Pallant House Gallery - Magazine No.33 (Full Version)

THE SCOTTISH COLOURIST JD FERGUSSON The European Modernist

Alice Strang and Barbara Rae on J.D. Fergusson Powerful Prints Andrew Lambirth on the bold prints of Barbara Rae ra War and Peace Katy Norris on a new Collections display commemorating the First World War Printmaking Today Meryl Ainslie on the exciting process of printmaking

£2 Number 33 July – October 2014 www.pallant.org.uk

EDINBURGH FESTIVAL EXHIBITION

VICTORIA CROWE 31 JULY - 30 AUGUST 2014

16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ TEL 0131 558 1200 EMAIL mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk www.scottish-gallery.co.uk Shadow and Fire (detail), oil on linen, 101.5 x 76.2 cms

CHRISTOPHER R W NEVINSON An Exhibition of Prints and Drawings

25 SEPTEMBER -18 OCTOBER 2014

Loading the Ship, 1917 (also known as The Endless Chain). Lithograph. 43.2 x 33.8 cm

A new publication by Lund Humphries in association with Osborne Samuel Gallery, ‘C.R.W. Nevinson: The Complete Prints by Dr. Jonathan Black’ will be launched during this exhibition.

Exhibition catalogue available.

For more information about the exhibition please contact the gallery or email: bchhohan@osbornesamuel.com

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

Specialists in Scottish Paintings & Sculpture Lyon & Turnbull is proud to be a supporter of the J D Fergusson exhibition at Pallant House Gallery.

Our specialist for Southern England is visiting homes in your area.

For no-obligation valuations, please contact Emily Johnston: 07741 247 225 or emily.johnston@lyonandturnbull.com JOHN DUNCAN FERGUSSON EASTRE (HYMN TO THE SUN) £12,000-18,000

CADELL | £30,000-50,000

PEPLOE | £200,000-300,000

FERGUSSON | £20,000-30,000

The pictured lots are all included in our biannual dedicated Scottish Paintings and Sculpture auction, to be held in Edinburgh on 22nd May 2014. To review our results please visit wwwlyonandturnbull.com

EDINBURGH

LONDON

GLASGOW

0131 557 8844 | auctions@lyonandturnbull.com | www.lyonandturnbull.com

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 .

S ym dh tle lbo est 20 179 ww fo@ 0 w in Da Be Fit Pu W RH

Contents Features

John Duncan Fergusson, The Blue Hat, Closerie des Lilas, 1909, Oil on canvas, City Art Centre, City of Edinburgh Museums and Galleries; purchased from Margaret Morris 1962, Š The Fergusson Gallery, Perth & Kinross Council, Scotland

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

20 The European Modernist

Alice Strang 28 J.D. Fergusson

Barbara Rae 30 Barbara Rae:

Exploration and Accident

Andrew Lambirth 34 The Thrill of Pulling a Print

Meryl Ainslie 38 Four Heads

Emily Young 40 War and Peace

Katy Norris 44 Outside In: Michelle Roberts

Kate Davey

Friends 49 50 51

Chairman's Letter Visit Preview: Grand Tour of Bath Friends' Events

Regulars 9 13 17 54 57 59 60

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

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Contributors

With thanks

EDITORIAL Editor Harriet Judd, h.judd@pallant.org.uk Sub Editor Beth Funnell Gallery Editorial Kate Davey, Katy Norris, Simon Martin, Marc Steene Guest Editorial Alice Strang, Barbara Rae, Andrew Lambirth, Meryl Ainslie, Emily Young Friends' Editorial Lady Nicholas Gordon Lennox Design, Editing and Production David Wynn

THE SCOTTISH COLOURIST: J.D. FERGUSSON 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 Tuesday–Saturday Thursday Sunday/Bank Holidays

Closed 10am–5pm 10am–8pm 11am–5pm

De’Longhi JD Fergusson Art Foundation PF Charitable Trust Portland Gallery Hosali Foundation Fine Art Society Lyon & Turnbull Friends of Pallant House Gallery With generous support from JD Fergusson Exhibition Supporters’ Circle 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

Fine art, antiques and collectables valuations afternoon in support of Pallant House Gallery Monday 29th September 2014 Toovey’s specialists will be on hand from 1pm to 5pm at Pallant House Gallery to offer free valuations and advice.

A third of the seller’s commission for items subsequently auctioned at Toovey’s will be donated to Pallant House.

TOOVEY’S

The leading antique and fine art auction house in West Sussex Spring Gardens, A24 Washington, West Sussex RH20 3BS 01903 891955 auctions@tooveys.com www.tooveys.com

PROUD SPONSORS OF PALLANT HOUSE GALLERY

sCottish art

Thursday 25 September 2014 Edinburgh samuel John PePloe, rsa (1871-1935) Still life of mixed roses in Chinese vase Sold for ÂŁ421,250

entries now invited Closing date for entries: Friday 27 June 2014 ContaCt +44 (0) 131 240 2292 colleen.bowen@bonhams.com

bonhams.com/scottishart Prices shown include buyer’s premium. Details can be found at bonhams.com

DIRECTORS' LETTER

Barbara Rae, South of Grenada, 2006, Etching with Collagraph, © The Artist

This summer we showcase bold paintings from early twentieth-century Paris, contemporary prints and sculptures by some of the most respected artists working today and new collection displays. We are privileged to be the only English venue for ‘The Scottish Colourist: J.D. Fergusson’. More commonly shown with the other Scottish Colourists, Fergusson deserves to be viewed as a major modern artist on his own terms. His daring series of nudes created in Paris between 1910 and 1913 are among the most original paintings in British art of the period. The exhibition is timely, not only because of the Scottish Independence Referendum this autumn, but also it brings together for the first time a group of First World War paintings of the Portsmouth docks continuing our commemorations of the centenary of the conflict.

Like Fergusson, the contemporary Scottish artist Barbara Rae RA is celebrated for her use of colour.

In the De’Longhi Print Room we focus on the artist’s etchings and screenprints of landscapes of New Mexico, Spain, Ireland and Scotland. In this magazine Dr Rae writes about Fergusson’s work and we feature art critic Andrew Lambirth’s insights into her prints. The focus on contemporary printmaking is extended with an exhibition marking the acquisition of works by Royal Academicians through the Golder -Thompson Gift, an annual donation of funds for the purchase of prints. As well as works by RAs known for their printmaking, the recent gift includes prints by sculptors such as Ann Christopher and painters such as David Hockney, Humphrey Ocean, Mali Morris and the late Maurice Cockrill. The collection has been built

through discussions with the donors Mark Golder and Brian Thompson, curatorial staff and Meryl Ainslie of the Rabley Drawing Centre (the venue for a Friends visit this summer) who has contributed an article on printmaking for this magazine.

In the Courtyard Garden we present four heads by the sculptor Emily Young, described as ‘Britain’s greatest living stone sculptor’. Her pieces have a serene quality; human presences wrought from the ancient stone in careful balance with the physical qualities of the rock.

We are crossing our fingers for good summer weather so these can be enjoyed whilst taking lunch or tea in the garden.

The Gallery has recently been gifted works by three historic Outsider Artists; Madge Gill, Scottie Wilson and Albert Louden, to add to its growing collection of Outsider Art, and has joined the committee of the European Outsider Art Association to forge further links with European galleries and museums. In the Studio we will be exhibiting the last two of the six Award Winners from the Outside In National exhibition in 2012, Mathew Sergison Main and Michelle Roberts as well as the outcomes of our local schools project ‘Picture This + 1’.

Finally, we are delighted to welcome Andrew Churchill to the Gallery as Deputy Director. And we are, as ever, immensely grateful to our sponsors and supporters who have made the summer programme possible. We look forward to welcoming you all to the Gallery this season.

Marc Steene, Executive Director and Simon Martin, Artistic Director 9

De’Longhi announces Support for Eighth Annual Macmillan De’Longhi Art Auction

Michael Birt, Baroness Thatcher, 1995

Rob Ryan, Our adventure is about to begin, 2012

Since our last gallery booklet, De’Longhi, leader in stylish Italian coffee machines, is proud to announce its support for the eighth Macmillan De’Longhi Art Auction to be held in London this autumn.

The annual Macmillan De'Longhi Art Auction showcases and auctions contemporary artworks from a specially invited selection of artists to raise funds for Macmillan Cancer Support. Over its seven year history, the event has attracted generous donations by acclaimed artists including Yinka Shonibare, Damien Hirst, Antony Gormley, Tomma Abts, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Gavin Turk, Idris Khan, Jonathan Yeo and Rankin.

The charity event has raised over £900,000 since its conception in 2007, helping support those whose lives are affected by cancer. The money raised is used for funding services such as information and support centres, phone services, building cancer care facilities, as well as assisting nurses and other specialist health care professionals.

The 2014 edition will look to build on last year’s success which was held at the Royal College of Art and raised over £116,500 by continuing to hold a public exhibition of the artworks before the auction and allowing for online bidding throughout the evening.

As sponsors of Pallant House, De’Longhi will be displaying a selection of artworks from this year’s

auction at Pallant House in late October to help spread the word, whilst offering the opportunity for people to bid on their favourites before the event.

The event would not be made possible without the help of a dedicated Committee who donate their time to making each year ever better. Dea Vanagan, independent curator for organisations such as Artwise and Situations, has been on the Macmillan De’Longhi Art Auction for the last two years and explains, “Year on year we're amazed at the generosity of the artists' donations, especially when knowing they're constantly asked by various charities to donate works in support of causes. Cancer doesn't discriminate; it affects us all, which is perhaps why the Macmillan De'Longhi Art Auction touches the hearts of so many renowned international artists to support the event. There are also lots of emerging artists to discover, it’s about seeing how the art world is coming together to fight cancer.”

Closer to home, De’Longhi will continue to contribute to the work of Pallant House in 2014 and is proud to sponsor the Print Room, set to feature a variety of exhibitions over the next few months.

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

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British art at its very best

Graham Sutherland OM (1903-1980) ‘Cave Entrance’, 1961, oil on canvas, 24 x 19 cm From: Piano Nobile www.paino-nobile.com

10 – 14 September 2014 Royal College of Art, Kensington Gore, London SW7 2EU

www.britishartfair.co.uk Proudly sponsored by Follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/britishartfair

THE SCOTTISH COLOURIST: J. D. FERGUSSON 5 JULY – 19 OCTOBER 2014 A major exhibition dedicated to the celebrated Scottish Colourist J.D. Fergusson (1874–1961), exploring his links with Parisian modernism in the early twentiethcentury and featuring vibrant landscapes, still lifes and voluptuous female nudes. This exhibition is a partnership between the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh and The Fergusson Gallery, Perth.

