Keith Vaughan Figure in the Landscape Simon Martin celebrates the Selsey painter's centenary Happy birthday Chichester Festival Theatre Pamela Howard explores 50 years of artistic innovation Portrait of the Artist David Dawson on capturing Lucian Freud Neo-Romantic Visionary Virginia Ironside's eccentric relation Robin Ironside
£2 Number 26 March – June 2012 www.pallant.org.uk
KEITH VAUGHAN 1912-1977 An centenary exhibition at Osborne Samuel gallery will be held in November 2012 to coincide with the publication of a major new monograph currently in preparation, to be co-published with Lund Humphries Publishing.
Landscape with Nude Bather, 1948. Oil on canvas. 40 x 56 cm. Signed, lower right.
We are currently seeking works for sale to be included in the exhibition that will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue. Please email info@osbornesamuel with details of any works
23a Bruton Street, London W1J 6QG Tel: 020 7493 7939 info@osbornesamuel.com www.osbornesamuel.com
Contents Features
Keith Vaughan, Musicians at Marrakesh, 1966–70, oil on canvas, Accepted by HM Government in lieu of Inheritance Tax and allocated to Pallant House Gallery from the Estate of Professor John Ball (2011) Š The Estate of Keith Vaughan. All rights reserved, DACS 2012
You can find full details of our latest events programme in the What's On guide. Previous copies of the Gallery magazine, as well as all the latest news, exhibitions and events, can be viewed online at www.pallant.org.uk You can also follow us at .com/pallantgallery .com/pallantgallery
18 Keith Vaughan Centenary Simon Martin 22 Diary of a Melancholic Keith Vaughan 26 Staging a Revolution Pamela Howard 30 Portrait of the Artist David Dawson talks to Catherine Lampert 34 King of Pop-Up Ron King talks to Emma Robertson 38 Robin Ironside Virginia Ironside 42 Back to the Future Ian Sherman 47 Plate Expectations Rosie Simmons
Friends 49 50 51
Chairman's Letter Being a Guide Friends' Events
Regulars 9 13 16 53 57 59
Director's Letter Exhibitions Diary News What's On Events Bookshop Pallant Photos
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Collection in Focus 3
ANTHONY HEPWORTH FINE ART DEALERS LTD Specialist Dealers in Modern British and Contemporary Painting & Sculpture with particular emphasis on the work of Keith Vaughan (1912 – 1977)
Keith Vaughan: The Return of The Prodigal Son, 1950, Oil on Canvas 63.5 x 91.4 cm, Private Collection
Anthony Hepworth is currently finalising the catalogue of Keith Vaughan's oil paintings which will be published by Sansom & Co in 2012, Vaughan's centenary year The Hargreaves and Ball Charitable Trust supports music charities by the sale of art works by Keith Vaughan, Prunella Clough and Elizabeth Fritsch collected by Dr Gordon Hargreaves (1930 – 1989) and Professor John Ball (1931 – 2010) Catalogue available on request
ANTHONY HEPWORTH FINE ART DEALERS Ltd By appointment in Bath and London T: 07970 480 650 / 01225 447480 (Bath)
E: anthony.hepwor@btconnect.com
www.anthonyhepworth.com
Contributors Editorial Editor Emma Robertson, e.robertson@pallant.org.uk Sub Editor Beth Funnell Gallery Editorial Simon Martin, Stefan van Raay Guest Editorial David Dawson, Pamela Howard, Virginia Ironside, Ron King, Catherine Lampert, Ian Sherman, Alan Wood Friends' Editorial Beth Funnell, Lady Nicholas Gordon Lennox, Sarah Quail, Design, Editing and Production David Wynn Advertising Booking and General Enquiries Paolo Russo +44 (0)20 7300 5751 Kim Jenner +44 (0)207 300 5658 Jane Grylls +44 (0)207 300 5661
With thanks Headline Sponsor of the Gallery 2012
Keith Vaughan Headline Sponsor
Keith Vaughan Supporters
The Keith Vaughan Supporters' Circle With thanks to
Art of Chichester Festival Theatre Supporters
The Art of Chichester Festival Theatre Supporters' Circle
Gallery Information Pallant House Gallery, 9 North Pallant, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 1TJ, UK +44 (0)1243 774557; info@pallant.org.uk www.pallant.org.uk Opening Times Monday Tuesday–Saturday Thursday Sunday/Bank Holidays
Closed 10am–5pm 10am–8pm 11am–5pm
PALLANT HOUSE GALLERY Friends
Art Library library@pallant.org.uk +44 (0)1243 770824 Friends' Office Events +44 (0)1243 770816 friendsevents@pallant.org.uk Membership +44 (0)1243 770815 friends@pallant.org.uk Bookshop www.pallantbookshop.com; shop@pallantbookshop.com +44 (0)1243 781293 Field & Fork at Pallant House Gallery www.fieldandfork.co.uk; Reservations +44 (0)1243 770827
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Willard Conservation Limited, The Priory and Poling Charitable Trusts, The Garfield Weston Foundation, and other Trusts, Foundations and anonymous benefactors. Pallant House Gallery makes every effort to seek permission of copyright owners for images reproduced in this publication. If however, a work has not been correctly identified or credited and you are the copyright holder, or know of the copyright holder, please contact the editor.
The Grosvenor School & Avant-Garde British Printmaking Tuesday 17 April New Bond Street, London Entries now invited
International Auctioneers and Valuers – bonhams.com/prints
We are currently accepting consignments for our forthcoming auction. The closing date for entries is 6 March. For futher information please contact: +44 20 7468 8262 rupert.worrall@bonhams.com Claude Flight (British, 1881-1955) Lawn Mowing (CF39) (detail) ÂŁ7,000 - 9,000
KEITH VAUGHAN (1912-1977)
An Exhibition to celebrate Keith Vaughan’s Centenary 16 May – 15 June 2012
35 Albemarle Street, London, W1S 4JD For further details please contact Christopher Kingzett at christopherkingzett@agnewsgallery.co.uk or on 0207 290 9256
Director's Letter
Pallant House, Photograph Š Peter Durant/ arcblue.com
In November last year the Daily Telegraph reported that despite the adverse economic climate cultural events have taken off on a stupendous scale: 'as though a vast swath of the public intends to drown its sorrows in art.' It is a trend which has been borne out here at Pallant House Gallery, with 2011 being the most successful year since the Gallery opened. The summer show, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, drew record audience numbers to see the works of the iconic Mexican artists together for the first time ever in the UK, and in autumn the first solo show of Edward Burra for 25 years brought further crowds and received a rapturous response from critics and visitors alike. Thank you to all those who spread the word and helped make the year such a success. The arrival of 2012, the London Olympic year, puts the whole of the UK under the international spotlight and, as a major gallery, we are uniquely placed to showcase the best of British culture. This year's programme reflects our commitment to modern British art, beginning with two important exhibitions rooted firmly in the local region: Selsey-born painter Keith Vaughan, one of the most significant artists of his generation, is the subject of a comprehensive exhibition to mark the centenary of his birth (p.18) while the 50th anniversary of the iconic Chichester Festival Theatre, the birth place of the National Theatre, is celebrated with a special display and installation created by Selsey-based theatre designer Pamela Howard OBE (p.26). We thank Kenwood, the
Finnis Scott Foundation, Offer Waterman and Co. and the members of the Supporters' Circles for their generosity in making it possible to stage these exhibitions. Coincidently, the visionary artist Robin Ironside exhibited alongside Keith Vaughan in 1952 and this year also marks the centenary of his birth. Virginia Ironside introduces the impressive legacy of her 'eccentric relation' ahead of his De'Longhi Print Room show (p.38) while another local connection is explored later in the season through a display of the Sussex-based book artist and Circle Press founder, Ron King, who is 80 this year. He talks to us about his life and career (p.34). Elsewhere we pay homage to the late great painter Lucian Freud in the second of two pieces from the perspective of his studio assistant and model David Dawson, whose own paintings and photographs are featured in an exhibition in Room 4 (p.30); artist and Partner in Art, Ian Sherman, introduces his technology-influenced assemblages and paintings (p.42); and we anticipate the 300th anniversary of Pallant House with a look back at the turbulent history of the Peckhams (p.60). We will celebrate the anniversary with a major installation by ceramicist Bouke de Vries to be unveiled in June 2012. Look out for more information in the next issue. Finally I would like to thank the trustees, the Acting Director, Marc Steene, and all my colleagues for making my recent sabbatical leave possible. Stefan van Raay, Director at Pallant House Gallery 9
De'Longhi continues its support for 2012 A Coffee with Bouke de Vries
De'Longhi, leader in stylish coffee machines, continues to invest in the arts and local community and is now in its fourth year of sponsorship of Pallant House Gallery. To kick off the New Year, De'Longhi enjoyed a coffee with Bouke de Vries, the celebrated ceramics artist, to find out more about his work, inspirations and current projects. Who or what most inspires you? I suppose we all carry around a mental compendium of what inspires us – paintings, nature, memories, films and people. Consciously or subconsciously, it informs our thoughts and actions. I'm specifically inspired by the broken and discarded ceramic objects I find. They suggest situations, connections, compositions, which I then translate into sculptures. Where do you think modern art is heading today? What new trends are you seeing? I think art is moving to a re-evaluation of traditional skills, craftsmanship and beauty.
