Photo: Annette Green////Card for Boshier’s show at the Fraser Gallery, March 30 – May 1, 1965. Design: David Cripps. Courtesy: Pace London//
Thanks to Pace London for providing scans of the showcard for Derek Boshier’s spring 1965 exhibition at Robert Fraser Gallery in Mayfair’s Duke Street.
//David Hockney 22 Times, Derek Boshier, 2014. 31 x 42 inches. Ink on Archer’s paper//
I’m delighted to announce that David Hockney has written the preface to Rethink/Re-Entry, the Derek Boshier monograph I am editing.
In the piece, Hockney points out that they have known each other since 1957, and that Boshier “like me, is an artist, and one who has never lost his wonder at the world”.
//Derek Boshier and I at the opening of his 2012 exhibition David Bowie + The Clash at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, Sussex//
//Sketch for songbook cover, 13 x 9″. Derek Boshier 1979 courtesy Flowers Gallery//
While interrogating materials for Rethink/Re-Entry – the monograph of artist Derek Boshier I am editing – I’ve come across many delights, including these sketches in the Flowers Gallery archive for one of the most visually striking documents of the post-punk era, CLASH 2nd Songbook.
//”She was an instigator and an enabler.” Boshier discusses Pauline Boty in Pop Go The Women//
Catch if you can Alistair Sooke’s excellent BBC documentary Pop Go The Women: The Other Story Of Pop Art. Derek Boshier – subject of my next book – is among the interviewees, talking about his contemporary Pauline Boty.
Her work, like the other subjects of the programme, has been neglected in the circumscribed narrative of Pop. In Boshier’s words, Boty is important, not least because she was “an instigator and an enabler” to the male artists who hog the story on both sides of the Atlantic.
//Boshier and Boty captured twisting in Ken Russell’s 1962 BBC documentary Pop Goes The Easel////Rosalyn Drexler. In the background her 1967 painting Marilyn Pursued by Death//
The film’s revelation for me is the American Rosalyn Drexler, whose art is identified convincingly by Sooke as “scathing, critical, strong and stern”. Pop Go The Women is available to view on BBC iPlayer for the next five days here.
