Obituary: Michael Spens, architect, diplomat, art patron, critic and teacher

Michael Spens: Renaissance man who was an architect, teacher, critic and patron of the arts

Michael Spens lived an extraordinarily adventurous life committed to the history of ideas expressed essentially through the language of the visual arts. His life was very much influenced by the Second World War and its prolongation in the form of The Cold War. He was rightly proud of his Scottish ancestry which associated him with the medieval Scottish ballad of Sir Patrick Spens. This tells the story of the 13th-century Scottish king, Alexander III, commanding his most skilful sailor, Sir Patrick Spens, to sail across the North Sea in winter to bring The Maid of Norway to Scotland and how this princess was drowned, together with Sir Patrick Spens in tempestuous waters, “full fifty fathoms deep” off the coast of Aberdeen.

I first met Michael Spens when he visited The Demarco Gallery in Edinburgh in the early 1970s. I now have ample proof that this meeting changed my life for the better. I was certainly impressed when I discovered I was meeting the young publisher of Studio International, the world’s oldest and most prestigious arts journal. In this first meeting, we spoke of his plans as an architect to restore a medieval castle located in The Cleish Hills near Dunfermline.

Michael Spens saw it as the ideal home for his first wife, Caroline, and his young family, allowing them to live their lives far from their terraced house in London’s Belgravia. That first meeting revealed the fact that he possessed a serious collection of modern art, in which were placed works by Scottish artists such as Eduardo Paolozzi and JD Ferguson, along with those of leading international artists such as Paul Klee, Claus Oldenberg and Henry Moore.

I was certainly inspired by his willingness to commission Eduardo Paolozzi, the Scottish artist living and working at that time in London. The commission was for The Great Hall in Cleish Castle. The resultant art work took the form of a thought-provoking, large-scale metal sculpture as a 20th-century version of the traditional painted wooden ceilings adorning Scotland’s medieval castles. To this day, it can be seen installed high above the head of Paolozzi’s gigantic statue of Vulcan, the Roman God of Fire and archetypal blacksmith, in The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.

This major act of art patronage symbolised the inevitability of the decision of Michael Spens to leave London and commit himself to the cultural, as well as political, life of Scotland.

For many years, he was a much-respected faculty member of Dundee University’s School of Architecture. His spoken and written thoughts on architecture introduced his students to the world of landscape architecture and particularly to that of Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe, and to the world of international architectural movements in general, including his wholehearted commitment to the iconic architecture of Alvar Aalto.

In the early 1990s, he contributed to the restoration of The Alvar Aalto Library, working in collaboration with Finnish and Russian authorities. It should be noted that the important nature of his work resulted in his being awarded a Finnish Knighthood in the form of The First Class Order of the Lion of Finland. This title befitted a Scot whose life had a distinct European dimension.

As a British officer stationed in Berlin during the Cold War, he was involved in important military duties in the Middle East during the Suez Crisis. He had chosen to live his soldier’s life in The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, the regiment that his father had served in with distinction during the Second World War.

It is with deep regret that I consider the fact that the plans Michael Spens devised in recent years to return to the battle ground of Monte Cassino were never realised, due to his ill-health. It was there that his father had bravely fought on the slopes of Monte Cassino. I was most willing to accompany him because we envisaged an exhibition in Edinburgh, honouring his father’s experience of that battle which claimed so many lives, including those of Italian civilians living in the Val di Comino, because my Demarco forebears had migrated to Scotland from Picinisco, a village nearby to that tragic battlefield.

Michael’s father, Patrick Spens, returned to England from Italy to discover that his young wife had died during the Blitz. Michael Spens was four years old when he lost his mother, and therefore the tragic and unexpected bereavement, which affected his father, his younger sister and himself, caused him to make a special visit to that battlefield which resulted in an article he wrote for The Scotsman on the significance of the rebuilding of The Abbey of Monte Cassino as a symbol of the human spirit to recover from the wounds of war.

There must surely be an exhibition celebrating the life of Michael Spens and all the many roles he chose for himself, including an SNP candidate for the Orkney Islands in the 1970s, where he lost out to Jo Grimond, representing Orkney as a Liberal stronghold.

He was an architect, a diplomat, a soldier, an art patron, an essayist, an art critic and inspiring teacher and lecturer and a promoter of Scotland’s culture throughout the international art world.

When I think of him, I think of his many friends such as the Maltese art patron, poet and architect, Richard England, and Murray Grigor, the film-maker, and particularly Hans Hollein, the Austrian architect. I introduced Hans Hollein to Scotland as a sculptor during the 1973 Edinburgh Festival.

Michael Spens did not live to see the current exhibition celebrating the life of Hans Hollein, whose buildings revealed his mind-set as a sculptor. Hans Hollein died in April aged 80, making it even more important that an exhibition celebrating the life of Michael Spens should make reference to Hans Hollein’s architecture. I think also of three of his Scottish friends who were working in Scotland in the Seventies.

The parkland surrounding Cleish Castle became the ideal setting for an outdoor exhibition of large-scale metal sculpture by three Scottish artists championed by Michael Spens. I thus regarded Cleish Castle as an unique example of a medieval castle providing the ideal setting for contemporary art in Scotland. The artists were Gerald Laing, Gavin Scobie and Andrew Myleus. I remember them at the beginning of their careers, much in need of a generous and intelligent art patron. They found such a patron in Michael Spens. The parkland surrounding Cleish Castle became the ideal setting for outdoor exhibitions of large-scale metal sculptures by all three artists.

I introduced Michael Spens to Arthur Sackler in 1980, which resulted in Arthur Sackler becoming the publisher of Studio International with Michael Spens as the editor.

A few years later, I was invited by Nick Waterlow, as director of the Arts Council of Australia, to visit Australia to plan an exhibition of Australian art for the 1984 Edinburgh International Festival.

The planning of this exhibition resulted in Michael Spens being invited to Australia. There he met Janet McKenzie, the Australian artist and writer and the acknowledged expert on the art of Arthur Boyd.

Their marriage and collaboration as co-editors of Studio International after the death of Arthur Sackler gave them the opportunity to expand their commitment and support of international artists and art institutions defining the map of the international art world.

The children of Michael Spens from his two marriages all personify the spirit I associate with a most refined defender of the spirit of modernism, the very personification of a Renaissance man in the modern world. Michael Spens died at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee on 28 March, not far from his beloved world of Wormiston.