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How do you describe your style? Reconstruction meets deconstruction. Who or what has been your biggest influence? My experience as a ceramics conservator has given me my voice as an artist. And the wonderfully eclectic exhibitions put on by collector/dealer Axel Vervoordt at the Palazzo Fortuny in Venice gave me the need and the drive to express my ideas. His mental compendium of inspirations is encyclopedic. Where can we see your work? My new work will be installed at Pallant House in June 2012 in time for the 300th anniversary celebrations of Pallant House. Keep an eye out for the next issue where we will be holding an in-depth interview with Bouke de Vries ahead of his new installation. For more information about De'Longhi visit www.seriousaboutcoffee.co.uk
Š Gilbert Garcin
A great way to see a New York style photographic gallery, without leaving the country.
Arden and Anstruther’s amazing collection of contemporary photography has a new rural setting amongst the apple trees. We welcome you to view by apointment at The Barn, Daymans, Bedham.
Arden and Anstruther The Barn, Daymans, Bedham, Pulborough, W. Sussex RH20 1JR
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www.ardenandanstruther.com tel 01798 865 206. Open by appointment, just give me a ring.
Pallant House Gallery magazine Full page (215 x 148mm)
John Piper Octagonal Church, Hartwell, Buckinghamshire 1939 © Usher Gallery, Lincolnshire
21 April to 10 June 2012 DORCHESTER ABBEY
www.johnpiperandthechurch.co.uk Dorchester Abbey, Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxfordshire OX10 7HH Enquiries: 01865 340 007
12010_pallant_215x148mm.indd 1
A celebration of HM The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee by The Friends of Dorchester Abbey
John Piper and the Church is sponsored by
23/1/12 07:18
Exhibitions Diary
The Art of Chichester Festival Theatre: A celebration 3 March – 3 June 2012
Keith Vaughan, Landscape with Steeple, Iowa, 1960, Goauche on paper Pallant House Gallery (George and Ann Dannatt Gift, 2011)
Keith Vaughan: romanticism to abstraction 10 March – 10 June 2012 An exhibition to mark the centenary of the birth of the British painter Keith Vaughan (1912–1977), who was born in Selsey, West Sussex. Largely self-taught, Vaughan formed friendships with the painters Graham Sutherland and John Minton during the war, becoming a leading 'Neo-Romantic' artist in the 1940s and 1950s. Concentrating on the male nude in the landscape, Vaughan developed an increasingly abstract painterly style in later years. This exhibition features drawings and studies and major paintings from across his career, providing a comprehensive overview of the artist's life and work. Main Galleries (Rooms 12–14)
The theatre has long been both a source of inspiration for artists and a place to experiment with innovative costume and set designs. To mark the Chichester Festival Theatre's 50th anniversary this exhibition, curated and designed by renowned scenographer Professor Pamela Howard obe, celebrates how visual theatre artists responded to the challenge of designing for the first purpose-built thrust stage theatre in the UK. A selection of models, drawings, paintings, costumes and designs from the early productions will be exhibited for the very first time, assembled in a specially-constructed installation of the theatre park in the galleries of Pallant House Gallery. Main Galleries (Rooms 15–16)
David Dawson: Working with Lucian Freud 28 January – 20 May 2012 An extraordinary insight into the notoriously private world of the late great painter Lucian Freud through the eyes of his model and studio assistant David Dawson. For 20 years Dawson witnessed the creation of some of the most celebrated paintings of our age as well as being the model for numerous paintings himself. But each afternoon, after his work with Freud was done, Dawson would return home to do his own painting. This exhibition brings together some of Dawson's rarely-seen paintings with his intimate studio photographs and pieces by Freud. Main Galleries (Room 4) 13
Exhibitions Diary De'Longhi print room Robin Ironside: Neo-Romantic Visionary 27 February – 22 April 2012 An exhibition celebrating the centenary of Robin Ironside (1912–1965), a self-taught painter of Surrealist fantasies, designer for the theatre and writer on art who became Assistant Keeper at the Tate Gallery and Assistant Secretary for the Contemporary Art Society. This will be the first museum exhibition of the artist's work for over 40 years. De'Longhi Print Room (Free Entry)
Ian Sherman, object powered by laughter, 2004
STUDIO International Sketchbook Project 28 February – 25 March An extraordinary collaboration between young people from different parts of the world in the form of a collection of tiny personal home-made sketchbooks. Studio (Free Entry) Ian Sherman: Artefacts from the ContrariUM 27 March – 29 April 2012 The first solo studio exhibition of artist and Partner in Art Ian Sherman featuring his technology-influenced paintings and assemblages. Studio (Free Entry)
Robin Ironside, Wounded Man in a bed-sitting room, 1952, Gouache over pencil on paper, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Gift of the Class of the Museum of Fine Arts, Mrs. Arthur L. Devens, Chairman, 1953)
Ron King: On and Off the Page 24 April – 18 June 2012 Prolific printmaker and book artist Ron King is best known for founding the Circle Press in 1967, a specialist publishing house formed to design, print and distribute artists' books. Since then he has collaborated with more than 100 artists, writers and poets to produce an extensive body of work unique in its variety and quality. This exhibition, which marks King's 80th birthday, looks back over the artist's career both 'on and off the page' including some of his best known artists' books as well as examples of his painting and sculpture. De'Longhi Print Room (Free Entry)
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A Tale of Twinned Cities: Chapter three 1 May – 27 May 2012 Friends of Chartres and Pallant House Gallery collaborate for the fourth time with the return of the School Arts Competition. Studio (Free Entry) Jon Adams 29 May – 3 June 2012 An exhibition of recent work by Portsmouthbased Outsider artist, Jon Adams. Studio (Free Entry)
news Bobby Baker to judge Outside In 2012 The renowned performance artist Bobby Baker has been announced as a judge for the 2012 Outside In: National exhibition at Pallant House Gallery (27 Oct 2012 to 3 Feb 2013). During Bobby Baker's remarkable 20-year career she has danced with meringue ladies, made a life-size edible and tasty cake version of her family to be eaten by visitors, and cured thousands of her pea patients with their many 'unreasonable' psychological and behavioural problems with her therapy empire 'How to Live'. She joins art critic Roger Cardinal on the judge's panel, the originator of the English term Outsider Art in 1972. Outside In: National will be accompanied by complementary displays of Jean Dubuffet and Scottish self-taught artist Pat Douthwaite. www.outsidein.org.uk
Paul Bellingham (Outside In Entrant), Flowers of Romance
gallery acquires important new work An anonymous donor has presented a painting by the contemporary artist Annie Kevans (b.1972) entitled 'Bobbie Driscoll in Black' (2009). The portrait is from the artist's 'Lost Boys' series and depicts the American child actor, who later descended into drug dependency. The painting was part of the Macmillan De'Longhi Art Auction in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support and forms a significant addition to the gallery's holdings of contemporary art.
