Swanson Gallery, Thurso, until 1 December 2012

FOR A few years in the late 1950’s and early 60’s, Bettyhill-based Elliot Rudie was “artist in residence” at The Beat Hotel on 9 Rue Git de Couer off the Boulevard Saint Michele in Paris, run by the irrepressible Madame Rachou, a veteran of the French Resistance, writes George Gunn.

HERE was a cheap refuge for the lost and the lonely, for artists, poets and writers in general, where for a few years the “heroes” of the American “Beat Generation”, Allen Ginsburg and William Burroughs, lived and worked.

Elliot Rudie - William S. Burroughs

All of this bohemian energy is captured in many of the large and small paintings and drawings which dominate this retrospective exhibition. Elliot Rudie was there and lived amongst them, and along with the photography of Harold Chapman, both which are featured in the film The Beat Hotel, directed by Alan Govenar, which is being shown every day of the exhibition, chronicled this “resistance movement against all authority”, as Rudie describes it in the film.

Interesting as all this is, I cannot help but feel that the essential essence of Elliot Rudie the artist is not best served by the curatorial choices this exhibition has taken. For make no mistake: Elliot Rudie is a major talent, if only as evidenced by the two portraits in oil of his mother and father dating from 1958 and 1967 respectively, all deep cello greens, browns and yellows, and the two conte pencil and charcoal drawings, ‘Mr Scott’ (1958) and ‘Life Drawing’ (1994), with their confident purple atmospheres and blue grey settings. These works demonstrate an artist with an astute eye for human shape and form and a consistent and developed love of that media but this exhibition only offers us glimpses of these riches.

Elliot Rudie - Ferlinghetti and Murau at the Howl trial, 1957

Avizandum is a Scots Law term for “summing up” and, of course, it is difficult to “sum up” a career which began when Elliot Rudie was born in Broughty Ferry, Dundee in 1939. He trained at Duncan of Jordanstone and almost immediately he graduated he moved to Paris. When he got there the Algerian War was in full swing with regular bombings in the Parisian streets and along with the flowerings of the “counter culture” this period has left an indelible mark on his art and philosophy.

There are 34 works on display in the Swanson Gallery and its limited space is dominated by the large oil painting on hardboard, ‘Chameleon’, a group portrait of the Beat Hotel residents dating from 1968.

On his return to Scotland Rudie moved to Sutherland, first to Helmsdale and then to Bettyhill to teach art at the new Farr High School, and although there are markers of his devotion to that community in posters, book covers and photographs of arts projects with the school, there are only two works which offer a tantalising glimpse of the importance of the North Coast of Sutherland to his creativity – ‘Farr Point’, a tender acrylic composition, and the wonderfully vibrating ‘Red House’, both which date from 1992.

There is joy, colour, life and exhuberance bursting out all over the room, and herein lies the difficulty of this particular “Avizandum”: there are at least three exhibitions competing with each other here. The Beat Hotel work constitutes a strong entity in itself; it shows both the genesis and flowering of the artist’s style and the developing colour of his politics.

Then, secondly, there is a continuation of this in the magnificent and dedicated work he produced with the pupils of Farr High School, for example the Spectrum Playground and the various art work produced for the sequence of musical theatre projects he was involved with – not to mention the designs of the Tales Of The North Coast collection of stories.

And thirdly there is the relationship this highly charged and immensely gifted artist has with the culture and landscape of Sutherland itself. I literally pined from the lack of this.

One of the gifts of this exhibition is the number of artist’s notebooks and scrapbooks which are available for the gallery goer to look into and enjoy. Here is a fascinating door into the world view and thought processes of this great imagination and talent. But the vital work is not on the walls.

This is not a criticism of the exhibition – far from it: it is a lamentation for the lack in Caithness and Sutherland of a large enough and technically facilitating gallery space co-joined with the cultural knowledge and curatorial vigour necessary to allow the people to enjoy the work of Elliot Rudie, one of the most important artists working in Scotland at this present time.

Elliot Rudie - The Crowd at the Howl trial, 1957

Avizandum is not so much a “summing up” as a “prelude”, and The Swanson Gallery, Highlife and Caithness Arts have to be congratulated on going some way to counter the neglect Elliot Rudie has endured over the years. The exhibition, sadly, is not touring, but this only makes a visit to Thurso even more essential because as many people as possible should see this important display of irreverence and skill, technique and passion. If you want to give yourself a pre-Christmas present go to the Swanson Gallery.

© George Gunn, 2012