We apologise for the uneven audio at some stages. These are due to some technical issues during the recording.

Paul McGillick: Uh, today is July the 21st, 2020. I'm Paul McGillick, and I'm at the home and studio of painter Dick Watkins.

Paul McGillick: OK, Dick, why don't we, uh, just start at the beginning? Just give me a little bit of background -- your family, where you were brought up, and, and also how you developed an interest in art.

Dick Watkins: Uh, well, I developed an interest in art during the Second World War. I was involved with Messerschmitts and Spitfires ... and HMS Hood.

Paul McGillick: Out of bal-, balsam wood, right? Yeah?

Dick Watkins: No, I didn't use wood. Anyway, um, uh, I didn't, I didn't do any sort of that...You were supposed to have done sort of conceptual things, you know, like uh, the picnic or the cricket match or...Didn't interest me in, in the least.

Paul McGillick: Or, what about the family? Was there art in the family? Is there any reason why you should...

Dick Watkins: As far as I know, my one grandmother, uh, used to do little flower paintings in her youth. That's about the only art connection. My parents didn't have any. And, uh, they were just this sort of suburban family, yeah.

Paul McGillick: This is in Sydney?

Dick Watkins: In Sydney, yes.

Paul McGillick: So when did you start fiddling around with art though, w-, as a slightly more... Fine art.

Dick Watkins: I suppose it'd be when I was, uh, in my mid teens. Uh, someone gave me a little encyclopedia, and it had a reproduction of a, of a Picasso still life, which I found fascinating, intriguing. And then I began to branch out. I, I'd look around for more examples of this sort of thing, this like, you know, this sort of a pil-, picture, whatever, and gradually accumulated magazines and things and books.

Dick Watkins: Uh, uh, all the time I, I was painting as well. Um, uh, the, what happened was I was walking down Pitt Street one day, and I came to the, um...What's that movie theatre there? The, uh...I forget. Anyway, "Lust for Life" was showing.

Paul McGillick: Oh, the movie, Lust for Life?

Dick Watkins: Kirk Douglas ... in Lust for Life. So I thought, "I'll have a go at that." So I went in. You know, I was absolutely, incredibly bowled over by the whole business, you know. Uh, this strange, weird marvelous character, you know, not just because he was weird and marvelous, but because he was a great painter as well.

Dick Watkins: But, um, I still had a sort of ... care about paint. Because there is a scene where he's out in the vineyards or somewhere, in sort of a ditch. And he has one of his fits, his attacks. And he's holding a fat tube of flake white in one hand, and suddenly he goes [funny vocalization] . I thought, "My God, he's wasting the paint."

Paul McGillick: So, we, we...

Dick Watkins: So, I went out, I went out. I had a little bit of money. I went to Fox Brother's and I bought some paints and powdered stuff. Went home and set it up on the, on the dining room table, which had a glass top. Remember those days when they had glass tops? And I did a little still life there that, that afternoon.

Dick Watkins: And that's where I said this...I suppose that's where it started. Anyway, that's in my mind as when I started. It probably started before then. But, um, once you're into it, that's it. You're lost, you know. You can't do anything else or think about anything else. You just want to paint.

Paul McGillick: ...you were largely self-taught. Is that right?

Dick Watkins: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I went to, um, Julian Ashton's for a while. That was just in the, um -- what's that called? -- the, uh, the cast. You just had to draw a cast, yeah, which is very sort of unin-, unexciting but, um...

Paul McGillick: You didn't make it into the life class?

Dick Watkins: I did not even graduate.

Paul McGillick: You were, you weren't persistent enough.

Paul McGillick: But you also went to East Sydney Tech for a while to do, didn't you?

Dick Watkins: Well, they had a branch at North Sydney where I was living at the time. And, uh, I used to go there. And, uh, I lasted about six months I suppose. Uh, I did the first exam. I think it must've been the, the half-yearly exam or whatever it was, and I was failed in composition. So, uh...

