Vivienne Roberts and the College of Psychic Studies, London - MEET THE COLLECTOR Series Part Eleven
I chose friend and art collector Vivienne Roberts to be my eleventh in the series. Vivienne is currently the Curator at the College of Psychic Studies in London, so this interview features the College and its collection too. It seems apt to share Vivienne this week as not only has Raw Visions’ latest magazine dropped, with a focus on females, but the Outsider Art Fair makes its appearance in Paris and on Friday 18 October OAF will host Women Collecting Art Brut, an evening dedicated to the recognition of female self-taught artists as well as, for the first time, female collectors.
Vivienne Roberts and the Madge Gill on the Gallery of Everything Frieze Masters booth
1. When did your interest in the field of outsider art begin?
My interest began after meeting Roger Cardinal in 2000 at a Surrealist symposium held at West Dean in Chichester which was the former home of the famous Surrealist patron, Edward James. Roger told me about Madge Gill and it started from there.
2. When did you become a collector of this art?
I’ve always collected things and could happily spend every spare minute trawling through auction catalogues, antiques centres, art fairs and junk shops. Collecting this type of art has been a passion for around 12 years now and is particularly exciting as it can be discovered in all sorts of unusual places. I came across the work of Ben Wilson while he was lying on the street painting his miniature masterpieces on chewing gum that was stuck to the pavement. That encounter led to numerous pieces in my collection and four exhibitions of his work between 2008-13.
3. Do you often put on exhibitions of artists you collect?
Yes, I have previously funded my collecting by putting on shows of the artists I like. For me, curating and collecting go hand in hand, although, it is often a difficult choice of what to sell and what to keep.
4. Can you tell us a bit about your background?`
I worked in the City for 14 years, but that was a long time ago now. In 1999 I decided to change direction and left to study the history of art. It was the best decision I have ever made.
Vivienne and a Frantisek Jaroslav Pecka on the Gallery of Everything Frieze Masters booth
5. What is it that draws your eye away from contemporary art to outsider/spiritual/mediumistic art? Or do you collect it all?
I studied contemporary art for my Masters so it made sense to concentrate on that period afterwards. However, apart from street art which I love, I soon realised that I would often feel that something was missing in my emotional response to the art. When Roger Cardinal introduced me to the works of self-taught creators something clicked. Around the same time I began to work for Julian Hartnoll who at that time had a gallery in Duke St, St James’s. He has been an artmonger since the 1960s and an expert in the art of the Pre-Raphaelites and Modern British artists such as John Bratby. He also has a brilliant eye for finding the unusual and is an avid collector. He taught me that it was important to follow your own path and have trust in your eye. I could not have asked for a better mentor to learn about collecting art. He also allowed me to use his gallery space for my first shows of outsider art which was a great support. It meant I could show works I liked and not always with a view to commercial success which was fortunate because at that time outsider art in the UK was still difficult to sell. I also remember Roger Cardinal saying to me at my first show that I had chosen a hard field to furrow.
6. What style of work, if any, is of particular interest to you within this field? (for example is it embroidery, drawing, sculpture, and so on).
I like it all, but due to space limitations I prefer to concentrate on two dimensional works. There was a period when I was fascinated by fairground art and collected numerous parts of rides and sideshows from the 1930s onwards. I was fascinated that these untrained artists were unknowingly creating a hybrid of pop and folk art. It was also great fun driving around the country trawling through salvage yards to find these quirky objects. I kept my favourite pieces and put on several shows of the rest. I can still see the bemused response of passers by the gallery in St James’s when I hung festoons of flashing fairground lights around the gallery for the exhibitions.
7. When did your interest in spiritual and mediumistic work begin and do you favour this over outsider art now?
My interest started with the work of Madge Gill around 2000, and grew steadily from there. I set up madgegill.com in 2009 and put on a small exhibition of her work around the same time. In 2012, Roger Cardinal asked me to help curate an exhibition of her work at the Orleans House Gallery in Twickenham with Henry Boxer and Mark De Novellis. My role was to bring together works by other spirit artists to add context to the exhibition. Looking back it was this moment when I began to favour mediumistic art over other categories of art brut. I wrote an essay in the catalogue on Madge and Spiritualism and while researching discovered the College of Psychic Studies in South Kensington. They had so many incredible artists in their collection such as Georgiana Houghton, Anna Howitt Watts and Ethel le Rossignol. Their collection of art is astonishing. In 2020 I set up the website mediumisticart.com - please take a look.
8. Would you say you had a favourite artist or piece of work within your collection? And why?
Georgiana Houghton and Madge are definitely favourites. I particularly treasure a small calico which belonged to a young boy called Leslie Bevan who met Madge around 1930. It came with a letter he had written as a grown-up in the 1960s describing his meeting with Madge and gave a rare insight into her character.
