A Morning with British Pop Artist, Allen Jones

 

During the five years that I lived in London, I was on the contemporary galleries’ and public collections’ press lists. This meant that I would be invited to press viewings of new exhibitions, before the openings, and it also gave me access to the artists – some of whom (such as Peter Blake and Allen Jones) had been my art heroes since I was a teenager.

In 2014, I had visited Allen Jones’ huge retrospective at the Royal Academy, where I had been really impressed by his figurative drawings. It was also good to finally see in the flesh a set of his controversial trio of works, ‘Hatstand’, ‘Table’, and ‘Chair’. (When first exhibited in 1970, The Guardian called for the works to be banned from exhibition)

In 2015, Jones staged a smaller exhibition of recent sculpture, Colour Matters, at Marlborough Fine Art, the gallery where he had shown regularly since 1971. I went along to the press morning, and I was first to arrive at the scheduled time - right on the dot of 9.30 am. I gave my name, and that of the magazine I was writing for at the time, to the elegant young woman at the front desk, and I was ushered into the compact gallery space. I wandered through the several rooms, taking notes on the works on display. These were abstracted forms of the female figure, made in Perspex or sheet metal. After the great triumphs of last year’s retrospective, they seemed rather slight in comparison.

More people arrived – the by now familiar faces of the other art writers and their photographers. We nodded to each other.

One of the Marlborough Gallery women was setting up a small trestle table with a spotless, white linen cloth. She made several trips out to a back room, bringing coffee pots; cups and saucers; jugs of orange juice; glasses, and (unaccountably, I thought) a large plate of cream buns – about which, more shortly, alas.

Finally, the man of the hour himself arrived. He was then a trim, sprightly, 79 years old. He wore a white shirt under a baby-blue woollen jumper, dark trousers, and black shoes. His blue eyes were sharp and clear. He was completely bald, and, with his crinkled face, he rather resembled a tortoise. He was accompanied by an attractive blonde girl in her mid-20s, who was, at least for that time in the morning, preposterously dressed in a sparkling scarlet, figure-hugging dress, red stilettos, and a red hat with red feathers jutting from it; she carried a red, patent leather clutch-bag in her perfectly red-nailed fingers – I seem to recall that their may have also been a red mini-veil across her eyes. She clung to Jones’ side like an exotic baby bird to its mother. One of the Marlborough women stepped forward and introduced Allen Jones to the modest gathering. The artist took up a position in the middle space and spoke about this latest body of work. I eagerly scribbled into my notebook, in my own scrawled shorthand – which is illegible to any other human being. There was then time for questions and photographs.

And then the Marlborough woman waved an expensively scented wrist towards the trestle table, with its morning bounty, and several of us shuffled towards it. I was very hungover, so the coffee pot was my first port of call – its content was mercifully strong, and I rapidly downed a cup. I was now surrounded by the various scribblers, all eager to get their mitts on a free breakfast. Allen Jones and the young woman in red were at my elbow. One of the Marlborough women asked the scarlet woman whether she was one of Jones’ models for this exhibition?
“Oh, no…” she demurred, looking adoringly into Jones’ face, “But I sincerely hope that I might be, one day.” Upon further questioning, it turned out that the young woman was an art student, who had met the artist recently at a private view. The two had obviously hit it off.

A gap in the conversation now arose, so I turned to Jones and offered my congratulations on this exhibition, and the magnificent survey show of the previous year. Unfortunately, I also had one of the cream buns in my hand, and I ventured a small bite of this as the artist graciously thanked me for my kind comments. As my teeth met in the middle of the fluffy confection the pressure forced a rapid gobbet of cream out of the other end. The eyes of Jones, the young blonde art student, and myself, watched as the errant dollop fell in slow motion and landed on the toe of Jones’s left shoe. Aghast, I blurted my apology, and dropped to my knees with a handful of napkins hurriedly snatched from the table. I set to work gently wiping the oleaginous goop from the great British Pop artist’s foot. Without missing a beat, and with splendid aplomb, he bawdily quipped, “While you are down there…”