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If one morning you should ever call on the painter and sculptor Maggi Hambling for tea, don’t bring her a croissant. A cinnamon bun is grand, but a croissant will be met with a (very) firm refusal.
Here’s hoping I took a lot more away from this film by the art historian Kate Bryan than the skinny on Hambling’s pastry choices. It was an enthralling, funny, sometimes magical hour, the first of three programmes on women artists. Being on Sky Arts, it was free to view as well.
Bryan was rather chuffed with the bun breakthrough. “Oh, did I get that right?” she cried. It was the start of the seven days and she was excited but nervous.
“Famously, Maggi’s not one to bare all for the cameras,” said Bryan. “She’s never let anyone spend time with her like this before,” we heard. And: “She is famously reluctant to talk about [her work].” We got the idea.
Judging by the greeting, the two were not strangers, but you knew what Bryan meant. While Hambling is a formidable presence, she balances this with a wry sense of humour, as when Bryan laughed at the artist’s “rather fierce” passport photo.
“People have said they’re surprised I’m let back into the country,” said Hambling.
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The two were coming home from Turin and an exhibition of her work from the last 15 years.
With her shades, drainpipe jeans and wild grey hair (think Brian May with a bob), Hambling looked and walked like a bit of a geezer. It had been 18 months since her heart attack in New York, and she appeared on fine form.
We saw inside her London home and studio, but she drew the line at being filmed working. “I can’t paint in front of a camera because it will become performance,” she said.
However, she did describe the relationship between painter and subject.
“They have to sit on a table over there so my eyes are going straight into their eyes … Bit like a love affair. You hope at the end there will be a good portrait and not a broken heart.”
The last such “love affair” was with one Andy Murray. They shared a mutual interest in each other’s work, he visited her studio, the two became friends and she asked him to sit for her.
Hambling was nervous on the day. “He arrived with a tennis racket he had played with as a present. He’s incredibly shy. I had him pose serving. To me it was only like a couple of minutes that he stood there serving, but to him it was a lot longer. After a bit he said I can’t stay like this any longer, I’m going to fall on my face.”
To complete the seven days, Bryan travelled to Hambling’s weekend place in Suffolk, where an installation by the artist moved the presenter to tears. “My God she’s an icon,” concluded Bryan, which Hambling might have laughed at had she heard.
It will be hard for Bryan to beat this with her next films, on Lubiana Himid and the Guerrilla Girls, but a lot of fun to watch her try.