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Jimmy Page welcomes home a cultural icon (GQ)


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Jimmy Page welcomes home a cultural icon

“It’s an emotional day” for the Led Zeppelin guitarist as Frederic Leighton’s Flaming June returns to Kensington

Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin has welcomed the return of Frederic Leighton’s 1895 painting “Flaming June” back to where it was first painted. “It’s an emotional day for me,” he said on seeing the pre-Raphaelite icon go on display at Leighton House Museum, Kensington.

You already know “Flaming June”, even if you don’t think you do. It’s the saffron-soaked portrait of a sleeping beauty in a coral gown and it’s been reproduced the world over on mugs, T-shirts, even in a Jessica Chastain cover for Vogue. Its neo-mediaeval style is an undoubted precursor to the aesthetic of Game Of Thrones, too. For decades, it has been a beacon of inspiration for millions, not least Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page.

The guitarist, art collector and recipient of a GQ Men Of The Year Lifetime Achievement Award was first influenced by the pre-Raphaelite Leighton and his coterie, who included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones and John William Waterhouse, when he was at art school in the Sixties. “I connected with pre-Raphaelite art in my early teens, when I released that there was a movement and a brotherhood. The more that I learnt the more exciting it became, especially to find out about their ethos was and that there was an aesthetic behind it.”

The journey of “Flaming June” is a curious one. Painted in 1895, the year its artist died, the painting hung at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford until 1930, before entering a private collection and disappearing from view. It was mostly forgotten; the public having fallen out of love with the classical movement. As Page confirms, “During those years, pre-Raphaelite art was selling for hundreds of pounds not millions, as it is now – it was totally out of fashion.” Indeed, it is said that a young Andrew Lloyd Webber once spotted “Flaming June” for sale in a Kings Road antique’s shop for the grand sum of £50. (“I will not have that Victorian junk in my flat,” his grandmother said, after he asked her to borrow the money.) Eventually, “Flaming June” found a buyer who took it to Peru, where it was exhibited for many years and earned the moniker “Mona Lisa of the southern hemisphere”.

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This November marks the first time “Flaming June” has returned to Britain since it left in the Sixties. And its return has been much warmer than its departure. For Page, a legend in his own right, seeing the painting was a monumental moment. “To actually see it in all its glory is absolutely magnificent, I’d say it’s quite intoxicating. To be able to see it close up and really appreciate what it is and see it in Leighton House, where it was painted, well it’s quite a day.”

And they say you should never meet your heroes.
Flaming June: The Making Of An Icon opens 4 November – 2 April 2017 at Leighton House Museum. 12 Holland Park Rd, Kensington, London W1. 020 7602 3316. leightonhouse.co.uk

http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/jimmy-page-flaming-june

 

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Slightly off topic, but does anyone know whether JP has ever opened the Tower House as part of the Open London project (held every September)? My father recalls going on one of these Open Houses years ago & seeing "a gothic house" (with what he recalls as "a large music studio") in Holland park, so I wondered if this was the Tower House.

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3 hours ago, the-ocean87 said:

Really, who the f* cares for this? Get a guitar and play some music and stop making false promises!!

Who cares, . Jimmy Page does... Sam webmaster also, Strider too.  Any of us that appreciate Art and culture.....

 

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3 hours ago, the-ocean87 said:

Really, who the f* cares for this? Get a guitar and play some music and stop making false promises!!

Anger-management classes might be useful.

23 minutes ago, JTM said:

Who cares, . Jimmy Page does... Sam webmaster also, Strider too.  Any of us that appreciate Art and culture.....

 

Thank you JTM.

You know, before he was a guitar hero Jimmy was interested in art. It just may be that Jimmy has rekindled the passion for art he had as a young art student.

If art is the focus and direction he prefers to take in his late stage of life, so be it. I am not going to throw a hissy-fit and demand he play guitar. He doesn't owe me anything.

He looks fit and glad to be alive. That's all that matters to me.

If I want to hear Jimmy play, I just put on a record.

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4 hours ago, Strider said:

Anger-management classes might be useful.

Thank you JTM.

You know, before he was a guitar hero Jimmy was interested in art. It just may be that Jimmy has rekindled the passion for art he had as a young art student.

If art is the focus and direction he prefers to take in his late stage of life, so be it. I am not going to throw a hissy-fit and demand he play guitar. He doesn't owe me anything.

He looks fit and glad to be alive. That's all that matters to me.

If I want to hear Jimmy play, I just put on a record.

Yes he can be interested in whatever he wants. Just not say "I will definitively play some news music next year" every year!

I'm also glad he is still with us unlike others from his generation.

