Colin Self: Art in the Nuclear Age 21 June–12 October 2008
Interview with Colin Self Abstract Works from the Collection Full What’s On Guide
ÂŁ1.50 Number 15 June−October 2008 www.pallant.org.uk
>D>WFKB
"ESJBO .PSSJT
" 3FUSPTQFDUJWF &YIJCJUJPO $BUBMPHVF BWBJMBCMF XJUI BO JOUSPEVDUJPO CZ 3JDIBSE $PSL BOE QFSTPOBM BQQSFDJBUJPO CZ 4BMPNPO 3FTOJL
BOE
-JWFT PG UIF 4BJOUT 1BJOUJOHT BOE 4DVMQUVSF CZ )FMFOF 'FTFONBJFS
5IF 3FEGFSO (BMMFSZ $PSL 4USFFU -POEPO 5FM BSU!SFEGFSO HBMMFSZ DPN
*NBHF "ESJBO .PSSJT 3PDLZ 0VUDSPQ 0JM PO HFTTPFE QBOFM Y DN
.BZ UP +VOF
Future shows to be announced
Arden and Anstruther Photographic Gallery, 5 Lombard Street, Petworth www.ardenandanstruther.com Telephone 01798 344411 Opening Hours: Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday, 11am–5pm or by appointment
3UPPORTER¬OF¬THE¬#OLLECTION¬ AT¬0ALLANT¬(OUSE¬'ALLERY )LLUSTRATED %DWARD 7ADSWORTH "RITISH 0LYMOUTH #ATTEWATER DETAIL SIGNED AND DATED @%DWARD 7ADSWORTH LOWER LEFT WATERCOLOUR GOUACHE PENCIL 3OLD FOR a TH #ENTURY "RITISH !RT SALE -ARCH )F YOU WOULD LIKE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT "ONHAMS OR THE SERVICES WE PROVIDE PLEASE DO NOT HESITATE TO CONTACT YOUR NEAREST BRANCH
"ONHAMS .EW "OND 3TREET ,ONDON 7 3 32 FAX
"ONHAMS -ILLMEAD 'UILDFORD 3URREY '5 "% FAX
"ONHAMS ,IME 4REE 7ALK 3EVENOAKS 4. 9( FAX
"ONHAMS 0ALMEIRA 3QUARE (OVE ". *. FAX WWW BONHAMS COM
6
Contents Colin Self: Art in the Nuclear Age 18 Atomic Pop by Simon Martin 23 Self Confessions by Colin Self and Simon Martin
Features 26 29 30 31 32
Nineteen Thirty-Four by Frances Guy George Bell by Liz Walker Autumn Flowers Protest Wall Train of Thought by Jon Adams
Community 34 Partners in Art
by Rosemary and Bruce
Friends 51 Chairman's Letter 52 Friends News 53 Art Book Club by Greg Mosse 54 Forthcoming Friends' Events
Top Colin Self, Cinema No. 1, 1964, Coloured pencil and collage on paper, Private collection, © Colin Self. All rights reserved. DACS 2008 Bottom Edward Wadsworth, ‘Composition on a Pink Background’, 1934, tempera on gessoed panel, on loan from a private collection (part of The Thirty-Four Gallery)
Regulars 8 Editorial 11 Director's Letter 12 Whats On: Exhibitions Diary 37 Gallery News 41 Collection News 44 Book Reviews 47 Luncheon with Ronald Harwood 56 What's On: Events 64 Pallant Photos 66 Artwork of the Month 7
Editorial EDITORIAL Editor Harriet Wailling, h.wailling@pallant.org.uk Gallery Editorial Frances Guy, Simon Martin, Megan Mikel, Sarah Norris, Stefan van Raay, Marc Steene Guest Editorial (with many thanks) Jon Adams, Greg Mosse, Martina Gingell, Rosemary and Bruce Design & Production David Wynn, d.wynn@pallant.org.uk ADVERTISING Booking and General Enquiries Kim Jenner +44 (0)207 3005658 Jane Grylls +44 (0)207 3005661 Gallery Information Pallant House Gallery 9 North Pallant, Chichester West Sussex, PO19 1TJ, UK Telephone +44 (0)1243 774557 info@pallant.org.uk www.pallant.org.uk Opening Times Monday Tuesday–Saturday Thursday Sunday/Bank Holidays
Pallant House Gallery is the Museum of Modern Art in the South. With one of the best collections of twentieth century British art in the world, the Collection is a must see for any art enthusiast. An outstanding range of temporary exhibitions means that visitors can always find art from historical, modern and contemporary periods, as well as work by major British and international artists. And with a lively programme of lectures, talks, tours and art workshops for children, students, families and adults, an on-site restaurant delivering locally sourced, delicious food and a specialist Bookshop brimming with every art book you could want, a visit to the Museum of the Year 2007 is a day out for all. Supporter of the Collection 2008
Legal Support from
Closed 10am–5pm 10am–8pm 12.30–5pm
ART LIBRARY +44 (0)1243 770824 library@pallant.org.uk FRIENDS Events +44 (0)1243 770816 friendsevents@pallant.org.uk Membership +44 (0)1243 770815 friends@pallant.org.uk BOOKSHOP +44 (0)1243 770813 shop@pallant.org.uk the pallant restaurant +44 (0)1243 770827 thepallantrestaurant@talktalk.net www.thepallantrestaurant.com
8
The Priory and Poling Charitable Trusts, The Garfield Weston Foundation and other Trusts, Foundations and anonymous benefactors.
Modern British Painting & Sculpture June 2008
Grosvenor House Art & Antiques Fair 12 - 18 June Throughout June, Osborne Samuel will be exhibiting a fine selection of Modern British paintings and sculpture, both in the gallery and at Grosvenor House Art Fair, including work by Bridget Riley, Christopher Wood, Henry Moore and Lynn Chadwick. If you would like to request further information on the works that will be on show or request tickets for Grosvenor House Art Fair please contact Lucy Tyler at the gallery: ltyler@osbornesamuel.com
Osborne Samuel Ltd 23a Bruton Street London W1J 6QG Tel: +44 (0)20 7493 7939 Fax: +44 (0)20 7493 7798 Email: info@osbornesamuel.com www.osbornesamuel.com
KENNETH ARMITAGE Seated Woman with Square Head Conceived 1955, cast 1984 Bronze Edition of 6 H 61 cm
Exhibitions 2008 Petworth House
David Tress
Nic Barlow
Chasing Sublime Light
Follies of Europe
Exhibition of paintings and drawings by David Tress which explores his experience of travelling the powerful mountainous landscapes of northern Britain, following in the footsteps of JMW Turner and other topographical artists of the time.
Architectural Extravaganzas A stunning exhibition of black and white and colour images by photographer Nic Barlow from the book ‘Follies of Europe’, which traces the development of follies in Europe from the Baroque to the IM Pei Pyramid at Oare near Marlborough.
17 May - 29 July 2008 The exhibition will be shown in two parts: 17 May - 25 June paintings of Northumberland, Scotland, North Yorkshire 28 June - 29 July paintings of Cumbria, North Wales 11am-5pm. Closed Thursday & Friday
2 August - 29 October 2008 11am-5pm. Closed Thursday & Friday
Petworth House, Petworth, West Sussex GU28 0AE Telephone: 01798 342207 Grounds admission £3.80/Child £1.90 Exhibition free of charge Registered Charity Number 205846
Director's Letter Stefan van Raay
Colin Self, the contemporary of many British Pop artists like David Hockney and Peter Blake, deserves to be put in the limelight with the summer exhibition Colin Self: Art in the Nuclear Age, here at Pallant House Gallery. This incredibly versatile artist was once described by Richard Hamilton as ‘the best draughtsman in England since William Blake’. In the early sixties, the Cold War was at full height and Self chose the nuclear threat as a theme in his work. Combined with glamorous women and images from popular culture, the subject has returned time and again in a career which spans over forty years. In 2003, Sandy Wilson acquired Self’s ‘Waiting Women and Two Nuclear Bombers (Handley Page Victors)’ (1962–3) as a personal protest against the Iraqi invasion, and this is one of the many works exhibited in this important show. In a rare interview with Colin Self (page 23), the curator of the exhibition, Simon Martin, considers the impact the Cold War has had on the artist and his work. Colin Self’s art will certainly surprise and excite many visitors to the Gallery. Another exciting display comes in the form of a protest wall, situated on the ground floor of the Gallery. Designed by the Chichester based design company McFaul, the design adds a whole new element of surprise to the Gallery this summer (page 31). Another contemporary artist, Jon Adams, could surprise you on the train up to London or along the South Coast. He is currently the artist in residence on Southern Rail and is based at Chichester Station. Adams has already left his mark in the Gallery, an unexpected intervention only the eagle-eyed may spot, and his projects and the wider context for his work are introduced here (page 32). Adams’ inconspicuous interruption contrasts with
Nina Saunders’ installation, a mammoth work which continues to delight visitors with its unexpected presence in the stairwell of the eighteenth century House (page 30). The summer programme of events at the Gallery once again bridges the visual arts, cinema, music and poetry. There are plenty of art workshops for everyone; young and old, beginners and professionals, individuals and family groups (pages 58). And an altogether new venture is Greg Mosse’s Pallant House Gallery Book Club for the Friends of the Gallery (page 53), where art and literature meet in an exciting dialogue between authors and everybody who gets involved. Colin Self, Figure No. 2 (Triptych), 1971, Aquatint on paper, Wilson Loan, © Colin Self. All rights reserved, DACS 2008
11
What's On Exhibition Diary
Main Galleries Colin Self: Art in the Nuclear Age 21 June–12 October 2008 A leading figure in the 1960s British Pop art movement, Colin Self was one of the first British artists to explore Cold War politics and the nuclear threat. This retrospective exhibition brings together some of the most important works from each period of the artist’s career, from the 1960s to the present day. Driven to Abstraction: British Abstract Art from the Collection 17 May–7 September 2008 Tracing the development of British abstract art using the Collection, this display features work by Prunella Clough, Alan Davie, Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson, Victor Pasmore, John Piper and William Scott. Nina Saunders: Autumn Flowers Winter 2007–Spring 2009 Giant textile pods upholstered in traditional William Morris velvet hang suspended from the ceiling in the eighteenth century stairwell of Pallant House.
12
Protest Wall 17 June–12 October 2008 A new space for visitors to leave their mark by remonstrating against all that is wrong with the world today. Illustration by leading graphic design agency McFaul.
Prints Room Sebastião Salgado 17 June–28 September 2008 A selection of powerful photographs by Sebastião Salgado, one of the most respected photojournalists working today, from the Arden Collection. In memory of Paul Arden.
What's On Exhibition Diary Studio
Forthcoming
Young Arts 2007/08 2 June–27 June 2008 ‘Chichester after Turner’ is the inspiration for these imaginative works created by pupils from 14 local schools in a project organised by Chichester Decorative and Fine Arts Society, in association with Pallant House Gallery.
Eileen Agar 25 October 2008 – 15 March 2009 Eileen Agar (1899–1991), a lyrical and imaginative painter, managed to retain her identity even when in the overpowering company of Picasso. A talented photographer, inspired collagist and occasional object maker, her artistic roots were in Cubism and Abstraction as much as in the native British Romanticism in which she found such exuberant expression.
Go Create! (formerly Paint the City) 28 June–6 July 2008 Artwork from local West Sussex primary schools working with Chichester High School for Girls, inspired by Chichester and its local environment Textiles from Chichester High School for Girls 8 July–3 August 2008
Victor Willing: Revelations, Discoveries and Communications 30 September–9 November 2008 An exhibition of work by the painter and draughtsman Victor Willing (1928–1988), whose enigmatic and powerful paintings often explored the role of the subconscious.
