ISSN 2044-2653
Luke Jerram issue
// Ian McKeever RA
// Clive Head // Nick Park CBE
// Sir David Attenborough OM CH CVO CBE FRS
Autumn 2011 OM CH CVO CBE FRS
BackChat // Sir David Attenborough RA
In the Studio // Nick Park CBE // Clive Head 06 Autumn 2011
// Ian McKeever
06 Luke Jerram: edges of perception
CELEBRATING THE WORK OF ARNE JACOBSEN
Inspiration for every home. At John Lewis Cribbs Causeway we can turn your ideas into a reality Book a free consultation with our Home design advisor for expert, impartial advice on styles, colours and all the latest trends. Home Design Service 0117 959 1100
ARNE JACOBSEN EXHIBITION Monday 24th October - Wednesday 2nd November Sphere Living Design - Showroom - Clifton - Bristol
Sphere Living Design is delighted to host an in-store exhibition celebrating the work of renowned furniture designer Arne Jacobsen. Responsible for iconic chairs such as the Egg™, Swan™ and Series 7™, Jacobsen is acknowledged as one of the pioneers of classic Danish design.
Beside the Seaside Inspiration for every home
His work extended into architecture and most notably, the Radisson Blu Royal Hotel in Copenhagen which remains a living shrine to his career. Sphere Living Design stock a wide range of designer furniture and accessories from leading interior brands including Fritz Hansen.
Sphere Living Design Embassy House - Queens Avenue - Clifton - Bristol 0117 929 2365 info@spherelivingdesign.com www.spherelivingdesign.com
Our commitment to value means that we match the prices of high street competitors (this excludes online-only or mail order businesses) as long as their service conditions are comparable. See our “Never Knowingly Undersold” leaflet in our shops or online for details.
Contributors
// Richard Storey took a BA Honours degree in Drama from Bristol University (2006). He worked for the Bristol Evening Post for 12 years and is author of Perfect Persuasion. He is a former Board member of Bristol Arts Centre and Travelling Light Theatre Company.
// Jodie Inkson’s obsession with typography began at school when she painstakingly hand cut every letter of a project. Climbing the design ranks in London, she formed Wire Sky in 2003, winning awards and a position in Who’s Who. She sees her beloved modernist chairs as art, not sure whether she prefers sitting on them or looking at them.
// Mike Whitton taught English, Art and Drama for almost 40 years in secondary schools. Now, in semi-retirement, teaches Psychology to sixth-formers. Hobbies include photography, mountain walking. Ardent defender of the Arts in the school curriculum.
// Simon Baker is an RWA Trustee and a solicitor on the cusp of celebrating 40 years in practice. An avid enthusiast of the visual arts since discovering that books with “pictures and conversations” were the best, he is too much of an impulse buyer to qualify as a collector.
// John Callaghan before becoming a full-time painter, lectured in art, design, drawing and painting at various London colleges. He has exhibited widely in London and the West Country.
// Jilly Cobbe has a degree in Fine Art Drawing and is a practicing artist living near Stroud. She has a life-long fascination with the history of art, especially the artist behind the art.
// Stewart Geddes is an artist and RWA Academician. He completed an MPhil at the Royal College of Art in 2007. Having stood down as Head of Painting at Cardiff School of Art last summer, he is currently a visiting tutor on the undergraduate Fine Art programmes at Taunton and Winchester.
// Francis Greenacre was Curator of Fine Art at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery from 1969 to 1997. Together with Douglas Merritt he has just completed Public Sculpture of Bristol published by Liverpool University Press January 2011.
// Alice Hendy studied Fine Art at Exeter College, learning to use photography to capture ideas and document her work at Kingston University, where she studied Sculpture. Alice has always loved cameras – her current beau is a Canon D500; it makes her heart sing.
// Mike Jenner while a lecturer at Bath University, joined his one-man architectural practice with Ray Moxley’s to found Moxley, Jenner and Partners, ultimately sixty strong. He has always combined practice with writing on architectural history. He is a compulsive collector of every form of visual art, from 9th Century Tang pots to 21st Century paintings.
// Hugh Mooney is an art photographer and recently studied Fine Art at the University of the West of England. A physicist by profession, he spent 30 years in the aerospace industry prior to retiring in 1998. A camera is his constant companion.
// Robert Parker took a BA Fine Art from Durham. Artist, designer, writer, lecturer, he is former head of fashion / textiles at Plymouth University. He lives in Somerset and the South of France, and has exhibited with RWA and as gallery artist in the UK and abroad. Writes for The Artist.
// Greg Reitschlin studied art history in Vienna and took his MA from Freie Universität, Berlin. He is the author of Art Fakes Revealed (for publication next year) and is presently writing A Blast from the Past, a comprehensive history of the Vorticist movement.
// Richard St.George is on the staff of Bristol based environmental think tank, the Schumacher Institute. One of the UK’s first environmental scientists, he was involved in the early days of the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales and the Centre for Sustainable Energy, in Bristol.
// Rob Withers lectured in education, philosophy and aesthetics. As Principal of University College Scarborough he participated in all interviews for new Art Department staff: his policy only to appoint highly successful, exhibiting artists capable of making both drawing and art history foundations of the art degree.
We all remember where we were when we heard of the terrorist attacks which destroyed the World Trade Center, killing nearly 3000 people. At first, it seemed to the citizens of New York impossible to commemorate adequately those who died in this atrocity; however, six months later, two great beams of light rose from Lower Manhattan and filled the night sky. The art installation, Tribute in Light has since become the de facto monument to 9/11, an annual symbol of commemoration, hope and renewal. The installation comprises 88 xenon bulbs each emitting 7000 watts of blue light positioned into 48-foot squares that echo the shape and orientation of the Twin Towers. The memorial reaches 4 miles into the night sky and is visible from as far as 30 miles away, the two arrays casting the strongest shaft of light ever projected from earth into the night sky. Since 2008, the generators that power Tribute in Light have been fuelled with biodiesel made from recycled cooking oil. This year on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, Tribute In Light will once again illuminate the Lower Manhattan sky beginning at dusk on Sunday September 11 and fading with the dawn of Monday, September 12. See pages 32/33 of this issue of ART and the photo archive on Flickr: MAS Tribute in Light.
Richard Storey Managing Editor
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P J CROOK
ECLECTIC SHEEP tinted gesso on wood 30.5 x 35.5 cm
www.pjcrook.com
19 November - 10 December
Brian Sinfield Gallery 57 High Street, Burford, OX18 4QU
01993 824 464 gallery@briansinfield.com Tuesday - Saturday 10.00 to 5.30 (closed from 1.00-2.00) Mondays by appointment
Inside Cover Luke Jerram’s Aeolus 2011
EDITORIAL Publisher Royal West of England Academy Managing Editor Richard Storey Art Director Jodie Inkson – Wire Sky Deputy Editor Mike Whitton Editorial contributors Simon Baker, John Callaghan, Jilly Cobbe, Stewart Geddes, Francis Greenacre, Alice Hendy, Mike Jenner, Hugh Mooney, Robert Parker, Greg Reitschlin, Richard St.George, Rob Withers Specialist photography Alice Hendy RWA and Academicians’ news Gemma Brace gemma.brace@rwa.org.uk Friends of the RWA news carolyn.stubbs@btinternet.com
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Exhibitions
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Diary – events, lectures, workshops, tours
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RWA news
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Academicians’ news
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Luke Jerram: exploring the edges of perception 15 Simon Baker meets Bristol’s best kept secret – the remarkable polymath, Luke Jerram. 20 Ian McKeever RA: Quality of Light Stewart Geddes explores the recent work of Ian McKeever RA, who explains why for him light is both illusive yet very present. Way Ahead: the paintings of Clive Head 26 Rob Withers is fascinated by the hyper-realistic world of Clive Head. What is it that makes his work so gripping?