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Peter de Francia, Ship of Fools, 1972, Oil on canvas, Pallant House Gallery (Wilson Gift through The Art Fund), © Estate of Peter de Francia
Peter de Francia dies aged 90 We are sad to announce that the painter Peter de Francia has died aged 90. Born in France to a FrancoItalian father and an English mother, de Francia attended l'Academie Royal des Beaux Arts in Brussels and later studied at the Slade School. From 1973–1986 he was Professor of Painting at the Royal College of Art. A committed socialist, de Francia established his reputation in the 1950s with his powerful politically and socially-engaged paintings and drawings such as the powerful triptych 'A Diary of Our Times' (1974) in the Gallery's Permanent Collection, which represents a political torture scene from the Algerian war. His highly individual style is rooted in the European figurative tradition of Picasso, Léger and the German Expressionists Beckmann and Grosz. Happy birthday Pallant House Pallant House Gallery has commissioned ceramic artist Bouke de Vries to create an installation in the eighteenth-century stairwell using the Gallery's Collection of Bow porcelain to mark the 300th anniversary of Pallant House. The Collection is the most comprehensive record of the output of this London factory, consisting of over 300 key examples produced between the years 1747 and 1776. De Vries joins the line-up of contemporary artists commissioned to produce a work for the stairwell which includes Susie MacMurray, Spencer Finch, Nina Saunders and Paul Huxley. The new work will be unveiled in June and will be a key part of the 300th anniversary celebrations.
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figure in a landscape Selsey-born painter Keith Vaughan may not be a household name but an exhibition to mark his centenary offers a timely opportunity to reassess his legacy, argues Curator Simon Martin
While Wakefield celebrates its association with Barbara Hepworth, Margate has JMW Turner and Eastbourne has Eric Ravilious, Selsey is perhaps not a place that anyone would think to associate with a major British artist. Yet, exactly a century ago, this coastal village near Chichester was the birthplace of Keith Vaughan (1912–1977). His family moved to London very soon afterwards, but Sussex remained a formative presence in his life: educated at Christ's Hospital at Horsham, he spent seaside holidays at Pagham in the 1930s with his brother Dick and friends, recording the visits in paintings and photographs, and in later years he frequently spent weekends in the South Downs visiting friends such as the poet Alan Ross and his wife. Although Keith Vaughan may not be a household name as are Turner or Hepworth, he was undoubtedly one of the finest figurative painters in post-war Britain. In the words of the former Whitechapel Director Bryan Robertson, Vaughan's 'brilliantly realised gifts would find their place among some of the best work done in the country in the twentieth century.' The centenary exhibition at Pallant House Gallery presents some of those 'brilliantly realised gifts', revealing his mastery of the gouache medium, an experimental approach to handling oil paint and drawings that have a distinctive and powerfully expressive broken-edged line. Vaughan is perhaps best-known for his paintings of the male figure. Indeed, he reinforced this notion of his work in his eloquent journals, recording his belief that: 'a painter
has only one basic idea which probably lasts him a life time. Mine is the human figure.' Central to the exhibition are Vaughan's paintings of the male nude, but while this was undoubtedly an abiding concern for the artist, it is only part of the story. These paintings transcend what might be seen as homoeroticism to express a wider, humanist vision of mankind. Whereas Francis Bacon's copulating or wrestling figures morph within the fixed boundaries of an urban room setting, Vaughan's images of man (with the exception of his private sketchbooks) seem to be rooted in a chaste classicism and, more often than not, are positioned within a landscape setting. As a theme, the 'romantic' subject of the figure in the landscape has its roots in the classical poetry of Virgil, and the pastoral tradition of Giorgione, Claude, William Blake and Samuel Palmer. During his career Vaughan was to expand the stylistic boundaries of this motif through painterly experimentation, drawing on the Modernist visual languages of artists such as Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, Philip Guston and Nicholas de Staël. The exhibition charts this trajectory from the romanticism of Vaughan's early work, to the almost completely abstract paintings that he produced in later years. Although always a figurative painter on one level, Vaughan's later work oscillates on the edges of abstraction whilst always remaining anchored to its starting point in representation. With his nuanced approach to composition, questioning in paint how figures can relate to each other, how far a form can be
Keith Vaughan, Neopolitan Bathers, 1951, Oil on board, Private collection courtesy Osborne Samuel Gallery, London, © The Estate of Keith Vaughan
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Keith Vaughan, Standing Figure – Kouros, 1960, Oil on canvas, Private collection courtesy Anthony Hepworth Fine Art, © The Estate of Keith Vaughan
abstracted whilst remaining a figure, Vaughan is held in high esteem by painters, but he moves beyond being merely a 'painter's painter' to addressing issues to do with the human condition that affect us. Along with artists such as John Minton (with whom he shared a house in 1946), John Piper, Robert Colquhoun and Robert MacBryde, Vaughan has been classified as a British 'Neo-Romantic' artist whose work presented a nostalgic and elegiac response to nature. This was perhaps true of his early work when he was working out his own artistic voice. Vaughan often cited the influence of the Brangwyn murals at Christ's Hospital, but did not attend art school in any formal sense. Instead he joined Lintas, the in-house advertising agency at Unilever in the art department. A conscientious objector during the Second World War, he joined the Pioneer Corps after initially serving with the St John's Ambulance, and although he had twelve works purchased by Kenneth Clark for the War Artists Advisory Committee he was never appointed as an Official War Artist. At this time Vaughan's work presents a fusion of his contemporaries: a group of wartime ink wash drawings of a nude male sheltering in a rocky cave reflect both the Underground shelter drawings of Henry Moore and the organic rock forms 20
of Graham Sutherland. The vulnerability of the figure, curled up in an almost foetal position, seems to be a wider metaphor for humanity during the war. The landscape seems to offer protection, or least solace, and the title of some of these drawings 'Seligkeit' translates from German as 'salvation' (Vaughan worked as a German translator in a prisoner of war camp). Other paintings reveal a yearning for tenderness amidst the devastation of war as in 'Night in the Streets of the City' (1943) in which a sorrowful couple embrace within a bomb-damaged street. Vaughan's paintings often seem to express a longing for a connection of some kind: the lighting of a cigarette, the holding of hands, but what is often conveyed is a sense of difficulty in connecting. He wrote in his journals of being drawn to: 'a state of tension which results when two different things of different natures are brought together. A figure in a landscape, the natural world and the human world, a man lighting his cigarette from the butt of another's – the essential separateness of individuals momentarily united in a single gesture – these to me are situations of conflict. In painting I seek for reconciliation. I seek a common unit of construction with which, while each individual object retains its essential identity both can be built anew together in order and harmony.' In this respect the paintings reflect both Vaughan's troubled sexuality that he discussed with remarkable frankness in his journals and the wider questions posed by existentialism of the 1950s. As an illustrator Vaughan created distinctive decorations and book jackets for 1940s literary compilations such as John Lehmann's 'Penguin New Writing' and 'Orpheus', and he taught illustration at Camberwell School from 1946–48 and subsequently at the Central School of Arts, but ultimately his work was to depart from the English narrative tradition. He became more interested in structure than illustration, working with oil paint to flatten forms and stress rhythm and colour. For example, his study for the central mural in the Dome of Discovery at the 1951 Festival of Britain reveals how Vaughan was reconciling the lessons of European modernists such as Matisse and Braque with the English landscape tradition. Vaughan's use of verdant greens in the 1950s is utterly unmistakable, but his colour palette was to expand to encompass piercing blues and warm ochres. The 'Assembly of Figures' series produced throughout the 1950s and 1960s continue the grand tradition of figurative painting. Brought together they
