The Raw and the Cooked - essay by Stephen Farthing

A year or so ago, I was given a box of papers by a man I met in the bar of the Chelsea Arts Club in London, the box was one of those tray type boxes producer’s use to ship fruit to market. It contained the following: 

Correspondence starting 25.6.56 between Ruskin Spear, Paul Hogarth and V. Bogatyrev regarding an exhibition entitled LOOKING AT PEOPLE which traveled from The South London Art Gallery to Moscow. An article from the Daily Mail entitled THIS WITCH HUNT, by Shelagh Delaney naming Ruskin Spear as a possible member of the communist party. A carbon copy of a letter dated 1.5. 54 sent by Spear to the Daily Mail stating he was neither a communist, nor a member of the party. Bundles of invitations, letters of congratulation, receipts and photographs. A speech written for the general assembly of the RA on the 29th June 1954 about the state of the RA. A hand written first draft about his friend and fellow teacher at the RCA artist Robert Buhler. Various papers relating to meetings at the RA. A hand written piece about the Jekyll and Hyde nature of Ruskin Spear- author unknown, (possibly RB) and several ball point pen drawings by RS of Peter de Francia from about 1974-5, drawn during tutorials at the RCA, and finally two unpublished satirical poems written in rhyming couplets that take de Francia as their subject.... essay continues

The Raw & The Cooked 
STEPHEN FARTHING 
MARCH 2009