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Henry Stockley ('Busdriver' Stockley) (1892–1982) was an English primitive artist. Once called "the greatest inspired painter since William Blake," Henry Stockley was arguably the most important primitive artists active in the period 1930 to 1960. His work suffered years of neglect partially reversed with the publication of a number of articles on his life and artistic production and with a major exhibition devoted to his life and art at the London Transport Museum (July 1996 to March 1997). The location is significant. Although trained as a meat inspector, for many years Henry Stockley was a bus driver. ==Early life== Henry Stockley was born 1892 at 10 Willow Terrace, Eynsford, Kent, the third son of ten children. William and Frances Stockley had eight boys and two girls. William Stockley was a sign writer, specialising in gold leaf and a plumber. The terrace and the interior of the Stockley house were recorded in the Channel 4 documentary on Eynsford, where we are shown one of his younger sisters, Florence Martin, at the very end of her life. Florence described life in the cottage in those early days:
The villages and landscape of North Kent, the landscape of Samuel Palmer, form an important element in Stockley's visual memory. Two of his brothers died in infancy, and one in an accident in his early twenties. The latter's death had a significant influence on Stockley as an artist. Stockley started school in a room at the Manse, High Street, Eynsford and then moved to the village school. He left school at thirteen, and started work in a slaughterhouse at the village butchers (Eynsford ) and at an early age moved to Farnham, Surrey, where he worked in a slaughterhouse attached to T. Stratford, a Farnham Butcher. Stockley claimed in a newspaper interview that he painted slaughter house scenes, but these have not been traced. Stockley played football for Farnham Town, and ran for the Harriers. An interest in his own physical health and prowess stayed with him throughout most of his life. On weekends he cycled from Surrey back to his home in Kent. Stockley later studied at night school and passed exams to be a meat inspector. Apart from his training as a bus driver, which he recalls in his reminiscences, ''Stockley on the Buses'' (), this was the limit of his formal education. He was, as he often said, a self-taught man. He read with enthusiasm Dickens, Bunyan and George Borrow. and struck up a relationship with Arthur Mee, the compiler of the Children's Encyclopaedia, whom he used to meet off the train at Eynsford Station. He had his own small butchers shop in Horton Kirby, Kent, for a short time. When the First World War broke out he was directed into Vickers Armstrong at Dartford and drove ammunition all over the country for the duration of the war. He was married during this period. Like so many, Stockley was deeply affected by World War I, never forgetting the friends in the Kent villages who had died. He was against war and helped his son to avoid military service. The Cenotaph features in a number of his paintings as an exploration of his feelings of loss. After the war he moved to New Cross where he started up a small haulage business, at 80 Vanguard Street: the business failed. Henry always felt himself a little above the ordinary working man, not only because he was an artist. These failed business ventures are indicative of his attempts to move away from being merely a worker. It was after the failure of his business that he applied for work as a bus driver; work was scarce and it was a regular job. He started at Reigate, Surrey and was eventually transferred to Swanley Bus Garage, his base for the rest of his working life on the buses—32 years 11 months, from 1925 to 1957. The company he worked for was called the East Surrey Bus Company and, later, London Transport. He did not enjoy driving buses, hating the long hours, cold, discomfort, eyestrain, poor wages, berating the management and feeling isolated. He drove throughout the Second World War and recorded what he saw in a series of Blitz paintings, two of which survive: ''Saving St Pauls'' and ''London''. He moved during the War to Oliver Crescent, Farningham. His children, Helen the younger daughter, and Henry the only son, have early memories of their father executing a painting. Son Henry remembers going to the village to buy his father paint. In a newspaper article Stockley himself said in 1932, "I have painted since I was a boy on any odd scraps of paper or canvas I found available." In addition to paper and canvas he certainly painted on linoleum, old pillow cases, beaverboard, floor boards, plywood, brown paper, a Rexine chair cover, bits of glass, and wall paper. As a painter, Stockley was completely self-taught: in that he never trained at an art school. He considered this an advantage and was pleased he had never learned perspective. His father had however learned the use of gold leaf, singwriting and leaded lights. It is probable he restored these for Farningham Church. Henry learned how to mix oil paints, his favourite medium, from his father. He claimed he had special formulas for his colours. There is therefore a direct link between the 'popular art' of sign writing and Henry's art. The records of the baptisms of the Stockley family in Farningham, going back to 1819, give the profession of the fathers listed there as 'painter' or 'painter and glazier'. In this respect Stockley's roots as an artist are in accord with the eighteenth and nineteenth century 'naive' artists James Ayres discusses in his excellent English Naive Painting 1750–1900 (1980:15–24 ). Some of the paintings are bold and emblematic, some have the rich colours of stained glass: ''Seen From The Bus'' uses subtle traces of gold paint subtly to suggest the glamour of evening in London. Stockley, his daughter recalled, was very outspoken in his views and a man of principle, regarded by his children and grandchildren as kind. He was also well known as man with a keen sense of humour. His cartoons and writings demonstrate this vividly. After his wife's death, Stockley's behaviour became increasingly eccentric, and he eventually was admitted to Mabledon, a psychiatric hospital in Dartford where he died in 1982. He was buried in Horton Kirby graveyard, with his wife, the grave marked by a simple inscription. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Henry Stockley」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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