Outside In award winner: John Cull 5–31 August 2008 Outside In award winner: Joel Howie 2–28 September 2008 Earth, Air and Water 30 September–26 October 2008 The third year of the community art festival culminates with this exhibition of artwork inspired by Chichester Harbour. An initiative in partnership with Chichester Harbour Conservancy, the Friends of Chichester Harbour, and Pallant House Gallery. Outside In award winner: Zoe Leonard 28 October–30 November 2008 Outside In award winner: Andrew Hood 2 December–6 January 2009 Opposite Page Top Colin Self, Woman, Rocket, Lolly, 1964, Pencil and coloured pencil on paper, Pallant House Gallery (Wilson Loan), © Colin Self. All rights reserved. DACS 2008; Bottom Sebastião Salgado Refugees Hiding, Tigre, Ethiopia, 1985 This Page Victor Willing, Night, 1978, Wilson Gift through The Art Fund, © Estate of the Artist
Agent Orange: ‘Collateral Damage’ in Vietnam 13 September 2008 – 25 January 2009 A moving exhibition of images by the Magnum Agency photojournalist Philip Jones Griffiths (1936–2008) documenting the impact of chemical warfare in South Vietnam. Part of the 2008 Brighton Photo Biennial. Lee Miller and Friends 13 January – April 2009 A mixture of work from the Lee Miller Archive, featuring her photographs of artists such as Braque, Man Ray and Picasso and the gifts she received from them in return. 13
This Season's Highlights Must write… on the protest wall on the ground floor of the Gallery. Add your comments and arguments to a striking new work by design company McFaul.
Must have… ‘Little White Chair’: the latest multiple produced especially for Pallant House Gallery. Nina Saunders has once again transformed the perfectly shaped into the bizarre and unique. In this new work, Saunders takes what appears to be an unpainted dollhouse chair, and moulds it anew into a beautifully dysfunctional object. Available now from the Bookshop priced £75. Call 01243 770813.
Must read… ‘Notes from an Exhibition’ by Patrick Gale and then take part in the first meeting of the Art Book Club for Friends of Pallant House Gallery on Thursday 5 June. See page 53 for details. Must watch… Chichester Festival Youth Theatre perform a montage of scenes from ‘Toad of Toad Hall’ in the Courtyard Garden at Pallant House Gallery, with props made by the Hans Feibusch Group. Turn to page 57 for more information.
Must imagine… wild landscapes and extraordinary journeys in a new programme of art workshops for under 5s. Taking place throughout August, the workshops provide the perfect way to introduce little ones to the fun of making art. Turn to page 60 for more details.
Must hear… Jane Pavitt, curator of the forthcoming exhibition ‘Cold War Modern’ at the Victoria and Albert Museum, discuss design in the era of the Cold War. See page 56 for details. Must try… a relaxed lunch with a glass of wine or afternoon tea and a slice of home made cake in The Pallant Restaurant courtyard garden. Please visit www.thepallantrestaurant.com or phone 01243 770827 for more details.
Photograph by Jason Butcher
14
Julian Trevelyan
RA LG 1910-1988
The Weir, 1963 oil on canvas 50 x 60 cms 20 x 24 ins signed and dated lower right
MY MESSUM’S
From 1950 to 1960 Trevelyan taught at Chelsea School of Art and also became engraving tutor at the Royal College of Art in 1955. The energy and excitement of his classes at Royal College were well known, and he proved a great inspiration for a new generation of printmakers, including a young David Hockney. The present work featured in a show at the Zwemmer gallery in 1963, and the river represented is almost certainly the Thames. The paintings in that show were precursors to the important London, Thames and London Parks suites of graphics made between 1964 and 1970.
private collecting online an easy way to buy art www.messums.com 8 CORK STREET LONDON W1S 3LJ Tel +44 (0)20 7437 5545
MESSUM’S
Gallery Pangolin Anita Mandl From Aardvark to Zebra 19th May - 27th June
Catalogue available
Aardvark: Bronze · Edition of 7 · 15cm high Photo: Steve Russell
Gallery Pangolin: Chalford · Gloucestershire · GL6 8NT · UK · T: 00 44 (0)1453 886527 E: gallery@pangolin-editions.com · www.gallery-pangolin.com
Pippa Blake, ‘Where the Sea Meets the moon blanched land’, oil on canvas 60 x 61 cms
VOYAGE Paintings by Pippa Blake Photography by Kos Evans 7 June to 21 June, 2008
THE SUMMER SCULPTURE SHOW Richard Aumonier, Leonie Gibbs, Jonathan Loxley, Muirne Kate Dineen, John Taylor, Jilly Sutton and Paul Vanstone 7 June to 21 June, 2008
Moncrieff-Bray Gallery Woodruffs Farm, Woodruffs Lane, Egdean, Pulborough, W. Sussex Telephone: 07867 978 414 e: moncrieff.bray@btinternet.com www.moncrieff-bray.com Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays: 11.00am–5.00pm. All other days by appointment
17
18
ATO M I C POP The summer exhibition ‘Colin Self: Art in the Nuclear Age’ explores the career of a remarkable British Pop artist, whose work continues to address the major issues of our times. Simon Martin, curator of the exhibition, introduces the show and then talks to the artist about class, conflict and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Since his arrival on the British art scene in the early 1960s, Colin Self (b.1941) has remained a highly individual artistic voice, maintaining an integrity to his own truth that has not been swayed by the dictates of fashion or commercial pressures. He was hailed as one of the most original British Pop artists at his first one man show at the Piccadilly Gallery in 1965 and subsequent shows at the influential Robert Fraser Gallery in London, but while other Pop artists celebrated modern consumer culture, Self often addressed the darker side of the Swinging Sixties, in particular the threat of nuclear weapons during the Cold War. While there were many Official War Artists during the First and Second World Wars, there were none for the ‘Cold War’ and arguably Colin Self is ‘the artist of the nuclear age’ whose work has articulated the anxiety felt by many.
His meticulously rendered drawings led the artist Richard Hamilton to call him ‘the best draughtsman in England since William Blake’, but he is also an innovative printmaker, sculptor, painter and the creator of remarkably inventive collages which combine wit and visual intelligence. The exhibition at Pallant House Gallery is the most comprehensive overview of Self’s career to date, featuring over 100 works in a range of media from the early 1960s to the present day. In addition to iconic works from national museums, it features many works from private collections which have not been shown in public for several decades and other works which have never previously been exhibited, to provide a new look at this singularly creative artist.
19
Waiting For The Bomb The exhibition opens with a group of Self’s early paintings, produced whilst at the Slade School of Art from 1961–63. A provincial working-class student in the metropolis, Self found himself at odds with some tutors’ teaching methods and expectations, but he received encouragement from Frank Auerbach and Michael Andrews, and later also from visiting artists David Hockney and Peter Blake. Whilst at the Slade, instead of spending time in the Life Room, Self chose to address social issues such as the class-divide, which is a theme evident in ‘Hunt Ball’ (1962), a savage rendition on class which formed part of a group of paintings that the artist later came to realize were about ‘The Stations of Life’. Events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 intensified the feelings of nuclear paranoia that the artist had experienced as a teenager, and after seeing Kennedy and Khrushchev smiling and publicly exchanging a peace document, a psychological ‘logjam’ burst and he found raw expression in powerful 20
paintings such as ‘Humanity Hanging by a Thread’, ‘That’s the Trouble with the Bastards’, ‘Waiting Women and Two Nuclear Bombers (Handley Page Victors)’ and innovative multiple-plate etchings which utilised found machine-parts to create striking images of bomber planes. After early marriage and fatherhood, Self drew beautifully rendered drawings of Art Deco cinema interiors, sofas and hot dogs, grotesque women in fall-out shelters which referenced the ‘plight of Liberty in the post-nuclear world’, and glamorous women inspired by models from Vogue with nuclear bombers ominously in the skies above, revealing a world tainted by the nuclear predicament. The idea of women as passive victims of war is explored most powerfully in his visceral life-size sculpture ‘Beach Girl Nuclear Victim’ (1966) on loan from the Imperial War Museum. Sharpening the Teeth of Pop Art After hearing the patrolling guard dogs howling at the moon all night on an American nuclear airbase in west
Page 18 Fallout Shelter No.2 (Public Shelter 110. Woman on a Bar Stool with Double Cheeseburger), 1965, Collage, pencil and coloured pencil on paper, Private collection Opposite Two Waiting Women and B-52 Nuclear Bomber, 1963, Oil paint on board, James Moores Collection Left Cockerel (Power and Beauty No.4), 1968, Photo-screenprint on paper, Private collection Above Lion killing a Zebra (Mortal Combat No.6), 1966, Red and blue Biro on paper, Private collection Page 22 (Left) Oh! The Young Chinese, 1985, Oil paint and collage on paper, Private collection; (Right) The Land of the Cyclopes: The Cyclops, from ‘The Odyssey/ Iliad Suite’, 2000 – present, Multiple-plate etching on paper, from found objects laid together, Private collection All images © Colin Self. All rights reserved, DACS 2008
Norfolk in 1959, Self made a conceptual link between animal savagery and man’s military aggression, explored in drawings of snarling guard dogs on missile bases and his iconic sculpture ‘Leopardskin Nuclear Bomber No.2’ (1963), a surreal hybrid American bomber plane with suggestions of predatory animals and phallic sexual threat. His ‘Mortal Combat’ series of drawings employed the unusual artistic medium of the ballpoint pen to create intense depictions of ferocious ‘moment of death’ combat: a lion attacking a zebra, an elephant attacking a tiger and modern versions of Laöcoon from the Iliad. The photographs Self collected as source material for such works also stimulated his ‘Power and Beauty’ screenprints which were produced at Editions Alecto in 1968. About scale, in the words of the artist,’ the subjects are transformed, can be seen for appearance, aggressive or passive looks. This upsets the objects’ real physical size to a certain extent so that a cockerel looks deadlier and more massive than the charging elephant and Joe Bailon’s classic customised car becomes elephantine, sinister and oppressive, more menacing than nuclear warheads.’ They consciously
gave ‘art’ a subservient role to ‘photography’. Self is a remarkably inventive printmaker and the etchings in his ‘Prelude to 1000 Temporary Objects of Our Time’ (1971) broke new boundaries, featuring the ghostly forms of the likes of willow leaves, grain, a blackbird and a nude female. These were created by spraying etching resist around the object to record the absence of a thing – a state of ‘nuclear non-being’. He saw the series as ‘antiart; anti-composition, anti-calligraphy, anti the artist’s signature adding noughts on, anti the trembling expert line of the artist.... not even touching the paper’. Self’s Personal ‘Odyssey’ Self worked in Germany with the master potter Mathies Schwarze in the early 1970s, but following the acrimonious breakdown of his first marriage in 1974 he sought refuge in a remote caravan in the Rhins of Kells mountains in Galloway, West Scotland. He took emotional solace from the landscape, re-aligning with the power of nature he felt in Norfolk as a very small child. Producing beautiful watercolours that expressed a search for permanence, Self was able only to paint 21
rapidly what was before him in the moment, focusing on the timeless qualities of nature in contrast to his previous conceptual works concerned with social, temporary things. On returning to his native Norfolk, Self produced atmospheric charcoal landscapes of the countryside of his childhood haunts and natural subjects such as ‘Dove in the Rain’. Now resettled with Jessica Prendergast, he produced witty collages exploring the cultural climate of the Cold War such as ‘Oh! The Young Chinese’ and, following a trip to the former Soviet Union in 1985, ‘The Same or Different Russian Objects on a Russian Table’. Self has seen his life as a personal Odyssey, and much of his recent work relates to his family relationships, such as expressive drawings of clown heads and circus scenes drawn in cartons that were produced when his twin daughters Coleen and Emily were young. Since 2000 he has worked on an ambitious suite of multiple-plate etchings Entitled the ‘Odyssey / Iliad Suite’, in which his life experiences have been viewed through the framework of Homer’s great narrative. 22
Printed with Linda Richardson, the work has used found detritus collected since the late 1960s. The Cyclops is represented like a vast iron man monster and made up of printed machine-parts, and ‘The Sirens’, who lured Odysseus and his sailors, are introduced by a blue guitar. Self has an ability to see poetic subject matter in another man’s junk and his recent ‘The Ploughman’ collages use old boxes and corrugated cardboard to comment on man’s impact on the abused landscape. This collage aesthetic is equally potent in his 2007 ‘A Trilogy: The Iconoclasts’ featuring adapted sculptures of a Buddha, Crucifix and Ganesh to comment on the clash of cultures and religions, and what he has called; ‘the social ritual of iconoclasm as a destructive ‘art form’ like grafitti, propaganda and Dada. On the possibility of innocently misunderstanding the values, codes of belief, etiquette and sensitivities of others in our shrunken contemporary global hamlet.’ It’s clear that at the age of sixty-six Colin Self’s work continues to be provocative and relevant.
