Artist on Film: Which Way Up with John McLean

© John McLean

John McLean is one of Britain’s foremost abstract artists: his paintings and sculptures are on display in some of the worlds great collections; the stained glass windows he designed for Norwich cathedral have been compared to Matisse’s at Chapelle Du Rosaire in Vence. Although he is well known amongst his fellow artists and many private collectors, McLean has never made the 'big time'; the great American critic, Clement Greenburg was both a fan and a friend and curators like Richard Morphet of the Tate and Paul Moorhouse, now of the National Portrait Gallery, are fulsome in their praise of his work and its importance to contemporary British art. Towards the end of 2013 McLean was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. 

In Which Way Up, a new documentary film by Michael Proudfoot and cameraman Chris Morphet, we see John McLean revelling in both the successes and the failures of his explorations into shape, colour and line. We get a rare glimpse of an artist at work; eavesdropping on his thought processes, insights, influences and, in John’s case, irreverent, Scottish sense of humour.

Which Way Up is not the sob story of an elderly artist in physical decline, it is a life-enhancing portrait of one our greatest unsung creators. You come away from Proudfoot and Morphet’s film wanting to take up painting yourself and see the world as McLean sees it: as a place full of possibilities, of colour, humour, beauty and optimism.

With an introduction by Michael Proudfoot