Keith Vaughan, Village in Ireland, 1954, Oil on hardboard, Courtesy of the Government Art Collection (UK), Š The Estate of Keith Vaughan
have an almost religious intensity, but remain secular in intent. Whilst paintings such as 'The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian' have a basis in biblical subject matter, it is more that Vaughan is reconsidering the paintings of the past. There is sensuality, but it is generally reserved for his handling of paint. His awareness of classical statuary and his travels in Greece were to inform the almost timeless quality of paintings such as 'Standing Figure - Kouros' (1960), while a trip to Morocco inspired 'Musicians at Marrakesh' (1966–70), which was recently acquired by Pallant House Gallery from the estate of the major Vaughan collector, Professor John Ball. The formal tonal relationships in such paintings reflect his efforts to 'make something at once very real and very abstract...the human figure as an abstract element, like a musical chord', as Vaughan was to write in his 1968 journal. Vaughan's significance as a landscape artist has perhaps been overshadowed by his figure paintings. In paintings such as 'Black Rocks and Beach Huts, Whitby Bay' (c.1955) and 'Cenarth Farm' (1962–63) Vaughan employed blocks of paint to create a sense of spatial recession through colour and form, rather than through conventional perspective. The impact of his trip to America in 1959 and term as Resident Painter
at Iowa State University is evident on paintings such as 'Landscape with Steeple, Iowa' in which he appears to reconcile the pastoral imagery of Samuel Palmer with the bold forms of American abstraction. As with his figure paintings, Vaughan used the landscape as a vehicle to experiment with structure and formal concerns, and in this respect it reflects his prevailing attempts to 'pare away the inessentials until the subject matter becomes irrelevant.' Despite considerable success during his lifetime, including the award of a CBE in 1965, Vaughan became increasingly melancholic and reclusive in later life and eventually committed suicide in 1977. His centenary in 2012 provides an opportunity to reconsider Vaughan's position not only as a pre-eminent painter of the human form, but also as a leading British landscape artist. While there is no blue plaque for Vaughan in Selsey, the exhibition nearby at Pallant House Gallery should form a fitting tribute in the county of his birth. Keith Vaughan: Romanticism to Abstraction is in the main Galleries from 10 March to 10 June. Simon Martin will lead two Curator's tours on Thurs 5 April and Wed 18 April at 10.30am. Robin Child will give a talk about Vaughan's work on Thurs 3 May, 6pm (p.54). 21
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the doors of perception As the first museum exhibition for 40 years of the work of the visionary artist Robin Ironside (1912–1965) goes on show in the De'Longhi Print Room, agony aunt and journalist Virginia Ironside introduces the impressive legacy of her 'eccentric relation' in the centenary of his birth.
Every child needs an eccentric relation. Their inspiring presence makes one realise that the exciting and perhaps dangerous life which we can all imagine, can actually exist. In my family, it was my uncle, Robin Ironside, who provided the eccentricity. And I only wish he were still here to enjoy the forthcoming exhibition of his work at Pallant House Gallery. My father and he had been born one year and one day apart, in 1912 and 1913. Robin was thin, lively, wiry, original and obsessive; my father solid, dogged, contemplative, sedentary. Robin never attended art school; my father studied life drawing at the Central School, and could draw anything from ears, to tigers, to flying saucers, to gasworks. After attending courses at the Courtauld and the Sorbonne, my uncle became, in 1937, Assistant Keeper at the Tate under the director John Rothenstein. But nine years later, after the war, Robin's loathing for the bureaucracy of the gallery, his passion for writing and painting and the urging of his creative demons, forced him to resign. Thereafter, he lived in penury in Victoria where he devoted himself to writing about art – for Horizon, Encounter, the World Review - and painting minutely detailed romantic pictures. He revived an interest in the Pre-Raphaelites almost single-handedly and coined the term 'neo-romantic' in one of his many essays. To execute his immensely detailed paintings, Robin often used a magnifying glass, and it is almost possible to see the very weave of his painted silk
Robin Ironside, Rossetti's Willow Wood, Watercolour and gouache with pen and ink on paper Š Estate of the artist
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Robin Ironside, Break for Music, Watercolour and gouache on paper ©Estate of the artist
drapes, the skeletons of leaves, or the tiniest veins on a hand on one of his haunted figures. The subjects of his pictures, which owed a lot to John Piper, John Martin and perhaps Fuseli and classical sculpture, were nearly all totally imaginary, usually with literary, scholarly or classical themes. Often the brothers worked together. They designed the scenery and costumes for Delibes' ballet, Sylvia, and an Old Vic production of A Midsummer Night's Dream; one year they designed the setting for the Ideal Home exhibition – with Robin conceiving a giant classical chariot of horses which leaped out above all the bungalows at Olympia, threatening, it seemed, to stampede the visitors beneath their hooves. Robin was addicted to the stomach-settling medicine, Dr.Collis Browne, which contained opium. He liked to experiment, too, with other drugs. Once, under the influence of mescaline, he became so captivated by the colours and shapes of a cabbage on his kitchen table, he drew a meticulous picture of it at four am. He woke to find he'd executed a perfect and immaculate drawing – of a cabbage. In order to exist, Robin needed patrons. He knew Emerald Cunard, Ann Fleming, the Hultons, Lady Clementine Beit, and he was great friends with Sir 40
Kenneth Clark and his daughter Collette, Joan and Patrick Leigh-Fermor, Cyril Connolly, Maurice Bowra and Angus Wilson - he was responsible for getting Angus's first stories published in Horizon. Gradually, Robin, who never looked after himself, burned himself out with non-stop creative activity. He smoked over 60 cigarettes a day, stayed up till all hours and slept less and less, he took Benzedrine to keep awake and sleeping pills to sleep, and only rarely had meals – all of which resulted in him getting progressively thinner, giving his eyes a nervous, glittering look. He died, aged 53, from a heart attack. Although a few of Robin's pictures are kept in public galleries, they're rarely seen and most of them are in the hands of relatives, private collectors or personal friends. While one finds her picture so creepy that she keeps it hidden behind a door, I'm delighted that the work of my uncle, with his strange, esoteric talent is finally being given the recognition it deserves. 'Robin Ironside: Neo-Romantic Visionary' is in the De'Longhi Print Room (27 Feb to 22 April). Virginia Ironside will give a talk about the artist on Thurs 22 March, 6pm (p.53). A fully illustrated book by Virginia Ironside and Peter Boughton will be published to coincide with the centenary(p.57).
