 I'm Amy Tobin, and it's a pleasure to be responding and chairing the fourth session today, which is focused on friendships and groups. So we've got two speakers, Leslie Maher and Jovan Nicholson, who I'll introduce both before they speak. So Leslie Maher is a curator of INCART at Mplus, Hong Kong's Museum for Visual Culture. She curated the Weight of Lightness INCART at Mplus in 2017, which explored across disciplinary and trans cultural perspective on the subject. She received A.B. in History and Science from Harvard College, an MA in Museum Studies from New York University, and a PhD from the University of California, San Diego, with a dissertation on abstract painting in post-war Taiwan. Our second speaker will be Jovan Nicholson, who's an independent art historian and curator who studied at London University in Russia, worked for Christie's in between 1990 and 2000, organised exhibitions for the British Council in Russia and the former Soviet republics. More recently, he's curated and written the catalogs for Art and Life, Ben Nicholson, Winifred Nicholson, Christopher Wood, Alfred Wallace, William Stake Murray. 1920, 1931, which toured to many wonderful institutions, including Kettle's Yard, where I work, and many other exhibitions on Winifred Nicholson and his forthcoming exhibition and monograph on Kate Nicholson, which will be published in May, and the exhibition will be at Farmless Art Gallery. He's the grandson of Ben and Winifred Nicholson. So, I'd like to ask Leslie to join me up here. Leslie's paper is titled, Taipei Bologna Liwanshia's Beginnings. Good afternoon. Taipei Bologna Liwanshia's Beginnings. Bologna Liwanshia is an artist who had many beginnings in his life. Each beginning was marked by his arrival in a new place, physically, geographically, culturally and artistically. Each beginning was also marked whenever and wherever he drew a point, which took a variety of visual forms, round graphic dots, calligraphic brush circles, fabric patches, or magnetic photographic discs. A poem by Lee, much cited throughout the exhibition and conference, quote, the point is the beginning of everything, and also the end, unquote, signifies the multiple beginnings and the relations with one another. In this paper, I will discuss his beginnings in Taipei and in Bologna, two places that laid the groundwork for his career. The paper will center on the artistic and cultural groups with which Lee was associated in Taipei and Bologna, as well as the social network in artistic milieu in which his work was produced and considered. At the same time, it will examine works Lee produced in the two locations to understand the formation and evolution of his ideas. These beginnings of Lee will shed light on his later multifaceted friendship-based activities in Cumbria, about which we have learned so much today. The beginnings discussed in this paper span from 1952 to 1966. Between the year Lee began a former art education at a Taipei Normal College and his departure for the UK from Bologna. In 1952, China was deep in recovery mode after the epic struggle against the Japanese invasion between 1937 and 1945, followed by the brutal civil war that resulted in the communist takeover of the mainland and a nationalist retreat to Taiwan in 1949. Lee fled with over a million other refugees to Taiwan, where cultural reorientation after 50 years of Japanese colonization had begun to unfold. Against the backdrop of Cold War geopolitics and the threat of military conflict with the PRC, the nationalist government in Taiwan implemented a staunch conservatism. Martial law dictated all aspects of quotidian life. The arts establishment maintained the support for oil painting styles developed by the Japanese, which is the ones on the left. At the same time, the government's preservationist cultural policy championed classical Chinese ink paintings, in particular landscape paintings, a genre favored and developed by scholar artists since the 10th century that embodied the tendency of Chinese philosophy and aesthetics and projected a lofty attitude toward, a harmonious attitude toward nature. It is in this climate that the first wave of avant-garde in Chinese art was born. You see the examples of the landscape paintings in the post-war Taiwan period on the right. On November 5, 1957, He Fan, the influential columnist and editor of United Daily News, one of the most circulated newspapers in Taiwan, penned an article titled, The Bandits' Painting Exhibition, Siang Ma Hua Zhan. Published over two consecutive days in advance of the inaugural exhibition of Dongfang Society in Taipei, the article introduces the arrival of modern paintings spearheaded by eight unknown artists in their 20s. What seemed like a sensational headline, in fact, was an announcement of the changing of the guard in Chinese art. By calling the young artists' bandits, Siang Ma, a term for robbers on horseback in the Baigong days who would shoot howling arrows before approaching their target, He Fan emphasised the audacity of these outlaws who had no money or social status, only a grand vision. A seasoned journalist and tastemaker in the literary and cultural circle, He Fan was the proponent of modernity and reform to bring Chinese society and culture on par with his international counterparts. While aware of the new style by young artists may upset the cultural establishment, He Fan used his social clout to argue for the rightful existence of modern painting and to promote the group which included his nephew Xia Yang. His article was in fact the forceful howling arrow warning the cultural aristocracy of the bandits' arrival. Established just one year before, in 1956, the Dongfang Society consisted of eight young painters, all but one of mainland origin, who graduated from the Taipei Normal College and took lessons from artist Li Zhongsheng. The artist and nutrients of this Cantonese-born Japanese educated Li Zhongsheng came from classical Chinese ink paintings, early 20th century European avant-garde paintings, underground anti-academic art in late 1920s Tokyo, and the cosmopolitan modernism of 1930 Shanghai. Li's instruction for his students was guided by a liberal spirit that favoured an expressionist style. One can see easily from these examples on the slide why the students saw his instructions outside of the academy. Though the image and behaviour of the bandit seems extremely unfit for the personality and the type of art that Yuan Jia is known for, one can see how his work signified a new visuality in Chinese art. A painting by him, titled as an art on the left, was exhibited at the 4th Sao Paulo Bienio in 1957. A loose grid with irregular lines and patches of colour in the spaces between. The work has strong traces of influences from Mondrian and Kandinsky, yet it also has qualities of ink wash and arrangement of blank space, typical