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21 hours ago, 76229 said:

Slightly off topic, but does anyone know whether JP has ever opened the Tower House as part of the Open London project (held every September)? My father recalls going on one of these Open Houses years ago & seeing "a gothic house" (with what he recalls as "a large music studio") in Holland park, so I wondered if this was the Tower House.

It wasn't Tower House. There are any number of homes in Holland Park that match that description.

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Thanks Steve. Now I come to think of it, the soundboard thefts from his home in the 80s must make him chary of any kind of "letting the public in" type event. Shame - I love neo gothic as a style & the Tower House would certainly be on my list of "well known houses I most want to visit". At least there are colour photos of the interior floating around out there.

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1 minute ago, 76229 said:

Thanks Steve. Now I come to think of it, the soundboard thefts from his home in the 80s must make him chary of any kind of "letting the public in" type event. Shame - I love neo gothic as a style & the Tower House would certainly be on my list of "well known houses I most want to visit". At least there are colour photos of the interior floating around out there.

Well, he's always placed a premium on his privacy. The theft was a breach of trust (he knew who was responsible) more than it was a burglary. Anyway, there are a number of Tower House links, books and documentaries to satisfy one's curiosity. Even so, I have visited Tower House and highly recommend taking a look at it if you're ever in town. 

Flaming June: The Making Of An Icon opens 4 November – 2 April 2017 at Leighton House Museum. 12 Holland Park Rd, Kensington, London W1. 020 7602 3316. leightonhouse.co.uk  

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I just returned from London two days ago. I went to Leighton House on Monday, and they mentioned Flaming June coming back. I wasn't upset that I was missing it because in fact I have seen Flaming June on loan at a museum here in New York last year. It is a lovely painting.

Leighton House is something special; you should definitely see it if you are in London. It is extraordinarily decorated with Middle Eastern decorations as well as Leighton's art.

After I saw Leighton House I took a stroll down the road to Tower House. It doesn't look quite as big as I had thought it was, almost not like what you would think a rock star would live in (although I didn't go around the back). I would love to take a look inside as it is quite a unique building. I did not see anything else around the block that looked remotely similar. There is another large house next to it (what's his name's house?) but the rest of the neighborhood looks sort of upper middle class urban/suburban--some nice houses and some smallish apartment buildings.

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One of the things that separated Zeppelin from the meat-head heavy metal bands was that Page, Jones and to an extent Plant were cultured and intelligent.

Same with Floyd. 

Page was obviously the most cultured and fancied himself as a sort of Byronesque figure, living a decadent lifestyle. A sort of heavy metal dandy if you will.

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One thing I noticed was that in the shots of him standing next to the painting he wasnt wearing that "all black" outfit he's had on for the last three years. Much better get up on this occasion , more the dandy . 

I agree, the visual arts can inform the musical arts and vice versa. Perhaps they share some of the same thought processes .

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6 hours ago, JAP said:

One thing I noticed was that in the shots of him standing next to the painting he wasnt wearing that "all black" outfit he's had on for the last three years. Much better get up on this occasion , more the dandy . 

I agree, the visual arts can inform the musical arts and vice versa. Perhaps they share some of the same thought processes .

He appears to be color-coordinated with Flaming June and I doubt that's a coincidence. Might have been the photographer's idea.

There is strictly no photography in Leighton House...unless you're a celebrity getting your photo taken I guess...

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10 hours ago, Boleskinner said:

One of the things that separated Zeppelin from the meat-head heavy metal bands was that Page, Jones and to an extent Plant were cultured and intelligent.

Same with Floyd. 

Page was obviously the most cultured and fancied himself as a sort of Byronesque figure, living a decadent lifestyle. A sort of heavy metal dandy if you will.

In Plant's case I'd put it stronger than "to an extent". He's had an interest in Anglo Welsh myths & legends since quite a young age and apparently speaks Welsh. I'm not sure to what level of fluency (it's an incredibly hard language to learn by all accounts) but this, also, goes beyond your usual meathead rocker. And Bonham might not have been "arty" but he had musical interests outside of heavy music such as all the jazz players he was influenced by

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1 hour ago, ScarletMacaw said:

He appears to be color-coordinated with Flaming June and I doubt that's a coincidence. Might have been the photographer's idea.

There is strictly no photography in Leighton House...unless you're a celebrity getting your photo taken I guess...

I  don't get the scarf thing,   but yeah that suit is a real cool colour..

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19 hours ago, JAP said:

One thing I noticed was that in the shots of him standing next to the painting he wasnt wearing that "all black" outfit he's had on for the last three years. Much better get up on this occasion , more the dandy . 

He looks magnificent. He looks like a man on the cusp of making us very, very happy come 11/11.

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