Sybil Myerson with art created by her husband Cliff who died in 1995 |
Fidelma the Celtic nun is on the case
Just days before his untimely death at 68, retired Kilburn GP Dr Cliff Myerson was doing what he loved best – painting.
For more than 30 years, when he was not caring for his patients at the Cambridge Gardens surgery, he was a successful abstract artist, with praise from, among others, Sir Nicolas Serota, director of the Tate Gallery.
Cliff died, tragically, of an aggressive form of leukaemia in April 1995.
Now, for the first time, his widow, Sybil, a retired Royal Free medical sociologist, is due to open the front and back rooms of their end-of-terrace home at Glenhurst Avenue, Kentish Town, next month for a special exhibition of his work.
His work was influenced by the experimental “constructivism” school introduced by Russian avant-garde artists at the turn of the 20th century.
It is a movement which has inspired everyone from Picasso to Daniel Libeskind, who created the square structure at the London Metropolitan University at Holloway Road, Islington.
Art lovers describe the vivid, colourful, almost playful quality to Cliff’s abstracts which utterly dominate Sybil’s home, close to Parliament Hill Fields.
When he discovered he was ill in 1992, Cliff began working in earnest. His aim was to fill two rooms of his home with his work as a posthumous gift to his wife and friends.
“There was a two-month remission before he died,” says Sybil, “and Cliff came out of hospital and did eight paintings a day. These he displayed himself in the front and back rooms.”
At first, grandmother Sybil opened the rooms every year to friends on Cliff’s birthday in April. But this year will be the first time she has held a public exhibition in her own home.
“Over the years he exhibited at various galleries in London and elsewhere,” Sybil adds.
“Locally, he exhibited at Camden Art Centre, the People’s Gallery at Kentish Town, and the Flaxman at the Barbican.
“But I always wanted people to come and see his work as I do – to feel surrounded by it. And maybe, hopefully, even be uplifted by it as I am.”
But how did she feel about strangers walking around her semi-detached house? “I can live with it for a few days if it means bringing Cliff’s work to a new and bigger audience,” says Sybil.
“It would have been what he wanted. But I won’t be on my own on the two days. I have friends who are going to help me out. ”
Sybil admits that while the paintings are colourful and interesting, some people may want to know what they mean.
“It is all in the eye of the beholder,” she says.
“Cliff wanted people to see what they wanted to see. I’ve had many friends and former colleagues who have studied his paintings for a good deal of time and have found something that has meaning in their lives.
“But, perhaps, most importantly, painting was a way for Cliff to come to terms with his impending death.”
He was not just a consummate artist. He was also a poet and an art critic for various periodicals including Art Monthly. He had written an article while he was ill, on photographic art, for Art and Design magazine.
The title to the piece, however, ‘Sense of Time Passing’, was written in his Royal Free Hospital bed, minutes before he drew his last breath.
About 25 drawings and paintings will be for sale at prices ranging from £300 to £700.
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