Michael Ajerman’s very personal remembrances of British figurative painter, writer and curator Timothy Hyman RA (1946 - 2024)
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RB Kitaj, Tim in Paris, 1982, charcoal on paper |
I knew Tim Hyman’s portrait before I knew him. A head drawn in charcoal with a flowing scarf caught in the wind by RB Kitaj seen in a catalogue at my New York art school.
When I put the two together… I don’t know. Tim came to the Slade to do a talk on Balthus when I was a student, drawing a medium sizes crowd. I was really keen so I was there, up close, and attentive. Tim brought in so many Balthus catalogues to the talk to share with students. I’d never seen a lecturer do that. Tim believed in books.
He showed one slide (yes slides folks) of Balthus’s brother, Pierre Klossowski’s works. One of his Diane and Actaeon color pencil drawings. I had never heard of Pierre and can still see the image clear in my mind today. That image sent me on an uncharted path. Tim’s mind and finger pointing me in such a new direction, as he had done for so many. He gave me an issue of London Magazine that evening which had a long article on Balthus that he had written. A treasure.
This was before Tim had entered the Royal Drawing School as staff. The RDS seemed to allow Tim to go from a minor visiting art lecturer position to a stronger corner of education. It was clear after a few years that Tim’s approach to drawing was becoming the basis of a house style for the school. Strong personalities can enable that in students.
Tim always denigrated anything that had a whiff of the Life Room. Especially Slade F Studio beliefs, even though drawing was so vital to him. But not THAT kind of drawing. We both shared a deep interest in RB Kitaj. He would strongly express his view that Kitaj’s peek was early on. Paintings like Eerie Shore (1966) and If Not, Not (1975) were favourites, while believing his batting average of hits went way down afterwards. One time Tim gave a talk on him at the Royal Drawing School and when coming to the pastels of the 1980s Tim asked the audience, ‘Don’t these look poor?’ Me and my big mouth said, ‘I don’t think so.’ Tim without hesitation responded, ‘Well Michael please defend them.’ And I did, he let me plead my case, and then continued.
Years later when I gave a talk at the Courtauld, I showed one of Walter Sickert’s Mornington Crescent paintings. I listed the paintings two very polar titles. All of a sudden out of the dark I hear Tim remark, ‘Michael, the other alternative title would be, My Word Them Onions Don’t Half the Peach.’
‘Say it one more time Tim?’
‘My Word Them Onions Don’t Half the Peach.’
The audience roared with laughter, and I continued with the talk. I was so honoured that Tim was there, and I truly hope his correction was his tongue in cheek vengeance years in the making for my outburst.
Tim seemed to really change as anyone would after his beloved Jill passed. Conversation was always polite but no topic was taboo. I remember asking him with compassion how he was. If you did not talk about it he might throw in a dagger like, ‘Are you aware my wife has passed and I am in mourning?’ At a posh opening he did not come to the dinner. The last time I saw him at a painter’s opening he came to the pub. There was pub food and he seemed elated in the fish and chips and other finger foods.
‘Have I ever told you about my first sexual experience?’
‘No Tim you haven’t.’
I’m sitting here thinking of Tim’s painting of himself looking up at the moon. London, him, and the moon. Tim’s love for London was almost lustful. There is a clear scent the city represented energy, history, and Jill.
Michael Ajerman
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Overlapping Circuits / Divided Selves, Luci Eyers and Timothy Hyman, at Transition Two, 2018 |