ADVERTISING t: 0117 973 5129 e: artmagazine@rwa.org.uk COPY DEADLINE Winter 2011 issue: 1 October FRIENDS OF THE RWA Friends annual subscriptions Single Joint Individual life Joint life Student Country single Country joint See membership application form page 8
Editorial, Contributors
£35 £50 £375 £500 £15 £28 £40
Royal West of England Academy, Queens Road, Clifton, Bristol BS8 1PX t: 0117 973 5129 General enquiries e: info@rwa.org.uk Magazine e: rwamagazine@gmail.com Registered Charity No 1107149 The opinions in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the Royal West of England Academy. All reasonable attempts have been made to clear copyright before publication. To read an electronic version of ART, or to visit the RWA online: www.rwa.org.uk Follow us on Facebook and twitter.com/rwabristol ART is printed by WPG on sustainably sourced FSC certified paper using vegetable inks. www.wpg-group.com
Gallery review: Lime Tree Gallery, Bristol
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Tribute in Light NYC commemorates the victims of 9/11
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Letting colour speak for itself 35 Robert Parker re-visits Fauvism, and discusses the history and significance of the first art revolution of the 20th Century. The Holburne Extension 39 Mike Jenner loves the Holburne’s mesmerising new extension and throws light on the history of this popular Bath museum. Euan Uglow: Root Five Nude 43 Sietske Smid describes the pain and pleasure of her nine months as the model for Euan Uglow’s famous Root Five Nude. Close-up: Karen Knorr 46 Hugh Mooney meets an artist photographer whose practice explores the deconstruction of institutions, language, desire and fantasy. 48 Inside the artist’s studio: Nick Park CBE Aardman’s Nick Park explains the gestation of his world-famous characters, the mighty Wallace and Gromit. Friends of the RWA notes and news
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Reviews
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Listings
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BackChat: Sir David Attenborough
OM CH CVO CBE FRS
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Exhibitions Louise Bourgeois, Tracey Emin: Do Not Abandon Me 2 September – 23 October Louise Bourgeois, founder of confessional art, continued working right up until her death in May 2010. During the creation of her final set of prints she handed them to Tracey Emin who admitted: “I carried the images around the world with me from Australia to France, but I was too scared to touch them”. The joint collection of 16 drawings explores themes of identity, sexuality and the fear of loss and abandonment. Bourgeois began by painting male and female torsos in profile and mixing red, blue and black gouache pigments with water to create delicate silhouettes. Emin used fantasy to draw smaller figures engaged with the torsos, like Lilliputian lovers, enacting the body as desires and anxieties. Contains adult themes.
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Michael Kidner
Bridget Riley
7 September – 11 October
7 September – 11 October
“Unless you read a painting as a feeling, then you don’t get anything at all.”
“For me nature is not landscape, but the dynamism of visual forces… an event rather than an appearance. These forces can only be tackled by treating colour and form as ultimate identities, freeing them from all descriptive or functional roles.”
A pioneer of Optical Art, Michael Kidner devoted much of his career to developing work of a constructive nature. His interests in mathematics, science and chaos, wave, number and big bang theories informed an art that is at once rational and playful. Kidner’s translation of the dialogue between order and indeterminacy into a visual language has meant that his work – though founded in a rigorous intellectual approach to colour and form – also resonates emotionally. His interest in unpredictable world events fuelled an emphasis on unplanned elements within his work, while paradoxically continuing to assert underlying order through form.
Bridget Riley is one of the UK’s leading post War artists. Her vibrant black-and-white optical art paintings featuring geometric patterns achieved international acclaim, following a celebrated exhibition – The Responsive Eye – held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1965. By 1967, she began investigating colour, and painted her first stripe painting. Although Riley’s work is abstract, it is deeply rooted in nature: for example, the effects of light and colour in the landscape.
Naturescape 7 September – 11 October The Royal West of England Academy has a secret storeroom of treasures at its heart: over 1300 paintings, prints, drawings and sculptures, mainly collected in the post War era. Since 1941, the Talboys Bequest has enabled RWA Presidents to purchase a small number of works each year, resulting in a unique and eclectic selection of British Art. Naturescape features figurative and abstract works from the RWA Permanent Collection, many of which have not been seen for years. Nature becomes the starting point for explorations of fundamental human experiences, such as sight, sound, memory and the senses, not only in this collection but also within the context of the four other Autumn exhibitions.
Luke Jerram: The Making of Aeolus
159th Autumn Exhibition
7 September – 11 October
30 October – 31 December
Aeolus is an acoustic and optical pavilion designed to make audible the silent shifting patterns of the wind and visually amplify the ever changing sky. A field of 310 internally polished stainless steel tubes and a web of Aeolian harp strings resonate and sing without any electrical power or amplification. Luke Jerram’s multi-disciplinary practice involves the creation of sculptures, installations and live arts projects. Aeolus was inspired by a research trip to Iran in 2007 when Jerram explored the mosques of Isfahan and interviewed a digger of qanats – desert wells – who spoke of the wells singing in the wind, leading Jerram to investigate the acoustics of architecture. Models, prototypes and working drawings will fill the gallery, in advance of the Aeolus pavilion itself touring Liverpool, Lyme Park and the Eden Project in late 2011.
The biggest exhibition of new and recent work by unknown, emerging and established artists, our annual Autumn open exhibition features a huge variety of styles, media and subject matter, with one element uniting this diverse mix – each work is of the very highest standard. For the 159th consecutive year, the best sculpture, paintings, architectural designs, photography and printmaking will be chosen anonymously by a panel of RWA Academicians and a guest selector. All works featured in the exhibition are for sale, and the sheer scale of the exhibition ensures there is work to suit most tastes and budgets. Our participation in the Own Art scheme makes the RWA the ideal place to buy art – you can borrow £100 – 2000 to be paid back in equal instalments over a period of 10 months, interest free. All selected works appear in the exhibition catalogue, available from the RWA shop. Exhibition sponsored by John Lewis.
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ROYAL WEST OF ENGLAND ACADEMY Patron Her Majesty the Queen Board of Trustees Chairman Dr Norman Biddle Hon RWA Vice Chairman Simon Baker Honorary Treasurer Bob Barnett Trustees Elizabeth Boscawen, Jennifer BryantPearson, Professor Paul Gough PhD MA FRSA RWA, Paul Wilson Acting President Peter Ford RE RWA Honorary Architectural Advisor Mike Jenner FRIBA FRSA RWA Council Members Anne Desmet RA RE RWA, Vera BoeleKeimer RWA, Stephen Jacobson RWA, John Palmer RWA, Louise Balaam RWA, Rachael Nee RWA Director Trystan Hawkins Assistant Director Julie Seddon Jones Facilities Manager Nick Dixon Membership and Office Manager Gemma Brace Sales and Events Manager Anouk Mercier Marketing Manager Lottie Storey Gallery Co-ordinator Tristan Pollard Gallery Assistant Ben Harding Customer Services Manager Steve Fielding Customer Services team members Juliet Burke Louise King Angharad Redman Accountants Hollingdale Pooley Friends of RWA Friends Committee 2011 – 2012 Chairman Maureen Fraser e: mcf11@tiscali.co.uk Vice Chairman Simon Holmes e: simonfhholmes@lineone.net Vice Chairman and Lectures Wendy Mogford t: 0117 950 0712 e: wmogford@talktalk.net Treasurer Tony Merriman Friends Exhibitions Gillian Hudson t: 0117 973 5359 e: gs.hudson@toucansurf.com Cultural & Educational Visits Tom Western-Butt e: thomasbutt@virginmedia.com Sue Hudson-Price t: 01275 392762 e: susan@hudsonprice.wanadoo.co.uk Volunteers Co-ordinator Mary Drown e: Mary.Drown@blueyonder.co.uk ART magazine liaison Carolyn Stubbs e: carolyn.stubbs@btinternet.com Linda Alvis t: 0117 973 0268 e: linda@alvisfineart.co.uk Angela Morris e: angelmorr@artserve.net Also: Membership Secretary Jac Solomons t: 0117 973 5129 e: friends@rwa.org.uk Committee members can also be contacted by post: Royal West of England Academy Queens Road, Clifton, Bristol BS8 1PX
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September // S aturday 10th 9.30am – 5.30pm last entry 5pm Bristol Doors Open Day 2011 The RWA is taking part in Bristol Doors Open Day – the day when many of Bristol’s significant contemporary and historic buildings open their doors to the general public, free of charge. Make sure we’re on your map for this special occasion, take a break from pounding the city streets in our café, and don’t forget to visit our West End neighbours too – entrance to all venues is free, generous donations gladly received. www.bristoldoorsopenday.org.uk
8.30am departure Friends Excursion Ironbridge and Coalport Ironbridge and Coalport and a ride on one of Britain’s premier steam railways, the Severn Valley line. Our excursions are proving popular so it is advisable to book early. Details and booking forms are now available at the RWA and from Linda Alvis e: linda@alvisfineart.co.uk
// Saturday 17th 10am – 4pm
Do Not Abandon Me: 3D Workshop with Ros Cuthbert RWA A one day workshop for adults. Both Bourgeois and Emin have used the chair singly or as part of a greater work or assemblage, transforming a familiar part of our domestic world into something more specifically autobiographical. Inspired by the exhibition Do Not Abandon Me, participants will make a three-dimensional piece in this workshop, using an old chair as a starting point. £40, to book, call the RWA on 0117 973 5129.
