Prison restaurant refuses to show ‘inappropriate’ paintings by former inmate

The Clink in Brixton Prison, London, is one of London’s most acclaimed restaurants, offering delicious meals at a reasonable price, all prepared by prisoners working towards qualification in the hospitality industry.

You might therefore think that it would be the ideal location for an exhibition of paintings by a former prison guard, Frank Norman. Not so; When the paintings arrived, the operations manager decided that they should not be put on display, with the following explanation: “When I saw the images in the restaurant… the image with the car in it and the nude photo and after feedback from the prison, I I don’t think these are suitable to hang in the restaurant.

As a result, the exhibition, which was scheduled to open on October 15 and run until December, has been canceled and the paintings have returned to the family: Norman’s widow Geraldine Norman, a leading art market journalist in the late 20th century, and his grandson Joe.

Frank Norman (1930-80) grew up in a series of Barnardo’s children’s homes and spent time in prison for petty crimes. There he took art lessons. He rose to fame in the 1960s after writing a prison memoir, Afraid of rights and the play Fings aren’t what they used to be; he became a close friend of Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud.

The ten paintings that were ‘banned’ from The Clink date from 1955 to 1965 and are in a variety of styles, from naive depictions of parties to abstract paintings in the style of Joan Miró. They are not for sale and had remained with Frank and then Geraldine until recently, when some were given to members of the family.

“There were so many, some were seriously interesting, and it seemed like a nice reminder of a part of Frank’s life,” Norman says. “(This exhibition) is part of a wider project to re-establish Frank Norman as a major cultural figure, hence the republication of (his 1960 book) Soho night and day in September. The paintings have never been exhibited before and represent the first era of his creative legacy. He initially wanted to be a painter before he started writing.”

Of two works cited by the operations manager, one shows a car with ‘Drug1’ as its license plate, with groups of people surrounding it, including a police officer. The dedication reads: ‘To Dick A small gift – which I painted in Wandsworth Prison!! Which somehow proves that WALLS DO NOT MAKE A PRISON, NOR IRON BARS A CAGE.” – July 1961. Dick was Dick Watts Jr., the theater critic of The New York Post and a good friend of the artist. The other is a riff on Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignontitled After Picasso: Les Demoiselles de Soho with naked figures on a cubist background.

However, this may not be the end of the story; as Norman says, “We have a few ideas for other locations.”