Marian Fanny Christian

  • Part Three

Since I had started drawing again towards the end of ‘99, (trees in San Francisco and then in Yorkshire,) Fanny was used to see me working on a greater scale than she ever had, on sheets at least twice the size of those she used. And so she started to become curious, to see what it would be like to work on the grand scale, especially with her work, which included miniscule detail. How with such microscopic attention to detail would she manage to cover a whole sheet? Silly question. At the end of 2002, she created her “Fish,” on one of those big sheets. No problem, as beautiful as any drawing thus far, perhaps even more so, on a grand scale. Even though the initial pleasure of the image is great, it takes a long time to absorb and appreciate its finer qualities of extraordinary draughtsmanship in the formation of the overall design. As for the colours, stronger than ever, Fanny has an innate colour sense that simply never errs. Again, I liken it to children, who rarely produce images whose colours don’t harmonise, and they don’t even know the word harmony.

Samurai Fanny

Having drawn that one magnificent and so successful work, Fanny was no longer inhibited by the scale, and forged ahead not even considering anything smaller. But more dramas kept her from drawing for a while, until she became so desperate just to draw that she accepted to create a few smaller ones out of sheer frustration at not having the time to commit to the larger ones for a while as they take so much time, and once embarked on cannot be abandoned, even for a day. Of these smaller ones, another of my favourites came out, which she called “Samurai,” for obvious reasons. In spite of still working in the abstract, her works invariably created organic forms of their own accord which gave them their titles. Although the original drawing was on white, when she then reproduced it and due to technology was able to give it various coloured backgrounds, I found the red one the most stunning of all, throwing the great drawing into relief and also giving it a warmth. The dramatic and bloody warmth of a Samurai Warrior.

By the end of the year, she finally saw a period of free time ahead and embarked with a vengeance on her series of large-scale drawings known as Fantasias. She worked on these, starting off with two more fish, each more amazing than the one before, and then launched out into Roosters, (even football playing ones!) including the “B’ino Bird,” which has become a classic on the Website, as have her Fish. She continued with “The Cat and the Plait,” and “Tusca,” an Indian elephant whose name was a wordplay on Tosca, our favourite opera by Puccini. This whole series continued through 2003 and 2004, a magnificent series that we await with impatience the chance to exhibit in the flesh so to speak. Although she has great success with Prints of her work from our website, still they have to be seen to be believed for their fineness, true beauty and peerless craftsmanship.

B'ino Bird Fanny

The Cat in the Plait Fanny

Tusca Fanny

Metamorphosis Fanny

MANDALA DRAWINGS In 2005, Fanny became fascinated once again by the Mandala, an ancient design she had been using in her creations of “Fandalas” some years before. But now she wanted to draw them by hand, and not use technology in any way. She went back to a smaller scale, having really worked the grand scale out of her system with two years work on them, and the creation of one of the most unique collections of drawings to be seen anywhere in the world. Happily, my enthusiasm is reflected on our website, on a more or less daily basis. Until early Spring of this year, Fanny created an endless variety of beautiful Mandala drawings. When she reached what an artist simply knows is the end of a particular inspiration - as I did in San Francisco after drawing a hundred and eighteen trees! - with the very last of her energy she created the most magnificent Mandala of all, actually drawn as my Christmas present in 2005.

This year, with the publication of “God’s Brush, Volume 1,” and various other projects we have been involved with, Fanny has sadly had very little time to draw. My own work has been concentrated on the erotic, and so she even became curious as to how she might create her first piece of Erotic Art. We have both long been great admirers of the eighteenth century art of Japan called “Shunga.” we have several books on these incomparable works, in such an individual style, and Marian looked through one or two of these books for inspiration. It wasn’t long in coming! Using only black and red on white, for the dramatic and very Oriental quality that combination of colours gives, she created her work “Shunga,” a magnificent interpretation into her own style from the Japanese. That was the last work she created, as so many new projects have simply taken her over. But the wonderful thing about Art, and I have found this to be true for myself also, is that when you are forced to abstain from the creative process for any given period of time, a strength and passion builds up in you that causes your next works to move even further forward.

