PEAR TREE LOG

pear tree log: I started this blog to keep my younger son, Jonny, in touch with life in Lincolnshire, while he spent a year working in China. That year turned into five! Now he is home and training to become a physics teacher. This is simply a patchwork quilt of some of the things I enjoy - life in rural Lincolnshire, our animals, friends, architecture, books, the gardens, and things of passing interest.



Thursday 8 March 2012

The Story of the Haddocks

I first became aware of Finn Haddock's paintings in the late 1990's when my late father, Harry Hutson,  a naval historian,  was having his latest book promoted at Grimsby's Fishing Heritage Centre.  The walls in the large auditorium displayed an exhibition and although the main focus was on my father - those paintings were impossible to miss!


Later my father told us the story of Dr Haddock, which really helped us to put the paintings into context.


A couple of years later I saw a small notice in the local paper that the paintings were to be auctioned.  As a family we were interested to know how they sold, possibly purchase one, if we could afford it.


The day of the auction dawned and I nervously registered and got my bidding number.  It was a mixed auction and the paintings were a long way down the line, which meant that I had about three or four hours to observe how it was done - and to become increasingly nervous!


When the Haddocks came up the mood in the room altered from serious, intense bidding to scornful and dismissive laughter.  These paintings were treated as though they were trash and of no interest or value.  The auctioneer led this merriment.


I was incensed.  Head held high, I bid for as many as I was able to - there were only two other bidders interested in them and I was able to purchase the lesser, unfinished ones for as little as £5.00 each, sometimes £7.50 if one of the others put in a token bid, I paid more for the finished and framed ones.   All this time the rest of the auction room were laughing and jeering as the paintings were shown.  It was a travesty.  


The people at the auction didn't realise that the paintings were the work of a man who had been through such terrible experiences.  Many of the paintings are on hardboard, some on canvas.  Most are unframed.   I suppose they just saw large swirls of colour, daubs of paint, weird and inexplicable shapes and they fell about laughing.  I don't blame them, they didn't know.  Perhaps they wouldn't have cared anyway.


We keep the paintings because we value them.  I hope that one day the work of Dr Haddock will be appreciated as much as it was in the 1960's and 70's.     It's not about monetary value, it is about acknowledging that this man went through terrible times, but found a way to carry on, a way to get through his tormented nights.   Expressionism at its most intense.


The paintings have had their annual health check and spring clean and will now be returned to safe storage - hopefully that will be the last time they influence anyone's dreams.  Powerful work, given that George didn't know they were under the bed

19 comments:

  1. "Expressionism at it's most intense"...absolutely! I do hope the late Dr H has his day.
    Jane x

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    1. Thanks Jane. He has been talked about in Blogland, and that is a start.

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  2. Thanks for being tough and honoring the work by buying it.

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    1. I could not, in truth, have done anything else Joanne. The paintings are safe and the whole family knows the story and understands why they are important. I must remember to make sure I tell them all about their powerful effect.

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  3. I for one am glad you saved the paintings from those jeering idiots. :(

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    1. They just made me all the more determined to save the paintings. I suppose I had the advantage, because I held the key. Either way, once they jeered there was no way I was leaving them - red rag to a bull and all that.

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  4. I'm so glad you were able to save the paintings. I did a little research on Dr. Haddock. I will copy and send it to you via e-mail. I found it on the website "Wheatley Hill.com". Apparently he was born and educated there. I'm surprised no one has written a book about his life.

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    1. Thanks for the information, and for doing the research, Meggie. He was a remarkable man and at least we have given him a few minutes of fame in the World of Blog, to keep his story going - and I can see from the stats that it has been read in many countries.

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  5. People mock many forms of mental illness, whatever the cause. What a courageous man Dr. Haddock was to persevere with living when it was so difficult for him.

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    1. Hi Jenny, They certainly do. Dr Haddock was a truly remarkable man and I am so pleased that his story has now spread a little further through the world.

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  6. I read this post and then Wednesday's which has given me a more complete picture of this brave, tormented soul. His paintings are complex and deserve long and lingering observation, with so much emotion hidden therein. Dr.Haddock's paintings deserve to live on who knows one day he might be as recognised as Evard Munch?! Great posts.

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    1. Hello cuby poet, His paintings are immensely complex, my photographs do not do them justice at all. What looks random has in fact been carefully built up with many layers of paint and textures until the stage where he let the emotion through. Amazing stuff.

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  7. I felt bad when I read that people laughed at Haddock's paintings. The Interrogator in particular is extremely well done and could hang in any respectable museum. Hopefully, one day it will thanks to you!

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    1. Hello Ms Sparrow, You are absolutely right, The Interrogator is very powerful and although it looks very immediate, much of it has been carefully built up until he reaches into that deep dark abyss and you can feel the pain gush out into the canvas.

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  8. Honestly some art collectors can be so snobbish. Good for you for "saving" his work. A gallery showing accompanied with his story would help reintroduce him and maybe re-establish appreciation.

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    1. Hello Janet, It is marvellous, dark, painful and challenging stuff. The kind you can dismiss, as those bidders and auctioneers did, with a jeer, or you can look at it properly and see the torment. It does need some careful thought for the future of the collection.

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  9. I knew Finn and his family at the time my son went to Witham Hall Prep School. Finn's son went there too. I recall a couple of visits to their house in Grimsby, where he showed me a number of paintings. He kindly gave me some signed photographs of a number of them. I liked his art and am quite incensed at the auctioneer's comment at the sale. He should have kept these to himself. I will post a couple on my Facebook page.

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    1. Hello bojaque, How wonderful that you knew Finn! His paintings are wonderful and I would hope that there will come a time when his work is fully appreciated again. There are some on the walls of at least three houses that I know of, and also in the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull; some are in the College in Grimsby and I'm sure there must be many others dotted around the world. I was truly shocked at the attitude of the auctioneer, but that is the way it happened. He was a foolish man.

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