Afternoon Tea with Patrick Procktor (1983)

      

                                          

    In the summer of 1983, I was in London, from Melbourne, on a 12-month Travelling Fellowship, which eventually turned into 18-months. In the months before I left Australia, I had written to a number of well-known British artists, whose work I admired, stating that I would be in London shortly, and that I’d welcome the possibility of a meeting. I received a few replies. One was a postcard from Derek Boshier, which featured one of his then recent paintings - an image of a naked cowboy floating against a lurid black and orange sky. It read, “Hi Steve, Unfortunately, I now live in Texas, so will be unable to meet you for now. But I may be in London in a few months. Perhaps we can meet then. All Best Wishes, Derek.” He had interspersed his text with small line drawings of heads in profile. Another of the postcards I received was from Patrick Procktor. It featured an C18th painting from the National Gallery. It read, “Hello Steve, Yes, do pay me a call when you are here. I would like to meet you.” He had also put down his telephone number, and his address - 26 Manchester Street, Marylebone.

I settled into the great city, gently cushioned by the generous offer of studio/living quarters, in a small, converted chapel in West London, owned by the British painter, John Walker.

   A couple of weeks later, I nervously dialled Patrick’s number. The voice on the other end of the line was a kind of fluting drawl. “How marvellous to hear from you. Please do come for tea, on Wednesday at three-o’clock!” Wednesday rolled around, and I duly set off to Manchester Street, with, I must admit, some trepidation. The building was set in a row of near-identical townhouses. I rang the bell of the upstairs apartment. There was soon the sound of light steps coming downstairs. A moment later, the door swung open and the willowy, 6’6” frame of the artist was revealed. He held the edge of the door with his right hand; his other hand was extended to the side, on a thin arm, a cigarette continued the outward trajectory. He was wearing red trousers, a crumpled white shirt, and an embroidered waistcoat. Tendrils of curly hair framed his rather patrician head.  “Hello,” he said, casting a coolly appraising eye from the top of my head, slowly down to my shoes, and slowly back again, thoroughly summing up the measure of this young man, “Do come in, won’t you?”

   I followed him into the entrance hall and up the narrow wooden stairs to his apartment. He ushered me into the living room, which resembled a Victorian salon. A couple of elderly Persian rugs were draped across the floor. Several small Victorian occasional tables crouched here and there, crowded with silver picture frames, objets d’art, books, and trinkets from Morocco. On a carved wooden pedestal squatted a large Victorian vase, aflutter with peacock feathers. He silently swept an imperious hand to indicate which chair I should sit in, then he sat opposite me, crossing one of his flamingo legs over the other. Pointing to my chair with his cigarette, which was clamped between elegant, rigid fingers, he said, “That was where Margaret used to always sit when she came for drinks … better known as the Queen’s sister.” I must have raised my eyebrows at this information. “Yes,” he continued, “She used to come here all the time, back in the day, with Snowden, of course.” He then asked if I would like a cup of tea, and I said yes. He left the room, and a little later came back with a large teapot and some teacups and saucers. The brew was very strong, black, and very bitter. “It’s Russian Caravan tea, which I absolutely adore! I drink tea all day long, non-stop, so, naturally, I’m pissing like a fucking horse all day, too!”

