Journey with a collection of portraits

110 Pages·2007·2.132 MB·English

by  Kathleen Notman

Journey with a Collection of Portraits

Published by Cressida's Transformations
www.cressidastransformations.com
No.1 Brookford Place
Christchurch
New Zealand
© Kathleen Notman 2007
ISBN13 9780473122812

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Journey with a Collection of Portraits

Dedicated to my husband, Richard E Morling

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Journey with a Collection of Portraits

PORTRAITS

Page No. 7 Kaleidoscopic image of a 1920s Flapper
No. 13 Facets-2
No. 16 Beauty Lost
No. 19 Floss
No. 24 Mata Hari
No. 26 Edwardian Lady
No. 30 Woman of the Night
No. 36 Hilda in the Playtime World
No. 39 Bareback rider in a Travelling Circus
No. 43 Eaten by Poverty
No. 47 Hannah’s Mother
No. 55 Despair of the Girl he used to call, Baby
No. 58 Maria
No. 59 More Unusual than Beautiful
No. 63 Hanged by the Neck …
No. 65 Votes for Women
No. 66 Lesbian Love
No. 68 Shop Dummy
No. 69 Brigitte
No. 73 Purple Patch
No. 78 A Fantasy
No. 83 The Fortune-teller
No. 85 Girl in the Orange and Yellow Dress
No .90 Mask of the Sex Symbol Exploited
No. 99 Feminine Wiles
No. 103 Sex Play

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Journey with a Collection of Portraits

They say that everyone has a story to tell – and that’s definitely true in the case of New
Zealand artist Kathleen Notman.
Her book Journey with a Collection of Portraits is a captivating account of her colourful life
and how her experiences, and the people she met, influenced her art.
Notman, born in 1929, grew up in the Midlands of England and lived briefly in Singapore,
before immigrating to New Zealand. Through her own experiences and observations she
brings to life some of the historic events that shaped the 20th century and explores her own
journey of self-discovery – a journey she has catalogued through the years with portraits
which blend painting and photography.
Narrated in the first person, Journey with a Collection of Portraits, is cleverly crafted and
strikingly illustrated with Notman’s own art. The story behind each portrait is explained as
Notman fulfils her need to return them to the places – and the people – that inspired them.
Journey with a Collection of Portraits not only provides an insight into the life of a determined
and gifted woman but it also provides an insight into the female psyche and how art tells its
own story.
(Review: Lois Watson.)
Lois Watson is an awarding-winning journalist.

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Journey with a Collection of Portraits

“Secrets”

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1 CHRISTCHURCH TO AUCKLAND

Chapter 2 AUCKLAND TO SINGAPORE

Chapter 3 MY BASE IN ENGLAND

Chapter 4 LEICESTERSHIRE

Chapter 5 BOSTON, LINCOLNSHIRE

Chapter 6 BACK TO LONDON

Chapter 7 SOMERSET

Chapter 8 BACK TO LONDON AGAIN

Chapter 9 LONDON TO LOS ANGELES

Chapter 10 AUSTRALIA

Chapter 11 AUSTRALIA TO AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND

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Journey with a Collection of Portraits

“Kaleidoscopic Image of a 1920s Flapper”

The Oxford Dictionary definition of KALEIDOSCOPE is:

Tube through which are seen symmetrical patterns produced by reflections of pieces of
coloured glass and varied by rotation of the tube (often fig. of shifting colours, changing
groups of objects etc.) (Gk. Kalos – beautiful, eidos – form, - scope)

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Journey with a Collection of Portraits

INTRODUCTION

People admired the clothes I designed and made for myself. Some even asked where they
could be bought. Because of the demand I established a small exclusive service 'for the
woman too old to look young and too young to look old', as stated in my advertisements. I
gave myself the name 'Cressida'. I liked the sound of it.

The year was 1976. Newspaper advertisements included a photograph, taken by me,
modelling one of my gowns. In New Zealand at that time, photographic processing services
were abysmal. More often than not, black and white prints were ruined by little white flecks. I
concealed these by superimposing squiggles of white oil paint that vaguely resembled flowers
and leaves. The images looked attractive and reproduced well.

Exasperated by the poor quality prints, I learned how to develop and process my own films,
setting up a darkroom in my laundry at home. Sometimes, I would stay up all night creating
weird images. I remember inadvertently dropping a piece of exposed paper into a puddle of
water on the floor, picking it up and plunging it into the developer. The result was interesting.

Yet I still had the urge to put paint onto a print. I began to superimpose colourful paintings
onto black and white images. However, the playing could not go on. I was trying to establish
a commercial operation to design clothes for the mature woman. I was trying to make money.
Ultimately, I came face to face with the fact that commerce is not in my genes. I come from a
line of painters, photographers and poets (most of whom died unrecognised and poor). I was
not interested in making money. I needed to create art.

Could emotion be transformed into shapes and colours and superimposed on a photographic
portrait of a person?

Yes, it could. I could. I discovered a way to express myself. Moments of passion could be
transformed into shapes and colours. I would transform the feeling of love into an image. I
envisaged a collection of portraits that combined the physical and emotional aspects of my
subjects - portraits based upon women about whom I had read. Then, I wondered where I
would find the models? Even if I could find them, I could not afford them. I had used amateur
models before and the results were disastrous. To use myself seemed obvious. I could not tell
someone else how to feel the passion that I felt. I had the perfect model. I did not require
payment.