Main galleries, 12–16

EXHIBITIONS DIARY

Emma Stibbon, Shattered Cone, 2013 , Intaglio print on paper, Pallant House Gallery (Gift of Rabley Contemporary and the Artist, 2014) © The Artist

John Duncan Fergusson, Hortensia, 1922, Oil on canvas, The Fergusson Gallery, Perth & Kinross Council, purchased with the assistance of the Heritage Lottery Fund (1998), © The Fergusson Gallery, Perth & Kinross Council, Scotland

BARBARA RAE: PRINTS 1 JULY – 26 OCTOBER 2014 Focusing on the innovative etchings and screenprints of Barbara Rae RA (b.1943), an exhibition of bold and colourful landscapes the artist experienced in her travels across the globe, from New Mexico, Spain and Ireland to her homeland of Scotland.

De'Longhi Print Room

ROYAL ACADEMICIAN PRINTMAKERS: NEW ACQUISITIONS THROUGH THE GOLDER-THOMPSON GIFT 5 JULY – 19 OCTOBER 2014 Showcasing a new acquisition of prints to the Collection, with works by Royal Academicians Norman Ackroyd, Basil Beattie, Eileen Cooper, Anne Desmet, David Hockney, Mali Morris, Humphrey Ocean, Emma Stibbon and others. Main galleries, 17 EMILY YOUNG: FOUR HEADS FROM 5 JULY 2014 A group of stone heads by Emily Young (b.1951), widely acknowledged as Britain’s greatest living stone sculptor. Young’s work features in public and private collections across the world including The Imperial War Museum, St Paul’s Churchyard, London, and Salisbury Cathedral. Courtyard

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EXHIBITIONS DIARY

Patients art work from the Graylingwell Heritage Project

STUDIO EXHIBITIONS PICTURE THIS + 1 1 JULY – 27 JULY 2014 An exhibition of work by pupils from St Anthony’s School and Jessie Younghusband School, Chichester, in response to this year’s selected collection painting Redland Park Congregational Church, Bristol by John Piper.

MATTHEW SERGISON-MAIN SOLO SHOW 29 JULY – 24 AUGUST 2014 The fifth Outside In: National 2012 Award Winner Matthew Sergison-Main creates work that excites his creativity and is highly detailed in appearance.

GRAYLINGWELL HERITAGE – HIDDEN HISTORIES 26 AUGUST – 28 SEPTEMBER 2014 The first exhibition of a selection of work from a unique archive of patients’ artwork produced at the Graylingwell Hospital and recently donated to the project.

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MICHELLE ROBERTS SOLO SHOW 30 SEPTEMBER – 26 OCTOBER 2014 The final Outside In: National Award Winner Michelle Roberts creates colourful and complex worlds in her works; each with a distinct logic and meaning that connect to her own life.

SUSSEX ARTISTS AWARD WINNER 2013 28 OCTOBER – 23 NOVEMBER 2014 The award is a nationwide opportunity, supporting the community, aimed at championing the works of artists across the country. 2013 First prize winner Elspeth Ross exhibits a selection of her work.

JANKEL

Paintings & Drawings over 100 works

An exhibition devoted to Jankel Adler's achievement is long overdue.

I am delighted that a show focusing on his final period in Britain, where he reached full maturity as an artist, has now arrived.

Catalogue by Richard Cork View films and catalogue online at goldmarkart.com

goldmark ORANGE STREET, UPPINGHAM, RUTLAND, LE15 9SQ 01572 821424 goldmarkart.com

NEWS A CATALYST UPDATE Thanks to the generosity of many individuals and trusts, and two substantial legacies, the Gallery has raised £383,458 towards its target of £1million, matched £1 for £1 by the Heritage Lottery Fund. The Gallery has until 30 June 2016 to raise the balance of £616,542. This is a wonderful opportunity to increase the existing endowment fund by an additional £2million, generating secure income of around £100,000 per annum towards core running costs and supporting the exhibitions, learning and community programmes. Catalyst can increase the value of your donation through tax relief and match funding, e.g. a donation of £100 with Gift Aid of £25 is worth £250 to the Gallery. For more information on this Appeal and how you can make a contribution, please contact Elaine Bentley, Head of Development (01243 770844 e.bentley@pallant.org.uk).

UNLIMITED PANEL Executive Director, Marc Steene, has been invited to sit on the selection panel for Unlimited. Unlimited celebrates the work of disabled artists and the programme and has been awarded £1.5million by Arts Council England to deliver a three-year programme of Unlimited commissions which will include festivals at Southbank Centre and showcases of new work across the country. www.weareunlimited.org.uk LOANS OUT Two white porcelain busts of Mongolians from the Gallery’s Geoffrey Freeman Collection of Bow Porcelain will go on display this summer as part of the ‘Looking for Civilisation’ exhibition at Tate Britain which explores the role of Kenneth Clark as a patron and collector.

Elsewhere, following its inclusion in the recent ‘Artists’ Studies’ show at Pallant House Gallery, Michael Andrews’ composition The Colony Room I, Studies for his painting The Pier and the Road and a painting by William Coldstream entitled Seated Nude will be loaned to the LWL Museum for Art and Culture, Münster. The exhibition, opening this autumn, is curated by Catherine Lampert and devoted to the daring and powerful style of figurative painting pioneered in London between 1950 and 1980 and will also feature artists such as Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and Frank Auerbach.

Michael Buhler, Untitled, 1965, Oil on canvas, Pallant House Gallery (Acquired by Pallant House Gallery from the Artist's Estate through Jonathan Clark Fine Art, 2014) © Estate of the Artist

NEW ACQUISITIONS A significant carved wood sculpture by Barbara Hepworth Figure (Walnut) comes to Pallant House Gallery on long loan from the Hepworth Estate and will add to two works in different mediums already on display at the gallery, Single Form, Nocturne (1968) carved in marble and a painted bronze, Two Forms with White (Greek) (1969). This new loan offers greater scope to explore the wide variety of materials, textures and surfaces that characterised Hepworth’s work during the 1960s, a period that she described as being defined by a ‘feeling of tremendous liberation’. Other new works include the painting Sunflowers, 1961 by Peter Coker, offered as a gift by his widow Mrs Vera Coker, and an untitled abstract composition by Michael Buhler dating from the mid1960s. Buhler’s painting compliments the Gallery’s existing post-war collection and demonstrates his sophisticated, highly independent interpretation of the dominant styles of Pop art, Op art and Colour Field abstraction.

PRIVATE EVENTS Pallant House Gallery provides a unique setting for events, large or small, and can cater for business seminars, private receptions and fine dining. For a truly special event contact Helen Martin on 01243 770838 or h.martin@pallant.org.uk GROUP VISITS Groups enjoy reduced admission to the Gallery and can choose to have a private 40 minute talk on the current exhibition or add a pre-booked lunch followed by a guided tour of the Collection. For an inspired group visit contact Helen Martin on 01243770838 or h.martin@pallant.org.uk

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8 BENNET STREET, LONDON, SW1A 1RP

TELEPHONE 020 7493 1888

EMAIL art@portlandgallery.com

Leading specialists in Scottish Colourist paintings In the last 12 months we have negotiated the private sale of a good number of top quality Colourist paintings. If you might consider the private sale of any of your works we would be delighted to act for you. We are also very happy to purchase works outright and will pay premium prices for paintings which are private and fresh to the market. We would be delighted to give you a free up-to-date valuation on any works that you own with no obligation to sell. sidonie@portlandgallery.com

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THE EUROPEAN MODERNIST As a major new exhibition celebrating the career of J.D. Fergusson opens this summer, Alice Strang, Senior Curator at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art introduces the artist, his prominence within the Scottish Colourists group, and his contribution to the birth of modern art.

John Duncan Fergusson (1874–1961) is most commonly referred to as one of the four ‘Scottish Colourists’, along with F. C. B. Cadell, G. L. Hunter and S. J. Peploe.

But Fergusson stands out from the others for several reasons and could be claimed by any of the groups of creative people with whom he was involved, from the ‘Rhythmists’ of Paris before the First World War, to the New Scottish Group of Glasgow of the 1940s and '50s.

Fergusson had the most international career of the Colourists, setting his sights beyond Scotland from the beginning, not least holding his first solo exhibition in London in 1905. Indeed, Fergusson spent the majority of his adult life living in France or England, meaning that he was engaged with the European art world in a way in which his Colourist colleagues were not. Fergusson was the only one of the four to work in three dimensions and is believed to have made sculpture for almost fifty years, exhibiting it for over thirty-five years thus making it an important if little known aspect of his oeuvre.

Whilst Cadell, Hunter and Peploe all died during the 1930s, Fergusson died in Glasgow in 1961, meaning that he experienced the Second World War and lived into the next generation. Throughout his life, Fergusson made tremendous efforts to help other artists, including Donald Bain and Pat Douthwaite, following his return to Scotland in 1939. Fergusson was the most intellectual and political of the Colourists and did the most to promote modern art, becoming involved with various journals including Rhythm (1911–12) and Scottish Art and

Letters (1944–50) as Art Editor and writer; his book Modern Scottish Painting was published in 1943.

Fergusson was the only Colourist to be involved with the performing arts, most significantly designing sets and costumes for the productions of his partner, the dance pioneer Margaret Morris (1890–1981), whose pupils he taught drawing and painting; in return, they and Morris provided endless inspiration for his own work. The female form was by far Fergusson’s preferred genre, in contrast to the other Colourists who favoured still life, landscape and interior. However, most important of all is Fergusson’s contribution to the birth of modern art in Paris between 1907 and 1913, which means that, more than any other British artist of the period, he deserves the description of ‘European Modernist.’

Fergusson was born in Leith, near Edinburgh, to parents who came from Perthshire and spoke Gaelic.

Having spurned the classical training available at the Trustees School of Art in Edinburgh, Fergusson began visiting Paris in the late 1890s, where he studied sporadically at the Académies Colarossi and Julian.

Further travels took him to Morocco in 1899 and to Spain 1901. Fergusson’s professional career began in 1897 when he started sending work to the annual exhibitions of the Royal Glasgow Institute; five years later he acquired his first studio, at 16 Picardy Place, Edinburgh. His life-long friendship with Samuel John Peploe dates from about 1900 and in 1904 they began to paint together in France each summer, in places including Paris-Plage, Dieppe and Berneval. Throughout

J. D. Fergusson in his Paris studio, c.1910, The Fergusson Gallery, Perth & Kinross Council, ©The Fergusson Gallery, Perth & Kinross Council, Scotland

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Left Dieppe, 14 July 1905: Night, 1905, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Photography by Antonia Reeve Right The White Dress: Portrait of Jean, 1904, The Fergusson Gallery, Perth & Kinross Council All images ©The Fergusson Gallery, Perth & Kinross Council, Scotland

his career, Fergusson combined working in a studio with more informal sketching and painting whilst outdoors. He became a familiar figure in Princes Street Gardens, using oil paint to capture scenes quickly on small panels. His early landscapes reveal a familiarity with the French Impressionists, Eugène Boudin and Whistler. Fergusson and Peploe’s shared interest in the French nineteenth-century artist Edouard Manet, seventeenth-century Dutch and Spanish Old Masters, such as Frans Hals and Rembrandt van Rijn and Diego Velázquez, is most obvious in the exquisite still lifes and portraits of male sitters which Fergusson made during this period. However, it was in depictions of elegant women that Fergusson excelled, especially those of Jean Maconochie, his partner from about 1902. Fergusson’s first solo exhibition was held at the Baillie Gallery, London in 1905. In the catalogue he declared that he was ‘trying for truth, for reality; through light’.