The Ingram Collection of Modern British Art Otter Gallery, 2 March-15 April The Otter Gallery is delighted to collaborate with The Lightbox gallery and museum, Woking, for this exhibition of modern and contemporary British art. The Ingram Collection of Modern British Art has been amassed over the last 20 years by Chris Ingram, an entrepreneur and owner of Woking Football Club. Now on longterm loan to The Lightbox, the collection includes over 350 works that span nearly 100 years of art from the 1900s to the present day, by artists including Sir Anthony Caro, Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, Dame Elisabeth Frink, Edward Burra, Eric Gill, Barbara Hepworth and Leon Underwood. This exhibition features a selection of paintings and sculpture from the collection. Otter Gallery University of Chichester College Lane Chichester PO19 6PE
Free Admission 01243 816098 www.chi.ac.uk/ottergallery infoart@chi.ac.uk
Image: Leon Underwood (1890-1975). Atalanta, 1938. Bronze with a dark brown patina. The Ingram Collection The Lightbox gallery and museum, Woking, Surrey. Š JP Bland Photography
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Tuesday, Thursday, Friday 10:00 - 5:00 Wednesday 10:00 - 8:00 Saturday 10:00 - 2:00 and at other times by appointment
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back to the future To mark his solo studio exhibition, 'Artefacts from the Contrarium', artist and Partner in Art Ian Sherman gives an insight into his technology and organic-influenced paintings and assemblages. I have always had visual inclinations. I still have a wooden church that I made when I was about seven years old out of a piece of driftwood. Being so young, my hands were very small and I remember finding it difficult to saw and being frustrated that I was not more skilful at it. My father was always making things and I wanted to be more like him. Now, with my assemblages, I tend not to mind if they are quite primitive. I am not striving for them to be highly finished. I studied product design at college but I was a bit too eccentric for the course. I was in my early 20s and had just completed a Foundation Course in Fine Art. I remember being asked to do a piece for a watch project and I made a sort of wire structure featuring yellow coffins. The tutor asked me why I had chosen to do that and I explained that I saw time as partly to do with death but I also knew that he wanted it to be saleable so I had chosen to paint the coffins yellow (well people like bright things!). I took the course because I had thought I might have a more industrial side to my nature but it hasn't really worked out like that. Art is very much a freedom from repression for me, a way of stopping a sense of being restricted Ian Sherman, Monument to Time, 1997, Mixed media Š the artist
or controlled. After college I took a job in the civil service at the Ministry of Defence. I felt a bit of a failure at leaving without employment in the art world but I ended up becoming influenced by the ethos and aesthetics – the locked cabinets and corridors - and the weirdness and strange practices of the job. Later I worked in the Dockyard Laboratory in Portsmouth which, like the MOD job, was very institutionalised. There were some extraordinary characters there. I had a boss whose philosophy was that employees are Government property and so are their thoughts. He was incredibly obsessive, and, after the lab had been closed due to Government reductions, I found a drawer full of sea shells which he had painstakingly numbered. The episode inspired one of my sculptures, 'Apparatus for numbering sea shells'. I tend to see a tension between formality and anarchy in my work - the world itself is like that. I work in essentially two bodies of work: the genre paintings and the assemblages and related paintings. It is a bit like a split personality and the process is cyclical with one a diversion from the other. This exhibition will be drawn almost entirely from my assemblages and related paintings. I first started them in the early 1990s when I threw some molten wax into cold water and then added small fragments and found objects using resins. I had a vision of a room filled with eerie monolithic objects that tended to evoke silence. It was like seeing a life-time's work that had to be made. I am still working on this twenty years later. 43
Left Ian Sherman, Experimental Compulsive Aviator, 2004 Above Ian Sherman, A Comedian
The assemblages usually start with a title, for instance 'Guardian of Solitude' and then certain objects are arranged and begin a relationship with each other. In that case I found a broken ceramic boy's head for the solitude element while the guardian was a stone which resembled a gargoyle. Sometimes I will change things quite drastically, even taking a hammer to them if I have a sudden change of heart. I find it difficult to say that any are completely finished and in fact I don't like selling them as I am always adding to them. Some of my friends find it odd when I am delighted by finding just the right small stone or fragment. My related paintings are often ideas which I do not envisage in three dimensions. The floating and flying things lend themselves to painting and seem to stretch my imagination. I try to infuse some unity between these 2D works and the assemblages. I have often thought that an artist's relationship with an inanimate object is that of a remote puppeteer. I explored this in a painting in 2005 called 'I the inanimate' in which a ventriloquist's dummy appears to be pushing itself up from a table. It was quite uncanny. I am quite contrary. I do not tend to do myself any favours in that I am not interested in fashions. At a time when minimalism was fashionable and hurtling 44
to its inevitable conclusion of nothing at all, I was heading in the opposite direction of slow additions over a relatively long period. I am constantly working against the modern obsession that an artist's work has to be about now. I probably paint like it's the 1920s but I am not consciously doing that, it's just how I see things, I think I have a different perception of time. My work is sometimes compared to Steam Punk, a sub-genre of elaborate fantasy 'Victorian technology'. Until recently I had never heard of it, but I do admire it. I see myself on the fringes of outsider art in the sense that I work in an isolated and intuitive way. Some of the non-traditional artists at Pallant House Gallery are largely free from imposed doctrines so their work retains a humanity and life force which is often rejected in contemporary art. I had to consciously purge myself of most of the things I had learned at art school and look for a different kind of art practice. It was like starting from scratch. Ian Sherman's solo exhibition, Artefacts from the Contrarium, is in the studio at Pallant House Gallery from 27 March to 29 April 2012. For more information about Outside In and to see more of Ian's work go to www.outsidein.org.uk.
