Will Juntunen
Google
October 26, 2019
Javit Center
PhotoPlus Show Plus The IFPDA Fine Art Print Fair
I thought I had slept well, and yet, I drowsed during the last presentation. And it was good. John Yau, a poet, and William Tillyer, an artist conversed on the subject of pure etching. I’ll have to look that one up, but it entails eliminating a transfer process. This lecture marks the second one I’ve attended today. The print show occupies a riverfront ballroom adjacent to the huge windowless room where the PhotoPlus show drew thousands. I just presented my press card and waltzed right in with a handsome pass, a Litchenstein print saying, “Press”.
I always have a question, and some days I get to ask one or two. Asking three questions might appear to be obnoxious. Tillyer talked about how he loved to watch the sky, and even talked about a painter, a miller’s son, who learned to watch the sky because his father wanted the sails of his mill to fill with wind. Tillyer called it skywatching.
I did the math. Tillyer lived through the Battle of Britain, and I asked what was the experience of him as a five year old boy. He talked about barrage balloons and spities, the famous British Spitfires. All the lads and lassies too knew when a spitie or more were traversing the sky. I understood this. I had stood rubbernecking up into the heavens, watching the jets play over the Ozarks, near St. Louis, Missouri.
A man approached me as I walked out of the auditorium. “Thank you for that great question. John Yau is writing a book on Tillyer, and I’m sure the World War II connection will now be part of the book. My much older brother talked about spotting Lancasters. Come by the booth. One of William’s prints covers a large wall. It’s called Skywatching”. I had to ask his name. “I’m Bernard Jacobson. Stop by”. Jacobson has represented Tillyer for going on fifty years. Jacobson’s gallery has pride of place in a ducky enclave in London, St. James.
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