Shunga Fanny

What Fanny might come up with next truly beggars the imagination. Living with her and watching the pure source of inspiration through which she works, has been one of the two or three proudest and most inspiring experiences of my life. However, although that is the case, still I repeat that unless the enthusiasm came from my Soul - as an artist! - I would not only never be able to express such an enthusiasm have I done in these pages, I wouldn’t even have written the article. No, not even for Fanny.

As much as I am an Art Historian, I see her in historical terms as one of the greatest female draughtsmen ever; as an artist I am proud to know her, as much as the man is proud and happy to be married to her. I am sure after reading this history and seeing these quite unique and exciting drawings, you will understand yourself exactly why I feel thus towards them.

An interesting footnote: Something that has happened twice and in exact opposite order is that on two occasions Fanny and I have collaborated on a drawing. The first time was when I was making a series of drawings to fill a beautiful really rough, unrefined-paper sketch book Fanny had given me as a present, from Pearl Paint, our favourite art store in the world, in New York. I wanted to fill it with sketches I made around Ichor, our South Indian estate. It has countless lovely little corners, and countless boulders everywhere, somehow asking to be immortalised this way. Because I was working in ink, I could not erase, apart from the texture of the paper not allowing me to do so anyway, and so when, after several extremely successful drawings had filled the first few pages I made a really bad slip with something, I took it to fanny and asked if there was anything she could do with it.

Using my failed drawing as a base, she skilfully created lines and patterns within and outside of my lines, making it into a form - and one which worked a hundred percent. However, I felt a little strange to have one of her “typical” sketches in my book of otherwise all my own drawings, and so to dissipate that feeling I looked at her drawing, saw it as a kind of hood, or exotic head-dress, and got Melodi to model so that I could draw her profile, wearing Fanny’s “hat!” It worked!

The second time we collaborated was when Fanny herself made a slip in a drawing she was doing on a flight from New York to India. So rarely does she slip that I would put it down to turbulence, but anyway, here she was with a sort of finished drawing but she didn’t like it, there was some imbalance that made her uncomfortable with it. So when we got home, Melodi saved us again; once again I put in her profile and instantly Fanny’s part of the drawing looked fine, as if it were an intentionally made head-dress for Melodi to wear.

Collaboration 1 Fanny

Collaboration 2 Fanny

The bulk of all she has created she has donated to our ICHOR Museum, a project in which she completely believes and is as committed to as I am. It always seemed a little sad to us that once a work was sold, very few people ever really got to see it, except in reproduction form. While we need to sell our art to make a living, Prints finally took over the burden, as it is possible to survive quite well on their sales. We also intend to get more involved in publishing and have various very exciting projects lined up. But our ultimate ambition is to find a museum - or build one if absolutely necessary, as I have done before in Bali and in India with great success - to house our Collection for the pleasure of people at large, the general public who visit museums the world over in droves. We believe that that art loving public would love our work, if they could see the Collection we have in one go.

Little Beast of Burden Fanny

It now stands at approximately one hundred of my paintings, dating back to the Battle Scene I painted from the age of ten to fourteen in the National Gallery and comes more or less up to date; one hundred of my most major drawings, including Gamba and the Wedding Tree, both drawings on the truly grand grand scale! And finally, it comprises approximately a hundred of Fanny’s magnificent and unique drawings. Remember, I can only show a fraction of her oeuvre in this article. Other than Holbein, Fanny is the only artist I have ever known whose work would present me with a problem if I was forced to choose only three of them. For every drawing of hers I have been able to show in this article I have had to let at least four or five others go, that I would have loved to show you. It is for that reason that I have included here a few last extras, works that are not necessarily directly connected to the article about Fanny, but that I just couldn’t bear not to show you before closing down this article.

The Thief Fanny

Facing Off Fanny

Between us I believe we can say, not as a boast but a fact, that we have created one of the greatest, most unique and exciting Drawing Collections to be seen anywhere in the world. “Seeing is believing.” As soon as we are able, we will put this Collection in our museum, and you will all be invited to come and see for yourselves. We are at least as impatient for that to happen as our most enthusiastic fans, I can tell you that.

Anthony Christian

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