Tidying up at the RWA

This blog, having charted the coup at the Royal West of England Academy of Art, has been tardy in following up with the altogether simpler closing chapter; here, then, is the latest in the saga.

The (Original) RWA Friends voted to retrieve all data files from the new RWA Board and its offshoot, the ‘Friends’, and to take back all monies that had strayed.

Simon Baker’s fellow board members asked that he resign as his term of office was over, which he duly did - a surprise to many.

The new, hefty, ART Magazine folded after only a few months in business.

The (original) Friends resumed holding lectures at the RWA.

The first of a new succession of presidents has been established.

It’s almost as if the whole thing was only a dream, although one-time editor of the Friends’ Newsletter, Roland Harmer, believes ‘It is not quite wake up time yet.’

He adds, ‘We [the original Friends] are on the verge of taking on the role that we had prior to Simon Baker. So there may

be one more episode after this.’

The Friends bite the hand...

Saturday 17 March: The RWA Friends call an Extraordinary General Meeting.

There are two decisive votes: for the return of subscriptions and database to the FRWA; for FRWA to remain independent from the RWA. In short, a near-return to the status quo.

  One Board member, Paul Wilson, complained that the Friends’ meeting had been undemocratic (unlike the RWA Board?) and estimated the attendance at about 56. The Friends’ own estimate weighs in at 79 people for the first session, the EGM, with 30 apologies. The use of ballot papers ensured that the voting was secret.

In the afternoon at the AGM, following the normal reports of the activities of the last year, including the treasurers report, much wrangling took place round the two motions. The Committee stated that as they were unable to follow the second motion they would resign as one - which they did. A new Committee was then hastily formed, made up of volunteers drawn from the meeting, plus, it's hoped in the near future,one or more members of the previous Committee, to make easier the continuation of services and work that the old Committee handled and ensure some continuity. Meanwhile, upstairs: As of 25^th May 2011, the RWA Art magazine has become a private limited company with three directors who may also be the shareholders - Simon Baker, Richard Storey and Robert Barnett. Mr Baker has surprised many onlookers by adhering to the rules of the game and standing down from the RWA Board  because he had served his time. Fellow gang-member Norman Biddle (recent Chair)  is also standing down, reportedly, simply because he was bored.

　

　

　

Visions and schemes at RWA

A document published by Simon Baker (creator of the Royal West of England Academy of Art Board; see below), lays out his ‘vision’ for the future of the RWA. It begins: “The RWA Board has resolved that the RWA has to obtain control of the Friends’ cash, subscriptions and database. The purpose of this note is to set out the legal means of achieving this transfer, the options and the position if FRWA agreement to meeting the RWA Board’s requirements is not forthcoming.”
Not surprisingly, the FRWA membership was not unanimously tickled pink by this proposal. Following the outcry from members of FRWA over the news that the Friends would be swallowed by the RWA, a meeting was fixed between the dissidents and two board (of Trustees) members, Norman Biddle and Trystan Hawkins. Mr Hawkins, recently added to the Board by Simon Baker, had been given the task of putting into action the Board’s moves to take over the artistic decisions at the RWA from the Academicians.

Not all the complainants were there though; I’m told that Mr Baker prevented some of the invitations from being sent out.
There seems to be no doubt that he popped into the envelope-stuffing room as copies of an update for the FRWA were being redied for posting and said, “Do not send this out.” - His physical presence in that confined space apparently being enough to enforce his will on the volunteers, none of whom had taken a course with Charles Atlas. The update revealed how far the RWA had gone in abrogation. I quote: “ The RWA Board is empowered by the RWA constitution to establish new groups and to withdraw recognition from existing groups.”
It questioned why the decision was made to incorporate the Friends within the RWA, and takes a stand against FRWA subscriptions going straight into the RWA’s bank account as this could leave the Friends having to wind up. This ‘Direct Subscription Scheme’ has been given a name: It’s Called ‘Friends’…
Norman Biddle denied that there was any such thing as a doppleganger FRWA. a cuckoo in the nest, but while the Board-dominated RWA holds the FRWA like a puppet on its knee, and there is a likely drain on potential FRWA income from the ’Scheme’; it, whatever it is, clucks like a cuckoo.

Great fleas have little fleas...

