Fred Bromfield is a painter who has always strived for a level of recognition he has never achieved. His daughter, Felicia Bromfield, describes what it's like to grow up with a parent whose professional hopes are repeatedly dashed
Perched on a windswept hilltop, I watch as my father makes bold swipes across the canvas. Juicy limes and rich ochres flecked with scarlet hit the surface at speed. All the while he jiggles along to the jazz trombonist Kid Ory on his iPod, emitting the occasional gravelly "Yeah!" Within a couple of hours, the hollow below has been captured effortlessly.
Once again, without seeming to try, he has produced one of the most energetic, life-affirming creations I have seen. Surely, I think to myself, this is the very definition of success. But it is not enough for Dad. My joy sours and feels jagged as I recall my dear wish to see him achieve the goal that has long evaded him. My father, Fred Bromfield, is a professional painter who has spent his whole life in search of recognition, acceptance. So far, he would tell you, to no avail. The plight of the penniless artist is a cliche but what of his family? It is a complex issue – the poignancy of which often catches me unawares.
Growing up in the shadow of a parent's repeatedly dashed hopes, their deepening despair, can have wide-reaching ramifications. Not least parental divorce and a reluctance to pursue anything similar yourself. On the one hand you feel buoyed, inspired by their talent. On the other, you grow to expect disappointment. I have often pressed my dad for what exactly he means by "recognition"; after all, his nearest and dearest think he's one of the most gifted people going.
Perhaps it's something only those who have chosen such a precarious route can fully understand: the importance of appreciation by one's peers, those "in the know". Reassurance that it hasn't all been a waste of time. Dad will often joke: "Surely it should be illegal to get so much pleasure from my own work!" But mainly he'll stand back with a frown: "Well, I think it's good but how do I know? It could be a load of rooobbish!"
That's not to say he's become a morose, embittered type. His risqué humour and enthusiasm for oils and trad jazz – his two biggest passions, "even more than women"– are well-known in these parts. And he knows he's lucky to have spent his life doing something he loves. But now he's passed 70, the phone calls ending with the heart-rending refrain "Don't be like your old dad – a failure" are growing more frequent. It makes me flinch every time. I try to respond with patience and care. "Don't be silly, Dad, you're entering a golden era," or "You've spent your whole life earning a living from what you love: how is that failing?" Sometimes he'll turn the tables: "When are you going to get on and write your first poem?" Or the even less likely: "Why can't you become the world's first female jazz banjo-player?"
There is more than a hint of pressure to take up the creative baton and succeed in his place. But who would choose such a path when they've already witnessed the mines exploding along the way? No doubt these fears inspired my last-minute decision to study English at university rather than classical guitar at music college, despite the latter long having been my dream.
I have seen how capricious the art world can be, how one man's success is entirely reliant on another's whim. Talent doesn't even seem to come into it. You are required to be 30% artist, 70% business brain these days and my father … well, he's as commercially minded as Van Gogh. More than once I've had to shoot "Don't do it!" glares when he has said to an appreciative passerby while he's out painting landscapes: "Oh, you like it? You can have it – it's yours."
Money certainly isn't the driving force for my dad; it's the all-encompassing passion for paint that propels him. It's an enduring love, an inescapable raison d'être, which had him up and at his easel days after his first heart attack 20-odd years ago, despite the doctor's strict orders to the contrary. "If I can't paint, life's not worth living anyway," he said.
Dad has never been one to sit quietly or live by the rules. Even when he got his wish to study fine art at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts in the late 60s, he regularly skipped classes in favour of playing tailgate trombone with his mates in the boiler room. One of his favourite tales is of a tutor appearing at one of his postgraduate exhibitions: "I see you remain innocent of our teaching, Bromfield."
Back then, Dad basked in the bumptious arrogance of youth. There was plenty of time to attain success and certainly then it glimmered within reach. His style has varied wildly throughout his career. What started out as tightly painted surrealism evolved into chunky abstracts, followed by dark, brooding symbolism (mid-divorce), ethereal nudes and now wonderfully evocative, expressionistic landscapes. A style he calls "expressionist impressionism".
By the time I was born, 33 years ago, he was exhibiting in galleries in London and all over Europe. As a young child, I remember overhearing talk of at least one or two agents who had promised he was on the brink of becoming "the next big thing". My parents agreed that my mother, a French teacher, would be the breadwinner while Dad stayed at home to paint and look after me and my two younger sisters, Amy and Emily.
