Pallant House Gallery - Magazine No.32 (Full Version)

STANLEY SPENCER Heaven in a Hell of War

Andrew Causey and Amanda Bradley on Spencer’s poignant depictions of war From Pencil to Paint Simon Martin on the appeal of artists’ studies Cathedrals of England and France Katy Norris explores the work of Dennis Creffield Intuitive Folk Marc Steene and Mizue Kobayashi introduce four artists from England and Japan

£2 Number 32 February – June 2014 www.pallant.org.uk

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LY N N C H A D W I C K ( 1 9 1 4 - 20 0 3 ) A CENTENARY EXHIBITION

Stranger VII, 1959 Bronze Edition of 6 Height: 83 cm Width: 106 cm Reference: Farr & Chadwick 314

1 6 M AY – 7 J U N E 2 0 1 4 For over 30 years Osborne Samuel have specialised in the work of Lynn Chadwick, arranging many gallery and museum exhibitions around the world. This year we celebrate the centenary of the artist’s birth with a major retrospective at the gallery.

Catalogue available on request.

Copies of Lynn Chadwick by Michael Bird, the new definitive monograph, will be available during the exhibition.

23a Bruton Street London W1J 6QG T: 020 7493 7939 info@osbornesamuel.com www.osbornesamuel.com

— John Caple In the Midnight Wood

John Martin Gallery 38 Albemarle Street London, W1S 4 JG

Tel: 020 7499 1314 info@jmlondon.com

catalogue available

12 February - 15 March 2014

www.jmlondon.com

The Broomsquire’s Journey, 48 x 60 inches

Contents Features

Stanley Spencer, Filling Water Bottles (Detail), South Wall, Sandham Memorial Chapel, Burghclere, Hampshire, 1927–1932 © The Estate of Stanley Spencer 2014. All rights reserved DACs. National Trust Images/John Hammond Cover Image Stanley Spencer, Map-Reading (detail), South Wall, Sandham Memorial Chapel, Burghclere, Hampshire, 1927–1932 © The Estate of Stanley Spencer 2014. All rights reserved DACs. National Trust Images/John Hammond

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

16 The Sandham Memorial Chapel

Amanda Bradley 20 Art as a Mirror of Himself

Andrew Causey 24 Artists' Studies

Simon Martin 28 Dennis Creffield

Katy Norris 32 Portraits of the Artists

Nicholas Sinclair and Emma Robertson 36 Intuitive Folk

Mizue Kobayashi and Marc Steene 40 Mermaids and Motorbikes

Kate Davey 60 Collection in Focus

Rupert Toovey

Friends 47 48 49

Chairman's Letter Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft Friends' Events

Regulars 7 11 15 45 53 57 59

Directors' Letter Exhibitions Diary News Collection News What's On: Events Bookshop Pallant Photos

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Contributors

With thanks

EDITORIAL Editor Emma Robertson, e.robertson@pallant.org.uk Sub Editor Beth Funnell Editorial Assistant Kate Davey Gallery Editorial Kate Davey, Katy Norris, Simon Martin, Emma Robertson, Marc Steene Guest Editorial Amanda Bradley, Andrew Causey, Mizue Kobayashi, Nicholas Sinclair, Rupert Toovey, Hilary Williams Friends' Editorial Lady Nicholas Gordon Lennox Design, Editing and Production David Wynn

STANLEY SPENCER SPONSORS AND SUPPORTERS

ADVERTISING Booking and General Enquiries Paolo Russo +44 (0)207 300 5751 Emily Knowles +44 (0)207 300 5662 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 Closed Tuesday–Saturday 10am–5pm Thursday 10am–8pm Sunday/Bank Holidays 11am–5pm

Stanley Spencer Supporters Circle DENNIS CREFFIELD SUPPORTER

GALLERY SUPPORTERS Headline Sponsor of the Gallery 2014

PALLANT HOUSE GALLERY Friends

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

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.

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TOOVEY’S AnTiquE & FinE ArT AucTiOnEErS & VAluErS

Specialist auctions in the heart of Sussex Free valuations and professional advice on the sale of your art and antiques by auction, by appointment at your home or between 10am and 4pm from Monday to Friday at our Spring Gardens salerooms.

Spring Gardens, A24 Washington, West Sussex RH20 3BS 01903 891955

auctions@tooveys.com

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Proud sponsors of Pallant House Gallery

A very different collection of photographs gathered by Paul Arden

The Paul Arden Gallery om om r.c er.c e th uth tru str s an an 06 and and 2 x n h 65 rden rde s m orth oug usse JR 8 n a a 1 a a w r 8 .

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DIRECTORS' LETTER

We are delighted to introduce a very exciting and rich programme of exhibitions and events for spring 2014, our inaugural season as Co-Directors of the Gallery.

This year the centenary of the First World War will be leading the cultural agenda for many museums and galleries. It is therefore a tremendous coup for Pallant House Gallery to be working with the National Trust to present Stanley Spencer’s murals from the Sandham Memorial Chapel in a museum setting. Described by the historian Simon Schama as ‘the most powerful art to emerge from the carnage of the Great War’, unlike so much of the Official War art that depicts the horrors of the Western Front, the paintings present Spencer’s deeply personal response to his time at the Beaufort Military Hospital and on the Macedonian Front. The paintings will be presented thematically at eye-height, allowing visitors unprecedented access to them. In addition we will be exhibiting the preparatory studies and related works, including several from the University of Chichester’s Bishop Otter collection, which will be seen alongside the paintings for the first time (p.16) Whilst Spencer’s paintings are concerned with the interior decoration of a chapel, the Sussex-based artist Dennis Creffield’s drawings are about the external architecture and presence of sacred edifices.

An exhibition in Room 17 showcases his expressive charcoal drawings of the cathedrals of England and France including Chichester and its French twin, Chartres which were drawn in situ in front of these remarkable buildings (p.28).

Preparatory studies provide a fascinating insight into the working methods and intentions of an artist and, in Rooms 15 and 16, we are presenting paintings by the likes of Walter Sickert, David Bomberg and Graham Sutherland together with the preliminary drawings (p.24). It is rare to have such a three-dimensional view of an artwork, and in this respect we owe much to the architect and collector Colin St John Wilson who had a particular interest in the working methods of artists and donated important groups of work to the Gallery.

The studios in which the artists produce such works are the setting for many of the portraits taken by Nicholas Sinclair whose photographs of artists form an exhibition in the De’Longhi Print Room later this spring (p.32).

Elsewhere, two exhibitions build on the Gallery’s strong reputation for championing and presenting the work of non-traditional artists: Intuitive Folk pairs contemporary drawings by Outside In award winner Chaz Waldren with the Japanese Outsider artist Masao Obata, and work by Jason Pape with Shinichi Sawada, whose ceramic monsters were a celebrated feature of the 2012 Venice Biennale (p.36). In the Studio, the third exhibition in a series celebrating the six award winners of Outside In: National 2012, will showcase the work of Manuel Bonifacio, whose distinctive work is already being widely collected. (p.40).

We hope you enjoy the season and look forward to welcoming you to the Gallery.

Marc Steene, Executive Director Simon Martin, Artistic Director

Stanley Spencer, Filling Water Bottles, South Wall, Sandham Memorial Chapel, Burghclere, Hampshire, 1927–1932 © The Estate of Stanley Spencer 2014. All rights reserved DACs. National Trust Images/John Hammond

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De’Longhi continues its support for the arts in 2014

Sir Peter Blake's 80th birthday concert. Photograph by Jason Buckner

Kelvin Okafor, Stephen Sutton, 2013

De’Longhi, leader in stylish Italian coffee machines, enthusiastically invests in the arts and is now in its sixth year as sponsor of Pallant House Gallery. De’Longhi’s commitment to the arts has continued to grow over the years, as the brand supports and champions artists of varying fame, from graduates to the world-renowned and critically acclaimed. Here, De’Longhi’s Marketing Director, Mark Swift, reflects on some of his favourite moments from the last few years.

Mark explains, “It’s an honour and a privilege to be so closely associated with art institutions such as Pallant House Gallery and the RCA in London. Over the years, there have been some unforgettable moments: the exclusive Paul Weller concert at Pallant House Gallery in celebration of Sir Peter Blake’s birthday – who designed Weller’s ‘Stanley Road’ album cover - was very memorable; and Gavin Turk’s customised one-off De’Longhi bean to cup coffee machine was definitely a highlight.”

For the last few years, De’Longhi has also sponsored the National Open Art Competition, which aims to provide a truly open and fair platform for all UK artists to exhibit, sell and promote their work at exhibitions in London, Chichester and other venues around the UK. In 2012, as part of this competition, Kelvin Okafor was awarded the Catherine Petitgas Visitors’ Choice Prize

after he received the most votes from the public. Kelvin, known for his lifelike portraits which are sometimes mistaken for photographs, was also one of 70 artists that donated to the Macmillan De’Longhi Art Auction held at the RCA in London in September 2013.

2013 was the seventh annual Macmillan De'Longhi Art Auction, where pieces of art from a specially invited selection of contemporary artists went under the hammer to raise funds for Macmillan Cancer Support.

For the first time ever, the event was preceded by a four-day public exhibition of the artworks at the Royal College of Art. The auction itself raised over £116,500 and was overseen by Oliver Barker, one of Sotheby's leading auctioneers, who coordinates Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary art sales at the world famous auction house.

De’Longhi will continue to contribute to the work of Pallant House Gallery in 2014 and is proud to sponsor the Print Room, set to feature a variety of exhibitions over the next 12 months. Visitors can also look forward to sampling delicious De’Longhi coffee at some of the Gallery’s upcoming events.

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For more information about De’Longhi, its products, offers and coffee events visit www.seriousaboutcoffee.com

IVON HITCHENS

From the collection of Ted Floate 10 hitherto unseen oils and 16 drawings Exhibition begins Saturday 15th March 2014 View art and introductory films by Peter Khoroche online Catalogue available

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O R A N G E S T R E E T, U P P I N G H A M , R U T L A N D , L E 1 5 9 S Q 01572 821424 goldmarkart.com

EXHIBITIONS DIARY

Stanley Spencer, Frostbite (Detail), South Wall, Sandham Memorial Chapel, Burghclere, Hampshire, 1927–1932 © The Estate of Stanley Spencer 2014. All rights reserved DACs. National Trust Images/John Hammond

STANLEY SPENCER: HEAVEN IN A HELL OF WAR 15 FEBRUARY – 15 JUNE 2014 Sir Stanley Spencer (1891–1959) is one of the most important English painters of the 20th century. Bestknown for his paintings which elevate ordinary village life to epic, sometimes Biblical grandeur, his most famous large-scale work is the cycle of murals at Sandham Memorial Chapel in the village of Burghclere, Hampshire, now owned by the National Trust. Based on his personal experiences during the First World War, the paintings are considered by many to be the artist’s finest achievement, drawing such praise as ‘Britain’s answer to the Sistine Chapel’. Timed to mark the centenary of the First World War, this new exhibition temporarily relocates the paintings to Pallant House Gallery while the chapel undergoes major conservation work, offering a unique opportunity to see the murals in a gallery setting. The complete cycle of predella and lunette paintings will be shown alongside rarelyseen studies and related works including several on loan from the Otter Gallery at the University of Chichester, further examples of which will feature in a complementary exhibition at the university gallery, Fields to Factories: Women’s Work on the Home Front in the First World War. Main galleries 12–14

ARTISTS’ STUDIES: FROM PENCIL TO PAINT 15 FEBRUARY – 22 JUNE 2014 An exhibition examining the role of drawing and studies in the working methods of artists in the Gallery’s prestigious collection of Modern British art such as Sickert, Bomberg, Caulfield, Hillier, Minton, Coldstream, and Sutherland. Presenting finished compositions alongside preparatory drawings and sketches, it will shed new light on some of the Gallery’s best-known and most celebrated paintings. Highlights include the painting Jack Ashore and a related charcoal study by Walter Sickert; David Bomberg’s squaredup drawings for The South East Corner, Jerusalem; and the Colony Room by Michael Andrews displayed together with a preparatory study. The exhibition will also feature drawings made in series, including Graham Sutherland’s sketches for his celebrated painting Entrance to a Lane on loan from the University of Chichester. Main galleries 15-16 DENNIS CREFFIELD: CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE 15 FEBRUARY – 22 JUNE 2014 Brighton-based artist Dennis Creffield (b.1931) was once described by the American artist R.B. Kitaj as ‘one of England’s most closely guarded secrets’. Born in London, Creffield studied under David Bomberg at the Borough Polytechnic alongside Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff, where he established his Expressionist style. Later Creffield went on to study at the Slade where he was a prize-winner, becoming in due course an effective teacher and a substantial artist in his own right. This exhibition brings together Creffield’s charcoal drawings of English medieval cathedrals that were commissioned in 1987 by the Arts Council, together with their French counterparts. It includes works from the Gallery’s collection donated by the architect Colin St John Wilson, together with loans from the artist. Main gallery 17 11

EXHIBITIONS DIARY DE'LONGHI PRINT ROOM INTUITIVE FOLK: ART FROM ENGLAND AND JAPAN 26 FEBRUARY – 27 APRIL 2014 Building on the growing status of Outsider Art over the past year, this new exhibition pairs the work of two Japanese artists, Masao Obata (1943-2010) and Shinichi Sawada (b.1982) with two British Outside In artists, Chaz Waldren (b.1950) and Jason Pape (b.1986) who each share an intuitive approach to their artistic practice. The exhibition will show Obata’s distinctive drawings on cardboard alongside Waldren’s intuitive and decorative works, and Sawada’s thorny creatures displayed with Pape’s playful ceramic animals, juxtaposing their processes, cultural experiences and motivations to create.