Paul McGillick: Just out of curiosity though, 'cause a l ... it seems strange to us today but when you went to East Sydney Tech even though it was for a short period time, a lot of the students were quite young. They went there when in the mid-teens, 16 or so. How old were you?

Dick Watkins: I was about, uh -- what was I? -- about 20, I suppose. I'd be one the older ones.

Paul McGillick: Oh, you were an older one, yeah, yeah.

Dick Watkins: As you said, they're all nice young girls and that, in their, just after leaving school or whatever, at a, at a, uh, just a lot -- what do you call it ... at a loose end what to do, so they decided to do a bit of art.

Paul McGillick: Yeah. Well, though...

Dick Watkins: Uh, I don't think there were that many serious people involved. Uh, I could be wrong about that. But, um.

Paul McGillick: So by this time though you were quite serious about art. You were doing a lot of it.

Dick Watkins: I, um, just about that time I doing my, I living with my father in a flat in North Sydney, a building that went, went to with the, uh, the widening of the freeway, you know. That's gone as a landmark. But, um, my father knew ... he was a, he was a, the, um, company secretary of Tooheys brewery, my father.

Dick Watkins: And he, they were told, dad was saying something about me being in art all that. And, um, one of his, uh, publican mates said, "Oh, I know a young painter. He's interested meeting other young painters." It was Brett Whiteley. So I met Brett then.

Paul McGillick: How, how did you meet him?

Dick Watkins: Um, just, uh, oh, he and Mick Johnson used to go out painting on Saturday morning. I think that's when I met them first. And, um, we did a few sort of tenements shop, landscape-y things. And we went out to, uh, we'd go out to, uh, Windsor and stay in a deserted shack there and get out in the morning and do landscapes stuff like that.

Paul McGillick: Yeah, did you, uh, were you starting to meet other artists apart from Brett Whiteley this time?

Dick Watkins: The only other one was, uh, Mick Johnson. Uh, no, I don't think I ever did.

Paul McGillick: Well, your first show, I think, was 1963. Yeah. Um, was it at Frank Watters?

Dick Watkins: Yeah, it was, um, uh, what his name? Stern, Barry.

Paul McGillick: Barry Stern, yeah. Can you, can you tell me a little bit about how that came about, how you came to get a show with Barry Stern.

Dick Watkins: Well, I was, as I said, I, I, I left my father, no good reason, I suppose. He married again. This was his third marriage and this lady had a, a bit to do with electricity or something. And, uh, there was a little sort of shack. I live in a, a unit and they had a sort of, uh, empty room downstairs that I used as a studio. And also living in the same building was, was, um, Noela Yuill, and, um, I got to know her. She was collecting paintings at that stage, just starting out, you know, as art lover. And, uh...

Paul McGillick: And Mick Johnson, you were gonna tell me how you met Mick.

Dick Watkins: No, it didn't have much to do with Mick. But, uh, no, um... Anyway, she got interested in me enough to sit here and talk about art that other stuff. And, and then one day or one evening, Barry Stern turned up ... and said, I'll give you a show." Just like that.

Paul McGillick: What sort of work we were you doing at this, at this time?

Dick Watkins: Very abstract ... hard edge abstract.

Paul McGillick: Well, because you mentioned your kind of original influences with Picasso and Van Gogh, but you say you, now that you were working in abstraction, uh, how, how did you get turned into an abstractionist. What happened that triggered that interest?

Dick Watkins: Um, let me think. Um, I used to go to the art gallery, and, uh, I met Daniel Thomas at some social event. And, um, we got to, he took me around a bit to in-, introduce me to people like, um, Gleghorn. Remember him?

Paul McGillick: Who is that?

Dick Watkins: Tom Gleghorn.

Paul McGillick: Ah, yes. Yeah, Gleg-, Tom Gleghorn.

