In Berlin for Purbeck Crowhurst’s Art Show «

In Berlin for Purbeck Crowhurst’s Art Show

Sunday 11th November 2012

On Thursday was my first visit to Berlin: astonishing city: hurt and compelled by horror, yet strangely liberated so now terrifyingly itself.

The gallery scene is huge but there are no collectors, nobody to buy the art. But that is not the point apparently.

Nobody much to come to Purbeck Crowhurst’s Opening on Thursday night either, but that was also of no importance.

Purbeck’s got a huge show which establishes him quite securely in the tradition of eccentric, one-off English artists such as Richard Dadd. One of the most striking paintings shows a motorway with cars, then the verge. ‘Reality’, in other words the vehicles roaring by, is blurred and grey, but the secret, imagined world of Nature in the grass beside the road is blazingly present, far more real than ‘reality’.

Big names were there for the artist, but in friendship. The contemporary painter whose prices outstrip all others sat with Purbeck at the dinner afterwards. They were confidential, absorbed in all their years of knowing each other and their lives as artists, resisting money and the gallery world, striving to continue as artists.

Earlier, with the Multis who were also present, we relaxed with Purbeck in a back room at the gallery, looking at some private pictures. Meeting and greeting is a strain. Purbeck would rather meet a hairy Turk. He lives for art. The gallery people were researching possibilities. ‘Maybe you’ll discover the love of your life,’ the Blond Multi said. ‘Ah, but you see..’ said Purbeck, ‘once the deed is done, that’s it.’ He told the story of one of the private paintings. In the 70s, he and a group of friends were flung into police cells, suspected of drugs. They all loved Roxy Music, then a rare cult band. Soon a fabulous, mysterious creature was also flung. She wore a black leather jacket and on the back was written ‘Roxy Music’. They felt a great bond but something was wrong. ‘She’s got needles,’ the policemen said. From the neighbouring cell came an atmosphere of crisis. Purbeck and his gang were chivvied out. ‘Go away,’ said the police. ‘We don’t want you here.’

‘She must have died,’ Purbeck said. The painting is her commemoration.

Robert Nevil and Eddie Sedgwick, leading Poor Little Rich Gays, were also living underground in the 70s, above a male-brothel in Brixton, devoted to Roxy Music, the Velvet Underground and the Blitz Club in Great Queen Street, Covent Garden. But they never knew Purbeck … or perhaps they did unawares.

Oh for those early cult days of the Poor Little Rich Gays. What beginnings!

The après dinner began promptly after the Show in an Italian restaurant with the highest ceiling ever seen. Lord Bolly Stunning (his mother was a Bollinger), 30-year-old director of the Gallery, gave the speech. It turns out he is also a model whose name has been wrongly linked with one of Caroline Monaco’s daughters. He is actually marrying another and moving to New York. The Blond Multi was most impressed by Lord Stunning: ‘What self-assurance! His management of the seating plan! His impromptu speech in the noisy restaurant!’

He and his friends knew all the stars: Roz Pyke and a main part in Modern Family, among others.