NICHOLAS SINCLAIR: ARTIST PORTRAITS 30 APRIL – 22 JUNE 2014 Photographer Nicholas Sinclair has been capturing the major figures in contemporary British art for more than 20 years. The result is a compelling collection of portraits of artists photographed in their studios surrounded by their work and materials. This exhibition examines a broad selection of artists, many of whom feature in the Gallery’s own collections such as Frank Auerbach, Peter Blake, Anthony Caro, Richard Hamilton, John Piper, Paula Rego, Gillian Ayres, and many more.

STUDIO EXHIBITIONS TWO PARTNERSHIPS, TWO APPROACHES 4 FEBRUARY – 2 MARCH 2014 An insight into two Partners in Art partnerships, both of whom have been together for many years, showcasing the different approaches partnerships can take in developing and sharing their creativity.

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20ME12 (STARBURST ARTS PROJECT) 4 MARCH – 23 MARCH 2014 Work from the original 20ME12 project which enabled artists with learning difficulties and those facing barriers to increase their skills and connections through accessing arts technology.

ALBERT H. BARNETT 25 MARCH – 20 APRIL 2014 An exhibition of the self-taught artist Albert H. Barnett, a gasworks security guard in Birmingham in the 1970s, who would spend hours labouring over scenes from the city’s past composed on scraps of paper, the backs of envelopes and purchase order slips.

CREATING UNTITLED 22 APRIL – 27 APRIL 2014 An exhibition of work by members of Pallant House Gallery’s young people’s project, Creating Untitled, created both as part of scheduled workshops and pieces produced in their own time.

OUTSIDE IN 2012 AWARD WINNER MANUEL BONIFACIO 29 APRIL – 1 JUNE 2014 The fourth exhibition in a series celebrating the six Award Winners of Outside In: National 2012. Bonifacio was selected as a winner for his piece Mermaid and creates much of his work at ArtVenture, a creative day centre for adults with learning difficulties.

FRIENDS OF CHARTRES CHAPTER 4: ILLUMINATED TEXT ANCIENT & MODERN 3 JUNE – 29 JUNE 2014 The fifth annual Schools Art Competition run in collaboration with the Friends of Chartres. This year’s work will be mixed media inspired by the illumination of manuscripts, narrative building and storytelling.

INSTALLATION TRANSITIONS 29 APRIL – 8 JUNE 2014 A series of site specific interventions throughout the galleries by BA Fine Art students at Northbrook college.

www.catherinebarnes.com

Juno Studio, Chichester, by appointment

cb@catherinebarnes.com 079 77 51 67 30

Catherine Barnes “To the Wide Seas” oil on canvas 82 x 97cm

Your art may be worth more than you think!

One of our Paintings Specialists would be delighted to offer free, convenient valuations at your home or from photographs, whether you would like advice, an insurance valuation or if you are considering selling.

With a sale rate for Scottish Colourists well above and beyond our competitors, we have demand from collectors for works by J.D. Fergusson, Hunter, Peploe, Cadell, Redpath and Eardley.

To arrange an appointment, please contact our local specialist, Emily Johnston, on 01483 225 968 0207 930 9115 or email emily.johnston@lyonandturnbull.com Scottish Contemporary Sale 19 March British & Continental Spring Sale 30 April Fine Scottish Sale 22 May

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NEWS HEAD OF DEVELOPMENT WINS INAUGURAL LEGACY10 AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE Elaine Bentley, Head of Development at Pallant House Gallery, has won the inaugural Legacy10 Award for Excellence. Set up to recognise those who have contributed to legacy-giving in the UK through innovation and delivery, the Legacy10 Award for Excellence is open to all legacy fundraisers working for a registered UK charity. The judging panel, comprising senior experts in the fields of philanthropy, business and the media and chaired by Legacy10 founder and Chairman Roland Rudd, agreed that Elaine was a great example of the hardworking and passionate legacy-fundraisers throughout the UK. Rudd said: ‘Elaine is a very worthy winner of the first-ever Legacy10 Award for Excellence. She has made a remarkable contribution to Pallant House Gallery over the past 15 years, creating a legacy campaign from scratch which will help to ensure that her charity is sustainably funded for generations to come.’

Roland Rudd, Chairman and Founder of RLM Finsbury, and Elaine Bentley, Head of Development at Pallant House Gallery

MARC STEENE AND SIMON MARTIN APPOINTED GALLERY CO-DIRECTORS Marc Steene and Simon Martin have been appointed as Executive and Artistic Directors respectively, following the mutually agreed stepping down by Greg Perry from his position as Director of the Gallery and the successful implementation of the change programme that he was hired to effect. Simon Martin has been the Head of Collections and Exhibitions for several years and has been principally responsible for the many successful exhibitions which the Gallery has shown since its re-opening in 2006, including the critically acclaimed Edward Burra exhibition. Marc Steene has headed the ground-breaking work of the Gallery in its Learning and Community involvement, including the launch and development of the award-winning Outside In programme. David Macmillan, Chairman of the Trustees of Pallant House Gallery says ‘Marc and Simon are a well-established team with many successes behind them. I am confident that their joint leadership of the Gallery will take it from strength to strength.’

FAMILY WIN DE’LONGHI COFFEE MACHINE WORTH OVER £1000 A family from Surrey were the lucky recipients of a De’Longhi Prima Donna coffee machine worth over £1000, after winning a competition organised by Pallant House Gallery and the premium Italian coffee machine brand, who have been Headline sponsors of the Gallery for five years running. Nigel Wainwright, Commercial Director of De’Longhi for North and East Europe, presented the prize to Emily and Ian Cunliffe and children Daisy and William during a special trip to the Gallery. On hearing the news of her win Emily Cunliffe said: ‘I am absolutely delighted. It means so much as after visiting the Gallery for the first time in the summer with my family, we became instant fans and vowed to make special trips to Chichester to visit the Gallery. The whole experience was delightful, from the warm welcome at reception to the wonderful, eclectic pieces displayed in a very interesting building. Not forgetting the great shop where the children spent pocket money and we browsed through some interesting books and affordable art. This prize is the icing on the cake for us and our wonderful experience at Pallant House Gallery.’

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STANLEY SPENCER'S 'ANSWER TO THE SISTINE CHAPEL'

Built to house Stanley Spencer’s celebrated mural cycle, the Sandham Memorial Chapel is widely upheld as one of the greatest war monuments of the twentieth century. To coincide with the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, the National Trust is masterminding a major conservation project at the chapel, during which the paintings will tour to Pallant House Gallery. Amanda Bradley, Assistant Curator of Pictures and Sculpture for the National Trust and co-curator of the exhibition, introduces Spencer’s singular vision.

Stanley Spencer, Map-Reading (detail), South Wall, Sandham Memorial Chapel, Burghclere, Hampshire, 1927–1932 © The Estate of Stanley Spencer 2014. All rights reserved DACs. National Trust Images/John Hammond

The adage ‘keep calm and carry on’ popularised by the 1939 poster produced by the British Government before the Second World War might well be applied to Stanley Spencer’s murals at Burghclere, reflecting his own experiences some 20 years earlier in the Great War. His visions of ‘heavenly peace deeply embedded in a modern actuality’ encapsulate his own philosophy, informed by St Augustine’s Confessions, whereby duty brought one closer to God, and the beauty of daily routine enabled one to endure the miseries of war.

Spencer began his wartime service as a medical orderly at Beaufort Military Hospital – a converted lunatic asylum, which was, in his own words, ‘a vile place.’ He was relieved to be posted to the nowforgotten Macedonian Front in 1916, where he initially served with the RAMC, making sure bodies did not fall off the travoys pulled by mules, and later in active service with the Royal Berkshires. Work as a medical orderly was physically hard but also emotionally traumatic. It has been argued that the sustained exposure to death – more concentrated than that seen by those serving at the front – render those serving in a medical capacity far more susceptible to psychological disorders, such as post-traumatic stress - as is still the case today.

Throughout the war, Spencer sketched prolifically, probably as a form of catharsis, but also with a grand wartime scheme very much in his mind. Most of the drawings from his time in Macedonia are now lost, the artist later lamenting that they probably fell into 17

Henry Lamb, Portrait of the Behrend Family, 1927, Oil on canvas, Brighton and Hove Museums © Courtesy of the Estate of Henry Lamb

the hands of a fortuitous Macedonian peasant. In the early 1920s whilst staying at the home of his friend, the fellow artist Henry Lamb, Spencer worked on an idea of his own chapel of remembrance, resulting in a scheme based on Giotto’s Arena Chapel in Padua, with the south and north walls adorned with arched canvases and predellas, culminating in a monumental altarpiece on the east wall. At this time, Lamb introduced Spencer, this still unworldly artist, to the ways of the art trade. While Spencer was at Lamb’s house John Louis and Mary Behrend, Lamb’s patrons, happened to visit, and fell upon Spencer’s visionary drawings and this ‘castle in the sky’ as they called it. Undeservedly forgotten in the annals of British patronage of this era, the Behrends were extraordinary not only for their highly attuned eye but also for their resounding generosity and empathy for the artist at work. They already owned Spencer’s Swan Upping (Tate), which hung alongside an impressive collection at their house in Burghclere. Theirs was a catholic taste which included music and the performing arts.

The Behrends were singular in that they allowed the conception of the chapel in its entirety to be Spencer’s own – from the fabric of the building, down to the canvases themselves. They insisted that they were 18

not his patrons – rather it was ‘his own untrammelled conception’, and neither was there any contract in which he was tied to their wishes. It was the ultimate indulgence for Spencer - an outlet for his genius in which the iconography was entirely personal. It was only some years later that the Behrends decided to dedicate the chapel to Mary Behrend’s brother, Harry Sandham, who had also served in Salonika but had died after the war from an illness contracted whilst on active service – probably malaria. There is no visual reference to Hal Sandham at all in the murals and Spencer reacted vehemently to the rather baroque plaque in memory of Harry that the Behrends had placed in the chapel. The only memento mori in the murals is the cluster of mosquitoes at the top of Reveille, but again these were also part of Spencer’s own experience, having been hospitalised with malaria on numerous occasions.

There is no sequential narrative within the works, save the trinity of pictures at the east end of the chapel, culminating in the monumental altarpiece of The Resurrection of the Soldiers. The canvas to its left, Dug Out (the most graphically combative of all the pictures), describes a moment of stillness, when the sudden realisation that the war is over dawns

Stanley Spencer, Reveille (left), and Dug-Out (or Stand-to) (right), Sandham Memorial Chapel, Burghclere, Hampshire 1927– 1932 © The Estate of Stanley Spencer 2014. All rights reserved DACs. National Trust Images/John Hammond

upon the soldiers. Spencer wrote of this picture, '... how marvellous it would be if one morning, when we came out of our dug-outs, we found that somehow everything was peace and that war was no more.'

Some of the soldiers look towards the altarpiece, to see their comrades rising from the parched earth and handing their crosses to a berobed Christ in the middle background. It is not a conventional Christian Resurrection, but is about the end of war when – in Spencer’s words – 'nothing is lost where a sacrifice has been the result of a perfect understanding.' In the arched canvas to the right, Reveille, soldiers announce the ‘fact of the Resurrection’ (or more specifically that the war is over) to their fellow soldiers, who are changing under chrysalis-like mosquito nets to be reborn into a new era.

The other scenes leading up to the altarpiece serve as an ideological and pictorial prelude. They are about the means by which Spencer survives the horrors of war and ultimately finds peace. The grim reality of Beaufort Hospital, or the Macedonian Front, for him becomes infused with ‘happy memories’; these pictures are not about bloody combat (unlike the works of his fellow war artists) but about daily routine: scrubbing floors, making beds, washing

lockers and laying out kit. Spencer described the scenes as a ‘symphony in rashers of bacon’ with ‘teamaking obligato’; they are phrases that sum up not only the very Englishness of Spencer’s pictures and character, but also the musicality that underscores them. Indeed his daughter, Shirin, was convinced that ‘music informed the pictures’ and that the ‘whole of Burghclere chapel was fugal.’

The routines and sentiments depicted in the works still chime with serving soldiers today. The National Trust has been working with veterans, through the auspices of Help for Heroes and Tedworth House, on the garden at Burghclere and it is extraordinary that one hundred years later soldiers can still relate to Spencer’s own experiences. Moreover, in our age of gratification and excess, his message of spiritual stoicism is perhaps something of which we all can and should take heed.

