The term ‘self-taught’ in art comes with any number of prejudices. One is the intimation that the only learning of value comes from close attention to the teachings of a professed expert or of established lessons of the past. In art is it a pejorative term and anyone who cannot identify a heritage of thought and practise is designated as an amateur or in certain cases a gifted amateur or worse still, an outsider. While every would-be artist is inevitably a product of cultural heritage and expected to understand the conventions of art, formal training in the visual arts may not have influenced their artistic practice. So, is there any value in claiming to be self-taught or of gatekeepers looking down their noses at the concept? Today, being self-taught has become less something to overcome than something to advertise as desirable when novelty and newness are the hallmarks of an art market overblown with galleries and art fairs. The threat of exclusion used to be major problem under the academies of England and France – artists not given the stamp of approval of their work hung ‘on the line’ would inevitably fail to make a living but with so many artists having to forge their own paths today exclusion isn’t so much of a worry as overproduction and a lack of a moderating critical voice.

From a personal perspective both high school and art school provided little instruction, less discussion and were governed by teachers/tutors with limited perspectives bordering on indifference. In some ways 1968 was a seminal year for me. The day I entered art school in London the decision had been made to stop all formal teaching of skills in favour of studio space and the occasional visiting professional artist looking to make a little money away from their own studios. I found little value in any of them. The one thing I wanted above all else was to be taught how to paint in that none of those skills had been part of the high school curriculum. In fact, I have trouble recalling anything that was overtly taught at that level other than the teacher taking the pencil out of my hand during the very occasional figure drawing class in my final year of sixth form and drawing for me. Learning about perspective was down to the technical drawing department as part of woodwork and was never considered as part of the art course. Explaining how to look at high school level was also not part of the curriculum and the subject was never broached at art school.

So, how did I get into art school at all let alone become an artist? What I knew came down to copying human figures from newspapers and record sleeves on the one hand and copying coloured postcards of landscapes with poster paint. No one saw any of these. My entrance folio was based upon a year of pre degree and being shifted weekly from one studio to another. I never again threw pots or used lithography but the weekly class in classical music history has stuck with me forever as did the statement from the head of ceramics who was my mentor for a term that they ‘didn’t want me doing work like that’. The work in question was a series of drawings I did on the train going home each night. I’m still doing such drawings.

On entering the degree course, I was acutely aware of the ‘talent’ myth which was lauded everywhere, and I certainly met my share of gifted individuals who made much of their status. Few went on to an art career. Of my new acquaintances at art school one had just come back from a residency with Kokoschka in Germany and others had won prizes but for all of that many discarded their art school experience completely and set off on a quite different paths. Plumbing, house renovation and butchery became preferred options for making a living. My best friend at art school spent his last two years adhering Letraset to paper in line with the trend at the time spearheaded by the example of Jasper Johns and the pop artists. After that he became a landscape painter – a genre actively discouraged by art school staff who saw value only in shaped canvasses and flat acrylic paint. The artificiality I saw at art school was based upon trends in art magazines and once the copies of Pollock, Poons and the hardedge school had been completed, there was nothing with which to replace them and students moved on with their lives.

Historically, artists have undergone some form of training – whether apprenticed to the masters of the Renaissance or lucky enough to study at an art school and historic icons such as Frida Kahlo and Van Gogh stand out as following their own paths.  That didn’t mean though that they were unaware of historicity or technique since van Gogh worked at a gallery in London and Kahlo had Rivera. The fact though is that self-taught artists abound today with endless online tutorials and discussion groups from which to choose. Whether they progress to an individual vision and approach beyond just technique is another matter but attending an art school is also no guarantee.  Any and every artist is in the end self-taught and open-ended learning is a cornerstone of creativity.