So imagine, if you will, a Venn diagram. We've
got a really fascinating deep dive for you today.
We really do. And I want you to just picture
this Venn diagram. It's a pretty standard way
to organize the world, right? Yeah, totally.
So in one circle, over on the left, you have
the world of highbrow, serious, modern art. You
know, abstract sculptures, those hushed galleries,
critics and turtlenecks, very expensive wine.
Right. The sort of world where everything is
just very significant and very serious. Exactly.
And then. In a second circle, let's put stage
magic, but not the slick Las Vegas stuff. Right.
I'm talking about the carnival sideshow buzz
saws, headless women, illusions that are a little
bit gritty and maybe a little bit dangerous.
Which is a completely different vibe. That is
all about spectacle and visceral thrills. Right.
And then let's just. Add a third circle way out
in the fringes. Cryptozoology. Oh, boy. Yeah.
The active hunting of sea monsters, lake beasts,
things that go bump in the night. Usually those
three circles are miles apart. I mean, they do
not touch. No. In fact, people in the art world
usually look down on the magic world and, well,
everyone looks sideways at the monster hunters.
Usually, yes. But today we are diving into the
life of a man who didn't just live where those
circles overlap. He essentially built a house
there, painted it bright colors and invited the
world to come watch. Yeah. We're talking about
Tony Doc Shields. A man who is. Frankly, one
of the most difficult figures of the 20th century
to categorize. For sure. Was he a gifted painter,
a master magician, a monster hunter, or was he
perhaps the greatest hoaxer Britain has ever
produced? Or maybe. And this is the angle I really
want us to chew on today. Maybe the hoax was
actually the art itself. And that is the core
question. We've gone through a ton of sources
for you. Biographical records, art history archives,
magic journals, and newspaper clipping. Banning
his whole life, right? Exactly. Covering his
life from his birth in 1938 all the way to his
passing just recently in July 2024. And our mission
for this deep dive is to figure out how a guy
goes from hanging out with serious abstract artists
in St. Ives -like, people who are in history
books, to invoking sea monsters with a coven
of nude witches on the coast of Cornwall. It
is a trajectory that sounds totally made up,
but I assure you it is all in the record. So
let's start at the beginning, because for a guy
who became known as the Wizard of the West, he
didn't start out... pulling rabbits out of hats.
No, he didn't. He started in a very different,
very serious scene. He did. And to understand
the monster years, you really have to respect
the art years. We're talking about the late 1950s.
Okay. Tony Shields is a young man born in Salford
in 1938, but he heads to London to study at the
Heather Lee School of Fine Art. Which is a legitimate
institution. I mean, this isn't a hobbyist painting
class at the local community center. Far from
it. Yeah. And he also did a stint at the Academy
André Lote in Paris. So he was... classically
trained. Wow. But the real turning point, the
moment where he plugs into the cultural mains
is 1958. He moves to St. Ives in Cornwall. Now,
we need to pause here because the context of
St. Ives in the late 50s is crucial. Yeah, for
you listening who maybe aren't art history buffs.
Why does that location matter? Isn't it just
a nice fishing village? It is a nice fishing
village. But at that specific moment, it was
arguably the epicenter of British modern art.
Oh, really? Yeah, it was where the heavy hitters
were. You had Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth,
Patrick Herron. They were redefining what art
looked like. Moving away from traditional stuff.
Exactly. Moving away from landscapes and into
pure abstraction. It was just a hotbed of radical
creativity. So Shields moves there, and he's
not just watching from the sidelines. Like, he's
not just a fanboy. No. He is in the trenches.
He ran the Steps Gallery, which was known for
being incredibly progressive. Okay. He was showing
artists like Brian Wall and Bob Law names that
really matter in the abstract movement. Right.
But here is the nugget from the research that
really establishes his bona fides. It's the Penwith
Society of Arts. And this was the governing body
of the scene there. Essentially, yes. It was
an incredibly influential, somewhat exclusive
group. And in 1961, there was a major internal
conflict. Like a clash between the traditionalists
and the modernists. Exactly. And the legendary
sculptor Barbara Hepworth resigned from the committee.