Dick Watkins: Yeah, I remember turning up one night and, and, uh, with Daniel at this opening. And I was introduced to Gleghorn. And I said, "You paint shit", which is beautiful thing to say on the first meeting...of another painter, disgusting stuff. But, um, anyway, I, um, Daniel said, "Come down to the library at the art gallery," which wasn't very extensive then, I suppose. This'd be about 1958 or so, '59. And. uh, they had all, but they had subscriptions to all the art magazines all over the world, you know, particularly from America and England.

Dick Watkins: And I was very absolutely rapt in these. I spent hour in there looking at them. you know. And I liked, liked paint like it like Afra from Italy and two or three of the Italians, and, uh, the English abstractionist at the time, Passmore and people. And, um, that's how I got involved in that sort of abstract... And then I, I took out a subscription to a magazine called "Art International." Is it still going?

Paul McGillick: No, no.

Dick Watkins: Anyway, they, they had all the news and images and everything that was happening in the world, you know, and, um, a few of the American...It was 1961, '60, you know. Everything was going to go with a bang and, uh, pop art, op art, cop art, whatever, particularly pop art. But there was a lot of hard edge too. And I particularly like Noland, you know, his circles, and, uh, Ellsworth Kelly, people like that. So that's how I produced this show for Barry Stern, being influenced by these particular painters.

Paul McGillick: Yes. How much abstraction was there around at that time in...Sydney? Not much I don't think?

Dick Watkins: The um ... there was a contemporary art society. And I managed to squeeze onto the board at one stage. Not to much effect, but, uh, they used to have annual shows and things at, at the old Farmers Gallery in George Street, who I think Gleghorn... Tom Gleghorn was the manager of. And, uh, he used to put things in that...there, there weren't that many abstract painters around as I recall. Well, you have to remember, this is 60 years ago or something, Paul.

Paul McGillick: Well, just to be clear, I think you first exhibited in 1958, but your first solo show, 1963, and you said with Barry Stern. And my recollection is that Barry Stern wouldn't have shown much abstract work, would he? So it would be quite unusual for him to pick you up as a young artist doing abstract work.

Dick Watkins: I think the other, I think the other artist who was showing with me upstairs was Pro Hart.

Paul McGillick: Pro Hart, OK.

Dick Watkins: I think they were ants or something or other. So, he was upstairs and I was downstairs with my stripy hard-edge paintings.

Paul McGillick: So they were hard edge paintings.

Dick Watkins: On Masonite.

Paul McGillick: So they were hard-edged? They weren't expressive ... gestural things?

Dick Watkins: They were quite hard-edged.

Paul McGillick: OK, yeah. All right, well you went to Europe 1959. Uh, you returned, and via the USA, into Australia in 1961. So what motivated the trip and how important did it turn out to be for you, that trip, ' 59 to '61.

Dick Watkins: I, uh, I was, uh, I was living with my father, but he said, "You're no hoper, uh, you know, of.. I'll feed you and board you, but you don't get any more from me. I'm not going to give you any money." So I used to sorta fiddle around doing the little landscapes and things d-, m-, down there, Careening Cove in, uh, North Sydney and stuff like that. And I was really just sitting there one day doing a little landscape and this bloke came up and started taking interest in it. And he said, "Well, I know a better, a better, uh, spot than this."

Dick Watkins: So, we went up to wherever it was and I did another little landscape. I think it was the first painting I sold. I think it was three pounds or something, or three guineas or something. Everything just st-, if you're an artist, then you, you said your work was guineas. You were like a doctor or lawyer or something.

Dick Watkins: But, anyway, this dear old bloke, um, he lived nearby in North Sydney and, uh, I think I had lunch with him or something. Anyway, uh, I ended up...He was a retired schoolteacher, and um, but he was a sort of, um, pater familias of, of young intellectuals and stuff. Yeah, Geoffrey Lehmann was one, uh. Anyway, I said, "Well, bugger you Dad, I'll live, uh, Felix Patton. So I, I took up residence with Felix. Yeah, he was a homosexual, but I had nothing to do with any of that.