Fergusson moved to Paris in 1907, prompted by the start of his relationship with the American artist Anne Estelle Rice and made possible by an inheritance following his father’s death the previous year. He declared ‘Paris is simply a place of freedom’ and rented a studio in Montparnasse, the renowned artists’ quarter. Fergusson made his name during the following 22

six years he spent in the French capital, where he occupied a unique position amongst British artists during the birth of modern Western art.

His work underwent an abrupt and dramatic change as he absorbed and evolved the latest developments in the works of artists including Picasso, Derain and Matisse. The dazzling palette, bold design and audacious handling of his street scenes, still lifes and figure studies reveal the inspiration and confidence Fergusson found in his new surroundings.

With Rice, Fergusson immersed himself in the artistic, intellectual and social life of the French capital.

They became leading figures in a now celebrated group of Anglo-American painters, named the ‘Rhythmists’ after the progressive art journal Rhythm of which Fergusson was founding Art Editor in 1911.

In 1910, Fergusson embarked on an extraordinary series of female nudes which are amongst the most original paintings in British art of the period and which climaxed in his masterpieces Rhythm and Les Eus. Just two years after settling in Paris, Fergusson was elected a Sociétaire of the progressive Salon d’Automne in recognition of his contribution to the modern movement. Fergusson maintained a position at the forefront of progressive English art circles as well;

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Opposite Rhythm, c.1911, University of Stirling, © The Art Collection, University of Stirling; Top Left Dancing Nude: Effulgence, c.1920 (cast at a later date), Private collection, Photography by John McKenzie; Top Right The Blue Hat: Closeries des Lilas, 1909, City Art Centre, City of Edinburgh Museums and Galleries, All images ©The Fergusson Gallery, Perth & Kinross Council, Scotland

his work was included in important group exhibitions in London, where he had solo exhibitions at the Stafford Gallery in 1912 and at the Doré Galleries in 1913. Also in 1913, Fergusson met Margaret Morris, who became his life-long partner. Their professional and personal lives were thereafter inextricably interwoven.

In the autumn of 1913, Fergusson declared that he ‘wanted more sun, more colour’ and moved to the Cap d’Antibes. On learning of the outbreak of the war he moved to London, where Morris was based. Through the Margaret Morris Club, which she ran alongside her dance school and theatre, Fergusson became immersed in the London avant-garde scene, socialising with artists including Augustus John and Wyndham Lewis, writers and poets including Ezra Pound and Edith Sitwell and musicians including Eugene Goosens and Constant Lambert. Fergus and Meg (as Fergusson and Morris were known) also became good friends with Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his wife the artist Margaret MacDonald Mackintosh during the years 1918 until 1923, which they spent in Chelsea. During the war, Fergusson’s practice focused on series of female heads and Scottish landscapes and attempts at carving stone. Fergusson’s engaged very little with political events and described patriotism as ‘the most

over-rated of vices’. In order to avoid conscription, he was granted permission in July 1918 ‘to go to Portsmouth to gather impressions for painting a picture’ by the Admiralty. His resultant sketches led to a series of paintings in which he experimented with Vorticism.

The end of the war inspired the most productive period in Fergusson’s sculpture making, from approximately 1918 until 1922, which coincided with a parallel development in Margaret Morris Movement, the dance technique his partner created. Fergusson made his first sculpture in Paris in 1908 and the latest known example is thought to date from c.1955.

Experiments in terracotta in 1909 and clay in 1913 lead to direct carving in stone outdoors, whilst in Edinburgh during the war. Fergusson complained about the cold to Morris, writing that he ‘had to wear two pairs of trousers at the sculpture business’. Carving wood and plaster, which he sometimes cast and coloured, followed. Works were cast in brass and bronze as funds permitted. Sculptures were included in many of Fergusson’s exhibitions between 1912 and 1948.

However, scant information exists about them, such as conception and casting dates and edition sizes, whether lifetime or posthumous.

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Fergusson’s sculpture owes more to artists working in Paris before the First World War, such as Constantin Brancusi, Alexander Archipenko and Jacob Epstein, than to the British sculptors he encountered later in London, including Frank Dobson and Maurice Lambert.

Fergusson was one of many artists of his generation who worked in three dimensions in such a manner, with similar influences and without formal training.

Nonetheless within a British context, his sculptural endeavours are significant.

A motoring tour of the Scottish Highlands in 1922 lead to a series of landscapes which were included in Fergusson’s first solo exhibition in Scotland, held at The Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh the following year. The 1920s can be considered the most successful decade of Fergusson’s career, with exhibitions in Scotland, England, France and America, whilst his work began to enter public collections. Fergusson and Morris began spending increasing amounts of time in France, not least during her Summer Schools, where her pupils dancing and swimming outdoors provided endless inspiration for Fergusson. In 1929, Fergusson moved back to Paris, whilst Morris commuted between there and London.

The 1930s began with the acquisition of a painting for the French national collection in 1931. It was purchased from a group exhibition held in Paris which included Cadell, Hunter and Peploe, who died in 1937, 1931 and 1935 respectively. Fergusson once more galvanised artists to exhibit together and by 1936 was President of Le Groupe d’Artistes AngloAméricains. His profile remained high in London where he had four solo exhibitions between 1932 and 1939.

Fergusson’s work of the period reveals an accomplished engagement with the Art Deco movement as seen in his portrait of Grace McColl, the wife of his friend the Scottish businessman Harry McColl.

The Second World War prompted Fergusson and Morris to move to Glasgow, which he believed was the most Celtic city in Scotland. Fergusson developed a distinctive late style, which reached its apotheosis in the majestic Danu, Mother of the Gods. His interest in his Highland ancestry, Celticism and a distinctively ‘Scottish’ art grew. In 1946, he wrote ‘the Scotland I’d like to see from the Art point of view, would be a Scotland liberated from the stranglehold of Academic Art, and where there was…a fighting chance for the Independent artist.’ His views were detailed in his book Modern Scottish Painting, which was published in 1943.

Fergusson and Morris played a vital part in the renaissance of the arts in Glasgow during this period and were co-founders of the discussion and exhibiting 26

Above Grace McColl, 1930, Private collection, courtesy The Richard Green Gallery, London; Right Danu: Mother of the Gods (detail), 1952, The Fergusson Gallery, Perth & Kinross Council, All images ©The Fergusson Gallery, Perth & Kinross Council, Scotland

societies, the New Art Club and New Scottish Group, in 1940 and 1942. Official recognition came in the form of major touring exhibitions in 1948 and 1954, an honorary LLD from the University of Glasgow in 1950 and the award of a Civil List pension in 1952.

The couple spent extended periods in Antibes throughout the 1950s. Their last visit was in 1960, not long before Fergusson’s death in Glasgow on 31 January 1961. Morris made huge efforts to secure his posthumous reputation. In 1963 she established the J. D. Fergusson Art Foundation to look after the works and archival material she had inherited. They gave their holdings to Perth & Kinross Council in 1991 and The Fergusson Gallery opened in Perth in 1992, dedicated to Fergusson’s life and career. The Foundation continues to support up-and-coming artists with its annual J. D. Fergusson Arts Award, named in memory of this extraordinary European Modernist.

The Scottish Colourist: J.D. Fergusson is at Pallant House Gallery from 5 July - 19 October 2014.

The exhibition is a partnership between the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh and The Fergusson Gallery, Perth. A catalogue and a programme of talks and events accompanies this exhibition. See page 54 for further details.

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BARBARA RAE ON J.D. FERGUSSON Artist Barbara Rae cbe ra re offers a personal response to J.D. Fergusson's work, including his lesser known sculptures, and reflects on the moments of originality the artist revealed throughout his career.

I’m unhappy with labels. 'The Scottish Colourists' evinces a notion of team work. Francis Cadell, Samuel Peploe, George Hunter, and John Duncan Fergusson were part of an exciting movement (others got less attention) but they had their own individual ideas. Each applied themselves to their own interpretations.

What they did do was share similar influences, though one can argue not all influences were helpful.

Just seeing Cézanne, for example, and deciding, “I will work like Cézanne,” can block originality and frustrate creative thinking. Cézanne had his own methods.

He worked in his own, singular way developed uniquely over years.

The climate was one of extraordinary exchange of ideas, particularly between Scotland and France. The first thing that must have been a revelation was the vast difference in quality of light between those two countries. It altered their use of colour and paint to a large degree.

Images that impress me most are Fergusson’s later bold paintings of females. When he interprets the female model he often achieves a fine simplicity.

In the beginning Fergusson was heavily influenced by Édouard Manet, a good thing, in his use of black, for example. He must have been influenced by André Derain, in colour and in panache, and Kees van Dongen.

He continued to use black in La Béte Violette (1910) as if stained glass; it holds the composition together.

The same result is seen in the portrait of Anne Estelle Rice (1908). In Le Manteau Chinois (1909) and Red Shawl (1908) the portrait elements hark back to his earlier work, where the faces are presented in, for me,

rather inert mask-like form. That aside, the earlier created work to those portraits, Girl on a Bicycle (1902) is entirely his own compilation, honest and quite beautiful. Blue Beads – Paris is a lovely portrait, strong and bold. It reminds me of a Matisse.

At an art auction preview in Edinburgh I saw a study of a rural farmhouse he had made while in Le Tilleuls, France, entitled Becheron (1931). It was interesting because he had painted it exclusively in diagonal brush strokes, top left to bottom right. Not only did it make the image appear ready to slide out the frame, but also it must have been very difficult for a right-handed person to sustain that awkward angle for the duration of the painting.

Fergusson’s sketch books show he worked from direct observation (I work the same way, never from photographs); later landscapes seem to be studio based. His on-site studies, when he did all those wonderful creations of Edinburgh, show what he could have achieved had he developed his own vision thoroughly and not been overly influenced by others. There was a lot happening in the art world in his day, a fantastic time: adventurous, experimental, discovering new ways of seeing, of technique.

It must have been tempting to emulate the invention of others.

