I have been asked to add a PS to my post about Philip on the gestation of the remarkable piece of research about him.

During her college years in the 1970’s, Bethany Ewald was one of the tenants next door to Lucy Core, Philip’s mother’s New Orleans carriage house.  The two remained close friends, especially as Lucy encouraged Bethany to focus on becoming a writer. Many years later, on Lucy’s deathbed, she made Bethany promise to write about Philip.

Now, half a century later, thanks to French Quarter Journal.com, she has worked with a dedicated team who “conspired” with her to bring Philip Core’s legacy to light.

As readers of my blog may remember, I have been intermittently trying to reconstruct the career of the artist, Philip Core, who was a close friend of ours and died of Aids in Westminster Hospital on 12 November 1989. In the last year, I have known that Bethany Bultman has been writing about his life from the perspective of New Orleans where he spent his childhood before being sent away to boarding school at Middlesex and then to Harvard. She has now published an article in the French Quarter Journal which immensely enriches my knowledge of his life, not least because she has had access to photographs owned by his sister, Marguerite. She has kindly allowed me to republish the article on my blog:-

Philip M. Core: Torchbearer for Artistic Freedom

It turns out that there is an immense archive of his work held by the Tom of Finland Foundation in Los Angeles and we are hoping this this might form the basis for an exhibition of Philip’s work either in this country or, perhaps, also in Los Angeles and New Orleans.

Head Ornament (1924):-

Clutch bag (1927):-

Tiger clip brooch, commissioned by the Duchess of Windsor (1968):-

It’s set-up day for Romilly’s and Lucille Lewin’s exhibition, Invisible Landscapes, which opens at #7, 78, Chiltern Street on Wednesday.

Their work looks so beautiful in the space – beautiful, bright sunlit space which is half-domestic, half like a gallery, a courtyard off Chiltern Street full of greenery:-

By the way, if you are going to the Storehouse, we had a very delicious supper at a nearby Italian trattoria on the River Lea called Gotto.  I mention it because you’re not spoiled for choice, although they have shrewdly opened a branch of E5 Bakehouse on site.

Also, it took me only half an hour to get there from Green Park on the Mildmay line to Hackney Wick.  Easier than the walk across the park from Stratford.

Go if you can. 

Opens Saturday:-

It’s quite something:-

I have now done a bit more research about the planned redevelopment of the cinema.

It appears that there was a community consultation in October, but although we live only a few hundred yards away, we did not know about it. Those who attended say there were not many people there and the event felt stage managed. No doubt, it was.

There is helpful information online:-

https://www.genesisredevelopment.co.uk/

A new basement cinema is shown in the plans with a foyer on the ground floor. The street frontage makes efforts to conform to the previous frontage.

So, the big issue is the scale of the development and its effect on Bellevue Place. And how it relates to whatever happens on the Anchor Brewery site next door.

The campaign to save our local cinema is gathering momentum and Spitalfields Life has just posted the change.org petition.  I hope you might sign it.

The problem is that the cinema is the major local amenity.  It might not matter if it was being replaced by shops and restaurants and if one could be confident that there will be a cinema in the new development.  But the general feeling is that it will be without character, diminishing the neighbourhood:-

https://www.change.org/p/save-genesis-cinema

I was recommended to visit the Casa Carlo Mollino, which is indeed a memorable experience: an apartment which Mollino decorated, but didn’t live in, and his friends did not know of its existence when he died in 1973.  It might have been sold, but was taken on by an engineer, Aldo Vandoni, as his office, before being acquired and restored in 1999 by Fulvio and Napoleone Ferrari who maintain it as a shrine.

Mollino’s taste was idiosyncratic, highly eclectic and much influenced by his interest in the occult and surrealism:-