Concrete Frieze, Rochester Row, SW1 : Definitely a William Mitchell…

My good friend the artist Bill Mitchell was contacted recently by yet another of the growing band of admirers of his work. An email arrived from someone who works near Emanuel House on Rochester Row, SW10 and who had in passing it regularly, come to love the work. Spanning the entire front elevation of Emanuel House is a narrow, but perfectly formed concrete frieze, which undoubtedly has the tell tale style of a Mitchell…

The reason the admirer made contact however, was to try and ascertain who the originator of the work was. As with much of Bill’s work, online references are few and far between and those that can be found are not always correct. As indeed was the case with this piece, which according to the email, was attributed to someone else even in “official” records.

Bill and his wife Joy have asked if there was anything I could do to help, and so in my own small way, by posting this here, I’m hoping to set the records straight for anyone else who notices and wonders at this little gem of a sculpture and tries to find out more…

In the words of the great man himself…

“This was the first integral piece of concrete art ever produced. It’s a ‘ring beam’ which linked all the columns and on which the remainder of the structure depended. I designed it, made the moulds and the builder poured the concrete.

When I recall all the rows with structural engineers, and architects, plus the criticism from the art establishments of the time (including the Art’s Council) and the broadsides from the press – it was apparently obvious to everyone except me, why this work shouldn’t be made. Afterwards of course once it was finished, everyone agreed that it was the right thing to do, giving interest to this and many other, bleak concrete buildings thereafter, both through my own work and via the many copies.

Now I understand that the ring beam at Victoria has been attributed to someone else. This is astonishing, my work at Emanuel House was a piece of history and because of it many art critics made their names and fortunes whilst I and the builder lost money.

I continued to produce public works of art and now and then when I find that some of my works have been attributed to other artists, it only serves to illustrate for me the philosophy of the time, that ‘art’ should only be in frames, and hung on the walls of London West End galleries…”

(Apologies for the images, they’re screen grabs cobbled together this afternoon from Google street view.. I’ll update the post once I’ve been and seen the work for myself…)