Abstract
A rare opportunity to document materials in an artist’s studio brought unexpected insight into his material preferences and working patterns. It revealed practical solutions to picture-making long-since absorbed by the artist, Patrick Heron (1920–1999), into the instinctive act of painting and left un-articulated in interviews or commentaries. The large quantity of oil paint in 155 different colours led to questions as to why so much variety, which brands and qualities were favoured, which paints had been in current use and in what combination, and which had been rejected. A selection of this paint was donated by the Heron Estate to Tate, London, for research purposes. On its own, the Heron Paint Archive is a simple collection of tubes. In the context of documentation and oral histories, a more subtle and complex reality emerges with implications for the interpretation of physical properties, visual phenomena and analysis of British colourfield paintings of the mid to late twentieth century. Heron’s oil paintings, purposefully unvarnished, are water-sensitive.
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Notes
- 1.
Documented by Mary Bustin and Jo Crook on the invitation of the Artist’s Estate, Heron Paint Survey, Tate Conservation, May 2000, Tate Gallery Records. This paper draws on further work carried out on the master copy of the archive in a private collection by Mary Bustin Conservation (MBC) in 2011–2012.
- 2.
www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/reference_collection/index.html. Accessed 1 Oct 2013.
- 3.
www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/conservation/materials-study-center.html. Accessed 1 Oct 2013.
- 4.
For example Harvard Art Museums’ Center for the Technical Study of Modern Art which actively collects studio documentary materials including ‘detritus and discarded trials’. www.harvardartmuseums.org/study-research/research-ceters/cfsma. Accessed 3 Oct 2013.
- 5.
- 6.
The American colourman, Sam Golden, reflected on the problems of achieving a precise match from one batch to the next. When Barnett Newman asked for some more cadmium red to finish a painting, Golden matched a new batch to the previous one using a colour lab’s spectrophotometer to check for accuracy. Nonetheless, on receiving the new paint, Barnett Newman rang Golden to complain that the colour was not the same Mancusi-Ungaro (2004).
- 7.
Patrick Heron to Philip James, 19 June 1958, Arts Council Archive quoted in Tufnell (2006).
- 8.
Ben Nicholson’s board bearing Heron’s drawing. Personal communication, the artist, 1997.
- 9.
Tate Conservation Archive Q04033.1–2.
- 10.
Paint swatches made by Susanna Heron, Robert Holyhead and 10 members of Tate conservation staff: Mary Bustin, Jo Crook, Maureen Cross, Patti Favero, Rica Jones, Julia Jonsson, Adrian Moore, Sarah Morgan, Carole Towers, and Natasha Walker, 22 July 2004. The swatches on primed canvas now in Tate Conservation Archive Q04033.3–9.
- 11.
Charles Roberson & Co. Ltd. UK 1819–1987 (Woodcock 1995).
- 12.
Winsor & Newton Ltd UK 1832 – present (NPG Artists Suppliers Database).
- 13.
Art Spectrum, Australia 1960s – present (Tate Archive).
- 14.
Lefranc 1720.
- 15.
George Rowney & Co Ltd 1848–1985 when incorporated with Daler to form Daler-Rowney. (NPG Artists Suppliers Database).
- 16.
Personal Communication, Janet Axten, March 2013.
- 17.
Studio shopping list mid 1990s, transcribed MBC 18 February 2013.
- 18.
Heron paint swatches water-sensitivity test report, 24 July 2012, MBC. These young paint films were tested for sensitivity to saliva and to de-ionized water assessed on a scale of 1–5. 1 = no response, 5 instantly soluble.
- 19.
Colourmen and manufacturer’s trade catalogues and marketing literature assembled by Jo Crook, Tate Gallery Archive. Primarily twentieth century British.
- 20.
Personal communication Winsor & Newton tube dating conventions of notches, stamps on the fin, printed numbers, and bar codes, Ian Garrett, 2 April 2013.
- 21.
Note that this is date of purchase, not date of manufacture.
- 22.
For the history of C. Roberson Co. Ltd, see Woodcock (1995).
- 23.
Crumpled used paint tubes and stock were sifted later by the artist’s family.
- 24.
Personal communication Susanna Heron 30 September 2013.
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Acknowledgments
With many thanks to the artist, Patrick Heron, for his warm kindliness and generosity in discussions about his working practices, Susanna Heron and the Estate of Patrick Heron for inspiration and permission to reproduce images. Jo Crook for her expertise in documenting artists’ archives, Robert Holyhead, and Tate staff past and present: Maureen Cross, Patti Favero, Rica Jones, Julia Jonsson, Susan Lamb, Adrian Moore, Sarah Morgan, Carole Towers, Joyce Townsend and Natasha Walker. I am grateful to the Clothworkers Foundation for their bursary to attend ICOP.
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Bustin, M. (2014). Towards Interpretation of Making, Meaning, and Change in British Twentieth Century Oil Paintings: The Relevance of an Artist’s Paint Archive. In: van den Berg, K., et al. Issues in Contemporary Oil Paint. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10100-2_3
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