Man, that is a seismic shift in that little world.
I mean, she was a titan. Huge. And who was elected
to the committee following the resignation of
one of the greatest sculptors of the 20th century?
Don't tell me it was Shields. It was Tony Shields.
That is wild. That's like, I don't know, finding
out that a famous ghost hunter used to sit on
the board. Of the Tate Modern or the MoMA. It
really is. Yeah. He had solo exhibitions in London,
mainly at the Rowinsky Gallery off Carnaby Street.
He was a recognized, serious figure in the abstract
art world. So he really knew his stuff. He understood
composition. He understood color. But more importantly,
he understood perception. And framing, which...
In the art world, how you frame the work often
dictates how the audience receives it. Yes. Like
if you put a urinal in a gallery, it's art. If
you leave it in a bathroom, it's plumbing. Precisely.
And you need to keep that in mind. Because in
the late 1960s, he leaves St. Ives. He moves
on. He moves to a place called Ponsonuth near
Felmouth. And something shifts. He rediscovers
a family tradition. Magic. Stage magic. Apparently,
he learned it from his father and grandfather.
But because Shields was an intellectual and artist,
he didn't just buy a magic kit from a toy store.
Right. He wouldn't do anything halfway. No. He
dove into the theory of magic. Yeah. I noticed
in the notes he started writing for publications
with names like The Linking Ring and The Budget.
Those are trade journals. The Budget is the magazine
for the International Brotherhood of Magicians.
It's real inside baseball. Wow. He wasn't writing
about how to do card tricks for kids' parties.
He was writing about the psychology of the impossible.
And he was networking with some really surprising
people. I saw the names Ray Harryhausen and Ray
Bradbury in the source material. Yes, those exact
names. I mean, Ray Harryhausen is the stop -motion
god. Clash of the Titans, Jason and the Argonauts.
Why is Shields talking to him? Well, think about
what Harryhausen did. He created monsters that
looked real enough to suspend disbelief on a
movie screen. Ah. Shields was interested in doing
the same thing, but in three -dimensional reality.
Yeah. They were corresponding about fantasy,
about how to evoke wonder. So he's blending this
high art background with the mechanics of illusion.
Exactly. And he helps pioneer a specific subgenre
called bizarre magic. We should define that for
you listening. How is bizarre magic different
from, say, David Copperfield or a guy in a tuxedo
with a dove? Great question. Traditional magic
is often about skill or puzzles. You know, look
how fast my hands are. Look how I fooled you.
Figure out how I did it. Right. Bizarre magic
is about story. It's often darker, rooted in
folklore, the occult, or the supernatural. It's
theatrical. Very theatrical. It relies on atmosphere
more than just sleight of hand. It wants you
to feel a chill, not just solve a puzzle. And
Shields literally wrote the book on this. Several,
actually. He published a trio of books. Yeah.
13 Something Strange and Demons, Darklings, and
Doppelgangers. Just note those titles. He's really
leaning into the Gothic. Absolutely. So he takes
this theory and creates a persona. Enter Doc
Shields, Wizard of the West. Right. This is the
early 70s. 1970 to 1974. He hits the festival
circuit. And again, this isn't a slick act. This
is street theater. It's rugged. It's folk horror.
So he's out in the elements. Yeah, he's performing
at fairs all over Cornwall with his family and
a friend named Vernon Rose. What kind of tricks
are we talking about here? Visceral ones. The
headless woman illusion. The sub -trunk escape.
The buzzsaw? Okay, the buzzsaw is a classic,
but doing it in a field in Cornwall in the 70s
feels very different than doing it on a nice,
clean stage. Completely different vibe. He even
set up something called Tom Fool's Theater of
Tomfoolery, which works closely with the Footsparn
Theater. Oh, they were a very famous traveling
troupe, right? They were. He was taking magic
out of the parlor and putting it back into the
landscape. Okay, so we have the artist and we
have the wizard, but this is where the timeline
gets really interesting. It really does. Because
this is the part of the story that most people
might actually remember. even if they don't know
Shields' name. The monster years. The mid -1970s.