Dick Watkins: But, uh, believe it or not. Uh, and then I stayed, I stayed there for about eight months, I suppose. And, uh, he said, "Why don't we go to Europe?" Now I accepted because I'd never have any way of getting there myself. And, uh, so we set off for Europe probably on an Italian boat. I think it was the Fair Sea or the Fair Sky.

Dick Watkins: And, uh, we parted in London, and, um, blow me down, Brett Whitely and Mick Johnson had just arrived. And I met Mick outside the news agents in Earl's Court, you know, where they have a, little rent-a, rent-a-thing, rent-a-room cards, you know, uh, real estate cards.

Dick Watkins: I met Mick and he said, "Um, I know from, uh, Brett that he's discovered this place, uh, in Ladbroke Grove." Didn't [inaudible 18:20] , so I said, "All right, Mick. We'll go and have a look." So I went there, and it was a-, a estate agent's building.

Dick Watkins: And, uh, on the ground floor it was the office. And then on the first floor, there was a vacant room. And then Brett was in the room above that. And then, I think there was an Indian prostitute on top of that. But, um...So, Mick and I decided to, to rent the room. I think it was five pounds a week. We didn't like the wallpaper so we painted it out white.

Dick Watkins: And, um, we just, we, we were sort of serious painters, you know. But Brett was far ahead of any of us, you know. Because he'd already been bought by the Tate and God knows what, you know, won prizes left, right, left and centre.

Dick Watkins: He was the sort of motivating force, you know. Although we weren't less motivated, he was actually doing it -- selling painting and everything. We were hard put to b-, do-, to complete paintings, you know because we had, um, two bed...This, uh, our room was a studio and a bedroom and a dining room at the same time, you know.

Paul McGillick: Of course Br-, I think Brett was doing abstract work at that time.

Dick Watkins: He was, yes. Very, very concerned with, um, William Scott and, um, pai-, English painters like that. And then, um ... we got onto the ... what's his name, the murderer?

Paul McGillick: Who was that?

Dick Watkins: The murderer, do you know, what's his name?

Paul McGillick: Oh, Christie.

Dick Watkins: Christie.

Dick Watkins: Because his, his house was just down the road. I can see how we got onto it. But, um, anyway they had changed the name of the street because of the murder, so there weren't any sightseers I suppose. But we knew what the original street was, and that, and where it was. And we went. Brett said, "Let's go down there and have a look," you know.

Dick Watkins: So we went down this dark, forbidding, dingy-looking street and knocked on the door. And a black man answered it, and he wasn't very welcoming. Brett tried to talk him into it in his fashion, you know, but he wasn't having any.

Paul McGillick: So you got established in that Ladbroke Grove ... gang, uh, uh, and you were...

Dick Watkins: There were three of us. There was... And, and people started arriving. Yo-, Tony arrived...

Paul McGillick: Tony McGillick, yeah.

Dick Watkins: ...with his, with his girlfriend. I, I don't think he, I don't think they were married at that stage, were they? I forget. I forget. Anyway, it doesn't matter. And, yeah, there were lots of other, other young painters around. We met Roger Hilton. UH...

Paul McGillick: So, uh, so in London then what, if you wanted to sum it up, how important was London at that time for you? Because you sud-, now you seem to be part of a, a group of artists or part of a community of a kind.

Dick Watkins: We all had our different favourites though, you know. Brett was under the English abstractionists and Mick Johnson I think it was into Arshile Gorky. And, and I was more interested in de Kooning. So I was sort of drifting around the same sort of area. But, but this is just before everything exploded into pop art and everything you know. Anyway, I left after 18 months and, uh, just came back to Australia and started painting on my own here. Uh...

Paul McGillick: You came back via the United States. Yeah. Was that to try and see people like de Kooning or see their work?

Dick Watkins: I would've be too shy. I wouldn't have, wouldn't have dared to front up to de Kooning, God, that sort of...

