The music + art school connection (1987)

Featuring John Lennon, Stuart Suttcliffe, Pete Townshend, Gustav Metzger, Pink Floyd, Bonzo Dog, Bryan Ferry, Brian Eno, Ian Dury, Humphrey Ocean, Freddie Mercury, Adam Art, John Foxx, Gang of Four, Jerry Dammers, Marc Almond, David Ball, Kevin Godley & Lol Creme. Excerpt from John A. Walker’s book, Cross-Overs: Art into Pop, Pop into Art.

John A. Walker (Cross-overs)
artdesigncafé | music + art room | Published 23 June 2011
This text was previously published as a chapter in the book mentioned above with the title "The Art School Connection".

British art schools and colleges have had a significant influence on the character of Pop music, both visually and musically. In the opinion of some critics they are "the key to unravelling the art/rock, art/Pop connection". [1]

To start with, a host of leading Pop music personalities were once art students, among them Daevid Allen, Marc Almond, Adam Ant, Syd Barrett, Jeff Beck, Eric Burdon, Lol Creme, David Cunningham, Jerry Dammers, Ray Davies, Lynsey de Paul, Ian Dury, John Ellis, Brian Eno, Bryan Ferry, John Foxx, Green Gartside, Kevin Godley, Chas Jankel, Amanda Lear, John Lennon, Lene Lovich, Kirsty MacColl, Malcolm McLaren, Freddie Mercury, Humphrey Ocean, Hazel O’Connor, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, Paul Roberts, Sade, Alexei Sayle, "Legs" Larry Smith, Vivian Stanshall, Dick Taylor, Pete Townshend, Kirn Wilde, and Wreckless Eric. And this by no means comprehensive list excludes the legions of graphic artists, illustrators, photographers and fashion designers responsible for the record covers, posters, press photos and clothes associated with Pop music who, almost invariably, also trained at art college.

Of course the mere fact that a Pop star once attended art college is no guarantee that the experience benefited their musical career. John Lennon paid little heed to the lettering exercises he was set at Liverpool Art College, whereas Pete Townshend, as we shall see, gained much from his course at Ealing College of Art. But even in the case of students with a little commitment to art and design, the art school ambiance can be valuable. At the very least it is a place where budding Pop musicians can meet like-minded people, and form a band.

Britain’s visual arts are fortunate in having a national network of colleges to sustain them. One reason why so many musically-inclined teenagers have gravitated to them is the lack of any comparable network of music colleges. Given the fact that Pop music is a much larger and financially profitable industry than visual art, this seems a strange disparity in educational provision.

During the 1940s and 1950s art students in colleges outside of universities—the majority—were awarded diplomas rather than degrees, and a good deal of training in low level commercial art was undertaken. Even so, art colleges attracted potential musicians, like the traditional jazz trumpeter Humphrey Lyttleton, who studied at Camberwell College of Art in South London after his demobilisation from the Army in 1946.

A traditional jazz revival took place in the late 1950s and this music, along with modern jazz, the blues and skiffle, was popular with art students. Ranks of duffle-coated students joined the newly-formed CND and protested to the sound of "When the saints go marching in". American rock ’n’ roll was a minority taste in art colleges, many of whose students were ex-grammar school pupils. Besides jazz, their intellectual and stylistic interests encompassed American beat literature and French existentialism. Lennon was educated at grammar school but he preferred rock to jazz. Yet, as Beatle experts have pointed out, Lennon was an art student not a truck driver like Elvis. This difference between Britain and the United States was to have important consequences for the future development of their respective popular musics.

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