in traditional Chinese painting. Li described his artistic pursuit at the time entails, quote, searching in oracle scripts and inscriptions on bronzes for the distinguished characteristics of our country's abstract art. In order to find the key element that defines our modernity, the distinguished trait of our national character and the spirit of the modern, unquote. While the statement submitted to the Republic of China commissioner for the Sao Paulo Bienio sounded uncharacteristically official in tone and seemed to overlook the paintings overt European modernist flavour, it summarizes Li's pursuit in this period. That abstract art was a stylistic goal. The ancient Chinese script was a key formal symbolic inspiration and that a Chinese characteristic was necessary for new art. The title of the work, as an art, also suggests Li's ambitious exploration in the existential truth for art. Instead of the literati convention that dominated Chinese art for centuries, the Dongfang artists looked to pre-modern culture for inspirations. Dongfang in Chinese means eastern, so from the east. A later work by Li, here on the top left, along with several others by fellow Dongfang artists, testified to the effort in integrating ancient symbols, oracle bone scripts, deconstructed characters, strobe combinations, surface qualities of bronze sculptures, calligraphic movements, and exploring their potential as the basis of abstraction and a marker of a globally legible modernity. Concurrent with the Dongfang Society was the Fifth Moon Society, founded in 1956, the same year as the Dongfang Society, by graduates of the art department of the National Normal University and named after Solon de Me an avant-garde group in 1920's Friends. The artists of this group sought to combine the spirit and aesthetics of Chinese ink painting with the language of abstract expressionism. They pushed the boundaries of what landscape painting could constitute and provoke the cultural establishment in favor of classical landscape painting best represented by the masterpieces in the Palace Museum collection that were brought to Taiwan by the Nationalist Government. Many artists in this group explored the materiality in their painting by using unorthodox techniques, instruments, or materials to diversify the surface texture. In doing so, they also expanded the vocabulary and visual styles for abstract painting. Perhaps because of their abstract landscape painting directly referenced and in some ways reiterate the monumentality and idealism of classical landscape painting, the fifth moon artists received more support from the establishment as well as from foreign scholars of Chinese art, identifying them as the torch bears of modern Chinese painting. The art of Dongfang and Fifth Moon can be understood as recuperative efforts in establishing deeper connections with one's cultural roots and identity after major national crises while pursuing modernity in universal terms. The spirit of experimentation and the resulting new visuality electrify the social atmosphere. At the same time was the emergence of modernist poets who joined the collective effort of defining the voice of a generation. The poets also mainland-born and experienced a heart of war and forced separation sought to break away from traditional formats of classical Chinese poetry. The important ideas from symbolism and surrealism absorb existentialist philosophy and conveyed their own experiences of displacement, nostalgia, rupture and complex emotions in their poems. As they fought the traditionalists on language and prose, they found in their painter peers centric spirit and visualizations of their words. At the inaugural exhibition of the Dongfang Society, the Bandits' exhibition, modern poets including Chu Ge, Xin Yu, Xiang Ming and a leader of radical modernist poetry, Ji Xian were among the most enthusiastic supporters. Other poets like Luo Fu, Ya Xian, Luo Men and Yu Guang Zhong were closer to painters in the Fifth Moon Society. The report between the artists and poets were remarkable. Artists made illustrations or designed book covers for the poets and the poets wrote criticism of the art for newspapers and magazines. Here are two examples of the three crossovers of the two communities. Worst noting is the military background of many poets and painters during this time. Four founding members, which is half of the Dongfang Society, were in the Air Force. Two of the Fifth Moon artists were in the Navy. In postwar Taiwan, the military was a powerful cultural producer. They funded arts and literature periodicals and magazines and encouraged artists, writers to publish and circulate their work. While the original purpose was to promote patriotism in traditional culture, progressive and experimental viewpoints also proliferated through that platform and like-minded artists encounter each other's works through it. Another network within the diasporic population is a school for the orphans of nationalist military officers which brought lead to Taiwan. Among its attendees were these fellow Dongfang artists Huogong and the Fifth Moon artists Liu Guosong. They, as well as those in the military were bound by the experience of war trauma displacement, nostalgia and shared experience under the auspice of nationalist government that was both nurturing and restrictive. The stories of the mass migration in 1949 and its aftermath have been well documented but most significant for the purpose of our discussion is how the period of pain and suffering and extreme onuit in a martial law society had created a robust creative community and artistic expressions. Within this network of young, restless and passionate artists cross-disciplinary exchanges and synergy ushered in a golden period of arts and literature development in Taiwan. Modern media and post-war Taiwanese society was also a pivotal platform for publicity and exchanges between artists and their friends from other disciplines. As Heo Fan's explosive article on the United Daily News can attest modern media played an important role in the dissemination of ideas and modern art. In many other communities from America to Japan to Brazil, modern media also played big roles in the popularization of modern art and ideas. Two important monthly literary and arts publications Wen Yi Zha Zhi, Wen Xin and Bi Hui here I showed in novel issues with magazines where tea platforms are publishing and disseminating of modern art and poetry. Wen Xin established in 1957 on the left was edited by Heo Fan, the author of the Bandit article, and he hired an open-minded writers to manage the art content. The magazine had become a major source of information on western literature in Chinese and western art and art history. On instance, it shows a juxtaposition of Kondinski Palach with masterpieces of Chinese cursive calligraphy by Sun Guo Ting