Gabriel Weissmann

Post date: 13-Mar-2021 23:58:01

Gabriel Schutzer Weissmann also known as Gabi and Gabby was born in Hungary on 11 December 1944. His parents were Jewish refugees from Hungary who settled in West Hampstead, bringing him and his younger brother Michael with them. His mother’s name was Yolanda and his father was a musicologist. One day, in my early teens, I asked his father who was his favourite composer. His answer has stuck with me to this day “When you study composers deeply you find that they have all something unique to offer and it just does not make sense to pick one out as a favourite. I appreciate them all!” When you are a true expert, you go beyond whims, emotional responses and personal prejudices, you can appreciate the value of all art.

My father John Ernest expressed the same wisdom to me. This might seem irrelevant here. except that he was talking about final degree show marks at Chelsea School of Art in Manresa Road, as it was in the 1960s. Gabi studied there 1963-67 and obtained a fine art degree from Chelsea. Ernie (my father) said that at the final degree show the staff would sit around the staff room and thrash out the marks. Some people, he said, would only give good marks to those working in their own way - following the teacher's style or genre. Such staff were viewed as limited, and their opinions were given less weight. Most of the artist/tutors including Anthony Hill, John Hoyland, Miles Murphy, my father and others could see what the student artists were trying to achieve, and mark them according to the skills they deployed and the extent that they achieved their self-chosen goals, and the quality of the final collection. In other words, all styles were appreciated and to favour a limited selection is to lack proper judgement.

I first met Gabi when he joined George Eliot primary School. I had started at its opening in 1952 but Gabi joined later perhaps 1954. In assembly the head teacher Mr Bradford announced the Gabi (who was a bit overweight) had sat on the drinks fountain in the playground and broken it. He continued that no one should play with him as he was a very bad boy and had to pay the school £3 17s 6d (or something like that) for its repair.

When Mr Bradford announced that Gabi was to be shunned I was absolutely outraged at the injustice and victimisation (not that I had that vocabulary) so I sought Gabi out and over a short period of time we became very close pals.

Not long after the drinking fountain incident there was an announcement in assembly that a thruppenny bit (3d) had been found in the playground. Gabi had lost it, so claimed it. But Mr Bradford withheld it and said “Well, we can put that towards the new drinking fountain, can’t we?”

Gabi and his younger brother Michael in my back garden at 97 Canfield Gardens in 1955. I think I took only one roll of film in the 1950s with my Kodak Brownie camera.

Gabi lived at 49 Fairhazel Gardens, in a first floor flat in the penultimate house at the North end (West side). I would walk down Fairhazel Gardens to get to school, but I would join it two intersections further South where it crossed Canfield Gardens, my home street 1952-56.

Gabi sitting at the front of the class at George Eliot while Mr Boon poses some practical arithmetic problems - operations on old style money in £sd

When we were about 10 the precocious girl next door asked me “If I show you mine will you show me yours?” and I readily assented. I told Gabi about this and he asked me if I had put mine in hers. I was horrified at this suggestion and hotly refuted it! He was obviously more advanced than me in sexual matters, and when he explained the mechanics of sex to me I was disgusted at this filthy practice. Although my mother had explained all about sex to me when I was about 6 I had repressed that knowledge. So strong were the taboos in the 50s culture, and they had rubbed off on me. Gabi was interested to see the girl next door and they made a deal. If he showed her his she would show him hers, but he had to go first, she insisted. He duly dropped his drawers for a few seconds and then asked her to show hers. She refused and gaily skipped off, upsetting him and leaving me confused!

I can’t remember all the things we did together. With my other best friend from primary school, David Wallis-Jones, I made bombs, distilled alcohol and did lots of chemistry, physics and biology experiments together, which continued until we were 15 years old or so. Gabi was less interested in science but I recall that a few years later we both shared intellectual interests in poetry, literature, the arts, drawing and painting (he rapidly outstripped me) politics and religion (atheism). He also had interests in playing music and photography.

I often visited Gabi's home and he did mine. I got on with has parents fine, as he did. But his parents never spoke to each other and used him as an intermediary. "Tell your father that ..." (whatever it was) within earshot of the father so she did not have to address him directly. As a kid it struck me as strange, but I didn't dwell on it, You don't when you're 10. Years later he was gone from the scene but the mother was still nearby.

Gabi's family had undoubtedly had tough times. Gabi was born in 1944 in war torn Hungary. It was around the time of huge deportations of Jews from Hungary to the death camps. The Weissman's were all 100% Jewish so whenever and however they escaped must have been hugely stressful for all of them. Gabi had some defensive mannerisms that I attribute to these hard and stressful times. He almost stuttered, and could be self-conscious when he spoke. He always retained an East European burr to his voice. He was sort of seen as unnattractive. Despite his huge talent and the love that surrounded him most of his life he addoped defensive mannerisms such as a ponderous way of speaking, self-conscious image management. However he could be very funny and was a great wit.

I do recall some japes and scrapes together while 11 or 12 years old. One time we went across the road from his house in Fairhazel Gardens to this large terraced house and climbed the stairs and finally pulled down the escape ladder, climed up and walked around on the roof. Looking over we could see it was a long way down to the ground! On descending the ladder to the top floor a woman who lived in a flat there came out onto the landing and scolded us for trespassing, and said she had a good mind to call the police. Telling us how she ought to, she worked herself up and finally ended up calling the police. Gabi was taken home across the road and I was driven home. It was all rather mild, and the warnings were more about safety than illegality or trespass.

In the late 50s, from 1956 on, I had a bout of stealing. I stole all sorts of stuff from many people. One time at Gabi's flat I recall going through his mother's bureau and stealing a little silver locket. At a similar time Gabi found a small silver tassel ornament at the bottom of the Finchley Road swimming baths. Gabi knew I had this locket, but not that I had stolen it, let alone who from. And one day he went with his father to the jewellers at the top of Goldhurst Gardens, near to what is now Waitrose, Finchley Road. He called in on at my flat on the way (by now I lived at 13-15 Frognal) and picked up 'my' locket to sell for me. He was miffed that he only got 1/- for his tassel but 25/- for the locket. The story reached his mother and she searched and found her locket was missing. So she sent me a postcard saying she wanted her locket back, it had great sentimental value for her. Since it was on an open postard my parents read it and were mortified. My father marched me to the jeweller and retrieved the locket for 25/- saying it wasn't mine to sell and then we returned it. After that my parents asked me to list all my thefts and said they would make restitution with no punishment if I confessed all now. I mostly did but that's part of my story, not Gabi's. I still saw Gabi's mother - I wasn't banned or anything - and I think we moved past that incident. However I doubt that she ever viewed me as greatly trustworthy.

I recall Gabi and I (possibly with Michael) taking the overground to Richmond, and going swimming in the Thames there. I found a fly-fishing reel with my foot and my father cleaned it up and made it usable (and gave me 10/- for it when I complained that he had rather commandeered it). It was an exciting day out! I wouldn't swin in the Thames at Richmond today! I guess we had varied adventures together, mostly long forgotten.

When it came to choosing secondary schools my parents chose William Ellis School for me and Gabi wanted to go there too. But his father wanted to get him into the more prestigious Marylebone Grammar School. The problem was that William Ellis School would not accept ‘second choice’ status on applications. They were your first choice or nothing. So Gabi’s father put down the new Quintin Grammar School as his second choice. This was newly built between Swiss Cottage and St John’s Wood and was on a continuation of the long bombed plot on which they had first built the George Eliot primary School at the northern end, which we both attended. Kynaston School was built between these two other schools. It was a technical school and David Wallis-Jones went there. Gabi wasn’t accepted at Marylebone Grammar and he was therefore sent to Quintin Grammar School. The school may have been fine, I don’t know. Around 1960 Gabi told me about this amazing kid from Acton who was both a Cockney(ish) street fighting gang leader, and a poet. So Gabi introduced Jules Holley into our circles.

Gabi and I were pretty close and shared interests in intellectual matters such as poetry, literature, especially the Beats, and the literature that came to underpin the drug culture and the psychedelic revolution (‘Doors of Perception’, Burroughs, Kerouac, Trocchi, Rimbaud, Baudelaire). We were both interested in art and went to the Tate together. We also were into some classical music, folk music, Blues, R&B, Soul, Rock and Jazz. Indeed Gabi had a guitar which he would carry around and sing to.

I remember us talking for hours with some visiting American poet or poet-taster who gave us an anthology to share. This was The New American Poetry 1945-1960, edited by Donald M. Allen. This was an exciting source of modern poetry even though it omitted the most prominent beats (Ginsberg, Corso, Ferlinghetti, Kerouac) but included Peter Orlovsky and Michael McClure. You can’t co-own a book, so we agreed one would buy the other out. I bought it giving him 10/- (ten shillings) for his share or maybe it was 7/6d.

In our mid teens onwards Gabi and I were part of the Witches culture, the Hampstead culture as well as the protest groups and young socialists. I even went to a young Jewish group with him one evening in Broadhurst Gardens near where the Hampstead Young Socialists used to meet. Gabi and I talked about politics, religion, racism and all of the issues of the day. We saw classic movies at the Everyman and new releases at the Playhouse or Swiss Cottage Odeon.

In the early 60s Gabi encouraged me to spell his name as Gabi, although he was called Gabriel at home. But I see that later, certainly 70s on, he signed things with Gabby. So in some ways I am stuck in the past, sticking with his ealier spelling.

In the Summer of 1961 I went off to Paris on my first holiday alone aged 16 (well 16 3/4 actually). By the end of the week I had secured a room at the Beat Hotel, at No. 9, Rue Git-le-Coeur, by the Place Saint-Michel. I had arranged to meet first Tony Jackson and then Gabi at L'arc de Triomphe. Tony stayed with me the first night and I got rat-arsed!