I love the muscularity of his Eástre (Hymn to the Sun) (1924) bust. I can see and understand why he was so beloved by the art-deco set. The exhibition offers an insight into Fergusson’s imperatives and work. And the prices! His artwork was very expensive for its time.

He had a good agent.

J.D. Fergusson, La Bete Violette (detail), 1910, Oil on canvas, Private collection ©The Fergusson Gallery, Perth & Kinross Council, Scotland

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BARBARA RAE EXPLORATION AND ACCIDENT This season the De'Longhi Print Room features prints by Scottish contemporary artist Barbara Rae ra.

Andrew Lambirth considers how her choice of printing technique, process, format and colour leave a lasting impression on the viewer.

From the beginning of her career Barbara Rae has made prints. With justification she considers herself to be a printmaker and painter, both activities assuming an equally important role in her creative life. The two sides of her practice are mutually supportive and have developed in tandem, feeding each other in the discovery and elucidation of subject and form.

The strategies she has evolved for making art – and particularly her reliance on layering and collage – are common to both her paintings and her prints, and it is significant that one of her favourite printing techniques is monotype, the printmaking process which most nearly approaches painting. Painting and printmaking are so closely entwined in Rae’s work that a study of one leads inevitably to the other.

Rae’s subject is an abstracted interpretation of the world around us with occasional figurative elements. ‘I’ve always said I’m not a landscape painter.

For example, I’m inspired by doorways and ruined buildings.’ Certainly the built environment has always been an important part of her subject-matter.

Another theme revolves around boats, and particularly Edinburgh Docks and Aberdeen Harbour.

Human presence is usually suggested rather than stated, implied by man-made structures, especially in the extended series of windows, doors and gates, or indeed in the equally important shoreline imagery incorporating the theme of harbours and big ships.

In architectural terms, plan and perspective are sometimes conflated (as in Hacienda, 2003), and the

Barbara Rae, Hacienda (detail), 2003, Screenprint, © The Artist

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effect is like looking at a combination of a frontal elevation and an aerial view. In this way Rae indicates the sensory qualities of real space, rather than through the conventions of linear or multi-viewpoint perspective. This space, this arena, is a place fit for apparitions, with its spatial ambiguity and colours of foreboding.

Printmaking has changed and developed enormously over the last 50 years. There are now so many technical possibilities and variants that the choice is almost overwhelming, particularly with the advances made possible by photography and computers. Rae is open to experimentation, but not for its own sake; rather experiments are embarked upon solely to deepen the effect and meaning of her work. Landscape and our relationship with the environment are central to her thinking, along with an abiding interest in visual perception – how we see and react to colour and form.

Rae uses different strategies to explore her formal concerns. She is as interested in abstraction as she is in landscape and its associations, just as involved in the cartography of the human heart as in mapping a particular place. She is concerned with the problem of how we locate ourselves in relation to the world around and beyond us. And as an experimental painter and printmaker, she is endlessly attentive to the ways in which information can be visualized and transmitted.

Her approach to printmaking has become more complicated over the years. ‘The screenprints are complex because in order to get the kind of result that I want there has to be quite a number of layers.

Screenprinting seems to be a much flatter medium but I guess I could do it more simply if I adhered strictly to the way that I work in the monotypes.’ But Rae likes the richness and build-up of surface that makes a print dense.

On the importance of accident in her printmaking Rae says ‘I think it’s always a surprise when you roll the print through the press, because it’s very different from the painted mark. The painted mark can sometimes be self-conscious because you’ve got a brush in your hand.

That’s probably why I tend to use a lot of collage and other materials because then I’m not physically painting.’

Rae believes that textures should be intended rather than incidental. Carborundum or collagraph are key processes for creating texture. As she says, collagraph can be ‘as chunky as you want’, employing such materials as card, tapioca, glue or texture paste. Rae favours using it with etching, a two plate approach – the etching is the drawing plate, the collagraph the texture plate. Generally, the etching plate is printed first.

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The open doorway or window framing a landscape, and thus linking inside and out, is a staple of modernist iconography, and was much beloved of Matisse. Rae relishes the structure a vertical oblong brings to her imagery, a pale aperture in a dark ground, the focus on the light-filled mountainscape, valley or plain beyond.

The other format that Rae has made her own is the square, with its harmony of shape, a useful nonnaturalistic framing device. The horizontal format is usually called ‘landscape’ because it echoes the typical spread of landscape to the view. Imposing a square structure on a landscape subject not only contains it, it removes the expected topographical connotations and allows the abstract qualities of the prospect to come forward. This is what Rae wants – for her ostensibly landscape subject matter to be seen as a formal composition, an arrangement of shapes and colours, to be enjoyed principally for its abstract and aesthetic qualities.

A sequential process of printing in layers is common to monotypes, multi-plate etchings and screenprinting.

In the latter process, different screens are used to overlap and layer colour and imagery in a particularly fluent manner. The spirited patterning Rae enjoys is mated with a distinctive use of non-naturalistic colours, or rather, heightened naturalistic colours, for Rae’s palette is expressive rather than synthetic.

The layering of the surface can be said to stand for the layering of history, the literal layers revealed by an archaeological excavation, for instance. Rae explores the strata of cultural history in a new place – whether it is the Scottish port or the Painted Desert in Arizona – while compiling what might be called an archive of forms particular to that place. The emphasis on layering also exposes the process of working, indicative of how a particular print is made.

Rae revels in the camouflage of nature, and making a new interpretation of it. The rich colours in her work are extrapolated from the landscape, from things seen and remembered, or on-the-spot sketchbook notes.

Later this information is heightened and formalised, reinterpreted in terms of rhythm and emphasis.

Colour can determine the way a viewer reads a piece, directing the passage of the eye across the surface. Unlike some artists, Rae does not go in for hidden or occluded imagery, preferring a gradual but complete revelation to the eye, her luminous and fullblown colour joining together the discrete components of imagery in unexpected and exciting ways.

The etching Harbour Night (2005) is one of Rae’s personal favourites, rich in colour and effect. Yellow

Barbara Rae, Harbour Night, 2005, Etching and collagraph, © The Artist

lines of energy or light cross the lower middle section like straws in the wind, while the pinks and purples block out the main volumes, overlaid by a fretwork of darker lines. It is a deeply satisfying image, uniting the skills of the technician at Peacock Visual Arts, Mike Waight, with the artist’s vision, in a compelling study of light and dark, linear and volume, rhythm and clarity of statement.

Rae’s particular achievement in printmaking has been to master a number of techniques and processes and harness them to a further exploration of her distinctive subject-matter – the interaction of the man-made and the natural in our environment. There is no lack of intensity in her prints, nor is there a loss of spontaneity, which is remarkable given the intervention of a mechanical process in their making. These sonorous arrangements of radiant and memorable colour leave a lasting impression, returning us to the world with our ability to recognize its beauties greatly enhanced.

The feeling of abstraction in the prints is much more pronounced than the equivalent impulse generated by her paintings. Rae is very aware of this and highlights a couple of comparisons from among her older contemporaries. She mentions Wilhelmina

Barns-Graham, who took increasingly to print-making at Graal Press towards the end of her life and produced a whole series of impressive and powerful images with ‘abstract, simple, beautiful surfaces’. She also cites Tony O’Malley. ‘His prints were very successful because, like Barns-Graham, the print surface is often more seductive, to me at least, than the techniques employed in their paintings.’ She adds, ‘When I buy the work of another artist, invariably it is a print. I love prints. One of my treasured possessions is my Rauschenberg print. Quite often a print is a simple, pure statement of an artist’s vision.’ Printmaking remains central to Barbara Rae’s identity as an artist.

The breadth of spirit informing it is uncompromising, and through its various processes she has made a highly original and inventive contribution to the art of her time.

This is an abridged version of a text originally published in ‘Barbara Rae Prints’ (Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2010). The publication is available from the Gallery Bookshop www.pallantbookshop.com. Barbara Rae will be in conversation at the Gallery with Simon Martin, Artistic Director at Pallant House Gallery. See page 54 for details. Barbara Rae: Prints will be on show in the De'Longhi Print Room from 1 July - 26 October 2014.

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THE THRILL OF PULLING A PRINT Ahead of a new exhibition which marks the arrival of thirteen new prints by Royal Academicians to the Collection, Meryl Ainslie, Director of Rabley Drawing Centre, speaks to some of the artists and offers a studio perspective of printmaking.

The fine art print is often hinged to another discipline, drawing, painting or sculpture. A print emerges from a staged process of discovery and through the artist’s exploration of an idea, the technical elements and in some instances, collaboration with a master printmaker. This image is a new incarnation, not a reproduction, and is usually printed as a limited edition.

Many artists enjoy the democracy of making a multiple image or edition that can be viewed and acquired more readily than unique works. When making an image artists reveal their own sensibility. This often starts with the tools they use to make the marks.

Many of us will have encountered linocut printing at school and have a basic insight into the process of the relief print - cutting into the lino or wood followed by rolling up the surface with ink and printing with a wooden spoon on the back of the paper. There is no mystery to this very direct method but what makes an extraordinary and beautiful print is the artist’s hand and their vision.

Within this print collection is the graphically accomplished woodcut relief print Skipper by Eileen Cooper. Here Cooper plays with the positive and negative as she draws fluidly with the cutting tool, taking white lines out of the darkness and pulling pale flesh and flowing water in the rhythm of the composition. The depth of the ink and the delicate Japanese paper takes on the luminosity of the moon on the surface of the water and the skin of the central figures. She explains: 'It’s all about drawing for me, the Emma Stibbon RA, Eldfell Heimaey (White House) (detail), 2013 Intaglio – Polymer Gravure on Zerkall © The Artist

same if I’m using an etching needle, a cutting tool, or a brush…I usually discover imagery through drawing then develop it, either through print, or painting and often both.' The quality of the paper is as important as the inked mark. In Wildwood, a new series of linocuts by Cooper, the images are printed on papers in a variety of neutral hues. The use of the coloured paper surface gives a gentle fluctuation and visual pace to the images.

In Anne Desmet’s wood engraving Olympic Velodrome Site Under Construction the scale is small and the drawing is intricate. Diverse fine cutting tools are used to draw incised lines into the end-grain of a small wooden block. These remove the wood, leaving the engraved marks un-inked on the surface of the paper after printing, since it is the block’s uncut surface that is inked up. Each cut, either sinuous or straight, draws the illusion of light playing on the surface of the stadium under construction.

'Wood engravings relate very strongly to my drawings in the sense that the wood engraving tools are like extensions of the possibilities of a pen nib or fine pencil, and allow me to make a much wider range of different types of mark than I could achieve with pen or pencil, or any other conventional drawing tool.

I am never slavishly copying sketchbook drawings or photographs when I am engraving but creating something new that doesn’t already exist in any other medium' explains Desmet.