Self Confessions Simon Martin speaks to Colin Self
Simon Martin: The exhibition at Pallant House Gallery opens with one of your early paintings entitled ‘Hunt Ball’ (1962) produced when you were a student at the Slade School of Art in the early 1960s. What made you choose this subject matter? As a child I thought I was classless, but I was made aware of the class divide at the Slade. I’m the eldest of nine born children and my holidays from the age of thirteen were spent either fruit picking, or working as a sole labourer for Arthur Watts, a solitary builder who could build a detached bungalow in eight weeks flat. Later I would work twelve-hour nightshifts, seven days a week, for a full six week run on a grab fork crane on a pea-viner to support myself and to help to give my mother some maintenance money. Thomas Monnington, who was my tutor at the Slade, had no idea of class or such needs. He thought
you were going to flop back in your sandals after the summer with a sort of pseudo-Van Gogh straw hat, with some badly painted semi-Bomberg views of the south of France and you were quids in. He thought that my summer holidays were spent idling about or being lazy, and I couldn’t get on with him. Finally I just ignored him and it took a great act of courage. I thought I was breaking every rule in the universe when I started painting. I found a spot opposite Jann Haworth and I started painting, and looking back, I think these paintings were really all quite startling. They were all acutely about some kind of station or other in life and they were painted in a sort of throwaway, ‘punk’ style and the painting you refer to, ‘The Hunt Ball’, is one of them. This is of imagined people, kind of ‘Hooray Henrys’ having a good time and having a free life. It’s a funny time for a young macho male to go to the metropolis from a hinterland, a rural place, and have to succeed. You know, all the brittleness of young males in the big city. So I think it’s about all of that.
23
SM: You’ve said in the past that your parents wanted you to become an engineering draughtsman. What made you decide to go to art school instead? CS: When I was about eight, my Uncle Arthur took me into Norwich Castle Museum and I was totally blown away by the Norwich School paintings, and can still remember one of the pictures of a stagecoach arriving into an inn. I could not get over the fact that the dust was kicking up from the wheels, and that there were one or two dogs barking at the horses’ hooves. And I just thought, ‘This person has done that!’ I was blown away completely and wished I’d been born in the olden days because back then I could have been an artist. I didn’t know that it was still being done and I think that, for a long time, I just knew that I was really good at art and it meant a lot to me, but in the Forties and Fifties it was all about austerity and getting over the war and rebuilding the country. But the whole onus was on mechanics, engineering, science and, somehow or other, the Fifties happened, and I think that art schools had been left devoid of students because of the loss of lives in the war effort, so after the war they then opened their doors to the working classes... My ‘hero’ teacher mentor was Mike Andrews who saw a mixed up but very intelligent young teenager in me and kind of took me under his wing, and the letter of reference he gave me for the Slade [for a scholarship, after Norwich School of Art], I couldn’t believe what he’d written. I think the paradox is that while I might not have liked art schools in the Sixties, although they were good, it all just depends who teaches you. I adored the Slade but I had long periods where I just basically thought I should have been seen for who I was. I was told that I might possibly fail and then David Hockney and Peter Blake came in and thought I was an original artist and they couldn’t stand all the rest of the art at the Slade. So you can’t have everything. You can’t just lie in bed all your life, so to speak, and dream of a perfect world. SM: It was while you were at the Slade that you began to engage with the issue of nuclear weapons in works such as ‘Humanity Hanging by a Thread’. This must have been around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. CS: It’s funny you say that; it might possibly have been. I remember there was about three or four students, including Dave Thompson and Mike Kenny, and we went in an old pub called The Eagle which was 24
on the Euston Road. We went in there [on the day of the Cuban Missile Crisis deadline] and had a couple of pints each and waited for the two o’clock tick-down, the actual moment, the critical moment. We all sort of went in rather mournfully and waited for the end and blah, blah, blah and I’ll have another half please and it got to two o’clock and nothing happened and the hands of the clock sort of went past two o’clock and I think by quarter past two we all juiced off back to the Slade. So it was a sort of circa Cuban Missile Crisis period, but I wouldn’t have worked literally, I wouldn’t have worked journalistically. SM: Were you concerned about the nuclear threat before the Cuban Missile Crisis? CS: Oh! Since I was a teenager. I was watching an Ed Murrow programme with my mother one Saturday night. My Dad was always up the pub playing the piano and I think my young brothers and sisters were all in bed. I think there was Oppenheimer the inventor of the H Bomb, Lady Dulles [the widow of the US Secretary of State] and Bertrand Russell [the philosopher who was one of the founders of CND]. But Bertrand Russell won the argument hands down and it shocked me rigid. He was saying ‘Within ten years there won’t be a world. Some idiot will get their finger on the button and that’ll be it.’ SM: How do you think this affected your work? CS: When I was a student I think for some reason or other it zapped me like a virus and I was floored for years. I don’t think I ever said a thing. I never told my girlfriend, brothers or sisters, mother and father, uncles, aunts - I kept the whole thing totally within and I think I was in a silent world of non-being in a way. I think what happened was, it amounted to some bizarre gestation period of a new kind of understanding of humanity, and eventually I made extremely powerful images. I think it needed a point of catalyst, which I think for me was watching Movietone News when I saw Kennedy and Krushchev exchanging a peace document and they were actually smiling together. And I thought ‘Enemies? Enemies? Smiling?’ And I think it became the catalyst that unblocked the log-jam in my mind and then the nuclear work just poured out of me like crazy.
Top The Hunt Ball (At the Party), from ‘The Stations of Life’, 1962, Oil on board, Pallant House Gallery (Wilson Loan) Right Humanity hanging by a Thread, from ‘The Stations of Life', 1962, Oil on canvas, Private collection. All images © Colin Self. All rights reserved, DACS 2008 Photo Booth Self-Portraits The photo-booth self-portraits within the interview are details from the collage 'I hereby certify this is a true likeness of Colin Self' (to be signed by Peter Blake cbe)
SM: It seems that you were one of the only artists in the 1960s and 1970s to be addressing the threat of nuclear warfare in your work CS: I recently became aware of Gustav Metzger so I can’t claim to be the only artist involved, but certainly I’m ahead of James Rosenquist and the Americans. Roy Lichtenstein was basically about the Korean War through those comics, and Ed Keinholz is basically Korean War, but I was trying to struggle in finding a place for a new subversive, post nuclear human soul art in this new world. The world of non-being, and the world that could be struck dumb and senseless at the press of a button. I think it’s possibly down to Gustav and myself, but I think he was almost in the world of non-being where he would destroy the artwork itself. I was an object maker. My Dad was a maker of furniture and artifacts and my Uncle Len was a coppersmith. I like the object, I like the
thing. I have to have the artefact. I’m anti-conceptual art, all worked out but lacking the emotion of the moment. I’m also about art having an ‘understandable surface’, anti obscurantism which does include, and relate me to, Pop. I see lots of art which gets buried. Pop Art was completely derided and people thought it would only last a month. It’s the greatest, and I love and admire all its exponents. Colin Self: Art in the Nuclear Age (21 June–12 October 2008). A fully illustrated catalogue featuring essays by Simon Martin and Marco Livingstone accompanies the exhibition. It is the first major publication on the artist and will be available from the Bookshop at the special exhibition price of £14.95 (RRP £19.95). Simon Martin will be giving tours of the exhibition on Thursday 10 July and Wednesday 6 August. See page 56 for more details.
25
Nineteen Thirty-Four: A Remarkable Year in British Art Frances Guy
The new In-Focus exhibition ‘Driven to Abstraction’ initially concentrates on England in the 1930s. Although Wyndham Lewis, Edward Wadsworth and other Vorticists created significant works of abstract art in the first decades of the 20th century, British artists retreated into more traditional means of representation following World War I.
attempted to unite painters, sculptors and architects in an effort to capture a ‘contemporary spirit’ in art. In a letter written to ‘The Times’, Nash wrote that Unit One was ‘to stand for the expression of a truly contemporary spirit, for that thing which is recognised as peculiarly of today in painting, sculpture and architecture’.
From the mid 1920s onwards however, there was an increasing awareness of the two main impulses in avant-garde art on the Continent: abstraction and Surrealism. Contact and involvement with artists from mainland Europe through exhibitions, visits to studios in Paris and pan-European movements such as Abstraction-Création engaged many of England’s more forward-thinking artists in the pursuit of modernism. Later, with the closure of the Bauhaus by the Nazis in 1933, Walter Gropius and other artists found refuge in Britain, many settling in Hampstead where they became the neighbours of Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Ben Nicholson and others.
Unit One’s first and only exhibition was held in 1934, accompanied by a book subtitled ‘The Modern Movement in English Architecture, Painting and Sculpture’ which included an introduction by Read and statements from all the exhibiting artists: architects Wells Coates and Colin Lucas; sculptors Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore; and painters John Armstrong, John Bigge, Edward Burra, Tristram Hillier, Ben Nicholson, Edward Wadsworth and Nash. The participants were not so much united in style but more by this ‘contemporary spirit’ and the exhibits could be roughly divided between the two camps of abstraction and Surrealism which, at the time, were not seen by British artists to be mutually exclusive. Nash defined the group’s aims as a pursuit of form on the one hand (abstraction) and a pursuit of spirit on the other (Surrealism), with his work very much embracing both in this period.
