https://www.theguardian.com/
For Walls With Tongues Publication, £20 incld. p&P
For Walls With Tongues is a collection of essays developed from interviews with some of the mural painters active between 1966 and 1985 in the UK; supplemented with 5 essays about artists who we researched but could not interview and an essay by Professor Bill Rolston about external murals in Northern Ireland.
It is available from bookshops or directly from Greenwich Mural Workshop using the contact email from this website.
Priced at £20 including post & package. Payment can be made either by cheque sent to Carol Kenna, GMW, 78 Kinveachy Gardens, Charlton , London SE7 8EJ or by BACS payment, details given on request.
Brian Barnes obituary
Detail
from a Brian Barnes mural on a wall in Battersea, south-west London
Steve Lobb
Tue 28 Dec 2021 17.01 GMT
My friend Brian Barnes, who has died aged 77 of
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, was a celebrated muralist and a leading
light in the community arts movement. Warm-hearted, funny, outspoken and a
hugely gifted artist, he created murals around south London for
more than 45 years.
He was born in Farnborough, Kent, and raised in
nearby St Paul’s Cray, the first child of William Barnes, chief executive of
the Mullard electrical components company, and his wife, Eileen (nee Hiley), a
seamstress at Morphy Richards. His parents supported him in everything and he
had a happy childhood. Brian’s first school was Gray’s Farm primary, then
Midfield secondary school for boys.
Aside
from painting murals, Brian Barnes designed and printed campaign posters for
activists. Photograph: Silvia
He began a course at Ravensbourne College of Art
(now Ravensbourne University London) in 1961, leading to a national diploma in
design. There he met Aileen McKeegan, studying fabric design, and they married
in 1964. Brian stood out as a determined realist painter and went on to study
at the Royal College of Art, where he graduated in 1969 with
beautifully composed and detailed work.
Moving to Battersea, south-west London, the couple
found a leftwing group of friends and became activists, campaigning for better
social provision in housing, parks and jobs and protesting against rent rises
and the redevelopment of Battersea power station and the riverfront for the
wealthy.
The necessity of creating art expressing social
concerns gave Brian a new direction, and a bolder style for his work. In 1973
he began printing silkscreen posters at home for campaigns. Demand grew and by
1977 his print workshop was producing hundreds of posters for the community.
Then came the murals. His first, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, in 1975, was vast, and
was painted with 90 volunteers, near Battersea Bridge. On the “good” end were
pictures of socialist goals, in the centre a “rainbow” broom swept away the
capitalists’ failure. It became a popular landmark. A year later the wall was
demolished. Protesters arrived in thousands, Battersea Bridge was closed and
the artist arrested.
More large scale gable-end murals followed; sunny
evocations like Day at the Seaside and Battersea in Perspective. Then anti-war
murals: Nuclear Dawn in Brixton, with its threatening skeleton, and Riders of
the Apocalypse in New Cross, featuring world leaders riding rockets around a
besieged world, above a tender rendering of messages at Greenham Common. There
were many more murals for creches, nurseries, schools, towns, estates and
railway stations.
Detail
from a Brian Barnes mural in Stockwell, south London, celebrating the life of
the second world war special operations agent Violette Szabo
The Stockwell war memorial, begun in 1999, was the
work he returned to often. It is a joyful mural with many images, dedicated to
the fallen in the world wars, and celebrating local residents such as Vincent
Van Gogh and the second world war special operations agent Violette Szabo, as well as the Windrush immigrants who
spent their first night in Britain in the area.
Brian was appointed MBE in 2005 for services to the
Battersea community. He is survived by Aileen and their children, Eloise and
Glenn, and grandchildren Daniel, Lilya and Natalya.