The Golder –Thompson Collection represents several different types of intaglio prints. The intaglio 35

print ‘family’ includes etching, engraving, polymer gravure and drypoint. Here marks, grooves and hollows, either ‘incised’ with tools or ‘bitten’ with acids, form the image below the surface of a plate. The inked plate is printed by laying a dampened sheet of paper over it and running it through a press under pressure.

Aquatint is a painterly etching technique used to introduce tone, rather than line to an image. Tiny grains of rosin are melted onto the metal printing plate and acid etched around each grain. By painting areas with a varnish, the acid is stopped from etching the plate, which allows the gradations of tone to be achieved when the plate is inked and printed.

Humphrey Ocean’s painterly approach is realised in the subtle layers of velvety black and greys of his aquatint House. The house emerges from a moonless sky, with glimpses of light skirting the windows and seeping through the curtains. There is a sense of the beauty of the ordinary that frequently characterises Ocean’s work. 'Using black, the greatest colour, in printing has helped me with colour in my painting. Black and white are where contrast begins', the artist explains.

Ocean is currently working on a series of aquatints with master printer Maurice Payne. Other new prints include screenprints of radios made with Advanced Graphics studio where flat areas of colour speak out from each iconic object.

Another ‘House’ takes centre stage in the print by Emma Stibbon: Eldfell Heimaey, (White House). This is an intaglio print made using the polymer gravure method where a drawing is made onto a clear film and transferred onto a light-sensitive plate. Stibbon is interested in the potential of drawing as a means of understanding our fragile relationship with landscape.

Making a response to place through drawing, she selects a process or medium that seems most appropriate. Her intention is to try to achieve a tactile surface and drama in the image.

Eldfell Heimaey, (White House) was made following a drawing research project in Iceland. Stibbon explains: 'I wanted to suggest the physicality of the landscape through incorporating found volcanic ash in my drawing ink'. A surprise came whilst making the plates for the prints, when under pressure of the process, the volcanic ash in her drawings became embedded in the light sensitive coating. The resulting small pits added a quality to the plates that has translated to the tactile surface of the prints and adds to what the artist describes as the ‘thrill of pulling a print’. The experimental spirit of Emma Stibbon’s prints is a reflection of one of her print heroes, the Dutch landscape painter and printmaker Hercules 36

Seghers (c.1589 – c.1638) who, radically for his time, printed on prepared papers and with coloured inks.

Colourist and abstract painter Mali Morris resisted making prints, aside from a few made early in her career, thinking that the process was contrary to her way of working. But she was invited by the Royal Academy Schools to work on an edition with them in 2011 and this opened up a new understanding of the potential. Here she describes a significant moment in making her screenprint Ruby Tuesday. 'The crucial moment was when I asked for a second red to be pulled over the top right rectangle. I had planned for further stages, but that red suddenly opened up the space and everything clicked as I wanted, so I decided it was finished.'

Morris’ composition at first appears simple. She uses the layering of the screen printing process and pushes ink though a matrix of stencilled shapes. However, print brings all her painterly knowledge to the surface and layers of opacity and translucence create beautiful play with fields of colour. Morris has been fascinated to discover how different printmaking is from painting and yet how her interests can be explored and expressed through this other process.

Old debates about the relationship between drawing and painting fall away in printmaking, where line and tone tools are often interchangeable and rules are bent in pursuit of a mark or surface. Experimentation can take flight towards new discoveries. The making of prints is one of the rare instances when an artist can leave the quiet isolation of the studio and work in a lively print studio. For some this will be with the assistance of a master printmaker and this intimate relationship is one of trust. I have been touched by how warmly all of the artists speak of these hidden guardians of the artist’s pursuit and the master printmaker’s ability to make the imagined image become an opportunity, realised in a unique collaboration of skill and understanding.

Printmakers describe themselves as being part of a community and I hope this studio perspective offers further appreciation. For the viewer, the knowledge of the making is not essential. We are immersed in the image for its own sake.

The Author would like to acknowledge the generous contribution made to this article by Sara Lee's ‘Glossary of Print Terms and Techniques’.

Royal Academician Printmakers: New Acquisitions through the Golder-Thompson Gift will be on display in Gallery 17 from 5 July to 19 October 2014. Friends can visit Rabley Studio this summer. See p. 52 for details. www.rableydrawingcentre.com.

Clockwise from left Eileen Cooper RA, Skipper, 2009, Woodcut, © The Artist Mali Morris RA, Ruby Tuesday, 2011, Screenprint, © The Artist Anne Desmet RA, Olympic Velodrome Site in Construction, 2010, Wood engraving, © The Artist

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FOUR HEADS Emily Young is widely acknowledged as Britain’s greatest living stone sculptor. This Summer, a group of her stone heads will be sited in the Courtyard Garden. Here she introduces the stone she uses as her material.

These sculptures are worked from stone that is primarily clastic. Clastic rocks are composed of fragments – or clasts – of pre-existing rock. They are the complex product of massive volcanic explosions where old sedimentary stone is blasted to pieces of varying sizes. These are then formed into new stone aggregates with a matrix of ash.

The first impression on seeing these sculptures will probably be that these pieces of stone are ancient and that they are showing their age. They are blocks of volcanic stone, blown apart and then compacted in a great explosion hundreds of thousands of years ago. They are a mix of onyx, travertine and brecchia, ridiculously complex, found in an old quarry on the side of a huge and dormant volcano, Monte Amiata, in central Italy.

Some are pitted with dark and fluted holes; some show blocks of shattered and fragmented segments of rock set in a matrix of ash or mud, some show cloudlike, flowering figurations, striped in whirling colours of honey, cream, grey, white and treacle, formed in water.

The textures are varied: dense, fractured, crystalline, smooth; each one was formed in the mountain, and subjected to the elements, taking many hundreds of millennia to become what we see today.

Large parts of the surface, the ‘skin’ of these stones, are left raw and untouched, showing the magical effects of wind and rain, dust and ice, plant and animal life: nature has made its mark on the stone.

Emily Young, Wind Head, 2013, Mountain Clastic Onyx, © The Artist

The worked and polished surfaces that I have then carved into the old stones carry some of my human reflections – that we are born of nature, of rocks and fire and water, in a universe, a vastness of space and time that is inconceivable to us; that the earth is tiny, unspeakably complex, beautiful and rare.

It is the look of those reflections, an image of my consciousness of that process and an awareness of what we humans are now and what we think and feel that is then locked into the wild mountain stone. This ‘look’ will stay as the pieces endure and pass into the unknowable future, the strangest of all places.

This text was originally published in ‘Emily Young: The Metaphysics of Stone’ published by The Fine Art Society (2012). Emily Young: Four Heads will be exhibited from 5 July 2014. The artist will be in conversation with Artisitic Director Simon Martin on Thursday 2 October 2014 at 6pm. See p.54 for details.

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WAR AND PEACE To coincide with the centenary of the First World War, a new collections display explores the radical transformation of British art of the period. Katy Norris, Assistant Curator, introduces the display and examines two generations of artists who helped change cultural attitudes before and after the conflict.

The period in Britain between 1900 and 1930 is often described as one of intense social change beginning with a golden age of prosperity that spiralled into trajedy with the outbreak of war in 1914. At the beginning of the century British painting reflected the nation’s growing affluence, bolstered by the steady expansion of the empire. In keeping with the new aristocratic aspirations of their patrons, artists such as William Nicholson, Augustus John and William Orpen made portraits that were elegant yet restrained, characterised by a limited tonal range and stark format.

This new display opens with a portrait of a boy by Nicholson’s wife Mabel Pryde painted in that same quintessential style. Although the child is unknown, it is similar to those created at the family home in Rottingdean where Mabel and William led an idyllic existence before the war. Without access to the same host of stylish London socialites as her husband, she used her own children as models, positioning them in confident poses and dressed in theatrical costumes.

The First World War had a devastating impact on the Nicholsons’ life at Rottingdean. In 1918 their son Tony was killed in action on the Western Front, followed shortly by Mabel’s own death from influenza. Despite achieving recognition through a retrospective of her work mounted at the Goupil Gallery in 1920, her genteel style quickly became unfashionable and her work has since been largely forgotten. William meanwhile turned increasingly to painting the landscape and adapted his technique to incorporate William Orpen, A German Plane passing St. Denis, 1918, Oil on canvas Pallant House Gallery (On loan from the Haines Collection, 2014)

paler pigments, applied with a palette knife and brush.

The White House, Sutton Veny centres on the home he shared with his second wife and evokes the changing light and atmosphere of the Wilshire Downs.

If Pryde’s death symbolised the end of an era in English painting, then her style of portraiture had already come to be viewed as outmoded before the outbreak of the war in 1914. This was championed in particular by Walter Sickert who returned to England from France in 1905 to wage an attack on what he unfavourably described as ‘wriggle and chiffon’ portraits. He joined forces with an emerging circle of painters including Spencer Gore, Harold Gilman and Lucien Pissarro and in 1907 formed the Fitzroy Street Group, a forerunner to the Camden Town Group.

Centring on Camden and the neighbouring borough of Fitzrovia, they were informed by artistic developments in France, particularly through Sickert’s acquaintance with Edgar Degas, whose pictorial realism influenced his own paintings of shabby street corners, dingy apartments and lively music halls.

Whilst Sickert focused on the ‘magic and the poetry of everyday life’, his peers more obviously demonstrated an engagement with the new approaches to form and colour pioneered by the Neo-Impressionists in Paris. The Garden Path by Spencer Gore demonstrates his awareness of Pointillism, most famously used by Georges Seurat in his paintings La Grande Jatte and Bathers at Asnières. In these works dating from the 1880s Seurat had interrogated the social dynamic of 41

the modern city, representing a mix of working-class and bourgeois Parisians relaxing on the banks of the River Seine. By contrast, Gore’s painting portrays the private realm of his mother’s garden at Garth House in Hertingfordbury. Although progressive in terms of technique, the serene atmosphere is more comparable to Pryde’s paintings. The Garden Path has a distinctly middle-class sensibility, capturing the afternoon light falling across rows of neatly kept rose beds.

The development of a modern art movement led

by Sickert and the Camden Town Group before the First World War coincided with growing awareness of European painting in Britain. In the same year that Gore painted The Garden Path Roger Fry organised the exhibition ‘Manet and the Post-Impressionists’, the first in England to prominently represent Fauve and Cubist works and including artists such as Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Paul Gaugin. At the same moment Augustus John encountered the work of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and Paul Cézanne during his travels in France, providing direct inspiration for the pictures of bathers and landscapes exhibited alongside Gore’s painting in this display. Dorelia Sitting on a Gate is likely to be one of 50 painted sketches that John made of his children and partner Dorelia in the South of France in 1910. Based upon the area around Martigues in Provence, the setting recalls the pastoral landscapes

by Cézanne, whilst Doreilia’s clothes are similar to those worn by women in Renaissance art as well as the fashion of Romani gypsies. This all builds to create a romanticised, even generalised, impression of their lifestyle which is quite different to his contemporaries Sickert and Gore. Combining an interest in French painting with specific reference to English culture, the Camden Town Group were committed to interrogating the social and physical manifestations of the world they lived in, summarised by Sickert as the ‘gross material facts’ of modern life.