and the Monk Huai Su. The visual affinity of abstraction is thus established while gave theoretical justification to the calligraphic abstraction of Li and his peers. While it is difficult to prove that Li had browsed through these pages it is within reason to assume that the information of abstract art from foreign sources circulated amongst the culture class and were debated along traditional calligraphy. The magazine also defined the zeitgeist of the time. The short-lived literary magazine Bi Hui edited by yet another orphan school alumnus, Yu Tian Cong was the first literary magazine to display both Fifth Moon and Dong Fang work side by side in 1960 as the two groups garnered much reputation. The works show a shared interest and surface texture, gestural movements, abstract forms and messy, anxious, raw emotions unfamiliar in the classical Chinese painting lexicon and thus push forward aesthetics of a new generation. Bombed by a collective nostalgia of the homeland, yet manifested in different ways. This generation art has harnessed a perpetual sadness and mystery in their work which might explain why they chose abstraction of landscape painting which symbolizes both and an interiority, literally the land and archaic symbols as departure points in the first place. So you can see Lee's work right here. Most of the Dong Fang artists left Taiwan in the early 1960s for you, oh wait sorry. I conclude this Taipei section by looking at a few works Lee that would summarize his artistic explorations in the Taipei period. And here you see on the left more of a Mondrian-esque condensi-esque sort of exploration in the early 1950s and to the right the more calligraphic expression that he had made for I think there are about 300 works that exist. But I must talk about this work from 1960 which is in the M-plus collection. It's a long form kind of in the scroll form about seven meters long. I think a few of you have seen this in my exhibition last year. What's interesting while it's so long made these in two sections. There's a signature here on the left end but also a signature on the right end. So it suggests that you can read it from left to right and from the right to left. Traditional Chinese handscrolls are read only from the right to left. So he's really making this a circular activity as well as intimate. It's impossible to show this work on a slide. So it really creates a kind of request for intimate sort of viewing experience. Of course you can see the composition of this painting reminiscent of the landscape painting but as well as kind of musical score that kind of breeze through the space. And if you really study this closely there are about 100 kinds of dots on this really interesting little painting. This is also the first work I bought for the museum. Most of the Dongfang artists left Taiwan in the early 1960s for Europe primarily because one of the founding artists of the group Xiao Qing moved to Spain in 1955 and then Italy the year after. In 1962 the Yuan Jia embarked on a new beginning in Bologna under the invitation of Dino Gavina the furniture designer and patron whose social circle included prominent artists, architects and designers at the forefront of modernist innovations. Marcel Duchamp Lucio Fontana Carlo Scarpa Marcel Boyer and Pierre Giacomo Castiglioni became guests of a Gavina house and workshop. Li established a studio and home on a Gavina premise and began a few fruitful years of artistic production where he made acquaintances with senior artists and designers and experience that allowed him to glean the most cutting edge ideas from design and architecture for his art. In Bologna he further distilled his ideas of the point and reduced the gestural calligraphic abstraction to even more minimalist markings. He later while prepped canvas for Fontana. Though their abstract impulses have very different sources from their work you can see the meeting sensibilities. As Guy Brett has well argued in his essay the work by Li and by Fontana share a quote cosmological element in their work and that Fontana's piercing of the surface like Li's cosmic points embody contradictions in a singular gesture. Actually in the background here is Fontana's work in the Gavina house. Being in a foreign environment prompted Li to look for inspiration from his mother culture a trope not unfamiliar to immigrant artists. One of the major innovations Li made in Bologna was the new format and constructive frames of his paintings. Concertinas as we had talked about before are reinterpretations of Chinese folding albums. Frame paintings here on the left two paintings and reliefs in elongated rectangles take the proportions of hanging scrolls. And most significantly the large relief diptics or triptics inherited the form of the traditional Chinese altar arrangements or interior wall furnishings that include a pair of couplets and centerpiece. What I'm describing is here as traditional household you will see a centerpiece with couplets kind of hung that way. In this outdoor image from the archives on the left one sees Li at work with a painted wooden relief triptic. Perhaps it is the environment of the Gavina's furniture business and the discussions around modern design for the home that prompted Li to take on the form of the triptic. The argument is also supported by the fact that Li was never so interested in high culture but more drawn to vernacular customs and beliefs so taking cues from interior decorations of common Chinese household is possible. Through Dongfang Society Xiao Qin Li was involved in the activities of the Ponto group in Milan and Bolognau. Established in 1961 the members included Antonio Calderera, Kanjiro Azuma, Lucio Fontana and Xiao Qin and Li Yuanjia. Xiao Qin labeled their central philosophy mindful contemplation Jing Guan. A Taoist inspired understanding of the process of making art. They value subjectivity and control not the spontaneous expressions. The point in the Ponto's belief is, quote, solemn, pure, positive, eternal and constructive, unquote. From these works one can see the sources and affinity of Li's aesthetics and process. And you see here on the left a work by Xiao Qin a point appears. The Chinese writing translates to chaos which is the primordial beginning or universe in both Taoist beliefs and Western science. My paper, that's also in the N plus collection. My paper sought to outline Li Yuanjia's collaborative and cross-disciplinary way of working in the beginning chapters of his artistic career. I explored the artistic networks and communities of artists in Taiwan as well as the artistic networks in Bolognau and Milan that have been crucial to the formation of Li's career. His career from 1952 to 1966 provided an important way of conceptualizing cross-disciplinary cross-medium alliances in post-war modernist art. His personal trajectory also enabled us to think more deeply about a global network of post-war art movements in non-centers such as Taipei, Bolognau, Milan, Dental London and Cumbria even to Sao Paulo that have yet to be fully explored in current art historical studies. I look forward to the next beginnings of research that Li's work will continue to inspire. Before I conclude, I would like to thank lots of people, a community of people that help with these research that includes the OIC Foundation, everyone in it, Yo-Way and Kai Wei who are two researchers who spent seven years cataloging the OIC Foundation holdings colleagues at Taipei Fine Arts Museum, artist, poets and editors in Taiwan to Sylvia Gavina, daughter of Daino and researcher Jiang Boxing in Taiwan and Lucy Steeds. Thank you very much. Good afternoon. Wow! There have been so many interesting talks and such an interesting dialogue that I want to try and pick up on one or two ideas that we have been talking about so if I add a little bit, please forgive me. First of all, thank you very much to all the organisers for wonderful work that's been done and also for inviting me. It's a real privilege to come and talk about Winifredd and Li and I turn it to the very interesting process to think about this more deeply. Sorry. I'm also very conscious that those who knew the OIC, sorry, I always talk about the OIC Museum and Art Gallery but it's always referred to as the OIC. Very conscious that those who knew the OIC have very strong opinions about the museum and I hope that what I'm going to say will chime with their memories. Others newly, also we also refer to them as Lee, others newly in the OIC extensively, in particular Nicky Sawyer, Donald Wilkinson, Mark Jones, former director of the UNA, Richard O'Marco, Andy Christian and John Joy D and I'm indebted to them at all for discussing the OIC with me on a number of occasions and it's absolutely delight to see Nicky and Joy here today. When Lee arrived in Cumberland as it was in 1960 I have to point this out, I'm sorry. That's a native Cumberland. As it was then in 1968 Winifredd was in her early 70s and you might have been surprised that an artist who had come to prominence 40 years previously should be interested in a young Chinese conceptualist. However, Winifredd came from an open-minded background. Her brother, Wilfred Roberts, when he was a liberal MP in the 1930s, he later post-war became Labour, had been instrumental in bringing vast children refugees from the Spanish Civil War to the UK, some of whom Winifredd taught painting. When Winifredd lived at Boothby during the war which was then her parent's house there were Jewish refugees in the house as well as a white Russian. Significantly, when Winifredd visited America in 1964 she ensused about the op-up she had seen there and she owned a kinetic multiple by Takis, all poles and flashing lights. And her daughter Kate Nicholson who's also a painter was very familiar with what was going on in the Signals Gallery in London. But most importantly Winifredd had Ben Nicholson, her former husband described as a gift of friendship with artists. And at various times she befriended Christopher Wood, William State Murray, Alfred Wallace, Mondrian, Arp, Heliop and Gabbo and I think it's significant that she commissioned Gabbo to a particular moment when he was low in his affairs. Given this, it was natural that she should be friendly. Now this photograph I should say is by Richard Demarco from 1975 but it's the library at the LYC and I will talk a moment about the library. Boosby. Lee's studio was up here. I'm sorry, sorry. And you approached it by a staircase which came up this way, it's obviously there. Winifredd took her grandchildren to go and see him there. We used to go and play ping pong. I should point out that Winifredd's sorry, so I'll get the handsom it. Winifredd lived in these rooms where she came to be after the war. Because of their size they were known as the cat killers. If you were really looking closely at some of the photographs we've seen you would have seen Lee's ping pong table. This came to Winifredd's house after he moved to Bankside. I'm sorry, it's quite large so it's not that easy to photograph. The fun in this is that depending where the ball lands it bounces differently. So the Little Missondon Festival this was run by Pat Harrison who was the mother of Winifredd's daughter-in-law. So I think Winifredd had a key role in organising this exhibition which Lee had at the Little Misson Festival which is in Buckinghamshire in 1970. So already we're seeing Winifredd is organising exhibitions for him. I hope you can see this. I was really pleased to see this in the film upstairs. Winifredd couldn't sell at Bankside. There was a crack. I always looked crack, you know? Can you see that? That's what you call a crack. One of the things I do want to point out is that although Winifredd sold at a extremely favourable rate and I think she he paid it to her over a period of time. I remember him coming at one point and paying the last instalment and Winifredd being slightly surprised that he paid on time. But she did stipulate one thing and that is that he should run into some museum for ten years. So I think although by 1982 he was probably, as people have said, quite exhausted he had also fulfilled his commitment. This is the exterior from 1982 but you can just see here it's got this structure to support the outside. So Lee has taken on this building with this enormous crack and I love this idea which Lee has taken on this project which everyone else had balked at. I think that's a wonderful symbolism as the museum starts. So one of the things he does is he has this open access library. I only know of one museum which has an open access library and that's Kettle's Yard. It's rather interesting and that should be there because of the link with Kettle's Yard and Winifredd Newkerson. This is, I'm pretty sure this is one of Winifredd's books and I think she gave him a whole series of them from the sorts of works which she and her husband were collecting in Paris in the 1920s. Now the interesting thing here is the BN at the top. These are lovely really early editions with beautiful black and white photographs. And again here we've got Renoir and look at that, Nichols. Imagine going into the LYC in the 70s and seeing these extremely interesting books and I think so there are numerous of Winifredd to share them with a wider audience. Winifredd had five cosmic points multiples. We love playing with these as children. And she showed them in her main room. This is her main sitting room. Obviously there's this. But look at this. It's right next to Ben Nicholson's six circles. I love this piece. It's been real joy to have a look at it again. It's about nine inches wide. When you first put it up after a while it sits and it's static but when you first