Pierre Spake

 Francis Plummer 1930 – 2019

Francis Plummer worked in seclusion his whole life.  He rarely exhibited as he did not trust others to understand or appreciate much of his work.
He worked in watercolour, pen and ink, graphite and egg tempera, producing figure studies, portraits, and landscapes. His approach to all of these show an individual approach to form and an analytical mind reconstructing what was before him.  This current exhibition concentrates on these smaller works and hopes to introduce you to a sadly forgotten artist.

Francis [Frank] was born on the 27th March 1930 in South London into a large and poor family. His father had enlisted in 1916 but was discharged as ‘medically unfit’ shortly afterwards. He moved with his wife to Grove Park where they obtained council accommodation and raised a family of six children, four girls and two boys. His brother relates that “Frank was unable to walk till he was four or five and that he spent time in a wheelchair… It was at about this time he started to draw objects around the family home and his parents realised that he had a talent for art.”[1] Frank’s father had been to Passmore Edwards School of Art in Camberwell, which would have made him sympathetic to his son’s artistic endeavours. At the outset of the Second World War, Frank and his brother B John were evacuated along with three of their sisters to Folkstone.  As the war continued the two brothers were then sent to Tredegar, South Wales where they lived for a further five years. B John recounts that “our school was Ebenezer Chapel and our playground was strewn with gothic tombstones, victims of cholera and typhoid….. Frank was always drawing and painting and won the Eisteddfod art prize for his painting of a gypsy caravan.”[2]

When he was 15, his parents, fully realising his interest in art sent Frank to Woolwich Technical College which had its own art department, and from there he went to the Royal Academy, where he studied between 1950 and 1954.  During the period at the R A his family still had little money and B. John recalls that on occasion Frank would walk the ten miles from Grove Park to Piccadilly in order to save his “pocket money”.[1] On graduating from the RA, Frank received the Leverhulme Scholarship and received encouragement from Stanley Spencer and Sir Herbert Read. He is understood to have helped Sir Gerald Kelly working on the backgrounds of some of his portraits. In the mid 1950s Francis and Alan Reynolds formed the Shoreham group of artists, and Francis did own paintings gifted to him by Alan Reynolds and other members.  Around this time, he took up various teaching roles including tutoring art at the ‘Working Men’s college, London and Grey Friars Adult Community College, Colchester.
As a Conscientious Objector [which he later rejected and regretted] Frank avoided conscription and began work as a hospital porter and medical illustrator for Guy’s Hospital, drawing internal and external features of the human body. He also worked on the ‘reconstruction’ of faces, which may mean trying to re-imagine in drawing the features of a mutilated face. His ‘life’ studies show a strong command of the structure of the muscles and bones of the human body, and his knowledge was such that he was able to distort figures without losing a sense of form. 
In the years when he was formulating his belief system and theorising about his art Frank was drawn to a number of religions and esoteric doctrines. B. John writes “He read extensively...Blatavasky, …Pa introduced him to the Maja, Inca and Egyptian religions. Frank became ecumenical and bought paperbacks on Hinduism, Mohammedism, Chinese, and Japanese culture and religion…he followed the politics of The Common Wealth Party”. B John goes on to point out that “He was not humorous”[2].
Frank was influenced by the painting techniques of Giotto and other early Renaissance painters and was particularly interested in the anatomical work of Michelangelo and Da Vinci. He married at the age of 49, and his wife Barbara Keane [her second marriage] was able to offer him some financial freedom to continue his painting.

His portraits and figurative works were mainly formed through the medium of egg tempera, whilst most of his landscape studies were painted in watercolours and inspired in part by Japanese landscape. In the introduction to an 1982 exhibition of his landscapes[3] he wrote of his commissioned pieces for the National Trust “note the blend of design, pattern making and free form within the context of closely observed nature.” Of the landscape compositions from his imagination in the same show he wrote “a knowledge of a repertoire of natural forms is exploited, yet ever in conflict with the hazards of concoction and gimmick.”
Though he had concentrated on the human form since the early years, from the late 1960’s obsessive effort was expended on a series of large works (8’ x 4’) painted in tempera depicting pairs or groupings of usually sexually ambivalent figures..
When writing on his own art and art history in general he became quite esoteric and not entirely comprehensible though there are underlying glimpses as to what motivated him. Of his ‘nudes’ he wrote [2003] “the appreciation of figure shapes and forms must stand without regard for any literary or other source for meaning.” “The themes are allegories, not reality theatre.”.  Continuing “What is illustrated are spirit forms enacting the drama in a volitional world outside the frames of space and time.  The endeavour is to show as real a spiritual existence…”“His greatest fear was that his ‘paintings’ would be dumped on a council dust wagon – destroyed.” [4]

Pathe news produced a short film on Plummer’s tempera painting in 1958 and at least three paintings on offer here appear in it. 

Career
Studied at Royal Academy, London and received the Leverhulme award.

Exhibitions
Leighton House, London 1957, 1967, 1977
Middlesbrough Art Gallery, May-June 1974 “To be born again – a suite of fourteen paintings”
Alwin Gallery, London 1975
Essex University Arts festival, 1981, etc
The Arts Centre, Colchester 1982 “Landscape retrospective” where he showed National Trust designs [see Dunstanburgh Castle, Northumberland] and various other landscapes [see: “Richmond Hill”, “ Border”, “Silent Descent”, White Day”, “Parley”, ]

Mixed shows
          Royal Academy, London
          Leicester Galleries London
          Piccadilly Galleries, London
          Arthur Jeffress Gallery, London

Commissions
          National Trust

Notes:
[1] described by his brother, B. John (in a letter to Pierre Spake 3rd November 2020) as “his ‘Big Berthas’…he would spend 6-8 hours a day on them, missing cooked meals and employment till absolutely necessary to meet his financial commitments”. They usually depict pairs or groups of androgenous figures of uncertain sexuality.  He worked on aspects of the ‘series’ from the 1960s and they were shown in public exhibitions.
[2] Letter to Pierre Spake 3rd November 2020, From Frank’s brother B. John
[3] Landscape retrospective, the Arts centre, Colchester
[3] Letter to Pierre Spake 3rd November 2020, From Frank’s brother B. John
[4] ibid