// Saturday 24th 11am – 12.30pm Friends Lecture Myrtle Pizzey – The Art of the Linocut (Demonstration) Myrtle Pizzey trained at the West of England College of Art and later, after bringing up her family, she was awarded a distinction for postgraduate study in relief printmaking at the Bristol Polytechnic. She went on to complete a postgraduate Certificate in Education at Bristol University and lectured in a Sixth Form College for 16 years. She has received numerous awards for her work, the most recent being the Intaglio Print Prize and the Derwent Award for the Best in Show at the Menier Gallery in South London during the SGFA annual open show 2009. In this illustrated talk and demonstration, Myrtle will display original examples of working drawings, including charcoal, graphite and pastel. She will explain her sources of inspiration and discuss techniques of transferring the image to a relief block, the cutting process and the resulting prints. This will be followed by illustrated examples of work from the early 70s to the present day, including 20th Century influences. Please contact Wendy Mogford e: wmogford@talktalk.net t: 0117 950 0712
October // Saturday 1st 2 – 3pm The Making of Aeolus: Luke Jerram Come and meet Luke Jerram, the artist behind the Aeolus project. Discussing his latest project, in the midst of his models, drawings and plans, Jerram offers a peek into a world where sound, science and art collide. Open to all, usual admission fees apply.
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Diary // September to November
Join the Friends of the RWA
Events, Lectures Workshops, Tours
November // T hursdays 3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th 10.30am – 12.30pm Photography: from the street to the digital darkroom – Stephen Morris Good pictures begin in the camera and become great pictures in the darkroom. Creative and practical tuition using (inexpensive) Adobe Elements, or Adobe Photoshop, to unlock the potential in every photograph. Students should have a digital camera, computer and software. Advice available in advance of the first class. £50 / £40 concessions. To book please call 0117 973 5129.
// S aturday 12th 8.30am departure Friends Excursion Birmingham Art Gallery Birmingham Art Gallery and renowned Barber Institute. Our excursions are proving popular so it is advisable to book early. Details and booking forms are now available at the RWA and from Linda Alvis e: linda@alvisfineart.co.uk
// S aturday 26th 11am – 12.30pm Friends Lecture George Ferguson – Frailty of Fashion George Ferguson CBE, Past President of the Royal Institute of British Architects (2003 – 2005), studied at the University of Bristol School of Architecture from 1965 – 1971. Throughout his career as an architect he has received many RIBA and Civic Trust awards for building works plus awards from RICS for craftsmanship and conservation. In 1994 he bought and saved the Tobacco Factory, started the Bristol Beer Factory and is a founding director of the Bristol Ferry Boat Co. He writes, lectures and broadcasts extensively on architecture and the environment. In this illustrated talk George will advocate that the most enduring architecture is evolutionary rather than revolutionary and that we are too easily seduced by fashion statements rather than timeless qualities. To quote Coco Chanel “Fashion fades, only style remains the same”. Please contact Wendy Mogford e: wmogford@talktalk.net t: 0117 950 0712
The Friends provide valuable support to the Royal West of England Academy: Educational activities The Friends organise lectures, workshops, visits to galleries, painting holidays and visits abroad Welcoming visitors Meet and Greet and tours of the RWA building and exhibitions to enrich the visitor experience Helping the RWA Selection days and stewarding exhibitions Financial support The Friends make regular donations to the Academy and sponsor awards Membership of the Friends offers Private View invitations and free entry to all RWA exhibitions ART magazine delivered quarterly to your door Social events and fund-raising activities Opportunities to volunteer Lectures: a varied and stimulating programme Cultural visits and painting trips Submission of work to the Friends Exhibitions Discounts on work submitted to Open Exhibitions 10% discount at Papadeli Café – RWA Shop – Bristol Fine Art – The Bristol Drawing School Regular mailings to keep you informed of news and forthcoming events
Friends Lectures The lectures are held in the Fedden Gallery, lower ground floor at the RWA. Lectures start at 11am until approximately 12.30pm. Papadeli Café opens at 10am. For further details please contact Wendy Mogford e: wmogford@talktalk.net t: 0117 950 0712. Lecture prices are £8 Friends / £10 Visitors. Demonstration prices are £10 Friends / £12 Visitors.
To join this vibrant organisation of art lovers, please complete the application form overleaf. art
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Join the Friends of the RWA Friends enjoy: free entry to RWA exhibitions; private view invitations to all exhibitions; a lecture programme with professional speakers; cultural visits and painting trips; an opportunity to submit work to Friends’ exhibitions; preferential rates with discounts on submissions of work to the Autumn Open Exhibition; 10% discount at Papadeli Café, RWA Shop, Bristol Fine Art, The Bristol Drawing School; ART magazine delivered each quarter. Your membership will help the RWA to serve the region and artistic community by raising funds for the Academy. title (optional) first name surname title (optional) first name surname address
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types of membership single annual £35
individual life £375
joint annual £50
joint life £500
student (NUS card max three years) £15 For those living outside the Bath (BA), Bristol (BS), Gloucester (GL) and Swindon (SN) postcode areas we offer these rates:
country single annual £28
country joint annual £40
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We can claim an extra 25p from the Inland Revenue for every £1.00 you give us – if you are a I am eligible as a UK taxpayer and consent to the Friends of the RWA claiming UK taxpayer. Gift Aid on subscriptions or donations I make. You can cancel this declaration at any time by notifying the Friends of the RWA in writing. You must pay an amount of income tax and/or capital gains tax equal to the amount recoverable on your total gift aid donations. Should your circumstances change and you no longer pay sufficient tax, you should cancel your declaration.
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In order to save us postage please consider paying by standing order. Contact Membership Secretary at friends@rwa.org.uk Alternatively please make cheques payable to: Friends of the RWA and return this section to: The Membership Secretary, Friends of the Royal West of England Academy, Queens Road, Clifton, Bristol BS8 1PX t: 0117 973 5129 www.rwa.org.uk
Registered Charity No 1107149 Data protection: information given will be used solely for maintaining our membership list and administering activities for Friends.
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ADULT DANCE CLASSES Strictly ballroom and latin classes for beginners
IN CLIFTON Tuesday and Fridays 7.30-8.30 IN KINGSWOOD Thursdays 7.30-8.30 Ask us about our improvers classes too! WEDDING FIRST DANCE LESSONS WE HAVE RECENTLY TAUGHT OUR 500TH COUPLE!
CHILDRENS DANCE CLASSES STRICTLY BALLROOM AND LATIN (FROM AGE 6) FRIDAYS, SATURDAYS AND SUNDAYS IN CLIFTON HIP HOP AND STREET (FROM AGE 4) FRIDAYS, SATURDAYS AND SUNDAYS IN CLIFTON
WE ALSO OFFER GROUP DANCE CLASSES FOR FRIENDS FAMILY OR COLLEAGUES, HEN PARTIES AND TEAMBUILDING GIFT VOUCHERS AVAILABLE FOR THAT SPECIAL GIFT
// RWA Director: Trystan Hawkins
Bristol Drawing School to be based at the RWA
Dramatic increase in RWA audiences The response to our Summer exhibition programme has been fantastic. Audience numbers are up by 300 per cent. We’ve had some great press coverage as well as positive and insightful visitor comments on the shows:
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New visitor – great space. RWA has opened its doors to new people. Interesting mix of artists. How good to see the gallery so full of visitors.