One of the first groups set up in England specifically to promote this new vision was Unit One. Only in existence for two years, the group - founded in 1933 by Paul Nash with the support of the critic Herbert Read and based at the Mayor Gallery in Cork Street – 26
Unit One’s exhibition was not the only ground-breaking show in London in 1934. ‘Objective Abstractions’ at the Zwemmer Gallery included work by Graham Bell, Rodrigo Moynihan and Geoffrey Tibble, the only truly abstract artists in the exhibition, as well as Ivon Hitchens, Victor Pasmore and Ceri Richards. Interestingly, their approach to non-figurative art was a rejection of the geometric abstraction largely espoused by the European avant-garde and was instead inspired by nature. The Seven and Five Society also held an exhibition at the Leicester Galleries in 1934. Although it had been formed in 1919 as a ‘return to order’ following the war, with the arrival of Nicholson in 1924 followed by Hepworth, Hitchens, Frances Hodgkins, Moore and John Piper, the non-modernist artists had gradually been expelled and the Society’s outlook had become increasingly forward-thinking. The 1934 exhibition included the first of Nicholson’s white reliefs and, a year later, the Society was renamed the Seven and Five Abstract Group. There was one other exhibition in 1934 that contained, as well as more traditional paintings of landscapes, still-lifes and portraits, examples of work by artists associated with Britain’s modern movement. It was held in aid of the Greater London Fund for the Blind at
Chesterfield House and among the exhibits was the Model Modern Art Gallery, or The Thirty-Four Gallery, commissioned by the patron and collector Sydney Burney. The critic R. H. Wilenski called it ‘a microcosm of modern aspects of English painting and sculpture in 1934’. In fact, perhaps the most interesting and significant abstract works in Pallant House Gallery’s collections cannot be exhibited as part of the forthcoming infocus display because they are contained within The Thirty-Four Gallery, on loan to the Gallery since 1997 and currently on display in Room 11. They include ‘Composition on a Pink Background’ by Wadsworth, considered by Nash to be England’s foremost abstract artist, which is a miniature version of ‘Composition on Blue Ground’ exhibited in the Unit One exhibition. This is shown alongside ‘Conversation’, also by Wadsworth, which relates to the ‘Dux et Comes (Leader and Follower)’ series, one of which belongs to Tate. There are two works by Stanley William Hayter, the English artist who established his own printmaking studio in Paris in 1927, later to be known as Atelier 17. Hayter had closed connections with Tanguy and Masson and exhibited with the Surrealists throughout the 1930s. His two ‘Compositions’ are entirely abstract and reflect the engravings he was creating in this period. 27
Page 26 Paul Nash, ‘Landscape Composition (Objects in Relation)’, 1934, tempera on hardboard, on loan from a private collection (part of The Thirty-Four Gallery) Page 27 Paul Nash, ‘Composition (Design for Today)’, 1934, tempera on hardboard, on loan from a private collection (part of The Thirty-Four Gallery) Left Stanley William Hayter, ‘Composition (Main Serrisant une…)’, 1934, oil on sculpted board, on loan from a private collection (part of The Thirty-Four Gallery) Top Edward Wadsworth, ‘Composition on a Pink Background’, 1934, tempera on gessoed panel, on loan from a private collection (part of The Thirty-Four Gallery)
The Thirty-Four Gallery also originally contained sculptures by Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore, and two works by Ben Nicholson, all of which were retrieved by the artists after the exhibition finished. Nicholson’s ’9 Circles’ and ‘Composition’ most probably related to the works he was creating at the time of comprising shallow white reliefs incorporating circles and utilising depth to make the play of light and shadow an intrinsic part of the work. Nash’s own ‘Landscape Composition’ is a prototype for a larger work ‘Objects in Relation’ of 1935 and relates very closely to ‘Equivalents for the Megaliths’ of the same year, owned by Tate. These works illustrate the tension between ‘Going Modern and Being British’ that Nash wrote of in 1932, expressing the difficulty presented by his affinity with the Romantic tradition of English landscape and his desire to ally himself with International Modernism. The abstract forms in the miniature artwork are set in an English landscape and represent a contemporary vision of the standing stones at Avebury, which so fascinated Nash. ‘Composition (Design for Today)’ is an arrangement of abstract forms in space, and named after a contemporary design periodical. These works articulate Nash’s statement that ‘A representational picture makes a 28
direct appeal to our consciousness, our calculated knowledge and experience, but an abstract picture appeals in more devious and subtler ways, or to a possibly less conscious understanding, a more remote, perhaps unknown, experience.’ In the hands of anyone else, the concept of a miniature art gallery could have developed into a trivial piece of fun. However, it is testament to Sydney Burney’s vision that his commission captured a significant moment in the history of British art, where more conventional paintings by Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, Augustus John and Cedric Morris hang side-by-side with works representing the most experimental art of the day. It is this fact, rather than the size of the works, that makes The Thirty-Four Gallery a truly remarkable project. Driven to Abstraction: British Abstract Art from the Collections 17 May to 7 September
George Bell Liz Walker
As the city of Chichester celebrates nine hundred years since the consecration of its Cathedral in 1108, Gallery Guide Liz Walker considers the life and work of one of the key figures in its history. 2008 marks two special anniversaries for Chichester; the nine hundredth anniversary of the consecration of Chichester Cathedral and the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Bishop George Bell. It is ironic that so much of what Bell wrote and spoke about during his life remains so relevant to the world in which we live today. He is surely one of the greatest visionaries of our time. This year, there will be a conference and series of lectures to celebrate his life, one of which will take place at Pallant House Gallery. Bell left us a legacy of passionate support for the rights of the dispossessed; the condemnation of indiscriminate destruction of towns and cities; the support of beleaguered nations; the hope and resolution of a united church and the emotional joy inspired by the arts – whether poetic, pictorial, dramatic or musical – in all aspects of worship. At Pallant House Gallery, we are fortunate that we have works by some of the artists associated with Bishop Bell. Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell who painted the murals at Berwick Church, and Hans Feibusch, whose paintings and murals for Chichester Cathedral and other churches in Sussex are well known. In addition, we have one of the finest portraits of Bishop Bell, on loan from Tate. The portrait, painted by William Coldstream, caused discomfort and alarm when it was first unveiled. The diocese of Chichester, commissioners of the work, looked for a painting that showed a smiling, avuncular figure – non-controversial, beloved by all who knew him. Instead they got a discerning portrait of a man of deep conviction and determination who had faced opposition, if not outright hostility, for the views that he held.
It is remarkable that Coldstream was able to indicate inner strength and independence of spirit of Bishop Bell so clearly, but when it became evident that the commissioners were unable to accept the portrait unless there were changes, Coldstream generously offered to withdraw it and so avoid further acrimony. Of all the portraits of Bishop Bell that have been painted (and there is to be an exhibition in the House of Lords), Coldstream’s has surely best stood the test of time. Bishop Peter Walker, former Bishop of Ely, speaking in 2000 had this to say of the work: ‘the finest, gravest portrait, ecclesiastical or other, of the twentieth century. Bell sits lost in thought; still, silent… it was Coldstream who painted under the rule of being ruled by what he saw’. The George Bell anniversary conference takes place on 23–25 June. For more information visit www.georgebellconference.org.uk or contact Heather Ballamy on 01243 816193.
William Coldstream, Portrait of Dr George Bell, Bishop of Chichester, 1954, Oil on canvas, Tate: Presented by Dr Bell 1956, © Andrew Margetson
29
Autumn Flowers Encountering contemporary installations within historic interiors is certainly an experience. Sometimes unnerving, sometimes amusing, sometimes downright confusing, they nevertheless challenge our ideas of what ‘should’ and what ‘shouldn’t’ be situated in those spaces in which they have so readily taken up residence. Nina Saunders’ ‘Autumn Flowers’ in the eighteenth century stairwell is no exception and the comments book, where all visitors can record their impressions of the work, makes for fascinating reading. While some describe the work as ‘fantastic’ and ‘very impressive’ and ‘quite something!’, other visitors say ‘not my cup of tea’, ‘too big’ or ‘ugly’. But these annotations also reveal deeper responses: ‘coccoons as luxury aliens’ is one reaction, ‘Cancer. Disturbing. Interesting’, another. And with comments ranging from ‘my two year old said it’s nice and soft like a lady’, to ‘Freud is alive and well’, the piece undoubtedly continues to affect all visitors regardless of age or background.
Nina Saunders, Autumn Flowers, 2007, Photograph by Red Saunders
30
Protest Wall History is punctuated with protest. Revolutions, Reformations and movements begin and end with pockets of dissent and rebellion. Martin Luther King’s March on Washington in ‘63, the Tiananmen Square protests of ‘89, the protest against the Iraq invasion in 2003, the attacks on the Olympic torch on its world tour earlier this year. Every protest asks that an individual stand up and have a voice, and in doing that, maybe do something to change history. To coincide with the exhibition ‘Colin Self: Art in the Nuclear Age’ and the fiftieth anniversary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, an organisation which has been protesting against the use of nuclear weapons since 1958, Pallant House Gallery have commissioned top design agency McFaul to create a very special Protest Wall on the ground floor of the Gallery. Come and leave your protests here and maybe change the world. www.mcfaul.net
Mcfaul, Fish Illustration, 2008
31
32
Train of thought Jon Adams
This summer, Jon Adams will become the first artist in residence on Southern Rail. During his residency he will work in partnership with Arts Council England and Pallant House Gallery where he will deliver workshops and create a large map on a wall in the Studio. Here, he talks about his life and work and his plans for his residency.
rail staff. Place stops on the map will be replaced by events from passengers’ own life stories. Information will be gathered by travelling on relevant train routes and having conversations with passengers willing to disclose their stories or possibly hidden differences they have. I am very dyslexic and I hope the project will address public misconceptions about hidden disabilities.
'My work explores sense and sensitivity through the hidden, and it plays with perceptions of ‘normal’ and the inaccessible. I transform or reposition simple everyday language, objects and experiences to hide or reveal perceptions, beliefs or to convey messages.
The map I plan to make at Pallant House Gallery will involve the whole organisation, including staff and participants in its Learning and Community Programmes. I plan to superimpose their life journey on their everyday physical journeys. Taking their life experiences and where they have been and making artwork from it. My engagement with people often triggers off other ideas for me; you never know what people will say. A fascination with the hidden and then revealing it, is why I became a trained geologist and palaeontologist; to find something that has never been seen before and bring it to life and explore it. People tell you the most intimate things and you can take those and, in a sensitive way, compose something with it. There is a lot of commonality in the people I meet. Some people have been bullied and some people have things they keep hidden. As a dyslexic, I like to know there are other people that share my experience; knowing I am not on my own is more important to me than reading. I would like to put the work as life journey into maps; I take ordinary maps and subvert them. The map on the wall at the Gallery will grow organically and ‘evolve’, another geological term, and that is what is exciting, that it hasn’t been mapped yet or set in stone. It’s an exploration.'
My early experiences as having undiagnosed dyslexia and Aspergers Syndrome, as well as being an abused and bullied student, have had a marked impact on my creative work. They have both facilitated withdrawal into the private world of successful commercial illustration for twenty years whilst also creating a profound understanding on the hidden and un-revealed which has emerged as a unique fine art practice. As part of my residency with Southern Rail I will have a studio at Chichester Railway Station and plan to use the station to site artworks. I plan to produce a map of personal journeys in the style of the network rail map. The map and artwork inspired by conversations and engagement will then be displayed in various formats: on the web, at major stations, on pocket timetables, moving display boards at stations or LED displays on trains. The artworks will also use sound and graphics to reach a wide audience of the travelling public and
33
Partners in Art Rosemary and Bruce
Established in 2002 with just four partnerships, the innovative and award winning Partners in Art has grown to twenty successful partnerships. Bruce and Rosemary are one of the more recent partnerships.
Rosemary 'Since retiring I have been fortunate to participate in various art courses, so when I heard about the Partners in Art scheme I was immediately interested.
Bruce 'A neurological condition challenges my existence. Every possibility to improve is engaged and the positive psychologies help.
Last year I began a partnership with Bruce which I increasingly appreciate. He has invited me to several of his weekly activities and introduced me to his friends. I really enjoy his company. He is very interesting to talk to and has a great sense of humour. He has a wealth of ideas for art work including digital photography.
Pallant House Gallery has accepted me into the Hans Feibusch Club workshops and, as part of the Partners in Art scheme, has partnered me with an artist Rosemary. Rosemary and I are working towards a combined exhibition in 2009 to meld ideas, techniques and creativity to evoke responses from the artistically trained personnel at the Gallery.'
