THE BRITISH INVASION: NEW YORK CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS UNDER SIEGE

The life that I chose is to photograph a world that is not mine. And to learn of lives not mine.

1984: MY FINAL BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPHS

Brian Urquhart : former Under-Secretary-General to the United Nations 1984

British “Body Snatchers” had swallowed up the overlords of New York Culture: The concert halls, the museums, auction houses, Intellectual magazines and rogue magazines were seemingly all led by Brits. It was a bit suspicious. Alone, I embarked on a journey to investigate the institutional elite.

I was a cultural and intellectual neophyte. It never occurred to me that an education and intellectual awakening was about to occur. The Royal Realm was ripe for investigation. Mission Impossibles’ Bruce Geller so presciently suggested, that if I chose the mission, intrigue awaited. Numerous portraits later, I was rewarded with a mosaic of cultural enrichment.

I have lived inside a child’s mind for a lifetime. I have learned to swear like a cantankerous old man. I have learned to dance like Baryshnikov. I have felt the power to stand up to fifty foot waves and to wander alone in the darkness of remote jungles. I tell myself many things. Though, I tell myself a single truth: Prepare to meet life’s challenges naked and on fire. The battles of the heart live in my every waking moment. The life that I chose is to photograph a world that is not mine. And to learn of lives not mine.

My list of portrait sessions had been chosen by a consortium of New York cognoscenti. My first stop was Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations Brian Urquhart. I planned to meet him at his United Nations office. Today I can say the old saying applies, “If I knew then what I know now...”.

What an intriguing life this “Le Carre” personality would mean to me today. Espionage, torture and diplomacy were words attributed to Mi-5 and Mi-6 James Bond types. Certainly nobody says, “Bond,James Bond”. But I would have loved to have heard, “Urquhart, Brian Urquhart”.

He led me on a personal tour of the United Nations. I was quickly reminded of my sixth grade civics class. I realized I should have listened more and not have flirted with so many girls in my classroom. Brian Urquhart was gracious beyond his duty. I was a privileged soul that day. Later he invited me for cocktails at his home.

We met the next evening and had more than a few generous pours of scotch in stemless sterling silver goblets (oh, the significant things we remember). We chatted for hours about life in his diplomatic world and shared a few stories about people we knew in common. Mostly my ears were delightfully burning while being enraptured in his living plight and flight across continents. It was a wonder to me that someone as poised and engaging had spent a life in conflict and more, (as he asked to me)“another scotch?”. He was too alive, too fabulous too richly entertaining. I left that evening with eyes at half mast, and my youth full of tomorrows anticipation.

When it comes to women, I have always been like a 12 year old boy gazing at stars in the universe. I had spoken to Kathleen Tynan on the telephone. I had not ever seen her. I knew just a bit about her. Everyone said, “you have to photograph

Kathleen”. And then her apartment door opened.

I was equally 12 and 100 with infantile disability. I couldn’t talk. It was a presence that I had not yet experienced. I had met many fascinating people, maybe hundreds. It wasn’t poise alone. It was that I knew Kathleen had thousands of conversational intellectual intercourse with a multitude of people from all over our planet, and I had not. She stood in the doorway, and her eyes said “now what do you have to say for yourself”.

We surprisingly spent a couple of hours talking about anything and everything. I seemed to be having a private conversation with myself about her presence. I was in a cloud. Weeks later I brought over the images from our shoot. She greeted me in a glittery sequin dress that the 60’s “Go-Go Dancers” would have worn. Her dress was too short to talk about.

We sat on the sofa looking at my portfolio. I was beyond nervous. Her children arrived. Time for me to go. We never spoke again. But I have always wondered what Kenneth Tynan(famed London Journalist/critic and Kathleen Tynan (famed journalist/novelist)and the Tynan children’s lives were about. It was not of my world. Kathleen was the one to photograph. In those days she was the fascinating talented “Body Snatcher” I was looking for.

Many classical music pieces make me feel like I am floating in the middle of an ocean listening to the waves clap chords down to the “Challenger Deep” and inversely swash atop any shoreline in the world. The music is always about ivory keys, and zen searching strings. Musical notes/chords have always enabled my dreams to dance in alternate universes. One day when I asked YoYo Ma to explain the magic. He said, “you just need to listen”. My naïveté always gets the better of me.

I believe that Mickey Mouse is the “Sorcerer’s Apprentice”. I often dream in Fantasia’s colors. So when I arrived for my session with famed conductor Sir Jeffrey Tate at his home, I was sure his costume would be a swirl of exotic colors and his walls would be awash in saturated surrealism. Fortunately he was a prince in black cashmere.

My stories unexplainably always involve cocktails. Jeffrey suggested a glass of wine. I made myself comfortable on the living room sofa and prepared my lights and cameras while Tate’s fingers teasingly floated over the piano keys with a Mozart piece.

He moved about the apartment chatting with me as if we had been friends forever.

If he hadn’t winced for a second I would not have noticed his spinal curvature. His eyes quickly caught mine. He didn’t mind sharing and explaining. He just asked that I don’t make it part of the photograph.

The afternoon was almost too polite for me. He shared some stories about some coming of age conducting experiences. Stories about his mentor Georg Solti. I think he realized I was a bit culturally lost. But with a handshake and a bow, he told me he was leaving tickets for me to see his performance at the Metropolitan Opera House that evening. He suggested we should meet up afterwards. He would be delighted to introduce me to people I should want to know.

I remember how I felt crisscrossing New York City in those days. It was like playing checkers with people’s lives substituting for the Reds and the Blacks on the board.

My Black and White photographs turned out to be an anomaly in my career. To this day, I have no memory of why I chose the film. Just maybe I was reaching back to my appreciation for photography’s great history. An homage that visually was a “Remembrance of things Past”. British influencers stole my heart in 1984 with kind hearts and a wealth of living histories.