JOCELYN HERBERT PROJECT:
‘Jocelyn Herbert and David Storey:
from the Jocelyn Herbert Archive at the National Theatre’
Curated by MA Curating and Collections
12th-16th March 2018
CHELSEA Cookhouse, Chelsea College of Arts, 16 John Islip St, London, SW1P 4JU
Opening Hours: 11am-5pm
For the last three years, MA Curating and Collections have been part of an exciting collaboration with The Jocelyn Herbert Archive at the National Theatre and been given the task to curate an exhibition which represents the spirit of costume designer Jocelyn Herbert. At the start of unit two, we were sent a detailed brief which revealed the fourth Jocelyn Herbert project and what it would entail. This year it was surrounding her relationship with playwright- David Storey. The brief contained all the aims that were set out for us, specific deadlines and key events that we had attend.
Jocelyn Herbert in her studio with a glass of wine, a photo sent to her by Lindsay Anderson, Soho:1979, Black and White Photograph by Ó John Haynes, 24 x17.4cm, obtained from the National Theatre Archive, JH/9/1/19
Our key aims were: (sent over by Cherie who works at CHELSEA Space)
- To make a public exhibition at CHELSEA cookhouse using material from the Jocelyn Herbert Archive at the National Theatre.
- To critique and explore the archive, in particular, in relation to Jocelyn Herbert’s designs for plays by David Storey.
- To consider the work, practices, biography and interests of Jocelyn Herbert as clues towards a curatorial approach.
- To incorporate sound from the British Library Sound Archive in relation to Jocelyn Herbert and David Storey.
To launch the project, we firstly had a series of briefings that we had to attend, most of which were with Cathy Courtney (the Project Director of National Life Stories & Artists’ Lives at The British Library) Erin Lee (the Head of Archives at the National Theatre) and Mary Stewart (Oral History Curator and Deputy Director of National Life Stories at The British Library). These briefings were to set to give us context surrounding the purpose of the exhibition, and most importantly the archive. This also included, a lecture at the British Library about the additional material that was available to us this year, which was sound work that could be accessed for the exhibition through the National Life Stories’ recordings.
Briefing with Cathy Courtney (Project Director of National Life Stories and Artists’ Lives at the British Library) about Jocelyn Herbert and her life as a designer (Photo credit: myself)
In our meeting with Cathy, she gave us a biographic lecture about Jocelyn Herbert, discussing her early life, personal relationships and the specific plays she worked on with David Storey.
Methodology
Following the lecture, it was now our turn to fully commit to researching in our own time, and ultimately narrow down key areas to pursue for the exhibition. From that, came our first visit to the National Theatre Archive, located near Waterloo station.
Prior the archive visit, we were advised to brief ourselves first before visiting the physical archive, and take the time to explore the online catalogue, making sure we notified someone at the NTA about our selected requests so that they could assemble each item, in preparation for our visits. During the archive visit, I set myself the task of looking through an array of objects and material, this is because I had not come across any of Herbert’s work before, therefore it was important for me to full immerse myself into the archive. The items I had selected prior to visiting, ranged from Herbert’s personal diaries and notebooks, to costume designs for a number of plays she worked on in her career. Another item I was able to request, was a large photo album that contained many group photographs of Herbert and her fellow colleagues, (including David Storey, director-Lindsay Anderson, friend- George Devine and many more; some of which were for private viewings and other events during her career).
Whilst looking through the archive, I became fascinated by the photographs, as they illustrated Herbert in many different scenarios. One photograph in particular that caught my eye was an image taken by John Haynes; it depicts Herbert in her studio along with, Storey and Anderson, all working on the production ‘Stages’ in 1992 (this specific photograph is shown further down). What interested me more than anything was the text that was written underneath the image “IS THAT ALL THERE IS?” which at the time didn’t mean anything, but as the project moved forward it became more prominent in terms of Herbert’s aesthetic inspirations for her designs.
Group meeting in the Think Tank, E Block, Chelsea College of Arts. Brainstorming ideas for Jocelyn Herbert and David Storey: from the Jocelyn Herbert Archive at the National Theatre’ (Photo credit: myself)
Soon after we had all visited the NTA, we decided to meet as a class to formulate our plan of action for the upcoming weeks. A key decision we made throughout this first initial meeting was to create smaller, thematic groups so that the overall exhibition could become more controllable and most importantly, so that we could all work within our teams effectively to get tasks completed on time. The purpose of the thematic groups was to cover all angles of the archive, for example: Herbert’s personal life, costume designs, set designing, etc. This division occurred fairly naturally as there were clear interests amongst members of the class, that people wanted to explore.
