GROOVY BOB

See Also: ART DEALERS, DISAPPEARED

In 1962 Robert Fraser opened The Robert Fraser Gallery in Duke Street, Mayfair. The space presented paintings and sculptures by the likes of Peter Blake, Gilbert & George, Richard Hamilton, Eduardo Paolozzi, and Bridget Riley. In 1966 it mounted an exhibition of works by Jim Dine. This prompted the police to raid the premises. The art dealer was prosecuted for obscenity and fined twenty guineas and costs.¹

Fraser s networking skills led to his developing associations with members of the leading bands of the era.² In 1966 Michael Cooper opened a photographic studio in Chelsea. The venture was financed by Fraser. The following year it was where the Blake-designed Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover was photographed.

As the mid-1960s progressed relations between the Rolling Stones and the press deteriorated into mutual antagonism. In 1967 the Sussex constabulary raided Keith Richards's country home at Redland in the county. The officers waited until some people, including the Beatle George Harrison, had left the property, before conducting the bust. It is probable that print journalists had tipped off the force that drugs were being consumed at the house. Richards, Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithfull, Fraser, Cooper, and Christopher Gibbs were arrested.³ At Chichester Crown Court, Jagger received a three-month sentence and Richards a year-long one. This prompted William Rees-Mogg, the then editor of The Times newspaper, to write a noted editorial that was entitled Who Breaks A Butterfly Upon A Wheel?⁴

The vocalist spent one night in gaol, the guitarist three. Their barrister, Sir Michael Havers, visited the latter after he had been in one of Her Majesty's gaols for a day. Richards is reputed to have asserted to the lawyer that he was going to prosecute the Queen. Havers asked him what he was talking about. The Stone replied, What was I done for, then? The knight responded, You were sentenced for allowing people to smoke cannabis on your property. To which the rejoinder was made, Last night I was offered half a dozen joints - they were fab. But who owns the prisons, then?

Richard Hamilton's Swingeing London paintings depicted Fraser and Jagger being handled by the police. The series was put on show at The Robert Fraser Gallery.⁵ With regard to the Redlands raid, Fraser pled guilty to having possessed heroin. He was sentenced to serve six-months hard labour. After his release his use of the drug spiralled out of control. He closed his gallery in 1969.

Location: Robert Fraser Gallery, 69 Duke Street, W1K 5NX (red, blue)

Chelsea Manor Studios, 1-11 Flood Street, SW3 5SR. Cooper's studio. (blue, white)

¹. Dine does not seem to have found the matter off-putting. The following year he settled in London.

². Fraser gave Paul McCartney a painting of an apple by Ren Magritte. This was to inspire the name Apple Corp for the Beatles holding company.

³. In the 1960s the antiques dealer Christopher Gibbs was a central figure at the points where the new popular culture of movies and rock music encountered the existing social lite. In 1966 the drug party scene for Michelangelo Antonioni's movie Blow Up (1966) had been filmed in his house at No. 100 Cheyne Walk. (Richards owned No. 3 and Jagger No. 48.)

⁴. A quote from Alexander Pope's Epistle To Dr Arbuthnot (1735).

⁵. Hamilton designed the cover for the Beatles White Album (1968).

David Backhouse 2024