put it up it moves. And depending where the light is coming from because it's so white it reflects the light. I think it's extremely beautiful. And also it's very interesting last talk we're talking about Fontana. I like this hole. And the shape. Oh, sorry. And it's got this rather beautiful signature on the inside of the hole. And you have to think, this has come from Winifredd Nicholson's collection and you have to think she must have loved these white pieces because things of the white release which her husband was making in the 1930s. But it has a companion piece which is black. And there are a number of these white and black works which links up I think one of the discussions we were having before about Dark Side of the Moon. I took this photograph of family gathering about Christmas time because I was interested in the people. It turns out it's actually now much more interesting what's behind. Winifredd had three of these hessian wall hangings and we've been talking about interaction. These were curtains. So we'd open during the day and there were two large windows behind them. I love these when I was growing up. And they offered me still some of my most favourite of his works and I'm sorry that there hasn't been more emphasis put on them. I think it's interesting, one of the questions we have before was about calligraphy. And they relate very much to all sorts of Chinese things. I think there's an interesting relationship with Domstavastur Hoogdorag. I love them. There you go. This one is now entirely house. In Karnol. If you need better images please contact me later on. This is a snapshot I took in someone's house recently purchased by one of Winifredd's friends. So she's encouraging her friends. Who are major collectors of Winifredd's friends? She's encouraging her friends to buy his works. And they don't have just one. They've got two. Aren't they gorgeous? I think they're so humorous too. Great fun. And such imagination. And large. Now, Winifredd encouraged many of her friends to come and share at the LYC. Valerie Thornton, who's a print maker lived in the south. This is the Bucharest Cross which if you know is what Persons describes as the finest monument in Europe from the 9th century. She also shared with her husband Michael Chase. And this is Mary Newcomb who shared a show with Winifredd at the LYC in 1979. Winifredd again Mary Newcomb lived in the south. Winifredd knew her through the Crane Cowman Gallery because they both showed her. So she's bringing these other artists in. And this is Thetis Blacker who was a friend of, more really a friend of, I think, Kathleen Rayne. She's a batty-caster. And I was thrilled to see this in the Black and White film. It's actually, it's tantalisingly short. There's a very, very short piece which shows Thetis Blacker's exhibition. And I think the person on the right is Thetis Blacker. Also Kate Nicholson, Winifredd's daughter had two shows at the LYC. My brother, Winifredd's grandson had a show and asked my mother. This was my brother just before he went to Newcastle Art College. This is a rug. Again, this appeared in one of the very early on the Federal Cross, which, and I was very pleased to see that it's in whole. It was talking about the cookie rugs. It's a North Country tradition. And she really tried hard to re-establish these. She designed these, and they were made by other people with these strips of reused fabric. But this was bought by the UEA in 1975 from the LYC. And at that time there were rug making workshops. But interestingly, Lee actually also himself designed a rug. I think that this one moment almost symbolises to me the whole way in which there's this connectivity going on. Lee made the frame for this picture by Winifredd. It's beautifully made in pristine white. But I just want you to hold the image of that Winifredd. This is the sort of picture that she was making in the 1970s. And we'll see. For me, there's so many interesting things going on here, but what I come to at the end which I think he totally changed what she was painting. And Flower Tales, which he produced in addition of 500. Winifredd wrote a lot of stories. Beginning, I think, post war. And there's still a number which hopefully at some point will be published. But these are the only ones which have been published. And it was due to Lee so I think that was again, this was something that he was doing which was very important for her. So I moved on from my notes a little bit. This is Carthage, she had a trip to North Africa in 1970. She wrote to Ben Ben and Winifredd had a very, very interesting correspondence right throughout their life after they separated. I adore criticism. I'm very grateful for it. I get all too little up here. The only person who gives me any is the young Chinaan Lee. He's exhibited in Rome, Florence and in Signos. He makes things that the spectator participates with at his large white magnetic panels on which one places wooden circles to ones like him. When Lee places them, they have meaning. When other people move them, they have none. You said to me yesterday the way you paint fast what you feel and want to paint is fine for making a picture as you can but to take the next step and make a masterpiece you must know what you do not like and what you cannot do and think not only feel how can one do that by painting very slowly. When you're painting what you feel you can and must paint very fast as you do. When you are after that with your thoughts you must paint very, very, very slowly. I'm not sure she took that last bit of advice I'm not sure she took that last bit of advice. The owner of this picture told me that Lee said to Winifred every painting must have a bit of red in it. Isn't it great? I don't know what it's doing now but she loved experimenting and she will take up all sorts of ideas from me. As we've heard Winifred have four shows at the LYC and the most I've found of anyone else is two. The last one was posthumous and I have to say the 1976 show she showed her abstract paintings which she'd mostly made in Paris in the 1930s so it was a very... she's showing her some of her most avant-garde works here at this time and really experimenting so gating people's opinions of what she's up to. Winifred met through the LYC the artist Donald Wilkinson and this is where it begins to get really interesting. Donald knew that Winifred had been to the Aliveg in Hebrides in the 1950s with Captain Ray and he said to her let's go. So in 1980 they went up Donald Wilkinson and his family for the first week a very thawnted Michael Chase for the second and for both weeks Kate. This is one of Winifred's most best-loved pictures and without the I don't think we would have it similarly. Winifred owes a huge debt to him but there's more to come. Sorry. This is the opening of her exhibition in 1979. She's talking to Godfrey Bennett