Patrick Heron. Interviewed by John Read - ACE150.2

Caption: "This interview took place in Patrick Heron’s studio in St. Ives, Cornwall, in September 1984. The main subject was the work of Ben Nicholson and parts are included in the Arts Council Film ‘Ben’, directed by John Read on the life of Ben Nicholson." Patrick Heron talks about his connection with St. Ives to which his family first moved in 1925; gives some of his family background; about some drawings from the early period, one similar to those painted later by Alfred Wallis who first came to St. Ives in 1928. About Ben Nicholson first meeting Wallis, the influence of Wallis’s work on him; descriptions of Wallis’s use of colour, typical of the British avant-garde movement. Heron talks about "education" for painting, best done by painters looking at other people’s paintings. Influences on Nicholson: his father, Winifred Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth. The arbitrary distinctions between figurative and non-figurative painting.