My husband, Rodney Wilson, who has died aged 82, was a widely admired producer of innovative arts television programmes. His leadership as film officer at the Arts Council helped to expand and enhance the UK’s vital independent film industry of the 1970s and 80s.
Trained in fine art at Camberwell in the 60s, Rodney taught painting and drawing at Loughborough College of Art, but seeing James Scott’s film Richard Hamilton in 1969 proved life-changing. After studying film at Hornsey College of Art in north London, in 1970 he joined the Arts Council and channelled funds to new film-makers with imaginative ideas, nurturing projects from initial treatment through filming (at locations from Transylvania to Pennsylvania) to final edit.
Unafraid of controversy, Rodney supported the director Franco Rosso whose Arts Council-funded film, Dread Beat an’ Blood, about Linton Kwesi Johnson, was pulled by the BBC in the runup to the May 1979 general election owing to “unacceptable” political content. More than 4 million viewers tuned in when it finally aired the following month.
Funds were always short, but through Rodney’s drive and determination (Art Monthly called him “an old warhorse”), co-production deals were struck with, first, Channel 4, then the BBC, and he became director of the Arts Council’s film, video and broadcasting department. There, experimental work was encouraged through the artists’ film and video committee, which gave early financial support to Peter Greenaway, Derek Jarman, Sally Potter, Steve McQueen, Tacita Dean and many others.
Rodney expanded the department’s remit in the early 90s, setting up the Black Arts Video project to promote culturally diverse work and reach new audiences. He also devised new formats for TV such as the award-winning series Dance for the Camera. (Rodney told me that on his first attempt to get a commissioning partnership with the BBC, he was chucked out of Alan Yentob’s office “because David Bowie was on the line”).
When politics and the national lottery finally sank the film department in 1998, Rodney moved to the BBC and produced Sound on Film: four unique collaborations between composers and film directors, such as John Tavener and Werner Herzog, Karlheinz Stockhausen and the Brothers Quay. He was instrumental in the creation of an animated TV version of Janáček’s opera The Cunning Little Vixen (2003, animator Geoff Dunbar, music director Kent Nagano), which was subsequently recorded in four languages with live screenings in European cities.
Rodney was born in Maidenhead, Berkshire, to Vera (nee Faulkner), a teacher, and Bert, a coal merchant, and was a pupil at Windsor grammar before going to art school. I first met him in 1981 while working at the Arts Council, and we married in 1998. We were both passionate about the arts. After moving to Cornwall in 2011, we collaborated on the design and build of an eco-house. Its harmonious, light-filled space is testament to Rodney’s artist’s eye.
Rodney is survived by me and by his brother, Graham.