I became fascinated by the photographs of Hebert working in her studio and collaborating with the key people for the 1992 play ‘Stages’. It was evident that this was the theme that I wanted to explore for the exhibition which I titled ‘Jocelyn Herbert’s work ethic’.
Once I proposed this idea to the group, another member stated that this was an area that they also wanted to explore, so from that initial first meeting, we were able to formulate our own separate thematic group, logically. Working together, we got started on investigating potential items that we could exhibit in the show; the deadline for this final request was fast approaching and unfortunately due to other commitments that day, I was not able to visit the archive for a second time, with my partner as planned. This required consistent feedback and updates with her throughout the day, making sure we were both aware of the items available in regards to our theme of Herbert’s approach and work ethic. The key items that we were able to source were, (as mentioned above) John Haynes’ photographs showcasing the designer in action, Herbert’s personal lens which my partner was extremely fascinated by and a personal correspondence (JH/2/53) relating to family and professional matters, one of which was in conversation with Richard Eyre (the director of the National Theatre between 1987 and 1997) and his clear admiration for Herbert’s work.
Soon after our second visits, as a group we decided we needed to create larger groups in correlation to the marketing, organising, workbook and installing sectors of the exhibition. Within each team, there were other specific duties and deadlines that had to be met, to ensure the development of the exhibition would run smoothly. I personally, decided to put myself within the organising team, because I felt my skills would best fit in coordinating and ensuring every member of the group knew what was expected from them, at that specific time. During these first few weeks of organising the show, there were lots of deadlines for different groups, for example, final requests from the archive, ensuring copyright was dealt with accordingly, and certifying that we were in contact with the relevant people, especially Herbert’s family and Storey’s, as we were dealing with some very personal material, so ethically it was our responsibility to ensure they were happy with everything we were using for the show.
The organising team’s core duties were mainly required at the beginning of the project, initiating other members of the class to cooperate with us in regards to specific information. For example, our first job as a team was to begin to source everyone’s required items from the archive. With this, we created a document (which everyone could access via Google Drive) involving the list where each member of the class could add their:
1. Reference number
2. Medium
3. Description
4. It’s relevance to the exhibition
5. Equipment required for display
6. Display suggestion
7. Small image
This was effectively created so that everyone could see what everybody had requested from the archive, what purpose it had in the exhibition and how each team was planning on installing the item.
In terms of my selected item, I decided to choose the John Haynes photograph because I believed the image demonstrated Herbert in action, especially at the forefront of assisting both the writer and director of ‘Stages’ with crucial decisions. Since I was looking at Herbert’s work ethic, I selected a photograph that I believe best illustrates the designer at work, showing reference to her teamwork and collaboration with both Storey and Anderson, acting as the visual aid for their relationship.
Screenshot from Google Docs ‘JH REFERENCE NUMBER’ showcasing my selected request from the archive in preparation for ‘Jocelyn Herbert and David Storey: from the Jocelyn Herbert Archive at the National Theatre’.
Whilst submitting my own requests in the document, a few days later it was brought to my attention that both myself and another member of the group (who was centring her research on Herbert’s personal life) were requesting the same image. What initially confused us both was not realising that the image we requested were actually two different images and showcased both in the archive and online. The photograph was depicted from two different angles; one had Herbert to the left of Anderson, and the other, Herbert was to the right (which is the one that I selected). With this all taken into consideration and being aware that we had no time left to request new material, we decided to collaborate and work on the same item. Ultimately, we both knew this wasn’t ideal, but it was the only option we had.
The organising team had the responsibility to compile everyone’s final requests from the archive and present it in one final document to send over to our tutors; who would ultimately oversee that we had provided the correct information and use this to contact the NTA for requesting specific items. As well as this, we realised that a few members of the class had outstanding information that they had not provided or written down on the documents for us to send over, so this required us to chase up quite a few people and urgently highlight to them that this needed to be implemented immediately.
Another element we had to ensure was correctly modified was locating on the document who was specifically using images by John Haynes as this had to be properly handled in terms of asking for copyright authorisation from the photographer. As part of the organising team, I volunteered to take control this task and obtain all requests that required copyright confirmation from John Haynes. For this, I constructed my own separate document and wrote down the names of each person using specific photographs, giving all the reference details so that it was easier for this information to be passed on to Haynes.
