THERE will be something missing this Christmas, the seasonal get together at Joe and Catherine’s. The usual McWilliams Christmas art exhibition at Cavehill gallery was always a highlight in the calendar, but Joe died in October so it’s the end of an era.
Earlier this month he made the headlines when his last work sparked outrage in some quarters as it hung in the Ulster Museum. Entitled Christian Flautist outside St Patrick's, it appears to show members of the Orange Order dressed in the garb of the Ku Klux Klan.
The Royal Ulster Academy Exhibition organisers would not agree remove it but put up notice on the way into the gallery confirming that some material may be "thought provoking, controversial and potentially offensive". Just as any exhibition of this calibre should be and typical of Joseph McWilliams.
Apart from welding a paintbrush so skilfully, Joe was also a master with the pen. Some years ago he wrote a column for this newspaper, only stopping when his presidency of the Royal Ulster Academy and his workload meant time was short and he couldn’t give his writing the attention he demanded – Joe was a perfectionist in every detail.
His depiction of Twelfth of July parades is famous, often humorous, often contentious. All the swirl and bombast is there, a dog collar here and an orange collarette there; in one a couple of bandsmen peeing up against a wall in front of The Irish News.
Colour was his forte both in painting and in writing as these extracts from Art for Art’s Sake show:
A few years ago a woman rang me: ‘Hello, I’ve got a Charlie McAuley painting and I’d like to know how much it is worth?’
“I’m sorry I don’t know. Take it along to one of the auctions and ask them.”
‘I hear they are worth more if there are figures in them.’
“I believe some people evaluate them in that way.”
‘Do horses, cows and hens count?’
I don’t blame her for this seemingly idiotic question; she is, after all, only reacting to a greater idiocy – the critical standards of the new and burgeoning breed of art dealers. Money dictates not the love of art, hanging for prestige rather than delight.
His turn of phrase was genius.
Forty years ago if you said to someone that you were an artist, he wrote, you were usually greet with 'See me, I could’t draw the dole.'
Nowadays you are more likely to hear – 'I do a bit of painting myself.' A number of years ago I went to an auction of Irish art in Belfast. During the viewing day I was studying a pot boiler of a painting by a popular Ulster artist. An auction official approached me, his antennae wrongly sensing a buyer.
‘A very fine little landscape, isn’t it?’
“No. I think it is a dreadful painting.” Demeanour reverted to its practised condescension: ‘Is that so? We expect to sell it for £3,000.’ I smiled. “I didn’t say it wasn’t valuable. I said it wasn’t a good painting.”
He added in his column: I notice in my dictionary that the primary meaning of the word curator is one appointed as a guardian of a lunatic.
Public Art
The thought that street murals brought art to the people was ‘wrong’ and condescending; in his opinion as much to do with art as a supermarket’s promotional handout has to do with literature.
As a child, he lived on the New Lodge Road and watched murals going up over time, eventually protesting that:
Over the years a conglomerate of commentators have elevated these wall daubings to the status of a public art in which technical ignorance and unsophisticated vision are accounted virtues. It’s time for people to get up off their artistic knees and see these murals for what they are – an extension of graffiti.
Mediocrity and spin annoyed him and he was outraged when one Italian journalist said: ‘These drawings... for me are just as impressive as Michelangelo’s Last Judgment.’
Joe travelled to exhibitions through Ireland and beyond and his criticism was scathing on occasions – when deserved – and glowing in others. But his word was respected.
There was nothing precious or ‘luvvie’ about Joe McWilliams. He was one of the boys, stubborn, charming, a fighter when it came to health, having battled heart surgery and the cancer that eventually defeated him.
Back in the day he was a member of the V2 skiffle group and always joked they missed greatness by one letter – U2 might have taken them to the dizzy heights of the pop parade – instead he made his name in the world of art
The Mind Boggles
I have only twice watched Goggle Box. For me it’s the worst of television. Steph and Dom Parker featured, the ‘posh’ people who admit that they drink a lot and can’t remember some of their performances on the Channel 4 show.
Apparently they once laughed so much they upended the sofa and smashed “loads of port glasses”, as you do. Now they’ve written a book, which they don’t remember writing and there’s talk of their own chat show in which the promise alcohol will feature heavily.
They are hailed as being wonderful, funny and natural. Crikey! I saw none of these things. They were foul mouthed and drunk. The other participants weren’t much better, taking couch potato to a new low.
Sad thing is many viewers think it’s great entertainment and apparently ape this behaviour when sitting in front of their TV sets. I’m inclined to believe the anonymous star of the show who told the world that, if not actually scripted, the ‘cast’ is certainly guided.
Apparently filmed on one day, clothes and table snacks are changed to imply different days; they are told which programme clips they are going to see and how to react. Television is, and always will be, an illusion.