Stanley Spencer: Heaven in a Hell of War is at Pallant House Gallery from 15 February to 15 June 2014. Cocurated by Amanda Bradley and David Taylor from the National Trust, the exhibition is accompanied by a fullyillustrated catalogue published by Pallant House Gallery which is available from the Gallery Bookshop (£19.95).

For more information visit www.pallant.org.uk 19

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ART AS A MIRROR OF HIMSELF Deeply personal, Stanley Spencer's paintings reflect the ideas and beliefs that motivated him, argues Andrew Causey, author of a new book on the subject

Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) explored fundamental issues of life with an urgency and persistence unique among British artists of his generation. His art is about religion, love, joy, community and common endeavour. While the murals at the Oratory of All Souls at Burghclere (1927–32) immortalise Spencer’s poignant memories of war, his concern is generally with happenings in his native village of Cookham, some 30 miles west of London. The Cookham of his paintings is different from the village he knew in intimate detail in real life. Biblical figures - Jesus, saints, the Holy Family – visit Cookham which became in his imagination a kind of heaven on earth. He described his early art as visionary and there is every reason to endorse that judgement.

His later work from the 1930s, on the other hand, reflects loss of the Christian faith which had supported him in his youth and when he was on military service in Macedonia during the First World War. And in the 1930s a strong, late-developing sexuality led to non-idealised images of the female nude in which he deliberately rejects the refined sensibility of his earlier work.

But the quality of Spencer’s paintings should not be judged by the degree of his artistic certitude or the measure of contentment in his personal life at the time he made them. In the later 1930s Spencer’s life was in chaos with the failure of two marriages in quick succession and he was under great emotional stress, yet adversity proved a stimulus and some of his most exciting work was done at this time. Paintings can be agitated, without the calm, apparitional character of earlier work

and Spencer’s representations of the female nude and allusions to sex have the virtue of candour. His nudes can shock because they are seen as if under spotlights, but they are truthful because they do not emulate the ideal body of what Spencer saw as a defunct classical tradition that was no longer relevant after the dismemberment of so many soldiers in the First World War. Spencer was born in 1891, the eighth of nine surviving children. His father was a builder by training but a musician and music teacher by preference. Stanley was educated at home until in 1908 he went to the Slade, part of London University and the leading British art school. He was shy, self-deprecating and teased at first by students with more varied life experience than the young artist who had never yet spent a night away from home. But Stanley had an underlying self-confidence and was buoyed up by his evidently exceptional talent as a draughtsman, By 1912, as his student days drew to a close, he could master large canvases which are striking for their unconventional compositions and the severe outlines of some of their human forms. Words like ‘neo-primitive’ and ‘neo-Byzantine’ were circulating in the art world and, though neither altogether represents Spencer’s art, it is not difficult to see that he was trying to cut through conventions of representing the human body that his fellow student David Bomberg called ‘the fat man of the Renaissance’.

Figure paintings are the core of his work, whether they focus on members of the Holy Family and biblical narratives, fellow soldiers from the First World War or

Stanley Spencer, Self-Portrait, 1923, Oil on canvas, Stanley Spencer Gallery (Barbara Karmel Bequest, 1995) © The Estate of Stanley Spencer 2014. All rights reserved DACs.

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scenes in Cookham. These meant everything to Spencer and it was by them that he wished to be judged. While his works clearly draw on personal experience and the people portrayed are individualised, there is an unaccountable strangeness in his painting because it is difficult to be certain who the people actually are. We know, for example, that in the mural paintings at Burghclere the figures are Spencer’s fellow hospital orderlies and soldiers serving in the Macedonian theatre of the First World War. But by itself this seems an inadequate account of the identity of these young men, callow and youthful, with none of the toughness of the seasoned combatant.

Suggestive in some cases of grown-up children on a camping trip, they seem to occupy a dream world outside real experience, pointing to a yearning on Spencer’s part for the solace of comradeship as compensation for the harsh circumstances of war.

The likeness between the figures’ images – the sense of their being types as much as individuals – helps generate the emotional closeness that brings them all together and makes a human family out of the Burghclere designs. While in his early biblical designs we can identify individuals from the gospel stories, partly thanks to Spencer’s own descriptions, doubts remain about the figures’ identities because the Holy Family is in Cookham rather than in a clearly biblical location. Also, some figures, like that of Mary in The Nativity (1912), have a stern hieratic character far from the familiar, tender images of the Renaissance. Spencer follows western art traditions since the Renaissance but also disrupts them.

Spencer was a brilliant draughtsman and a capable colourist. Though better informed about developments in the modern art world than some writers have allowed, he was not a modernist in the full sense of being up-to-date with Cubism and other twentiethcentury movements. But still less does his uneasy relationship with the Royal Academy – first joining, then resigning in a huff because some of his most daring paintings were rejected, and finally rejoining in 1950 - mark him out as an academic artist. Technically, he assimilated ideas from a wide range of sources, from old masters – Giotto is most often cited but he was equally concerned with north European artists like Pieter Brueghel the Elder – to the more middle of the road moderns. He pursued his own interests, without concern for theoretical issues, he was not in his nature a joiner of societies or exhibiting groups, he disliked mixed exhibitions and having critics assess his work against that of others. Though personally sociable and an active contributor to discussions on art, in his professional work he was fundamentally a loner.

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In 1931 Stanley and his family returned to Cookham from Burghclere backed now with the reputation of a leading British painter. He could have satisfied his audiences with more of the kind of work that had led his major projects of the 1920s, The Resurrection, Cookham (1924-26), and Burghclere to be so well received. That he did not do this but went directly to explore ranges of fresh ideas is a mark of his courage. He had always been interested in groups of ordinary people – whether they were patients at Beaufort Hospital in Bristol or soldiers in Macedonia as represented at Burghclere. From the 1930s Spencer brought together crowds of his fellow villagers in designs that may strike the viewer momentarily as representations of reality – but are quickly recognised as the everyday world transmuted into another one existing alongside, both apparitional and everyday at the same time. Here one finds people who seem possessed or entranced or to be waking to a new life from unconsciousness or sleep. There are images of Spencer himself in a number of paintings and, given the highly personal nature of these creations by one man, a broader question arises: where is Spencer in other paintings? May there be autobiographical content in these also, even if the image of the artist does not

Stanley Spencer, Convoy Arriving with the Wounded (opposite), and Tea in the Hospital Ward (above) Sandham Memorial Chapel, Burghclere, Hampshire, 1927–1932 © The Estate of Stanley Spencer 2014. All rights reserved DACs. National Trust Images/John Hammond

appear? He hints in the case of the Burghclere murals that each of the soldiers is himself, not as a selfportrait but as a surrogate, because the men depicted are carrying out the duties that were his also.

There’s no denying that Spencer’s late 1930s paintings can be very strange and that his repeated claims for them that they reflect pleasure and joy is not easy to understand in relation to works that are mediated by feelings of melancholy and often downright distress. His personal and family life was disrupted when, some years into his marriage with Hilda Carline and now with two daughters, he fell for the glamorous Patricia Preece, also a Cookham resident. Divorcing Hilda, he married Patricia, an ambitious, go-getting woman. She took advantage of a naïve Stanley who discovered there was no real marriage of two people at all and in 1938 he left Cookham to live in London.

Right up to his death in 1959 Spencer had an ambition to create a second Burghclere. It would have been a specially erected building, this time in the form of a church with side aisles and ancillary buildings in Cookham, broadly corresponding to the Cookham street pattern, with the High Street as the church nave. Stanley worked hard, but in the end

unsuccessfully, to find a patron as generous as the Behrends. He wanted a place where he could keep his paintings together in the form of a grand pictorial autobiography, linking sacred and profane and allying them to episodes in the history of Cookham which, by the 1950s, focused on a visit by Christ to Cookham Regatta.

Stanley’s willingness to open himself up to the world and expose his private life and ambitions to public scrutiny without evasion or shame may not have universal appeal and there’s no doubt that his treatment of his first wife, Hilda, was not always kind. But his lack of bourgeois inhibitions and his desire to restore depths of meaning to art that he felt, especially where abstraction was involved, had lost relevance, honours his courage in squarely facing up to what he saw as art’s deficiency and the boldness of his own work highlights the poverty of many of his contemporary artists’ imaginations.

Stanley had little sense of detachment, identifying intimately with his art which, seen collectively, was the mirror of himself and his creative mind.

'Stanley Spencer: Art as a Mirror of Himself’ by Andrew Causey, published by Lund Humphries, is available from the Bookshop (special price of £39.95).

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‘A KIND OF ACTIVE THINKING’ Ahead of a new exhibition of artist studies, Simon Martin, Artistic Director explores their place in the understanding of Modern British Art

For many artists it can be difficult to be certain exactly when a work of art is ‘finished’ except, perhaps, for a sense that there are no more problems to solve, and that a point of clarity has been reached, or even that it can go no further. As Lucian Freud admitted in 1954: ‘a moment of complete happiness never occurs in the creation of a work of art. The promise of it is felt in the act of creation but disappears towards the completion of the work. For it is then that the painter realises that it is only a picture he is painting… Were it not for this, the perfect painting might be painted, on completion of which the painter could retire.’

Stopping work on a painting does not mean that it is entirely resolved, but once it is hung on the walls of an art gallery its viewers invariably consider it to be a definite, unchanging statement of the artist’s vision.

The related studies occupy an ambiguous position with regard to the ‘final’ work. Rarely shown and invariably considered to be ‘lesser’ works in the hierarchy of art, artists have often avoided exhibiting them, and yet preparatory studies can express far more creative freedom and immediacy than the work to which they ultimately lead. Without a time machine to travel back into the studios of the artists of the past, the preparatory study is often the closest we can get to understanding the seemingly alchemical process that leads to the creation of a familiar painting. As the architect and collector Colin St John Wilson once asked, ‘What would we not give to peer over the shoulder of Giorgione or Vermeer – or Francis Bacon? In an age

that has lost its natural sense of the numinous, we half believe that we could be the witness of a form of magic.’ Wilson was fascinated by the creative act and not only wrote a book to document his experience of sitting for portraits by Michael Andrews and William Coldstream, but also, when they were available, he collected the preparatory studies that relate to the paintings in his collection. He once described himself as having ‘an obsessive interest in how other artists work – not just the technical procedures but the whole mode of attack in developing an initial theme.’ Wilson was in part fulfilling the collector’s urge to obtain everything relating to his artworks, but also, as an intellectual, he sought to deepen his own understanding of the work. He wrote of admiring ‘conceptual diagrams’ where drawing serves as a kind of ‘shorthand’ in which the artist is feeling for an idea, seeing them as a kind of ‘thinking out loud’ in which the structure of the composition and subject matter undergo stages of development.

The artist’s study has a history dating back to the Renaissance, but in the modern era it is closely associated with the figurative tradition of artists and institutions like the Slade. The detailed preparation of drawings that could be squared-up for enlargement and translated to canvas was encouraged by tutors such as Henry Tonks, whose students David Bomberg, Stanley Spencer, and William Roberts all used this technique in their own mature work, particularly in imaginative compositions. Bomberg’s drawings for The South East Corner, Jerusalem (1926) present a radically

Graham Sutherland, Study for 'Entrance to a Lane' (one of five), 1939/43, Ink and watercolour on paper, Pallant House Gallery (Hussey Bequest, Chichester District Council, 1985), © Estate of Graham Sutherland

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Walter Sickert, Study for Jack Ashore, 1912, Pencil on paper, Pallant House Gallery, Wilson Gift through The Art Fund. © All rights reserved DACS Walter Sickert, Jack Ashore, 1912-13, Oil on canvas, Pallant House Gallery, Wilson Gift through The Art Fund. © All rights reserved DACS

simplified view of the city skyline, with vigorous marks emphasizing what he called ‘the horizontal lines accentuated by the perpendicular forms [of] the minarets’. These startling studies (of which, one is squared up for transferral) have an affinity to his pre-War abstract Cubist compositions, but on the final canvas the painterly strokes soften the angularity of the architecture, indicating the artist’s more expressionist approach to finding ‘the spirit in the mass’ of his later works.

Some things can be lost in translation from the drawing, or at least much simplified, as in the case of William Coldstream’s painting The Opera House, Rimini, Interior (Bomb Damaged Building, Italy)’ (1944). Having taught at the Euston Road School of Painting and Drawing in the late 1930s, which promised that ‘particular emphasis will be laid on training the observation’, Coldstream was employed as a camouflage officer with the Royal Engineers, before receiving a commission as an Official War Artist in 1943, taking him to Egypt and, in 1944, to Italy where he painted warravaged buildings in Capua, Pisa and Rimini. His detailed pen and pencil preparatory study for his painting features arrows and written descriptions of the colours and warmth of the tones, such precise detail that cannot 26

be fully rendered in oil. In the painting the pencil grid used for transferring from the squared-up drawing is visible, something that the artist remarked was ‘really like having one’s shirt hanging out’.

The approach of using studies might be thought to contrast with the apparent spontaneity of Impressionist or Expressionist images painted directly before the motif, or the subconscious expressed in abstract ‘action painting’ and Surrealist automatic games of chance.