Bruce has visited my studio at home and we intend to have some print making sessions there together with a fellow printmaker. I think Bruce has a photographic memory looking at the detailed pictures he did from memory in a printmaking workshop at Pallant House Gallery. He is very interested in various forms of mapping and in using art to creatively improve his memory. We meet up once a fortnight at Pallant House Gallery to take part in the Hans Feibusch Club workshops. These are really happy, relaxed occasions with everyone sharing their art work experiences. I find these sessions immensely uplifting and always drive home whistling. Bruce is a very positive person who sees the best in all things and is very kind. I feel privileged to be his ‘Partner in Art’ and look forward to us exploring our creativity together.' 34
The Partners in Art scheme pairs artists and those interested in art where one partner is a trained volunteer and the other partner requires support due to disability health or other reasons to access the art world and take part in the creative life of the community. For more information about the scheme, contact Marc Steene, Head of Learning, on 01243 770839 (Direct Line).
Edith Barton
Nicola Hancock
Jane Aylott
Philippa Paterson
Jill Gordon
Emily Ball at Seawhite Contemporary Painting and Drawing Courses
Tutors Emily Ball, Nick Bodimeade, Katie Sollohub, Gary Goodman, John Skinner and Georgia Hayes
Summer Exhibition 2008
Painting as Poetry July 7th – 11th (Monday – Friday) Open 10 – 4 each day 35 artists exhibiting new works
Visit the show; meet the artists and the tutors For more information visit our website www.emilyballatseawhite.co.uk or contact Emily Ball on (01903) 743537 emily@emilyball.net 35
36
Gallery News
final farewell A special Evensong service to celebrate the life of Professor Sir Colin St John Wilson was held at Chichester Cathedral in February to coincide with the opening of the exhibition Colin St John Wilson: Collector and Architect at Pallant House Gallery. Director Stefan van Raay delivered a speech and readings were given by Wilson’s wife MJ Long and his daughter Sal.
Above Sir Colin St Evensong service. Photograph by Anne-Katrin Purkiss; Top Right DisabledGo awards at Pallant House Gallery Bottom Right Joel Howie, Dancers, 2007, Oil
Accessible Awards Pallant House Gallery hosted the first DisabledGo awards ceremony earlier this year, and was proud to receive the accolade of Best Design for Accessibility. The ceremony was compèred by Spirit FM’s Kevin King and welcomed around sixty local businesses and attractions, shortlisted in five categories. The other winners on the day were Russells Garden Centre & Restaurant (Most Accessible Retailer), The Barn (Most Accessible Pub/Restaurant), the Minerva Theatre (Most Accessible Place of Interest) and Chichester Cathedral and Lodge Hill Centre (Best Customer Service). Marc Steene, Head of Learning at Pallant House Gallery, and Ben Hockliffe, a member of the Gallery’s Disability and Access Focus Group were there to receive the award. For more information about DisabledGo, the online access guide for people with disabilities, visit www.disabledgo.info
Outside In Following a phenomenal success last year, Outside In has received a significant grant from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. The main vehicle for the Outside In project is an open biennial art competition for marginalised artists. The competition offers six awards and an opportunity for the award winners to have a residency and solo exhibition at Pallant House Gallery. Outside In aims to create a level playing field, where access to the art world is available for all who create, however intuitively or unknowing, no matter how obscure, valuing and promoting the creativity of people often on the margins of society. With further funding, Pallant House Gallery will now be able to deliver Outside In across the South of England, set up a website providing a platform for discussion and debate, and deliver workshops to encourage participation. Find out more: insideout@pallant.org.uk. 37
Gallery News Schools Out With funding from the Ernest Cook Trust, Pallant House Gallery has been working with local schools, an educational specialist, Gallery Guides and artist educators to review and develop a Schools Programme. The Gallery can now offer an exciting and unique series of tours and workshops for Schools that visit. Themes such as ‘Collections and Connections’, exploring themes of collecting at Pallant House Gallery, and ‘From Idea to Finished Piece’, exploring how artistic processes can provide a rare insight into the way artists develop their ideas, provide both inspiration and connections between young people’s own working practices and those of ‘real’ artists. The Gallery has carefully developed an interactive and discussion led approach for the tours to encourage involvement, stimulation and debate. The new Schools Programme will be launched at Pallant House Gallery on Thursday 26 June from 6–8pm. If you are a teacher who would like to attend the launch, receive a copy of the programme or find out more, please contact the Learning Programme Assistant on 01243 770839 or email learning@pallant.org.uk
PAUL ARDEN Paul Arden, the former Saatchi & Saatchi creative chief behind some of Britain’s most memorable ad campaigns and a staunch supporter of Pallant House Gallery, sadly passed away aged 67 in April. In honour of Paul, and with continued support from his wife Toni and their Arden and Anstruther Gallery in Arundel, Pallant House Gallery will be hosting a special exhibition of photographs by photojournalist Sebastião Salgado loaned from the Arden Collection. Photograph by Jason Hedges
Reading Light Did you know about the Reading Room at Pallant House Gallery? Located on the ground floor, and integral to the library space, the Reading Room provides a bright, quiet area for those who wish to access reading tables or use lap-top computer connections. Works by R.B. Kitaj and the late Steven Campbell are currently on display, and books relevant to the Collection and exhibitions are available for visitors to browse. Photograph by Jason Hedges
38
‘Self-portrait with Mouse’ oil on plywood panel 550 x 690mm
* $0/
"O FYIJCJUJPO PG QBJOUJOHT ESBXJOHT BOE QSJOUT CZ
1BUSJDJB 4UFGBOTLJ UI ° UI 0DUPCFS
,BUF .PTT $IBSDPBM PO 1BQFS Y GSBNFE
+PIO 3BOL (BMMFSZ
0YNBSLFU $FOUSF PG "SUT 4U "OESFXµT $PVSU &BTU 4USFFU $IJDIFTUFS 10 ): 5FM $POUBDU QBUSJDJBTUFGBOTLJ!IPUNBJM DP VL 40
Collection News Steel lines Artist Antony Gormley has generously offered the Gallery a key work on long term loan. ‘Trajectory Field III’ is a sculpture made from steel rods which will hang in the void above the main stairwell in the new wing. The work will be installed in the early summer.
Handbags and Gladrags The Gallery is delighted that following ‘Shell’, the opening installation in the stairwell of Pallant House, the artist Susie MacMurray is gifting her work ‘Gladrags’ to the Gallery. ‘Gladrags’ is a dress made of deflated pink balloons and has recently been on show at Tullie House in Carlisle as part of the ‘Body Space’ exhibition. The work will go on display at Pallant House Gallery in the early summer.
Clockwise from top Susie MacMurray, Gladrags, 2005; Antony Gormly, Trajectory Field III, 2002; Duncan Grant, Bathers by the Pond, 1920-1 (circa), Oil on canvas, Hussey Bequest, Chichester District Council (1985), © 1978 Estate of Duncan Grant, courtesy Henrietta Garnett
Bloomsbury Boy The Gallery’s painting by Duncan Grant ‘Bathers by the Pond’ has gone on display in Charleston Farmhouse as part of a programme commemorating thirty years since Grant’s death. The painting is hanging above the bed in Maynard Keynes’ bedroom. Curators are debating whether the reclining figure in the foreground is in fact a portrait of Keynes, identified from his distinctive moustache which can be seen in Grant’s portrait of Keynes hanging nearby. Dr. Wendy Hitchmough, Charleston’s Curator, thinks it would be have been typical of Grant to include a portrait of his lover in a painting that references Seurat, an artist who was revered by both men (Keynes owned a preparatory sketch of Seurat’s ‘La Grande Jatte’ as well as Grant’s other work ‘Two Bathers by a Pond’). Make the trip to Charleston, the home of Bloomsbury in Sussex, and decide for yourself! 41
Editions and Multiples
Bookshop 01243 770813
Bobbie Rainbow (Artist Proof) 2001, Signed by Peter Blake £500 POPART 2006, Signed by Peter Blake Edition of 2000 £40
In the Desert 1962 (re-printed 2007), Signed by Colin Self Edition of 10 Price on application
The British Architect 2008, Signed by Paul Catherall Edition of 250 £65 unframed
Mr William Morris's Pan for the Application of Utilitarian Cleaning 2007, Signed in Embroidery by Nina Saunders Edition of 10 £360 42
Books and Catalogues
Bookshop 01243 770813
Edward Bawden in the Middle East By Nigel Weaver Published by Antique Collector's Club 2008 £25
In Camera: Snowdon By Robin Muir Published by Pallant House Gallery 2007 £12.95
Colin Self: Art in the Nuclear Age Essays by Simon Martin and Marco Livingston Published by Pallant House Gallery 2008 £19.95 (£14.95 Exhibition Price) Henry Moore Textiles Edited by Anita Feldman Published by Lund Humpries 2008 £30
Autumn Flowers Introduction by David Gleeson Published by Pallant House Gallery 2007 £6 43
Books Reviews New in the Bookshop
New in the Art Library
Peter Blake: A Retrospective Edited by Christoph Grunenberg and Laurence Sillars Tate Publishing (2007) £24.99
From Victorian to Modern: Innovation and Tradition in the Work of Vanessa Bell, Gwen John and Laura Knight Pamela Gerrish Nunn Philip Wilson Publishers (2006)
The universal appeal of Sir Peter Blake’s vibrant imagery has remained consistent throughout his career. This catalogue of Tate Liverpool’s 2007 Blake retrospective seeks to appreciate further the full spectrum of his oeuvre, charting his pursuits through and beyond Pop Art. Essays discussing each decade of his artistic practice provide an entertaining and enlightening account of Blake’s character and artistic activities. This catalogue offers a definitive collection of images showing a great variety of his art spanning from the 1940s to the 2000s – a delight for followers of Blake’s work and new fans alike. Megan Mikel
44
This well illustrated book examines the impact of modernism on the work of three women artists; Vanessa Bell, Gwen John and Laura Knight whose education and early careers were rooted in the Victorian tradition. Gerrish Nunn compares their individual reaction to and incorporation of modernist ideas in order to indicate the range of responses that emerged within twentieth century British art. Women artists faced different negotiations of tradition and innovation to their male contemporaries, and the author draws often neglected works into an illuminating critique on the participation of women in a period of development that tends towards a masculine rhetoric. In doing so she establishes a more inclusive history that will be of interest to both students of art history and the more casual reader. Sarah Norris
L E A R N
t
E X P E R I E N C E
t
E N J O Y
SHORT COURSES ART FAIR COURSES o +VOF
t 'VSOJUVSF BOE %FDPSBUJWF "SUT BU UIF 0MZNQJB *OUFSOBUJPOBM "SU "OUJRVFT 'BJS
Ebocf_W ?dj[hdWj_edWb 7hj & 7dj_gk[i <W_h +#'+ @kd[ (EE.
