In Praise of Brian Barnes (20/8/1944-28/11/2021) – An Appreciation
by Tony Belton
The Western “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” had a title that so appealed to Brian Barnes that he used it for his first and largest mural, which he painted on an insignificant but very long wall facing onto Battersea Bridge Road. The mural was recorded as being 276 feet long and 18 feet high. It was Brian’s signature mural and it was the only mural, as I remember it, that hit the front pages of The Sunday Times and The Observer and maybe even The Sunday Telegraph, when both wall and mural were demolished in 1977.
I was Wandsworth’s Chair of Planning at the time and appeared as a bit part, along with the Planning Director and several notorious local Tories, in what Brian considered to be the Ugly, and less effective part of the mural – the modern, chaotic present. The Bad was, of course, the magnificent depiction of the old, noxious, nineteenth-century industries being swept away by a massive broom. The Good is inevitably the new rosy future for Battersea, as he sees it: smiling mothers and children playing in a colourful park, adorned with daffodils.
Brian later called his art ‘realistic’ and ‘naturalistic’; he claimed to be influenced by Renaissance painters. Certainly, this great mural had similarities to Hieronymus Bosch’s interpretation of Heaven and Hell [The Garden of Earthly Delights, painted between 1490 and 1500]. Yet, whilst I have the impression that Bosch rather enjoyed painting the evils of hell and found heaven boring, Brian revelled in the bold, bright, colours and shapes of a rather simple heaven/future. He was, what I might call a Naïve Futurist.
The day the wall was demolished, the demolition crews started their work at 3.00am, so that when Brian arrived there was not much left. But he climbed on top of the remnants, where he screamed and hollered his protest, like a mother defending her child – it had, after all, been his baby for over a year of work. Traffic was held up for 13 hours that day.
Thankfully, there are other Barnes murals to be seen and admired. My favourite is called Battersea in Perspective and is in Dagnall Street on the wall of what used to be the Haberdashers’ Arms. It is a prime example of Brian’s vision of public murals. It is a very large and bold, colourful and political, historical and highly referenced, visual tour of Battersea. The nine portraits at the bottom of the picture (sorry about the car) are important Battersea MPs: John Burns, Sapurji Saklatvala, Caroline Ganley, Douglas Jay and Alf Dubs; other significant Battersea politicians John Archer and Charlotte Despard; plus aeronautical pioneers: Hilda Hewlett and A(lliott) V(erdon) Roe. Battersea Park and the Peace Pagoda make a bold focal point, bordered by Albert and Chelsea Bridges. The Power Station and the Carey Gardens estate, where Brian lived, also appear.
And in a reference to the Renaissance paintings, that Brian admired, we can see not only one of the early planes, built in some of Battersea’s railway arches and a hot air balloon; but also the motif from an Iron Age shield, found in the Thames off Battersea Bridge in 1857 and now to be seen in the British Museum.
 Photo and © Tony Belton; resized by Tomos Jones |
There are other major Barnes murals in south London: all of them notable for their sheer size, colour, boldness, political content and community involvement. Some of the most notable are Brixton’s (Coldharbour Lane) Nuclear Dawn; Stockwell tube station’s War Memorial; and Battersea’s (Carey Gardens) A Brief History of Time and Thessaly Road’s A Day at the Seaside.
Brian Barnes constantly involved school kids, local people and local personalities in the design and execution of his murals. He lived for his art and I remember that he told me once of his plan to go to Bahia Blanca, a city on the east coast of Argentina, to an international festival of murals. The plan was that this otherwise undistinguished city would allocate one wall each to 50 international artists, invited to decorate the city. It was a wonderful plan, which anyone who knew Brian would know that he’d have loved. It would also have expanded his artistic experience and range. But, as so often, the problem was money. Neither Brian nor Bahia were rich and the artists had to be self-funded!
There was another side to Brian and that was his life as a political activist. In 1983 he became the inspirational genius behind the Battersea Power Station Action Group (BPAG). BPAG, he told me some 10 years ago, met weekly for over 30 years with Brian creating the agenda, writing the minutes and basically running the show – all that takes some doing. He was also a long-term executive member of the Doddington and Rollo Community Association (DRCA) and an active participant in many local campaigns and issues. He was frequently enthusiastically articulate about his very particular viewpoint. However, as the chair of several of these sessions, particularly at the DRCA, I’d have to say that Brian was not always very concerned with achieving consensus. The vehemence of his passion did not make for practical success in everyday politics, nor on occasions for civilised debate. But it made great street art.
RIP Brian Barnes, committed community activist and great muralist.
Tony Belton
Tony Belton 
TB,
What a lovely and delightful Appreciation. It captures the best of him and his ‘works’. I particularly liked the sentence “Brian was not always very concerned with achieving consensus”, which is something that you and I, amongst a few, have experienced.
I was surprised that the Chesterton mural did not get a mention. Brian may not have been able to travel to Bahia Blanca, but he involved the whole of Chesterton’s kids in painting the long south facing wall. Harry Cowd commissioned it and can give you details if need be.
Yours,
TT
>
Not easy to get into schools to photo them nowadays!
Hi Tony
Thank you for the wonderful appreciation of BB- warts and all!
Have you shared with his family- if not may I?
Mac Downes
Longtime friend of Brian & family
PS I keep encountering mention of a Tony Belton in connection with London Trolleybuses- are you one and the same person?
Sorry, just picked this up. Yes, of course, you can share that appreciation with BB’s family. I don’t think I have had any association with Trolley buses except for using one regularly in the 1950s!