Loving The Alien

Artist George Underwood is a creator of fantastical people and mythological beings who inhabit a world of his creating. Candia McKormack talked to him about his life in art and music, and his enduring friendship with David Bowie.

- David Bowie

When you’re known as ‘the man who punched David Bowie in the eye’, there’s always the possibility that your other achievements will be overlooked. So, let’s get the small matter of that incident out of the way and move onto talking about the work of one of our greatest living artists…

It all happened 55 years ago, when a 15-year-old David (then Jones) and his classmate at Bromley Technical School, George Underwood, fought over a girl. The strike to David’s left eye damaged the pupil to such an extent that, even following two operations, it remained paralysed and fully dilated. Young George wasn’t to know it at the time, of course, but he helped create the alien look that, along with his revolutionary music and distinctive image, set Bowie apart from his peers.

“When you’re 15 these things seem important,” George says, as I talk to him from his home in Sussex, “but when you look back you think ‘how stupid I was to be upset by that’. I never meant to cause him any harm… in fact, he did say later that I did him a favour. Everyone seems to think he was born like that, but I’m afraid it was me!”

Far from causing a rift between the school friends, they continued making music together for a while afterwards and had a deep friendship that lasted right up until Bowie’s death last year.

“We holidayed together, and I think he quite liked the fact that I wasn’t in the business…” he continues, “if he wanted to, he could be quite dull with me – though he rarely was, of course. We were just good mates.”