Home Page: The ARTedUK Interviews > Maggi Hambling    Photograph: Ellen James  The ARTedUK Interviews Maggi Hambling in conversation with ARTedUK's Imogen Bosence       I meet Maggi Hambling in the afternoon. This is probably a mistake, as I have spent the morning becoming increasingly nervous - she has a reputation for being a rather fierce interviewee. I have also heard she does not take at all kindly to lateness. I knock at the door and glance at my watch. I'm early. Can't decide if this is a good thing. The door is answered by her assistant, accompanied by two small dogs. Maggi Hambling is sitting at a desk with her back to the door, ruffling some paperwork. ‘You're early!' she barks, without turning round. ‘Yes, sorry about that. I was a bit worried about being late.' She continues the paper shuffling for what seems like about ten minutes. Becoming increasingly uncomfortable looking at the back of her head, I turn and examine the volumes in a nearby bookcase. Oscar Wilde, Stephen Fry, George Melly, Bacon, Picasso, Matisse, Jarman, Suffolk, Jesus, The Sea, Death, Cigarettes... Eventually I am shown to a conservatory at the back of the house, and we sit down on a large sofa. She assesses my tense state with a smile in the corner of her mouth. ‘So, what do you want to talk about?'                          When did you realise you were an artist? I’d decided I wanted to try and be an artist, but my parents needed some kind of encouragement that it was a good idea       I remember staying up very late one night until 2 o’clock in the morning, trying to paint the night sky out of my bedroom window. I took the results into school the next day, and they were all laid out on the table. The art teacher came in, and I was crying, or on the point of crying. I said I had done these paintings last night, and the other girls were laughing at them. She said ‘It has to be of no consequence. You are your own best critic.’ Yvonne Drewey was the art teacher. She was a practicing painter, a real artist. She said ‘I think you are an artist’, and from then I began to take it seriously.               I’d decided I wanted to try and be an artist, but my parents needed some kind of encouragement that it was a good idea. So I took my first two oil paintings, Suffolk landscapes, up to Cedric Morris and Lett Haines who lived on the outskirts of Hadleigh in Suffolk where I grew up. They ran the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing. They said I should come along and paint in the holidays, and then my life changed completely.               I worked in the kitchen with Lett, drew and painted. It was in the kitchen that the most important things were said to me. Lett said ‘If you’re going to be an artist, you have to make your work your best friend. You can go to it, whatever you’re feeling. So if you’re tired, feeling happy, feeling miserable, feeling depressed, feeling randy, whatever you’re feeling, go to your work, as if it were your best friend.' So I did that, I’ve done that. I took it to heart and I’ve lived my life in that way. Another important thing Lett said was: ‘There’s no point in anyone trying to be an artist unless they have an imagination. It is the most important thing, it is a necessity.’                     So then I walked out of A-level half way through and went to Ipswich Art School. I did what was called in those days, a Pre Diploma. It was a very good course. We did a different thing every day of the week, so you could see what all the things were before you chose which you were going to do. I was there for 2 years, because I was too young to do the Diploma, which was no bad thing. I learned to roll cigarettes extremely well.                               What is art school really? Well, it’s a bit of time you are given. A bit of time in which to learn things       Then, rather marvellously, I got into Camberwell. 1964. Nobody at my interview discussed my work at all. Robert Medley was the Head of Painting, and we discussed Oscar Wilde, for some reason. What is art school really? Well, it’s a bit of time you are given. A bit of time in which to learn things. Everything then was slower. I worked from life. I made experiments in Pop Art and Op Art, in Abstract Expressionism - all the things that were fashionable then, you know?               So, we didn’t have a lot of money, and we worked very, very hard. But at the same time, the whole thing was really quite glamorous       The life room at Camberwell in those days was full of 'Francis Hoylands', and people that only worked in earth colours. A lot of grunting and farting and that kind of thing. Nobody ever put a face on the model, there were never any features. I couldn’t understand that. I was being, mercifully, quite perverse, and I decided to go up to the model and ask her what colour her eyes were. She said blue, so I painted them in blue. Nobody had ever done that, it was really quite subversive to paint the face of the model. Anyway, it was the 60s. The swinging 60s, the end of censorship in the theatre and all that. Carnaby Street, the Royal College dances, David Hockney covered in makeup. It was quite fantastic. I had a very good head start really, in that way, going to parties. It was an idyllic life, although we were very poor. We had to save up during the week to buy one pint of bitter on Saturday. So, we didn’t have a lot of money, and we worked very, very hard. But at the same time, the whole thing was really quite glamorous. By the end of Camberwell, I had all this work. I could have either burned the lot, or had an exhibition. There was this little gallery in Hadleigh Suffolk, where I grew up, which offered me an exhibition, so it just happened. I had drawings for £1 each, and the largest painting, which I think was 6 by 5 feet  was £16. I sold a lot. So for that year, for the first time ever, I didn’t have to have a holiday job. It was great. So that’s really where it began. An extraordinary thing.               With a great piece of luck, I got into the Slade.  I painted for the first term, and then gave it up. There were a lot of big abstract paintings going on, and they didn’t have anything to do with the ‘man on the street’, which was who I was trying to get through to. Geoff MacEwan, Harry Biggin and I spent the rest of our time at the Slade building an ‘Audio-Visual Environment’. They didn’t have anything like a tape recorder at the Slade at that time, but being a civilised place, they tried to get us the equipment we needed. Anyway, no one wanted to show this thing, except a gallery in South Kensington. It was a very respectable gallery. So it was quite an irony that we were trying to get through to the man on the street and we ended up showing it in an art gallery. Never mind. Sally, the cleaner at the Slade liked it very much, which I know we were very pleased about.             it was quite an irony that we were trying to get through to the man on the street and we ended up showing it in an art gallery                                Then what happened after the Slade?         Then, no more art school. I managed to be an art student for 7 years. The final thing I did was to get a Boise Travel Award, and I went to America for 3 months. All I had to do in order to obey the terms of the award was to send the committee a postcard to prove I’d been there. I did a few drawings, and I wrote some poetry. But I do think it was a really crucial experience, because I think in England, you can make excuses all the time, and not get on with it. It was 1969. I went to Woodstock. That American thing of ‘lay it on the line and do it now’, that rat-racey thing was good. I already worked hard, but I think I came back and worked even harder. It went round in a full circle and I went back to painting pictures       I went on from the audio-visual thing to making work for the street. Then I gradually got disenchanted with having to be the impresario of my idea and not the executor of it. Always finding someone who knew more about photography than I did, or more about sound, more about this and that. Technical things that I needed other people for. I got bored of it. So it went round in a full circle and I went back to painting pictures.                       In a rather patronising way, in a rather arrogant way I think, I tried once again to get through to the man in the street. So I returned to painting. I painted people from memory. People in pubs. I would go to a pub, and if I found somebody very moving, I would try to commit that person, that face to memory. I trained my visual memory. See if I could remember the visual traits- that eyebrow, that nostril, or what ever it was. Then I’d go home and paint the portrait from memory. I didn’t make any drawings in situ.                   Max Wall was the only person who could pose laughing convincingly for me       Something that I personally find quite exciting about your work is that your models are not ‘sitters’, as such. That level of expression is very engaging. It’s like a second of time.       Max Wall was the only person who could pose laughing convincingly for me for three quarters of an hour, while I drew him. Most people can’t possibly. They laugh, and it’s gone. And that’s fine. But the thing that Lett said comes into it again, about imagination, and the thing of memory. I couldn’t have painted the series of paintings I’ve just done of George Melly since he died, or the ones of Henrietta [Moraes], or the ones of my father, without memory and imagination.       Anyway, they sold out, the portraits of people from memory, the pub people. It was my first exhibition in London, and it sold out, which is kind of amazing. It was 1973. Yes, Ipswich Art School 1962 to 64, Camberwell 64 to 67, Slade 67 to 69. Then my first show in London was 73. Even that was regarded as rather soon. Things were slower then, and I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. I don’t know really, but the impression I get is that everybody nowadays wants to be Damien Hirst, overnight.           Something I’m really interested to talk to you about are your depictions of Jesus. I paint what I'm moved to paint, and not what I'm told to paint, and that's very important       Well, I did a painting called Blue Jesus when I was at Camberwell - that was the first one of Jesus, and then there were more in the 80s. It's to do with the death of my mother, I think. My mother died in 1988. It's probably to do with that. My art teacher Yvonne Drury said ‘Don't choose a subject, let the subject choose you'. It was a very, very, very important thing to have said, because I paint what moves me in life. People say to me, what am I going to be painting in 6 months? I don't know. I don't know what is going to happen. That's how it is. Things happen. I paint what I'm moved to paint, and not what I'm told to paint, and that's very important.             