With hindsight, it's a set-up that had pros and cons. The most serious downside was the natural resentment and attendant guilt that builds up if the bargain doesn't pay off. Indeed, the divorce came when I was 16. But I prefer to dwell on the positives of growing up with an artist, where imagination rules the roost. After all, they are manifold. There were afternoons spent with Dad hunched under the living-room table with us pretending to be ants and bees in their intricate nests. Or tending flocks of cotton wool chicks with cardboard beaks. On the rare occasion we watched television and the picture flickered and turned monochrome, he'd say: "All the better – you can imagine the colours instead." And when we were old enough, we'd spend weekends in galleries with our very own guide. "Look how loosely painted Frans Hals' hands are, far ahead of his time. So exquisitely handled Henry Wallis's Death of Chatterton and such a tragic tale …"
I can't recall exactly when I became aware of the low hum of expectation mixed with dread that was the backdrop to our formative years. The tacit willing-on of our father, our keenly felt hope that he would succeed. It was a kind of role reversal: normally parents have aspirations for their children, not the other way round. Not that this was encouraged – quite the opposite. But I guess the glittering mirage of recognition was so tantalising that we children began to chase it too. I remember writing to Jim'll Fix It at the age of eight to ask for my dad's paintings to be hung in the National Gallery – something that both touched and embarrassed Dad at the time.
Since then I have written to major galleries on his behalf and visited them with his portfolio. My sisters and half-sister and brother from his first marriage have done similar over the years. (Dad had tried many times until disheartenment took hold.) Most recently, I set up a Facebook page where his latest work – "hot off the easel", as he calls it – is displayed. These aren't the most professional attempts at public relations, admittedly. But none of us has insider knowledge – strangely, we haven't chosen to inhabit the art world ourselves.
Whenever bigger names do show an interest, which does still happen every so often, the chink of light is inevitably blocked for some reason or another, mostly that conceptualism continues to trump painting. To which Dad says: "It's not much fun being a dinosaur on the verge of extinction!"
Meanwhile, Dad produces at least one picture a week – more when the weather's good (he insists on painting from life). Most of these treasures are relegated to his long-suffering partner Diana's loft after a few months.
You might wonder whether my faith ever wobbles, whether I think the reason for his "failure" is that he's not good enough. But my pride in Dad is fierce and strong. Many have stood, heart-fluttering, in front of his joyous, spontaneous oils and wondered why he's not up there with Lucian Freud, David Hockney and his former tutor, Frank Auerbach. I swear it's not just delusion or bias on my part. Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 hours ago.
Perched on a windswept hilltop, I watch as my father makes bold swipes across the canvas. Juicy limes and rich ochres flecked with scarlet hit the surface at speed. All the while he jiggles along to the jazz trombonist Kid Ory on his iPod, emitting the occasional gravelly "Yeah!" Within a couple of hours, the hollow below has been captured effortlessly.
Once again, without seeming to try, he has produced one of the most energetic, life-affirming creations I have seen. Surely, I think to myself, this is the very definition of success. But it is not enough for Dad. My joy sours and feels jagged as I recall my dear wish to see him achieve the goal that has long evaded him. My father, Fred Bromfield, is a professional painter who has spent his whole life in search of recognition, acceptance. So far, he would tell you, to no avail. The plight of the penniless artist is a cliche but what of his family? It is a complex issue – the poignancy of which often catches me unawares.
Growing up in the shadow of a parent's repeatedly dashed hopes, their deepening despair, can have wide-reaching ramifications. Not least parental divorce and a reluctance to pursue anything similar yourself. On the one hand you feel buoyed, inspired by their talent. On the other, you grow to expect disappointment. I have often pressed my dad for what exactly he means by "recognition"; after all, his nearest and dearest think he's one of the most gifted people going.
Perhaps it's something only those who have chosen such a precarious route can fully understand: the importance of appreciation by one's peers, those "in the know". Reassurance that it hasn't all been a waste of time. Dad will often joke: "Surely it should be illegal to get so much pleasure from my own work!" But mainly he'll stand back with a frown: "Well, I think it's good but how do I know? It could be a load of rooobbish!"
That's not to say he's become a morose, embittered type. His risqué humour and enthusiasm for oils and trad jazz – his two biggest passions, "even more than women"– are well-known in these parts. And he knows he's lucky to have spent his life doing something he loves. But now he's passed 70, the phone calls ending with the heart-rending refrain "Don't be like your old dad – a failure" are growing more frequent. It makes me flinch every time. I try to respond with patience and care. "Don't be silly, Dad, you're entering a golden era," or "You've spent your whole life earning a living from what you love: how is that failing?" Sometimes he'll turn the tables: "When are you going to get on and write your first poem?" Or the even less likely: "Why can't you become the world's first female jazz banjo-player?"