FULL–TIME PROGRAMMES AND SHORT COURSES IN VISUAL ARTS MA Visual Arts/MFA Fine Art, Painting and Drawing, Sculpture, Tapestry and Textile Art University of Sussex validated MA/MFA Degrees, Graduate & Postgraduate Diplomas and West Dean College Diplomas Short courses in Botanical Art and Illistration, Drawing, Painting & Printmaking Foundation Diploma in Art and Design
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION (+44) 01243 811 301 reception@westdean.org.uk
West Dean College, West Dean, Chichester, West Sussex, PO18 0QZ www.westdean.org.uk/college
ART WITHOUT WALLS Paintings by Philippa Paterson Nicola Hancock and Janet Branscombe One glorious weekend only: Fri 29th June to Sun 1st July 10am to 5pm daily and a celebration on Saturday 30th June 6–10pm
Home Farm Pop-up Gallery
Hollycombe, Liphook, Hants GU30 7LR
e. philippa.paterson@googlemail.com
07767678002 / 07985965570 / 07791005474
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plate expectations
Rosie Simmons is the founder of 3cubed, a design-led ceramics company in West Sussex, where she organises the production of her own ranges and the awardwinning company Timorous Beasties. Rosie has been commissioned to make a limited edition plate to mark 300 years of Pallant House which will be launched in April. How do you describe your style? My style is eclectic; I could describe it as traditional with a modern twist since I work as a craftsperson and use industrial methods of production. I have a strong eye for detail and really enjoy the business of drawing and painting delicate and intricate patterns. I was able to develop and consolidate these skills during my time working for Wedgwood as a ceramics surface designer. Who or what most inspires you? I have always loved drawing from nature, this is why I am particularly happy to be living in the Sussex countryside now where I am surrounded by possible sources of inspiration. I also enjoy delving into the past and researching into different cultures and different materials to explore various aesthetic influences across the world and throughout time. I am inspired by anything from a delicate Chinese 14th century porcelain bowl to a Victorian drain-pipe.
What drew you to ceramics? Ceramics could be said to be the oldest art form. I work with the most basic raw material of clay but many different disciplines are applied to the material and those disciplines have had differing degrees of importance and impact over time and within different cultures. I love the fact that this complexity of process produces endless variety in form and design. The technical challenges in the process are highly complex and there are so many exciting possibilities and I love the fact that in the end there will always be that element of surprise – what emerges from the kiln, or what becomes the final surface, will never be the same as one's original drawing. Where I am in my element is using pattern and form together. It is the practical functionality of the product that appeals to me in ceramics rather than the product as a piece of sculpture or installation. What are you planning for the Pallant House commission? I am fascinated by all the stories connected with Elizabeth and Henry Peckham and the birth of their house. As both the inside and outside of the house is filled with fine detailed craftsmanship in so many materials – wrought iron, brick, plaster, wood – it is ideal to home in on some of these intricate pieces and highlight their beauty on to ceramics. I am also exploring connections between the 1707 Act of Union and the carvings on the façade of the house. The two ostrich/dodo carvings are so engaging I want to incorporate in some way the family crest containing the original ostrich. Obviously it was a significant emblem for the family so I want to highlight that too. For more information about the limited edition plate contact the Bookshop on 01243 770813 www.pallantbooksop.com 47
Chairman of the Friends' Letter
Vivi-Mari Carpelan, Contemplating the Nature of Triumph, handmade mixed media collage with beads Š the artist
Dear Friends, Patrons and Gallery Club members I am delighted to be greeting you in this, our 30th Anniversary year, during which we will be celebrating with some special events to mark this exciting milestone. During the summer months of June, July and August we will be launching the 'Three for All Appeal' and I so much hope that you will support this and together make 2012 a year we will all feel proud to remember. We are also celebrating two centenaries this spring. Firstly Keith Vaughan, who is being commemorated by an important exhibition opening in March, and secondly Robin Ironside, whose centenary exhibition opened in the Print Room last month. It also gives me great pleasure to congratulate the Chichester Festival Theatre on their Jubilee year. We will be celebrating with them by showing The Art of Chichester Festival Theatre: A Celebration, which promises to be an interesting and exciting exhibition. A number of Friends have generously sent donations in support of the exhibition David Dawson: Working with Lucian Freud, which will run until May. It is very encouraging to know that so many of you are interested in being involved with our exhibition programme. Your interest and your support are greatly appreciated and we thank you for the ÂŁ500 you raised towards the funding for this. Looking to the future, we are very excited about
the Outside In: National exhibition for which plans are now being made. As you probably know we are the centre of excellence in this field of community engagement, and it will be for this exciting project that we will be asking for your support once more. I am sure you feel, as do I, that Outside In and the community aspect of our work is one of the most rewarding and worthwhile ventures with which we are involved. It is very good news that over the past few months a number of Friends have upgraded their membership to become Gallery Club members and Patrons. This will give them a closer involvement with Pallant House (and access to additional benefits). If you are considering doing this or would like to know more about upgrading, please contact the Friends Office by emailing friends@pallant.org.uk or calling 01243 770815 and they will be happy to give you details and answer your questions. I hope that you will enjoy this anniversary year and I thank you all, longstanding members and new members alike, for the support you give to the Friends. During the past year the Gallery has increasingly attracted publicity in the national press and of course you, the Friends, by spreading the word have contributed greatly to this. I very much look forward to meeting many of you here in the Gallery during 2012. Lady Nicholas Gordon Lennox, Chairman of the Friends of Pallant House Gallery Pallant House Gallery Friends
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'Get people to look at the Art'
When I was asked to be a guide I was both flattered and scared. How could I learn about all the works in the collection? I don't have a degree in art history; I'm not a painter; could I really do this? But art has been my passion for years and I had done a course on Western Art. And you're not expected to know about all the works straight away. You start doing a highlights tour, choosing eight works and ensuring they are representative of the collection. I was membership secretary of the Friends for five years and knew about the Gallery. I was a lecturer and had been taught how to address a group, which I should say for anyone considering guiding is a skill not a gift and so can be learnt. Being a guide is tremendously rewarding. Partly, it is the intellectual challenge of researching the artists and works. And I was not left on my own; there is a camaraderie amongst the guides and people were willing to lend me notes and offer advice. Helen Martin gives unwavering encouragement and Simon Martin updates us with tours of incoming exhibitions. Then there's the library, an invaluable resource where Sarah and Gillian readily give of their extensive knowledge about every aspect of the Collection. Like all guides I shadowed others on their tours, and still do. It is refreshing to see how another guide approaches a subject. Secondly, there is the enjoyment of sharing your passion for the artists and their works. Every tour is different, no matter how many times you do it. 50
Pallant House Gallery Friends
And people are so responsive; sometimes I find a comment shows me something new in a work, sending my thoughts in a different direction. That is very exciting. Of course tours don't always go according to plan. We have all experienced those who think they know more than you and want to prove it, who want to talk about works not on the tour, or sidetrack you into discussing their pet theory. The worst tour I did was my first highlights tour when I had just two women who were friends, one very interested in art and the other very obviously bored stiff. I staggered through trying to balance the interests of the two and at the end was convinced I wasn't cut out to be a guide. But it is from the difficult tours that you learn most and I quickly realised the importance of adapting to the group. After all, they come to enjoy themselves. We all have our personal approach, some are born storytellers whose tours are spiced with gossip, others are knowledgeable about art history and provide in-depth appreciation of the works. But what unites us all is a passion for the Collection. When I started guiding my greatest fear was, "what happens if I dry up?". The answer is quite simple: look at the work. After all, that's what we are here to do. Get people to look at the art. Beth Funnell For more information about becoming a guide please contact Helen Martin h.martin@pallant.org.uk. Highlights Tours run every Saturday at 2pm and Themed Tours on Thursday evenings at 5.15pm
what's on Friends' events
Ann Curtis, Costume design for Norman Rodway as Enobarbus in Antony & Cleopatra in 1985. © the artist
Friends' Private View Sunday 11 March, 10am An exclusive chance for you to enjoy your own private view of Keith Vaughan: Romanticism to Abstraction, The Art of Chichester Festival Theatre: A Celebration and Robin Ironside: Neo-Romantic Visionary. Free. Coffee and biscuits will be provided. Art Book Club Sunday 18 March, 2.30–4pm The book which will be discussed this month is Sir Roy Strong's Visions of England – a rural arcadia, he suggests, celebrated by painters and poets. Is he right? £5 includes tea and Field and Fork cakes. Curator's Tour: Keith Vaughan Friday 23 March, 10.30am Friends only tour of the exhibition Keith Vaughan: Romanticism to Abstraction. £5 (£2.50 student Friends) includes coffee and biscuits.
