Di Livey's collection

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 Di's watercolour 1Di's watercolour 2Bagnigge Wells exhibition poster 

Di Livey has sent images of two of her watercolours by John along with a copy of the poster of the New Bagnigge Group exhibition at the Factory in Kings Cross Road in 1977.  The poster was designed by Tim Mara and Chris Plowman, both of whom had recently left the Royal College of Art as graphic designers.  Both are sadly no longer with us.

The poster for the exhibition is published sideways here because of format limitations on this website.  

The group chose its name from this plaque https://www.flickr.com/photos/dgeezer/34894982 on the wall of the house at 63a Kings Cross Road, where several of the artists created studios for themselves in the large building behind the house. This was referred to as 'The Factory' in honour of its New York antecedent.  John lived at that time at 3 Frederick Street, just round the corner.  Another group of friends from his Cambridge years lived at 15 Millman Street, off Lambs Conduit Street a few streets to the west.  All of these buildings were squats of the kind tolerated by landlords and councils at that time. 

Bagnigge Wells was a popular spa in St Pancras.  It thrived from the 1760's until the end of the 18th century, and had a reputation for "loose women and boys who are depraved" (Museum of London). Whether the artists appreciated this bit of history is not known (Wikipedia was not around in those  days).