Ma Vlast: No. 4, 46 Kb

The title Ma Vlast (My Homeland) is of course borrowed from Smetana, whose lyrical evocations of the river Vltava and the landscape it travels through are the touchstone of musical scene-painting; here it refers to more humdrum surroundings mainly in South London, for which I feel a parallel affection. This was my first attempt at pictorial autobiography using the well-tried combination of postcard sources and texts deriving from A Human Document.

The initial image in the series, which existed for a time as a single work, is of a piece of street furniture viewed as sculpture: this motif reappears in 20 Sites (Site no. 11) as does the more familiar topic of park benches.

The piano (also viewed as a sculpture) is that of the Purcell Room of the Royal Festival Hall on which John Tilbury gave the first performance of Seven Miniatures (Opus XIV) whose score it quotes both in terms of notation and visual elements (such as hands, and the face of Bert Feldman the music publisher).

Other pictures in the series deal with Oxford memories and (as echoed in Curriculum Vitae XIX) the Embankment railings on which, in 1954, I first exhibited my work. My father is present in the form of the Flying Standard car which was his pride and joy, and which I later wrecked. My mother is seen in the same picture, played by an anonymous postcard actress.

Work and Texts (1992),  pp. 52-53.

...

Taking the title (my homeland) from that cruelly underrated composer Smetana, those texts from a Human Document wich seemed to mirror parts of my own life, and images from postcards of places and things which call up feelings of nostalgia, I tried to make the beginnings of a picture autobiography in eight parts. The keyboard featured here is that of the Purcell Room of the Festival Hall, London, on (and about) which John Tilbury gave, in 1972, the first performance of Seven Miniatures op. XV.

Works ­ Texts ­ to 1974,  pp. 96-97.

tomphillips.co.uk  > >  Paintings and Drawings