who was also he was a friend of Larry a amateur artist he's also someone who showed at the LYC the end of his life he lived in Carl. Behind we've got Kate and this is Donald Wilkinson. So here at the opening we've got four people who showed at the LYC. I don't know who the others are so if I'm nicking your joy do know I'd be most interested. Also we've got one of his very recognisable pieces of sculpture sorry furniture. What's interesting about this show is that Winifred is beginning to show some of her most experimental art. So I can go on and say about Kate made four trips to the Isle of Ech. The last one was myself. So it had direct influence on me and that's what I like to think of the sort of cascade of influences going on. What had been going on? You have to think Winifred is two minutes drive, living two minutes drive from the LYC and I'm sure she went to just about every opening. There were shows by Paula Nigo David Natch Angie Goldsworthy twice James Hukening, Sheila Wakeley to mention just a few. It was paintings, sculptures, pottery, photographs, installation felt makers, tapestries, weaving and as we've had from Madeleine Hooker's yesterday video. I was really interested in talking to Madeleine of course that she went and met Winifred on a number of occasions and I think the words she used was open. I think that's so interesting. Joy Dee who assisted the LYC recalls Winifred sitting in the front road hearing a performance by a young artist. Winifred was wearing her plastic knee length red boots. Performance by a young artist Jerry C. Cooper shelves materials. I haven't managed to find anything more about him but I think this is wonderful and I would love to see it repeated. I think it's very, very apposite today. He came in with a tool bag took out his tools screwed a shelf to the wall and placed the tools on it. I'd love to know what Winifred was thinking as she watched Gary C. Cooper but I bet she appreciated the humour and the irony. There are all these things going on. What effect did they have on Winifred? Not quite from Kate. I look at modern things but stick to my own idea. But somehow having looked at the modern things something that they have gets absorbed into one's own work. My thesis is gave Winifred the encouragement to express herself free in her late pictures. This is planned for a present. She'd always been interested in prisms and the way in which they used light. She says I found out what flowers know how to divide the colours as prisms do into longer and shorter wavelengths and in so doing giving the luminosity and brilliance a pure colour in the order sequence of the octave of colour. So she's really experimenting and you can see the way in which these bright rainbow colours are being infused into her work. I particularly wanted to show this work because you can see it here on the wall. That's planned for a present. And also here's the plans of Dr Carpus It's sitting in a white very classical Chinese vase which her friend E.J. Hooper who'd been in China in the 1930s and was also a star of the support of the OSC. It's sitting in this Chinese vase. So there we have a plan for a present. Winifred is extraordinarily experimental in these last pictures. I'm just going to show you too. Hooper This is so different from what she was doing before. And I think this willingness to experiment and try new things comes straight out of enthusiasm and the energy and the excitement that she's experiencing in the OSC. And Clarion Cawlin Whispers is one of my absolute favourites. Again you can see the way in which she's using the prisms, she's split up the prismatic colours. So on the bottom right hand corner there are these two, I think they're Greek shelves about this bit. And we tend to find the yellow and the red colours get dispersed and the colour are on this sort of wafting shape. These prismatic pictures were extremely important for Winifred. She showed a few at the OSC just to see in 1979 and then the main show is in Gallery in 1981. Sadly three weeks after she died. The problem with them is there are nine in public collections. So it's very difficult to see and access them. The OSC. There were door making workshops, puppet making workshops, tapetry weaving, glass engraving, Saturday evening art and music workshops. Felt making workshops and I must point out that there's a photograph which is regularly shown, it's described as rug making, it's a notice felt making with Jenny Collins. Poetry readings including Kathleen Rayne, close friend of Winifred and also Francis Horowitz and others and the wonderful Children's Room. Amongst others there was work by Chinese, German, Norwegian and American notices. One of the things we were talking about previously was that I think thinking about Lee's really unique achievement was to create an open space which allowed anyone to express their innate creativity. I think this is Winifred and Lee and their house going by Richard DeMarco in 1975. If you think Lee's sitting slightly precariously it's because he's on a William Morris chair when she's changed the proportions of the legs if you sit back too far you'll flop over. I think this unique achievement is to create an open space which allowed anyone to express their innate creativity. I think for Winifred if you weren't creating you weren't alive and I think that's something that comes through with Lee because he's joined with each other and also I think she would have loved this idea of having a gallery run We heard earlier on about Lee sending out his catalogs to his friends and also his calendars I counted up there about over in 1980 there were 203 friends that actually listed in the calendar so you can see who were friends but I love this idea there's something else we were talking about it's very democratic and it's very extending up to but I wanted to quote end by quoting from the calendar from 1980 it's actually got Joy D's name at the bottom of it but I think this comes straight from Lee What Lee has made is more than a building it embodies all his space, time, life ideas and his desire to share them people who regret the apparent end of Lee's artistic output should see that the drive behind the building is the same as the one behind the watercolours and wood structures it is a work of art and when it's finished something else will take its place Friendship has come up numerous times actually through the day and I'm particularly thinking of that very emotive newspaper clipping looking for friends Lee's looking for friends which is very heart rendering and just this idea that you was just saying that there was 203 do you say friends in the gallery and this different sort of sense that we use friends to mean these kind of people who help or assist in an institutional basis and how those friends can be kind and beneficent but also they can limit you and this