However, in July 1939 Graham Sutherland produced a group of preparatory drawings for the oil Entrance to a Lane in the Tate collection, which reflect the influence of Surrealist artists such as André Masson in the abstraction of particular effects of afternoon light and shade in a lane in Pembrokeshire. Sutherland was praised by his contemporary Michael Ayrton for the ‘vital paraphrase of landscape forms at which he has arrived through drawings’. The fifth drawing in the group relates to a gouache in the Bishop Otter Collection of the University of Chichester, and was painted in summer 1943 during a holiday with the collector Peter Watson and artist John Craxton. Apparently when Craxton asked Sutherland about the leaves, as there weren’t any overhanging the lane, Sutherland responded, ‘I brought them in from somewhere else.’ It illustrates how drawings can often

David Bomberg, Study for the ‘South-East Corner of Jerusalem’, 1926, Charcoal and crayon on paper, Pallant House Gallery (Wilson Gift through The Art Fund) © Prof Sir Colin St John Wilson

have more immediacy and poetic truth than the final, edited version. For artists such as Tristram Hillier there were clear benefits to a strict approach to working from drawings that he would do onsite and elaborate in his studio, as painting from the motif did not allow for the psychological ‘distance’ between object and idea that was possible in images worked up from drawings.

In the case of Hillier’s Ship Propulsion, also known as Beach Scene with Lighthouse (1950) which was initially a design for a large mural commissioned for the Festival of Britain, the painting is an almost exact translation from the pencil drawing. The only real difference is in the absence of two flying seagulls from the painting, a pictorial edit that serves to make the final painting seem timeless and still.

Perhaps the most surprising studies are those of Patrick Caulfield for paintings such as Reserved Table (1999), which begin as the simplest of jottings and worked up through to detailed pencil studies of the lobster that features on the platter of the empty table awaiting the diners. It is a nuanced exploration of psychological space that evidently was highly-tuned through the use of studies that allow for detailed observation of particular elements, just as nearly a century earlier Walter Sickert used multiple studies

to explore the interior space of Jack Ashore (c.1912-13), which features a clothed man and a nude woman in a bedroom. Sickert believed strongly in the importance of drawing and asserted that: ‘Any fool can paint, but drawing is the thing and drawing is the test. If you are a good draughtsman you are ipso facto a good painter.’

The composition of Jack Ashore was the subject of numerous drawings, and two etchings in addition to the celebrated oil painting, but the related drawing in the Gallery’s collection was actually created after the painting, in order to transpose the image into the large soft-plate etching printed in 1912-13.

Just as Matisse described his working method as a process of purifying abstraction from the early charcoal studies executed before the model to a formal ‘reprise’ of the sitter’s essential features, the juxtaposition of drawings and ‘finished’ paintings by artists such as Michael Andrews, David Bomberg and Ceri Richards in this exhibition reveals a search for something deeper in the subject matter, what Andrews described as ‘a kind of active thinking . . the most marvellous, elaborate, complete way of making up my mind.’

Artists’ Studies: From Pencil to Paint is in galleries 15 and 16 from 15 February – 22 June 2014. For more information visit www.pallant.org.uk 27

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'VARIATIONS ON A THEME'

As a new exhibition presents his celebrated images of French and English cathedrals together for the first time Katy Norris, Assistant Curator, introduces the work of Dennis Creffield

In his foreword to the catalogue for the exhibition English Cathedrals published in 1988, R.B. Kitaj commended Dennis Creffield for his powerful charcoal drawings of religious architecture, describing him as ‘one of England’s closely guarded secrets’. The result of an ambitious Arts Council commission to document all 26 of the medieval, Gothic cathedrals of England, this series of drawings was an immense personal achievement for Creffield which also bought him new recognition, not only with his peers but also amongst the wider public. A touring exhibition of the works led to further collaborations with museums and arts organisations, most notably the National Trust’s Foundation for Art, a programme which promoted the creation of contemporary art in response to familiar and much-loved national historic sites. In his residencies at Petworth House and Orford Ness Creffield approached his subjects with the same sense of spirituality and history as JMW Turner, thus establishing his reputation as one of the leading draughtsmen and painters of architectural heritage sites working in Britain today.

‘I became typecast,’ reflects Creffield, ‘much to my delight’.

Before the Arts Council commission Creffield had held an important yet comparatively understated position in the British art world. A pupil of David Bomberg at the Borough Polytechnic from 1947 to 1951, he was elected to be a member of the Borough Group when he was just 18. This group of young artists was formed around Bomberg to promote his art and show Dennis Creffield drawing Peterborough Cathedral, 1988

their own work simultaneously. Bomberg’s unique style and generosity as a teacher had a lasting impression.

‘He showed us that painting was the most important thing that a human being could do. I remember he said to me, “Creffield you are an artist” and I have had the confidence to be an artist ever since.’

Following Bomberg’s death in 1957, Creffield was accepted at the Slade School of Art, where his talent for drawing was quickly recognised. In 1960 William Coldstream awarded him the highly revered Tonks Prize for Life Drawing and a year later he was a prizewinner in the prestigious John Moores Painting Prize Exhibition. After graduating Creffield was made the Gregory Fellow in Painting at the University of Leeds on the recommendation of Herbert Read, a position he held from 1964 until 1968. Following this he was appointed a lecturer in painting at Brighton Polytechnic eventually relocating his studio to the third floor of a tall Regency house overlooking Brighton Pier and the sea front. It was from here on February 14 1987 – St Valentine’s Day - that he set out to draw Chichester Cathedral, the first in a demanding schedule, described

by Creffield as his ‘Pilgrimage of Love’. The journey took him from Exeter to Canterbury in the South and stretched as far as Durham and Carlisle in the North.

Architecturally his subjects ranged from the colossal and unyielding cathedrals at Ely and Lincoln to Norwich with its towering central spire, and the elongated, coffin-like plan of Winchester. In this respect the scope of the series reveals the extraordinary versatility of the Gothic style; 29

Left Dennis Creffield, Loan: West Front, 1989, Charcoal on paper, Pallant House Gallery, Wilson Loan (2006) Right Dennis Creffield, Norwich Cathedral: South Transept and Spire, 1988–90, Charcoal on paper, Pallant House Gallery (Wilson Gift through The Art Fund) © Dennis Creffield

Creffield’s cathedrals appear at once dark, massive and contained and yet also light, open and aerial.

Made mainly with charcoal and an eraser but also chalk, these drawings differ from the illustrative accounts of religious architecture with which we are more familiar. Described by the artist as ‘variations on a theme’ each one is an individual portrait that captures the distinct character of the cathedral it portrays. They also convey enormous energy and passion, as though created from instinct alone. In a single composition we are taken urgently between small details and huge gestures, just as one would be in front of a cathedral featuring an assortment of decorative pinnacles, pointed arches, buttresses and arcades. Seen as a whole, the series also demonstrates Creffield’s ability to produce a range of diverse marks from violent slashes and stabs through to supple strokes and fluid contours.

At other times he seems more concerned with what should be taken away, using huge sweeps of an eraser to denote shafts of light falling upon the face of the cathedral or through its interior vaults and arches. ‘It’s a different campaign each time and you must start freshly each time. As an artist I pursue the freshness of the response, you have to grab it. You don’t really know if you are making the right marks, but you just have to 30

strike – like a fisherman – then see what you’ve caught.’

The exhibition at Pallant House Gallery is the first to consider the significance of the English cathedral drawings alongside a further series of drawings of French cathedrals made during a trip that Creffield embarked on soon after the Arts Council commission was completed.

Together these journeys represent a remarkable personal pilgrimage that is almost unprecedented in the history of art, perhaps only rivalled by similar excursions made

by Turner in England or Auguste Rodin’s tour of French cathedrals during the late 1900s.

In travelling to France Creffield’s purpose was to map the evolution of the gothic style he had studied in England, tracing backwards to where it had originated in the first medieval cathedrals of Northern Europe. His representation of the cathedral at Saint-Denis - widely accepted as the first truly Gothic building - focuses on the interior, capturing the principles of light and space that guided the construction of these early structures.

Elsewhere in the exhibition the towering West Fronts of Laon, Beauvais and Amiens reveal the enormous height and verticality of French cathedrals. This distinctive characteristic serves as a reminder that the first Gothic cathedrals in France were intended to be urban, civic churches designed to accommodate the surrounding

Dennis Creffield, St. Denis, Paris: Interior from East and looking North-East, 1990, Charcoal on paper, Pallant House Gallery, Wilson Loan (2006) © Dennis Creffield

population and built as though rising up out of the city sprawl towards heaven. Creffield explains, ‘By contrast most of the English cathedrals were originally monastic churches, communities, which have space around them and all are about the height of a big forest tree, which gives a wonderful sense of homely proportion. The French ones are different. They ascend high, as high, as high, as high. This accounts for a feature you see in French cathedrals but rarely in England and that is the Flying Buttress.’

Talking to Creffield, what soon becomes clear is that his tour of medieval Gothic cathedrals was a process of learning and understanding. It is perhaps unsurprising then that he also met with challenges along the way, particularly in the face of architecture that is so consistently overwhelming and complex. He compares his subject to an ‘accidental sundial’ which is continually moving and flickering with the changing light, ‘It’s not just difficult to draw, its more than that, its quite mad.’ He remembers his first encounter with Lincoln Cathedral, which was at the beginning of the project. He was so overwhelmed by the task to be confronted that he came very near to withdrawing from the project. ‘But I remembered those brave, daring medieval builders and took courage from them.

This crisis often happens at the beginning of a work but then you just take a deep breath and come on to it.’ Two formidable drawings of Lincoln in the exhibition are testament to this unbreakable will to succeed. They capture perfectly the imposing magnificence of Lincoln’s central tower and trancept, demonstrating Creffield’s ability to convey both the emotional and physical impact of his subjects.

The current exhibition opens 27 years to the day since Creffield embarked on the first drawings of English cathedrals, yet none of the power or intensity of the original project has been lost. Today as then, it is remarkable to consider how adeptly he captured a style of religious architecture that was so aspirational and visionary, both in terms of its physical manifestations and the ideology it promoted. In response to this, the series of drawings that Creffield produced are best described as immersive, a total experience which appeals as much to our bodies as our minds. In these works we are drawn completely into the artist’s unique vision and, in doing so, share with him a fascinating and defining moment in our cultural history.

Dennis Creffield: Cathedrals of England and France is in Room 17 from 15 February – 22 June 2014. For more information visit www.pallant.org.uk 31

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PORTRAITS OF THE ARTISTS Nicholas Sinclair has been capturing the major figures in contemporary British art for more than 20 years. He talks to Emma Robertson, Editor, about how it all began

Emma Robertson: When did you first start photographing British artists?

Nicholas Sinclair: I was on a train to London in 1991 and found myself sitting with the art historian David Mellor. We were chatting and he said to me ‘If you could photograph any British artist who would it be?’ And I said John Piper. This was partly because I have always loved Piper’s work and partly because he had a very unusual, elongated and slightly haunted face with deepset eyes that I felt would make a great portrait. So David gave me his address, I wrote to him and he agreed to be photographed. When David saw the pictures I had taken he asked me to work with him on an exhibition he was curating at the Barbican Art Gallery in London about the artists who came to prominence in the 1960s.

He wanted me to make contemporary portraits of these artists and this is how the series began.

ER: There is one particularly strong image of the sculptor Sir Anthony Caro. Can you talk me through this portrait?

NS: I photographed Caro in his north London studio in November 1992. I remember a huge workshop, full of scrap metal and sparks from oxyacetylene torches, with sculptures in the process of being made and assistants busy welding. The atmosphere was very focused and productive and everybody seemed to know exactly why they were there. Caro agreed to give me his lunch hour for the portrait so I knew how long I was being given and this meant that I too had to be focused.

Nicholas Sinclair, Portrait of Paula Rego, 2000, Photographic print on paper, Pallant House Gallery, Presented by the Artist (2012).

Photograph © Nicholas Sinclair

My first priority with any portrait is to find the right location. It is essential for me to find a background that works visually before I can begin to think about the person I am photographing and with the artists I wanted to include references to their work or their working methods or the materials they use so that each portrait would be informative on different levels.

For Caro’s portrait I decided to use a white wall with iron hoops suspended from a hook and when I showed him the Polaroid of the composition he liked it and agreed to work with it.

What makes this portrait slightly unusual is that Caro’s face occupies only a small fraction of the surface area of the photograph. But, partly because of the strength of his gaze and partly because of the way I have composed the picture, you have a very clear sense of the man. Regardless of where you are in the photograph your eye is always drawn back to Caro himself. The strong black vertical, two thirds in from the left, leads you down to his right shoulder. The hoops on the right of the picture lead you to his left shoulder. The hoop fourth in from the right leads exactly to the line of his eyebrows, and the hoop that curves down from the left just touches the top of his head.

And these suspended iron hoops above his head are a direct reference to the way Caro broke free from Henry Moore’s influence, did away with the idea that a piece of sculpture had to be seen on a plinth, and changed the way we now think about sculpture. So this portrait is a long way from just being a casual snapshot.