Our continued work with international artists means that the Autumn exhibition programme is an eclectic mix of shows, exploring themes such as nature and science in the work of Bridget Riley, Michael Kidner and Luke Jerram, and we are delighted to be showing the work of two of the best-known confessional artists: Louise Bourgeois and Tracey Emin. We have also selected work on the theme of nature from our Permanent Collection – a fantastic opportunity for some of these delightful works to return to the gallery walls once again. And our Autumn open exhibition will be bigger and better than ever, taking place for the 159th year running. Submissions close at the end of September and the exhibition itself runs from 30 October – 31 December. We are putting the finishing touches to our new, elegant website design. Keep checking as the site will be up and running soon.
We are delighted to announce that Bristol Drawing School will be based at the Academy from September 2011. The Bristol Drawing School is a wellrespected organisation, founded in 2007 with the aim of celebrating the importance and diversity of drawing. This move means that our learning programme will now feature fully tutored classes and informal drawing workshops and courses. Running throughout the week, choose from morning, day, weekend or evening classes. For more details call us or visit the website. Discounted rates are available for Friends, Academicians and Artist Members. www.drawingschool.org.uk
Jack Vettriano & Jeanette Jones // Alice Hendy meets some visitors
I find with a few of the paintings that the proportions of the figures aren’t quite right. It’s interesting because you don’t see that in the prints but seeing the originals you do. Judging from the number of paintings featuring legs, Vettriano is not a boob man. Fiona Ness: Teacher and Artist, 49
The style of Vettriano’s work is very expressive ballroom. His figures seem fluid; you can almost feel their rhythm and hear the swish of fabric as they move across the floor. Pete Vance: Chef, 25
The dancing and people kissing makes me think of school discos. I like the sparkly sea in this painting. Queenie Grove: Student, 7
Vettriano really captures the grace of a dancer in these paintings. I especially like the way the seaside settings remind us of the natural essence of movement and dance. Ariadne MitchellKotsakis: Researcher, 22
I thought there were some powerful pieces but it is not really my cup of tea, and I think he is just a bit too commercial. Emily Sivyer: Filmmaker, 24
I didn’t know if Vettriano’s paintings would be something I could really identify with, but the atmosphere at the private view and speaking to Jeanette about her photographs lulled me into the idea of them and that they really are inherently pleasing.
As an amateur painter I realise seeing these paintings what a talent Vettriano is. He is observant and meticulous. I wonder about the stories behind the paintings. Jacqueline Redcliffe: Retired, 65
I think these paintings are very special in the way they capture the moment when the dancers are perfectly balanced. The photographer must know about dance to have caught the moment Jonas Kazlauskas: Dancer and student, 19
Luke Mitchell: Artist, 24 art
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Discover the art and architecture of Mount Athos
Contemporary Art in the South West
Artists 303 Open Exhibition - 2011 During Somerset Arts Week 17th September – 3rd October
Five nights on The Holy Mountain June 2012 £450 per person includes flights, transfers accommodation, all meals & refreshments Mount Athos, in Northern Greece, is the oldest monastic republic in existence, the centre of monasticism for the Eastern Orthodox church. The Holy Mountain has been a monastic preserve since the 9th Century and maintains a way of life scarcely altered since medieval times. Each of the twenty monasteries welcomes a handful of non-Orthodox, male only pilgrims for one-night stays. For further information: t: 07850 565627 or e: visitmountathos@gmail.com
The Art Pavilion The Royal Bath and West Showground Shepton Mallet, Somerset Private view – Sunday 18th September 3 – 5pm
All Welcome For more information please email or call Anna Fraenkel annadesign@btinternet.com 01761 471663
Hire the RWA Galleries for your special event
• • • • • •
Award ceremonies Receptions Weddings Conferences Lectures Dinners
Hire costs from £150 to £2000 per event. Contact Anouk Mercier on 0117 973 5129 or at anouk.mercier@rwa.org.uk
VISIT OUR NEW EXHIBITION AT THE TOLL HOUSE GALLERY CLEVEDON PIER 2 – 31 OCTOBER 2011 daily 10am to 5pm for further details please contact Joan on 07780622266
10 art Autumn 2011
A special limited edition run of signed giclée prints featuring works from the exhibition: Celebration, by past RWA President Mary Fedden.
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The RWA has an impressive collection of Fedden’s work and has collaborated with private collectors and Sky Blue Framing, Bristol, to create a highly collectable limited edition of five prints. The works selected for print span just a fragment of Mary’s impressive career in which she has been the first, and only, woman President of the RWA, elected a Royal Academy Academician, 1992, and awarded an OBE. Featuring some of Mary’s favourite motifs, the giclée prints are created using a digital process and are reproduced using guaranteed light-fast pigmented inks onto cotton fibre papers. The sale of these prints will go towards supporting vital work at the RWA, and it is fitting that Bristol-born Fedden should be part of this ambitious project. The prints will be on sale at the RWA throughout the year. Enquiries can be made by contacting the Academy on 0117 973 5129 or info@rwa.org.uk. Prices start from £295.
Mary Fedden:
Prints for sale
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1 Pink Bird, 1996 2R ed Throated Diver, 1997 3 Fish, 1993 4S hepherd and Sheep, 1990 4
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5 Eyot Gardens, 1957
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Academicians’ news 12 art Autumn 2011
Louise Balaam has had a painting accepted for the Threadneedle Prize and will be exhibiting at the Mall Galleries, London from 22 September – 8 October. www. threadneedleprize. com. Louise will also be showing new work in a three-person show with David Brayne, RWS and Katherine Swinfen Eady, at White Space Art, Totnes, from 17 September – 1 October. Derek Balmer PPRWA has two solo exhibitions this Autumn: Campden Gallery, Chipping Campden, 10 September to 8 October and the Cube Gallery in Toronto, Canada. Selected works by observational painter Martin Bentham will be exhibiting at The Art Room, Topsham, throughout October. This exciting celebration of paint and mark making is the essence of Martin’s new and invigorated practice. The exhibition opens 8 October at 8a The Strand, Topsham, Devon EX3 OJB. A major review of over two decades of Jon Buck’s work shows sculpture and drawings from the 1990s to new and previously unseen work at Gallery Pangolin, near Stroud, Gloucestershire: 31 October – 17 December. PJ Crook was awarded an MBE for services to art
in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in July. Her current project involves the life-sized horses she sculpted for Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum, now cast in an edition of ten and showing throughout Cheltenham until mid-October in Horse Parade an open air exhibition to celebrate the centenary of the Cheltenham Gold Cup. They will be auctioned for various charities at Cheltenham Racecourse during the November meeting, with PJ donating proceeds from her three painted versions to The National Star College (of which she is a Patron), The Pied Piper Appeal, and the Friends of Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum fund towards their new architectural development. PJ is also currently working towards an exhibition of paintings and sculpture at the Brian Sinfield Gallery, Burford, Oxfordshire, 19 November – 3 December. This will be followed by a circus themed exhibition at James Harvey Fine Art, Chelsea, London, to mark the launch of Robert Fountain’s new book The Art of the Traditional Circus, in which PJ, who also features in the book, will take part, from 29 November. Sculptor Denis Curry presents Sea-Change at
Tenby Museum and Art Gallery: works in bronze, carving, drawing and painting. Writer David Buckman, author of Artists in Britain Since 1945, opens the show which features Denis’ bronze sculpture Celtic Eagle and the watercolour Study for Juvenilis from the Contemporary Arts Society of Wales collection, which will join the Museum’s permanent collection. 9 September – 9 October 2011. Tenby Museum & Art Gallery, Castle Hill, Tenby, Pembrokeshire SA70 7BP. Anne Desmet was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Arts in May, in the category of Engravers, Printmakers and Draughtsmen. Her latest body of work: Anne Desmet – Olympic Metamorphoses, concerning the developing Olympic site near her home in Hackney, was shown to great acclaim at Hart Gallery in November. Selected highlights will be shown concurrently at several UK public galleries during the Olympic Games next year. Acting RWA President Peter Ford is the only British participant in an exhibition called Paper 25, Red Tower Gallery in Slagelse, near Copenhagen, 8 – 30 October. Peter will be showing a
