A Beginning

The artist has talked of sitting the aft cabin of his grandfather’s steam ship. He was about four years old and was drawing the ship in his unlined exercise book. The ship’s engineer helped him to sketch curves and to get the sheer of the ship looking right. It is one of those fleeting early memories of being given attention, guidance and encouragement by an interested adult, that remain. 

When ‘Grandfer’ was ‘in port’ loading, unloading or awaiting orders, he accompanied him, carrying an exercise book and some stubs of pencils. While his grandfather ‘attended to necessary business’, he had his drawing to keep him occupied. “I suspect I had been told to do so but as it attracted positive attention from other adults, I continued - and became a habit”.

Eventually he was torn away from ‘Grandfer’ and the quayside nursery. He remembers being sent to the primary school at the top of the hill and being given a tin of coloured crayons and what seemed to be, an endless supply of kitchen paper. “I recall Winnie Parkhouse, my infant teacher, praising a drawing I did of a space station; it was inspired by Dan Dare adventures from my cousin’s Eagle Comics. Winnie had not seen a small boy take an interest in such subjects, nor illustrate them with clarity. My delighted mother insisted on showing me and my drawing off to all our friends and family”.

Continued below.

Mountjoy doubts he had any innate gift for drawing, but his family encouraged him from a small child to believe it and it became something to live up too. Drawing generated approval when he felt that almost every other thing he did seemed to do did the opposite. So he continued and feels ‘It often redressed the balance’. He was born into a seafaring family which valued the skill of drawing; essentially it was to produce and read plans, charts and diagrams, but he was just few generations away from the time when the ‘ship’s artist’ was the celebrity crew member on voyages of discovery. Sadly, none of his early years’ drawings survive.

The artist was first introduced to the work of the British Modernists at a talk in the church hall. He describes how this influenced his desire to become an artist in the book ‘Light in the West’, published by the South West Academy.

Possibly because of the confidence that his drawing gave him, he did well enough in other subjects to win a scholarship to the Grammar School and so in 1962, dressed in blazer and tie, he set off on the bus to Bideford and the school in Abbotsham Road.

His first art teacher was John Ayers who taught him to observe and draw with accuracy. With drawing boards balanced on knees, his class would cluster around the two plaster casts of Greek Gods. Squinting over outstretched arms with thumbs pressed against pencils they were taught to compare proportions by the circling master. Mr Ayers taught drawing in the tradition of William Coldstream. “The eye deceives” he would quietly insist. “You are too quick to press in with a final line Mountjoy; measure, measure again, cross check and then make the line”. The artist recalls Mr Ayers, his mentoring and his drawing lessons with gratitude.

John Ayers left at the end of his second year and a young Cornishman, Barry Hoskin, replaced him. Barry was equally tolerant of Mountjoy’s adolescent precociousness and encouraged his interest in the British Modernists. He persuaded him to experiment, creating abstract constructions while refining his life drawing. He reflects that from both his art teachers he learnt and gained that understanding that doesn’t always have immediate effect. “It was the sort of knowledge that lies dormant only to surface to make a difference years later … in a different context, you recall and comprehend”.  Once again, the attention and guidance of an interested adult made a difference to his life.

Missing the bus home from school he occasionally found himself with time to spare on Bideford Quay. Inclement weather may have discouraged a stroll along the quayside and one day he drifted down to the Pill and into the Burton Art Gallery. He remembers being daunted entering it alone and being aware of the curator eyeing him with suspicion from the glass box in the centre of the gallery. The gallery’s collection presented opportunity to study ‘real’ paintings at close quarters and examine technique; he became a frequent visitor.

Although most paintings, sculptures and constructions from school days have been long lost, some life drawings of school friends remain. 

Above

Right - Brian H. 1964 Charcoal and Chalk on Sugar Paper.

Michael E. about 1968 Pencil on Cartridge Paper 20 X 25 Cms. Bouncer E. 1968 Pencil on Cartridge Paper, 20 X 25 Cms. Carl, Pencil on Cartridge Paper 20 X 25 Cms.