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ER: And is this the way you always approach your portraits?

NS: Yes it is, but it’s not always possible to find backgrounds that integrate so well with the subject.

Sometimes I feel as though I’m being given a gift as a photographer, and Caro, on that day and in that studio, was a gift. My role was to recognise and respond to the situation by using my judgement, my graphic sense and my experience with light to make the image happen.

ER: Do you research your subject before photographing them?

NS: Always. It helps me to make a more substantial portrait. The sitter will often pick up on the fact that you know about their work and this will make a difference to the way they respond to you.

ER: How much input does the artist have into the process – choice of setting, pose etc?

NS: The artist plays a very important role in the process because I’m working in their studio and often including their work in the composition. The environment during the shoot is one they’ve created and I’m sensitive to this, but the choice of setting and the placement of the artist within that setting is down to me. I will compose the picture, I will choose the subject to camera distance, I will select the aperture and shutter speed settings, and, most importantly, the moment of exposure, so it’s very much a collaboration and this is the way I have always seen portraiture.

Regarding poses, I prefer something natural and unstaged, but the subtleties of the pose have to be with the sitter themselves. I like poise and dignity in a portrait, both of which are quite unfashionable right now, and when I’m examining contact sheets I will often gravitate towards images that present the artist as thoughtful and serious and I’m unapologetic about this.

I also look closely at the way the hands are portrayed because they can reveal a lot about a person.

ER: How do you light your photographs?

NS: The first thing I do is to assess the light in the artist’s studio. In the case of Frank Auerbach, Paula Rego, Josef Herman, Kyffin Williams and the more traditional painters, I was often able to use the natural light because they’ve chosen to work in studios with north light, which, because it has an even quality, is good for portraiture. If the light is inadequate I use electronic flash which I either diffuse or reflect so that it’s subtle and sometimes undetectable. I prefer the technical side 34

Nicholas Sinclair, Portrait of Fiona Rae, 1992, Photographic print on paper Photograph © Nicholas Sinclair

of photography to be more or less invisible so that the viewer goes straight to the subject and to the eyes and is not distracted by other issues. For me, everything about a portrait should support the gaze and should be subordinate to it, even if the eyes are partially hidden or in shadow.

ER: Talking of the eyes, it has been suggested that there is a slightly melancholic sense in a number of your portraits. Is this intentional?

NS: I’m aware of a melancholic strain in the work because it’s been there from the beginning, but I don’t set out to create it. While I’m taking the portrait I will be looking closely at the changes in the person’s expression, at the subtle movements in the muscles around the eyes and the mouth. But it is in the editing process, which happens after the photographs are taken, that I will see these changes more clearly and it’s only then that I can select an image that I feel expresses something about the sitter.

ER: Can you describe what it is that you are looking for during the editing process?

NS: It’s a sense of engagement with the subject. For me this is crucial if the picture is to have any lasting

Nicholas Sinclair, Portrait of Sir Antony Caro, 2000, Photographic print on paper, Pallant House Gallery, Presented by the Artist (2012). Photograph © Nicholas Sinclair

value. It’s the same in the cinema, in the theatre and in literature. If there isn’t a connection, however subtle, then the portrait has little or no meaning, so I’m looking for that moment when, either consciously or unconsciously, the sitter reveals something about themselves that the viewer recognises and can relate to.

ER: In this exhibition there are both colour and black and white prints. Do you have a preference?

NS: Yes I do. The vast majority of my portraits are in black and white. I like the sense of austerity you get in a black and white print. I like the way it handles skin tones and there is something about the quality of a silver print that I have grown to love. There is also a long tradition of photographing artists in black and white and there’s no doubt that those wonderful Hans Namuth portraits of the American painters of the 1940’s and 50’s, Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline etc., have had an influence on me. But when Anthony Caro died last year, and when the Guggenheim Foundation wanted my portrait of him for their Venice collection, I looked again at the portraits I had taken and I found some colour pictures, not just of Caro but of Fiona Rae, Albert Irvin, John Hoyland and Gillian Wearing, so we decided to include some of these in the

exhibition. They’ve never been seen before, not even by the artists themselves, and we felt that it was an opportunity to show them for the first time.

ER: To echo David Mellor’s first question, do you have any further subjects in mind? Are there any artists you see as missing from the series?

NS: There’s a long list of people I would very much like to photograph. Sean Scully is one. Sarah Lucas is another. Tony Cragg and Richard Long are two important sculptors I haven’t photographed yet and there’s a new generation emerging I must photograph if the series is to feel comprehensive. I also want to see more women represented because they have been underrepresented in British art until recently. Strong characters with atmospheric studios who make great work are what really inspire me, but they are far harder to find than you would imagine. I knew when I was photographing Frank Auerbach and Anthony Caro that these were special moments in my career.

Nicholas Sinclair: Artist Portraits is in the De’Longhi Print Room from 30 April- 22 June 2014. He will talk about his work at the Gallery on Thurs 5 June. 6pm.

For more information see p. 53 or visit www.pallant.org.uk 35

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INTUITIVE FOLK Marc Steene and Mizue Kobayashi introduce an exhibition which juxtaposes the work of two Japanese Outsider artists with two British Outside In artists

In selecting the work for this exhibition I was struck by how much artists from different countries, cultures and backgrounds can have in common. This might not seem surprising for practising artists aware of contemporary practice and discourse, but for those in environments with limited access to exhibitions, the internet and publications, their commonality is striking. There seems to be at some level a shared subconscious - of Jungian stereotypes, animals that represent a deeper symbolic meaning - and an understanding of the nature of archetypal human relationships.

Masao Obata and Chaz Waldren produce work about the fundamental importance of human relationships, either as reality or aspiration. Obata’s major themes are marriage and family and Waldren’s are his wife, Sally, and Jesus. As Obata says, ‘This is the shape of human happiness’. Both share an openness to non-traditional materials which, either through choice or necessity, is often characteristic of art that has sidestepped convention. Obata works in cardboard and crayon while Waldren uses gel pens and biros.

Imaginary beasts and animals abound in the work of Shinichi Sawada and Jason Pape. Both use clay to create powerful forms full of energy and passion which offer the chance to 'glimpse into the fundamental creative impulse of humans' and feel the primal relationships we have with animals both real and imagined. This exhibition allows audiences to compare the work of these four 'intuitive folk' and see their similarities, differences, synergy, mores and passions.

Shinichi Sawada, Untitled © Shinichi Sawada

Chaz Waldren (b.1950) was born in Pinner, London, and has lived in Felpham in West Sussex with his wife Sally for the past 20 years. HIs work is infused with love: he creates a warm world all his own. There is a wonderful picture titled All Creatures Great and Small, in which he depicts his wife as a huge lighthouse-type structure, holding a flamboyantly decorative bunch of flowers. On closer observation you can see Waldren himself, drawn very small, locked outside - his posture an echo of Sally’s with flowers in hand - as if he is worshipping at the altar of his wife. The importance of Sally in Waldren’s work and life is clear; she is at the heart of the content and purpose of much of the art he creates. Chaz himself says, ‘It might not seem very romantic, but Sally has been my anchor, someone who keeps me down to earth and keeps me going.’

Waldren also creates text-based works as gifts for his other love, Jesus. Containing prayers of encouragement, thanks and at some level protection, they are so densely decorated that they are nearly unintelligible. Prayers play an important role in Waldren’s life - they act as reminders and prompts to avoid the temptations and weaknesses that beset us all, but most of all he believes that they work. Waldren says ‘I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the Lord.’ Like his figurative pieces, these are works created for a purpose outside of commercial gain, one that has nothing to do with commodity. This is the most enjoyable aspect of Waldren’s work to me - its honesty and vivacity, the seemingly simple inspiration to create art driven by prayer.

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Jason Pape, Suffolk Punch Horse © Jason Pape

Jason Pape (b. 1986) has a studio name of Fat Pony, and he describes himself as having Asperger’s Syndrome, Dyslexia and Dyspraxia. He has been working as a ceramicist for eight years and in his own words is influenced by: ‘American Folk Art and a love of animals, especially horses.’ This deep love is clear to see in Pape's work. On first viewing his 'Suffolk Punch Horse', one is struck by the almost prehistoric feeling of the piece. It echoes the Venus of Willendorf in its fetishistic exaggeration of form and also the Lascaux cave paintings and the Uffington White horse in its deeper symbolism and understanding. It is this tapping into a deeper truth about our relationship to animals that Pape has so successfully achieved. There is no doubt that these objects are made with love and passion and without artifice and contrivance.

Pape’s work is also humorous and one cannot help smiling when looking at his animals, his impossibly round Zebras and Tigers: 'They are tactile and their gentle nature makes people smile,' as Pape says.

The world is a brighter and more interesting place with this work in it; the innocence in their making and the attitude to animals that they embody seem all the more poignant given the society we live in.

Marc Steene, Executive Director, Pallant House Gallery 38

Shinichi Sawada (b.1982) started making his clay creations around the year 2000 when he began attending a day care facility for people with learning disabilities. His creations can be roughly separated into fifteen different recurring ‘categories’ or motifs.

When he starts creating a work, Sawada shows no signs of deliberation or hesitation, as if the completed piece is already fully envisaged in his mind. The drive and force with which he creates is stunning, and there is an almost mystical atmosphere. His creations, the ‘shapes he makes’, seem to offer a glimpse into the fundamental creative impulse of humans, leaving the viewer feeling energized and excited. Sawada’s output has always featured the trademark ‘spiny thorns’, although their sizes and density have been known to vary and fluctuate. As he is autistic and engages in almost no dialogue, the reason for his obsession with these spiny thorns remain a mystery. His work has been changing over time, and we are excited to see what new fascinating directions he will take in the future. In a society saturated with more and more commercial goods and commodities, I strongly believe that his work will continue to shine through and inspire awe, strength, and belief in the boundless reach and essence of the human imagination and the urge to create.

Masao Obata, Untitled © Masao Obata

Chaz Waldren, Safe © Chaz Waldren

Masao Obata (1943-2010) began drawing after the age of 60. Driven by this urge, he would approach the staff of the residential care facility he was living in for paper to draw on. Actually, the largest available surfaces he could find were pieces of cardboard he sourced from the facility canteen kitchens, and so he began drawing on these. This subsequently created one of his trademark styles which make his work so instantly recognizable. Masao Obata could be found in his room, night after night, continuously drawing on these pieces of cardboard into the small hours.

The major themes of his work are ‘marriage’ and ‘family’, both of which had eluded him throughout his life. His drawings also show a characteristic attention to detail when depicting genitalia in his representations of humans. When asked about the reason behind this, he answered: ‘There is man, and there is woman, and between them there are children. If any one of these things are missing, then it is incomplete, right? This is the shape of human happiness’. Also, the red hue he so often uses is the colour of happiness, according to him.

I think these are the works of a man who, in his twilight years, looked deeply at the way our lives as humans in this world are shaped, and perhaps

reflected on what he wanted to do with his own life, allowing his anxieties and hunger to take form through the medium of drawing. His desires and fixations emit a strong power from his work, and can also be noted in the immense volume of work he produced during his period of artistic creativity, which is estimated to be in its thousands.

Unfortunately however, a large number of these works were disposed of, and only a portion of his body of work remains intact and available for us to see. It is a cruel reminder of the times in which he lived when the artistic value of his work was not recognized. He communicates to us in a very strong way about dreams of happiness and fulfilment...desires latent in all human beings. His work prompts us to ask, ‘what is human happiness, and what shape does it take?’

Mizue Kobayashi, Art Director, Social Welfare Organisation Aiseikai Intuitive Folk: Art from England and Japan is in the De’Longhi Print Room from 26 February –27 April 2014. Outside In provides a platform for artists who face barriers or are excluded from the art world. www.outsidein.org.uk.

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MERMAIDS AND MOTORBIKES In 2012, Manuel Lanca Bonifacio was crowned one of six Outside In: National award winners.

Kate Davey introduces his work ahead of a solo show in the Studio.

Born in December 1947 near Lisbon, Portugal, Bonifacio pursued his interest in drawing and pottery after dropping out of school at the age of eight. His most recent collection of work, which features the awardwinning Mermaid and other pottery, is inspired by his passion for archaeology and animals. Bonifacio paints, draws, sculpts and makes at ArtVenture - a creative day centre for adults with learning difficulties - for four hours every Wednesday and Friday. The charity was set up in 1984 to provide an opportunity for vulnerable people to explore the visual and, on occasions, the performing arts, in a safe and secure environment. Since his Award win, Bonifacio has exhibited in Birmingham and London and now has work in collections in Switzerland and New York.

'Manuel’s thing at the moment is mermaids, but he loves motorbikes,' his niece says. 'He likes to do things his own way; he thinks "I’m the artist and I know what I’m doing!”' Bonifacio’s mermaids – one of which won him the Outside In: National Award in 2012 – have an interesting narrative all of their own. 'They live in Lisbon, but they go all over the world.' says Bonifacio. Lisbon is in fact populated with several mermaid statues, including eight in the large fountains in Rossio Square.

