Posted: Wednesday 15 February 2012
Time for everything – including mischief
By Leonard Mair
In 1973 when I joined Morton Fraser & Milligan WS as a legal apprentice, I soon realised that my duties were a lot more diverse than the job description initially suggested. Only a few short years earlier, the daily tasks of the legal apprentice included ensuring that the senior partner had sufficient coal for his fire (and that it was properly lit when he arrived!). While it is true that the firm considered that it had properly modernised by the 1970s (a relative term in the world of law at the time) there were nevertheless some residual tasks expected of us which, on any view, had sod all to do with learning law.
This didn’t bother me in the slightest. The pace of work was quite relaxed (almost comatose compared to today). There was time for everything – including mischief. One annual highlight was known as “the hanging”. This was not as sinister as it sounds! It involved attending at the RSA to assist with the preparation of the annual SSA exhibition. The SSA had been clients of the firm for decades and this was one way to show appreciation. Many SSA members were also individual clients of the firm and they included the great and the good: many very fine contemporary artists, some of whom are now sadly deceased.
A bunch of us would attend at the gallery and be instructed to march on stage displaying the art for the scrutiny of the judging panel. The bigger works were heavy! The judges would nevertheless take their time, and then, in the manner of Nero, give a thumbs up or thumbs down, and sometimes, confusingly, a sort of sideways thumb jab. We never did know what that meant so we put them in the reject pile. Now 30 plus years later let me personally apologise to any artist whose career failed to take off because they were rejected at the SSA annual exhibition in the 70s! We didn’t know any better…
Sometimes, to make things a bit more interesting, we marched on holding an abstract work upside down just to see what happened next. It would be judged in the usual way (and none of the judges attempted a handstand), so it was perplexing to see these works get through to the exhibition and hung the correct way up.
Morton Fraser has been very pleased to continue to have a number of leading artists as clients and to watch them grow and develop over the years. Nowadays, the legal dimensions of creating, displaying and selling art are rather more complicated than when I started out. The digital age has brought new challenges to copyright and IP issues. We continue to represent artists in legal matters and offer support where we can – including (where budget allows) sponsorship. In these times of austerity that has not been easy, but we are proud that we have been able to provide the Morton Fraser prize to VAS for many years. We are now judging (for our sins) rather than hanging!
The annual exhibition by the SSA, VAS and the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours is on now at the RSA and runs until 1 March. You should go if for no other reason than to admire the outstanding work of Jean Martin, a worthy winner of the Morton Fraser prize for 2012, as well as the many works on display (and for sale) by other remarkable artists.
Finally, we are very excited at the prospect of shortly receiving a number of works from Elizabeth Blackadder who has very graciously offered them on extended loan to the firm. Six of the works are by Elizabeth and include three magnificent paintings influenced by her trips to Japan. The other two are by her late husband John Houston, a wonderful artist in his own right. The office art collection will be much enhanced by these generous additions. Next time you are in a meeting room take a closer look at what is hanging on the wall and remember that a world without art is a world without imagination!