Tickets 01243 774557 (Booking Required)
Annual Friends' Party Monday 26 March, 5.30–7.30pm We now have 4000 Friends, come and meet each other! Meet the staff too and learn more about the forthcoming Friends' programme. Fizz, canapés and conversation. £10 Art and Wine in Sussex Thursday 24 May, 2–6pm An opportunity to visit Arden and Anstruther's new home in Pulborough followed by a visit to nearby Nutbourne Vineyards. Arden and Anstruther have an amazing collection of photographs including 20th century classics from Penn, Avedon, Salgado and Mapplethorpe. Nutbourne Vineyards are part of the renaissance of English wine, producing award-winning still and sparkling wines. We will be taken on a guided tour of the vineyards and then return to explore and understand the Winery. This will be followed by a tasting. £25 includes wine tasting and nibbles. Transport is not
included. Make your own way to Arden and Anstruther where the afternoon will begin. Maps and travel instructions will be provided. Please contact the Friends' Office if you need a lift. SAVE THE DATE Fab Sixties Party Saturday 30 June, 7.30–10pm To coincide with Peter Blake and Pop Music exhibition (23 June to 7 October 2012) and to celebrate 30 years of the Friends. Relive the Pop Scene, dress the part and vote for the best Sixties gear. Fizz, food and fun. £30 Annual General Meeting Monday 30 July, 6pm All Friends are welcome to attend to meet our Chairman and Trustees to hear the review of the financial year. The meeting will be followed by a short talk by a guest speaker, details will be published in the summer issue of the Magazine. Free. Followed by a glass of wine in the Garden Gallery.
Pallant House Gallery Friends
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patrons of the gallery We are immensely grateful to our Gallery Club members, the following Patrons of Pallant House Gallery, and to all those who wish to remain anonymous, for their generous support:
Mr and Mrs John Addison Smith Keith Allison Lady Susan Anstruther John and Annoushka Ayton David and Elizabeth Benson Edward and Victoria Bonham Carter Henry Bourne and Harriet Anstruther Vanessa Branson Patrick K F Donlea Frank and Lorna Dunphy Lewis Golden Paul and Kay Goswell Mr and Mrs Scott Greenhalgh Mr and Mrs Alan Hill
Kevin A S Jamieson James and Clare Kirkman Lefevre Fine Art Ltd Robin Muir and Paul Lyon-Maris Angie O’Rourke Catherine and Franck Petitgas Charles Rolls Mr and Mrs David Russell Sophie and David Shalit Tania Slowe and Paddy Walker John and Fiona Smythe Jane and Anthony Weldon Tim and Judith Wise John Young
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Pallant House Gallery Friends
what's on gallery talks
Robin Ironside, 'Death of a Good Woman (Unfinished)' c.1949, Oil and pencil on canvas © Estate of the artist
Virginia Ironside on Robin Ironside Thursday 22 March, 6pm A self-taught painter of Surrealist fantasies, designer for the theatre and writer on art, Robin Ironside was, according to agony aunt and journalist Virginia Ironside: 'thin, lively, wiry, original and obsessive' with a penchant for hard living (he dabbled in mescaline and smoked 60 cigarettes a day). She introduces her 'eccentric relation' to coincide with his centenary exhibition in the De'Longhi Print Room. Talk + wine: £12 (Friends £10.50). Talk only: £8.50 (Friends £7, Students £7.50)
Pamela Howard: Designing for the Stage Thursday 29 March, 6pm Professor Pamela Howard OBE, curator and designer of the exhibition The Art of Chichester Festival Theatre: A Celebration, has worked as a stage designer and scenographer for over 40 years. She will draw on her extensive experience of designing for the theatre, from her work as a headdress maker for 'The Broken Heart' at Chichester Festival Theatre in 1962, to realising over 200 productions at major national and regional theatres in the UK, Europe and USA. Talk + wine: £12 (Friends £10.50). Talk only: £8.50 (Friends £7, Students £7.50)
Gerard Hastings on Keith Vaughan's Journals Thursday 12 April, 6pm Keith Vaughan's journals which he kept throughout his life have become as celebrated as his artwork. First published in 1966 and more extensively in 1989 after his death they are, in the words of his publisher Alan Ross, 'a selfportrait of astonishing honesty: devoid of disguise in any shape or form, or hypocrisy. It is difficult to think of anything in literature they resemble.' Gerard Hastings, author of a new book on Vaughan's final moving journal, explores one of the greatest pieces of confessional writing of the twentieth-century. Talk + wine: £12 (Friends £10.50). Talk only: £8.50 (Friends £7, Students £7.50) Catherine Lampert: Lucian Freud and his Circle Thursday 19 April, 6pm The late great painter Lucian Freud had an eclectic circle of friends, family and acquaintances drawn from all walks of life, reflected in the variety of faces and bodies that occupy his paintings. Freud has been the central character in the vibrant scene of post-war British figurative artists. Curator and writer Catherine Lampert explores the work of Lucian Freud and his contemporaries such as Andrews, Auerbach, Bacon and Coldstream Talk + wine: £12 (Friends £10.50). Talk only: £8.50 (Friends £7, Students £7.50)
Tickets 01243 774557 (Booking Required)
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David Dawson, Attack of the Zebra, 2010, Oil on canvas, Marlborough Fine Art
Robin Child: Keith Vaughan and the Dynamic of Brokenness Thursday 3 May, 6pm Born in the nearby Sussex village of Selsey, Vaughan was one of the most significant artists of his generation, best-known for his painterly depictions of the male nude in the landscape. Robin Child considers Vaughan's work in relation to the classical tradition and his remarkable artistic technique using gouache and oil paint. Talk + wine: £12 (Friends £10.50). Talk only: £8.50 (Friends £7, Students £7.50) David Dawson in conversation with Barnaby Wright Thursday 10 May, 6pm As the studio assistant, model, and friend of the late great painter Lucian Freud for 20 years, David Dawson was witness to the creation of some of the most celebrated paintings of our age. His unique access led to the development of a portfolio of strikingly intimate photographs of Freud which have become
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iconic works in their own right. To coincide with his exhibition David Dawson will discuss his work and intimate relationship with Dr Barnaby Wright, Daniel Katz Curator of 20th Century Art at the Courtauld Gallery. Talk + wine: £12 (Friends £10.50). Talk only: £8.50 (Friends £7, Students £7.50) Frances Spalding: Prunella Clough Thursday 24 May, 6pm A good friend of painter Keith Vaughan, Prunella Clough (19191999) was one of the best and most original artists to emerge in the second half of the twentieth century. Art historian, critic and biographer Frances Spalding celebrates Clough's outstanding contribution to British art, exploring the key themes and inspirations that informed the artist's work. Talk + wine: £12 (Friends £10.50). Talk only: £8.50 (Friends £7, Students £7.50)
Tickets 01243 774557 (Booking Required)
Charles Darwent: Mondrian and Nicholson Thursday 31 May, 6pm In 1938 the Dutch abstract artist Piet Mondrian moved to London at Ben Nicholson's invitation, where the two worked in neighbouring Hampstead studios at the centre of an international community of avant-garde artists. Art critic of the Independent on Sunday and author of a new book on Mondrian, Charles Darwent explores the largely untold relationship between Piet Mondrian and Ben Nicholson during the 1930s when the two artists were leading forces of abstract art in Europe. Talk + wine: £12 (Friends £10.50). Talk only: £8.50 (Friends £7, Students £7.50) Ron King Thursday 14 June, 6pm Prolific printmaker and book artist Ron King is best known for founding the Circle Press in 1967, a private press formed to design, print and distribute artists' books. Since then he has collaborated with more than 100 artists, writers and poets to produce an extensive body of work unique in its variety and quality. To coincide with his exhibition in the De'Longhi Print Room, he will talk about his life and career. Talk + wine: £12 (Friends £10.50). Talk only: £8.50 (Friends £7, Students £7.50)
Find the rest of the public programme including tours, screenings and workshops in the What's On guide or online at www.pallant.org.uk To book telephone 01243 774557 or at www.pallant.org.uk
Booking Form Please print and check all details carefully. Incomplete forms and incorrect details will delay the processing procedure. Event
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We endeavour to accommodate any special requirements. Please ring 01243 774557 to discuss your needs.