You say that your subjects choose you, do you feel that you need them in some way, to deal with the path your life takes? I think it was George who said I'd go down in art history as Maggi ‘Coffin' Hambling       Well, I say a subject chooses me, one of those leaves could choose me to paint it. It can be anything. Somebody dying, a photograph in the newspaper, a tree, it can be anything at all. At the moment the pattern of my life has been painting the sea in Suffolk, and painting George Melly in London since he died. I think that is where artists are very lucky. They can try to come to terms with death. Work helps. It seems quite natural to me. If you love someone, they are still alive inside you. I think it was George who said I'd go down in art history as Maggi ‘Coffin' Hambling.         The thing that strikes me about all your portraits is they consistently look very alive       A painting comes alive then it dies, comes alive then dies, lots of times when you're painting it. You have to make sure that you leave that painting when it's alive. Some paintings die too often, and you have to cut them up, get rid of them. But, you know, when something has life to it, the most difficult thing is knowing when to stop.   It's this thing of bringing everything together into one moment. The moment of a wave shattering, the moment of a person about to move     Can we talk about Waves, and Suffolk, and your shell sculpture. Do you make different work in London than you do in Suffolk? Not at all. The last painting I did of George, which was a very big head, someone said it was like looking at one of my waves. The movement going through it. It's all the same thing to me. It's all a question of how moved you are. I'm still absolutely obsessed with that bit of sea of mine, off the Suffolk coast. I'm in Suffolk much more than I'm in London now, and I go every morning, draw the sea, and then come back to the studio and paint it. Painting the movement of the waves is the same as painting a person in front of me breathing. It's quite simple, it's all the same thing. It's this thing of bringing everything together into one moment. The moment of a wave shattering, the moment of a person about to move. Even if they've come into the studio and left it several times, you've got to bring all that time into one moment.                   I want to ask you about photography. There are paintings that don’t seem to ‘fit’ with any of the others, and seem to be quite strongly political, like Darfur, Friendly Fire and Gulf Women Prepare for War I’m assuming these were all in reaction to photos.         Not Friendly Fire - I completely invented that, but yes, Darfur was because of a very, very moving photograph in the paper. The trouble with photographs is that they either give you too much information, or not enough. You know, if I took a photograph of that vase of flowers, and tried to paint from the photograph, it wouldn't give me nearly as much information as if I'd made a drawing of that vase of flowers and then painted it. Photographs are flat. That vase of flowers is not flat.             I find these paintings very interesting, because they're quite shocking. Not just because of the subject-matter, but because they seem quite out of place in conjunction with some of your other work. It makes me wonder why you decided to do them. it is a delicate balance of being vulnerable enough to be moved by something, but at the same time having a backbone of steel       It's what moves me. There's a painting up there now that I did quite recently of a dead Scallop-Headed Shark, because of what is being done to the sea in the place where these sharks live. It was floating dead, and it shocked me, so I did a painting of it. Like something Victor Musgrave once said to me - it is a delicate balance of being vulnerable enough to be moved by something, but at the same time having a backbone of steel against criticism. You know, that dicey thing.     Your self portraits have that exact quality, that vulnerability. You seem to be quite self critical in some of your self portraits. Yes     But every photograph I've seen of you, without fail, you look incredibly stern. Stern?           Yes, it's a very stern expression, and you're not really like that. It's interesting that there are two Maggi Hamblings presented to us. The self portraits, and then the very stern photos.     photograph: Ellen James       When I'm painting myself, it is in my own hands, isn't it? Otherwise, it's in the photographer's hands. I don't enjoy being photographed at all, and possibly that shows. I don't know. I find it very difficult to smile for photographs, so I suppose it's why I look stern. I don't know. Right. Enough!           Thank you.                       Websites: http://www.maggihambling.com http://www.iapfineart.com Latest News: Dame Maggi Hambling has been awarded the CBE for her services to art in the 2010 New Year's Honours List