Paul McGillick: But you might, might see the work...

Dick Watkins: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, um, yeah, I was...A friend of my father's, another publican believe it, I think he was the manager of the Canberra Hotel, landed in London, and he had my address, and he promised me, my father that he's see what was going on, you know. So, I was out on a binge somewhere and didn't get back till about three days later, and...after he'd gone. And then, uh, apparently he got in touch with my father, said, "Get him out of there or he'll die."

Dick Watkins: He was appalled at our, at the, the state of, uh, untidiness in which we lived. But, um, so Dad sent me the airfare and I came back. I just stayed in New York, and, uh, I went to the Museum of Modern Art and all that stuff.

Paul McGillick: How, how long did you spend in the United States?

Dick Watkins: Only a few days.

Paul McGillick: [inaudible] like New York.

Dick Watkins: At the, um, what is it, the um, the Youth Society, what did the, uh, YMCA in New York. Yeah, no, I must have stayed there about a week, 10 days maybe. I remember it was full, it was full summer. It was very hot. And I had a room with an air conditioner in it. The room seemed to be quite narrow and tunnelly sort of feeling and the air conditioner was down on one end, sort of, brr, blasting away.

Paul McGillick: So but, so back in Australia, so you're back in Australia in 1961. Um, who were you mixing with? What, who were the artists that you were talking to back here at that time?

Dick Watkins: I didn't know any.

Paul McGillick: You didn't know... OK. So, you just kept working more or less by yourself ... yeah, well maybe that...

Dick Watkins: And then, um, now at this stage, um, a young English painter turned up. He come through on a, at, at that stage--meaning if you pay 10 pound you get a passage to Australia. So, um, Michael Alan Shore was his name. And he turned up one evening at the place where I was living with my father. And, uh, we used to go around together a lot and talk about things and stuff. He didn't like abstract painting.

Paul McGillick: I guess the, the next significant thing then would be Central Street which was established in 1966. Um, would I be right in guessing that Tony sort of tracked you down and invited you ...to be a part of the gang?

Dick Watkins: I think he, I think he'd been searching in Sydney for, for, uh, people, you know, young, young painters and artists who were interested in the current things that were happening in America you see. And, um, he met me, of course. He came back and met me. And, uh, apparently he run, wrote back to, uh, he was in touch with Rollin Schlicht, who was still in London, and said, "I think I found a good one in Dick Watkins." So he was quite happy with discovering my, uh, output. But, uh, so, uh, yeah, as you say, Central Street came along.

Paul McGillick: Well, I count you had at least two solo shows at Central Street, and you probably appeared in group shows. Um, can you tell me a little bit about the work? I can remember the work, but be interesting to hear you talk about where that work was coming from. Because it, it was essentially abstract, but it also had a kind of figurative element to it a-, as well. Can you tell us a little bit about where that work was coming from ... at that time in the mid '60s?

Dick Watkins: I don't think there was any particular painter who was involved, Paul. Um, just came out of the head ... and the heart.

Paul McGillick: Hmm. Wh-, what, what I mean, uh, the, the paintings were quite distinctive. I mean you knew it was a Dick Watkins when you saw it. So, I'm just thinking where those ideas were coming from. that, those strange o-, it was sort of a slightly, a bit of pop, pop art in there a little bit, and there was abstraction. Uh, I'm just trying to get it a where, what, what was driving these images that you were producing.

Dick Watkins: I was interested in pop art and in hard edge. And um, now what else was there?

Paul McGillick: Well there was expressive abstraction, for example.

Dick Watkins: Oh, yes. Uh, they had, everyone had sort of abandoned abstract expressionism, you know. That was old hat. Minimalism was rearing its ugly head, I don't think it ha-...Had, had it started then in about '61, '60, Donald Judd, people like that?

Paul McGillick: Mm-mm. Might be a little bit later

Dick Watkins: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I remember, um ... I can't think of his name. Australian painter, he wa-, he was one of the mob at Central Street.

