Does Paul Dooley give a damn really about the
legacy that was left in his fathers Seel St studio
. It seems as soon
as was possible he got in there and grabbed what he could.
It could
be said that he owns it. But was it not held by a trust so that the
Legacy of Arthur Dooley could have been kept alive.
It now seems it is at the mercy of
speculators of which it looks like his son Paul, is one. He has been
knocking out a load of......finished off stuff on Ebay since Alan
Johnstons death, when there was nobody around to keep the collection
together.
When we say collection, what we really mean is a load of
rejected stuff that was shoved into the studio/workshop when Arthur
died in 1994.
The basement space had remained in tact
since his death and it was hoped that something could be done to open
it up to the public, as what happened in 2008 when The Liverpool
Acadamy of Arts(sic) were awarded a £50,000 plus grant to further
the memory of one of Liverpool's sons by opening it up to limited
numbers of interested visitors.
They also made a packet by staging a
selling exhibition of his work.
Although this exhibition did bring
together an assemblage of his work so it could be seen, they were
more than well paid for it.
We had tried to alert the public to the
need to get together to do something about the threats from property
developers who give Dooley junior access as soon as they could to
alleviate themselves of the burden of the works.
So they could get in there and turn it
into an apartment, no hold on a luxury apartment.
The whole of Liverpool is going to turn
into a giant sterile flat with no character just shops and coffee
bars selling frothy cappuccino's to snotty nosed kids who don't know
the meaning of struggle or strife or hard work, that think that money
just comes out of a hole in the wall, that will never understand what
Liverpool was like in the post war blitz society who couldn't just pop
to the nearest Tesco to buy food, because the shops didn't have any.
We don't want to return to that time but this is an era that spawned
Arthur Dooley, a tough working class hard drinking, hard punching
Communist catholic of Irish decent.
That didn't disown the city like the
others that buggered off to make their name, he stayed here and
sweated it out.
He was able to articulate his Liverpool language on a
higher stage as he was often featured on the BBC, talking
affectionately about how the city made him tick, how it was part of
his soul.
He hoped that his soul would be part of the city and he
would leave behind something. It is said he was once short and asked
the city council to take a sculpture in loo of unpaid rates at his
workshop near Woolton and they refused.
So now his son Paul has got his grubby
hands on a load of works, mostly half finished and rejected
commissions, some of which that should not be sold as individual
sculptures, but mostly rejected pieces that have now been polished up
by Paul who it is said is a stonemason.
He is giving them attributions such as
Hillsborough memorial that are not being questioned, but enhanced by
middlemen auctioneer Adam Partridge who are only interested in the
commission money.
Has he donated any work to any local
institution? No.
Did he bugger off out of Liverpool at
the earliest opinion? Yes.
Does he care about his fathers name?
No, in our opinion.
Is all he is interested in
money........well you decide.
Will Arthur be turning in his grave.
Paul Dooley J'accuse.
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