Adrian Henri - Wikipedia Adrian Henri From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Adrian Henri" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (November 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Adrian Henri Born (1932-04-10)10 April 1932 Birkenhead, Cheshire, England Died 20 December 2000(2000-12-20) (aged 68) Liverpool, England Nationality British Notable works The Liverpool Scene, The Mersey Sound Adrian Henri (10 April 1932 – 20 December 2000) was a British poet and painter[1] best remembered as the founder of poetry-rock group the Liverpool Scene and as one of three poets in the best-selling anthology The Mersey Sound, along with Brian Patten and Roger McGough. The trio of Liverpool poets came to prominence in that city's Merseybeat zeitgeist of the 1960s and 1970s. He was described by Edward Lucie-Smith in British Poetry since 1945 as the "theoretician" of the three. His characterisation of popular culture in verse helped to widen the audience for poetry among 1960s British youth. He was influenced by the French Symbolist school of poetry and surrealist art. Contents 1 Life and career 2 The Liverpool Scene 3 See also 4 References 5 External links Life and career[edit] Front cover of the best-selling anthology The Mersey Sound which featured Adrian Henri, Roger McGough and Brian Patten Adrian Henri's grandfather was a seaman from Mauritius who settled in Birkenhead, Cheshire, where Henri was born. In 1938, at the age of six, he moved to Rhyl.[2] He studied art at Newcastle and for a short time taught art at Preston Catholic College before going on to lecture in art at both Manchester and Liverpool Colleges of Art. He was closely associated with other artists of the area and the era including the Pop artist Neville Weston and the conceptual artist Keith Arnatt. In 1972 he won a major prize for his painting Meat Painting II - In Memoriam Rene Magritte in the John Moores competition. He was president of the Merseyside Arts Association and Liverpool Academy of the Arts in the 1970s and was an honorary professor of the city's John Moores University. Henri had a 10-year relationship with Carol Ann Duffy, who later became Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom. The pair met when she was 16 and lived together until 1982.[3] Henri married once, to Joyce; the couple later separated. He had no children. For the last 15 years of his life his partner was Catherine Marcangeli.[4] His career spanned everything from artist and poet to teacher, rock-and-roll performer, playwright and librettist. He could name among his friends John Lennon, George Melly, Allen Ginsberg, Willy Russell, John Willett and Paul McCartney. Unlike McGough and Patten, Henri turned his back on the trendier London scene, and chose to remain in Liverpool, saying there was nowhere he loved better. His numerous publications include The Mersey Sound (Penguin, 1967), with McGough and Patten, a best-selling poetry anthology that brought all three of them to wider attention, Collected Poems, 1967-85 (Allison & Busby, 1986), Wish You Were Here (Jonathan Cape, 1990) and Not Fade Away (Bloodaxe Books, 1994). He was the leading light of a band, the Liverpool Scene, which released four LPs of poetry and music. Earlier, in 1955, he played washboard in the King's College, Newcastle, Skiffle Group. He was a firm believer in live poetry reading, and read his poetry at many and varied venues as well as holding poetry workshops at schools and colleges. One of his last major poetry readings was at the launch of The Argotist magazine in 1996. In 1986 Henri became the first President of the National Acrylic Painters' Association, a post he held until 1991, after which he became its first Fellow and Patron until his death in 2000. He died in Liverpool, aged 68, having never properly recovered from a stroke that he had suffered two years previously. The night before his death, Liverpool City Council conferred on him the Freedom of the City in recognition of his contribution to Liverpool's cultural scene.