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Wilfred Franks

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Wilfred Florestan Franks (1908-2003) was a British artist, designer and actor. [1]

Biography

Franks trained at the Staatliche Bauhochschule (de) in Weimar, Germany from 1929-1930. He also attended classes at the Bauhaus art school in Dessau, although he was not officially enrolled at the school.[2] On his return to England Franks worked with a mining community in the Village of Boosbeck in the northeast of England, teaching a group of unemployed miners how to design and make furniture.[3]

It was through his involvement with Boosbeck that Franks got to know the composer Michael Tippett.[4] Franks and Michael Tippett were involved in an intense love affair during the 1930s,[5] and Tippett dedicated his String Quartet no.1 to Franks.[6] Franks was an important influence on Tippett both personally and creatively, their shared love of poetry, politics and traditional folk music influenced Tippett's music at this time. [7]

Wilf Franks was an anti-fascist, Marxist political activist who supported Trotskyism and the Fourth International. [8] While living in Germany, Franks was part of an anti-fascist counter demonstration which failed to stop a Nazi parade in the city of Dessau.[9] On Sunday 4 October 1936, Franks was arrested (and later sentenced to 28 days hard labour) while helping to block a march by the British Union of Fascists (BUF), during the The Battle of Cable Street.[10] [11]

In 1936 Franks studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts,[12] and later performed on numerous early BBC Television shows, including The Insect Play (1939) and The Pilgrims Progress (1939).[13]

Due to his political beliefs, Franks refused conscription to the British Army and he was imprisoned as a conscientious objector during World War Two.[14]

In the post war years, Franks became a designer at the Ford Motor Company at Dagenham and later a lecturer in design at Leeds Polytechnic.[15]

Wilf Franks' design work with the mining community of Boosbeck provided inspiration to the artist Adam Clarke, a graduate of the Royal College of Art.[16] In 2015, Clarke established New Boosbeck Industries, replicating the furniture making project that Wilf Franks had initiated in the 1930s.[17] The life and work of Franks also featured in the Twentieth Century Society symposium 'Bye Bye Bauhaus,' held at The University of Westminster School of Architecture in 2019.[18]


References

  1. ^ "Wilfred Franks imdb". IMDB. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
  2. ^ Powers, Alan (2019). Bauhuas Goes West. Modern Art And Design in Britain And America. London: Thames & Hudson. pp. 184–186. ISBN 978-0-500-51992-9.
  3. ^ "New Boosbeck Industries". visitmima.com. Retrieved 23 June 2020.
  4. ^ Chase, Malcolm; Whyman, Mark (1991). Heartbreak Hill. A Response to Unemployment in East Cleveland in the 1930s. Cleveland County Council & Langbaurgh-on-Tees Borough Council. pp. 26–27. ISBN 0904784207.
  5. ^ Gloag, Kenneth; Jones, Nicholas (2013). The Cambridge Companion to Michael Tippett. Cambridge University Press. pp. 89–90. ISBN 978-1-107-02197-6.
  6. ^ Gloag, Kenneth; Jones, Nicholas. The Cambridge Companion to Michael Tippett. Cambridge University Press. p. 209. ISBN 978-1-107-02197-6.
  7. ^ Gilgan, Danyel. "Michael Tippett: love in the age of extremes". The British Library. Retrieved 15 July 2020.
  8. ^ "100 years since the founding of the Bauhaus". World Socialist Website.org. Retrieved 23 June 2020.
  9. ^ MacCarthy, Fiona (2019). Gropius: The Man who Built the Bauhaus. Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 233. ISBN 978-0571295142.
  10. ^ Soden, Oliver (2019). Michael Tippett The Biography. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. pp. 191–192. ISBN 978 1 4746 0602 8.
  11. ^ Gilgan, Danyel. "Michael Tippett: Love in The Age of Extremes". The British Library. Retrieved 15 July 2020.
  12. ^ "Student and graduate profiles Wilfred Franks". RADA. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
  13. ^ "Wilfred Franks imdb". IMDB. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
  14. ^ Soden, Oliver (2019). Michael Tippett The Biography. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 280. ISBN 978 1 4746 0602 8.
  15. ^ Powers, Alan (2019). Bauhuas Goes West. Modern Art And Design in Britain And America. Thames & Hudson. p. 186. ISBN 978 0 500 51992 9.
  16. ^ "Marton artist Adam Clarke finds his muse in the history of East Cleveland". Middlesbrough Evening Gazette. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
  17. ^ "New Boosbeck Industries". visitmima.com. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
  18. ^ "Bye Bye Bauhaus Symposium". c20society.org. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
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