John Coley (1955-57)

Press, 4 June 1982, Page 13

John Coley (1955-57)

“I believe our generation was the first to break out of a pretty rigid academic mould at the school,” says John Coley. “The teachers who taught the previous generation were of the old school — anything abstract was not really art. I reckon it was the 19505’ gang that broke away from that.” Coley, director of the McDougall Art Gallery, was a . member of “that 50s’ gang.” The gang is referred to in art school legend as the 22 Armagh Street group, because that is where they lived. “It was a commune, although we did not have the word for it them, and the people in it had extraordinary talents. “There was Hamish Keith, Pat Hanly, Bill Cullbert, Quentin MacFarlane, and Trevor Moffat, among others.”

Coley says that he learnt as much from his fellow students as he did from his teachers. The group was into modern art movements, and they flew in the face of their mentors by bolding their own exhibitions and painting abstract pictures.

“We had a love-hate relationship with the staff,” he recalls. “They were excellent, they were dedicated, they gave you a good grounding, and they were always there.

"But there was a strong feeling that students had to master the old techniques before doing anything abstract, otherwise you were cheating.”

The conflict between the old and the new was somehow healthy — it produced the first large group who remained artists. “The school was the key because it provided that contact; that forum for artists.”