Gabi stayed soon after, and I recall going busking with him in Place Saint-Michel. He played guitar and sang and I went around with the hat, and we got about 30 francs (NF) in one hour - a fortune!

Gabi at the Beat hotel, 1961. At he door of my room, no. 40. There were a lot of rooms leading off that central staircase. We were at the top of the house and you could climb out of the skylight onto the roof.

Gabi at the Beat hotel, 1961 poking out of the skylight in the roof. I was already up there taking this picture.

After a week or so we decided to leave Paris and hitch-hike down to stay with Pete Sayers in Alba, near Montelimar. I recall two adventures we had on the journey. We arrived at a small town in the dark and looked for a field to overnight in. We both had rucksacks and sleeping bags, but no tent. Luckily it was dry so we bedded down just over a stone wall in a field. Bit smelly, but we both slept. In the morning we found we had chosen the village dung heap to sleep on. As the sun rose it got smellier and we moved off sharpish. Maybe that day of the next, a ride dropped us off a couple of kilometres from the next village heading southwards. As we walked towards it we passed a field full of moderately large water melons. Looking around in case anyone could see us picked one a bit larger than my head stuffed it in my rucksack and trotted off. We ran almost 2 kilometers to the next village, fearful of retribution. There we stopped, sat on a wall and I cut open the luscious watermelon we were so looking forward to in the hot sweaty sun. But it was all green inside, I had solen a heavy marrow and run almost 2 kilometers with it bouncing up and down on my back! We were so disappoited! We cut a face out of it and left it on the wall.

Arriving at Montelimar we stuffed our faces with authentic nougat, the town's main claim to fame. We arrived at Peter's. His father owned several primitive stone-built houses and we a bedded down in one. In addition to Michael (Peter's dad) and Sylvia (his stepmother) there were other friends staying. These included Misha Norlan, Ned Turner, Rab and Brandy Thummin (Michael and Sylvia's son) as well as Peter, Gabi and me.

Gabi Weissmann, Ned Turner, Rab, Paul Ernest, Misha Norlan in Peter Sayers' father's house in Alba, South of France, Summer 1961

We had lots of fun there for a week or two. Bathing in a nearby river, rustic cooking and smoking dope. I had brought some hash down with me, which I had scored at Chez Ali, Rue de la Roquette, off Place de la Bastille. A Scottish guy named Alastair who was a neighbour in the Beat Hotel had told me I could score there from the Algerians, which I did. After this fun stay, Gabi, I and some others decided to hitch south to pick grapes during harvest time. We got there a week into August, but we were told we there was a month before harvest time. I recall walking through the vinyards at night and stuffing my face with all kinds of different flavoured grapes. The muscatel were especially delicious. But being not quite ripe, after a kilo or two you get sore teeth, because the acidic juice attacks your enamel.

We were way too early so we hitched back to Paris and then back to the UK and school. All this time we were hanging out at the Witches, going on protests (including the Aldermaston CND marches from Easter 1960 through to Easter 1963). We went to lots of parties.

Summer 1963 I went back to Paris but this time with Tony Barnett. We scored some mescaline from the American dealer that lived in Room 1, at the Beat hotel. Tony, Gabi (who had joined us) and I all hitch-hiked down to Barcelona where we stayed off the Ramblas. Elsewhere I have described how Gabi and I had our first mescaline trip in Barcelona with Tony as our guide. That day we went around lots of Gaudi architecture including La Basílica de la Sagrada Família, Barcelona's amazing cathedral. Quite an experience on our first trip. Etched-n memories remain to this day. The scent of guitars in a guitar shop. The flourescent flashing of a boy's tartan shirt. Understanding how god feels when it rains as I sweated my way up one of the towers of Gaudi's cathedral.

Gabi Weissmann painting of Gabi, Tony and Paul in Barcelona in 1963.

This was painted during Gabi's pop art period, probably his first year at Chelsea Art School, when he was influenced by David Hockney. It lists our names, Rambla los Capuchinas and describes Tony's jacket as 'real suede'. As the picture shows, Gabi and I were 'way out there'!

Gabi studied at Chelseas school of Art, Manresa Road 1963-66. His class mates included John Maizels, Maggie Maizels, Alisha Sufit, John O'Connor. After completing his degree he went on to become a multimedia technician for ILEA schools. He painted for the rest of his life as the following selections shows.

These are a few of Gabi's early paintings: Brain Drain which won a prize at the John Moore's exhibition and Free Experimentation 1 & 2

Below some more, beginning with the mature Gabi at one of his shows

Above is a selection of further paintings by Gabi - he was very talented!

I must admit I have doubts as to whether the penultimate picture is by Gabi - the style is different. However a websearch with this image comes up with

Gabriel Weissmann Biography & Info - Invaluable.com

https://www.invaluable.com › ... › Gabriel Weissmann

There is so much more to say about Gabi - this is just a start

Found a few more of his paintings online