Bonifacio adds: 'All the children used to say "Look, there she is – the mermaid!" She waves to all the people, and then goes under water again when the boats pass.'

Roger Cardinal, who coined the term Outsider Art in 1972 as the English equivalent of Jean Dubuffet’s Art Brut, was one of three Outside In: National judges. He Manuel Lanca Bonifacio, Untitled

speaks of the moment he first saw Bonifacio’s Mermaid at the Gallery: 'It struck me as entirely familiar and made me think of the Frenchman Guillaume Pujolle, an early star of Art Brut whose lyrical images I cherish.

This brief and decisive moment established Bonifacio as my top choice. The Mermaid, Cardinal suggests, is 'a perfect reality for him [Bonifacio]. I see her arms and elongated fingers as enacting the motions of swimming, although she can also be said to be flying.

Hence she is capable of traversing earth, sea and air, and becomes an emblem of the artist’s unfettered imagination.'

At a young age, Bonifacio joined the fire brigade as a volunteer and his life’s ambition was to be in the army. Many of his works reflect his passion for army transportation, depicting helicopters, aeroplanes, motorbikes and boats. His work is also inspired by politics and everything he sees on TV, but most of it comes straight from his colourful imagination. His sister, Maria Odone, describes the huge variety of subject matter he depicts: ‘The birth of Jesus, the circus, the Pope, the Queen, Margaret Thatcher and David Cameron, dancers, Christmas-inspired pieces, motorcycles, musicians, buskers, birds, divers, fish, helicopters, dogs, horses, wolves, mermaids, and always people. There are faces in most of his work. He also uses numbers, even though he doesn’t know about them.’

When Bonifacio arrives at ArtVenture in the morning, he sits down and starts work straight away. There is a sense that he has a huge number of strong ideas 41

just bursting to get out. Once he’s finished a piece, he immediately starts on another. 'He’ll just go off and do things. Sometimes it does work and sometimes it doesn’t,' says Anne North, an Art Worker at ArtVenture.

'When he gets a bit frustrated, he just leaves it and goes onto something else.' Bonifacio has recently started making smaller pieces on coloured handmade paper. 'You can’t always get him to do a background, but using this paper, he’s really taken off on it,' North Adds. 'I love his cows – they’re so original.'

Both as a member of ArtVenture and with his family, Bonifacio travels to London to explore galleries and exhibitions. More recently, he visited the Watts Gallery where he was impressed with the sarcophagi on display, which have subsequently inspired several of his pieces. When he is travelling, Bonifacio will collect discarded materials to work on both at home and in the studio, resulting in some beautiful images like his dogs on polystyrene. His love of animals is very clear to see, and Bonifacio especially enjoys it when North’s dog visits the ArtVenture studio, providing an opportunity for him to sketch it from life.

Keen to explore and take on a challenge, Bonifacio has previously experimented with printmaking and wood carving and he occasionally likes to try watercolours and oils. He also produces distinctive ceramic mugs, vessels and faces. 'I’ve got boxes and boxes of his ceramics!' North adds. A cupboard at ArtVenture houses Bonifacio’s fired and unfired ceramic work, where you can see the similarities between these faces and the faces he gifts his mermaids. The artist’s unfettered imagination and instinctive creativity has seen him use breeze bocks to create an Incainspired creature and make a bicycle out of newspaper, albeit with a flat tyre. There were no chisels available to cut the breeze blocks with so, without hesitation, Bonifacio picked up a rasp to carve out his character.

Odone says: 'The proper tools weren’t even available, but he just knew what to do and got on with it.'

Walking from Cobham to Kingston regularly – a 20 minute drive – Bonifacio notes down road names, makes sketches and absorbs nature and life, which are ever present in his work. One of his figures was inspired by a statue on a roundabout in his hometown, but more generally, the characters he so vividly creates live in his imagination. There is a sense that he could conjure anything; a donkey, a bullfighter, various forms of transport.

Bonifacio’s spare time is filled almost solely with his making of art but, with no sense of time, he just continues to create, making four or five images in the 42

Manuel Lanca Bonifacio, Untitled

space of a few hours. He greatly appreciates his time at ArtVenture where he has access to a huge variety of materials and art workers who are knowledgeable about numerous processes. 'He has so many ideas,' Odone says. 'He likes to finish things properly as well but he can only do certain things at certain times – he can’t work on big things in his flat, and sometimes he can’t do big things at ArtVenture because of space issues.'

Bonifacio’s work helps him expose his unique view to the world. He is continuously creating one piece after another; a drawing, a ceramic, a painting. 'When he’s working, he’s focusing on that; it’s how his mind works,' says Odone. But when he is finished, he is happy to sit down and talk through the characters he has created in his native Portuguese. His experimentation is equally as admirable as his obvious inquisitiveness: 'I like everything!' Bonifacio says when asked what his favourite medium is.

Odone adds: 'Manuel’s work has been a valuable asset to everyone who knows him as it is also a way he likes to communicate. His ideas and perception of what is going on around him both locally and nationally are very unique. His ambition as an artist is to travel around the world and meet local people and find places that will inspire him further.'

Bonifacio loves people to see his work. 'My service is to start and finish. I like to walk and look around, looking at buildings,' Bonifacio states. He is also incredibly ambitious and proud of what he creates: 'I’d like to make a book for children, for schools. And for adults, I would like to have my work in newspapers, hospitals and aeroplanes. But I don’t feel big, I am a small person.' Of his upcoming solo exhibition at the Gallery, he says: 'Everybody can come and see it!'

Manuel Bonifacio’s exhibition is in the Studio from 29 April – 1 June 2014. For more information about Outside In visit www.outsidein.org.uk.

From Fields to Factories

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Otter Gallery 14 February -­ 10 May 2014

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A major exhibition marking the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War and

Land Army and Munitions.

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Curated by Dr Gill Clarke, Visiting Professor at the University of Chichester, the exhibition features works by Randolph Schwabe and Hilda and Richard Carline on loan from the Imperial War Museum, Tate London and Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, together with work by Stanley Spencer from the Otter Gallery Collection.

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Otter Gallery, University of Chichester College Lane, Chichester PO19 6PE 01243 816098 Free Admission For information about talks, events and opening times visit www.chi.ac.uk/ottergallery

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Image:

by Randolph Schwabe

JOHN RUSKIN PHOTOGRAPHER & DRAUGHTSMAN 4 February - 1 June 2014

A Passionate Journey through the Landscape and Architecture of Europe

Watts Gallery, Down Lane, Compton, Guildford, Surrey, GU3 1DQ 01483 810235 / info@wattsgallery.org.uk

www.wattsgallery.org.uk

Pallant House Gallery Advert.indd 1

16/01/2014 11:35

THE JOHN MORRISH BEQUEST A significant bequest has been received from the Gallery’s long-time supporter and volunteer John Morrish (1929 - 2013). John worked at Christie’s auction house (for which he has an amusing cameo in his colleague Brian Sewell’s autobiography), and subsequently for the print dealers Craddock and Barnard, London Arts and the American dealer Eugene Schuster, through which he got to know artists such as Pierre Alechinsky. He supported the Gallery’s programme of paper conservation and library book acquisitions for several years, and during his lifetime anonymously donated many artworks including three major paintings by Derrick Greaves, a 1940s John Craxton drawing of a Cretan Shepherd called ‘Homage to Alones’, a group of the 1940s School Prints, numerous items of studio pottery and over 1000 books. His bequest includes a Walter Sickert painting of the Old Hotel Royal in Dieppe, a Keith Vaughan drawing of two nudes and a Blue period Pablo Picasso etching entitled ‘La Toilette de la Mere’ (1905) from ‘La Suite de Saltimbanques’. This remarkable bequest will ensure his legacy and love of the Gallery will be enshrined for future generations.

Walter Sickert, The Old Hotel Royale, Dieppe, Oil painting on wood, John Morrish Bequest (2013) © All rights reserved DACs

POP GOES THE ART WORLD The current resurgence of interest in British Pop Art continues this spring with Abbot Hall Art Gallery in Kendal holding an exhibition of the work of Patrick Caulfield to which Pallant House Gallery is lending the iconic ‘Portrait of Juan Gris’ (1963), one of the artist’s most important early works. Meanwhile at

COLLECTION NEWS Tate Modern Richard Hamilton is the subject of a major retrospective organised by the second venue, the Reina Sofia in Madrid. Three of Hamilton’s most significant works will be lent by Pallant House Gallery: the early abstract ‘Respective’ (1951), ‘Hers is a Lush Situation’ (1958), which is a key example of Hamilton’s exploration of the ‘rhetoric of consumer persuasion’ in car advertising, and ‘Swingeing London ‘67’ (1968).

Peter Blake’s ‘The Beatles 1962’ will also be travelling to Madrid this summer for the exhibition ‘Pop Art Myths’ at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. In addition, a photograph from the East end of London, and a ‘photogram’ by Nigel Henderson are on loan to the Hepworth in Wakefield as part of their exhibition Parallel of Art and Life considering the significance of the Independent Group’s installations in the 1950s.

NEW ACQUISITIONS In recognition of the recent flourishing of Royal Academician printmakers, we are working with Meryl Ainsley of the Rabley Drawing Centre to develop a collection of prints by current RAs through the Golder – Thompson Gift. The first acquisitions this year include contemporary etchings, screenprints and woodcuts by Norman Ackroyd, Basil Beattie, Maurice Cockrill, Eileen Cooper, Anne Desmet, Peter Freeth, Mali Morris and Humphrey Ocean, which will form part of a new collections display later this year.

Other individual gifts include an early Eric Gill drawing of a view of West Pallant looking towards the spire of Chichester Cathedral from the front of Pallant House. Gill and his family had moved to city in 1897, and he studied at the Chichester Technical and Art School before moving to London in 1900 to train in the practice of the architect W.D. Caroe. The drawing reflects his admiration for the architecture of the streets surrounding Pallant House. He wrote of East Pallant: ‘there is nothing more perfect in England than the five or six houses on the south side of the street.’

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YOUR LEGACY TO ART

If you have been inspired by Pallant House Gallery, why not consider leaving a legacy in your Will? A gift, however small, will help us maintain our pioneering Community work, innovative exhibition programmes and help conserve the Collections for future generations to enjoy. Thanks to a new government initiative, by leaving at least 10% of your estate to charity, the rate of Inheritance Tax applicable to the rest of your estate is reduced to 36%. Therefore, by giving to Pallant House Gallery you could benefit your beneficiaries as well.

All legacies are paid into the Gallery’s endowment fund which, until 30 June 2016, will be matched pound for pound with a grant from the HLF Catalyst Endowment Fund. To discuss leaving a legacy to Pallant House Gallery, please contact Elaine Bentley, Head of Development (01243 770844 / e.bentley@pallant.org.uk).

Thank you.

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CHAIRMAN OF THE FRIENDS' LETTER

The Stanhope Press, Ditchling Museum, Photograph by Brotherton-Lock © DMAC and Adam Richards Architects and Brotherton-Lock

Dear Friends, Patrons and Gallery Club members, First and foremost, may I wish you all a very happy New Year, and it is a pleasure to announce some new appointments. I am delighted to tell you that Marc Steene and Simon Martin have been appointed Co-Directors of Pallant House Gallery. Both have successful track records: Marc Steene has been Deputy Director since last year alongside his role as Head of Learning and Community, Simon Martin has been Head of Collections and Exhibitions for several years. Greg Perry, who joined Pallant House Gallery last year, has now completed his tenure.

Stephen Hammett, who has been Membership Secretary for the past two years, has kindly agreed to become Deputy Chairman of the Friends in succession to Jillie Moss who has decided to step down after five extremely successful years in this role. With her passion for art and wonderful imagination she introduced many innovative ideas and we are very grateful to her for everything she has done for the Friends. We are all delighted that she will continue to serve as a Trustee of the Friends and as a Gallery guide.

Elaine Bentley, Head of Development at Pallant House, has won the inaugural Legacy10 award for Excellence. This award, which was open to all fundraisers in the country, has been set up to recognise those who have contributed to legacy giving through innovation. The judges, experts in philanthropy and business, were impressed by Pallant

House Gallery’s creation of a scheme ensuring the Gallery is sustainably funded for generations to come. We congratulate Elaine on this terrific achievement. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who are remembering Pallant House in their Will and in doing so are helping to secure the future of the Gallery.

Sadly we lost a very good friend at the end of the year when Elizabeth Hasloch died after a short illness. Elizabeth took great interest in the exhibition programme and generously supported our exhibitions.

She undertook her duties as a Room Steward with exceptional elegance, enhanced by her remarkable knowledge of art. We greatly miss her presence in the Gallery.

As always, the new season of Gallery exhibitions are supported by a lively programme of events for Friends (see pages 49-51) which includes the popular series of Pallant Proms and Art Book Club sessions, a number of interesting new events and visits and advance notice of the Friends’ Away trip planned for later this year. The programme includes a visit to the newly renovated Ditchling museum on date 25 March and the article on p. 47 by the museum Director gives an insight into the Gallery and its collection of works by Eric Gill and others.

I hope you enjoy the current programme of events and I thank you all very much for your support of the Friends which we greatly appreciate.

