Kevin Egan-Fowler Retiring

Kevin Egan-Fowler retiring after 37 years

Kevin Egan-Fowler.

What year did you start at RGS? I started full time taking over as Director of Art from Peter Bennett in 1976. The department was different then; just the partitioned main studio (purpose built in the 1930s) and the small room that is now our library/seminar area.

What else have you been involved with? Staff football – I enjoyed a few seasons of staff football –my passing in a staff vs. prefects game was described by a colleague as like Manet to Monet. Set designs for school productions in the old theatre and one for a joint production with CNHS of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience in the CNHS hall. There are very fond memories of Film Society on Fridays after school –the film (16mm) arrived in canisters, often only minutes before being played. We had ‘seasons’ of films; grouped by director or genre from Film Noir to Westerns and Japanese Cinema to French Nouvelle Vague. I remember we had to build our own widescreen for the Cinemascope projections! There was certainly a magic in seeing the dust in the lens light and being forced to have intervals to change the reel! The film of course often snapped and had to be spliced on the spot before we could continue. I learned some years later that I had to thank George Luke for allowing me to run Film Soc as there had hitherto been a gentleman’s agreement that nothing should clash with CCF on Fridays!

Music has always been a big feature of our studio ethos, from vinyl on a Dansette to the Harmon Kardon and iPod now! Artists love music, it stimulates and creates an atmosphere. John Harle (65-74) (the internationally famous saxophonist) mentioning me on the Desert Island Discs radio programme, remembered the liberating

experience of painting to Pink Floyd! Trips out to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, the National Museum of Film and Photography in Bradford, Patterdale Hall in the Lakes, a bitterly cold sculpture making weekend at Brockholes, a beach workshop at Tynemouth, painting and drawing at Belsay and Minsteracres, and photography at Beamish. I have always believed in the importance and the genuinely authentic experience of seeing art face-to-face, one-on-one and have loved taking our artists to see galleries large and small, national and contemporary and we have seen major exhibitions and great collections in cities from Edinburgh to London and Paris to New York. When Simon Crow and I ran our first New York trip it was a great pioneering adventure. We have only recently returned from what must be our ninth or tenth visit to the Big Apple, as always a life enhancing experience extended this time thanks to Hurricane Sandy (see page 7, Edwin Wood’s reflections on his experience of the New York Art Trip).

We held exhibitions of RGS art at the Gulbenkian Gallery at the People’s Theatre, Crow’s Creatures at the Hancock and were regular contributors to the Cadbury National Exhibitions, inaugurated the idea of a Private View; an occasion that has become one of the main whole school annual events in the school calendar.

The school has changed in many ways of course and I remember the hysteria from some quarters that girls were coming to the school in the sixth form! Our first group of female artists were a feisty bunch, bringing for me; a normality to the school.

The department has evolved to reflect the changes in Art; the work has always been new, moved with the times, mirroring the art world; taking the best from our heritage and combining it with the cutting edge.

The introduction of Life Class into a school was exceptional and our students; particularly our architects, medics and artists with analytical minds, still enjoy weekly workshops, loving the intellectual demands of the life room.

A passion for being creative and loving the transformative power of aesthetics has been a real delight. 37 years of incredible rich experiences, top exam grades and a wealth of students with transferrable skills –who keep in touch. All seem to have great memories of learning in a very special atmosphere and consider their time in the Art studios as a formative one and that it has had a positive influence on their happiness.

What will you miss? Teaching –it has been daily engagement with young people and a source of delight.

What are you planning to do when you retire? No plans, just chillin’ and pottering, finding out what life is like without RGS.