We had a screening this evening of Bruno Wollheim’s admirable documentary about the work of the late John Golding as a painter: showing how his success as a writer and teacher deflected him from turning properly to being a painter until he had an exhibition in the early 1970s at the Rowan Gallery; how he gave up teaching at the Courtauld in the expectation that he could support himself through the sale of his art; but how the exhibition at the Royal Academy ‘New Spirit in Painting’ in 1981 turned the art market away from abstraction towards figuration. There was much lively discussion after the showing of the film as to whether or not it showed Golding accurately. The answer is that it’s not a film about him as a writer or curator, but about his art.
| Charles | Saumarez | Smith | 
It’s good to see John Golding being discussed again. He was a fine painter. Alec Gregory Hood had a very good group of painters at the Rowan in the 1970s – John Golding, Jeremy Moon, Mark Lancaster and others. I wonder if anyone would consider putting on a Rowan Retrospective now? I’d certainly like to have the chance to see how they have held up .