{"id":13212,"date":"2020-02-09T09:07:16","date_gmt":"2020-02-09T09:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/christine-keeler\/"},"modified":"2020-02-09T09:07:16","modified_gmt":"2020-02-09T09:07:16","slug":"christine-keeler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/christine-keeler\/","title":{"rendered":"Reframing the Keeler Affair: Women, Class and Dear Christine"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Tara Hanks<\/strong>\u00a0interviews Fionn Wilson, an artist and curator of a new exhibition of art inspired by Christine Keeler. Main image: <\/em>Christine Keeler: Anger, Blame, Shame, Ruin, Grief, by Caroline Coon, 2019, oil on canvas, 122 x 92 cm<\/em><\/p>\n

Artist Fionn Wilson is the curator of Dear Christine: A Tribute to Christine Keeler<\/em>, an exhibition featuring her paintings alongside the work of twenty women artists in a variety of media, now on display at Arthouse1 in London until February 29. Dear Christine<\/em> addresses issues of class, gender and sexuality as experienced by a beautiful but vulnerable young woman from humble origins who found herself at the centre of the Profumo Affair, hastening the collapse of Harold Macmillan\u2019s Tory government in 1963.<\/p>\n

\"I<\/p>\n

Sal Jones, I took on the Sins of a Generation, 2016, oil on canvas, 122 x 76 cm<\/em><\/p>\n

In your foreword to the catalogue for Dear Christine<\/em>, you recall watching Scandal<\/em>, the 1989 film about the Profumo Affair, as a teenager. Why do you think your interest has endured?<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I first became aware of the Profumo Affair via Scandal<\/em> back in the eighties, I could relate to Christine Keeler\u2019s story, in particular, in a very personal way. Growing up in Newcastle upon Tyne, my coming of age was sometimes difficult for various reasons and I used to escape into the world of retro glamour from the fifties and sixties, copying the style of film stars and reading their biographies borrowed from Newcastle Central Library.<\/p>\n

I was brought up a Catholic and was intrigued as a child by the beautiful faces of the female saints, lit by candles in churches. I think that, in some way, I associated beauty with virtue. I was convinced that Marilyn Monroe was an angel the first time I saw that famous image of her in a golden dress, head tilted back, eyes half closed.<\/p>\n

I saw beauty as some sort of liberation from the everyday mundane and I recognised immediately that Christine saw her own physical beauty as a possible tool to use to escape a miserable life. I was also becoming quite politically aware around the time of the release of Scandal<\/em> and the obvious injustice and Establishment coercion involved in the narrative of the Profumo Affair made me want to know more. These themes have continued to be of interest to me through the years and, as part of my painting journey which began in 2010, Christine Keeler came back to me as a perfect focus for a series of portraits.<\/p>\n

Why has Christine Keeler inspired artistic interpretations \u2013 from Lewis Morley to Pauline Boty \u2013 more so than other famous figures connected with the events of 1963 (like Mandy Rice-Davies?) <\/strong><\/p>\n

Mandy Rice-Davies thrived and danced her way through the chaos, which is wonderful, of course. But this doesn\u2019t necessarily make for something interesting to explore visually. Christine\u2019s face, to me, is often all telling but also often like a sphinx. It\u2019s very difficult sometimes to get a grasp of who she is. This is intriguing and, I think, is probably what other artists, photographers and filmmakers have also picked up on.<\/p>\n

I find Christine\u2019s beauty much more vulnerable and more open to different interpretations than Mandy\u2019s, which in turn offers more scope for exploration. Of course, the Lewis Morley photo of Christine on the chair is such an iconic photo of the sixties \u2013 it\u2019s probably one of the most famous images of the 21st century \u2013 which has kept Christine constantly in the cultural eye.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Christine Keeler, by Lewis Morley, 1963<\/em><\/p>\n

You have painted around twenty portraits of Christine. How did this process begin and how has it evolved?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I started painting Christine Keeler in 2014, focusing on black and white expressive paintings and quickly rendered small portraits (a series of four) based on media images from the sixties. As the project Dear Christine<\/em> started to take shape, I began to explore aspects of the narrative of the Profumo Affair through Christine\u2019s eyes \u2013 placing her in context of locations important to the story (e.g. the Flamingo Club, which is where a fight broke out between two of her lovers, which ultimately led to the media revelations of the Profumo Affair) and also imagining how she must have felt as she navigated the fallout of the scandal (in Christine at The Flamingo Club<\/em> she reads the Denning Report with suspicion and thinly veiled contempt \u2013 in Christine and the Poisoned Apple<\/em> she looks down with hurt as she is handed an apple labelled \u2018whore\u2019).<\/p>\n

\"Christine<\/p>\n

Christine at The Flamingo Club, 2017, acrylic on canvas, 122 x 90 cms<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Christine<\/p>\n

Christine and the Poisoned Apple, 2017, acrylic on canvas, 50 x 40 cm<\/em><\/p>\n

Focusing more on narrative meant my painting became tighter and less expressive \u2013 more concerned with composition and also with colour. As the series developed, I became more and more interested in painting Christine in her middle age and older life. One of the portraits of Christine I\u2019m happiest with \u2013 Christine Keeler with her Cat<\/em> \u2013 is now part of the Priseman Seabrook Collection of 21st Century British Painting and shows Christine in her council flat in Chelsea in the eighties. It\u2019s based on photos taken by Allen Olley and I think it captures a dignity, but also a vulnerability. In the painting, the cat which Christine strokes on her lap acts almost as an advocate \u2013 daring us to make any more judgments of her.<\/p>\n

\"Christine<\/p>\n

Christine Keeler with her Cat, 2017, acrylic on canvas, 76 x 62 cm<\/em><\/p>\n

Which materials were most helpful to you in researching Christine\u2019s life and image, and in what ways do you think she has been misrepresented? <\/strong><\/p>\n

I knew it was vital to do as much research as possible into Christine\u2019s life \u2013 I wanted to know everything and from as many different angles as possible and through all types of media. I think if you\u2019re going to paint someone who was a real human being you need to do them justice, and for this you need knowledge. Photographic historian and curator Terence Pepper showed me his wonderful Christine Keeler archive at the National Portrait Gallery which was invaluable. I also read Christine\u2019s autobiographies, which were obviously the most helpful in getting a feel of who she was.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a large amount of black and white images online of Christine from the sixties, but ones of her later in life are much harder to find and you have to dig for those. I was astounded to find photos of Christine from the eighties where the captions still refer to her as \u2018Mistress of John Profumo\u2019 and \u2018prostitute\u2019 and \u2018call girl\u2019. This really hit home to me how she had been misrepresented unfairly and how she never managed to escape these labels, even decades later.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a fantastic Channel 4 documentary from 1989, which you can find on YouTube called They Would Say That, Wouldn\u2019t They<\/em>? which documents the struggle to make a TV series about the Profumo Affair (which was obstructed by, amongst others, the Independent Broadcasting Authority) and the subsequent decision to make a film instead (Scandal<\/em>, 1989). The documentary highlights how the Establishment was still quaking about the Profumo Affair as far forward as the late eighties. A Wogan<\/em> interview from the same year, where Christine is subject to the most awful questioning by Sue Lawley, is worth watching to understand just what sort of attitudes Christine was still facing 25 years after the scandal.<\/p>\n