SHORT COURSES o +VOF o +VMZ
t $POUFNQPSBSZ +FXFMMFSZ %FTJHO t *OUSPEVDUJPO UP "TJBO "SU
o +VMZ
t $POUFNQPSBSZ "TJBO "SU
INTENSIVE COURSES +VOF o +VMZ
t $POUFNQPSBSZ "SU JO -POEPO t "SU *UT .BSLFUT t 'JOF %FDPSBUJWF "SU UISPVHI UIF 3PZBM 1BMBDFT t .PEFSO %FTJHO t .BSLFUJOH UIF 7JTVBM "SUT
Book now for short courses starting in June 2008: T:+44 (0)20 7462 3249 E: SummerLondon@sothebysinstitute.com
AR_pallanthouse P:Layout 1
07/04/2008
www.sothebysinstitute.com/pallant
17:07 Page SOTHEBY’S I N S T I T U1 TE
O F A R T I S A D I V I S I O N O F C A M B R I D G E I N F O R M AT I O N G R O U P A N D A N A F F I L I AT E D I N S T I T U T I O N O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F M A N C H E S T E R
Matt Small Shepard Fairey (Obey) Graham Carter)r Trafford Parsons Storm Thorgerson It’s Pop It’s Art an Xenz Banksy Kozyndan Jane Sampson Miss Bugs gan Hicks James Cauty Ben Allen Blek Le Rat Peter in Hush Simon Dixon Jamie Reid Anna Marrrow Cy Charlotte Cornish Dan Baldwin Andrew McAttee E r D Peter Blake Bruce McLean Stanley Donwood Ja row Eelus RYCA Peter Kennard Adam Koukoudakis Pallant House - 106x148.indd 1
9/4/08 10:57:12
Collectable prints, expert advice Brighton
London
T 01273 724829 E brighton@artrepublic.com 13 Bond Street Brighton BN1 1RD Open 7 days a week
T 020 7240 7909 E soho@artrepublic.com 42 New Compton Street London WC2H 8DA Open Mon - Sat
Open 24 hours at www.artrepublic.com
artrepublic
TM
MA VISUAL ARTS Validated by the University of Sussex
TAPESTRY AND TEXTILE ART PAINTING AND DRAWING SCULPTURE MA CONSERVATION STUDIES Validated by the University of Sussex GRADUATE AND POSTGRADUATE DIPLOMAS ALSO AVAILABLE t 01243 818299 e diplomas@westdean.org.uk chichester, west sussex, po18 0qz, england www.westdean.org.uk 46
Luncheon Ronald Harwood talks to Stefan van Raay
Ronald Harwood, playwright and Oscar winning screenwriter, and his wife Natasha live between London, Paris and West Sussex. Stefan van Raay, Director of Pallant House Gallery, met them for lunch in the Pallant Restaurant. Dining with Ronnie and Natasha Harwood is a Continental experience, not only because when we meet for lunch in the Pallant Restaurant’s garden, it’s one of the first sunny days in spring, but also because they both adore that particularly Mediterranean pastime of good food, great wine and smoking. After we have ordered a bottle of Vina Carmen sauvignon blanc, a fruity dry from Chile, Natasha explains that they both love going to different restaurants, but the non-smoking ban last year has put an end to that. ‘When we are in Paris - we go every six weeks for ten days, the train is brilliant - our routine is always the same: we have coffee and croissants in the morning, lunch at home from a delicious traiteur around the corner and then we go out
every evening. Our favourites are the Beaux Arts in the rue Mazarin, Le Duc on the boulevard Raspail, and we really love the Ritz.’ I suggest that one of the best things about the smoking ban is that you often end up meeting the most fascinating people outside, and Ronnie agrees. ‘In dark alleyways around the corner of the ground entrances of galleries, hotels and palaces, one finds the secret fellows of the vice and you forge friendships for life!’ Ronnie’s career in theatre and film has been nothing short of brilliant, but it started off on a very humble footing. ‘I was born in South Africa to Jewish parents from Lithuania and Poland and we did not have much money. When I wanted to come to London and study acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1951, my mother saved and scraped to get me over here. She even organised a charity concert to raise money. Thankfully she saw the fruits of her efforts’.
47
Natasha, recalling the night The Pianist scooped the Academy Awards. ‘Sean Connery was the only person who had shown support for Ronnie. He said to us beforehand, “Ronnie, you are going to win!” And then when they announced Ronnie’s Oscar, I couldn’t stop jumping up and down. I couldn’t even feel my shoes again until much, much later when we went to the after parties. I remember when we walked into the last one, the Vanity Fair party, with Ronnie clutching his Oscar, no-one said hello or welcome or anything. We just turned and looked at each other and Ronnie said…’ her voice trails off as Ronnie interjects, quick as a flash, ‘”Chicken soup in the hotel, let’s get out of here!” But it’s made a huge difference to my professional life. Every day something comes along because of that Oscar.’ Movie Still from Roman Polanski's The Pianist, 2002 Screenplay by Ronald Harwood
Natasha stems from a completely different background, as Ronnie explains. ‘Rich Russian merchants on her father’s side and the Counts Brobinsky on her mother’s side, direct descendants of a liaison between Catherine the Great and Count Orlov. Her ancestors happily persecuted my ancestors in pogrom after pogrom’ he quips. But that didn’t stop them from falling in love some fifty years ago on the stage in Chesterfield. ‘I was acting in a repertoire company and Natasha was the stage manager’, Ronnie explains. ‘I saw her making the bed for a play called “Intimate Relations” and we fell in love on the spot’. Over pan fried fillet of wild sea bass which both order and verify taste ‘absolutely terrific!’, the conversation turns to the ongoing successes of Ronnie’s career. I’m astonished to learn in the course of our lunch that one of his plays, The Dresser (1981, film adaptation 1983), has not once been out of production for a single day. ‘It took my children all the way through their education’ he says. And of course, his cooperation with the director Roman Polanski resulted in the 2005 film of Oliver Twist and the hugely successful The Pianist (2002), which won three Oscars: for Best Actor, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for Ronnie’s work. ‘I remember that my feet were hurting like hell in those new shoes I was wearing that evening and I just wanted it to be over as quickly as possible’ says 48
Over exceptional desserts, strawberry pavlova for Ronnie and summer fruit jelly with elderflower ice cream for Natasha, they continue to talk and smoke, more or less at the same time. The list of recent screenplays Ronnie has penned are proof of a continuing and flourishing career: Love in time of Cholera, the screen adaptation of Garcia Márquez’ masterpiece, directed by Mike Newell and starring Javier Bardem and Giovanna Mezzogiorno, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly for which Ronnie won a BAFTA for Best Adapted Screenplay and received his third Oscar nomination. Julian Schnabel, the director, and Janusz Kaminskl, the cinematographer, were also nominated for Oscars. Ronnie is presently writing the screenplay of his play Quartet, about four elderly opera singers in a home for retired musicians. I ask Natasha how she ever manages to survive this man who has seen success after success. ‘Very simple’ she smiles, ‘I absolutely take no notice at all’. Ronnie’s maxim, he confides, is simply, ‘If I stop, I drop!’ and he certainly doesn’t show any signs of stopping. The 2008 programme at the Chichester Festival Theatre includes a new Harwood play ‘Collaboration’ (16 July - 30 August), about the cooperation between Richard Strauss and Stephan Zweig and looks set, like so many of his works to date, to be an absolute showstopper. The Pallant Restaurant is open Tuesday to Sunday during normal Gallery opening hours and on Thursday evenings serving food till late. To reserve a table please call 01243 770827 or visit www.thepallantrestaurant.com.
THE SOUTHERN CERAMIC GROUP Summer Exhibition 26th July – 10 August 2008 Daily from 10am – 5pm
At the Bishop’s Kitchen, Chichester Cathedral, Chichester PO19 1PX Tel: 01403 258 201 Email: info@southernceramicgroup.co.uk www.southernceramicgroup.co.uk Southern Ceramic Group.indd 1
4/4/08 11:45:00
Flying Lessons by Vanessa Pooley Bronze, 2007, length 30cm
Half landscape.indd 1
tel: 01603 663775 www.vanessapooley.com 22/10/07 12:28:13
Chairman of the Friends Letter Lady Nicholas Gordon Lennox
As many of you know Beth Funnell has now left the Friends’ Office after five years and her place has been taken by John Leslie. We are delighted he has joined us and welcome him warmly, I feel certain he will be a great asset. Jillie Moss has decided to step down as Chairman of the Friends’ Events Sub Committee from July, in order to concentrate on the educational programme within the Gallery. The Events Committee has now been reorganised into the Friends’ Events Working Group, the members of which will be taking more personal responsibility in arranging the Friends’ Events. We are now looking for a Chairman to co-ordinate this Working Group. During the summer, there will be two receptions at the Gallery on Tuesday 1 July and Wednesday 17 September. The idea behind these receptions is for existing Friends to introduce a friend of theirs to the Gallery, the Collection and other Friends. Each Friend of the Gallery is invited to bring one friend. I very much hope that you will support these two events. We are justly proud of the 3,700 Friends we currently have, but still need to work hard to spread the word. The Friends contribution to Pallant House Gallery is of paramount importance, and should never be underestimated.
© Peter Durant/Arcblue.com
Sadly our oldest member of the Friends, Lewis Croome, died in March in his 101st year. As a friend of Philip Stroud, Lewis had supported the Gallery from its beginnings. Many of you may remember he cut the cake at our 25th Anniversary last summer. Our sympathy goes out to his family. I very much hope to see many of you in the Gallery during the summer months. The plane trees in the terrace are growing beautifully and we will soon have a beautiful natural canopy in the garden so do please come and enjoy it.
An Art Book Club has also been newly formed. This will be led by Greg Mosse, Co-director of Chichester Writing Festival, who has chosen as the first book for discussion, ‘Notes from an Exhibition’ by Patrick Gale, a best seller in the paperback lists. It is not necessary to have read this book for the first meeting on 5 June. There will be three Thursday evening meetings of the Book Club in the summer programme, on Thursday 5 June, 3 July and 4 September, and you can read more about this exciting new event from Greg Mosse on page 53. 51
Friends News Philip Stroud, Founder of the Friends Friends who have known Pallant House Gallery since its early days will have seen that Philip Stroud’s name is properly acknowledged on the new Board in Room 1 as Founder of the Friends. And it was, of course, the Friends with the Chichester District Council who founded the Gallery – uniquely reversing the usual situation where a society is formed to support an established Gallery. Dr.Betty Murray (District Councillor and former Principal of Bishop Otter College) is named on the board, together with others who made significant contributions in different ways to the development of the Gallery in the light of Dean Hussey’s wonderful gift - and which saved Pallant House itself. Philip Stroud was untiring in his efforts to back up Dean Hussey’s wish to see his collection displayed in Pallant House. He was a very popular citizen and knew an enormous number of people, virtually countrywide, who responded to his enthusiasm and were persuaded to contribute to this splendid idea, so many of them still loyally involved. New Membership Secretary We are pleased to announce that John Leslie will be taking over from Beth Funnell as Honorary Membership Secretary. Before his retirement two years ago John was a senior manager in the water industry. He moved to Chichester and, eager to get involved in local activities, he joined the Friends of Pallant House, Chichester Cathedral and the Festival Theatre. His other interests include music and fly fishing. The Friends will benefit from his considerable experience of organisation and management.
Sharing Our Mailing List We would like to be able to make our mailing list available to other arts organisations, such as the Chichester Festival Theatre, so that Friends could benefit from joint ventures. To do this we need your permission. Please let us know if you are happy for us to pass on your details to other similar organisations. You can do this by sending an email to friends@ pallant.org.uk or writing to us. We would not make our list generally available.
Michael Clark, Portrait of Philip Stroud, OBE Founder of the Friends of Pallant House, 1993/4, Pencil on paper, Bought & commissioned by the Friends of Pallant House and the Pallant House Gallery Trust (1994), © Michael Clark
52
Chairman of Friends’ Events The Friends’ Executive Committee is looking for a new volunteer to succeed Jillie Moss who is stepping down in July to pursue other interests within the Gallery. The Chairman of Friends’ Events is responsible for devising and implementing a programme events of special interest to the Friends. This is an exciting and challenging position and would involve two or three days per week. If you would be interested in working with the Friends in this capacity please contact the Friends’ Office on 01243 770816 or email friendsevents@pallant.org.uk
Gift Membership Looking for a unique present? Why not give the gift of membership to Pallant House Gallery? Your friends will enjoy free entry to Pallant House Gallery and all exhibitions, free copies of the Magazine and early booking opportunities for Friends events, visits and talks. Call 01243 770815 today!