kind of idea of not wanting to run by committee but wanting to have a sense of freedom as well from one's friendship or from groups and so I just kind of want to run with this idea that maybe friendship and group work can be both really satisfying and wonderful we want to kind of evoke this idea of conviviality but also that it can be difficult and dangerous and full of conflict and this has also come up before I think today as well this idea that that poem that we saw where there was a lot of love and no woman and no friends for Christmas and this idea at once having all of these great friends and all of this support for Lee but also a lack of belonging and so I was thinking about the different kind of ideas of groups and friendship that both of your old papers kind of gave us or discussed and this sense of the formative moments of Lee's practice in your paper and then in your paper this idea of a kind of give and take between Lee and Winifred and how I was so fascinated that there was kind of idea of agreement and disagreement and him kind of feeding back to her as well as I suppose she talked to him about his work as well this sort of idea of them kind of having a dialogue across generation across very different kinds of practices totally fascinating and rare and this is also going on in speech acts right where you've purposefully tried to disrupt all of these kind of curatorial narratives that you might want to kind of fixate upon and then also just because I'm thinking about Kettlesyard and you mentioned Kettlesyard a few times too and the sense that there are other institutions which are built around this idea of being a friend to artists a friend to artists is what Jimmy would always call himself who's the founder of Kettlesyard and this idea of living with artworks we showed us a lot of artworks in Winifred's house and in the house in the London house and just how these kind of private collections or artworks that circulate between friends offer us very different ideas of conversational dialogue with artworks different kind of ideas of art history potentially and also practically she bought artworks to support people and Jimmy needed to do the same as well so those are some kind of trails that I sort of wanted to pick out between the papers that he's presented but I just wanted to hear more Leslie as well what you thought the kind of impact of those groups was on Lee do you think there was a kind of dialogue in exchange that really sort of shaped his work and then similarly do you think Winifred had an influence on Lee and his work? Thank you for your question I think the early period of the Bill Fong group as I showed they were all exploring these pre-modern motifs from scripts oracle bones and such it's a collective exploration everybody looked at the same sources but then each took away something different but in the end they all were trying to look for this I guess mystical beginning of this ancient culture which not necessarily has to be Chinese but it's sort of universal and ancient and Chinese at the same time so I think you see those motifs coming back in his tapestries rags later almost universal symbols a simplified hieroglyphs if you will so I think that collective pursuit early on in his career was informative I guess it also planted disease for later works but when you said earlier that group work could be satisfying and dangerous I think when you're in a small group of artists bound by certain circumstances there are competitions there are people who are more vocal than others some are more fortunate things like that so Lee is actually quite a silent member even though I think his work is very exclusive so each of them left Taiwan at different times and cared for each other's work but I feel when I talk to them there is a little competition I think anybody who worked with groups understand this kind of curiosity of what others are doing but at the same time competitive in a perhaps constructive and friendly way so that's inevitable in looking at painting societies or groups and we should also think about the groups banded together in exhibitions by circumstance but also by necessity because there weren't many places for exhibitions during that time in Taiwan so those are when you have like-minded people in your private lesson group of course if you get invited or there's a chance to exhibit together so you'll see their work develop in totally different routes later on but in that early beginning they have the same point of departure I think it's a really quite dynamic friendship over 68 to 81 there's a good period of time things change and so on and he wasn't always the easiest of people, if you talk to Andy Christian he says that he had a wonderful understanding of what he was saying how much actually influenced what he was doing I didn't know I suspect the joys Can I just say from what he said to me that her friendship was terribly important to him I'm not sure that one of the things that contributed to his loneliness towards the end of LWC and being the closure I think he closed it it may have been later if she hadn't looked longer I think she was a completely important part of LWC and of Lee's feeling it was a wonderful friendship it was a mutually beneficial I just wanted to say I mean just to look back to the recap she died early in 1981 she closed at the end in 1982 it was almost a contributing factor to closing Perhaps we could open up Does anyone have any questions? Hi, I just have a question for Leslie about the publication of the People's Society that was painted and written as a contributing point and I was just wondering at the presentation about these publications and the relationship and I was wondering if this was a sort of common practice that people really would have known at the time of having publication made in collaboration with writing poetry and so on the two publications that I talked about the two that I showed the covers both were actually one of them is self-funded the more short-lived one the other one is funded almost, well it's also a private funding but the person had some backings in the journalistic community so these two I should have clarified they're not military backed but they are other military backed publications so they're all these different circulations of publications that were going on in Taiwan at the time that allowed for these kind of creative experiments so I think my sort of thesis or hypothesis is that because of this publication culture is quite prevalent during that time youngsters who are creating or going to exhibitions or making poetry will be very aware of who's being published this month and who's making a publication perhaps that has something to do with these later on work where this is a place where you could create a virtual community by mail or by inviting people and how you could create sparks