Bernard Myers (lots 139-158)

Work and travel in the Middle East and India introduced me to a world of colour. Under the influence of Islamic tiles and textiles, and Indian and Tibetan painting I set out to teach myself colour. My work at this time was mainly abstract and loosely based on astronomical and optical diagrams. Gradually I turned to realism via still life, working very precisely... (Bernard Myers)

Introduction
Trained as a gunner in the RAF during the Second World War, Bernard Myers studied at St Martin’s School of Art, Camberwell and the Royal College of Art. Fellow students included John Bratby and Jack Smith, Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff. After graduating ARCA in 1954, Myers taught, variously at Camberwell, Hammersmith and Ealing art schools, and was senior lecturer in drawing at the Architectural Association School. He returned to the RCA to teach for the following two decades, punctuated in 1968 and 1971 by stints as Visiting Professor at the Indian Institute of technology, New Delhi. His final teaching post was as Chair of Design Technology at Brunel University (1979-85).

Students at the RCA treasured Myers’ good advice. James Dyson remembered him as ‘cheerful, irrepressible [and] rather dapper… with a tweed suit and bowtie…’ But as well as being upbeat Myers was also appreciated for his considerable range of mind and intellect. On being made a Fellow, in his welcome speech the Dean noted that Myers ‘…must without doubt be the most versatile graduate ever to emerge from the Painting School. Since joining the College in 1961 he has been, by virtue of an encyclopaedic knowledge which comfortably bestrides the boundaries between the humane and the technological, and of his superlative gifts as a teacher, in demand by virtually every School and Department within the College…’

The plus side for Myers was that teaching left him free to practise his own art exactly as he wished. As he noted: ‘Some artists find that teaching interferes with their work. I find it clarifies my work.’ Indeed, he had an unstoppable compulsion to paint, incessantly exploring a wide range of subject matter, in particular the landscapes he encountered on his varied travels (lots 209-213), the still-lifes he worked on in his studio (lots 194,197,,200 & 203), the nudes he painted in weekly life-classes (195, 198, 201, 204), and his not infrequent forays into abstraction, precipitated in part by his fascination with space (lots 196, 199, 202, 205).

He married Pamela Fildes, grand-daughter of the painter Sir Luke Fildes in the early 1950s; they lived first in Windsor and then in Kensington before moving in 1974 into one of the studios overlooking the Thames at St Peter’s Wharf, purpose built by Julian Trevelyan, next to Hammersmith Terrace (lots 206-208). He had several one-man shows in the West End, the first at the New Art Centre in 1969; his last with Austin Desmond Fine Art in 1991. He wrote two books on Goya, others on the history of sculpture and How to Look at Art, and co-edited The Macmillan Encyclopedia of Art (1979). He also penned articles for The Artist (May 1988) on his highly original approach to pastel (lots 139-142 & 147-150), and Artists and Illustrators (1995) on his Venice views (lot 209).

STILL LIFE WITH FLOWERS AND PEARS ON A PLATTER
signed B Myers lower right; inscribed New Grafton 7 upper left margin
oil pastel on paper
52.5 x 72cm; 20 3/4 x 28 1/4in (image)
unframed