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He was succeeded at Corsham by Colin Thompson (1948-54) later Director of the National Galleries of Scotland. Riette Sturge Moore taught stage design from almost the beginning and in 1949 Helen Binyon started to teach puppetry, concerned with the drama that puppets, especially shadow puppets, could express. Peter Potworowski and William Brooker also joined the painting staff in 1949 as did James Tower, the innovative artist-potter and sculptor who set up the pottery at Beechfield. From 1953-55 Litz Pisk taught movement (which embraced more than dancing), and drawing. James Kirkup lectured on poetry for the first half of the 1950’s. There were also teachers of geography, biology and dancing.
The Music Department at Corsham was an active one: Henry Boys arrived in 1951 and taught for over twenty years, with, at various times, William Glock, Michael Tippett and Elif Pehkonen, Richard Hall and Bernard Naylor teaching as well as examining. Early in the 1950’s William Scott suggested that the St Ives artists Peter Lanyon, Bryan Wynter and Terry Frost be brought in to teach. Ellis agreed; he always made the final decision as to whom should be appointed but he always let people get on with teaching in their own way and never interfered. Almost all the artists were part-time appointments, two or three days a week or for blocks of six weeks. Jack Smith started teaching in 1953 (until 1957) and was amazed to find Peter Potworowski painting the surfaces of the actual components for a still life subject so that students could learn by painting it in an Impressionist and then a Post-Impressionist style. Smith was to amaze his students when he and Peter Lanyon, who taught in the same studio, set a naked female model riding around on a motor bike. Students at Corsham certainly had their imagination stretched. In 1953 Clifford Ellis gave an account of the training of teachers at Corsham. Both the teacher training and the NDD students studied various techniques and materials in the first year, painting, sculpting, pottery, textiles, etc. In the third term of the first year teacher training students were introduced to children. One hundred children, 50 girls and 50 boys aged between eight and ten, were brought into an experimental school at the Academy for one day each week. Each student ‘adopted’ a boy or girl and accompanied them throughout the day and throughout the term attending classes given by the teacher training staff. In the second year students specialized in two subjects; various combinations were possible, for example painting and textiles, painting and drama, pottery and music. In the fifth term one day a week was spent in village schools, students going to them in pairs to help the teachers. Three weeks were spent at the end of the fifth term |
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