Don’t tell me how to run my art school is a new publication recording the unfolding events of an art school in Guilford in 1968.
It is written by Claire Grey with photographs by John Walmsley
Claire Grey writes; ‘1968. There is a war that the Americans are losing. Protest against it turns to violence once the police are involved. They are campaigning for civil rights in America, and good leaders are assassinated. Apollo 8 reaches outer space. In France there is fighting in the streets. The Cold War rumbles on. Anti-heroes are the protagonists in the cinema. The Beatles are still together.’
’In a quiet corner of leafy Surrey, at an art school governed by men who fought for Britain’s freedom from fascism in WW2, a small group of students are unhappy about the quality of their courses’.
What ensued became the longest running ‘sit-in’ in any educational institution in the UK. As a direct result, schools, colleges and universities now have students and staff on their Advisory Boards.
I must own up to having a dog in this fight. I was a student at the college in 1968 and, for some reason, I seemed to have ended up on the cover. Nevertheless don’t let that prevent you from purchasing this remarkable and erudite account of art students standing up for art, not least for the considerable collection of John Walmsley’s seminal photographs.
www.johnwalmsleyphotos.co.uk/-/galleries/store/dont-tell-me-how-to-run-my-art-school
184 pages, 21 x 21 cms (8.25 x 8.25 inches), softback, 148 images.
ISBN: 978-1-909950-05-4