Oscar Marzaroli - Tenements to Towerblocks: Futures Past

OSCAR MARZAROLI Tenements to Towerblocks

OSCAR MARZAROLI 1933-1988 Tenements to Towerblocks: Futures Past Including a group of photographs of Joan Eardley 18 November - 23 December 2016 Works are available for sale on receipt of this catalogue The Fine Art Society in Edinburgh 6 Dundas Street, Edinburgh, EH3 6HZ +44 (0)131 557 4050 www.fasedinburgh.com | art@fasedinburgh.com

Marzaroli engaged with his subject in a way his predecessors hadn’t. Documentary recording of Glasgow was plentiful in the 100 years up to 1960, few recorded it thereafter. The realism and objectivity to which the photographers aspire are often impossible to disconnect from their own values, political and moral. The subject of 20th century documentary photographers was that of the urban masses, giving voice to the silenced workers. It was witness to their living conditions, the hardship and in the work of Marzaroli, a decade of rapid social and political change.

Marzaroli documented the seemingly ordinary and everyday and showed it to be exceptional and often humorous. However, his ‘eye’ was not voyeuristic; he walked amongst his subjects as an equal and an ally, a participant and not a ‘privileged tourist’. Leaping from his prints is resilience, defiance, humour and an understanding of the malleable nature of youth and its changing environment.

Interview with Oscar Marzaroli, 1986

‘When I got back to Glasgow in 1959 the city was changing and I wanted to get it in the can. The changes were being expressed in the poems of Edwin Morgan, the paintings of Joan Eardley and Angus Neil, the songs of Adam McNaughtan about throwing jeely pieces out of a thirty storey new high flat. Gorbals, Hutchesontown, Cowcaddens, Anderson and many other areas had been made Development areas. I felt a need to establish a rapport with the city and its people.

A place like the Gorbals was a microcosm of what was happening in all the great cities of the world. It was as exciting as any location could have been. It’s possible that in my choice of subject I was being influenced by Gorky or Burns, writers who were near to the people. But I wasn’t conscious of it at the time. There was no question of me going out to look for what was considered then the tougher element of the city, or for something topical. All I know is I had a need to get down there daily, weekly, monthly with a camera. The city in general but Gorbals and Hutchesontown in particular. Some people aren’t happy with my pictures of Glasgow.

They’re not rosy pictures in beautiful Technicolour. They’re black and white and they are what they are, a happening in time which was quite authentic.

To this day I get letters from the people of the Gorbals and I go along to their community happenings and take pictures. But going back and attempting to physically reinterpret the Fifties/early-Sixties period is impossible. With the high flats that replaced tenements the streets look comparatively devoid of life. No Johnny Walker or Black and White Label carts going along with barrels of whiskey, no coal carts with horses, no rag-and-bone man blowing his trumpet in the street, no kiddies jumping up with joy at a balloon they got for a bundle of rags.’

1. The Samson children in Joan Eardley’s studio, Townhead, I, 1962 original vintage print 29 x 21 ½ cm 2. Joan Eardley in her Townhead studio, 1962 original vintage print 21 ½ x 28 cm

3. Joan Eardley, Catterline, 1960 original vintage print 19 x 23 ½ cm

4. Joan Eardley and Angus Neil, Catterline, 1960 original vintage print 18 ½ x18 ½ cm 5. Joan Eardley in her Townhead studio, with a Samson child, 1962 original vintage print 18 x 20 cm

6. The Samson children in Joan Eardley’s studio, Townhead, II, 1962 original vintage print 29 x 37 ½ cm

7. Joan Eardley’s studio, Townhead, 1962 original vintage print 29 x 21 ½ cm

8. Joan Eardley painting at her Townhead studio, 1962 original vintage print 21 ½ x 28 cm

9. Washing line, Gorbals, 1963 original vintage print 26 x 38 ½ cm 10. Back court, Gorbals, 1963 original vintage print 35 ½ x 29 cm

11. Street games, Gorbals, 1963 original vintage print 36 x 25 ½ cm 12. Phoenix Park, 1965 original vintage print 25 ½ x 35 ½ cm

13. Girls playing street games, Gorbals, 1964 original vintage print 36 x 25 ½ cm

14. Football by the Clyde, 1962 original vintage print 25 ½ x 35 ½ cm

15. Watching demolition, Gorbals, 1963 original vintage print 30 x 36 cm

16. Gorbals children at construction site, 1964 original vintage print 25 x 38 cm

17. Boys running down vennel, Gorbals, 1962 original vintage print 30 x 37 cm 18. Reflection of construction site, 1968 original vintage print 30 x 37 cm

19. Ravenscraig Steelworks, 1962 original vintage print 38 x 29 ½ cm 20. Furnace men, Ravenscraig Steelworks, 1962 original vintage print 22 ½ x 23 cm

