Rescuing Antony Balch’s Gysin collection, a memory
Ciarán Ryan, Dec 2025
The American director, writer, curator and ecologist Kathelin Gray knew Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs well. When I spoke to Gray earlier this year she said she first met Gysin in 1977 or ’78 via Burroughs.
Pictured: Antony Balch, in the Bill and Tony short film, 1972
When we spoke, Gray recalled her role in saving lots of “lost” Gysin paintings, before organising Gysin’s first UK solo exhibition, at the October Gallery in 1981.
Gray: “Delta Balch thought that Brion and William had corrupted her son”.
Delta’s son was the filmmaker Antony Balch. Twenty years earlier, in 1961, Gysin and Burroughs began working with him on the non-linear films Towers Open Fire and Cut-Ups. Antony died on 6 April 1980 aged 42, from stomach cancer.
“When he died, he had the negatives for the films, Cut-Ups, Towers Open Fire, Bill and Tony, outtakes and all of that. He had them in storage. And he had paintings that he had bought from Brion or Brion had given him. Brion had told me that there was this whole bunch of paintings in London somewhere.” said Gray.
“So I found Delta Balch. I was with Terry Wilson, who’s done that beautiful book Here to go, and also Brion had introduced me to Genesis P-Orridge.
“Gen was going to recover the film negatives. So he went to the storage place and was trying to raise the money to pay the bill or else they were going to destroy them.
“Terry and I went to get the paintings. Because Delta Balch didn’t have a large flat, she had given them to her co-worker in the Harrods fur department [for safekeeping].
Delta’s colleague was storing the paintings in a country cottage.
“There were a lot of paintings, so Terry and I and a friend rented a van. We drove out to the country and at that moment, when we arrived, the co-worker’s drunken alcoholic husband was ranting and raving and had laid out a couple of the paintings in a field and was trying to turn on the tractor to run them over.
“Our friend distracted the guy while Terry and I went in and we just took all the paintings that we could find in the house, and the ones in the field, put them in the van and we made a getaway and came back here [October Gallery].
“Then I visited Delta again. As soon as she realized that these paintings could be worth some money, her attitude changed.
“That’s how we got the Balch collection paintings for the 1981 show.
“And meanwhile, Gen recovered the negatives and went to to Derek Jarman to have them transferred. They took on this whole life of their own. Now the BFI is remastering them.”
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Gray: “[Brion] was the most fascinating conversationalist you’d ever imagine. He was just a tremendous raconteur. He could get very queeny. He could get very histrionic. He could get very conspiratorial. He could get very academic. He knew a lot. He’d studied a lot of archaeology and Sufism and various things.
“He was always very kind… He was a wonderful man.”
“He was William’s collaborator. To understand either of them, you have to know the other’s work.”
New book: Hello Yes Hello
Pictured: Cover of the Hello Yes Hello book about Gysin and Burroughs
Hello Yes Hello – 30 Dialogues is a new book about Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs, based on conversations between Kathelin Gray and Ramuntcho Matta. Barry Miles has provided the introduction. Find out more about the book at Moloko Plus.