Soon I developed a style that interpreted the philosophy that the mind and body are one.
Emotion should not be hidden. A portrait should show the physical aspect and the emotional
aspect of the subject. I had no thoughts of how critics might regard this style of portraiture. I
was not interested. I am different. I have always been different - sometimes outrageous. My
art is different and sometimes outrageous.

I began my first portrait in 1977 and decided that collectively, the work would be titled '20th
CENTURY WOMAN'.

In each portrait, the physical aspect of the subject is photographed and emotion is painted.
Emotion is transformed into colours and shapes and superimposed on the photographic
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Journey with a Collection of Portraits
portrait. The collection was finished in 1987. It is a general comment about women in the
20th century. At the beginning of a new century, it would have been no different had it been
completed today. Women’s suffrage, liberation, sexuality, obsession with youth, all has a part
in this unusual history of 20th century woman. Appropriately, it is seen in the context of
contemporary art. It is an incomplete history and much is omitted.

I have been asked many times why I painted emotion. From facial expressions in many of
the portraits, the subject’s emotions are obvious. My answer is that emotion is throughout the
body, not just in the face and the exterior frame. Everything within the body interacts and
deeply felt emotion affects all the senses. Like an actor, I absorbed the character. I became the
subject I was portraying. I was my own model and because I was so intent on being the
character, on occasions I looked like the character I portrayed. I felt what she felt as I caught
the moment of intense emotion - love, hate, despair … The images I painted were not charted,
they just happened, almost as if emotion was spewed out of my body and transformed into
shapes and colours.

For this work, I studied the subject of emotion, beginning with some of the theories of
Freud. I went on to read about some of the experiments made by scientists into the chemical
effects of emotion. 'The Seamless Web', a book written by the eminent American scholar,
critic and poet, Stanley Burnshaw, is a study of the ontology of the poem. Much of it is
relevant to other forms of art and is a work that has had an enormous influence on me.

I believe that 'the spirit' is a myth frequently confused with the reality of emotion. Emotion
takes precedence in my work. It is not a backdrop for the physical aspect of some
indeterminate thing outside the body - it is real.

There were two exhibitions. When I came to look for exhibition space in an art museum
everything was booked a long way ahead and as I was in a hurry, I chose the Christchurch
Town Hall, New Zealand. As it happened, it was an ideal place to exhibit. People who were
not accustomed to visiting art galleries enjoyed looking at it. Something different, art was
different in that it could be readily understood.

“Who are these women?” one may have asked. Under each portrait, I wrote a lengthy
description. 'A sad Hannah Kleinerova in England in 1939, - unable to speak English …'
began one. 'The lady imagines she’s a shop dummy, a lifeless form, flawless beauty,
impervious to pain and sorrow,' said another. Some women felt that after viewing this
collection they had gained a better understanding of themselves. In this collection, they saw
the woman who fantasised about being adored by a man, the woman who fantasised about
being a lesbian … I wondered if there is a Cressida in most women and if different
personalities emerge only in fantasies and dreams. I wondered if I was expressing the
multiplicity of feelings experienced by most women.

In the Christchurch Town Hall in 1987 when these rather strange, at times beautiful, and
other times ugly images were shown, both men and women looked at them, read about them
and related to them.

Some months later, I exhibited the collection again. Creating the work had dominated my
thinking for 10 years and I knew I would have to move on. The portraits were cluttering up
my studio. Realising the time had come to split it up I felt I must take the portraits to where I
considered they belonged, to the places where I had met the subjects. This was a difficult
decision. I had been engrossed in the work for 10 years. The subjects, some with many
failings, had become very close to me and I knew them well. Art can be therapeutic and
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Journey with a Collection of Portraits
cathartic. It can bring comfort, solace, compassion, understanding, and fulfilment. Creating
this collection brought me all of these things.

The first portrait, 'FACETS' was sold at auction in Auckland, New Zealand, for $600. An
article in the 'New Zealand Herald' with the headline THE ARTIST'S MODEL IS HERSELF
revealed for the first time that I was the model in all the portraits. While I was pleased to have
the publicity, the gimmicky aspect of it was not appealing and thereafter I made sure it would
not again detract from my art.

From New Zealand, my journey took me to Singapore where I had lived years before and
met a Dutch Eurasian girl who inspired the portrait, 'FLOSS'. I went on to England and
Europe. The rest of the portraits were sold mainly to private collectors and some were given
away while others were abandoned in various parts of the world.

The journey is a remarkable story retracing the footsteps of my earlier life. In Singapore, a
dealer asked if he could have 'BEAUTY LOST' in lieu of commission for selling 'FLOSS'. In
London, art auctioneers, Christie's, warned that the portrait offered, 'THE AGEING
PROSTITUTE', would not fetch what it deserved because it was unattractive and that a work
combining photography and painting would not be popular with collectors.

I felt comfortable with what I had done. Reproductions of most of the portraits are still
available and I am happy to say, in demand. Some have appeared in magazines with stories I
have written in relation to art and photography, others in advertisements.

When the original portraits were gone, I felt empty. I had spent many hours creating them,
living and sleeping with them, and travelling with them on an amazing journey to their
destinations.

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