In the summer of 1915 Sickert travelled to Chagford in Dartmoor, Devon. Here he discovered his passion for the English landscape, creating numerous paintings of the village set deep within the surrounding fields and countryside. The quiet solitude of Chagford Across Fields has an eerie resonance when considered within the context of the First World War, especially if contrasted with the noise and destruction taking place just across the Channel. Although the subject of war is not directly addressed in these works, Sickert’s biographer Wendy Baron has commented that it is ‘impossible not to read a lament for the dead youth of Europe’ in these pictures.

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The devastating impact of war is implied elsewhere in this display, most vividly in the composition German Plane passing over Denis by William Orpen. Unlike Sickert, Orpen experienced the conflict first-hand and served as an Official War Artist in the French town of Amiens between 1917 and 1918. Referring to the incident in St. Denis in his memoirs he explained, ‘There were two air raids, and in the morning I heard Big Bertha for the first time, and when we left about 10 o’clock, just past St. Denis, a Boche plane came over to see where the shells were falling.’

The painting replicates the careful detail of this eyewitness account picturing the exact moment after the plane had flown overhead, its path indicated by puffs of smoke in the top left corner. Rather than serving as a dispassionate record however, Orpen’s approach might be better described as journalistic since he also captures the emotional responses of the civilians. They react in horror to the unfolding drama, either gaping up at the plane or covering their faces with her hands. Bathed in brilliant sunlight, the whole scene takes place against a piercing blue sky,

heightening the sense of anxiety and tension.

Orpen’s powerful evocation of war forms the focal point for the second part of the room display which elsewhere concentrates on a younger generation of painters who came of age during the First World War. Having studied at the Slade School of Art between 1908 and 1912, both David Bomberg and Paul Nash saw active service before being recruited as Official War Artists. The scheme favoured testimonials from artists serving on the front line and encouraged them to find their own mode of expressing what they had witnessed. Nash in particular demonstrated a surprising level of artistic freedom, forging a new balance between the hard-edged, fractured aesthetic of Vorticism and the romantic tradition of the landscape.

In Nash’s work it is impossible to separate the modernist style he developed during the war from the scarring psychological impact that trench warfare had upon him. This display includes a group of his wood engravings which were made when he returned from duty. These works meditate on the peace of

secluded woodland and coastlines and yet are heavily stylised, featuring strange forms arranged around a splintered picture plane. Familiar landmarks such as the vast sea-wall at Dymchurch on the Kent coast become alien and foreign, reflecting his sense of isolation and loss.

Despite belonging to a separate generation, the works by Nash in this display are connected to those

by Nicholson, Pryde, Sickert and Gore by their deeply held appreciation for the spirit of place. Like these painters, Nash was interested in exploring a distinctly English identity shaped through a deep understanding and affiliation with the land. The jarring landscapes he created in the 1920s symbolise his dissociation from British society after the war. Yet for him, as for so many artists before, the English countryside ultimately contributed to his personal recuperation and well-being. Later, during the 1930s, Nash would go on to make calming pictures of ancient sites which responded to the cycle of nature.

The Collections display Into the Twentieth Century will be on show in Gallery 4 from 5 July – 5 October 2014.

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OUTSIDE IN MICHELLE ROBERTS Michelle Roberts was selected as an Outside In: National Award Winner in 2012. Kate Davey, Outside In Communications Officer, went to visit the artist at Project Art Works in Hastings, a pioneering visual arts venture for individuals with profound neurological impairments to find out about the inspiration and process behind her work.

Since she started working at Project Art Works, which she attends once a week, Michelle Roberts’ huge canvases – although still identifiable – have altered somewhat. Originally, every inch would be filled with colour. Then, Roberts created clusters of colourful characters surrounded by bright white space. Now she has returned to complete canvas coverage once again, but this time the covering is much more intricate. We see a move away from the large, energetic blocks of colour in her early pieces, to more delicate detailing in coloured pencils and brush pens. Tony Colley, Roberts’ mentor at Project Art Works, says of this gentle progression: 'They are getting denser and denser. I’ve got a feeling that soon there’s going to be very little white space remaining on the canvas'.

It is the process that remains a constant in Roberts’ work. The subject is substituted with the latest event the artist has visited or an experience she wants to bring to life. 'In my head', Roberts responds when asked where she gets her inspiration from. 'Quite often it is things in your head and things you see or have experienced,' suggests Sarah Locke, the Creative Programme Manager at Project Art Works. You can certainly see this is the case when surrounded by Roberts’ work: a Sussex-based air show, the Hastings marathon, Bexhill Michelle Roberts, Remembrance Day, © The Artist

Memorial Day celebrations, a trip to Dinosaur world, a Spanish Holiday and the Diamond Jubilee.

'Our son inspired the guitars – he plays in a band,' Roberts’ father Tim adds. 'Michelle also looks at magazines and books at the weekend – the Sunday supplements – and she’ll cut out the pictures she particularly likes and sticks them in a scrap book.' She will always talk through her ideas with her mentor Tony, who describes her work as 'topical and experienced.'

Roberts was first introduced to art by her grandfather when she was about eight years old.

'They’d take their pens and a picnic and go for the whole day. He used to show her about colours and things – but he was a watercolour painter,' Roberts’ mother Jennie remembers. 'He used to say to Michelle, "I’m going to paint this tree and you paint what you think." The difference was really interesting… That’s basically how it all started.'

Each piece takes about three months for Roberts to complete, although she does only work on them - very methodically - once a week at Project Art Works. It is this methodical and organised approach that makes Roberts’ work particularly unique: 'Michelle will do the drawing first, very carefully but without any hesitation or correction, and then the colour will start to come,' 45

Michelle Roberts, Air Show (detail) © The Artist

Tony says. 'There are some pieces that are exclusively pen and some which are exclusively acrylic paint. Some images have been made in a combination of the two.

There are some which are purely brush pens. I think this could be because the images are getting finer and finer, so this allows for that little bit more control, which is much more difficult to achieve with brushes and paint', he adds.

'I feel good and happy' Roberts answers when asked how she feels when making her art. Her mother Jennie adds, 'She’s always drawing, even at home. She sits down with my two and a half year old granddaughter, who will say "Michelle, draw me a tree!" or "Draw me a house!", and then she will sit there with her bit of paper, looking over Michelle’s shoulder.' Roberts seems to have this great connection with people through her art – her grandfather, her niece, her brother. Her mother adds, 'When each of the babies [grandchildren] were born, Michelle did them a picture. They are both totally different. And – we all know this when we look at Michelle’s paintings – each morning the children will say they’ve seen something new in their picture. The two and a half year old sees something new every single day'.

Roberts has been at Project Art Works for about eight years, and for five of these she has received mentoring. She thoroughly enjoys spending time at the project, where she has made some very close friends over the years. 'It’s very supportive – everyone just supports each other,' Sarah Locke says of the atmosphere, adding 'there’s very much a sense of everyone being part of a group. Michelle is very supportive of the other people in the group; she will help 46

people up the stairs, and she will help out at lunchtime.'

'They bounce ideas off of each other as well, probably without realising,' Jennie notes. The venture itself is quite original in that each artist has their own workspace where they can get on with their individual pieces – 'Everyone is doing the same, but different things,' as Roberts herself puts it.

Roberts is currently working on a piece inspired by the Hastings Marathon. Seeing this work in progress really brings to life the incredibly methodical process Roberts utilises in her work. The outline is already prepared – she has worked from left to right, top to bottom – and now it’s time for the colour. 'One of the amazing things is watching Michelle starting out on a piece. She will have had a lot of time thinking in her head about what it is she wants to draw. Then she’ll print off a lot of pictures – she will have all these different materials that she can draw from. Then she just starts on a big blank canvas' – something very daunting for a huge number of artists – 'and it’s just like a continuous flow.

Before you know it, she’s created the whole drawing,' Sarah explains. 'It’s like this with anything Michelle does though, even a basic, everyday thing; she’ll do it meticulously and in a certain order,' Jennie adds.

Roberts hasn’t decided whether she is going to fill in all of the white areas on Hastings Marathon – she will decide as she goes along. She has, however, already left a gap for her signature in the bottom right hand corner. Apart from the colour application, everything is carefully planned, right from the beginning to three months down the line when the piece is complete.

Roberts even decides how much of the piece she will work on in the space of one day before she begins. The process is such a huge part of Roberts’ work that it is being documented week by week in the hope that it can be made into an animation.

Tony concludes, 'What I find interesting is that although every piece of Michelle’s work firmly has her imprint on it, there is still something of the subject there underneath; the references. For example, the musicians look like musicians; the guitars look like guitars; and Spanish Holiday is definitely a depiction of a Spanish Holiday.' Jennie adds: 'It makes her feel very happy when she is painting, and she has lots of ideas in her head trying to come out. We cannot really put into words how it has benefitted Michelle. It is the main way she has to express herself.'

Michelle Roberts Solo Show will be in the Studio from 30 September to 26 October 2014. To see the full programme of Studio exhibitions, turn to page 14. www.outsidein.org.uk

PALLANT HOUSE MAGAZINE HALF PAGE 106 x 148mm

SCOTTISH ART TODAY 14 June to 16 August 2014 (closed 2-5 July)

BOHUN GALLERY 15 Reading Rd, Henley-on-Thames, Oxon RG9 1AB Tue-Sat 10:00-1:15 & 2:15-5:00 Telephone/fax 01491 576228 www.bohungallery.co.uk

Crawfurd Adamson Lesley Banks Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Shona Barr Marj Bond Joyce Cairns David Cass James Castle Victoria Crowe George Donald Annette Edgar Paul Furneaux Chloe Gough Donald Hamilton Fraser Adam Kennedy Elspeth Lamb William Littlejohn Neil MacPherson James McDonald Donald McIntyre Jennifer McRae June Redfern

14011_pallant_106x148.indd 1

Joyce Cairns Digging for Victory Oil on panel 24 x 18 in

24/04/2014 15:09

ELLEN TERRY THE PAINTER’S ACTRESS 10 June - 9 November 2014

An icon of Victorian Art, Fashion & Theatre www.wattsgallery.org.uk Watts Gallery, Down Lane, Compton, Guildford, Surrey, GU3 1DQ 01483 810235 / info@wattsgallery.org.uk

Ellen Terry (‘Choosing’) © National Portrait Gallery, London

ROYAL ACADEMICIAN PRINTMAKERS Printed Editions available by

EILEEN COOPER RA ANNE DESMET RA PETER FREETH RA MALI MORRIS RA HUMPHREY OCEAN RA EMMA STIBBON RA

RABLEY Drawing Centre Rabley Drawing Centre Marlborough, Wiltshire. SN8 2LW Tel. 01672 511999 info@rableydrawingcentre.com www.rableydrawingcentre.com

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Pallant House Gallery Friends

Eileen Cooper RA, Daphnae, Linocut, 43.5 x 32 cms Ed. of 25

CHAIRMAN OF THE FRIENDS' LETTER

John Duncan Fergusson, Christmas Time in the South of France, 1922, Oil on canvas, The Fergusson Gallery, Perth & Kinross Council, purchased with the assistance of the Heritage Lottery Fund (1998), © The Fergusson Gallery, Perth & Kinross Council, Scotland

DEAR FRIENDS, PATRONS AND GALLERY CLUB MEMBERS, I am pleased to announce that Andrew Churchill, whom many Friends will remember was Commercial Manager here until 2007, has returned to Pallant House Gallery as Deputy Director. We are delighted to welcome Andrew back to Chichester bringing with him much valuable experience gained in the last seven years.

