Clifford Harper: Artist of Anarchy

Interview from ‘Last Hours’: September 2007

Q You recently had a serious health problem. I’m glad you’re working again but I was wondering whether it had any effect on your politics or artwork?

Sometimes it’s the cue for people to ‘find god’.

Thanks. The effects are pretty straightforward. Some of the medication makes things difficult to be ‘creative’ as it slows and dulls the mind and causes tiredness, and from time to time I go through periods of pain. This all means that I’m working less, so earning lower wages, so I’m ill and poor. Not a pleasant place to be.

As to ‘politics’, well my love of the NHS is stronger and deeper. The ever present chance of suddenly dying makes me angry and I worry about not getting important stuff finished. But my anarchism is as real as ever. As for ‘god’, there’s no such thing.

It’s just an ugly story peddled by con-artists.

Q How did you get interested in anarchy?

It got interested in me, I think. I first heard the word when I was 14 years old, in 1963. I was hooked straight away and never looked back, but I was a little rebel and trouble maker for as long as I can remember. I was expelled from school at 13 and on two years probation at 14. My mother instilled in me a thorough scepticism of the current set-up and its ‘values’.

As a working class teenager in the early’60’s I regarded the middle-class world as something that simply had to go - I still do - and anarchy as its natural and one and only replacement.

Q Why did you start getting involved in making art? Do you think it’s important for ideas to be represented graphically?

What other way is there? For the vast majority of people pictures have always been the method of communicating ideas, besides speech and song. Historically only a handful of people can read and write, but writers and their words dominate. If you cannot read or write you’re sub-standard. That’s just more middle-class bollocks. Everyone can make pictures.

Q You’re a self-taught artist. Do you think that’s been important to how your style developed?

I don’t have one style, I have many. Whichever works best for what I’m drawing, or the place its published, or what I’m asked to do. This ‘self-taught’ thing, I don’t know how real that is, or how important. I think that everyone is ‘self-taught’ whatever they do, but we’re ‘taught’ that self-knowledge, practice and experience is less valid than what we’re ‘taught’. Just another way to make us and our abilities seem worthless and small.

Maybe for me being ‘self-taught’ keeps my mind open. The process of working out what and how to draw it requires that I keep looking around, keeping my eyes open.

Q If you could have would you have liked to go to art school, or was the education you gained in work more useful?

I could have gone to art school but in’68 there were much more interesting things to be doing - none of them in college. Besides, when I was a school kid I spent most of my time truanting, I couldn’t abide school, it was a prison and an absolute waste of my time, so the idea of signing up for another bout mis-education was a poor joke. And all the students I met had dropped out - which told me something. I was an apprentice in a print works and then a design studio.

In those places, I picked up an excellent knowledge of materials and methods, particularly origination for offset litho printing - making artwork.

Q Has it been possible to survive on creating art, or have there been times when it’s been a struggle. Have you always worked principally as an artist, or have you had to take jobs on the side?

Yes, it’s the only way I earn my living as it’s the only skill I have. I don’t create ‘art’, by the way. I’m not an artist, I’m an illustrator, a craftsman. It’s always been a struggle, I don’t earn much money, I’m not particularly interested in that. But being free of the chasing money thing allows me to do things that interest me much more.

Q Has being an anarchist and a vocal advocate for anarchy ever hindered you in terms of getting work, or having the opportunity to display work?

Absolutely not. The people I work for, mainly commissioning editors and designers are, on the whole, quite sympathetic to anarchist ideas. Like a lot of people. I guess there are times when someone doesn’t want to be associated with an anarchist. That’s fine by me. My work is displayed all the time on hundreds of thous ands of pages.

Q You’ve created artwork for places like the Guardian, Telegraph, Radio Times, etc. Are these means to an end so that you can buy food, or are they a way to reach people more radical publications probably wouldn’t ? Do you ever try to place subversive elements within artwork you produce for mainstream media?

I’m a newspaper illustrator. I make images for the people.

Q Many, if not most, people within the anarchist, antiauthoritarian movement are either suspicious or hostile to the mainstream media. What are your thoughts on it?

I think they’re right. I agree with them. All the anarchists I’ve met who work in the ‘media’ feel the same way.

Q Would you rather be able to just work for radical publications and projects or do you enjoy the challenge of producing work for such a large audience?

I’ve worked for many anarchist publications over the last 40 years. I’ve also worked for every national newspaper, except the Mirror and the Sun - they don’t use illustration. When it comes to drawing for large numbers of people - well, it answers itself, don’t you think?

Q The majority of your work is black and white. What is it that appeals to you about monochrome? Is it because life is black and white?

That’s a nice question. It’s black and white because that’s what I learned to do first, so I kind of got stuck with it. But as I studied the work of earlier anarchist illustrators such as Frans Masereel or Felix Valloton who also made black and white images, I got very caught up in this question of restrictions the chains that bind us. It’s complicated, but one aspect of it is the question of wealth.

A lot of the art that appears today is strongly married to wealth. Not just in the obvious way - the rich pay the artists greed - but the work itself is ostentatious and arrogant. Artists trample over the feelings and hearts of people. For what? For this Art. Screw that.

When I was younger I did see things as black and white and my work was connected to that. But why I like the drawing in black and white is its challenge. When I produce a good drawing it’s more of an accomplishment. And also I think that black and white images are not wealthy, they are humble.

Q What do you hope people take away after looking at your work?

Pleasure.

Q Whilst there are not, to my knowledge at any rate, many people in the U.K producing work similar to yours there are quite a few in the U.S.A, such as Eric Drooker, Seth Tobocman and Peter Kuper. Have you had any contact with them? Is itimportant for you to network with other anarchist illustrators?

Do you take inspiration from any contemporary artists?

Not really. Eric Fraser said an illustrator needs to be like a monk. But I really dig their work, and what Josh MacPhee is doing. Anarchist creativity is absolutely on the up, no doubt about it. Which is fantastic, and I’m glad to be part of it.

Q Aesthetically nowadays anarchy is often associated with cut ’n’ paste and quite rough, fast artwork with only limited craft involved. Your work obviously has a lot of craft, with a lot of intricacy and detail. Do you feel any tension there? Do you think that it’s connected to the fact that anarchy is sometimes seen as something that young people with too much energy are involved in?

For me it’s a real drag. I wouldn’t sit on a chair made with the same approach. I’m working class you see, so I believe in andlove skill and craft, which takes time to achieve - just like an anarchist society.

Q Would you ever consider moving back into a commune?

Now that is an interesting question. Anytime before now I would have answered with a hollow, cynical laugh. But considering it now, for the first time in some years, I’m surprised to say that

“Yes, I would” - consider it. I must have a think about this.

Q Would you consider re-issuing Class War Comix?

No way.

Q How is the new edition of Anarchy: A Graphic Guide going?

When are you planing on releasing it?

Slowly. I was two-thirds finished, would have delivered it by summer 2006 then I had a fucking heart attack. So it’ll get published when it gets published. It is absolutely brilliant and it will change the world. I’v just got to finish it, that’s all…