The Royal West of England Academy of Arts is, as far as the general public can see, on an inexorably upwards curve, going from success to success. Gaining museum status, becoming more accessible all day every day, putting on the occasional blockbuster and publishing the hefty Art magazine to replace the Friends’ Newsletter.
There can be no doubt that this all good for business; and the RWA is a business - at least as far as having to make a profit rather than a loss. But behind this rise out of the red there is a strange tale of internal politics that would be more in place in the Papal Rome of the Medicis and Borgias than this quiet unprovoking little world of ageing artists and volunteers in the twenty-first century.
Just for the sake of chronology, I date the period of change back to the day the Friends of the RWA (FRWA) voted in a new chairman, Simon Baker. In the following year, on 15 March 2009, I found myself being gently persuaded to stand down from the committee to make room for a new member; shortly later, Roland Harmer, editor of the Friends Newsletter, known to be close to me, began losing editorial and executive control of the Newsletter to the Chair, who as Chair would automatically be on the newsletter subcommittee.
The new Chairman did not stay for long, though: he left the FRWA Committee to form the new Board of Trustees, which, it was trumpeted, would be better placed to manage the quotidian business side of keeping the Academy running and out of the red, while leaving all the creative work, the exhibitions, in the hands of the Academicians - but it wasn’t long before the Trustees took over the exhibitions too. A new chair, Roger Manthorp, told me he had been ‘fingered’ by the outgoing Chair as his replacement. He was quite pleased at the time, although he had one word of caution - the academicians had been persuaded to hand most of their executive powers to the Trustees and agree that this would be irrevocable.
Six months later Manthorp angrily told me he had resigned, as the outgoing Chair had insisted on keeping his seat.
Next on the calendar: Derek Balmer, President of the RWA, abruptly left his post. Two witnesses told me that there had been a vote of no confidence; one of them had been asked to leave the room during the vote and returned in time to see the President leave, “an angry look on his face.”
The President was replaced in the same manner as had the position of Friends’ Chair. When I asked the new man if the President had jumped or was pushed, he protested that there had been no vote of no-confidence;he appeared to believe this himself. But within the year he, too, had resigned after finding he was not being allowed to make his own decisions without pressure or interference.
As I write, I understand that the FRWA, although it has not, as a charity separate from the RWA, been wound up, has been incorporated into the RWA (which would put the Friends under the control of the Trustees) - slightly dodgy in book-keeping terms as the RWA is the FRWA’s customer; and word is that the Trustees are making moves to wrest whatever powers the Academicians still hold, from them.
In the end, the RWA remains in business despite the recession, and despite the power games you may find echoed in many offices and companies. At the same time one of our protagonists has made a good few enemies and may well make more. Such is life. No explanation!

From rehab to the RWA in one day

/>
The mid-year batch of shows at the RWA contains enough to amuse and puzzle most people in roughly equal amounts. I visited with a small group of cultured professionals from Frenchay Brain Injury Rehab Unit; although we could have been non-artists from anywhere. I can confirm that my friends enjoyed themselves.
The Elisabeth Frink ‘Wild’ collection concentrates on the relationship animals have with humans, and with each other. It is genuinely wild in parts. As she said herself, this exploration is “better than just doing horses”. Or self portraits, which most of her (human) heads tend to be.

The Lisa Milroy geisha paintings were a surprise: she had a reputation for making medium-sized pictures containing rows of domestic objects. And it’s taking quite a risk making figurative work on such a scale. Despite the size and the painterly attack, they have a slightly comic-book, ‘pop’ look.




The Mary Fedden walls contain a potted history of part of English art: the earlier paintings are recogniseably of the same vintage as early Graham Sutherland and the other romantics of the late 'Forties.
But most of what is on view is recogniseably Fedden style: abstracted still lifes in harmonic colours, looking towards St Ives and beyond.

The show that has got the big bangs though is Jack Vettriano in the main gallery; the opening night featured actual tango dancers threading among the crowd - of course. It’s a surprise to see the paintings for real at first. Although they are quite small and not a lot bigger than the big-selling repros, they are surprisingly flat; in places almost like pop art (again) in their treatment. Well, fair enough: they are genuine pop art, of a sort. Vettriano shares the limelight with photographer Jeanette Jones; their double act is titled ‘Ballroom Spy’. Some of her work, which resembles movie stills from the 'Fifties as much as anything, was the raw material for some of his.

Also trumpeted loud was Damien Hirst’s contribution to the collection. He has hired some craftsmen to make a ten-up copy of the well-known disabled-girl-shaped collecting box. He gave the result a name: ‘Charity’, which somehow gives it the air of making a statement of a sort. Anyway, It stands in front of the RWA shouting, “Look at me!” which is all to the good, after years of Joe Public only being dimly aware of the edifice as an ancient office building hidden behind a car park.

One technical point last: I and my entourage visited on a mercilessly sunny day. Although the sun was beating down on the gallery roofs, we did not wilt, and remained cool and comfortable throughout. This is progress.

Photography: Che Ming Leung