With Barry Flanagan: Travels Through Time and Spain

With Barry Flanagan is a vivid account of a friendship that evolved into a working relationship when Richard McNeff became Ôspontaneous fixerÕ (FlanaganÕs description) of the sculptorÕs show held in June 1992 at the Museum of Contemporary Art on Ibiza, where they were both living. McNeff was to gain a privileged insight into the sculptorÕs singular personality and eccentric working methods, learning to decipher his memorably surreal turns of phrase and to parry his fascinating, if at times unsettling, pranksteresque quirks. \n \nIn September 1992 Flanagan and McNeff took the show to Majorca, resulting in a lively visit to the celebrated Spanish artist Miquel Barcelo. The following year McNeff was involved in FlanaganÕs print-making venture in Barcelona and in his Madrid retrospective. Flanagan rescued him from a rough landing in England in 1994 by commissioning a tour of stone quarries there.Subsequently McNeff ran into a fourteen-year-old profoundly deaf girl who turned out to be his unknown daughter. She had a talent for art and the generous sculptor was instrumental in helping with her studies. \n \nLate in 2008 Barry was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. By June 2009 he was wheelchair-bound. Two months later he died, and McNeff read the lesson at his funeral. Fleshed out with biographical detail, much of it supplied by the sculptor himself, this touching memoir is the first retrospective of a major Welsh-born artist. Photographs of him as well as of his drawings and sculpture fully complement the text. With Barry Flanagan captures the spirit of this remarkable Merlinesque figure in a moving portrait that reveals a true original. \n \nABOUT THE AUTHOR \n \nRICHARD MCNEFF was born in London, where he now lives. His father was a repertory theatre actor who went into film and television. His mother is a poet. After reading English at Sussex University, he wrote for International Times. He subsequently lived in Barcelona, Amsterdam, the Basque country and Baku, settling on Ibiza where he stayed for severalyears. His articles and reviews have appeared in Fortean Times, Boulevard Magenta and the Guardian. His novel, Sybarite among the Shadows, is set in LondonÕs bohemia of the 1930s. \n \nFor more information on the artist himself, visit here.