I had the pleasure of visiting Caroline Tisdall in her home in London during my residency. I spent time reading in her private library and eating delicious borscht!
Prof. Caroline Tisdall was feature writer for The Guardian in the 1970s when she began working with Joseph Beuys.
She has published 7 books on Joseph Beuys and worked with him to organise many of his major exhibitions including ‘The Secret Block for a Secret Person in Ireland’ (MOMA, Oxford 1974; ICA, London,1974; MOMA, Edinburgh, 1974; Ulster Museum, Belfast, 1974; Municipal museum of Modern art, Dublin, 1974) and his major retrospective at the Guggenheim in New York in 1979. The accompanying catalogue published by Thames and Hudson was produced together with Beuys.
Her best known work with Beuys is Coyote: I like America and America likes Me. This book of her photographs and text documents Beuys’ iconic dialogue with a coyote in New York in 1974. For Caroline, this marked the beginning of a way of working with nature, offering her insights that have guided her work in the field of conservation ever since.
Dear Christian Kerrigan,
my name is Jule and i study art history in Halle, Germany and write my thesis about the drawings from Joseph Beuys, more specifically about “Secret block for a secret person in ireland”. So i am very interested in the work from Caroline Tisdall.
Do you have written an article about the meeting with her?
I would be happy, to get a message from you! I would like to know, how it came about that she works with Joseph Beuys and why she works with the drawings.
Okay, i keep my fingers crossed, and maybe i am lucky that you write me back … :-)
Best regards,
Jule
When I was a student at Reading University, Caroline was a part-time lecturer in Art History. A few years later on, I became a lecturer in art history at the City Lit, City University and Central University of Iowa. I recall a certain frisson of interest in life that went beyond her lectures, and which made her more meaningful and interesting than others. I ended up lecturing at the City Lit, City University and Central University of Iowa, doing exactly what she did!