Art Book Club Greg Mosse
Art and literature come together this summer at the Pallant House Gallery Book Club. Author Greg Mosse, who will lead the group, introduces the idea behind this exclusive sequence of Friends events. People who like books are my favourite kind of people. They are often found sitting quietly beneath a lamp in a dimly-lit room, or on a bench in the sun, oblivious to the stir and bustle around them. They may be alone; they almost certainly will not be talking. They will be reading. But they are not always so quiet. People who like books enjoy the most vivid, the most imaginative, the most natural and spontaneous dialogues with their friends. As the Chinese proverb has it, a few days without reading and conversation becomes flavourless. So there’s the rub. We like to sit quietly on our own with our paper companions, but many of us also enjoy discussing what we’ve read. And this is a sociable, generous inclination. We hate the thought that books we have loved should slip through the net of other people’s reading.
For example, years before she wrote the brilliant Orange Prize winner Small Island, Andrea Levy wrote Never Far from Nowhere. It was before superstar status and I don’t suppose it had sold more than 1000 hardbacks, but it appealed deeply to me in its depiction of teenage life in east London that I recognised as strangely akin to my own in West Sussex. I was delighted when, in April 2006, Andrea became the first author to be interviewed on Saturday night at the Chichester Writing Festival by my wife, the novelist Kate Mosse. Each month we will discuss a book – publicised well in advance – that we have all read. Each book chosen will be related in some way to the world of art. We will also share our other discoveries and hear the experiences of a variety of visiting authors. The club will run on Thursday evenings, 6.30pm to 8pm, exclusively for Friends of Pallant House Gallery Tickets £5 to include a glass of wine. Call 01243 774557 for more information or to book a place. Not a Friend but would like to take part? Call 01243 770815 today to find out about how to become a Friend, join in a range of exciting events like the Art Book Club, and support one of the best collections of Modern British art in the world. 53
What's On Friends Events The Studio of Edgar Holloway and Ditchling Gallery Wednesday 11 June, 12.15–6pm approx. The Friends have been specially invited by Edgar and Jenny Holloway to visit the studio of this key figure in the art of printmaking. Holloway is one of the very few surviving artists of the etching revival in the 1920s and 1930s. This visit will expand on the works shown in his exhibition at the Gallery last year. Afterwards we will visit the current exhibition at Ditchling Museum which includes the work of Eric Gill, David Jones and Bernard Leach among other artists. £25 includes tea.
Saltwood Castle Wednesday 16 July, 10.30am –6.30pm approx. A unique opportunity to visit the fascinating Saltwood Castle, home of the art historian Sir Kenneth Clark and then his son, the diarist and politician, Alan Clark and his wife Jane. We will be shown the castle, which has a long and intriguing history and is full of wonderful treasures, by Mrs Jane Clark, who will also show us the fabulous collection of artworks, 54
Friends Events 01243 770816
started by Sir Kenneth Clark and continued by her and her husband. Afterwards she will give us one of her famous home-made teas. A private lunch in Hythe will precede the visit. £55 includes lunch and tea.
East Beach Café Wednesday 20 August, 4–10pm approx. Enjoy a relaxing dinner looking out over the sea in the spectacular East Beach Café, designed by Thomas Heatherwick, which has attracted huge interest since it opened last year. Sophie Murray, one of the owners of this amazing restaurant has agreed to give us an exclusive talk with slides about the inspiration for the café and its unique architecture. We have kindly been invited by David and Prue Hopkinson to their house near Arundel for drinks before arriving at East Beach Café. £40 includes dinner.
Roche Court Wednesday 17 September, 10.30am – 6pm approx. The beautiful grounds of Roche Court in Wiltshire are the setting for the New Art Centre Sculpture Park with impressive works by Barbara Hepworth, Anthony Gormley, Kenneth Armitage, Ian Stephenson and Anthony Caro. We will be given a guided tour of the artworks in the grounds as well as the exhibition of the abstract paintings of Clare Woods. This exciting artist, whose works are inspired by photographs of undergrowth and vegetation taken at night, paints with enamel on aluminium. For this exhibition Clare is producing a monumental painting, scanning the whole length of the award-winning gallery. We will visit Stockbridge for a pub lunch. £35 includes lunch and tea.
Clockwise from Top Saltwood Castile; Antony Gormley, Another Time VIII, 2007, cast iron; East Beach Café, Littlehampton, Photograph by Andy Stagg; Edgar Holloway, Orchard Moon, 1990, Etching, from the Portfolio 'Etchings and Engravings', © The Artist
What's On Friends Events Friends Art Book Club Thursday 5 June Thursday 3 July Thursday 4 September all 6.30-8pm Led by Greg Mosse, co-director of the Chichester Writing Festival and creative writing teacher, this exciting new event has been devised for the Friends of Pallant House Gallery (see p.xx). The books have been especially chosen to relate to the exhibitions and the Collection. £5 includes a glass of wine Friends’ Coffee Morning 30 July, 10.30am-12noon Nina Saunders, whose ‘Autumn Flowers’ installation has fascinated visitors to the Gallery since its installation in the stairwell of the eighteenth century house last November, will talk to the Friends about how she created this stunning artwork. £4 includes coffee
Friends Events 01243 770816
Friends’ Coffee Morning Wednesday 3 September, 10.30am – 12noon Julia Cooper, former Chairman of the Friends Events Committee and experienced Gallery Guide will be talking to us about the Guides at Pallant House Gallery - past and present. £4 includes coffee Friend Bring a Friend Reception Thursday 18 September, 6.30pm Do you know someone who would like to become a Friend or to whom you would like to give a gift of membership? If so why not introduce them to our awardwinning Gallery by bringing them to this special evening with wine and a private tour of the collection by the Gallery Guides. £6 for 2 people includes a glass of wine
Colin Self: Art in the Nuclear Age Wednesday 9 July, 2.30pm A special chance to explore the exhibition ‘Colin Self: Art in the Nuclear Age’ with the curator of the show, Simon Martin. £4 includes tea (£2.50 students) Abstract Paintings from the Collection Wednesday 6 August, 10.30am Friday 15 August, 2.30pm Tours of the in focus exhibition of British Abstract art from the Collection led by Gallery Guides, looking at works by Ben Nicholson, Victor Pasmore, Prunella Clough and others. £4 includes coffee (£2.50 students)
Ben Nicholson, 1946 (still life - cerulean), 1946, Oil on canvas over board, Kearley Bequest, through The Art Fund (1989), © Angela Verren Taunt
Friend Bring a Friend Reception Tuesday 1 July, 10.30am–12noon Do you know someone who would like to become a Friend, or to whom you would like to give a gift of membership? If so why not introduce them to our awardwinning Gallery by bringing them to this special morning with tea and coffee and a private tour of the Collection by the Gallery Guides. £4 for 2 people includes tea/coffee
55
What's On Special Evening Talks
Tickets 01243 774557
Curating the Cold War: Art and Design in an Age of Anxiety by Jane Pavitt Thursday 7 August, 6pm University of Brighton Principal Research Fellow at the Victoria & Albert Museum and curator of the forthcoming exhibition ‘Cold War Modern: Design 1945-70’, Jane Pavitt is the guest speaker for a fascinating discussion about Cold War politics and the art which came out of that period. £7 includes a glass of wine (£4 student) A book signing in the Bookshop will follow this event
Colin Self: A Bombardment of images by Marco Livingstone Thursday 24 July, 6pm Art critic, leading authority on British Pop art, and co-author of the exhibition catalogue which accompanies the exhibition ‘Colin Self: Art in the Nuclear Age’, Marco Livingstone introduces the work of Colin Self in this engaging evening lecture. £7 includes a glass of wine (£4 student) A book signing in the Bookshop will follow this event. To order your copy of the exhibition catalogue today, call 01243 770813. 56
Curator’s Tour with Simon Martin Thursday 10 July, 6pm Wednesday 6 August, 2pm A chance to explore the exhibition ‘Colin Self: Art in the Nuclear Age’ with the curator of the show, Simon Martin. £6 includes a glass of wine (£3.50 student)/ £4 includes tea (£2.50 student)
Colin Self, The Fishy Tale of the Battered Wife, 1987 Multimedia collage, Private collection; Peter Ghyczy, Garden Egg Chair, 1967–8, © V&A Images
Cold War Collage by Professor Brandon Taylor Thursday 25 September, 6pm Professor Taylor, author of ‘Collage: The Making of Modern Art’, examines the medium of collage as used by Colin Self, and traces a history of the technique back to Braque and Picasso. £7 includes a glass of wine (£4 student) A book signing in the Bookshop will follow this event
What's On Free Public Talks & Events Scenes from Toad of Toad Hall Thursday 4, 11, 18 September, 6pm Characters from Chichester Festival Youth Theatre perform a montage of scenes from the open-air promenade production of Toad of Toad Hall in the Courtyard Garden, with a delectable variety of food props for the picnic basket designed by artists from the Hans Feibusch Group. £Free
Artwork of the Month Talks Learn more about your favourite works from the Collection in these informal but in-depth talks by Gallery Guides. Day: Last Wednesday of the month Time: 11-11.30am Cost: £Free with Gallery admission Details: Meet at Reception Patrick Caulfield’s ‘Reserved Table’ Wednesday 25 June Victor Pasmore’s ‘Points of Contact No 36’ Wednesday 30 July
Highlights Tour Knowledgeable Gallery Guides lead a whistle-stop introductory tour of the Collection every Saturday afternoon. Day: Saturdays Time: 3pm Cost: £Free with Gallery admission Details: Meet at Reception
John Piper’s ‘Three Bathers beside the Sea’ Wednesday 27 August Nigel Henderson’s, ‘Screen’ Wednesday 24 September Mark Gertler’s, ‘Near Swanage’ Wednesday 29 October
Tickets 01243 774557
Thursday Evening Tour Understand the different stories the Collection tells in these themed public tours. Afterwards, relax in the Pallant Restaurant or do a spot of late night shopping in the Bookshop. Day: Thursdays Time: 6pm Cost: £Free with Gallery admission Details: Meet at Reception Landscapes and Modernity 26 June / 7 August / 18 September / 30 October Still Life: The Language of Objects 3 July / 14 August / 25 September The Eighteenth Century House: Fine Arts and Furnishings 29 May / 10 July / 21 August / 2 October Pop Art and the Swinging Sixties 5 June / 17 July / 28 August / 9 October Collectors and Collecting 12 June/ 24 July/ 4 September / 16 October Portraits: Image and Identity 19 June / 31 July / 11 Sept / 23 October
Mark Gertler, Near Swanage, 1916, Oil on board, Kearley Bequest, through The Art Fund (1989), © Luke Gertler
57
What's On Adult Workshops
Tickets 01243 774557
Sunday Art Classes
Artwork of the Month Workshops
Time: 1-4pm Cost: £9 per workshop or £65 for all eight workshops Location: Studio Details: Booking is required as places are limited. A materials/ model charge may be applicable. Please bring your own art materials. The ‘Introduction to Drawing’ and ‘Life Drawing’ series can be booked as individual classes or a series (book in advance).
Day: last Wednesday of the month Time: 12-2pm Cost: £6 per person Location: Studio Details: Booking is required as places are limited. A materials charge may be applicable. Please bring your own art materials.
An Introduction to Drawing 1 Sunday 8 June Looking at still-life subjects, this introductory class focuses on shape and proportion. Life Drawing 1 Sunday 22 June Learn about the anatomy and structure of the human body and how it can improve your drawing. Earth Air Water Sunday 13 July Using acrylics and large sheets of paper explore the techniques used by Michael Andrews in ‘The Estuary, Thames Painting’.