version of Message from China which was first presented as a feature in the January 2010 RWA exhibition Celebrating Paper. Later in the Autumn two of Peter’s paper works will also be featured in the exhibition IMPRINT 11, as part of the Kulisiewicz International Graphic Arts Triennial in Warsaw. At IMPRINT I, 2008, Peter was awarded first prize for his woodcut, etching on handmade paper Text Message – Lost Letters, addressing clashes between civilisations. Mila Fürstová takes part in The Fine Art Partnership’s open studio at Studio 226 with a collection of new and rare etchings: The Fine Art Partnership Studio, Studio 226, 30 Great Guildford Street, London SE1 0HS, 23 – 25 September, Friday 2 – 8.30pm and Saturday and Sunday 11am – 8pm. Ken Howard, Dawn Sidoli and David Cobley will be showing as part of the New English Art Club Annual Exhibition at the Mall Galleries, London, from 25 November to the 4 December. Mayfair gallery Panter and Hall presents the work of two Academicians in its Autumn programme – Alan Kingsbury’s solo exhibition The Ionian Sea, 9 – 30 September 2011, featuring light
filled seascapes and sun drenched shores, followed shortly after by Simon Quadrat PPRWA presenting new work in the solo exhibition There are Other Places, 18 November – 2 December. Margaret Lovell will be exhibiting at the Harold Martin Botanic Garden, University of Leicester until 30 October helping to celebrate A Decade of Sculpture in The Garden. Situated in sixteen acres, the garden provides an atmospheric backdrop for the work of sixty four international sculptors. In response to the scale of the setting, Margaret has worked on a site specific piece creating a larger version of Paleos in bronze, standing 5’ 2” high on a granite base. Also included is the last edition of an early bronze work Mantis. The Moncrieff Bray Autumn Show, Moncrieff Bray Gallery, West Sussex, features nine zoological sculptural works by Anita Mandl. Moncrieff Bray Gallery, Woodruff Farm, Woodruff Lane, Egdean, Pulborough, West Sussex RH20 1JX. 17 September – 31 October, Thurs, Fri, Sat 11am – 6pm, and by appointment t: 07867 978 414 at all other times including Sundays. Maxine Relton’s Studio Gallery will be showing her new paintings,
prints, drawings and photographs for one week only 2 – 9 October 2011. The new work is inspired by her travels to India over the last 4 years and includes vibrant watercolours and subtly layered abstracts exploring notions of change and transformation. 11am – 5pm daily at 4 The Street, Horsley, Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL6 0PU (just north of Bristol). Maxine’s next two Sketchbook Journeys to India are 19 November – 3 December 2011 and 3 – 17 March 2012. Non-sketchers and beginners are equally welcome to join these smallgroup tours. For more details on exhibitions and excursions please contact 01453 832 597 or maxine. relton@tiscali.co.uk Lucy Willis will be showing an exhibition of new work From London to Aleppo at the John Leach Gallery, Langport, Somerset. The exhibition includes a range of recent watercolours spanning subject matter from Somerset in the snow, London in Spring, Venice, Greece and Syria. In addition the show includes still-life paintings and also etchings from her Somerset studio including the recent series depicting animals and birds. The exhibition runs 10 September – 9 November 2011,
Art in fiction
The John Leach Gallery, Muchelney, Langport, Somerset TA10 0DW t: 01458 250 324
Dr. Tracy O’Shire selects some of her favourites:
The RWA was well represented in this year’s Royal Academy Summer Exhibition which featured work by RAs Bernard Dunstan, Diana Armfield, Ken Howard, Ann Christopher, Leonard Manasseh and John Maine alongside RWAs PJ Crook, Emma Stibbon, Sarah van-Niekerk, Mila Fürstová, Dawn Sidoli and Howard Phipps.
The Birth of Venus: Sarah Dunant Dunant’s snaky tale of art, sex and Florentine hysteria, consumes utterly – but the experience is all pleasure. Headlong: Michael Frayn Frustrated philosopher uncovers what he believes is a lost painting by Bruegel and embarks on a quest to separate the work from its owner. 1
An Artist of The Floating World: Kazuo Ishiguro A Japanese artist and his two daughters are in conflict over changing values in post War Japan. The Moon and Sixpence: W. Somerset Maugham A fictionalised account of Paul Gaugin’s decision to leave his middle class existence and head for the South Pacific to paint.
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Tulip Fever: Deborah Moggach The author’s love-letter to Dutch painting and that lost world of serene and dreamy domestic interiors. My Name Is Asher Lev: Chaim Potok A sensitive Ultra-Orthodox Jew who becomes a painter is exiled from his Hasidic community and his family because of his work.
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1 Mila Fürstová
5 Louise Balaam
2J on Buck
6 Peter Ford
3 PJ Crook
7 Maxine Relton
The Picture of Dorian Gray: Oscar Wilde Art as Gothic Horror. Track down Harvard’s Belknap Press 2011 uncensored version which re-establishes Wilde’s original homoerotic overtones. To The Lighthouse: Virginia Woolf Lily Briscoe’s evolving canvas parallels the devolution of the family and house.
4D erek Balmer
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Jon Buck
Making a Point - The Point of Making Two Decades of Sculpture, Prints and Drawings
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14 art Autumn 2011
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Luke Jerram, the Bristol based artist with an international reputation, is bringing the story of his latest and most audacious creation to the RWA galleries: Aeolus, the acoustic wind pavilion. I first met Jerram at his studio in Spike Island where I was introduced to the extraordinary range and vitality of his practice, which includes sculpture, installation and live arts projects. Most memorably, examples of his fabulous Glass Microbiology sculptures were on display. These are in great demand to illustrate medical texts and one, a finely wrought glass E.coli virus at millions of times its actual size, is being shown at this year’s Venice Biennale.
Luke Jerram Simon Baker
exploring the edges of perception Sky Orchestra, 2005
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Now, I am meeting Jerram in the Leadworks Building in Harbourside, an industrial building of the 1880s in the heart of Bristol but now the home of Pervasive Media Studio where Jerram is artist in residence. Here I am learning about the sheer inventiveness of his ideas. From these twin studio powerhouses, Jerram has, most famously, sent out Play me, I’m Yours, hundreds of pianos installed in the streets and public places of cities around the globe. Beginning in Birmingham and Sao Paulo in 2008 then taking in cities from Adelaide to Bristol to Tilburg, it is an open invitation to enthusiasts and passers-by alike to sit down and play. This autumn, pianos will be playing in Malta and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Jerram is a polymath. He holds or has held research fellowships at the Washington Glass Museum, Southampton University and UWE and is the winner, among other grants and prizes, of the Drawing Inspiration and UK Digital Art Awards. He has even patented the technology of his artwork – Retinal Memory Volume – an installation employing the biological and psychological principals of the retinal after-image to create a virtual object in the mind of the viewer. I am intrigued: is Jerram an artist with an interest in science, or a scientist with artistic talents; an inventor; an impresario – or all of these things? How does he see himself?
Without hesitation, Jerram responds: “I work as an artist. I am interested in how the world works and how things work in the same way as a scientist or an engineer would be. I am interested in perception and how we see the world. In my practice, I am exploring the edges of perception and testing the limits of our human perception.” Jerram offers two analogies. In the 1920s, blues music was cutting edge. Then it became famous, popular and mainstream. “The same is true of the art world,” he says. “Rodin was cutting edge. One hundred years later people are still making work in the way which he pioneered.” He tells me frankly and emphatically: “I am not interested in making work off the back of art which is a hundred years old. I am pushing the boundaries. I am interested in being as ambitious as possible. I want to use every available medium and new technique as far as it is possible to do so. Today’s most interesting art does not look like ‘art’.” As if to reassure me, Jerram makes the point that what people rejected twenty years ago is now accepted: “There is always a delay in our understanding of art.” I ask if he wants to help audiences. He responds reflectively; “Looking at art is hard work and not necessarily a pleasurable experience.”