Paul McGillick: What sort of work? What, what sort of work did he do?

Dick Watkins: Painting. He was involved with Barnett. Barnett Newman was his lodestar at that time.

Paul McGillick: Roy Harpur?

Dick Watkins: Roy Harpur of course, yeah. And we were talking about abstract expressionism, and he...Lichtenstein had done the sort of hard-edge brush strokes, you know what I mean? And, um, Royston said to me that that's, uh, eh, that sums it all up you know. That's finished with abstract expressionism, dirty word almost.

Paul McGillick: Yeah.

Dick Watkins: But I never lost interest in it. I was al-, I, I suppose I'm really an abstract expressionist at heart. Um, yes, so, well it just goes on from there. I went to, uh, then Central Street folded. And, um, Chandler Coventry came along at the end there and tried to resurrect it, but he, then he decided to, decided to make his own gallery. And I joined up with, um, joined that, and, um, that's all, that's, that's all, finished.

Paul McGillick: So, um, let's see. Perhaps another kind of milestone is that you went to Hong Kong in 1974. How did this come about?

Dick Watkins: Irene, um, my um... There she is so um. My, my what do you call them?

Paul McGillick: Your partner.

Dick Watkins: My partner, yes. I couldn't think of the word partner, my partner. Her daughter had married a Chinese businessman from Hong Kong. They had met at university here and they'd gone back to Hong Kong and produced a couple of children. And Irene was dead set on having, going to see her, of course, see the children and the daughter and everything. So, um, we decide to go to Hong Kong to see the, to see her children. That's why we went there.

Paul McGillick: 'Cause you stayed there for quite a while didn't you, several years?

Dick Watkins: Yeah, two or three years, yeah. Yeah I like Hong Kong.

Paul McGillick: Did it have any effect on your work?

Dick Watkins: No. Uh, we, we, um, we rented a, a, a unit in one of the buildings in the, on the upper levels. And, um, I got a big sheet of plastic sort of hung on the wall and down to the floor so I could paint without mucking up the business, you know. So I did quite a few, uh, works there. And I think I had one or two shows in Sydney. I just used to send them back rolled up, you know. They had to re-stretch them.

Paul McGillick: Who, whom, who showed them here?

Dick Watkins: Chandler Coventry

Paul McGillick: Ah, yes, in Woollahra.

Dick Watkins: What was it called, um? Something street.

Dick Watkins: Uh, then we went to Italy, France first, England first, rather, from Hong Kong.

Dick Watkins: Uh, I was, I was obsessed at this stage with the landscapes of, uh, Turner and Corot, my two favourite landscape painters. And, of course they, I wanted to see where they painted. So, we had to fossick out these little areas of France and Italy, you know, where they, they'd set up their easels and stuff. Some of them were, had seemed to have disappeared, and some of them were, were changed so much you wouldn't know. And, uh, but I found one or two, um, um, sites, and, um, very moving I found them.

Dick Watkins: Uh, then, uh, we stayed in Italy for about a year. And I used to go out painting very, uh, I suppose you say, tightly, that sort of thing over there, Paul. These are my Italian, these are some of my Italian ones.

Paul McGillick: Was this sort of, sort of a going back to the beginning, in a sense, isn't it ... the traditional landscape? It sounds like you're almost going back and restarting all over again, rethinking.

Dick Watkins: Maybe, maybe that's what happens, yeah. You, you go in a sort of circle or something. return to the beginning, yeah. Yeah, I've always been fascinated with landscape. I love landscapes. But, um, when we came back in, uh, about '78, '79. Yeah. And, um, we stayed with some friends in, uh, Whale Beach. And, uh, Irene and I used to get up in the morning and, at about f-, six or seven in the morning, and we'd go out to West Head. Do you know West Head? Yeah. And I paint the landscape and things there.