Although on the surface, this appeared to be a simple task, a few members of the group had referenced that they were using photographs from the same album that Haynes photographed for, but they did not clarify in the Google documents that these images required copyright from John Haynes. This was incredibly frustrating and meant that I had to spend a lot of time going through the entire documents one by one, and double checking everyone’s requests. What made the task more time consuming was a few people had written the correct details for the images yet did not include a copy showcasing the relevant image, and therefore highlight which specific one they wanted to use for the exhibition. Therefore this task required going back through the NTA catalogue and using the descriptions used on there, to specify which image specifically. This wasn’t ideal, but luckily Haynes confirmed that all requests were valid for us to use for the show, meaning we had successfully achieved copyright for the exhibition.
The next task we had to complete was the exhibition workbook. Every year, each project would be assisted with a detailed workbook for which each member of the class had to write a contributing paragraph, explaining the context around their theme and why they selected their object for the archive. This workbook would then be printed in house at Chelsea and used as a publication for the show. This write-up by myself and my partner, it is titled ‘Jocelyn Herbert: The Devoted Designer’.
Jocelyn Herbert: The Devoted Designer
By Evie Knighton and Sarah Anne Millet
The selected John Haynes photograph highlights the designer, Jocelyn Herbert, playwright David Storey and director Lindsey Anderson in development for the production of ‘Stages’. All three worked closely in collaboration with each other through their long careers. In particular, Storey and Herbert's partnership created significant impact within modernist theatre and theatre production through their use of minimalism on stage. This photo illustrates their working relationship and provides a visual aid and reference for the other archive objects and selections made in examining the personal life and relationship between Storey and Herbert.
‘Stages’, which was performed initially at the National Theatre on 18th November 1992 was the last play that both Storey and Herbert collaborated on together, under the direction and guidance of Lindsay Anderson.
Throughout their theatre careers, Herbert and Storey worked on seven different productions together over the span of twenty years. The two found a commonalty in their interest and educational background in visual art, although, it was their exchange process to creating that made their relationship a unique and special one. Together, along with Anderson, they allowed Herbert’s stage and costume design to be an integral part of the show's creation and developing process; elevating the role of the designer within stage productions.
Herbert, was a dedicated and enthusiastic worker and her efforts rarely went unnoticed. One person in particular who recognised Jocelyn’s talents was Richard Eyre, the director of the National Theatre between 1987 and 1997. Eyre spent a great deal of time with Jocelyn at the National Theatre and reiterated his admiration for her in a recent interview for The Stage, “her quiet, determined voice, her modesty, her frequent amusement at the stubbornness of those she most admired, and her face, which had the beauty of a gothic saint.” (Smurthwaite, 2015)
Growing up in a creative household almost certainly gave Herbert that drive and determination towards her unique, creative style and her desire to produce minimal pieces and set designs. This is why this photograph fits perfectly and stands out for this concept of her work ethic. ‘Is that all there is?’ highlights the distinctive, modernist style of Jocelyn’s aesthetic inspirations for her designs and emphasizes her working relationships.
Lindsay Anderson, Jocelyn Herbert and David Storey working on ‘Stages’, 1992, Black and White Photograph by Ó John Haynes, 24 x17.4cm, obtained from the National Theatre Archive, JH/9/1/19
Once the write-ups were completed for the workbook, install week finally come around. As part of the team for ‘Jocelyn Herbert and her work ethic’ we essentially had three items that we had to install. One was the John Haynes photograph (depicted in Fig. 37) the other was a correspondence about Herbert with Richard Eyre, and the other was a sound piece that would be played on a CD player, showcased in the right-hand corner of our selected wall.
Install shot of our wall: Jocelyn Herbert and her work ethic. (L-R: the background wall) Lindsay Anderson, Jocelyn Herbert and David Storey working on ‘Stages’, 1992, Black and White Photograph by Ó John Haynes, 24 x17.4cm, obtained from the National Theatre Archive. All exhibited for exhibition titled: ‘Jocelyn Herbert and David Storey: from the Jocelyn Herbert Archive at the National Theatre’, Curated by MA Curating and Collections showing from 12th-16th March 2018 (Photo credit: myself)
The installation process was fairly straightforward, as the three of us essentially had two pieces to mount, frame and install. The audio piece had to simply be plugged into the electrical socket and was assisted with headphones. The piece depicted a conversation with Richard Eyre discussing Herbert and his appreciation of her work, underlining the importance her creative eye for experimenting with space and injecting a minimal approach, clearly has on impacting the overall success to each production. This sound piece heavily related to the professional correspondence that one of the girls within my team selected from the archive, so it made sense to exhibit the two works next to each other within the show. This decision was influenced because in combination with our John Haynes photograph, the three shared a direct relationship, emphasizing Herbert’s appreciation by someone extremely senior in the National Theatre. It also emphasized her evident and clear approach to creating unique spaces that inject a modernist perspective on how space should be used and represented. Within our separate teams, there was also a group who exhibited work that explored the theme of modernism within Herbert’s designs, so we believed the pieces we selected opened up a dialogue about her professional flare and style and connected to other parts of the exhibition (such as personal life, stage production and costumes). As curators we hope it marries suitably to her professional approach as a great deal of what Herbert was known for was her desire to get stuck into the fundamental decision making and assisting both the writers and directors for the plays. Herbert clearly takes a lot of her inspiration and ideas from the original script and initial conversations with the director, actors, and so on, and shows within her practice, how hard she works in order achieve the visions of everybody involved.