What matters, in Jerram’s view, is the sovereignty of the individual’s perception. Retinal Memory Volume celebrates this by using the retina of the viewer as the medium in which virtual objects are created in us, as it were, in the form of retinal after-images which we may each experience and see differently. It is one of his most popular works and has continued to tour since 1997. Jerram explains: “My art works are often a response to a brief or to a problem. I generate ideas.” Bewilderingly and energetically he recounts a series of ideas which he developed for SPark: the Science Park at Emersons Green. This in turn leads on to descriptions of other conceptions by him, including Tide: a kinetic sound installation controlled by the movements of the moon and Just Sometimes: 1000 umbrellas floating swan-like on a Rotterdam canal, visually connecting the streets with the waterways.
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is Jerram an artist with an interest in science, or a scientist with artistic talents; an inventor; an impresario – or all of these things?
Glass Microbiology: E.coli 2009
Perhaps most ambitiously of all, Jerram has since 2003 been engaged in an endeavour to create art in our imaginations while we are asleep or on the edge of sleep, using sound as the inspiration. Sky Orchestra, The Dream Concert and The Dream Director are a family of such projects. Sky Orchestra involves launching seven hot air balloons with speakers attached, creating a vast surround-sound experience. Flying over a city at dawn, the music is designed to make artworks of the dreams of the sleeping people below. As recently as the end of July, courtesy of Jerram and his composer, Dan Jones, and sanctioned by Mayor Boris Johnson, Londoners twice
Jerram gives glass blowing as an example. Glass blowers are the best people to execute his Glass Microbiology project. As this has become more complicated over time he has been pressing them to extend the boundaries of their craft. Jerram says the same of Aeolus. “For me it is a project to push the boundaries.” He has been working with the consultant engineering giant Arup for more than three years to design and build this acoustic and optical pavilion with its complicated geometry. The inspiration to create a building which will resonate and sing in the wind came from a visit Jerram made to Iran and the qanat desertwells, where the wind makes the wells howl and moan.
Play me, I’m Yours. So far, he has set down 450 pianos in 20 countries. “It is a blank canvas,” he says, “and it provides a resource for everyone else to be creative”. Jerram wants to produce more projects of this sort. This is hardly surprising. Two journalists in Sydney, each sent to cover the story, met over a street piano, fell in love and married. A British couple first met around a street piano in Liverpool Street station, fell in love and invited the piano to their wedding. The City of London Festival were so impressed by the abilities of a 15 year old boy, enthralling the crowds on a street piano in Canary Wharf, that they donated him the piano as he didn’t have one of
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I am not interested in making work off the back of art which is a hundred years old. I am pushing the boundaries. ...Today’s most interesting art does not look like ‘art’.”
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experienced the sound of Sky Orchestra, heralding one year to go to the Olympic Games. Such projects call for teams. “My practice is inherently collaborative,” says Jerram. “Only in the 20th Century has the artist been expected to do everything to create a work. Every object in the world is made by the efforts of hundreds of people. Building a team makes anything possible. I build teams to help make things happen. I have had to learn the skill of managing and persuading people to collaborate. Every project has a different set of skills.”
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Aeolus provides both a visual and auditory experience. The visual inspiration for this lies in Jerram’s first encounter with Chartres Cathedral, and later, the mosques of Isfahan. Beneath the arch of the pavilion the viewer will be able to look out at an ever changing landscape of light through a field of 310 internally polished stainless steel tubes. I ask Jerram if he is inviting his audience to be complicit in his acts of creativity. He replies that he is interested in providing opportunities for people to share the same experience of perception. He refers to the street pianos of
his own to play. He went on to star in the final of Britain’s Got Talent. Jerram is busy. He is engaged in a number of parallel projects and tells me that it is his ambition to make artwork which will appeal to his four year old daughter and his grandmother as well as to the academic community: artwork capable of different layers of perception. We are back at the beginning of our conversation. What drives this deep commitment to exploring perception and how we see things? Luke Jerram, artist of great ideas and invention and bold, persistent and daring execution, is colour blind.
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1 Just Sometimes, 2010 Witte de With Festival, Rotterdam 2 Play Me, I’m Yours, 2010 Luke Jerram 3 Tide, 2001
Ian McKeever RA (born 1946) is currently Visiting Professor in Painting at the Faculty of Art and Architecture at the University of Brighton, and Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy School of Arts in London. He has written numerous texts and essays on art, including Black and White and How to Paint with a Hammer in 1982, Thoughts on Emil Nolde in 1996 and In Praise of Painting – three essays, in 2005.
Ian McKeever: RA
Stewart Geddes RWA met McKeever at his house and studio in Dorset for this exclusive interview.
Temple Paintings, 2001 – 2007, Morat Institute, Freiburg im Breisgau
Quality of Light Stewart Geddes
Stewart Geddes: I first became aware of your work in the 80s when you were making billboard–scale paintings constructed from enormous grainy photographs of rocks and trees with angular gestures of black paint over the top. What ideas were at the base of that work? Ian McKeever: I think two things were going on. One being the physicality of the act of painting in parallel to the physical nature of the world; that is, the elemental processes of rain, snow, wind and erosion as being analogous to the processes of painting itself. On another level it was to do with scale. The size of a painting has to relate to the physical body – my own physical body – I have always been interested in paintings where the body can be immersed in the painting rather than standing apart as a picture. SG: And the landscape reference was urgent to you? IM: Landscape has been very much part of my life since I was a child. I grew up in a small village by the sea, where the elemental nature of the sea and land were very present. It’s in my blood, intrinsic to my physical and mental being. So when I came to make art the natural subject matter for me was the area between my own physical being and the character of the natural world. SG: Having studied English Literature at University in London during the 60s you quickly acquired a studio and started painting. What change in you occurred to set aside your preoccupation with words, toward exploring ideas through visual means? IM: In London I was suddenly exposed to a lot of culture. It was a very exciting time: Samuel Beckett, Peter Brook, experimental theatre and so on; at the same time I began to see exhibitions. I’d always drawn and painted as a child, and I found the visual started to take over. Also, one of the essays I wrote while a student explored the parallels between Anthony Caro and Victor Pasmore regarding suspended forms, both of whom had recently had exhibitions. Things just evolved from there.
older generation of established artists there very supportive and helpful. It was the first time I had contact with professional artists, and so I began to understand something of what it actually meant to be a serious artist.
might have been related to leaving the city, in that the mechanically produced photograph resonates with an urban sensibility, and the organic properties of paint connect to more natural phenomena?
SG: You mention your interest in Caro and Pasmore, so already as an English literature student you had a level of sophistication and awareness of what was happening in the contemporary visual arts. Where do you think that might have come from?
IM: Certainly moving here 20 years ago helped to consolidate the way the work was going, and helped to push any residue of landscape out of the paintings. Being immersed in it literally lets the mind go to other places. It’s curious that what really crept into the work was a greater awareness of time, and one’s own sense of time as a painter. This is something I am more acutely aware of since living here in relative isolation, as we do. It becomes a part of the paintings. The work increasingly hovers between what one might call an inhibited image and a thought / felt process. In that sense the paintings are neither purely abstract nor image based in a traditional sense. If anything is abstract it is the thinking / feeling which goes into the work, the rest is concrete, at least to me.
IM: The 60s and early 70s was a dynamic time, one just sensed things in the air and I was very hungry. SG: As discussed earlier you eventually formed the then signature language of painting on top of a photographic base. It brought you to wide public attention, and yet you gave up that way of working. Why did you?
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Our world is now almost pathologically manic; it never stops moving, yet paintings have this remarkable capacity to foster in one the desire to stand still.
SG: You moved into the SPACE studios in St. Katharine Docks in the late 60s. What was it like starting out and being part of such a serious community of artists?
IM: My position was interesting in that I did not fit tightly into the predominantly conceptual movement in art which was then prevalent; I was too messy. Equally I was too conceptual for the pure painters. I tried to talk about this in the pamphlet I wrote in 1981 – 82, Black and White and How to Paint with a Hammer. One could call it, in simple terms, the gap between conceptual thought and belief. The shift to pure painting came out of a gradual move away from landscape as subject matter to something more interiorised. I no longer needed the photograph of something out there to underpin the painting. However, I continued to and still do take photographs but use them in a different way.
