My buddy Jonathan Harvey, who has died aged 74, was for 44 years joint chief govt of Acme Studios, a charity he co-founded with David Panton in 1972 that gives reasonably priced areas for artists.
Acme achieved this miracle by leveraging from the Better London council the short-term occupancy of condemned dwellings and redundant business and industrial buildings – every thing from a whole road of derelict homes to a meat pie manufacturing unit, a lodge, a foundry, a Cornish web loft and an abattoir.
I met Jonathan in 1977 at a present on the Acme Gallery, a transformed banana warehouse in Covent Backyard. The gallery was an offshoot of Acme Studios and a spot of just about steady mayhem – the Kipper Youngsters stomped and grunted, in heavy boots and jockstraps, Kerry Trengove tunnelled his approach out of the basement, and Stephen Cripps drove his viewers coughing and spluttering into the road, having almost set fireplace to the constructing. There have been quieter, extra contemplative reveals, however Jonathan’s dictum held true, that the gallery ought to exhibit work “in a approach that created as direct a confrontation as doable between the general public and the artist, with out deciphering it”.
When the gallery lease expired, Jonathan led the profitable lottery bids that enabled Acme to buy two buildings, and used this fairness to finance and purchase a 3rd. A novel planning achieve technique – embedding reasonably priced workspace inside new-build residential developments – achieved spectacular outcomes, working with the most important business housebuilders. Jonathan commissioned HAT Initiatives to design a brand new block of studios alongside the Royal Opera Home manufacturing amenities at Thurrock in Essex.
Jonathan additionally co-founded Tv South-West, and for 10 years from 1982 labored as their arts guide and affiliate producer on arts and experimental programmes for Channel 4. He co-curated two worldwide site-specific artwork tasks and labored with Tony Foster and James Lingwood to increase the idea of set up past the gallery.
In 1993, Jonathan was invited to chair the board of the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol, and oversaw a significant refurbishment and extension. In 2000 he joined the unbiased evaluate to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed growth of the brand new Tate Fashionable. He served on quite a few committees, undertook consultancies, and assessed lottery capital tasks on behalf of Arts Council England.
Born in Plymouth, to Ailsa (nee Rae) and Raymond Harvey, a financial institution supervisor, Jonathan grew up in Devon. He attended Plymouth school and Brockenhurst grammar faculty, earlier than learning artwork at Studying College, graduating in 1971. As a postgraduate at Chelsea College of Artwork, he was tutored by Ian Stephenson.
Jonathan liked cricket and actual tennis, had a quizzical sense of enjoyable, and was enthusiastic about Cornwall. His marriage to Rosemary Sharp, in 1973, resulted in divorce. In 2006 he married Rita Harris, who died of most cancers in 2012.
In 2014 Jonathan and David had been each appointed OBE, and in 2016 Jonathan was made an honorary fellow of College of the Arts London.
This was the second that he determined to step again from Acme and transfer to Suffolk, together with his associate, Lesley Lauriston.
He’s survived by Lesley, and by his sister, Suzanne.