Dick Watkins: Uh, and then Carol, Irene's daughter from Hong Kong, came back with her husband and children. And, uh, they had a big house in, uh, one of those suburbs. Oh, I forget the name of it. Anyway, out in the bush there. And, uh, we stayed with them. They offered us to lo-, look after the place while they were doing something or else, something else.

Dick Watkins: And, uh, I did the same thing as I did in Hong Kong. I put plastic down in the pool room and [coughs] brought, um, eight or nine sheets of Masonite, and tightened them up, yeah. And, uh, I did a show there. And there was a big pool there too which is very handy. And, um...

Paul McGillick: And this wa- this was figurative work as well?

Dick Watkins: No, abstract. Abstract work, yeah. Uh, so...

Paul McGillick: So, well, about the early '80s, about 1983, suddenly your work kind of explodes in uh you suddenly start jumping out in all kinds of different directions, at least that's the impression I get retrospectively. What, what was going on? Wha-, you kind of, it's like you're completely reinventing your work or reinvestigating what you were doing. And then that led into the São Paulo Art Bienniale whi-, which you were, went to.

Dick Watkins: Yeah, which I didn't deserve.

Dick Watkins: Um, yeah, we, uh, we bought this place here in '79. And this, this is a rebuild of it. Uh, it was just a little sort of crummy weekender. But, uh, that's all we could afford at that stage. I think it only had a, it had one room they could've be used as a studio, which I did use as a studio. I didn't, I didn't buy canvas. I used to do it all on Masonite.

Dick Watkins: And I did figurative things as well as abstract at that stage. Uh, I was interested in that sort of classical landscape where you have trees going up and then a sort of let-down into the lush ground and then up again. Um, but I didn't stop doing, uh, abstract, uh, kept on having shows with, uh, Chandler.

Dick Watkins: As you say, Peter, uh, sorry, Paul, uh, you, you'd, you explained it very, much more clearer than I can recollect it, what I was doing at that stage, you know.

Paul McGillick: Well, I'm just saying that the, that work, um, leading up to the São Paulo Bienniale, it seemed to me that you're suddenly exploring different possibilities, uh, maybe coming back from those landscapes, which were an early example of doing the same thing, this reinvestigating what it was you wanted to do as a, as a, painter.

Dick Watkins: It wasn't sort of, um, [inaudible 38:34] , Peter, uh, Paul. I call you Peter. Uh, it just happens to me occasionally ... that I have to do that sort of thing.

Dick Watkins: Like, years, a few, 15 years ago, 10 years ago, I suddenly started doing figurative stuff again. I don't know why. It just, it just came to me to do it. It's not a rational process, painting.

Paul McGillick: No, I, I, wouldn't, wa-, wasn't suggesting it was a kind of thought out thing. It was, uh, clearly ... instinctive, an intuitive thing to do.

Dick Watkins: I know you mean. Yeah, yeah, you're right.

Paul McGillick: Hmm. So, well, that's interesting what you just said, 'cause you were saying that periodically you kind of kick over the sand castle and just see what else can be done.

Dick Watkins: Yeah, yeah. That's it, yeah.

Paul McGillick: Exploratory thing.

Dick Watkins: It's quite, uh, quite unpremeditated.

Paul McGillick: Mm, mm.

Dick Watkins: It just happens, you know. Some peculiarity in my makeup. I can't help it. So what, so....

Paul McGillick: But it's, but also, that's a kind of act of renewal in a way, isn't it, to stop yourself becoming too habitual in your work.

Dick Watkins: Now, I, I wrote to Mary Eagle a while ago, a month or so ago. I said, "I'm finding it too easy to do abstract." "What do I do now?" you know, sort of thing. Uh, you, I've got to, I've got to toughen up somehow.

Paul McGillick: Right, so, I'm just thinking, um ... I'm thinking about, well, no. Uh, let's go back to the, let's have a look at what you're doing now, which is the work some years now seems very strongly gestural. It's s-, still fundamentally abstract, right? It's not figurative.