IM: I was a naïve young man and I didn’t quite know what I was walking into. It was a very open time and I found the
SG: This change appears to have coincided with your move from London to here in Dorset. Do you think the change
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SG: I notice that this present group of paintings in the studio are all in the vertical orientation and the rhythmic direction of its forms reaffirm that. What’s the underlying idea for your use of the vertical as opposed to horizontal format?
IM: Well I work in groups, and the first consideration when embarking is to decide whether the concerns in the work are best pursued via the horizontal or a vertical format? Over the years I’ve moved increasingly towards a concern with the human body and the zone around it. One could call it a double architecture: the architecture of the body and the architecture of the space around it, and the kind of energies and forces that move between the two. So in working with these pronounced vertical formats I’m working with a kind of an echo of the human body. One of the things which fascinate me is why we are drawn to two-dimensional images at all? Why, when we live in such a complex three-dimensional world should we have a desire to look at twodimensional images? It seems a strange preoccupation to have. I think it’s to do with an affirmation of ourselves in them. We are very frontal beings; everything points forwards, not least our eyes. And so when I look at a painting there’s a very strong connection between the frontality of the painting and the frontality of myself. I’m particularly drawn to paintings which affirm this position, such as Italian Trecento painting and Russian icons. There are certain motifs
1 Twelve /Standing 2009 – 2010 oil and acrylic on canvas 270 x 190cm 2 (overleaf) The Moth Tree, 1986 oil and photograph on canvas 220 x 170cm 3 (overleaf) Assembly Painting 2006 – 2007 oil and acrylic on linen 190 x 270cm
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in icons which depict a central standing figure, full frontal, looking directly out. Russian icons often deal with ideas of symmetry and asymmetry. The figure may be standing with the arms outstretched either side in a symmetrical fashion, but then in each hand something quite different is held; so one has this curious mixture of symmetry and asymmetry. In the recent group of paintings Twelve /Standing, I’ve been working with a vague central vertical form, which perhaps touches on some of these issues. SG: For a long time now your paintings deploy the properties of transparency and light. Would you talk further about the relationship between a pigment-based object, a painting, and its relationship with light? IM: Well a painting is just a dumb flat surface; just paint on a surface. The question is what does one do with it? How does one transcend pure material? Something which increasingly intrigues me is how can one actually bring the luminosity of light to a painting, not depict light, but imbue the painting with light, its fragility and strength. For me light is both illusive yet very present, as is a painting. SG: You clearly have strong feelings about the significance of paintings. I read once your description of the agony of deciding when to walk away from Simone Martini’s Annunciation in the Uffizi. How is it that rectangles of mud and glue can be so significant? 2
IM: Painting has such a phenomenal history which is so closely wedded to our understanding of the world, and to what it means to be human. I am drawn to look at paintings because they can stand still in the world. Our world is now almost pathologically manic; it never stops moving, yet paintings have this remarkable capacity to foster in one the desire to stand still. I think it’s one of their great redeeming qualities, that they can slow you down and make you enter into an intimate one to one dialogue, which moves outside of the speed and buzz of the contemporary world. For me it’s one of paintings’ great values that they can still have this effect on us. Ian McKeever’s new book of writings (incl. images) Black and Black again… is available from the bookshop of the Royal Academy of Arts, London
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JANE CARTNEY Colourist Paintings ART�STUDIO & Gallery
Viewings By Appointment
Tel: 01934 418198 www.janecartneyfineart.co.uk
Cranborne And Its Art: Past And Present 22 October 2011—21 January 2012 An exhibition featuring the work of artists such as John Craxton, Lucian Freud, and E.Q. Nicholson, who lived and worked on Cranborne Chase in Dorset, Wiltshire and Hampshire during the 20th century. Sales exhibition with accompanying book. Open Monday—Saturday, 10am-4pm. High West Street, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1XA Tel: 01305 262735 www.dorsetcountymuseum.org
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Way Ahead: Rob Withers
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the paintings of Clive Head
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When Clive Head’s exhibition of London paintings opened at the National Gallery in 2010, in the first week 7,300 people visited the small, temporary exhibition space in the gallery and 9,300 in the second. Since the event had not been widely advertised in the media, we can conclude that Head’s paintings have some kind of special and immediate appeal.
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Whenever I have attended exhibitions of Head’s work, I have been struck by the way in which his paintings engage the viewers for much longer than is usual. They look closely, pore over details, stand back and discuss. This suggests that to engage with these paintings you do not need to read long explanations on the gallery wall before you can have some idea what kind of thing the work is, or what the artist was trying to do. But equally it is true that further examination is rewarded. There is much more to these paintings than the initial impression that they make. A common reaction is “stunning”, and much of that response comes from the sheer scale of the work, the articulation of the detail, and the surface sheen. These are big paintings. Leaving the Underground is 2.49 metres by 1.75 metres. In his studio Head secures each large canvas against the wall, the lower edge at about waist height. The white, emulsioned wall is high and long, leaving plenty of space around the canvas, which allows him to stand back and assess the overall cohesion of the piece as it develops. On another wall, at an oblique angle to the canvas, is a large mirror. By viewing the reversed image in the mirror he is able to check that he has solved the perspectival problems accurately. You couldn’t successfully paint such large scenes in a cramped environment. Head’s studio is a very large room in the old house of local stone he is restoring with his wife Gaynor. But he is very disciplined in working long hours when he can. He prepares his canvases meticulously and his studio is unusually uncluttered and art
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kept scrupulously clean. Head’s father was a machine operator at Reed’s Paper Mill in Aylesford and it may not be too fanciful to suggest that at an early age he developed a respect for materials and quality. He uses the best sable brushes, which are discarded very quickly before they show signs of deterioration. Finally, layers of varnish are applied with great precision to produce his characteristic, rich, consistent sheen finish. On the walls there are many paintings by other local artists and his former students. Head explains: “I encourage my students to find their own direction, but I make no apology for my beliefs in studying drawing and art history. I believe that skill and knowledge are the paths to true expression.”
From this it comes as no surprise to learn that Head’s own practice is embedded in values drawn from the history of art. Some years ago he and I visited contemporary art galleries and the big art museums in New York and Washington, and I was deeply impressed by his knowledge and love of art, both past and contemporary. He says that he first went to the National Gallery aged about 12 and visits whenever he has the chance: “I have always been interested in the great painters of the Western tradition – Titian, Poussin, Constable. These masters have never been equalled in more recent times, and I continue to look at them for inspiration.” He has a particular love of Poussin. Poussin’s paintings have
a recognisable overall tone, and Head’s paintings similarly share a characteristic quality. That consistency comes from his deep understanding of tonal values and the effect that one pigment will have on the other colour values around it. He began studying for a degree in Fine Art at the University of Aberystwyth in 1983 under the tutorship of the abstract painter David Tinker and won the Sir Francis Williams Prize. However, his canvases from this period were not abstract but showed friends and street scenes. His technical ability and skill were already in evidence. In Aberystwyth, Head met and befriended Steve Whitehead, a realist painter whose paintings were exhibited at the RWA in Autumn 2010.
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1 (overleaf) Leaving the Underground, 2010 oil on canvas 174.4 x 227.1cm private collection, Zurich 2 (overleaf) Clive Head painting Leaving the Underground Courtesy John Gibbons 3 Coffee at the Cottage Delight, 2010 oil on canvas 152.5 x 228.7cm Landau Fine Art, Montreal 4 Observatory, 1998 oil on canvas 117 x 198cm private collection, London
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Head’s paintings produced in the last decade, such as Observatory, exploit the unusual perspectives he uses to render wide vistas on a flat canvas plane. His large cityscapes of New York and the European cities of Cologne and Paris all have a liberating sense of open skies and spaciousness. The most recent work, depicting London scenes, shows the same interest in resolving perspectival problems, but now the emphasis is on meeting the challenges of representing on a single, flat canvas the artist’s changing viewpoints and movements as, for example, he leaves the Underground or walks into a café from the street outside. The paintings attempt to show more than could be seen from a fixed viewpoint at
a particular point in time: “My work is concerned with the same challenge of painting the urban environment as I witness it, scanning around and moving through it, but I reject the Modernist fragmentation and instead seek a seamless surface, so the viewer can move around a unified space. To do this I have a very open-ended approach to colour and spatial systems like perspective.” In Coffee at the Cottage Delight he nicely illustrates the point that the paintings are not intended to record only the people present in a location at one instant by including himself sitting at a table on the right-hand side, looking at the viewer. To understand the impact of Head’s paintings it is necessary to see them
displayed. Reproductions lose the scale of the pieces and the sensuous quality of the painted surface. But when seen at an exhibition one can enjoy the painterly surface. As Colin Wiggins of the National Gallery said: “Head’s work seems to be the kind of painting that people really love.” National Gallery interview: www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf3bXNE11k8 Clive Head in conversation with Jools Holland: www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5ZJLGJRvbc
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Bonhams, your local gateway to the international Fine Art Market. 27 North NATIONAL FRAMING AWARD WINNER
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// Gallery review
Lime Tree Gallery, Bristol Lime Tree Gallery on Hotwell Road, across the Floating Harbour from the SS Great Britain, has just celebrated its second birthday, and continues to build a reputation within the Bristol art scene.