There is more than a hint of pressure to take up the creative baton and succeed in his place. But who would choose such a path when they've already witnessed the mines exploding along the way? No doubt these fears inspired my last-minute decision to study English at university rather than classical guitar at music college, despite the latter long having been my dream.
I have seen how capricious the art world can be, how one man's success is entirely reliant on another's whim. Talent doesn't even seem to come into it. You are required to be 30% artist, 70% business brain these days and my father … well, he's as commercially minded as Van Gogh. More than once I've had to shoot "Don't do it!" glares when he has said to an appreciative passerby while he's out painting landscapes: "Oh, you like it? You can have it – it's yours."
Money certainly isn't the driving force for my dad; it's the all-encompassing passion for paint that propels him. It's an enduring love, an inescapable raison d'être, which had him up and at his easel days after his first heart attack 20-odd years ago, despite the doctor's strict orders to the contrary. "If I can't paint, life's not worth living anyway," he said.
Dad has never been one to sit quietly or live by the rules. Even when he got his wish to study fine art at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts in the late 60s, he regularly skipped classes in favour of playing tailgate trombone with his mates in the boiler room. One of his favourite tales is of a tutor appearing at one of his postgraduate exhibitions: "I see you remain innocent of our teaching, Bromfield."
Back then, Dad basked in the bumptious arrogance of youth. There was plenty of time to attain success and certainly then it glimmered within reach. His style has varied wildly throughout his career. What started out as tightly painted surrealism evolved into chunky abstracts, followed by dark, brooding symbolism (mid-divorce), ethereal nudes and now wonderfully evocative, expressionistic landscapes. A style he calls "expressionist impressionism".
By the time I was born, 33 years ago, he was exhibiting in galleries in London and all over Europe. As a young child, I remember overhearing talk of at least one or two agents who had promised he was on the brink of becoming "the next big thing". My parents agreed that my mother, a French teacher, would be the breadwinner while Dad stayed at home to paint and look after me and my two younger sisters, Amy and Emily.
With hindsight, it's a set-up that had pros and cons. The most serious downside was the natural resentment and attendant guilt that builds up if the bargain doesn't pay off. Indeed, the divorce came when I was 16. But I prefer to dwell on the positives of growing up with an artist, where imagination rules the roost. After all, they are manifold. There were afternoons spent with Dad hunched under the living-room table with us pretending to be ants and bees in their intricate nests. Or tending flocks of cotton wool chicks with cardboard beaks. On the rare occasion we watched television and the picture flickered and turned monochrome, he'd say: "All the better – you can imagine the colours instead." And when we were old enough, we'd spend weekends in galleries with our very own guide. "Look how loosely painted Frans Hals' hands are, far ahead of his time. So exquisitely handled Henry Wallis's Death of Chatterton and such a tragic tale …"
I can't recall exactly when I became aware of the low hum of expectation mixed with dread that was the backdrop to our formative years. The tacit willing-on of our father, our keenly felt hope that he would succeed. It was a kind of role reversal: normally parents have aspirations for their children, not the other way round. Not that this was encouraged – quite the opposite. But I guess the glittering mirage of recognition was so tantalising that we children began to chase it too. I remember writing to Jim'll Fix It at the age of eight to ask for my dad's paintings to be hung in the National Gallery – something that both touched and embarrassed Dad at the time.
Since then I have written to major galleries on his behalf and visited them with his portfolio. My sisters and half-sister and brother from his first marriage have done similar over the years. (Dad had tried many times until disheartenment took hold.) Most recently, I set up a Facebook page where his latest work – "hot off the easel", as he calls it – is displayed. These aren't the most professional attempts at public relations, admittedly. But none of us has insider knowledge – strangely, we haven't chosen to inhabit the art world ourselves.
Whenever bigger names do show an interest, which does still happen every so often, the chink of light is inevitably blocked for some reason or another, mostly that conceptualism continues to trump painting. To which Dad says: "It's not much fun being a dinosaur on the verge of extinction!"
Meanwhile, Dad produces at least one picture a week – more when the weather's good (he insists on painting from life). Most of these treasures are relegated to his long-suffering partner Diana's loft after a few months.
You might wonder whether my faith ever wobbles, whether I think the reason for his "failure" is that he's not good enough. But my pride in Dad is fierce and strong. Many have stood, heart-fluttering, in front of his joyous, spontaneous oils and wondered why he's not up there with Lucian Freud, David Hockney and his former tutor, Frank Auerbach. I swear it's not just delusion or bias on my part. Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 hours ago.