John Taylor

Remembering the Lowry and Mark Gertler exhibitions

Clip Title	Remembering the Lowry and Mark Gertler exhibitions
Interviewee Name	John Taylor
Interviewee Role	Associated since 1973, John’s involvement included teaching classes and producing a range of screen print editions and other commercial print jobs.
Interviewer Name	Kerry Patterson
Interview Date	20 March 2013
Clip Length	2 minutes 47 seconds

Transcription

JT: Well, just I mean, obviously to have, a Lowry exhibition [1978] was quite amazing. Mark Gertler [exhibition, 1982]. And one of the persons that should be mentioned in that was Susie Robinson.

KP: Yeah, I’ve heard of her, yeah.

JT: Susie was instrumental in organising the Mark Gertler exhibition from connections she had with a London gallery.

KP: She was chairperson of the … wasn’t she?

JT: She was.

KP: Yeah that seems to have been quite a big, a big coup to be able get that.

JT: Correct. A big exhibition.

KP: It’s also been mentioned the Max Ernst exhibition… ‘Books and Graphics’ [1979] seems to have been one that made an impression.

JT: That was a brilliant exhibition as well. I mean a lot of these exhibitions were of such stature that we had to get a new security system put in. We had security men in at night, to stay there guarding these masterpieces! In fact, when I go into the TATE gallery I see the Mark Gertler painting , ‘The Merry-Go-Round which is a kind of anti-war statement really. And I always think, how I hung it up on the wall in our gallery with two shoogly nails.

KP: So Catriona [Clarke] has said that there was maybe originally an agreement that the Glasgow League of Artists about them using the gallery space for a few shows a year?

JT: I think they probably did.Again it was a broad exhibition policy.

KP: So was there an exhibitions committee? Or you know, did you or other staff have a role…

JT: There was an exhibition of Yugoslavian Printmakers Which I saw in London at the TATE and I told Calum it was a wonderful show.So he said “right, we’ll try for it .”

I think the only other place in the UK it went was somewhere in Wales. But I mean you you just did this stuff. You know, I stupidly never kept a diary or even kept a lot of the stuff I was printing, I just did it. [This is not a verbatim transcript of the interview but it was requested and approved by the interviewee]