This is where the training wheels just come entirely
off. Right. Up until now, everything he's done
is performance. Everyone knows a magic show is
a trick. Even if it's scary, you know it's a
show. Right. But in 1976, he decides that performing
tricks isn't enough. He wants to change reality.
He decides to raise monsters. Specifically, more
gore. And that's the Cornish sea monster. Correct.
Morgar means sea giant in Cornish. Now, typically
cryptozoologists are guys in khaki vests with
binoculars and sonar equipment. Right, trying
to prove a biological species exists. Yeah, they
want peer review. Shields, well, he took a very
different approach. He used witches. He used
witches. The sources are very specific here.
He claimed to invoke the monster with the aid
of a coven of nude witches. Now... I have to
play the skeptic here for a second. If you actually
want to find a rare, shy, aquatic animal, getting
a bunch of people to chant naked on a cliff seems,
I don't know, counterproductive. Scientifically?
Yes. Theatrically. It's genius. That's true.
You have to remember the era. The mid -70s. You
have the obsession with the wicker man, the occult
revival, the tail end of the hippie movement.
Yeah, the cultural backdrop is perfect for it.
Shields wasn't trying to write a paper for nature.
He was creating a scene. He was creating a vibe.
And the media just ate it up. They gorged on
it. We're talking BBC TV, 14 Times, local papers.
And the tabloids, right? Oh, yeah. The National
Tabloids Reveille, the News of the World. They
were running stories on Doc Shields and his monsters.
I mean, it's the perfect tabloid fodder. Nudity,
monsters, and a wizard. It hits every single
button. Exactly. He was populating Cornwall with
cryptids. Around this same time, he also reported
on the Owlman of Monon. Which was a winged humanoid
scene near a church tower, right? That's the
one. He's just building a mythology in real time,
but he didn't stop at Cornwall. In 1977, he went
for the championship belt. He did. The Loch Ness
Monster. The Holy Grail of monsters. Shields
travels to Scotland. And lo and behold, he obtains
photos that are claimed to be of Nessie. Yeah,
we've seen these photos in the source notes.
The Muppet photo is the really famous one, right?
Yes. Often called the Nessie Muppet photo because,
well, it looks a bit like a Muppet rising out
of the water. It really does. Very stylized.
The skin looks almost classed to scene. It's
incredibly distinct. But despite looking to modern
eyes, anyway, pretty fake, it had a massive impact.
Massive. It hit the front page of the Daily Mirror.
The headline was, Up for the Jubilee Nessie.
Oh, because it was 1977. Yes. Queen's Silver
Jubilee year. He had completely hijacked the
national conversation. And this wasn't an accident.
He called this the monster mind experiment. Right.
And this is where we need to connect the dots
back to his art background. Okay, lay it on us.
If he was just a scammer trying to sell photos,
he would have tried to make them look as realistic
and boring as possible. Just a vague hump in
the distance, out of focus. Exactly. Yeah. But
his monsters were flamboyant. They were weird.
They had real personality. So you think he actually
wanted people to question them? That brings us
to his philosophy. He called it surrealchemy.
Surrealchemy. Okay, let's break that down. It's
a portmanteau of surrealism and alchemy. Right.
Surrealism is about resolving the contradictory
conditions of dream and reality. It's about making
the unconscious visible. And alchemy? Alchemy
is about transmutation turning lead into gold.
For Shields, surrealchemy was about taking the
leaden, boring reality of the 20th century, the
age of science, facts, skepticism, and transmuting
it into something magical. Wow. So the hoax wasn't
a lie. It was an artistic intervention. Exactly.
Think about the situationist in France in the
60s, Guy Debord, and the Society of the Spectacle.
Oh, yeah. They believed in creating situations
that jolted people out of their passive existence.
Shields was doing that with monsters. He was
using the media as his canvas. Yes. The front
page of the Daily Mirror became his gallery wall.
He was injecting a myth back into the modern
world. That's brilliant. If you look at it that
way, the question of is the monster real becomes
completely irrelevant. Because the reaction is
real. Exactly. The wonder is real. The argument
in the pub about whether it's real, that is the
art. That is a fascinating reframe. Because usually
we look at hoaxers as villains. We think they're
laughing at us. But you're saying Shields was
inviting us to play. He was inviting us to participate
in a mystery. He never admitted they were fakes,
not explicitly. He maintained the kayfabe, to
use a pro wrestling term. He stayed in character.
