The Swinging Sixties’ Grooviest Art Dealer: In London, Remembering Robert Fraser, by by Edward M. Gómez in Hyperallergenic, 2015, a review of A Strong, Sweet Smell of Incense, the 2015 exhibition about Fraser at the Pace Gallery in Burlington Gardens, London (unfortunately some of the photo links appear to be broken)
Groovy Bob: The Life and Times of Robert Fraser, by Harriet Vyner (available on eBay; you can read it on the Internet Archive for free)
The Old Etonian Who Rolled with the Stones, by Mick Brown in the Telegraph, about A Strong, Sweet Smell of Incense, the 2015 exhibition about Fraser at the Pace Gallery in Burlington Gardens, London
Art Dealer Robert Fraser’s Swinging London, by Liesl Schillinger in the Wall Street Journal, 2015, about the Pace Exhibition but with much more detail & interviews
Cork Street Galleries: Portrait of Robert "Groovy Bob" Fraser, by Harriet Vyner, with photos of some of the art displayed at the Pace Exhibition
Art & the 60s, a BBC documentary about Robert Fraser and Kasmin (lots of clips and photos)
Tuesday Talks: David Stephenson, Harriet Vyner, Paul Gorman (February 2019), a discussion about the art scene in the Swinging Sixties and the late art dealer "Groovy Bob"
'Swingeing London': Art, Drugs and Wormwood Scrubs - HENI Talks, Harriet Vyner gives a snapshot of 1967
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Brian Clarke: Paintings was the exhibition that marked the reopening of Robert Fraser Gallery in 1983. Interest was so great that Cork Street had to be closed on the invitation-only opening night, with a crowd of 2,000 guests, which included film stars, fashion designers and pop musicians, spilling out into the street.
The exhibition presented Clarke’s large neo-Constructivist paintings.
Fraser and Clarke were close friends until Fraser's passing.
From the HENI Instagram:
HENI is deeply saddened to share that Sir Brian Clarke, widely regarded to be the most important artist working in stained glass today, has died aged 71.
Across his fifty-year career, @brian.clarke_ consistently revolutionised and pushed the boundaries of stained glass. He was commissioned to design stained glass for buildings across the world by leading architects and he made great efforts to revitalise interest and respect for stained glass as a medium of equal importance to other art forms.
He received his first commission for a stained glass window at the age of 17. His most celebrated projects include the Neue Synagogue in Darmstadt (1988), The Victoria Quarter, Leeds (1988-90), and Lake Sagami Country Club, Japan (1988-89). Earlier this year, ‘Concordia’, his major commission for @bahrainairport, was unveiled to great acclaim.
His work in stained glass, painting and sculpture was shown widely internationally, and his work can also be found in the permanent collection of the @vamuseum, @corningmuseum and @tate.
He was awarded a Knighthood in January 2024, becoming the first stained glass artist to be honoured for a medium that has significantly shaped the course of British art.
A visionary artist and cherished friend, he will be missed.
Clive Barker is a British pop artist whose first one-man shows were held at the Robert Fraser Gallery in 1968 and at the Hanover Gallery in 1969. He was a friend to Fraser.
This is the original painting for the silkscreen print which was executed in 1971; it was owned by Robert Fraser. It was part of the Pace Gallery exhibition in 2015 (Strong Sweet Smell of Incense).
It was sold at Bonhams in 2023 for £4,080.
Letter From Prison (7854 Fraser 1969) oil on canvas 91.5 x 61cm (36 x 24in).
The letter is from Wormwood Scrubs in 1967, while Fraser was in prison there; it says the letter sent is not allowed. Transcription below the cut:
HM Prison
Wormwood Scrubs
15 Aug 1967
Dear Sir,
I regret to have to return the enclosed letter addressed to 7854 Fraser as he is not entitled to receive one until he writes to you.
Should there be any urgent and important matter which you wish to convey to the prisoner before a letter is due, you should communicate with me and I will arrange for him to be informed.
Jim Dine's Unused Art for an Unreleased Beatles Album
These five pieces were auctioned at Bonhams in November 2024 for $25,600.
The five works called Untitled (John, Paul, George, Ringo and The Beatles) are graphite and watercolor on vellum and depict group and individual toothbrushes labeled for each member of the iconic band.
Each item is signed and dated 'Jim Dine 1968' in the lower left corner.
The connection with Dine is obviously through Robert Fraser, who was a friend to Dine and showed many of his works at the Robert Fraser Gallery. Another instance of Fraser connecting "his" artists to the Beatles, as he'd done with Michael Cooper, Peter Blake, and Richard Hamilton.