   The late-afternoon sun was kept at bay by the blinds, but, even so, the room felt close in the summer heat. Patrick left the room briefly, and reentered, holding a massive ostrich feather fan in his right hand, which he proceeded to wave energetically in front of his face, for the rest of the visit, like Auntie Mame on a trip down the Nile.
  “So, tell me,” he said, “Why did you want to meet me, of all people? After all, I’m not what one would call an art star, nowadays - unlike Hockney, or all of those more fashionable people.” I replied that I had always admired his work, ever since I had first encountered it in the seminal book on British artists, Private View: The Lively World of British Art, which had been a kind of bible for me, before I even entered art school. I mentioned the titles of his paintings which were reproduced within it. He seemed pleased that I possessed this now rather rarefied knowledge - and he positively beamed when I mentioned the photograph of the artist clambering down some back steps into a London garden. “Yes! That was taken downstairs, here,” he said, “Fancy you knowing about that!” He happily redoubled the fluttering of the ostrich fan.
    Patrick saw that I kept glancing over at the fireplace, which I was now facing. The mantlepiece was supported by two carved naked men, rising from pineapples. He rose from his chair and stood next to the right-hand Adonis, draping an elegant right arm along the mantlepiece, and blowing a plume of smoke into the room. “Isn’t it marvellous?... It sets off the room wonderfully, don’t you think?” Naturally, I politely enthused.
    “While I am up, would you like to see some of my art collection?” I stood and followed him towards a small room which abutted the living room. Then the phone rang. A look of anger broke across his face; he rolled his big blue eyes, and he excused himself, snatching up the receiver and barking, “I have company! I am entertaining at the moment!” He slammed down the receiver. “That was my wife. She lives downstairs. She wants me to do something… but you are here, as planned.” Embarrassed, I offered to cut the visit short. “No! I simply won’t hear of it!” he said, smiling. The phone rang again. He ignored it.
    We continued into the smaller room. A small group of flowers – possible cyclamens – had been beautifully painted, directly onto the white wall; they floated over a narrow day-bed which occupied one wall of the little room. “These flowers were painted by Lucian [Freud]. I do love them very much!” I shifted my face closer to the wall, in order to get a better look at the masterful paintwork. “And this day-bed,” he continued, “was where the playwright Joe Orton infamously posed naked for a drawing which I made for the theatre program of his first play”. Rather shocked at being in such close proximity to Orton, who was something of a hero, I asked if I could sit on the bed. “Yes, dear,” said Patrick, “but only for a minute! We don’t want to inflame you!” 

 

                                 Patrick Procktor's drawing of Joe Orton, made for the playwright's
                                    Royal Court programme for Crimes of Passion, June 1967.

 The phone rang again. Patrick snatched up the receiver, listened to the other party for ten seconds, then silently replaced it.
    He showed me his two or three Rembrandt etchings. He showed me some Goya etchings. He showed me several of his Hockney drawings. “David’s gallery, here in London, always sends a team of people out to the airport, whenever he arrives back in the country, because he always comes with handfuls of drawings, which he proceeds to hand out as gifts to friends, who are also at the airport, clamouring to see him. And, of course, the gallery doesn’t like that one bit! They whisk him away before the damage is done!”  He gave a good natured laugh at this, throwing his head back, and fluttering his fan.
    Back in the living room - in my Princess Margaret chair - Patrick faced me across a low coffee table, upon which, I now saw, rested a Victorian gentleman’s smoking cap of embroidered green silk, complete with a tassel – perhaps the afternoon was too warm to allow this eccentric addition to his wardrobe. He quizzed me about my plans for the rest of my stay. I told him that I planned to go to Egypt at some point. “Oh! I adore the Arab world!” he said, “I travel there whenever I can! The architecture, the culture, the buildings! Fantastic! – And let me tell you a special phrase which will save you a lot of bother: ‘In Sha’ Allah’. It means ‘if God wills it’. But you can use it equally to accept something or to reject something. I have found it to be extremely useful over the years.”
    He asked me if I had seen much art in London yet, and what had stood out for me. He advised me to avoid all of the Rothkos in the Tate, and “all the rest of the appalling New York School rubbish!”
    The phone rang again. Patrick stalked across the room and spoke a few words. When he returned, he said, “And now, I’m afraid I really do have to take my leave. My wife wants me to take my son to his tennis lesson.” He extended a long, narrow hand, and shook mine. “Thank you so very much for visiting. I hope you enjoy the rest of your time in London. With that, he led me back down the stairs, to the front door and let me out into the dusty street.

 

 I highly recommend Ian Massey's excellent account of the artist and his work, Patrick Procktor: Art and Life, Unicorn Publishing Group, 2010.

 
 Footnotes: 

* Sadly, Patrick's wife, Kirsten Benson, suffered a heart attack, and passed away, in the year following my visit.
* In 1999, Patrick's apartment was destroyed by fire, along with his wonderful art collection.