21. Rooftops and Spence flats, Gorbals, 1963 original vintage print 27 ½ x 33 cm 22. Chimney at construction site, 1964 original vintage print 38 x 29 ½ cm

23. The old and the new, Gorbals, 1964 original vintage print 25 x 35 ½ cm 24. Construction workers, 1962 original vintage print 37 x 21 cm

25. Welder, 1966 original vintage print 38 x 29 ½ cm 26. Cranes at John Brown’s Yard, 1966 original vintage print 27 ½ x 33 cm

27. Construction workers’ tea break, 1964 original vintage print 29 ½ x 37 ½ cm 28. Haulage, Glasgow, 1966 original vintage print 37 x 30 cm

29. Red Road Flats, 1966 original vintage print 28 x 35 ½ cm 30. New city flats, Glasgow, 1964 original vintage print 37 x 29 ½ cm

31. The Barrows, 1968 original vintage print 25 ½ x 36 cm

32. ‘Ace Spot Wins’, Glasgow Green during the holiday period, 1963 original vintage print 29 x 37 cm

33. Children’s Christmas party, 1961 original vintage print 28 ½ x 37 cm

34. Toffee apples, Carnival at Glasgow Green, 1963 original vintage print 29 x 36 ½ cm

35. Prayers, St Mark’s School, Shettleston, 1962 original vintage print 29 x 37 ½ cm

36. Playground, Rotation Road, 1964 original vintage print 29 x 38 cm

37. Football, Forth and Clyde Canal, near Pinkston, 1962 original vintage print 29 x 37 ½ cm

38. Celtic – Dunfermline Athletic, Scottish Cup Final, Hampden Park, 1965 original vintage print 30 x 37 cm

39. Scottish Cup Final, Hampden Park, 1965 original vintage print 29 x 37 cm

40. Crowd, Scottish Cup Final, Hampden Park, 1965 original vintage print 29 x 37 cm

41. St Enoch’s Underground Station, 1977 original vintage print 25 ½ x 35 ½ cm 42. City centre, Glasgow, 1964 original vintage print 28 x 21 ½ cm

43. George Harrison, 1963 original vintage print 29 ½ x 37 ½ cm

44. Barrowlands, 1963 original vintage print 30 x 37 cm

45. Pensioners’ demonstration, George Square, 1964 original vintage print 37 x 29 cm

46. John Smith Bookshop, St Vincent Street, 1962 original vintage print 29 ½ x 40 ½ cm

47. St Mark’s School, Shettleston, 1962 original vintage print 29 x 37 cm

I'm a skyscraper wean; I live on the nineteenth flair, But I'm no' gaun oot tae play ony mair, 'Cause since we moved tae Castlemilk, I'm wastin' away 'Cause I'm getting' wan meal less every day:

On the second day ma maw flung me a piece oot wance again.

It went and hut the pilot in a fast low-flying plane.

He scraped it aff his goggles, shouting through the intercom, "The Clydeside Reds huv goat me wi' a breid-an-jeely bomb."

Oh ye cannae fling pieces oot a twenty story flat, Seven hundred hungry weans will testify to that.

If it's butter, cheese or jeely, if the breid is plain or pan, The odds against it reaching earth are ninety-nine tae wan.

On the third day ma maw thought she would try another throw.

The Salvation Army band was staunin' doon below.

"Onward Christian Soldiers" was the piece they should've played But the oompahman was playing a piece an' marmalade.

On the first day ma maw flung oot a daud o' Hovis broon; It came skytin' oot the windae and went up insteid o' doon.

Noo every twenty-seven hours it comes back intae sight 'Cause ma piece went intae orbit and became a satellite.

We've wrote away to Oxfam to try an' get some aid, An a' the weans in Castlemilk have formed a 'piece-brigade'.

We're gonnae march to George's Square demanding civil rights Like nae mair hooses ower piece-flinging height.

The Jeely Piece Song - Adam McNaughton, 1967 A poem about the Mitchell Hill Road tower blocks in Castlemilk, Glasgow which once housed 570 families, but were demolished in 2005

Published by The Fine Art Society in Edinburgh for the exhibition Oscar Marzaroli - Tenements to Towerblocks: Futures Past 18 November - 23 December 2016 Photographs Š The Marzaroli Estate Designed by Jamie Mackinnon Typeset in Gill Sans Front cover: Detail of Boys running down vennel, Gorbals, 1962 [cat. no. 17] Back cover: Construction workers, 1962 [cat. no. 24]

The Fine Art Society in Edinburgh

6 Dundas Street Edinburgh EH3 6HZ +44 (0)131 557 4050 art@fasedinburgh.com | www.fasedinburgh.com

The Fine Art Society in Edinburgh