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Monstermind: The Magical Life and Art of Tony 'Doc' Shiels
Artist Tony Shiels arrived in St Ives, Cornwall in 1958, hungry for art-world success. For a few years his career went well, but as the sixties developed, he grew impatient with the limitations of abstract art. Instead emboldened by the irreverent, libidinal spirit of Dada and Surrealism, his life became stranger and more magical. Then following a series of bizarre monster-raising stunts, in the mid-1970s he and his family became briefly known across Britain as 'The weirdest family in the land'. Shiels used skills learnt as an artist to manipulate the public in a brazen and audacious display of theatrical, imaginative daring. In the process he left an indefinable but not insignificant magical and artistic legacy.
- GenresBiography
158 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 28, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 30, 2026
Biography of Irish multi-artist, occultist and folklorist Tony "Doc" Shiels who declared himself "The Wizard of the Western World". Shiels is best known in cryptozoology circles for having popularised various strange and terrible creatures from Cornwall's folklore such as the sea-monster Morgawr (whose name means "sea giant" in the Cornish language) and the Owlman of Mawnan, the UK's equivalent to the Mothman of Point Pleasant in West Virginia.
It turns out from reading "Monstermind" that writing about various weird creatures in the Cornish folklore was a very small part of Shiels' life and work. For example in Cornwall, where he spent most of his life, Shiels was an integral part of the few non-mainstream literary and artistic circles there just after WW2. He was the first to bring the literature of the Beat generation to the area, resulting in Cornwall ending up with a significant circle of authors filtering the influence of Kerouac, Burroughs etc through their own local culture before that inspiration caught on elsewhere in the UK. Shiels also operated a travelling puppet theatre with his family, whose plays were borderline pornographic to the point of resulting in them getting officially prosecuted for obscenity at one point. "Monstermind" also includes examples of Shiels' paintings, which he continued to produce well into the 21st century.
The overall picture that emerges of Shiels from this biography is the type of eccentric and colourful artist-mystic that there used to be more of a place for in popular culture than now with Aleister Crowley, W. B. Yeats and Leonora Carrington standing out as perhaps the best known examples. I think that if Shiels had been a contemporary with those he might have ended up more well known (outside Cornwall) than he is now, instead of only having an audience in narrow subcultures. Of course Shiels' overall style and sensibility was significantly more whimsical than theirs. At the very least this book attempts to give him the recognition that he deserves.
It turns out from reading "Monstermind" that writing about various weird creatures in the Cornish folklore was a very small part of Shiels' life and work. For example in Cornwall, where he spent most of his life, Shiels was an integral part of the few non-mainstream literary and artistic circles there just after WW2. He was the first to bring the literature of the Beat generation to the area, resulting in Cornwall ending up with a significant circle of authors filtering the influence of Kerouac, Burroughs etc through their own local culture before that inspiration caught on elsewhere in the UK. Shiels also operated a travelling puppet theatre with his family, whose plays were borderline pornographic to the point of resulting in them getting officially prosecuted for obscenity at one point. "Monstermind" also includes examples of Shiels' paintings, which he continued to produce well into the 21st century.
The overall picture that emerges of Shiels from this biography is the type of eccentric and colourful artist-mystic that there used to be more of a place for in popular culture than now with Aleister Crowley, W. B. Yeats and Leonora Carrington standing out as perhaps the best known examples. I think that if Shiels had been a contemporary with those he might have ended up more well known (outside Cornwall) than he is now, instead of only having an audience in narrow subcultures. Of course Shiels' overall style and sensibility was significantly more whimsical than theirs. At the very least this book attempts to give him the recognition that he deserves.
October 10, 2018
Readable account of the life of a lively character.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews