Description
Art, innit?
Well apparently not in 1968, when Uk Customs and Excise decided Brian Willsher’s self-described “doodles in wood” were in fact ‘non-sculpture’ and ‘household decoration’, and slapped a 40% tax on the sales of his work.
Sir Henry Moore vehemently disagreed, and defending Willsher declared it “Pure sculpture, indeed… more than that, memorable sculpture!”
The incident sparked a national debate and raised the question ‘What is art?’, fuelled in part by Willsher’s lack of formal training, and compounded by his method of using a bandsaw to create his work.
Although this tax was eventually lifted, the incident left him bankrupt, and a disillusioned Brian Willsher turned his back on the art market and he didn’t exhibit again until the 1990s.
During this time he still created his sculptures from his home in Catford, South London, and for many years sold works (of varying quality) from stalls in Covent Garden and Hampstead.
But his art was always admired by those in the know, and along with that of his great London contemporary, Ron Hitchins, has steadily increased in popularity since their deaths in the last decade.
My Father once affectionately referred to it as “Geezer Art”, and these accessible forms of sculpture, produced by working men in cellars and sheds with a desire to express themselves against the backdrop of an increasingly permissive 1960s London, are now being appreciated and enjoyed by many more than just ‘geezers’.
This particularly impressive signed example is an unusual form, and although undated it is labelled with the number ‘4’, so I suspect it may be from one of his exhibitions, or possibly sold at London department store, Heal’s, where his work was retailed during the 1960s.
Height 41cm, Weight 1.63kg
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Viewings and collection welcome in London SE24.