The Friends Annual General Meeting will be held on Monday 28 July at 6pm, the Agenda is enclosed with this magazine. The Trustees and I hope that many of you will join us that evening to celebrate our successes and review our activities over the past year. The meeting will be followed by a short talk given by David Hopkinson, long-time Friend and Former Trustee of the Gallery.

In the summer of 2009 we held an extremely successful exhibition 'The Scottish Colourists: Paintings from the Fleming Collection', and this year we are highlighting one of these artists in the 2014 summer exhibition with 'The Scottish Colourist: J.D. Fergusson'.

This will be a spectacular exhibition of Fergusson’s work.

We are extremely fortunate to have forged a prestigious new link with the Scottish National Gallery with whom we have worked very closely on the exhibition and we very much appreciate their co-operation.

Several events are planned to support the summer exhibition programme. On Tuesday 7 October the Friends will visit Rabley Contemporary Drawings Centre near Marlborough in Wiltshire. An article by Meryl Ainslie, Director of the Rabley Centre, can be found on page 34 of this magazine.

You may recall in the spring magazine we mentioned plans for a three day trip to Bath in early autumn. Several Friends have already expressed an interest in joining this trip which is planned for 2–4 September. This year, the 300th anniversary of the start of the Georgian period, has inspired much national interest. Bath is a wonderful example of a Georgian city and you can read about it on page 50.

Highlights of the trip will include a visit to No 1 Royal Crescent recently reopened as a museum as well as the Holbourne Museum and the Victoria Art Gallery.

These and other venues in the itinerary are described on page 52.

I do hope you enjoy this season’s exhibition programme and will join us for several of the events.

I look forward to seeing many of you in the Gallery during the summer months and as always thank you very much for your invaluable support of Pallant House Gallery. Lady Nicholas Gordon Lennox Chairman of the Friends Pallant House Gallery Friends

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THE GRAND TOUR OF BATH

No.1 Royal Crescent, Bath, UK, © Photography by seier + seier https://www.flickr.com/people/seier/

In the tricentenary of the start of the Georgian Age, there could not be a better year to visit the most perfect showcase of its art and architecture: the city of Bath. This September the Friends trip will be a three-day visit to take in the best of its modern and contemporary art.

The Francis Hotel, a four star Regency townhouse in the beautiful Queen Square (described by Nikolaus Pevsner as 'one of the finest Palladian compositions in England before 1730') provides an elegant base at the heart of Bath and is within walking distance of the major attractions in this UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Day one includes coach travel to Bath, stopping en route at the world-famous landscape garden at Stourhead. Described even in 1740 as ‘a living work of art’, the tour takes in the beautiful lake which reflects classical temples and grottos, as well as the Palladian mansion featuring Chippendale furniture and a collection of Grand Tour pictures. On arrival in Bath, after viewing the architecture of the city by coach, refreshments and a private talk at the magnificentlyrestored townhouse No. 1 Royal Crescent, will give a vivid picture of fashionable life in Georgian Bath. In the evening, a private drinks reception will be held a short walk from the hotel at the Quercus Gallery, which specialises in ceramics and contemporary artworks, followed by dinner at Raymond Blanc’s Brasserie.

The second day begins with a trip to the Victoria Art Gallery, which houses a fine collection of paintings including British artists Walter Sickert, William Roberts 50

Pallant House Gallery Friends

and Howard Hodgkin. After coffee and a tour with Dr Michael Rowe, Chairman of the Victoria Gallery Friends, the group will depart for the Holburne Museum of Art, a Grade 1-listed building with a contemporary extension by Eric Parry RA, housing fine and decorative arts, via the Robert Adam-designed Pulteney Bridge.

Here is an opportunity to see the exhibition Julian Opie: Collected Works which pairs the artist’s collection of historic portraits and Ancient Egyptian sculpture with his own contemporary artworks. With an afternoon and evening at leisure to explore the city, this will be the perfect opportunity to visit the Roman Baths, Medieval Bath Abbey, Beckford’s Tower, the Assembly Rooms, take tea in the Grand Pump Room, or even bathe at Thermae Bath Spa, Britain’s only natural thermal spa.

On the final day the tour moves on to the picturesque Corsham Court in Wiltshire, one of England’s finest stately homes, with grounds designed

by Capability Brown. Owner James Methuen-Campbell, heir presumptive to the title Baron Methuen, will give a private tour of the significant Old Master collection including paintings by Van Dyck, Carlo Dolci and Lippi.

The final stop will be for lunch in the pretty village of Avebury. Encompassed by an ancient stone circle, this World Heritage Site inspired artists including Paul Nash.

It also features Avebury Manor (location for the BBC series A Manor Reborn).

Numbers are limited so early booking is recommended.

See page 52 for booking details.

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

PRIVATE VIEW

PALLANT PROMS

The Scottish Colourist: J.D. Fergusson Sat 5 July 10–11am The Friends’ Private View, which now takes place on a Saturday, allows Friends to see the summer exhibitions before they open to the public later in the day. All Friends are welcome at this special preview event. F ree, coffee and biscuits on arrival.

Selim Mazari Sat 27 September, 12–1pm At the first recital of the season Selim Mazari of the Royal College of Music will play works

by Schumann and Beethoven.

Selim is Laureate of many international competitions. £5.50; Friends Free (voluntary contributions appreciated).

EXHIBITION TOUR The Scottish Colourist: J.D. Fergusson Thurs 10 July, 11am A chance to find out more about this extensive exhibition of J.D. Fergusson’s paintings and sculpture with Gallery Guide Jock Johnston in this exhibition tour exclusively for Friends. £5.50 (£3 Student Friends) includes coffee and biscuits

Pedro Gomes Sat 25 October, 12 – 1pm This recital includes works by Prokofiev and Gulda. Pedro, a Portuguese pianist, is currently studying at the Royal College of Music. £5.50; Friends Free (voluntary contributions appreciated). Friends are admitted without charge but are asked to contribute generously to the retiring collection. To guarantee a seat, tickets must be obtained (preferably in advance of the day) from Reception, as capacity is strictly limited.

ART BOOK CLUB Katherine Mansfield: Prelude Sun 21 September, 2.30–4pm J.D. Fergusson and his wife Margaret Morris were friends with Katherine Mansfield. Her writing gives a fascinating insight to this period. An interesting book for discussion during the Fergusson exhibition. £5.50 includes tea and homemade cakes Alison MacLeod: Unexploded Sun 19 October 2.30–4pm A story of a family in wartime Brighton suffering the constant threat of invasion. Philip is fearful that Hitler is going to take over the Brighton Pavilion, a real rumour at the time. This novel links with the Hans Feibusch paintings in the Gallery’s collection and reflects his life and work. £5.50 includes tea and homemade cakes

VISITS Discovering Palmer’s Kent: Samuel Palmer, Graham Sutherland and Paul Drury at Mascalls Gallery, Marc Chagall at Tudeley, and Sissinghurst Castle.

Tues 5 August, 8.30am – 6pm A day trip to Kent, starting at Mascalls Gallery near Tonbridge, where curator Nathaniel Hepburn will introduce the new exhibition of etchings of the Kent countryside, 'Discovering Palmer's Kent' featuring work by Graham Sutherland. On show will be a previously unknown etching plus unseen sketches, plates and prints by Paul Drury. A visit to nearby All Saints in Tudeley for a Ploughman’s lunch, followed by a talk on the twelve Marc Chagall Pallant House Gallery Friends 51

stained glass church windows, rivalled only by Stanley Spencer’s murals at Burghclere as 20th century religious art in Britain. Finally, a visit to Sissinghurst Castle for a talk followed by ample time to wander the world-renowned gardens. £55 (£45 for National Trust members), including coach travel, coffee, lunch, entrance fees and tours.

Three Day Trip to Bath Tues 2 to Thurs 4 September An unmissable opportunity to stay in the heart of the Georgian showpiece city of Bath with exclusive tours by exhibition curators and private receptions with gallery directors.

The trip also includes tailored tours, designed exclusively for the Friends of Pallant House Gallery, and 4 star accommodation in the heart of the city in a listed Georgian townhouse. See page 50 for the

full itinerary. The Tour price for the three days is £525 per person (£512.50 for National Trust members) and includes all travel, admissions and B&B costs, lunch, and the evening reception and meal on the first night. Lunches on days 2 and 3 are not included, nor is the evening meal on the second day in Bath. To book please contact the Friends’ Office (01243 770 816). A £75 deposit per person is requested. Please pay by cheque, made payable to “Friends of Pallant House Gallery”.

Visit to Rabley Drawing Centre and Breamore House Tues 7 October, 8.15am – 6.30pm approx A visit contrasting a modern gallery/studio on a farm near Marlborough with a fine Hampshire country house. At Rabley, founder

artist Meryl Ainslie will lead a tour of the drawing studio, print room and gallery with works by Craigie Aitchison, Sean Scully, Ann Christopher RA (whose work features in Pallant House Gallery) and woodcuts by Nana Shiomi, who will demonstrate her technique. A picnic lunch in the farmhouse (featured on Channel 4’s ‘Grand Designs’) before visiting Breamore for a private tour of the paintings, rare tapestries and period furniture. There will be plenty of time to visit the Anglo-Saxon church and tea room. £55 includes travel, coffee, entrance fees and tours. Excludes lunch and afternoon tea. Comfortable footwear is advised.

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

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

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Pallant House Gallery Friends

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

CULTURAL TOURS & MUSIC HOLIDAYS 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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Our new tour with the art historian Charlie Hall has been designed to introduce some of the lesser known treasures of Florence alongside the city’s great collections and galleries.

