Talk of the town

Ruth Campbell discovers how Clive Head manages to hold his own among the Rembrandts and Leonardos.

ARTIST Clive Head has enjoyed spending time in the National Gallery over the past two weeks, quietly studying the general public as they, in turn, study his paintings.

But it is slowly dawning on this little-known North Yorkshire painter, who has unexpectedly taken the London art world by storm, that he can no longer disappear discreetly into the background.

For Head, whose trio of large, London cityscapes are being displayed in a modest sideroom exhibition linked to the National’s current major exhibition of Canalettos, is the talk of London’s art world.

His complex, detailed urban landscapes, featuring London’s Haymarket, seen through almost 300 degrees, a cafe in South Kensington, both inside and out, and an underground station stairway in Victoria, capture multiple views within single paintings.

Record crowds of more than 10,000 people a week are queuing up to view his works and lingering for up to an hour at a time just to stand and stare. “One chap sat for an hour, enthralled. The paintings invite the viewer in, I like to hear the comments.

“But I am now getting too frequently recognised to be able to do it,” says 45-year-old Head, who has just returned to the tranquillity of his beautiful old manor house outside Scarborough, where he lives with his wife and four children, aged seven to 17.

Colin Wiggins, the National Gallery’s chief curator, has been astonished by the reaction.

“It has broken records,” he says. “This is the most successful contemporary exhibition in this space. And it is the time people are spending in front of the pictures that is really impressive.

The room is always thronged. We are busy, busy.

“These are the sort of paintings that people really love and are drawn to, unlike what might be seen as ‘Turner Prize’, abstract, contemporary art which makes itself difficult for the public to engage with.”

Head, who came to Scarborough 14 years ago to run the art York University’s art department in the town, says he is always trying to make sense of the chaos of a large city in his works.

Critics have described it as Hyper or Cubist Realism.

The son of a mill machine operator, originally from Kent, he has been drawing and painting since he was four, producing accomplished oils and landscapes from the age of ten.

“I always drew like an adult, rather than a child and saw the world in a certain way, like an adult,” he says.

He starts each painting, which takes him up to four months to complete, by taking photographs and producing sketches from all angles of a scene in London, returning home to his studio in North Yorkshire to pull it all together.

“I make paintings which are incredibly complicated.

They have to be very carefully structured,”

he says.

“They are realist paintings, but with many different spaces and angles taken over a period of time. They deal with the same problems the Cubists and Futurists were dealing with.”

He finds it helpful to return to his rural home, where he can be more detached, he says.

“We have a large garden and I have a big studio here. Coming back from the busyness of the city to this quiet, calm environment gives me some distance. It is a bit of a retreat.”

He gave up teaching in 2000 to concentrate on painting. But his career suffered a setback when he developed a rare neurological muscular disorder more than five years ago, which left him at times struggling to walk.

He fully recovered only a year ago, when his particular chemical deficiency was accurately diagnosed and treated. Even though it was difficult, he kept painting throughout. “That is what kept me going. At times it was very bad, but with four children to support, it was important from a practical point of view.”

Away from the London art scene, Head is happier pursuing his own path from his base on the North Yorkshire coast, where he has many friends and keeps in contact with former students. “I like to keep a distance from the fads and fashions. The politics of the London art world are so complicated. In Yorkshire, it is so much easier, there isn’t a game going on.”

he says.

“And there is a level-headedness in Scarborough, which I like. People are interested in what I do but they have their own lives to get on with. It is a bit more of a circus in London.

I get stopped in the street more often in Mayfair than I do in Scarborough. It has gone a bit berserk.”

Although not widely known to the general public until now, Head has always been extremely successful in international art markets, where his paintings have sold for up to £160,000. He regularly exhibits in cities such as Rotterdam and Maastricht, as well as in West End galleries.

He is used to his work being snapped up by wealthy individuals and held in private collections all over the world. But it is the huge public appetite for his paintings that has taken him by surprise. “I feel warmed and intrigued by the interest,” he says.

It was Colin Wiggins, who saw Head’s work in a gallery in London two years ago, who first thought of pairing the paintings with the Canaletto exhibition, to give a contemporary twist to the great 18th Century Venetian’s work. “I saw how people were mesmerised by Head’s work,” he says.

He knew he was taking a risk, for to show a modern painting that can hold its own in the same building as a Leonardo and a Rembrandt is no easy feat. “Displaying contemporary work in the National Gallery is a delicate matter,”

he says. “It is easy for a contemporary artist to look like an incompetent idiot. But that is certainly not the case here. This is a fine example of contemporary and classical art which connect.

“There are just one or two fantastic cityscape painters in the world at the moment and Clive Head is one of these. He records his own experiences of walking through cities, being in a busy, chaotic, frantic, disorganised environment and making sense of it, which is what Canaletto does.”

Public feedback has been incredible, he adds, quoting one of the many positive comments the gallery has received. One said: “I am a Londoner and thought I knew the city. Looking at these amazing pictures, I realise there is so much I have been missing. Thank you so much for this exhibition.”

Despite the overwhelming acclaim, Head has no intention of leaving his beloved Scarborough.

He works hard at making sense of the chaos of city life. But Scarborough simply makes sense to him, effortlessly.

“We enjoy living by the sea. And I like the idea of being in a place at the end of a railway line. Scarborough isn’t somewhere you just pass through, there is a strong sense of identity here. Identity counts in Scarborough.”

■ Clive Head, Room One, National Gallery, until November 28. A Modern Perspective in London, a talk by Clive Head at the National Gallery, Friday, 6.30pm-7.30pm.

Tickets £6 to £4.