More information on this project, from Bonhams catalog, below the cut:
Made for an approved, but ultimately unrealized Beatles multi-album project in 1968, the present lot is an extraordinary piece of art and music history. Created by one of the 20th century's most iconic artists for the 20th century's most famous music group, these works were created for a 4-album (LP) compilation set of previously released Beatles songs, as suggested by their US manufacturer and distributor, Capitol Records. One of the five artworks (John, Paul, George, and Ringo) was to be the cover art for the 4-LP jacket, and the other four individually named artworks were to decorate and identify each individual album sleeve within the set. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr were each to select their own favorite Beatles tracks, adding spoken dialogue as to why they considered each selection a favorite. Executed during a transitionary time in the group's history, the project did not move forward despite its public announcement and press coverage. Former President of Capitol Records, Salvatore Iannucci, purchased the artworks from the company in 1973 and they remained in his collection for nearly 40 years.
Much like the Beatles, Jim Dine's rise to fame was stellar with incredible visibility, particularly in the 1960s. Dine's celebrity and ambivalent relationship with Pop Art solidified the artist as the perfect choice to execute the images for one of the most exciting Beatles projects to date. In each composition, Dine juxtaposes stardom with an intimate and everyday ritual, in turn obscuring the boundary between the extraordinary and the ordinary yielding a twofold effect: one that delineates the Beatles' significance as a household name (made clear by the use of only the group's first names assigned to each toothbrush); and another which humanizes the Beatles' stardom by associating it with the quotidian. Yet, the unifying force between these two ends is the idea of ritual, which in itself is a fundamental tenant of Dine's own artistic process.
Acquired from the artist through the Robert Fraiser Gallery, London as a commission for an approved but unrealized Beatles album project.
Side note: I'd never heard about this project before. Imagine getting 1968 Beatles to sit down and talk about their favorite Beatles tracks!
The final battle was waged over the credits. First Paul said, "No credits!" Then Robert Fraser persuaded Paul to acknowledge the work of Peter Blake and Michael Cooper. But no one else save George Martin was mentioned, though scores of musicians, technicians, and other ancillaries had made contributions to the project. "Paul is very stingy about credits," Fraser explained, "because he wants to give the impression that he's done it all himself." The day was not far distant when that would be the correct impression.
From The Lives of John Lennon, by Albert Goldman, 1988
This section of the book discusses the difficulties around the cover for Sgt. Pepper. The quote from Fraser is not sourced, which implies it came from direct interviews with him for the book. Goldman was working on the book for several years before publication, so he must have interviewed Fraser while he was still relatively well.
Still, it's a rare unkind quote from Fraser about Paul McCartney. The context for the quote might give better insight into the comment.
“While all this work was in progress, Brian Epstein was having fits. He feared that outsiders were getting into the act and that he was losing control over the project. On the other hand, when it came time to clear the budget for the fancy package, Brian couldn't face the music. He stepped aside in favor of Robert Fraser, whose merchant banker family was on good terms with Sir Joseph Lockwood, the head of EMI, whose business background lay in flour milling. Fraser confronted Sir Joe in EMI's impressive boardroom. "You're Lionel Fraser's boy, aren't you?" rumbled the director. "What are you mixed up in this rubbish for?" Fraser mumbled and stammered like a schoolboy. "How much is this gonna cost?" thundered Sir Joe.
"Fifteen hundred pounds, sir," mumbled Fraser.
"Fifteen hundred pounds!" exploded the irate director. "I can hire the London Symphony Orchestra for that!" (Indeed, he would be asked to do that very thing next.) Lockwood had every reason to be angry: An EMI album cover was usually a publicity shot dummied up by the art department at a cost of about twenty-five pounds. Only when the Beatles agreed to reimburse the company for the full fifteen hundred pounds if the album failed to sell 100,000 copies did he give his consent to this outrageous demand. He didn't spare Fraser, either, inquiring shrewdly: "Who is this photographer, Michael Cooper? Is that you, too?" Cooper was, in fact, Fraser's partner.”
From The Lives of John Lennon by Albert Goldman, 1988
Goldman doesn't give a specific source for this story about Fraser. It's very possible that Lockwood knew Fraser's father. It's also likely that he knew Fraser, since Lockwood was part of the "velvet mafia" (gay men) that controlled much of the music scene in London in the 1960s.
Fraser had put up money for Michael Cooper's photography business, hence "partner".
