Julian Ashton Art School and Henry Gibbons

Henry Gibbons
Drawing by Susan Dorothea White.   1961

Peter Kreet [Creet]
Drawing by Susan Dorothea White.  1961

Life is made up of many choices and often it is hard to understand why we make the ones we do. When I left seafaring as a career I had no fixed idea as to what direction my life should take. Douglas Dundas had recommended Julian Ashtons Art School as a good place to start an art career. In enrolling at the school I recall a lunch time discussion with Dick Watkins were he confessed that he could not make up his mind as to whether he wanted to paint or simply that he liked the idea of an artistic life style'.

When I enrolled in 1959 , still very much still walking with a seamans' roll I was confronted by Henry Gibbons by then an institution at Ashtons. We got on very well from our first meeting no doubt his own experience as a spud barber helped [ peels potatoes on ships] when he worked his passage on a ship to America as a young man . Ashtons was very much a 19th cent academic institution were the drawing of classical plaster casts was mandatory such as Venus Di Milo and so on.This was considered the the best way to train the eye to record accurately what was in front of you, after all the  subject matter could not move unlike humans.

Henry would insist that your efforts in the cast room be put out in front, next door to the subject and then from a suitable distance ask "How do you think it looks"? Generally as a young student full of enthusiasm you would reply that it was not perfect, perhaps the right eye or ear were too high or low.To this the reply would be "Yes but what about the overall form or shape. He would then go on to explain that sometimes the eye would get in front of the hand in critical analysis, at others the hand would be in front, this would traverse through out your drawing career, so there would always be this love hate relationship with your work. Some people draw naturally but unfortunately I was not one of them and I suspect Henry despaired at my efforts.

This philosophy about training the eye was central to the school whether it be tone, colour or form.

Henry Gibbons was somewhat deaf and often at lunch time a father would phone the school enquiring about the course before enrolling their daughter. In those days it was quite customary for fathers to do this sort of thing. The school had an old fashion telephone, one that was fixed to the wall and you had to shout at the fixed mouth piece ,while the hearing section was located at he end of a long cord.Fortunately for the students the phone was quite close to the lunch room so when ever one of these call came in we were all privy to the discussion. The conversations if I remember correctly went something like this.
H.G.  "Whats that, can you speak a little louder. How long is the course? Well I have been here over thirty years." this would be followed by, "What do we teach? Nothing we only help people to see, yes to see. No there is no structure if you can't see you are not able to do anything."

As students we would be falling off our chairs with laughter particularly if we had spent the morning fighting our cast drawing. In retrospect one of the great tragedies of art education in this country has been the abandonment of this principle whether you work realistically or in abstract. I know not every one will agree but without critical sight there is nowhere to go.