That commitment is impressive. Most people would
crack and say, gotcha, eventually. He respected
the game too much for that, and he didn't stop
after the 70s either. No. The media frenzy died
down, sure, but Shields kept evolving. In the
1980s and beyond, he moved into playwriting.
I have to mention the titles of his plays because
they are just delightful. You've got Spooks,
The Galavant Variations, Night Jars. And my personal
favorite, Cloth Owl, The Winking Curtain. Cloth
Owl, The Winking Curtain. I mean, that sounds
like something out of a fever dream. It's pure
surrealism. And again, I want to stress he wasn't
shouting into the void or putting these on in
his backyard. These were real production. Yes.
One of his plays, Distant Humps. Was co -produced
by Ken Campbell. And Ken Campbell is a legend
in British experimental theater. The Warp, the
science fiction theater of Liverpool. He's a
big deal. Huge deal. And the play co -starred
Christopher Fairbank, people. Might know him
from Auf Wiedersehen, Pet Pater, or as the broker
in Guardians of the Galaxy. But wow. So Shields
was still collaborating with serious, talented
artists. He wasn't a pariah. And he also kept
writing magic books, right? He did. Like The
Shields Effect, The Cantrip Codex. He remained
a significant figure in the bizarre magic world.
He really became an elder statesman of the weird.
He also documented his own mythology. In 1990,
he published a book called Monstrum. And there
was another one by John Downes, right? Yes, Owlman
and Others in 1996, which cemented a lot of this
lore. But through all the monsters, the plays,
the magic tricks, he never stopped painting.
Never. The source notes emphasize this heavily.
He continued to paint and exhibit right up until
the end. Wow. He died very recently, on July
11, 2024, in County Kerry, Ireland. He was 86
years old. Man, it really feels like the end
of an era. It is. When you look at the full arc,
from sitting on a committee with Barbara Hepworth
to photographing a monster in Loch Ness, it is
just a singular life. It's a life that refuses
to be categorized. If you put him in the artist
box, you miss the magic. If you put him in the
hoaxer box, you miss the intellect. And I think
that's what surreal comedy was all about. It
was about dissolving those boxes entirely. It
was about proving that reality is way more malleable
than we think. He treated his entire life as
a piece of performance art. So looking back at
this deep dive, for you listening, what is the
one thing that should stick with you? When you
zoom out and look at the whole timeline, what's
the lesson here? For me, it's about the value
of the unknown. We live in a time. We have high
definition cameras in our pockets. We have AI.
We can fact check anything in seconds. Yeah.
If a monster popped its head up today, 10 ,000
drones would be live streaming it in 4K within
the hour. Exactly. There's nowhere for the monsters
to hide anymore. The map is filled in. But Shields
lived in a time, and perhaps created a time,
where the map still had shadows. He reminded
us that the world is weird. And I wonder, in
our rush for facts and clarity, do we miss the
magic of a well -crafted mystery? That's a great
point. Was he deceiving the world or was he offering
us a gift? Right. Was he lying or was he just
telling a story so good that it briefly became
true? You know, it makes me think maybe the real
alchemy wasn't about changing reality at all.
What do you mean? Maybe it was about changing
us, like transmuting our own willingness to believe.
In a hyper -rational world, maybe the ultimate
magic trick is getting adults to look at a weird
plasticine shape in the water and feel, just
for a second, that anything is possible. I love
that. Maybe, just maybe, the world needs a few
more monsters, even if we have to make them up
ourselves. That is a powerful thought. Something
to chew on the next time you see a grainy photo
on the internet or a ripple in the water. Maybe
don't be so quick to debunk it. Maybe just enjoy
the what -if. Indeed. Tony Doc Shields. Artist,
wizard, monster maker. Thanks for taking this
dive into the surreal with us. It's been an absolute
pleasure. And to you listening, keep looking
for The Strange and the Everyday. We'll see you
on the next Deep Dive.