Vivienne’s Madge Gill calico
9. Is there an exhibition in this field of art that you have felt has been particularly important? And why?
The Georgiana Houghton exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery in 2016, Emma Kunz at the Serpentine 2019 and Hilma af Klint at the Guggenheim, New York, 2019 are definitely the most important shows for paving the way for acceptance of this often neglected genre of art.
I’d like to think that Art & Spirit: Visions of Wonder, 2019, at the College of Psychic Studies will be seen as important in this field for highlighting new discoveries such as Alice Pery, Alice Essington Nelson and Ethel Annie Weir.
10. Where would you say you buy most of your work from: a studio, art fairs, auctions, exhibitions, or direct from artists?
I have bought works from all of those avenues, as well as other collectors and private owners. My collection is probably an equal split of all of them.
11. What sort of pieces are you looking to continue to add to your collection?
I have a long wish list of spirit artists including some examples that I have seen in my research but are by anonymous artists so difficult to find. I spend a lot of my time hunting for those works.
Install shot of Georgiana Houghton and Anna Mary Watts
12. Do you ever loan pieces out from your collection and, if so, what would make you want to loan the work out to particular shows?
It depends on the exhibition and the curator. Mediumistic art can sometimes attract ridicule so I would only lend to exhibitions that take the work seriously such as the fantastic World Receivers exhibition at Lenbachhaus in Munich curated by Karin Althaus. It brought together a large body of work by Hilma af Klint, Emma Kunz and Georgiana Houghton for the first time. It was a pleasure to be a part of that exhibition. I am drawn to exhibitions that show mediumistic art as an equal to other genres of art and not just for their interest as a historical objects which contemporary artists can respond. There has to be the right balance.
13. You recently curated a large exhibition at the College of Psychic Studies in London spanning over six floors featuring both works from the College’s collection as well as loaned pieces. ‘Visions of Wonder’ was an incredible feat, so can you tell us more about the reasons behind this show and the themes running across the exhibition?
Over the last few years there has been a marked rise in the interest of spirit art from the public and the mainstream artworld. The majority of this interest has been directed at a handful of women like Georgiana Houghton who presented their spiritual belief in abstract forms. Georgiana was a founder member of the College in 1884 along with fellow mediumistic artist, Anna Howitt Watts. We wanted to put on an exhibition that acknowledged their pioneering work as well as celebrate the diversity of all the spirit artists that came after them. This involved showing artists working mediumistically, automatically and psychically. It was important for me to present relatively unknown artists from the collection as equal to the more established ones, and to show visitors art from contemporary artists working in a similar way today such as Cathy Ward, Chris Neate, Jan Arden, Aradne, Zinnia Nishikawa and Margot. These were not necessarily working mediumistically, but had developed some sort of psychic or spiritual practice in their art. Another important element of the exhibition was that it was held in the College which is a space steeped in Spiritualist history. This gave visitors an authentic experience of walking in the footsteps of Spiritualist pioneers such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and be able to feel the wonderful energy of the building while looking at some incredible art and photography as well as a cornucopia of seance related objects.
install shot of Ethel le Rossignol
14. Alongside the exhibition you created a special edition of Light Magazine for the College of Psychic Studies focusing on the life and work of Madge Gill. Can you tell us more about this and the research that went into it?
Previous research on Madge has been dominated by Madge’s outsider credentials and her mental health. It is often stated that she dabbled in seances, but her guide, Myrninerest, was more of a convenient invention to hide behind as she felt she did not have the right to be an artist. I felt there was more to Madge and wanted to delve deeper into her spiritualist connections to see what I could find. I thought it would be a few weeks of research and a two page article in the College magazine. In the end it took 8 months and ended up being enough material for a special edition. (Jennifer and Vivienne will have copies of this at the OAF Paris should you wish to get one)
15. What kind of discoveries did you find?
It was great to discover that the College published a small feature about Madge at the beginning of her career in 1922. Also, that her first exhibition was at a Spiritualist Congress in Belgium in 1923. In the audience was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who became the President of the College shortly after. That was an exciting find. Another artist that was shown at the same time was Marian Spore Bush who was as equally fascinating as Madge. In the ‘Visions of Wonder’ exhibition I devoted a room to these two incredible women and showed their work together again for the first time since the Congress in 1923. Another memorable find was discovering that Madge used the name Kharmastra when offering her services as an astrologer in the 1930s. Overall, I hope I have gone some way to proving that esoteric studies were much more important to Madge than previously assumed. Madge has given me so much joy over the years, this was my way of giving something back to her.