Lucy Cullen was the Director of the Bluecoat Gallery in 1972 when Captain Beefheart had his first ever exhibition of his visual art. Here she describes how she approached him for the work and how the exhibition came together:
‘On 21 March I was watching the Old Grey Whistle Test. Beefheart
performed live on the programme, and behind the band on the back wall of the
studio were some abstract paintings by him. He told Bob Harris that he'd
painted 30 over two days, especially to bring with him to the UK in the hopes
of maybe having a show while he was on tour, although nothing was fixed. None of his paintings had ever been shown in
public before, anywhere in the world. I
pricked up my ears. They looked really interesting, confident and
powerful. We were probably in a strong
position to put in a bid to show them, having gallery space available. No posh
London gallery would be able to come forward at that kind of notice, and on top
of that Beefheart was about to come to Liverpool as part of his tour! Perhaps it was written in the stars!
Looking at my little pocket diary for 1972, what followed
was a fairly torrid few days, bearing in mind that there was no internet, no
Google, no email, no money to speak of…only our wits, a manual typewriter and a
telephone! The next day, 22 March, I
somehow got a phone number for Beefheart's agent in London and rang to discuss
the possibility of some of the paintings coming to the Bluecoat for a show.’
And now the full story behind the exhibition that year in
Liverpool is being told in a short film that Lucy has made especially for the
Beefheart symposium on Saturday at Bluecoat. The arts centre's Artistic
Director, Bryan Biggs, has also put together a small archival display of
material for the event - photos, correspondence, publicity, reviews and even the
visitors' book from the exhibition, signed by over 1000 people. There are some
intriguing names including B. Baggins from Bag End; Cousin Caterpillar; J
Lennon from Apple Studios; Spring Heeled Spence of no fixed address, Atlantis;
Jimmy Page, 43 Led Zeppelin Avenue, USA; and Commander Cody, who apparently
found out about the show 'through ESP'.
The display is accompanied by other material relating to
Beefheart's Liverpool visits and the city's relationship to this 'twentieth
century visionary', as well as Beefheart-inspired art from Blue Room, the
learning disabled group that meets regularly at Bluecoat and who have also
created a film of them performing their very own Beefheart-like song.
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| Captain Beefheart in front of his artworks at the Bluecoat exhibition, 1972 |
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