Lionel Paphos, Cyprus
Lionel and uncle Rikke
Lionel Bobmin Moor, Cornwall
| History - (written by Lionel.) | ||
| Lionel Miskin - I was born in Cannes to Anglo-Argentine parents. An uncle gave me a violin at the age of nine after which I thought of nothing else till a dreadful witch of a tutor put me off it for ever and I turned to painting. |
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| From the age of 16 life without either music, drawing or painting, or for that matter writing, was unthinkable. |
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| I found etching in `47 which was the door to imagination, and moving from London to Mevagissey in `49, began to make ceramic figures in `53, another stage to offer imagination. |
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| Watching my son Paul make blots on paper held over a smoking paraffin lamp led me to a series of smokes of bunny girls. |
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| The fascination was the idea of such a preval identification with an animal, the enforced priestess-chastity of the girls who with the clientele turning up in such contemporary clubs. |
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| I had no understanding of myth or Jung till we later met John Layard, the anthropologist author of "Stone Men of Malekula" and celebrated dream analyst who wrote " The Lady and the Hare", then living at Long Point Mevagissey. |
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| This was the early `60`s. I moved to Falmouth, as I was now running the Art School`s art history and complimentarystudies department. John Layard lived in our house for long periods in `68 and `69 and involved us in his analytical work with patients and invaluable knowledge of unconscious processes and dreams. This led me for some years from painting to write and publish what John described as a self-analysis, The Pantechnicon, that should have been not a novel but sessions with him. It was through his influence I came to study over 5 years the art of schizophrenics, which in turn led to directing two Arts Council Films on Adolph Wollfli and Rolanda Polonsky. Outsider Art generally and it`s freedom from all tradition and outside influence, its indifference to money or fame despite Wollfli insistance his designs were worth millions, was a compelling alternative to the values of the art world. |
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| Ceramics I admire and seem to me much underrated are Staffordshire figures and from them I felt free to make anything I fancy: animals, people, characters from mythology, inventions and when possible to comment on our situation in a vanishing world. |
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| My recent dry-points cover similar ground. If I feel outrage at the madness of our destruction of Nature I can at least present it for what it is. If I am not an Outsider I like to see myself as an Independant`. |
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| More info: Click here | ||
| Many thanks to Andrew Lanyon who compliled a delightful hand made book about Lionel and his work. |
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| You can see more of Andrews work at: | ||
| www.andrewlanyon.com/ | ||
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