Lady Nicholas Gordon Lennox, Chairman of the Friends 47

FRIENDS VISIT Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft

Photograph by Brotherton-Lock © DMAC and Adam Richards Architects and Brotherton-Lock

Home to a nationally important collection of artefacts made by the arts and craftsmen who lived in the village, in 2012 a £2.3 million grant from the HLF and other donors paved the way for an extensive year-long transformation of Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft. Ahead of a Friends’ trip to the Sussex venue, Hilary Williams, Director, introduces the new look renovation.

Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, formerly known as Ditchling Museum, was founded by two sisters when they were 76 and 78 years old. Hilary and Joanna Bourne had grown up in the village of Ditchling and knew many of the artists whose work they were later to collect with Edward Johnston, designer of the clean modernist font used by London Underground, being a favourite family friend.

Hilary Bourne herself went on to be a weaver of national and international note with two of her most important commissions being the fabrics for the Royal Festival Hall in 1951 and also Charlton Heston’s costumes for Ben Hur. We have examples of both in our collection.

In 1907 Eric Gill, sculptor and lettercutter, moved to Ditchling and to set up a studio and this had a major impact on the village as many other artists also came to live here – including Edward Johnston, David Jones, Hilary Pepler and the weaver Ethel Mairet. A Roman Catholic Guild was founded, St Joseph and St Dominic, and many of the artists lived and worked as a community on Ditchling Common, including weavers, sculptors and lettercutters, painters, letterpress printers, metalsmiths and carpenters and wood engravers. The Guild closed in 48

Pallant House Gallery Friends

1989 but the interest in this group of artists and ideas about life and work has remained. In fact, the Pallant House Gallery Collection even includes the wonderful nativity scene that was made and used by the Guild and carried in procession at Christmas. As well as the Guild, there was also another group of artists that included Sir Frank Brangwyn, who used the villagers as models for his murals including the example in the Rockefeller Centre in New York. Charles Knight, one of the artists in the ‘Recording Britain’ scheme, also lived in Ditchling and painted the South Downs as part of his contribution to that scheme.

Working with Adam Richards Architects the museum, which was re-opened in late September 2013 by Sir Nicholas Serota, now includes a wonderful 18th century Cartlodge as its entrance, café and shop; and a linking structure and introduction space made from engineered timber wrapped in black zinc that leads you back into the former museum buildings that are reimagined as a gallery for the display of the nationally-renowned collection. The building is designed so that visitors can see vistas of the village and the landscape that shaped and informed many of the objects in the collection, offering the rare opportunity to see the work in the environment in which it was imagined.

The museum is now another great addition to the wonderful galleries and museums in Sussex that includes Pallant House Gallery, The Towner and Charleston. We look forward to seeing you there soon!

The Friend’s Visit to the Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft will take place on Tues 25 March, 9am - 4:30pm. See p 50 for full details. www.ditchlingmuseumartcraft.org.uk.

WHAT’S ON FRIENDS’ EVENTS Find the rest of the public programme including workshops in the What's On guide or online at www.pallant.org.uk To book telephone 01243 774557

Art Book Club: Toby’s Room by Pat Barker Sun 16 March, 2.30–4pm A discussion of Barker’s followup to Life Class, which can be enjoyed in its own right. The book picks up the lives of Elinor, Kit and Paul - her fictionalised renderings of the generation of Slade artists described by the legendary drawing tutor Henry Tonks as the ‘last crisis of brilliance’ - as they negotiate the Art Book Club: Burning Bright by First World War. Moving from art school to Queen Mary’s Hospital, Tracy Chevalier Toby’s Room is a riveting drama of Sun 16 February, 2.30–4pm Join a discussion on Tracy Chevalier’s identity, damage, intimacy and loss. story of a family as they leave behind £5 incl. tea and cake tragedy in rural Dorset and come to Pallant Prom: late 18th Century London, where Aleksandar Djermanovic William Blake is their neighbour.

Sat 29 March , 12 noon –1pm In the book, two children get to The recitalist, from Serbia, know this extraordinary poet. is Aleksandar Djermanovic, who £5 incl. tea and cake will perform Schumann’s Fantasy in C major and the Sonata Tragica Pallant Prom:

by Nikolai Medtner. Aleksandar’s Vasco Dantas Rocha Sat 22 February, 12 noon to 1pm impressive list of solo appearances The Portuguese pianist Vasco Dantas includes the Rachmaninoff Hall in Moscow.

Rocha will play a programme of music by Beethoven and Liszt, which £5 Friends free but contributions towards expenses will be will include Beethoven’s “Waldstein” Sonata. Vasco has won first prize in a appreciated. Booking required. number of international competitions and in 2011 and 2012 gained the prestigious Henry Wood Trust Award. £5 Friends free but contributions towards expenses will be appreciated. Booking required.

Friends’ Private View Sat 15 February, 10–11am Be one of the first to see the new season of exhibitions including Stanley Spencer: Heaven on a Hell of War’, ‘Artists’ Studies: From Pencil to Paint’, and ‘Dennis Creffield’. Please note the day of the Private View has been changed to Saturday to avoid Sunday morning diary clashes.

Free. Coffee and biscuits provided

Friends Tour Artists Studies: From Pencil to Paint Weds 9 April, 11am A chance to find out more about the exhibition with Gallery Guide Jules Simmons. The exhibition examines the role of drawing and studies in the working methods of artists in the Gallery’s collections such as Sickert, Bomberg, Caulfield, Coldstream and Sutherland. £5 (£2.50 Student Friends) ncludes coffee and biscuits

John Minton, Portrait of David Tindle as a Boy (circa 1952), Oil on canvas, Hussey Bequest, Chichester District Council (1985) © Royal College of Art

Art Book Club, Utz

by Bruce Chatwin Sun 13 April, 2.30–4pm To link with the Gallery’s Collection of Bow porcelain, this month’s Book Club selection follows the fortune of Kaspar Utz who lives in Czechoslovakia during the Cold War. Title character Utz is a collector of Meissen porcelain and finds a way to travel outside the eastern bloc to acquire new pieces.

Whilst in the West, Utz often considers defecting but he would be unable to take his collection with him and so, a prisoner of his collection, he is unable to leave. £ 5 incl. tea and cake Pallant House Gallery Friends

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VISITS Gallery Club Visit: The Keeper’s House at the Royal Academy of Art, and the main exhibitions Wed 19 March This exclusive Gallery Club visit will include an introduction by the current Keeper, Eileen Cooper. We will visit the new Sir Oliver Casson and Belle Shenkman rooms and have lunch in the new restaurant. There will be time to visit the Academy’s main galleries. On show will be ‘Sensing Spaces – Architecture Reimagined’, based on some of the most creative architectural minds from around the world. £ 60 incl. coffee, RA Guide, and lunch; excludes transport. Contact the Friends' Office for further details.

Bell Shenkman Room, The Royal Academy of Art

Art Book Club: Colour: Travels Through the Paintbox

by Victoria Finlay Sun 18 May, 2.30–4pm Part travelogue, part narrative history, Colour tells the remarkable story of the author’s quest to uncover the many hidden secrets inside the paint box. Find out more about the stories, anecdotes and adventures - when orange was the poison pigment, blue as expensive as gold, and yellow made from the urine of cows force-fed with mangoes. £5 incl. tea and cake Art Book Club: Headlong by Michael Frayn Sun 15 June, 2.30–4pm The June Book Club choice is an intoxicating blend of farce and social comedy – a sustained history lesson on the Spanish conquest of the Netherlands and the 16th century Dutch landscape painter Pieter Bruegel, and a study of the frailties of the human heart. £5 incl. tea and cake

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Pallant House Gallery Friends

Pallant Festival Concert: Young-Choon Park (piano Sat 14 June, 12 noon Acclaimed international pianist Young-Choon Park opens the 2014 Festival of Chichester with two masterworks – Beethoven’s Sonata No.3 and Chopin’s Sonata No.3. £12.50 (Friends £11) Sponsored by David Brown.

Pallant Festival Concert: Benjamin Wolf (piano) and Alison Holford (cello) Sat 28 June, 12 noon.

A special Festival of Chichester performance of Shostakovich’s Cello Sonata together with Janacek’s Pohadka and the premiere of Benjamin Wolf’s ‘Pictures from Pallant’, inspired by works in the Gallery. £12.50 (Friends £11)

Friend’s Visit: Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft Tues 25 March, 9am- 4:30pm A trip to Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, home to a nationally important collection of artefacts made by the arts and craftsmen who lived in the village, such as typographer and sculptor Eric Gill and designer of the London Underground font Edward Johnston, which has just undergone a major redevelopment programme.

On arrival we will have coffee and an introduction to the Gallery given by the curator. Then free time for a lunch of your choice, reconvening for group visits to a selection of local galleries, studios and workshops including the recently renovated workshops of the renowned British artist, Sir Frank Brangwyn, The Jointure, and a special visit to the late Edgar Holloway’s studio. The coach will return to Chichester, arriving about 4:30pm.

Wear comfortable shoes. £45 incl. travel and gallery entry, excluding lunch and coffee

Friends’ Visit: The Otter Gallery Weds 30 April, 10am–12.30pm Complementing the exhibition at Pallant House Gallery, the Otter Gallery will be showing two rarely seen Spencer studies for the Sandham Memorial Chapel from the Otter Gallery permanent collection.

These important works form part of their exhibition ‘Fields to Factories: Women’s Work on the Home Front’ in the First World War which also features work by Spencer’s wife Hilda Carline inspired by her service in the Women’s Land Army. This visit includes an opportunity to see the exhibition and an exclusive tour by curator Dr Gill Clarke, Visiting Professor at the University of Chichester. £7.50 (£3.50 Student Friends) includes coffee and biscuits.

Meet at the Otter Gallery at 9.30am for coffee.

Friends’ Visit: Kettles Yard, Cambridge Tues 6 and Weds 7 May This overnight visit to Cambridge will include a chance to see the ‘Art & Life 1920 – 1931’ exhibition at Kettles Yard. This major exhibition features the work of Ben Nicholson, Winifred Nicholson, Christopher Wood and William Staite Murray. The two-day trip will also include a guided tour of the Fitzwilliam Museum, an evening reception with drinks and visits to other cultural and historic sites in the city. £240 incl. transportation, entry fees, reception, dinner and B&B but excludes lunches. Leave Chichester at 9am on 6 May, return 5pm on 7 May. Please note final details are TBC. Contact the Friends’ office for the full itinerary. (01243 770816)

COMING SOON Friends’ Away Visit to Bath Autumn 2014 This autumn’s Friends’ Away trip will be a three day visit to Bath, probably in late September. We will visit locations in Bath such as the Holbourne Museum, Victoria Art Gallery, the Pump Rooms, and historic Bath (on foot). In the area we will consider visits to Stourhead (NT) or Priory Park (NT), the American Museum in Britain, and the Rabley Drawing Centre, and a day trip to Bristol.

Details of the trip including dates and costs will be finalised in February. If you are interested in taking part in the visit, please contact the Friends’ Office (01243 770816)

PATRONS OF THE GALLERY We are immensely grateful to the following Patrons of Pallant House Gallery, and to all those who wish to remain anonymous, for their generous support: Mrs Judy Addison Smith Keith Allison Lady Susan Anstruther John and Annoushka Ayton David and Elizabeth Benson Edward and Victoria Bonham Carter Vanessa Branson Ronnie and Margaret Brown Patrick K F Donlea Frank and Lorna Dunphy Lewis Golden Paul and Kay Goswell

Mr and Mrs Scott Greenhalgh Mr and Mrs Alan Hill Andrew Jones and Laura Hodgson James and Clare Kirkman Peter and Merle Lomas José and Michael Manser ra Robin Muir and Paul Lyon-Maris Angie O'Rourke Denise Patterson Catherine and Franck Petitgas Charles Rolls and Jans Ondaatje Rolls Mr and Mrs David Russell

Sophie and David Shalit Tania Slowe and Paddy Walker John and Fiona Smythe Tim and Judith Wise John Young André Zlattinger

If you are interested in becoming a Patron of Pallant House Gallery please contact Helen Martin on 01243 770838 or h.martin@pallant.org.uk

Tickets 01243 774557 (Booking Required)

Pallant House Gallery Friends

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Pallant House Gallery Friends

WHAT'S ON GALLERY EVENTS Find the rest of the public programme including workshops in the What's On guide or online at www.pallant.org.uk To book telephone 01243 774557

TALKS All talks £8.50, Friends £7, Students £7.50 Unless otherwise stated A New Hope, a New Jerusalem: An Artistic Response to a Century of War Thurs 20 March, 6pm Two industrialized world wars forged a shared experience of suffering and conflict in Britain.

In different ways artists sought to acknowledge the personal tragedies of war with an uncompromising honesty, bound up with a spiritual and political re-articulation of hope and nationhood. Rupert Toovey will explore how a range of Modern British artists responded to this challenge and the place of Stanley Spencer’s work at the Sandham Memorial Chapel in this movement.