We shall follow the development of the Renaissance which began when immensely rich and powerful families used their position to endorse their standing in society. The legacy of this artistic patronage is still to be found everywhere. Staying at the 4* Santa Maria Novella in the heart of Florence, we will explore the city’s many Renaissance churches and chapels including the exquisite Ruccellai Chapel and the church of San Lorenzo designed by Brunelleschi. We will also visit the Bargello, Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Vecchio.

Price from £1,325 for five nights including flights, accommodation with breakfast, three dinners and the services of the Kirker Tour Lecturer.

IN

G T R AV

Speak to an expert or request a brochure:

020 7593 2284

quote code GPH

www.kirkerholidays.com

RUPERT EVERETT JOSHUA McGUIRE

SEASON HIGHLIGHTS

GUYS AND DOLLS

11 August 21 September

GYPSY

6 October 8 November

FESTIVAL THEATRE 12 JULY - 2 AUGUST

cft.org.uk 01243 781312

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 £9, Friends £7.50, Students £8 unless otherwise stated The Visual Identity of J.D. Fergusson Thurs 17 July, 6pm Art historian Jonathan Blackwood traces the development of Fergusson’s style and finds its roots in French, Dutch and Scottish painting. Looking at key works from all periods of the artist’s career he considers the sometimes surprising development of Fergusson’s ideas.

My Name is Margaret Morris Thurs 31 July, 6pm Choreographer and former Director of Scottish Ballet, Stuart Hopps, reprises his one-man show celebrating the life of his friend Margaret Morris, the dance pioneer and life-long partner of J.D. Fergusson. This event is supported

by The Hosali Foundation.

Colour, Rhythm and Dance: J.D. Fergusson and his Circle in Paris 1907-1913 Thurs 25 September, 6pm In 1907 Fergusson settled in Paris where he would remain for six years. Author and art historian Elizabeth Cumming discusses his

54

creative engagement with fellow artists and the city’s dynamic international culture including exhibitions and art education.

Emily Young in Conversation Thurs 2 October, 6pm Internationally renowned stone carver Emily Young creates complex pieces which have a rare and poetic presence that is both contemporary and ancient. To coincide with the display of her work in the Courtyard she will be in conversation with Simon Martin, Artistic Director at Pallant House Gallery. This event includes a glass of wine courtesy of the event sponsor The Fine Art Society.

Uncovering Fergusson: Curator’s Stories from the Fergusson Retrospective Thurs 9 October, 6pm Alice Strang, Senior Curator at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh and curator of the exhibition ‘The Scottish Colourist: J.D. Fergusson’ tells the stories involved in tracking down and installing more than 100 paintings and sculptures lent from public and private collections throughout the UK. This event includes a glass of wine courtesy of the event sponsor The Fergusson Foundation.

Barbara Rae ra in conversation Thurs 23 October, 6pm To coincide with a display of landscapes in the De'Longhi Print Room, Barbara Rae ra will be in conversation with Simon Martin, Artistic Director at Pallant House Gallery.

This event includes a glass of wine for each ticket holder.

EXHIBITION TOURS The Scottish Colourist: J.D. Fergusson Thurs 11 September, 6pm A tour of the exhibition which is the first major retrospective of Fergusson’s work to be mounted in more than 40 years. £5.50 (£3 students)

OTHER EVENTS Fine Art, Antiques and Collectables Valuations Afternoon with Toovey’s Mon 29 September 1–5pm at Pallant House Gallery Toovey’s specialists will be on hand to offer free valuations and advice. A third of the seller’s commission for items subsequently auctioned at Toovey’s will be donated to Pallant House Gallery.

Macmillan Coffee Morning Fri 26 September 10am – 12pm Come along to Pallant House Gallery’s Scottish-themed ‘World’s Biggest Coffee Morning’ in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support with tea, coffee and cakes. Last year’s coffee morning raised £536, please help us to exceed that figure this year. This event is generously supported by the Gallery’s headline sponsor De’Longhi.

Please print and check all details carefully. Incomplete forms and incorrect details will delay the processing procedure.

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We endeavour to accommodate any special requirements. Please ring 01243 774557 to discuss your needs.

pallantbookshop.com shop@pallantbookshop.com Telephone 01243 781293

JD FERGUSSON One of the four artists collectively known as ‘the Scottish Colourists’, the others being Cadell, Hunter and Peploe. Fergusson lived in Paris from 1907 until 1913.

In 1913 Fergusson met the dance pioneer Margaret Morris, who became his life-long partner and provided inspiration for much of his work. Fergusson is most celebrated for depictions of the female form, but he also painted landscapes in England, France and Scotland, that were of great signifi cance and exhibited sculptures for over thirty years. This title will accompany the major summer exhibition The Scottish Colourist: JD Fergusson at Pallant House Gallery from 5th July to 19th October 2014. £14.95, paperback UNSEEN WORKS: J.D. FERGUSSON An exhibition catalogue of 134 previously unseen works by J.D. Fergusson with an essay by Elizabeth Cummings. £15

BOOKSHOP

EMILY YOUNG, A LIGHT TOUCH AND A LONG VIEW, Born in London into a family of artists and writers, Emily Young’s grandmother was a sculptor.

Emily has lived in the US, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, France and Italy. She has permanent installations at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, the Imperial War Museum, St Paul’s Churchyard, London, the Close at Salisbury Cathedral, and Gateshead. £45, hardback BARBARA RAE PRINTS Barbara Rae RA is renowned for her vivid, expressionistic paintings and graphic works. In this book, the first comprehensive study of Raes prints, Andrew Lambirth charts her development as a printmaker, from her early experiments at Edinburgh College of Art to her recent collaboration with Coriander Studios. Commentaries from the master printers with whom Rae has worked offer a fascinating insight into her practice, while the artists own observations reveal the important relationship between her printmaking and her painting.

Illustrated with key prints from throughout Raes career, this book celebrates the art of one of Britains most gifted and original printmakers.

POA, reprinting, paperback 57

Field & Fork’s new restaurant at No. 4 Guildhall Street is now open.

Serving Sam Mahoney’s ‘superior, perfectly judged, confidently flavoured’ (Independent ) modern British cooking in stylish but unpretentious surroundings, No. 4 Guildhall St offers à la carte and market menus. There are daily specials, too, featuring ingredients specially selected according to their season … and there is a thoughtful wine list to accompany.

Regular visitors to Pallant House will be delighted to have our style and hospitality only a few minutes’ walk away. Newcomers will discover a treat.

‘Welcome back, Field & Fork, there’s nothing like you in this neck of the woods.’

– Portsmouth News Tuesday to Saturday 11.00 am–3.00 pm and 5.00 pm–late Telephone 01243 789915 to reserve a table www.fieldandfork.co.uk/restaurant

Your Legacy to Art

email reservations@fieldandfork.co.uk

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.

STANLEY SPENCER PRIVATE VIEW Photographs by Jason Hedges (www.jasonhedges.co.uk)

(Left to Right) Amanda Bradley and David Taylor, Curators of the National Trust; Maggie Organ, Jocelyn Underwood, Simon Martin, PHG Artistic Director and Anita Trevelyan; John Spencer (grandson of Stanley Spencer) and Unity Spencer (daugther of Stanley Spencer)

(Left to Right) Martyn and Toom Bell (Trustee); Paul and Roxanne Willard; Paul Lyon-Maris and Robin Muir

(Left to Right) James Stewart and John Zimmer, Zimmer Stewart Gallery, Arundel; Philip Lawford, Linbury Trust; Rupert Toovey, Toovey's Auctioneers

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

59

Collection in Focus Madge Gill, Untitled Roger Cardinal

It was in March 1919 that the London housewife Madge Gill (1882−1961) discovered her vocation as both an artist and a psychic medium, when she experienced an overwhelming illumination characterized by visions and ecstatic feelings, and was initiated into mediumship by a spirit-guide named Myrninerest. Hitherto, her life had been little more than a cycle of brusque disruptions, cruel disappointments and physical traumas. Born illegitimate, she had been raised by foster parents, then assigned to an orphanage before being sent as a teenager to Canada to work on farms in Ontario.

Back in England, she married her cousin Tom, by whom she had three sons, one of whom died in the 1918 influenza pandemic; she also had a stillborn daughter and suffered a series of extreme ailments, eventually losing an eye and all her teeth. When relations with her husband deteriorated in the aftermath of the Great War, she sought solace in clairvoyant experiments that resulted in inspired art, yet fell into a severe depression exacerbated by poverty. Luckily, a sympathetic psychiatrist helped her avoid being labelled a lunatic, and she managed to ‘normalize’ her existence at the expense of devoting every spare moment to her compulsive artmaking.

While at first she produced embroidered rugs, quilts and patchwork dresses, Madge Gill’s preferred format soon became the ink-drawing, painstakingly executed on blank postcards, sheets of paper or cardboard, and lengthy rolls of untreated calico. Her elective colour was black, but she also exploited other inks (red, 60

blue, yellow, green), mixing them to produce variant hues. Her tireless improvisations have an hallucinatory quality, each image teeming with checkerboard patterns that suggest resplendent interiors full of giddy stairways, alcoves, casements and mosaic floors.

As if borne on a flood of swirling doodles, the startled faces of hundreds of females gaze out at the viewer.

Gill rarely titles her pictures and never identifies these women, who nevertheless adopt varied attitudes and postures, now meek and destitute, now haughty and opulent. Evolving slowly through the four decades of her creative career, they become more and more assertive, even adopting a stylish swagger by the 1950s. The Pallant House Gallery drawing presents a figure typical of this period, a self-possessed lady whose glorious tumbling hair and rich costume mark her out as an exceptional being. The flowing gown of this queenly personage is inseparable from the palatial space in which she resides, while her body is elided, registered purely as untouched whiteness. Strange motions of her hands, half-hidden amid ornamented cuffs, seem to betray some urgent emotion. The figure’s emphatic eyes transmit a mesmerizing power, even a summons. Might this be Myrninerest, Gill’s otherworldly guide and imperious mentor? Or is it a self-portrait, the celebration of a woman entirely in command who inhabits a sovereign space of her own making, an unearthly realm beyond adversity and frailty?

Untitled by Madge Gill is now on display in Room 6.

WEST DEAN VISUAL ARTS SUMMER SHOWS 2014

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Modern British and Irish Art Evening Sale

Viewing 5–10 June; 19–25 June 8 King Street London SW1Y 6QT

London, King Street · 25 June 2014 Contact André Zlattinger azlattinger@christies.com +44 (0) 20 7389 2074

SIR STANLEY SPENCER, R.A. (1891–1959)

The Scarecrow, Cookham (detail) oil on canvas 28 x 30 in. (71.1. x 76.3 cm.)

Painted in 1934 £1,500,000–2,500,000 © THE ESTATE OF STANLEY SPENCER / BRIDGEMAN

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