Pano of install day two at the back of CHELSEA Cookhouse, Chelsea College of Arts, 16 John Islip St, London, SW1P 4JU. In preparation for exhibition titled:‘Jocelyn Herbert and David Storey: from the Jocelyn Herbert Archive at the National Theatre’, Curated by MA Curating and Collections showing from 12th-16th March 2018 (Photo credit: Manasa Vempali)
Pano of install day two at the back of CHELSEA Cookhouse, Chelsea College of Arts, 16 John Islip St, London, SW1P 4JU. Install team preparing to paint the walls white in preparation for exhibition titled:‘Jocelyn Herbert and David Storey: from the Jocelyn Herbert Archive at the National Theatre’, Curated by MA Curating and Collections showing from 12th-16th March 2018 (Photo credit: Manasa Vempali)
Evaluation
To conclude this project, I want to start by addressing its purpose and ultimately how curating this show has benefitted the group, especially being able to work collectively for the first time. As this task was set to us by Cathy Courtney (The Project Director of National Life Stories and Artists’ Lives at the British Library) it was important that we followed her advice and carefully understood the responsibility we had as curators, in handling an archive which still holds significant preservation and emotional attachment to this day. The Jocelyn Herbert Archive holds treasured memories, that allow access into both her professional work life as a set and costume designer, and also her personal life, therefore in terms of handling the archive, we had to be extra cautious and handle each item with care and consideration.
Another element we had to consider was ensuring David Storey’s family were aware that we were conducting this exhibition and Jocelyn and himself. Due to his unfortunate passing of dementia earlier in 2017, we had to handle the show with great sympathy, which made the purpose of the exhibition extremely pertinent and imperative as we were exhibiting work of two people who were no longer with us, so we had to respect both families’ wishes and ensure they were on-board with our decision-making.
By creating this show ultimately provided us with a lens to see what it would be like to work as a bigger team of people. For our other projects, we are all familiar with working in small groups, the maximum being seven per group, so this in itself was always going to be a challenge. The project’s main role for us is to help us as a collective, begin to get used to working with each other in a larger capacity in order to help us for the final show later in the year. From finishing this project, we can now begin to reflect on what worked well, who worked well together, and most importantly what we can do different next time in order to achieve the best final show possible.
The first thing I noticed was lacking in the group and is something that is vital when working as teams, especially in a larger team, is communication. At the beginning of the project the communication was reasonably good and a lot of the groundwork that needed to be done at the start of the project (such as visiting the archive, ensuring everyone knew what each other was doing, what groups people were in) was achieved fairly quickly and coherently due to regular meetings, and good communication through email. However, this wasn’t maintained throughout the project and once we sectioned ourselves into teams, it became evident that the groups weren’t aware of what each other was doing. For example, for installation week the installation team devised a timetable in which each person would come in and install their selected item from the archive. A fairly simple process, which normally wouldn’t require too much time, but for myself and my team member turned out to take longer than it should have because members from installation team decided to change the location of our object (which we weren’t told about until after we planned out where our image would go) Although a fairly easy issue that was resolved quickly, it highlights the lack of communication from group to group towards the end of the project.
To conclude, the private viewing was extremely busy and it was great to see that there was constant engagement with the sound pieces, and discussions derived from the visual pieces. As my piece was a John Haynes photograph, I was eager to speak to him and discuss further what the text piece meant on the photograph we selected (‘Is That All There Is?’) but unfortunately, he didn’t attend therefore is something that I am going to email him about and take further.
Overall, I believe the show touched on a number of different themes (such as stage design, costumes, work ethic) and delved in deeper to Jocelyn’s personal life, and how it very much intertwined with her professional ethos. It was evident that as a child growing up in a creative household, she was exposed to the lives of very hard workers and what Herbert was good at was interacting and engaged with the world around her which she showcases through her minimalist style and approach to set designing and costumes. The exhibition was fascinating to curating and allowed us to work with such a prestigious archive.
