[5] Among astonished members of the audience was John Whiteman, new director of Glasgow School of Art, who said he had never heard of an artist being savaged in such a way in public before.
His arrival at the School of Art coincided with the end of Margaret Thatcher's tenure as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
The Eighties have been a demoralising time for staff at the art school, which has made them defensive, but there is a lot of enthusiasm there.
The Scotsman had the story:[6] John Whiteman had come from Chicago, and appeared a rather glamorous cosmopolitan figure who cut a stylish dash in his new habitat.
Yet he left abruptly nine months later amid public accusations that the art school old guard had been too resistant to change.
It has since become quite clear that the main reason for Whiteman’s sudden resignation concerned family and marital difficulties which he felt he could not resolve transatlantically.