Wednesday 18 January 2012

SITWELL BY SIBLEY

One of the nicer things about having to shift stacks of books and papers for the pending move has been the finding of things long forgotten, including a small cache of Sibley drawings that have recently come to light.

As a young man, one of my ambitions was to become (in addition being an actor) a cartoonist and caricaturist. My drawing board idols were three artists who dominated my imagination and whose names began with an 'S': Searle, Scarfe and Steadman.

Here is a caricature I made in my late teens of the poet (and glorious eccentric) Dame Edith Sitwell...


I think, when I made this cartoon, I had only recently discovered Facade: An Entertainment, the work that Dame Edith created in collaboration with William Walton and which, to a young enthusiast of the nonsense literature of Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear seemed to have more than a little in the way of kinship to the lands where Tulgey Woods and Bong Trees might grow!

Here is a short selection of numbers from Facade, performed on a 1953 British Decca recording by the poet and Peter Pears with Anthony Collins conducting The English Opera Group Ensemble...


3 comments:

scb said...

And yet another Sibley talent is revealed...

I'm glad you're finding some joy in this drawn-out sorting and shifting process. The time is drawing nigh -- you're in my thoughts.

scb said...

Off topic, but I've just encountered a new-to-me blog about Dickens, and wondered if you'd seen it. It popped up in one of my google alerts, which looks for the phrase "writing for children". I'm telling myself that his comment "writing for children is easy" is meant to be sarcastic. Anyway, this post is fascinating, and I thought you might like to take a look at it.

http://charlesdickensonscreen.com/?p=597

SharonM said...

That's really good, Brian - hopefully you'll be able to put some more of your artistic work on the Blog when you've got time.

Funnily enough, Ian was sometimes compared with Edith Sitwell - I guess something to do with the probiscus.