I was a boarding pupil (on a Devon county scholarship) at Plymouth College, a direct grant school, from September 1960 until July 1968. The art master there was Derek Holland. He ran an after-school art class, where it was possible to make sculpture and use materials that were difficult within the confines of a school timetable.
At first this existed in a dusty basement beneath the library, but after my second year it was moved to what had been the canteen, now also relocated. This was another basement but much more extensive and had been equipped with workbenches, a casting room, pottery equipment including kilns, and even a lithography press.
Derek ran the art club (as we called it) every weekday afternoon and on Sunday afternoons for any boarding pupils who were interested. This was an incredible extra-hours commitment, and Derek soon needed help to keep it going. For this he turned to David McKee (Obituary, 8 April), who he must have known from McKee’s time at Plymouth College of Art.
David replaced Derek on odd afternoons and most Sundays. This was before David had published the first Elmer book, but I could see his work in the not infrequent covers and cartoons he produced for Punch. Derek Holland was also visible outside the school environment, exhibiting sporadically with the Redfern Gallery. I spent countless hours in that art club basement. It was through the kindness, engagement and hard work of these two gentle and delightful men – David McKee and Derek Holland – that I learned that it was possible both to be an artist and to exist in the world.
Richard Deacon
London
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