Prunella Clough - Approach to Industry and Techniques

Prunella Clough (1919 – 1999) – Research: Techniques, Painting/Printmaking

 Prunella Clough was a major UK artist for over fifty years and had an acute sense of place. Paul Nash was a major influence, along with Graham Sutherland and Henry Moore. Her early works display elements of neo -romanticism, surrealism and cubism as seen below. During the 1950s Clough concentrated on men at work in manual roles, reflecting the post-war industrial recovery. She has been associated with the movement known as “social realism” as promoted by her influential friend John Berger. However, works across her whole career are wide ranging, displaying an ability to observe and translate thought into images. She continuously experimented with subject matter and technique. From the 1960s her work became more abstract and the figure disappeared. She focussed on the industrial landscape, scrap and then the post-industrial decline. She liked to say small things “edgily”. Later in her career, Clough turned her attention to commodities and the consumer society, providing her own take on the society she lived in. Clough was not only a painter, but also a proficient print maker, and worked with collage and “found” objects. Clough displayed a deep understanding of her surroundings and the times she lived through, using sight, words and memory. She left a rich legacy of works and evidence of her techniques and working practices which can be accessed through the Tate archives.

Style(s)

Clough’s early works portray her frequent visits to the Suffolk coast. She liked the somewhat grey and cloudy light and the quiet shoreline. In Sea Composition, 1940, Clough uses a subdued palette for an almost surreal still life on the sea shore. There is a ghostly light falling on the scene, which is reminiscent of the neo-romantic style of the period, personified by Paul Nash and others. The work is very atmospheric.

 

Sea Composition, 1940

Clough then went on to study the port of Lowestoft, further along the coast, and the working practices of the fishermen there. She made detailed notes as to what she saw to aid her memory and she also bought postcards to use in her studio. She rarely made sketches on site. In Fishermen with Sprats, 1948 the men’s solid forms dominate the scene. Clough continued with her theme of the industrial society, but now turned her attention to factories, the shop floor, the print workshop, lorries and other scenes where the figure still dominated.

Fishermen with Sprats,1948

Gradually however, the figure disappears from Clough’s work and she turns more to industrial landscape, gradually moving towards “scrap” and abstraction. In an etching, Corrugated Fence, 1955 Clough takes up a third of the space with the fence, depicted with textured wavy lines, above which pop up dark shapes of industrial buildings, sheds, chimneys, funnels and towers. Electrical Area, 1961 is a lithograph, using a few marks, like a charcoal sketch. Industrial Interior V, 1960 moves in close on the subject matter of heavy industrial machinery. The space being filled with dark, geometric, mechanical shapes, with rods, lines, levers and pulleys, the composition cropped for emphasis.

Corrugated Fence, 1955, etching

 

Electrical Area, 1961, lithograph

 

Industrial  Interior V, 1960

Another example of Clough’s interest in industry is By the Canal, 1976. In response to a letter from the Tate, Clough refused to define the painting and generally had a dislike of words attempting to explain or interpret her art, preferring the eye to do the work. However, By the Canal, with its dreary colours, concrete looking block and watery, weeping paintwork conjures up direct imaginings of walks on grey days by derelict, abandoned canals. The Tate received a similar response when they enquired about the location of the cooling tower featured in Cooling Tower II, 1978, which is similarly flat with a scratchy surface. However, we do know that Clough took photographs of such towers to work from, which she left with her archives.

By the Canal, 1976

 

Cooling Tower II, 1978

 

Clough once found an abandoned working man’s glove on an industrial site she visited, which she used in some images. We see this in Mesh with Glove, 1980s  in combination with the grid effect that fascinated her. Gates were also a recurrent theme, sometimes in geometric shapes, such as Broken Gates, 1982 depicted in jagged broken, spindly lines.

Mesh with Gloves, 1980s

 

Broken Gates, 1982

 

Working methods (Tate Archives)

Clough very rarely made on-site sketches, although there are a few examples. Her works are based on photographs, notes, some physical props and memory.

Photographs/Postcards

There are numerous examples of postcards she bought to remind herself of views and situations, such as the fishermen at Lowestoft Harbour. Photographs which she took herself, disclose her interests, and sometimes unusual ways of looking at things. Clough’s photographs also include a number recording light effects, shadow patterns on the street or the light streaming in through a window, which would give her inspiration for a painting. She did not slavishly copy these pictures as her paintings show. For example, her painting Cooling Tower II, 1978 is very different from her photograph of the same subject. The figure has been removed and only one tower appears. She used her judgment to create the best composition she could relating to the particular theme in question.

Postcard, Lowestoft Harbour

Photograph, Cooling Towers

 

Cropping/Re-working

Sometimes she took a photograph which she framed herself from a cropped point of view, see for example her photograph of the legs on the ladder. Otherwise she would take a photograph which she would later manipulate by cropping and re-imagining. Sometimes she would re-work an old postcard, re-cycling both materials and sometimes earlier ideas.

Photograph -  Cropped Point of View

Notes and letters

In Fishermen with Sprats, 1948 she relied heavily on a very detailed and vivid account of the men and the lively fish which she saw and described in her original notes. Her notes on factories and industry are thoughtful and make links with what she is trying to say – “Consider final intention…..”. Sometimes, and often with David Carr, we see her discussing thoughts and ideas, and often they would bounce ideas off each other, such as their mutual admiration of the works of L.S. Lowry and their views on the industrial landscape. She also made colour notes using her own descriptions to aid her memory. Mostly her colours were dull and murky, within a narrow tonal range but in later life, particularly during the phase when she was interested in cheap plastic goods, her colours were very vibrant.

Colour Notes

 Print-making/ Sculpture/Collage

From her early days Clough was good at practicalities which enhanced her working methods. She enjoyed her sculpture classes and this must have helped her to create form as well as to manipulate materials. Throughout her life she practiced print making and was very accomplished at it. Some of these techniques must have transferred to her painting techniques, as we see a number of works where heavy scratching is in use, such as By the Canal, 1976.  She would also sometimes add matter to her paint to get the required result, such as cellulose wadding, in the same picture. Clough would also sometimes incorporate collage or grids which she would also use to create paintings or incorporate into other works. Stencils were also a useful tool. In Mesh with Glove, 1980s we see an example of her use of a grid and the image of a found object.

In her own words

In 1949 Prunella Clough wrote: ‘Whatever the theme it is the nature and structure of an object—that, and seeing it as if it were strange and unfamiliar, which is my chief concern.’ She liked the dilapidated and the scruffy and called her views of industrial and barren land “urbscapes”. She summarised her approach as “saying a small thing edgily”. In a 1982 interview with Bryan Robertson, she said: "Living rooms are not exactly enough. I enjoyed the drama of the exotic, which was what factories or industrial areas offered me." Put together in combination, these key elements make the outcome of her work always interesting and thought provoking.

Relevance to my own practice

Her concept of approaching small things as topics resonates with me. It is often the small things which denote the character of a place and give it individuality and character. As a result, I am starting my practical work by choosing some objects on the outer approach to the South Ferriby locks to find and depict objects which have been used, but which are now abandoned, such as old jetties, mooring ropes, chains and driftwood. I also think that I can learn much from her working methods, such as colour notes, photography and cropping. I think that Clough had a great sense of place, and in particular, she really captures the post-war era with her concentration in the 1950s and 60s of everyday scenes and objects.

References:

Spalding F., Prunella Clough: regions unmapped, 2012, Lund Humphries, Surrey, UK

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/prunella-clough-921

[Accessed 19th November, 2018]