"Fraser...stammered like a schoolboy": Fraser was a stutterer; it's unlikely he was nervous in this situation. Most accounts say that he was intimidated by no one.
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Photo by Michael Joseph
The Rolling Stones were photographed at the historic Sarum Chase Estate in West London and Swarkestone Hall Pavillion in Derbyshire. England on June 7 and 8 1968. The band had been driven up to the castle from London in limos to shoot the cover of their seventh album, Beggars Banquet with photographer Michael Joseph.
According to Keith Richards, the title Beggars Banquet was imagined by British art dealer (and close friend of Fraser) Christopher Gibbs.
Here is Joseph's account of the interior photo shoot (Guardian article).
From The London Magazine:
"That the Rolling Stones were enjoying the process of working with Joseph is borne out by Mick Jagger inviting Joseph and his girlfriend at the end of the first day to travel to the next day’s location in his car. ‘He has two jump seats in his Daimler,’ Joseph recalls, ‘and most of the two hour journey up the newly opened M1 was spent racing the rest of the band in a similar Daimler to Swarkestone Hall Pavilion!’ The seventeenth-century pavilion stands in a large field called The Cuttle near the ruins of Swarkestone Hall. The exact purpose of the building is a subject of conjecture but it may have been a grandstand, summerhouse, or appropriately for the shoot a banqueting house. In racing to the location they arrived quite a while before Crier who was travelling in a van with both the Sinar camera and the props for the shoot. The bonhomie continued as Joseph explains that he was, ‘immensely pleased how co-operative everyone was in shooting numerous little cameos with my Hasselblad, which I thought could be useful, but were also to keep the Stones occupied whilst we waited as I felt if given a chance they may scarper to a local pub and never come out!’"
Presumably this shot of Fraser and Jagger was part of the "cameo photos".
John Lennon's first major art show together at the Robert Fraser Gallery in London, July 1, 1968
Among those attending were Richard DiLello (inflating balloons), Kevin Harrington, Steve Brendell, Alex Mardas, Derek Taylor, Jill Johnston, Jonathan Cott, Victor Spinetti, Paul Nicholas, Peter Blake, Richard Hamilton and many members of the British and International Press.
John Lennon: "We did a ‘Candid Camera’ film of it, of people’s reactions, ‘cos as you got to the canvas itself, there was just a hat to put money in for the artist. They all reacted to that (laughs) and a little bowl of badges, little teeny white badges that said ‘you are here’, very tiny, that they got. They put some money in the hat and they got a badge, you see... And it’s just a documentary, you know, it’ll be around."
Robert Fraser: “The John Lennon show was very poorly received. Looking back on it, it did have a certain pretentious element. It was fun. I don’t know if it was art. It wasn’t popular.”
Robert Fraser reviews Tantra Exhibition, 1971 (transcription)
Robert Fraser’s review of The Hayward Gallery’s Tantra exhibition, September 30-Nov. 7, 1971. Published in Studio International, vol. 182 no. 939, Dec. 1971
Originally posted here by @ljblueteak
Transcription below the cut
The exhibition of Tantra on show at the Hayward Gallery from 30 September to 14 November has been an event which could be a catalyst to the formation of new conceptions as to the purpose and direction of the art of the future. In this instance I mean art taken as a global entity, not as something divided up into Western art or Eastern art. The first thing that might strike the view was that the show taken as a whole revealed a vision of a very ancient and systematic culture whose symbols and myths are alive right up to the present day; a Hindu or Buddhist could walk through the show and constantly be made aware of things which are a part of his own consciousness and personality. It is this aspect of tantra as a living sign-language and a living mythology which gives it special significance to us now. The basis of all tantric iconography is function; although tantra is based in the expansion of consciousness (Sanskrit root TAN expand TRA) its purpose is to provide and explain methods by which the expansion is to be achieved. There have been many different schools of thought on this subject and the reason for the seemingly baffling complexity of tantra is that it touches upon so many different levels and approaches to sadhana; philosophy, science and ritual are all involved in what was originally one system of thought based in vedanta. In recent centuries cults have grown up which have advocated specialized approaches, of which tantra asana is one; it is this one approach that has in the present day been identified most closely with tantra, and its over-emphasis has given tantra a notoriety which is based upon misconception of its full range. Nevertheless in this show all this enormous variety of imagery and symbol has been brought together under the umbrella of tantra art, as being visualizations of various methods towards the pursuit of sadhana and man's relation to the universe.