bookshop
www.pallantbookshop.com Telephone 01243 781293
Keith Vaughan: Paintings & Drawings Exhibition Catalogue 2007 This Keith Vaughan publication accompanied the exhibition held at Osborne Samuel Gallery from 24 May - 23 June 2007. This title also includes an essay by art historian Andrew Lambirth and a biography compiled by John Ball. £25 (Paperback)
Chichester Festival Theatre: A Celebration by Pamela Howard The first purpose-built thrust stage theatre in the UK, Chichester Festival Theatre was at the forefront of design innovation when it opened 50 years ago. Renowned scenographer Professor Pamela Howard OBE began her career as a head-dress maker for one of the first productions in 1962. She has produced this specially commissioned limited edition print to commemorate the anniversary. £45
Freud At Work: Lucian Freud in conversation with Sebastian Smee. Photographs by David Dawson and Bruce Bernard In this rare snapshot Lucian Freud talks candidly with Sebastian Smee about painting, the demands of his work and the painters he admires. The results reveal various stages of works in progress and the intensity of the activity in this very secret domain. £30 (Hardback) 'A is for armadillo' by Ron King 'A is for Armadillo' is an original signed limited edition taken from a Bestiary publication by Ron King, with poems by Richard Price. Edition of 50. £75
Robin Ironside: Neo-Romantic Visionary A fully-illustrated book by Virginia Ironside and Peter Boughton with contributions from Simon Martin published to coincide with the centenary of the birth of the visionary artist, Robin Ironside, and the exhibition in the De'Longhi Print Room. Price tbc Keith Vaughan: Gouaches, Drawings & Prints Exhibition Catalogue 2011 Catalogue produced for the exhibition held at Osborne Samuel Gallery from 20 October - 12 November 2011. Includes colour plates throughout illustrating the works included in the exhibition as well as an essay by Gerard Hastings, written especially for the catalogue. £25 (Hardback)
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CHICHESTER FESTIVAL THEATRE
THE NEXT 50 YEARS BEGIN SOON FESTIVAL 2012 WILL BE ANNOUNCED IN FEBRUARY
01243 781312 cft.org.uk
Opening of Edward Burra Spotted yourself on our photo pages? Photographs from all our previews are available to view and buy online at www.photoboxgallery.com/pallant. The password is 'pallant'. All photographs by Jason Hedges
(Left to Right) Norman Coates, Yvonne and John Milwood, Pamela Howard, Rocky Hamilton
(Left to Right) Frank and Cheryl Cohen, James Holland-Hibbert and Inks Raphael, Jolyn Drury and Andrew Lambirth
(Left to Right) Patrick Donlea and Nigel Wainwright, Michael Regan and Katherine Crouan, Nigel and Paul Soper, and Howard Watson and Miranda Harrison
If you would like to hire the Gallery for a party, private dining event or a canapĂŠ reception please contact Helen Martin on 01243 770838
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Portrait of Richard Peckham Attrib. Thomas Hudson Alan Wood
Thomas Hudson (attributed), Portrait of Richard Peckham, c.1740 © Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, UK
300 years ago, in 1712, inhabitants of Chichester must have been very surprised to see an elegant townhouse being built in North Pallant which had been the preserve of leather workers and tanners for generations. The aroma associated with their crafts, together with brewing and malting, would have made the air unpleasant, to say the least. Nevertheless this was the site chosen by newly-weds Henry and Elizabeth Peckham to set up home. Elizabeth, a widow in her early 40s, brought £10,000 to the marriage, inherited from her brother, a Captain in the Royal Navy. Henry, an ambitious 27-year-old businessman, came from a well-established, though financially troubled, local family. At 16, he had inherited his father's debts but by 1711, had eventually managed to pay them off. Nevertheless his proposal was viewed with suspicion and a pre-marital contract was agreed which paid Elizabeth an annual sum of £50 and £2,000 for her to leave to whoever she wished in her will. Henry had many relations and Richard Peckham, the subject of the May Artwork of the Month, is a distant cousin who reportedly stayed at Pallant House in the 1730s. The painting is attributed to Thomas Hudson (1701–1779), a leading fashionable portraitist in London. Henry and Elizabeth's marriage lasted for just over five years and ended acrimoniously with a lawsuit that 60
dragged on until 1720. Much of the dispute concerned the final cost of the building which, at £3000, was just under double the original estimate. Built over the cellars of a seventeenth century malting house with an external wall incorporated in the structure the house was one of the first in Chichester to have sash windows. The front door is approached by a flight of steps between gate piers surmounted by stone ostriches, the adopted crest of the Peckham family. Together these would have formed a very impressive entrance for visitors. The door case, with pediment and classical pilasters served to create an image of an important resident. That is how Henry saw himself. He wanted to become mayor, something he never achieved despite several attempts. In the absence of an architect, it fell to a local master builder, Henry Smart, to interpret his client's wishes. He was responsible for the entire project and with his team of skilled craftsmen provided special features, including the staircase, with inlays and parquetry, the panelling and, externally, the wrought iron railings. Ironically it was he who became mayor. Richard Peckham is the subject of the Artwork of the Month talk (12 noon) and workshop (1–3pm) on Wed 30 May. The new 300th Anniversary Pallant House tours start on 15 March 5.15pm www.pallant.org.uk
Art insurance specialists For further information, please contact Robert Hepburne-Scott Tel: +44 (0)20 7234 4307 Email: rhscott@heathlambert.com A division of Heath Lambert Limited, authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority
© The Estate of Keith Vaughan. All rights reserved, DACS 2012
Keith Vaughan (1922-1977) Fruit Bearing Tree . signed and dated ‘Vaughan/53’ (lower right) oil on board . 39½ x 28 in. . £40,000-60,000
20th Century British & Irish Art London s Evening Sale 23 May, Day Sale 24 May 2012 Consigment deadline
Contact
12 March 2012
Philip Harley +44 (0)20 7389 2681 pharley@christies.com 8 King Street, SW1Y 6QT
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