Includes a glass of wine courtesy of the event sponsor, Toovey’s Antique & Fine Art Auctioneers.

Tickets 01243 774557 (Booking Required)

The Bloomsbury Cookbook: Jans Ondaatje Rolls in conversation with Virginia Nicholson Thurs 3 April, 6pm An insight into what Bloomsbury Group members such as Virginia Woolf, EM Forster, Lytton Strachey and Roger Fry were eating as they debated literature, life and the big issues of the time. Rolls, also author of Bosham Bisque and Chester Chowder, will be in conversation with the author Virginia Nicholson, grand-daughter of Vanessa Bell. A book signing will follow in the Gallery Bookshop.

The Art and Music of the First World War Thurs 24 April, 6pm Despite the devastation of the First World War the conflict led to the creation of some of the most profound and powerful art and music of the 20th century.

Marking the Centenary of the First World War, artist Tim Gwyther and music specialist Terry Barfoot explore the work of artists such as Paul Nash, Wyndham Lewis and CRW Nevinson and music

by Vaughn Williams, George Butterworth among others.

Nature Morte: Contemporary Artists Reinvigorate the Still Life Tradition Thurs 1 May, 6pm Artist, curator and writer Dr Michael Petry explores how leading artists such as Damien Hirst, David Hockney, Marc Quinn and Ai WeiWei have explored the genre of the still life, previously synonymous with 16th- and 17th-century Old Masters, to create works of conceptual vivacity and striking beauty. A book signing will follow in the Gallery Bookshop.

Includes a glass of wine courtesy of the event sponsor Thames & Hudson Spencer at Burghclere Thurs 15 May, 6pm Timothy Hyman RA, curator of the Tate’s Spencer retrospective in 2001, will discuss the artist’s pivotal Burghclere images- the cycle of paintings that were both a fulfilment of his fresco aspiration and a new turn towards Realism and ‘Objectivity’.

Stanley Spencer: Love and War Thurs 29 May, 6pm To coincide with the Stanley Spencer exhibition, celebrated biographer and critic Fiona MacCarthy, author of the book ‘Stanley Spencer: An English Vision’ discusses the strange life and visionary art of the 20th century’s major British painter.

Includes a glass of wine courtesy of the event sponsor Lund Humphries to coincide with the publication of Andrew Causey’s new book ‘Art as a Mirror of Himself’.

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WHAT'S ON GALLERY EVENTS Find the rest of the public programme including workshops in the What's On guide or online at www.pallant.org.uk To book telephone 01243 774557

Portraits of Artists: Nicholas Sinclair Thurs 5 June, 6pm Nicholas Sinclair discusses his personal approach to taking portraits, how he composes and lights his photographs, how he edits a photo shoot and selects the pictures that are seen by the public, and why he has chosen to spend more than twenty years photographing Britain’s artists.

A book signing will follow in the Gallery Bookshop.

Includes a glass of wine courtesy of the event sponsor, the Pallant Bookshop.

Kenneth Clark by Dr Chris Stephens Thurs 19 June, 6pm To coincide with the major exhibition at Tate Britain Chris Stephens explores the impact of art historian, public servant and broadcaster Kenneth Clark (1903–1983), widely seen as one of the most influential figures in Modern British art.

The talk examines Clark’s role as a patron and collector of artists such as Henry Moore, Victor Pasmore, John Piper and Graham Sutherland, and celebrates his contribution to bringing art in the twentieth century to a more popular audience. A book signing will follow in the Gallery Bookshop.

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Artists’ Studies: From Pencil to Paint Thurs 17 April, 6pm A chance to find out more about the exhibition with Gallery Guide Jules Simmons. The exhibition examines the role of drawing and studies in the working methods of artists in the Gallery’s collections such as Sickert, Bomberg, Caulfield, Coldstream and Sutherland. £ 5 (£2.50 students)

GALLERY TOURS

OTHER EVENTS

Stanley Spencer: Heaven in a Hell of War Thurs 6 March, 6pm Amanda Bradley, Assistant Curator of Pictures and Sculpture of the National Trust will give a tour of the exhibition which showcases Stanley Spencer’s celebrated murals based on his experiences of the First World War. £5 (£2.50 students)

Fine Art and Oriental Ceramics and Works of Art Valuations Afternoon with Toovey’s Mon 12 May, 1–5pm Fine Art and Oriental Ceramics and Works of Art Valuations Afternoon with Toovey’s in aid of Pallant House Gallery. Specialist valuers from Gallery sponsors Toovey’s Antique and Fine Art Auctioneers will be offering valuations of fine paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures and Chinese, Japanese and other Far Eastern antiques at the Gallery. A third of the seller’s commission for items subsequently auctioned at Toovey’s will be donated to Pallant House Gallery.

Stanley Spencer: Heaven in a Hell of War Thurs 29 May, 6pm Another chance to find out more about the exhibition with Katy Norris, Assistant Curator of Pallant House Gallery. £5 (£2.50 students)

Michael Andrews, Study for 'The Colony Room' (1962), Oil on board, Pallant House Gallery (Wilson Gift through The Art Fund) © Estate of Michael Andrews

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BOOKSHOP

STANLEY SPENCER: HEAVEN IN A HELL OF WAR Beautifully illustrated throughout with some never before published sketches by Spencer, this book is an essential companion to a unique war memorial created by one of Britain’s best-loved painters. £19.95 (Paperback) Pallant House Gallery

STANLEY SPENCER ART AS A MIRROR OF HIMSELF BY ANDREW CAUSEY Charting the trajectory of Spencer’s painting career in depth, this original publication provides a comprehensive analysis of the artist’s oeuvre. £45 (Special Price £39.95) (Hardback) Lund Humphries

STANLEY SPENCER: JOURNEY TO BURGHCLERE BY PAUL GOUGH Paul Gough tells the story of the artist´s journey from cosseted family life, through the drudgery of a war hospital and the malarial battlefields of a forgotten front, to his unique vision of peace and resurrection in Burghclere. £24.95 (Special Price £16.95) (Paperback) Sansom & Company

NATURE MORTE: CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS REINVIGORATE THE STILL-LIFE TRADITION BY MICHAEL PETRY This important, timely book reveals in over 400 illustrations how leading artists of the 21st century have reinvigorated a genre previously synonymous with 16th- and 17thcentury Old Masters, redefining what it means to be a work of nature morte, or ‘dead nature’. £35 (Hardback) Thames & Hudson

THE BLOOMSBURY COOKBOOK: RECIPES FOR LIFE, LOVE AND ART BY JANS ONDAATJE ROLLS The Bloomsbury story told through recipes, enhanced with sketches, paintings, photographs, letters and handwritten notes. Part cookbook, part social and cultural history, this book will appeal to lovers of food and lovers of literature alike. £24.95 (Hardback) Thames & Hudson

PORTRAITS OF ARTISTS

BY NICHOLAS SINCLAIR A unique collection of portraits of artists photographed in their studios with their work. Artists featured include: Peter Blake, Richard Deacon, Maggi Hambling, Julian Opie, Marc Quinn, Bill Woodrow and many more. £25 (Special price £15) (Hardback) Lund Humphries

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f o r d i s c e r n i n g t r a v e l l e r s Our escorted holidays consist of small exclusive groups of like-minded travellers in the company of an expert tour leader and are designed to appeal to those with an interest in history, art, gardens, architecture and music.

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T H E A RT C I T I E S OF F L A N DE RS FIVE NIGHT ESCORTED HOLIDAYS | 3 JULY & 13 OCTOBER 2014

Based in Bruges, one of the most perfect medieval townscapes in Europe, our tour will introduce you to some of the greatest examples of Flemish art in three important art cities.

Each city remain surprisingly little-known considering their stables as great centres of art and their easy accessibility from London by Eurostar. Visits include the Groeninge and Memling Museums in Bruges and Rubens House and the Mayer van den Bergh and Plantin-Moretus Museums in Antwerp. In Ghent we see one of the greatest of all Flemish works,‘The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb’ by the Van Eyck brothers in St. Bavo Cathedral. We also include a visit to the Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres to mark the Centenary of World War I. Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, Ghent

Price from £1,248 for five nights including travel by Eurostar, accommodation with breakfast, three dinners and the services of the Kirker Tour Leader.

Speak to an expert or request a brochure:

020 7593 2284

quote code GPH

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CHICHESTER FESTIVAL THEATRE

FESTIVAL 2014 ANNOUNCED IN MARCH

Keep up to date cft.org.uk 01243 781312 CFT14_Announcement_Pallant_106x148.indd 1

16/01/2014 10:13

SEAN SCULLY: TRIPTYCHS PRIVATE VIEW Photographs by Jason Hedges (www.jasonhedges.co.uk)

(Left to Right) Sean Scully, artist, and Lady Ritblat, and Keith and Helen Clark

(Left to Right) Mina Salimi, artist, Andrea Rose and William Feaver, Jehni Arboine

(Left to Right) Teresa and Rupert Toovey, Tim Taylor, Lady Pippa Blake and Gordon Roddick

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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CRUCIFIXION, 1947 BY GRAHAM SUTHERLAND

Graham Sutherland, Crucifixion, Oil on board, 1947, Pallant House Gallery, (Hussey Bequest, Chichester District Council, 1985)

Over the centuries, it has always been the gift of great artists to reflect upon the world we all share and to allow us, through their work, to glimpse something of what lies beyond our immediate perception. The 20th century brought the shared and shocking experience of war to two generations. It has often been the role of enlightened patrons to enable artists to express their visions. In 1942, as bombs fell upon Britain, Walter Hussey, on Kenneth Clark’s recommendation, commissioned Henry Moore to carve Madonna and Child in the warm hues of Hornton stone at St. Matthew’s, Northampton, where he was vicar. As the sculpture was nearing completion, Hussey talked to Moore about a number of artists he was considering for a large painting in the south transept, opposite.

Henry Moore unhesitatingly recommended Graham Sutherland.

Hussey had in mind the Agony in the Garden as a subject. Sutherland confessed his ambition ‘to do a Crucifixion of a significant size’ and Hussey agreed.

Writing of the finished work, Kenneth Clark, then Director of the National Gallery and responsible for the War Artists project, said, ‘Sutherland’s Crucifixion is the successor to the Crucifixion of Grünewald and the early Italians.’ In 1955, Winston Churchill’s last ecclesiastical appointment was to install Walter Hussey as Dean of Chichester Cathedral, where his influence bore much fruit. How appropriate, then, that Walter Hussey’s gift of much of his collection to Chichester should reside at Pallant House Gallery.

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The Gallery's 1947 Crucifixion by Sutherland displays his obsession with thorns as metaphors for human cruelty; their jagged lines are reflected throughout the composition. The American military published a book of photographs which featured scenes of the Nazi concentration camps, including images of those held captive at Belsen, Auschwitz and Buchenwald. To Sutherland, ‘many of the tortured bodies looked like figures deposed from crosses’ and he acknowledged the influence of these photographs on his Crucifixions.

Here, Jesus Christ’s body hangs lifeless upon the cross, the shocking red of His blood accentuated by the fertile green. There is agony in the body’s posture, the weight clearly visible in the angular shoulders, chest and distorted stomach. This is a God who understands and shares in human suffering. Graham Sutherland, a Roman Catholic, was sustained by his Christian faith all his life. He commented that he was drawn to the subject of the Crucifixion because of its duality.

He noted that the Crucifixion ‘is the most tragic of all themes yet inherent in it is the promise of salvation’.

In Sutherland’s versions, a generation united in their common story finally had depictions of the Crucifixion which reflected their experience of the world and yet spoke loudly of the triumph of hope in response to the tragedy of war. Rev. Rupert Toovey Rupert Toovey will give a talk on ‘A New Hope, a New Jerusalem: An Artistic Response to a Century of War’ on Thurs 20 March, 6pm. For more information go to page 53 or visit www.pallant.org.uk

© 2014 the andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual arts, inc. / artists rights society (ars), new york

modern & contemporary editions noW acceptinG consiGnments CONSIGNMENT DEADLINE 4 AprIL 2014 auction 12 june london enquiries +44 20 7318 4075 rkennan@phillips.com ANDY WARHOL Flowers, 1970 (detail) Sold for £ 35,000

Invitation to Consign Modern British and Irish Art © THE ESTATE OF STANLEY SPENCER 2014. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DACS.

2013 saw some of the most successful ever sales of Modern British Art. Christie’s set 10 new auction records for artists within the field including Sir Stanley Spencer, Dame Barbara Hepworth, Dame Elisabeth Frink, Allen Jones and John Piper.

Following these successes, we are inviting consignments to our summer sales.

For a free and confidential valuation, or to discuss the market, please do not hesitate to contact us.

CONTACT

André Zlattinger azlattinger@christies.com +44 (0) 20 7389 2681 AUCTIONS

9 –10 June 2014 Consign by 1 April 2014 SIR STANLEY SPENCER, R.A. (1891–1959)

Christ Preaching at Cookham Regatta: Conversation Between Punts Estimate: £3,000,000–5,000,000 Sold for £6,018,500 World Record Price for the Artist at Auction World Record Price for the Category at Auction

The Art People christies.com