amongst different disciplinary practitioners thank you I'd just like to ask a follow-up question about the circulation of those journals because I see very similar juxtapositions between abstract expressionism and calligraphy ink painting but also this new kind of cultural painting practice happening in a couple of Japanese journals so we are also doing these kinds of juxtapositions and I'm wondering to what extent do these journals circulate within Asia very good question and I know your work on the Japanese journals and I've asked the artists a lot of them that I work on are still alive in their 80s they're just as aware of the Japanese publications at all the magazines that I featured in this presentation circulated amongst the Chinese communities in Asia I know this because their prices in the masthead listed Hong Kong, Taiwan, Hong Kong Singapore Malaysia and the US so these overseas offices that they had are in fact friends they have in those literature so I think it's very similar in all of the publication practices in these groups there was almost no knowledge of my dissertation had a whole chapter on this but there's they know something of Japanese arts and culture but not the gu-tai group not the calligraphers but they might have known about Afro-med coming from Japan some of it yes they came in from Li Zhongsheng also their teacher and from the publications that are at the American libraries what do you call it USIS libraries that are in these Pacific regions but yeah, sort of indirectly I guess Xiao Qing also was already in Spain and Italy in 1950 so he was actually very actively writing reports from Europe to send to United Daily News the first newspaper that I mentioned so there's these, it's a very individual kind of news broadcasting for artistic movements from abroad through these very singular channels that came through I have another question for Leslie I was just really curious how it sounded like Lee had a really great thing going on in Taipei and I'm wondering why he moved to Bologna and also considering his big humble origins I wondered how he so the legends had it that Xiao Qing his friend was already showing in Italy living in Italy and exhibited a work of these and apparently Dino Bavina went to see the show and said something like oh I would love to meet this artist and somehow a letter got to Lee so the legends had it that he showed up in Bologna and said you know I'm this person that he wanted to meet and then Gavina was open and welcoming and hence started his residency in Bologna so it's again it's a singular channel of a series of so what do you mean by responsibility financially or in terms of visa so how is your work I mean I think the impetus for me to go was literally I mean the okay I think that they had this kind of creative artsy amount of small group that this was still a very politically impressive place and for someone who always wanted this space of freedom you know people were referring back to space because these were really two really important concepts in his life and you know having been to these military orphanages I don't know if again to end up in you know Taipei Teachers College which was also a military run he was still living that institutional life so the kind of art circles was a different thing but it was very politically impressive there was a lot of poverty you know it wasn't I think he wanted to get away from that and that's mine I think there's also the the artistic atmosphere was vibrant in the sense of you know there's a lot of creativity coming out of this impoverished situation but as I also kind of alluded to the fifth room group was much more endorsed by the establishment as a rivalry between groups I mean they all know each other but the fifth room group artists some of them got Rockefeller grants to go to the US and because of the education system National Normal College after you graduate you teach high schools or universities whereas the college that Lee went to and his friends went to become an elementary school teacher so differences in salary and social status and there have been researchers in Taiwan had argued that because of the more humble beginnings and less sort of strong backing that let them to leave Taiwan when they can I'm a little bit doubtful of that argument because they also had strong support from people of influence so I think a lot of them is driven by personal reasons that there's in fact during that time if you have the means you will go abroad and there's only one way the one way to get it's not coming back so I think the outside world and the Chinese saying the moon outside is round so there's perhaps that too Sarah I had a quick a question inspired by the photograph that is behind us and we've seen some really incredible photographs of both Lee and Winifred's lives today and it made me wonder is it that serendipity and that people were around and taking these photographs and documentation of their worlds or was that part of were they interested in that as well as having documents of their life and their friendships and kind of you know the prompted that recording because you know often you wish when you're working on such that you have photos of exhibitions and openings and they're never in the archive but it seems that there's such a rich archive here a few met Richard de Marquis this one this one and the one that I showed at the beginning were Richard de Marquis I think and there's a big archive there I think we owe a huge debt to you and Winifred wasn't interested in taking these sorts of photographs I mean it's great if I could talk about it a bit more it's quite interesting on fabric which would have been made by the Edinburgh Edinburgh weavers which was run by friend first Alastair Morgan the cups are from Leach, Poshwys and Ives and the blue paint behind is like Kate on the sort of thing that she would have showed in her show in the at least I think it was 74 I was thinking the yellow tablecloth is very there's a good yellow bar all right fellas so it's very it's very symptomatic one of the things we were talking about before is her house she moved pictures around all the time and she loved to bring out her most recent pictures and put them up was a constant sort of I mean in a sense her house was her student but you know Richard and Richard de Marquis was extraordinary and I remember him giving a talk about his he'd taken a crook of a student from the West Coast on a sailing boat the West Coast of Scotland on a sailing boat so I hope that it's interesting to think about documenting friendships but the one of the three I took now I wish I'd taken more but it's a good reminder to us all so much easier I had a cheap little and it was expensive under the gaze of the camera and with an eye on the time we should maybe move on to the session but please join me in thanking Marquis