Dick Watkins: No, no, I'm, I've been very much involved in, in that sort of gestural painting. That sort of, uh, not just brush strokes, but shapes and lines and ... bodies of work, you know, uh, gesture. They're, they're the ones I've been saying I, they're getting too easy.

Paul McGillick: That ... suggests that there's going to be another explosion soon, and perhaps go back to landscapes again ... or, or painting nudes.

Dick Watkins: I can't afford nudes.

Paul McGillick: Not unless you do a self-portrait.

Dick Watkins: Yeah, what a blow.

Paul McGillick: So, but I guess, overall though, you've been a committed abstractionist ... over your career. Uh, so can I ask you why?

Dick Watkins: ...these aberrations, Paul.

Paul McGillick: Yeah. They're just aberrations, the Corot landscapes and stuff like that, yeah, because that's, because Corot and Turner are very different painters.

Dick Watkins: They are, yeah, absolutely [inaudible 41:58] together.

Paul McGillick: Yeah, yeah. So, but what's, what's the rationale for abstraction for you? Do you have one? Why, why...

Dick Watkins: Oh, yeah, d-, yeah, no, I'm totally involved in Pollock. I think Jackson Pollock is the, is the greatest painter the last hundred years or so. Not many people would agree with that. However I've stuck with it. But, um, yeah, I find it immeasurably fascinating.

Paul McGillick: So, you still look at Pollock a lot?

Dick Watkins: I do all the time. All the time. And I have done since I discovered him by, I was walking down, um...Where was Angus & Robertson in the old days?

Paul McGillick: Uh, George Street, I think.

Dick Watkins: George Street, was it? And I, I'm a, I'm a great bookstore ... searcher, you know. I always go into bookstores. I went into Angus & Robertson, just their Italy art section. And there had been published a cheap set of sort of great painters of our time by some Italian publisher. I said, "Oh, I'll go for that." I opened it up, and this thing, it hit me between the eyes, this painting. And it has continued to, to obsess me ever since.

Paul McGillick: This is Pollock?

Dick Watkins: Yeah, this is Pollock.

Paul McGillick: What about other influences? I mean, I'm just curious about influences and a way, like looking at that work from the '80s, perhaps, uh, Matisse? Uh, has, has Matisse been important to you?

Dick Watkins: Mm-mm, not as much as I think people think he is. Uh, No, not a great fan of Matisse. Uh, I like his early ones. Even earl-, you know, in 1898 or something. Still lives and things, I think they're terrific. But as he go-, grows up into a...Oh, well, you can't sort of knock him. He's a great painter. Exceptional painter. I just find him irritating that a lot of the time. But, um...

Paul McGillick: Um, perhaps, just sort of coming to a conclusion, you might say that you've never been a, a great mixer in the art world.

Paul McGillick: No, I'm not a social person at all.

Paul McGillick: Yeah. Is this by temperament or by choice you, that you just work away in the studio?

Dick Watkins: I'm a, a, a paranoid schizophrenic, Paul. Maybe, that accounts for it.

Paul McGillick: So it's, so you think it's safer for everybody concerned if you just stay in the studio.

Dick Watkins: It's safer for me.

Dick Watkins: No, I'm not a, I'm not a mixer. I'm not a socializer. I don't go to openings anymore mainly because, um, Irene being the driver and she's 92, she finds it a bit of a task to go to openings and back, back and forth into the city, you know. So, we're, we're fairly isolated here. Although there's, there's a young painter just down the road here. She did my portrait a while ago. Alex Thorby her name is. You probably don't know her. Uh, there are a few painters around here. I don't know them well. But, uh, no, I'm a solitary.

Paul McGillick: OK. We'll stop there. Thanks Dick.

Dick Watkins: Thank you, Paul.

Credits

Interviewer: Paul McGillick

Camera, lighting and sound: Cameron Glendinning

Video editing: Bob Jansen

Technical & assembly: Bob Jansen