Talk:Derek Boshier

Birth date

A minor point, but several sources give his birth date as 6 June 1937. Is there any way of checking which (6th or 19th) is correct? AgTigress (talk) 14:09, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

If anyone is checking this page (surely someone ought to be, in view of the subject's recent death?), I am now satisfied that the 19 June 1937 is the correct date. This is simply from following the Instagram of several of DB's friends, and finding that they sent him birthday greetings on that date. AgTigress (talk) 10:22, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

Degrees/qualifications

I'm sorry this will be long. I do not want to edit the article itself (my WP editing skills are very limited), but I should like to explain why I am sure the present text, citing a 'BFA' degree from Yeovil School of Art (1957) and an 'MFA' from the Royal College of Art (1962), is incorrect. The 20 years after the end of the Second World War saw major, and ongoing, changes in the UK Education system in all fields and at every level, triggered by the Education Act of 1944, which democratised education and began to break down the traditional sharp division between 'academic' higher education and technical/practical subjects that usually led to membership of specific professional or trade bodies. The number of universities in the UK, and the range of subjects they taught, both increased rapidly from the later 1950s and throughout the 1960s. 

In the 1950s, local art schools, like Yeovil, accepted students at age 16 (the minimum school-leaving age was still 15), and ran 4-year courses.  Such students generally entered with some GCE (General Certificate of Education) ‘Ordinary’ level passes, but not ‘A’ (Advanced) levels, which were taken at age 18, and were required for university entrance.  The art schools were specialised, vocational higher-education colleges, but not universities, and therefore could not grant degrees.  The qualification awarded on completion of the art-school course was the National Diploma in Design:  the NDD was an essential and respected vocational qualification in art and design.

The Royal College of Art had very stringent entry requirements for students who had completed their NDD, but even it was not yet a university when the subject of this article became a student there in 1959.  Successful completion of the three-year course led to the diploma of Associate of the Royal College of Art:  ARCA.  This was a highly prestigious qualification in the art world, and very likely ‘higher’ than a conventional academic Honours BA, but it is not correct to refer to it as a Master’s degree.  The system was just totally different.

The RCA received a Royal Charter in 1967, so became an actual university, and moreover, postgraduate-only, so since then has awarded Master's degrees and doctorates. The art schools themselves are now university colleges, of course, and award degrees. AgTigress (talk) 10:29, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

I just checked one of the references: Barbara Rose and Susie Kalil (1985). Fresh Paint, The Houston School. Texas Monthly Press, Austin, Texas. 256 pp. and it says, Yeovil School of Art, B.F.A., and Royal College of Art, M.F.A. I couldn’t say how accurate it is or if it is on error but, that is what it says. WiLaFa (talk) 06:40, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. Yes, I have no doubt that in American sources, this would be the natural assumption: Bachelor's degree at end of 'Art college' course, and a Master's after an additional 'postgraduate' course. It seems very likely that Derek himself was willing to let that assumption stand, as he must have been well aware of it and could have corrected it in published texts, but explaining the complexities of the immediately-postwar educational system here in the UK would have been so tedious (see above!), and would have (quite misleadingly) sounded inferior to the familiar concept of university degrees. And now it all aligns more closely with the US system anyway.

You will find that published sources on David Hockney are also a bit elusive on the basic matter of 'degrees', for precisely the same reason. He, too, must have gained his NDD (from Bradford, in his case), and then the ARCA from the Royal College in the same year as Derek, 1962.

It honestly doesn't make a lot of difference, which is partly why I have not edited the article itself. I just wanted to have the facts set out.

AgTigress (talk) 10:47, 13 October 2024 (UTC)