Marcel Duchamp and Gregory Bateson. Original photograph by William R. Heick, 1949. Digital transfer and color by Colby Ford, 2006.

WH: I was good friends with Douglas MacAgy and he had organized this Round Table on Modern Art so he asked me if I would photograph it. I got a lot of photographs of the heavyweights of that period: Duchamp, Mark Tobey, Gregory Bateson...

CF: You knew MacAgy well then?

WH: Yeah, pretty well. He was the director of the art school and I was a student there and I stirred up a lot of stuff so he knew who I was. Later he started a film company in Seattle with a guy named Bob Gardner from Harvard. MacAgy asked if I would come up to Seattle to be their camera man so I went to Seattle and worked for them. It was a film company called Orbit Films. We made a lot of films on American Indians.

CF: Could you tell me a little about the photograph of Duchamp and Bateson sitting together at dinner? Were they friends?

WH: I had known Bateson because I had shot some stuff for a psychiatrist here in San Francisco who was dealing with Bateson and he asked if I would go and shoot an interview with him. I went and shot this interview and that is what got me started with doing this work with Bateson in Seattle on American Indians. Mostly Quileute Indians. We did a couple of films up there sponsored by this guy from Harvard, Bob Gardner. He was in the Film Study Group at Harvard. We made some films on American Indians in British Columbia.

Do we like Bob Gardner... of Harvard!? (3rd party interjection)

WH: Bob Gardner? He’s an asshole! (laughing) He arranged that I would go to London Harbor and make a film. And I went there and I shot a film called “London Harbor” and also a short film on the dances of the Pequot Tribe.

CF: Were you also working with Bateson on these films?

WH: No, but I got the assignment because I knew Bateson. So, I went up to London Harbor and shot these films, came back to Seattle, edited them and now Gardner has put his name on these films. “Produced by Robert Gardner.” They were paid for by Bob Gardner and the Film Study Group at Harvard, but I shot them.

CF: How do you feel about that?

WH: You can imagine. I’ve been writing letters back and forth with Gardner. He is claiming that he shot these films, but I have newspaper articles and other photographs that prove different. It is only since the films have come into some notoriety, lately, that Bob is claiming to have shot them. Bob figured after this much time that people would forget who shot them. Now he is claiming that he photographed those films.

CF: Well, that brings up something I have been meaning to talk to you about; a similar situation, because I have been altering your photographs.

WH: Really?

CF: Yes. I have been scanning your images from the Western Round Table into a computer and adding color to them so they look like they were shot in color. I am fine to say they are your photographs, but there is a problem because I have changed them.

WH: Well, that’s all very interesting to me. It is kind of flattering when people put their name on stuff that I shot.

CF: What really matters, the man or the work?

WH: What is important is what people see; what is produced. Films and stills. I shot all the film at London Harbor. ...Okay. The story goes that Sydney Peterson, a well known Avant Garde filmmaker, and Bob Gardner went to London Harbor and shot a bunch of footage. They came back, processed it in the lab, and it was a total loss. Peterson called me up and said, “Bill, we’ve got a problem. Could you go up to London Harbor and shoot the documentary?” I did it and I came back and we put together a film and now Gardner is claiming that it is his film.

CF: Have you contacted Harvard?

WH: There is an organization called DER, Documentary Educational Research, who distributes films on American Indians and they are distributing the films that I shot at London Harbor which credit Gardner. I’m combatting them, showing who shot the films, and asking if they could correct their credits, but they haven’t responded. I do think it is most important that people see the work. But when people see it, oftentimes they will ask, “who did this, who is responsible for this?” That is when a name comes up. I was still sort of a novice in shooting film when the opportunity to shoot in London Harbor presented itself. I wasn’t worried about getting credit. I was worried about getting a good film. I shot it and Gardner paid for my trip up to London Harbor and I did the editing on his payroll. But now in recent years, the films have become of interest to anthropologists. That is where the issue of credit comes in. Gardner is claiming credit for having shot them which he didn’t do.

CF: Can you contact Gardner?

WH: I communicate with him. He is a part of Harvard’s Film Studies Group, so he has a lot of credibility and prestige back in Boston and at Harvard. I am out here, just one lone guy who shot some film. Back there they say, “Who is this guy? He’s trying to claim he shot this footage.” But I have still photographs that are the same as many of the images in those movies. If I shot the stills, that kind of establishes that I must have shot the movie. That is where the discussion is right now.

CF: I hope it’s not ruining your day.

WH: No. I take it for the philosophical high. I’m not worried about it. I just don’t like to see another guy get credit for something he didn’t do. At the time, this was shot in the early 50’s, Gardner wrote a letter stating that he didn’t know anything about shooting film. He wrote that in a letter that I have. But now, 50 years later, while the films are being recognized by anthropologists, Gardner has decided to take all the credit.

CF: I think the situation you are describing happens a lot.

WH: I do too.

CF: Could you talk about the Western Round Table some more? Specifically, about the relationship between Duchamp and Bateson? You said earlier they were friends?

WH: Well, in the early 1950’s MacAgy organized a Round Table on Modern Art. They had Duchamp, Tobey, Bateson... all the heavyweights. MacAgy was the director of the art school and he asked me if I would photograph the Round Table. It went on for three days and I shot the whole thing. I have a lot of photographs of all the heavyweights. I sent a set of prints to MacAgy and he organized an exhibition of these prints at the museum.

CF: Did you get to talk to any of the participants?

WH: Well, there was a Round Table of these guys at the museum. There was a big table and they sat all around the table. I was there for the recession photographing these guys. I had my camera on a tripod and I shot these guys. Then MacAgy got a set of prints and put on a show of these photographs. They were all heavyweights. Gregory Bateson, Mark Tobey, Alfred Frankenstein, who was the art critic for the Chronicle. The editor of Art News. I forget his name. There were a lot of heavyweights of the art world...

CF: In 1949, when the Round Table took place, did the ideas they were discussing seem progressive?

WH: Relevant. They were discussing the situation with Modern Art. There had been a Round Table in New York and MacAgy wanted to do the same thing out here to show that the same important questions were were being discussed on the West coast. I don’t remember a lot of the discussion that went on, but I know that is was tape-recorded.

CF: I have the recordings.

WH: You have them? That’s amazing!

CF: I am transferring them.

WH: To Paper?

CF: No. They were originally recorded on wire, and around 25 years ago somebody transferred them over to cassette, and now I am digitizing them. Basically, I am transferring them to a format that can be stored on a computer.

WH: That’s really good. It is important because they had important people on the panel. If you have that material that is pretty important.

CF: This may sound a little convoluted, but I see the Western Round Table as a work of art; a work of art created by Douglas MacAgy.

WH: MacAgy was behind it all. I thought MacAgy was a very unusual guy. He had his fingers on Modern Art. He was a promoter of the notion of Modern Art and abstraction and he brought that feeling to the art school when he was the director here.

CF: It seems to me that MacAgy was not only an advocate of abstraction but that he was trying to push things further––make things more problematic.

WH: He was a backer of it and a promoter of it and he created that atmosphere here at the art school and then –––––––– came in a destroyed it.

top

Contact: wrtma@ubu.com.
Curated/adapted for web by Colby Ford. More by him here.
All copyrights are the property of their respective owners.