[4] He also received an honorary doctorate from the University of Liverpool. He described his early philosophy as "If you think you can do it and you want to do it—then do it." In 2012 Adrian Henri: Total Artist was released. Total Artist concentrates on Henri's work from the 1960s and 1970s, as well as capturing some of the excitement and dynamics of the art scene in Britain during this time. Henri was at the centre of a distinctive yet highly connected counter-culture, providing an opportunity to consider his embrace of total art as a template for interdisciplinary art practice. Published by Occasional Papers, the Exhibition Research Centre, Liverpool John Moores University and Université Paris Diderot. The Liverpool Scene[edit] The Liverpool Scene was a poetry band, formed around 1967, which included Adrian Henri, Andy Roberts, Mike Evans, Mike Hart (ex Liverpool Roadrunners),[2] Percy Jones and Brian Dodson. Four LPs were issued with Henri's poetry heavily featured. The first one was produced by Liverpool DJ John Peel, who was then working on the pirate radio station Radio London. Despite his support, the album achieved little success: the following three were equally unsuccessful. Public performances by the band included a (financially unsuccessful) 1969 tour[2] when they opened for Led Zeppelin. Henri was described in performance as "bouncing thunderously and at risk to audience and fellow performers, the stage vibrating out of rhythm beneath him." The Liverpool Scene disbanded in April 1970.[2] The albums were: The Incredible New Liverpool Scene The Amazing Adventures Of Bread on the Night St. Adrian & Co., Broadway and 3rd Heirloon (rarities and outtakes) There were at least three "best of" albums and two non-LP singles, "Love Is"/"The Woo-Woo" and "Son, Son"/"Baby". See also[edit] Liverpool poets Peter Edwards References[edit] ^ "Poet Adrian Henri dies in his beloved Liverpool". Reuters. 21 December 2000. Archived from the original on 16 April 2008. ^ a b c d Bateman, David (1 March 2001). "Adrian Henri: Singer of Meat and Flowers". In Wade, Stephen (ed.). Gladsongs and Gatherings: Poetry and Its Social Context in Liverpool Since the 1960s. Liverpool University Press. pp. 73–81. ISBN 0-85323-727-1.. ^ "INTERVIEW: CAROL-ANN DUFFY". Stylist. Archived from the original on 7 October 2011. ^ a b Evans, Mike (22 December 2000). "Obituary: Adrian Henri". The Guardian. External links[edit] Wikiquote has quotations related to: Adrian Henri Interview with The Argotist Online Interview with Roger McGough about 40 years of the Mersey Poets Henri reads Death in the Suburbs (audio) Footage of Adrian Henri performing live with The Liverpool Scene Works at Whitford Fine Art National Portrait Gallery, London Adrian Henri website A film of The Liverpool Scene performing "Baby" at Victoria Park, London 1970 Authority control BIBSYS: 90099740 BNF: cb12043757w (data) CiNii: DA05123303 GND: 122369300 ISNI: 0000 0001 1059 7275 LCCN: n50029559 LNB: 000067869 MBA: 29a10d72-7a03-4b2d-ab0d-488bf4a06120 NKC: kup19970000037675 NLA: 35187821 NLI: 004252040 NSK: 000124101 NTA: 070023921 RKD: 289384 SNAC: w6j6885f SUDOC: 028644522 Trove: 857300 ULAN: 500024410 VIAF: 44316809 WorldCat Identities: lccn-n50029559 Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Adrian_Henri&oldid=941139218" Categories: People from Birkenhead Alumni of Newcastle University People associated with Liverpool John Moores University 20th-century English poets 20th-century British poets 1932 births 2000 deaths Poets from Liverpool Hidden categories: Articles needing additional references from November 2019 All articles needing additional references Use dmy dates from November 2019 Wikipedia articles with BIBSYS identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNF identifiers Wikipedia articles with CINII identifiers Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Wikipedia articles with ISNI identifiers Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers Wikipedia articles with LNB identifiers Wikipedia articles with MusicBrainz identifiers Wikipedia articles with NKC identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLA identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLI identifiers Wikipedia articles with NSK identifiers Wikipedia articles with NTA identifiers Wikipedia articles with RKDartists identifiers Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers Wikipedia articles with ULAN identifiers Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikiquote Languages العربية Deutsch Français Italiano Edit links This page was last edited on 16 February 2020, at 20:45 (UTC). 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