In style and content these exhibits differ widely. Many of them are what are known as Indian classical art, others are 'folk' or primitive forms; on the other hand the diagrams and manuscripts of which there are many in the exhibition could be called 'yoga' art. However, nearly all bear a certain stamp or aura which we immediately recognize as tantric; and the reason we are able to do this is due entirely to the vision of one man, Ajit Mookerjee, from whose private collection about two-thirds of the exhibits have been borrowed. Ajit Mookerjee is already well known in India for his pioneer work in the classification and identification of Indian folk and primitive art and it is during the pursuit of these studies that he came to formulate the concept of tantra art, which had hitherto existed as unrelated art-forms in various parts of India. His name is now well known in Western countries as the author of two art books, "Tantra Art' (Ravi Kumar 1967) and 'Tantra Asana' (Ravi Kumar1971), and it is the wide circulation and enormous interest which the first of these books created which made the world aware of an art form which, although it had existed for centuries, had so far eluded classification. What
caused this enormous interest, both in the books and the Hayward exhibition, is the fact that tantra art fulfills a function for Western man which his own contemporary art has lost sight of. Here is an art form which partakes of the potential of human energy and its relation to the universe. It is this inward direction of tantra art that people instinctively recognize and identify with, although after experiencing an initial attraction they can easily be put off by what seems to be an impenetrable jungle of symbols and myths demanding a knowledge so specialized as to be beyond reach. But many of these symbols have an abstract significance which is immediately recognizable. An example of this is catalogue no. 511, which illustrates in a series of gouaches of incredibly subtle coloration the processes of projective evolution of the universe; the balance between abstraction and description is so perfectly held on the aesthetic plane that the subject matter of expansion is self-evident.
Despite the organizers' inspired concept of presenting the exhibition as a journey without beginning or end and the sensitive groupings of the various classifications of objects and paintings, one is nevertheless conscious of a certain visual indigestion after concentrated viewing. This is perhaps due to the inclusion of the sections of Buddhist tantra and several series of Tibetan thanjkas, some of which are of indifferent quality. Tibetan Buddhist imagery has a very different visual aura which conjures up a totally different world of the imagination from its Hindu counterparts: it cries out for a setting of its own and should in all fairness be the subject of a separate exhibition.
A word must be said about the catalogue, which has been written by Philip Rawson and admirably designed by Hugh Shaw. Every item in the exhibition has been illustrated and informatively captioned; it is therefore a compendium of tantric imagery in itself, and immediately becomes a vital work of reference. Surely, though, the insistence of the catalogue's introduction upon the cultist aspect of tantra is a mistake? Tantra asana is one of the visually richest and most beautiful sources of tantric imagery but the philosophy of the male/female principle goes far beyond the sexual frame of reference. In advaita vedanta it has a much more abstract significance and the practical application of sexual asana as a means of union with the absolute has no serious philosophical basis. If the idea of tantra art can be freed from its cultist associations, it can emerge as the key to an art of the future that is not pursued for its own sake, but forms part of a philosophical system or thought.
All this is conjecture, but it is exciting to hear that a Tantra Museum is to be built on a site on the outskirts of New Delhi over the next few years which will collect and exhibit both Indian tantric forms and forms from other cultures ancient and contemporary, with Ajit Mookerjee's collection as a basis. It is by this approach to tantra art that a link may be established between all forms of art with an inward direction that speak of man's relation to the universe.
****
Interesting that Fraser was based in India at this time but familiar enough with a London show to be able to write a detailed review.
Vyner says: "Characteristically, though, his reappearances in London during the four or five years he was away shed little light on his actions and whereabouts other than conveying his increased enthusiasm for all things Indian."
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This seems to have been in 1966. Actor Gail Gerber had a long-term relationship with Terry Southern and knew Fraser (and Michael Cooper) through him.
This anecdote is adorable!
Transcription below the cut:
Terry was on my mind while he was trying yet again to reconcile with his was but I was distracted because "Groovy Bob" Fraser had flown in from London and came to stay with me for a few days. I put him up in the modest spare bedroom. As I was passing by his room one afternoon, I happened to catch a glimpse of him in his underwear. He got so embarrassed and turned crimson red. That surprised me since he was gay and we knew each other quite well. But Robert was very English and very proper.
From Trippin’ with Terry Southern, by Gail Gerber with Tom Lisanti, 2009
Robert Fraser’s review of The Hayward Gallery’s Tantra exhibition, September 30-Nov. 7, 1971. Published in Studio International , vol. 182 no. 939, Dec. 1971
