The Colony Room School
Left to right: Timothy Behrens, Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach and Michael Andrews at Wheeler's, London, 1962. Photography John Deakin. Legacy of Francis Bacon. Cortesy Faggionato Fine Arts, London.
There is a missing link in the tableau vivant, photographed in 1962 by John Deakin, known as the Lunch at Wheeler's. Painters like Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, Leon Kossoff, Frank Auerbach and Michael Andrews (in the picture) have been acclaimed by R.B. Kitaj as the School of London. We know now that these artists had, at least in UK, a strong impact in the new figurational trends developing within the contemporay art scene, then mostly dominated by Abstractionism. That existential realism, that one could also call phenomenological figuration (Giacometti, Dubuffet, Bacon, Rauchenberg), unlike Art Informel (Tàpies, Burri, Fontana), would have a definite impact on the coming age of Pop art. So to speak, Lunch at Wheeler's is a unique portrait of a crucial generation of European artists living and working in London. What happened then to that young man seated next to Lucian Freud? Do we know anything about him? In fact he's the only one that does not appear in any of the many catalogues, books and exhibitions related to the so-called School of London.
That young man happens to be T. Behrens, a painter and a writer. We know at least two portraits of him done by Freud, and another one painted by Michael Andrews (this one belonging to the Thyssen Collection). We also know that he has been working as an artist and writer since the very days he use to go to Lucian's studio, or drop by the The Colony Room's pub. Notwithstanding one can hardly find his name in any document about contemporary art. He has simply vanished from the art world. Why? I don't know...
A friend of mine (José Ramón López-Calvo) called my attention to T. Behrens and to the fact that he is living and working in A Coruña (Spain) since the late eighties. I went to visit him, now a 67 years old artist. I recognised in his paintings that same inclination towards the real that made the School of London so important. And I also discovered a fantastic colorist.
After a while I was invited to curate his first retrospective, which I have done in a daring short time. Madrid (Circulo de Bellas Artes), A Coruña (Kiosco ALfonso) and now Lisbon (Quadrum Galeria de Arte) were the three stops of this adventure. In each city we displayed a slightly different show. A book was published covering most of the work shown in the exhibitions. I hope a more deep investigation, and a broader diffusion of this missing link, can take place, namely on the many English territories. AC-P
more on this subject:
The Colony Room School. A conversation with T. Behrens.
T. Behrens by T. Behrens
T. Behrens and the so-called School of London.
12:28:19 AM 
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