All Things Considered

John Burningham
Posted by Simon Lewin

One of the downsides of running a gallery is saying goodbye to items that you've become fairly attached to.

This was the case with this John Burningham poster which I picked up in a job lot at an auction - it hadn't been listed with the main lot so it was a great surprise coming across it. It sat happily in our print browser for a few months, and eventually it was purchased and taken away. I regretted the sale the minute I'd swiped the credit card. I'd thought I was over it, now I'm not entirely sure.

In last weekend's Independent, Deborah Orr talks to Burningham and finds out how the children's book illustrator fears life is getting harder, and more restrictive, for young people today...

"John Burningham, in his calm, measured tones, is describing an aspect of life in 1950s Britain that is all but forgotten. "They had piano smashing competitions, you know, that was the thing. Outside a country pub the local youths would take sledgehammers to pianos, which is ... barbaric behaviour."

It's clear that Burningham speaks from the heart, not least because his spacious Hampstead home is a monument to furniture salvage, with strange and lovely pieces of all kinds of provenance fitted in any space where something can be fitted. He still shudders at the idea of beautiful things being destroyed for pleasure and entertainment, and the huge horn of his ancient record player attests to his collector's passion for retrieving abandoned and otherwise forgotten music." Read the article in full

Posted by Simon Lewin on April 22nd, 2009