Life Drawing 2 Sunday 27 July Look at the work of Paolo Uccello and William Coldstream to use a grid to draw the human body. An Introduction to Drawing 2 Sunday 14 September This second introductory class focuses on tone, with exercises on tonal values and how tone can describe 3D form. Watercolour Painting Sunday 28 September Learn the basics of watercolour painting from applying washes to wet-on-wet. Life Drawing 3 Sunday 12 October The model will adopt a series of poses to emphasise the movement and posture of the body. An Introduction to Drawing 3 Sunday 26 October This final introduction to drawing, brings together ideas about tone, shape and proportion to create a more ambitious still-life drawing.
58
Patrick Caulfield’s ‘Reserved Table’ Wednesday 25 June Experiment with mixed media to create your own dramatic interior space. Dare you sit at the table? Victor Pasmore’s ‘Points of Contact No.36’ Wednesday 30 July Use watercolours or acrylics to organise diverse abstract shapes and line, edges and colours. John Piper’s ‘Three Bathers beside the Sea’ Wednesday 27 August Experiment with gouache to capture the spirit of Piper’s ‘stained glass’ effect paintings. Nigel Henderson’s ‘Screen’ Wednesday 24 September Explore the exciting potential of collage on a large scale. Mark Gertler’s ‘Near Swanage’ Wednesday 29 October Using pastels and paints, discover the message in Near Swanage and create your own picture.
What's On Children's Workshops Hans Feibusch Club Time: 2.30 - 4.30pm Cost: £Free art workshops for Partners in Art and other community groups and individuals that require extra support. Location: Studio Details: Please book early Ratty’s Hamper Thursdays 5, 12, 19 June In collaboration with Chichester Festival Theatre, make 3D foods for Ratty’s hamper for their Youth Theatres production of Toad of Toad Hall. Magical Boxes Thursdays 26 June, 3, 10 July Make a box to carry your personal treasure Painting landscapes Thursdays 17, 24, 31 July Learn how to paint a landscape Rail Journeys Thursdays 7, 14, 21 August Jon Adams, artist in residence, leads this workshop which explores ideas of transport and travel. Recycled Baskets 11, 18, 25 September Weave a basket out of recycled materials Figure Drawing Thursdays 2, 9, 16 October Discover the human figure through drawing.
Saturday Workshops Time: 10am–12noon Cost: £6 per workshop Location: Studio Details: Booking is required as places are limited Multi Textured Saturday 7 June Ages 5–10 Look at techniques used by Colin Self to create images. Abstract fabric painting Saturday 21 June Ages 11–16 Explore shape and surface texture in Abstract works. People on the Beach Saturday 5 July Ages 5–10 Mixed media fun looking at Piper and people bathing by the sea.
Strange Growths Saturday 19 July Ages 11–16 A workshop looking at Nina Saunders’ installation and works that show growth. Light Projection / Shadow Play Saturday 13 September Ages 5–10 Use light to create landscapes and make a shadow play based on paintings from the Gallery. Create a humorous or political sculpture Saturday 27 September Ages 11–16 Create a sculpture based on icons from popular culture Make a picture about nothing! Saturday 11 October Ages 5–10 Make your own abstract masterpiece using printing and painting.
59
What's On Children's Workshops Free Holiday Workshops
Under 5’s
Time: 10am–12noon and repeated 1–3pm Cost: £Free Location: Studio Ages: 5–16 Details: Booking is required as places are limited
Time: 10am–12noon Cost: £36 for all four workshops or £10 each Location: Studio Details: Booking is required as places are limited. Every child must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. Please ensure your child wears suitable clothing/apron and brings a cushion.
Go Create! Sunday 28 June A city-wide event (formerly Paint the City). Make art inspired by Pallant House Gallery and its environment. Summer Holiday Fun 1 Saturday 2 August Painting, drawing and collage: great art fun for kids of all ages. Seaside Assemblages Saturday 9 August Using ‘Three Bathers at the Seaside’, make a 3D relief collage. Summer Holiday Fun 2 Saturday 16 August Painting, drawing and collage: great art fun for kids of all ages. Machine Masks Saturday 23 August Look at the work of Colin Self and Eduardo Paolozzi and make your own robot mask. Day of the Dead Skeleton Tuesday 28 October Learn about the Mexican Festival of the Dead to make a Day of the dead Doll .
60
Wild landscapes and imaginary journeys Wednesday 6 August Explore clay, painting on a large scale and exploring under-table dens. Bring a small washable toy animal (3cm).
Tickets 01243 774557
Drama of a rock- pool Wednesday 13 August Using water, story and projected light, modelling and tactile painting, imagine an underwater world. Bring a few shells or pebbles. Tiny Town for people and animals Wednesday 20 August An opportunity for children to stack and build with large boxes and packing materials, use soft modelling clay, and paint on a large scale. Imaginary world of tangled roots and underground caves. Wednesday 27 August A chance for young children to examine creatures which live in the soil using clay and paint, and take part in a story with their own creatures made from soft materials. Bring an old sock.
What's On Booking Form £25 £55 £40 £35 3 July 4 Sept (£5 each session) £4 £4 for two people £4 £4 for two people £3 £4, £2.50 (Students) £4, £2.50 (Students)
£7, £4 (students) £6, £3.50 (students) £4, £2.50 (students) £7, £4 (students) £7, £4 (students)
Introduction to Drawing 1 8 June Life Drawing 1 22 June Earth Air Water 13 July Life Drawing 2 27 July Introduction to Drawing 2 14 Sept Life Drawing 3 12 Oct Introduction to Drawing 3 26 Oct All 8 Adult Workshops
£9 £9 £9 £9 £9 £9 £9 £65
25 June 30 July 27 Aug 24 Sept 29 Oct
£6 £6 £6 £6 £6
Saturday Workshops
Patrick Caulfield Workshop Victor Pasmore Workshop John Piper Workshop Niger Henderson Workshop Mark Gertler Workshop Multi Textured Abstract Fabric Painting People on the Beach Strange Growths Light Projection / Shadow Play Create a Humorous / Political Sculpture Make a Picture about Nothing
7 June 21 June 5 July 19 July 13 Sept 27 Sept 11 Oct
£6 £6 £6 £6 £6 £6 £6
Holiday Workshops
Go Create Summer Holiday Fun 1 Seaside Assemblages Summer Holiday Fun 2 Machine Masks Day of the Dead Skeleton
29 June 2 Aug 9 Aug 16 Aug 23 Aug 28 Oct
£Free £Free £Free £Free £Free £Free
Wild Landscapes and imaginary journeys 6 Aug Drama of a Rock-Pool 13 Aug Make a Town 20 Aug Tangled Roots and Underground Caves 27 Aug All 4 Workshops
£10 £10 £10 £10 £36
Art/Month
Adult Art Classes
Friends Tours
Friends Events
Studio of Edgar Holloway and Eric Gill 11 June Saltwood Castle 16 July East Beach Café 20 Aug Roche Court 17 Sept 5 June Friends Art Book Club Friends Coffee Morning 30 July Friend bring a Friend Reception 1 July Friends Coffee Morning 3 Sept Friend bring a Friend Reception 18 Sept Friends Coffee Morning 7 May Colin Self: Art in the Nuclear Age Tour 9 July Abstract Paintings from the Collection 6 August Colin Self by Marco Livingstone 24 July Colin Self: Curator's Tour 10 July Colin Self: Curator's Tour 6 Aug Curating the Cold War by Jane Pavitt 7 Aug Cold War Collage by Prof. Brandon Taylor 25 Sept
Under 5's
No of Tickets
All of the above are fundraising events for Pallant House Gallery
Total
Cost
£
Payment Details Mr
Mrs
Miss
Ms
First Name
Surname Please pull the completed form from the magazine and send, with a stamped addressed envelope and payment to:
Address
Tickets Office Pallant House Gallery 9 North Pallant Chichester PO19 1TJ Postcode
Daytime Telephone
Friends Membership Number (if booking Friends only events)
Email Address
Please tick if you would like to receive a monthly e-mail bulletin
Credit / Debit Card Payment Visa
Mastercard
Other (We cannot except American Express)
Name of Card Holder
Credit Card Number
Valid From
Expires End
Issue Number
CVN*
* Card Validation Number (3 digit security number from the signature strip on the back of your credit card)
Signature
Date
Cheque Payments Cheques should be made payable to Pallant House Gallery Services Ltd. Please leave the actual amount open in case we are not able to provide all the tickets you request. For security "Not above ÂŁâ&#x20AC;Ś.." can be written at the bottom of your cheque and we will advise you of the cheque total.
Colin St. John Wilson: Collector and Architect Copies are available to buy in three sizes. Contact h.wailling@pallant.org.uk
MJ Long and Stefan van Raay
Cllr John Ridd, Chairman CDC
Lady Nicholas Gordon Lennox (centre)
Vanessa Branson and Robert Devereux
Anne Browning
HRH the Duke of Gloucester
Lord and Lady Dholakia
64 Frances Spalding, Antony Gormley and Janet Nathan
Jerome and Elizabeth O'Hey
Sal and Harry Wilson
The Very Rev Nicholas Frayling, Dean of Chichester Cathedral and Anne Hewat
Paul Catherall and Alexa Baracia
Stewart Grimshaw, Clare Scherer, Angie O'Rourke and Howell James
Charles Saumarez-Smith (Secretary of RA)
Jane Weeks (British Council Chair HLF SE) and Stephen Riley (Director Collections National Maritme Museum
Susie MacMurray and Nina Saunders
Artwork of the Month Martina Gingell John Piper, Three Bathers Beside the Sea, 1934, Collage and gouache on card, © The Piper Estate
The lovely ladies reclining in John Piper’s 1934 painting ‘Three Bathers beside the Sea’ are painted in a fauxnaif, seemingly primitive style, the bathers, boat and horizon being reduced to thick brushed lines. Their simplified outlines recall the string pictures of Jean Arp, the wire constructions of Alexander Calder, while the colours echo the rich brown colouring of Braque’s Dieppe paintings of 1929. The collaged label from a tobacco packet suggests the sign on the seaside inn, bringing an element of exterior ‘reality’ to the image, in which topographical interest is subordinated within an almost abstract design. In the 1930s John Piper, who was to become one of the most versatile artists of the twentieth century, was a young man in a hurry. Although his father had done much to foster Piper’s love of the arts, he had thought it prudent that he should follow him in a legal career. His father’s death in 1926 released Piper from this obligation and at the age of 23 he went to Richmond College of Art and later to the Royal College of Art where he was taught among others by Henry Moore. 66
On leaving, Piper was very conscious that he was now five years behind his peers in the art world. In need of an income, he now began to write for The Nation and The Listener, reviewing the work of such artists as Hitchens, Pasmore, Richards and Coldstream. He also met the writer and critic Myfanwy Evans, who was later to become his wife. Meanwhile, his own painting was developing and, in his search for a modern style, led to his making the series of works inspired by the sea, of which ‘Three Bathers beside the Sea’ is such an important example. In these works, he was able to celebrate his love of the English marine landscape while working towards his next move which was to be into abstraction and membership of the newly energized 7+5 Society. Martina Gingell will present a twenty minute Gallery talk on John Piper's 'Three Bathers beside the Sea' on Wednesday 27 August as part of the Artwork of the Month series of talks. For further details, see page 57.
67
Specialist Dealers & Agents Exhibiting Modern British, Irish & Contemporary Art We advise and help to build collections
Sir William Nicholson (1872–1949) Spanish Hills, 1936, oil on wood panel, 29.2 x 39.3cm
Anthony Hepworth Fine Art Dealers Ltd. 3 Margarets Buildings, Brock Steet, Bath BA1 2LP anthony.hepwor@btconnect.com www.anthonyhepworth.com 01225 447480 / 07970 480 650 Please telephone for summer opening hours In London weekly, by appointment New ‘Pictures from Private Collections’ catalogue available on request