Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Resident Artist
Posted on February 2, 2011Uncharacteristically, MI6 (or SIS to give them their proper name) have gone on a publicity drive. A press release yesterday announced an exhibition of paintings by James Hart Dyke, a resident artist who has been embedded within MI6 for the last year.
The good news is that Mr Hart Dyke wasn’t paid a salary by the spooks during his time with them – he will make his money from the sale of the works. Indeed, starting at £950 a sketch and rising to £25,000 for the biggest oil painting I’d say he stands a pretty good chance of making his last year worthwhile.
All the same, this project will have come at some cost to MI6. As well as providing the artist with space, you can bet he got some intensive briefing and attention from press officers. Even that might be worthwhile, I thought, seeing as it’s the Service’s anniversary, until I saw this:
the paintings do not identify actual officers, agents, operations, or actual events
Obviously, no-one would expect a secret service to give the okay for an artist to publicly release paintings of their officers or expose state secrets through the medium of oil paint. But what, really, is the point of having a resident artist embedded with you for a year if everything he paints at the end of it is made up? Particularly if the things he’s painted are, erm, the outside of the MI6 building, a man in a hotel room and two people having a meeting.
Surely they’d have achieved the same effect, without the disruption, by commissioning an artist who could sit at home using his imagination?
Tags: MI6, public spending, Resident Artist
Categories: Opinion
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15.02.2011 09:47
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15.02.2011 10:30
“the paintings do not identify actual officers, agents, operations, or actual events”
Oil painting, 4′ x 6′, of paper clip on Control’s desk, countersigned by George Smiley?
15.02.2011 20:42