Following a successful formula established in the original gallery in Long Melford, Suffolk, Lime Tree’s frequently changing exhibitions celebrate the real skill of drawing and painting. Owner Sue Dean was an avid collector before establishing her first gallery and has been able to use her contacts to build a collection of artists who share her enthusiasm for colour and light within the discipline of painting. While there is something of a specialisation in contemporary Scottish art, the gallery seeks out fine artists wherever it can find them, and represents artists from as far afield as Sweden and Spain. Sue describes the ethos of Lime Tree Gallery as unpretentious, dedicated and painterly. Everyone is welcome, and there is never any pressure to buy. The current Summer Exhibition runs until 14 September and is a mixed show of mainly colourful and powerful work by several contemporary Scottish artists, but also features the beautiful and delicate egg tempera landscapes of Andrew George, an Edinburgh trained Scot, now resident in Somerset. From 17 September the feel of the gallery will change slightly with a two artist show, featuring the superb, sparse brushwork of Philip Richardson, a well established English painter who lives in Catalonia, and the exciting new talent,
Steven Lindsay. Steven’s spare portraits and nudes share a pure control of light with Philip’s landscapes and still life. Later in the autumn, from 29 October, Lime Tree Gallery will be host to a major exhibition of contemporary Swedish painting, curated by Sue Dean, and showing work by some of the major names in that country’s art world, including Elisabeth Lindstedt, Hasse Karlsson, Stanislaw Zoladz, Carl Gustafsson, Mats Rydstern and Ia Karlsson. While the work of those painters is undeniably Scandinavian in feel – crisp, spare and disciplined – the basic tenets of drawing and painterliness will be seen in all their work. Lime Tree Gallery is open: Tuesday to Saturday 10am – 5pm 84 Hotwell Road Bristol BS8 4UB t: 0117 929 2527 e: bristol@limetreegallery.com www.limetreegallery.com
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R E BUCHELI FINE ART @ Western Tutorial College Gallery opening October
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Letting colour speak for itself: Robert Parker
Fauvists in the South of France
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Tagged ‘Fauves’, or ‘wild beasts’ by contemporary critics, this brotherhood of artists flourished briefly in the first decade of the 20th Century. Valuing personal expression more than academic dogma they focused on using intense, vivid colour in a decidedly nonnaturalistic way. They emerged in two centres, Paris and Le Havre. Matisse, Manguin, Marquet, Camoin, Cross, Puy, Derain and Vlaminck met in Paris, while Friesz, Dufy, and Braque came from Le Havre. The father of what became Fauvism was undoubtedly Gustave Moreau, who taught at the Academie des BeauxArts in Paris in the 1890s. His students included Manguin, Camoin and Matisse. A controversial figure, Moreau was certainly not pedantic, but urged his students to discover their own individuality: “find a way of revealing your own artistic soul.” Through his influence Matisse found “the courage to find a purity of means – beautiful blues, reds, yellows stirring the sensual depths of man.” It was Matisse, the oldest of the group, who became its driving force. As the Fauvist group expanded it became clear it wasn’t truly a ‘movement’ at all, but a looser association of painters
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each searching for his own individuality and casting classical tenets aside as they surrendered to the intoxication of colour. Perhaps inevitably, obsession with the purity of colour led many of the group to submit themselves to the lure of the South of France, following the path trodden by Gauguin, van Gogh and Cezanne. While there is no doubt that it was the famed qualities of Mediterranean light that drew them southwards, it also seems likely that the Fauvist group sensed that there in the Roman south they would find a less rigidly traditional approach to art than that of the Frankish north with all its academic authoritarianism. Like their predecessors they focused on rural scenes and those parts of the seaboard well removed from the hedonistic glamour of the Riviera. Key sites are Collioure on the Spanish border, l’Estaque, Marseille, Cassis, La Ciotat and St Tropez. My awareness of actual Fauvist sites came by chance. Gathering reference for a painting in the La Ciotat area, famed for its wind blasted rock formations, I was interrupted by the local postman: “If you want the exact spot where Braque painted, it’s further up the path, my grandfather saw him at work.” Braque had been at La Ciotat and Cassis during 1906 and 1907, preceded by Matisse in 1904 when he painted his celebrated figurative work Luxe, Calme et Volupté and a view of the gulf of St Tropez. Both works are highly coloured with broken brushwork, touching on classical themes and the mythology of the lotus eaters explored earlier by Cezanne. A second journey south in 1905 showed Matisse firming up
his intention to let colour speak for itself. He painted St Tropez and Collioure with seemingly unrestrained fervour. Though the Fauvists’ intention was to distance themselves from ‘realistic’ representations of specific landscapes, their ‘colours of the imagination’ became synonymous with the South itself, and they certainly transformed the way we now look at these familiar landscapes. Colour was applied with flicks, a development of pointillism, using the white of the canvas to heighten the impact. Named ‘divisionism’ this technique explored the theory that underlying apparent chaos there was a basic harmony. Derain’s paintings of Collioure and Matisse’s painting of The Open Window at Collioure created imagery that became part of an artistic folklore that still influences travel posters and a host of lesser imitators to the point of becoming cliché. At this time Marquet, Cross and Camoin were producing views of St Tropez that were rather more literal in style. Their use of colour was less intense, diluting divisionism’s ‘think colour before subject matter’ philosophy. Derain remained more faithful to the ‘think colour first’ approach and applied it in depictions of the banks of the Seine and the Pool of London. Rouault attempted the same, but instead of transforming the way we look he seemed to force the issue and this proved to be the beginning of an unfortunate legacy. Artists unable to infuse their subject with individuality even now resort to ‘going Fauve’ as a means of hyping up mediocre image-making.
1 (page 35) l’Estaque (detail) 1906 André Derain 2 The Open Window at Collioure, 1905 Henri Matisse 3 Luxe, calme et volupté, 1904 – 1905 Henri Matisse 4 The Mountains, Collioure, 1905 André Derain 5 The Little Bay at La Ciotat, 1907 Georges Braque
A final burst of Fauvist activity in 1906 – 1907 featured landscapes around l’Estaque, Cassis and La Ciotat, areas which remain much as they once were. The exception is St Tropez, which has been overwhelmed by the clutter that comes with being an international playground. Tracking down the original sites at Collioure, l’Estaque, La Ciotat and Cassis is not difficult. Derain in 1906 focused on Collioure, the small port still recognisable today. His rendering of woods and pathways are highly coloured and memorable as his attention is caught by formal arrangements, and there is a control that takes over from the frenzied divisionism of the previous year. Braque’s visit to the same site produced more direct studies, his equally frantic approach to divisionism softened by a more literal touch. Of all the landscapes that attracted the Fauves, the cliffs and woodland between La Ciotat and Cassis are the least untouched by the passage of time. Now declared a national park, strict rules of conservation apply. What exists today is highly coloured and breathtaking in its own right; pink cliffs are reflected in a Prussian blue sea, red-trunked Aleppo pines cling to rock formations that would have once delighted those in search of gothic or sublime landscapes. Friesz and Braque arrived in the summer of 1907, on at least one occasion painting the same scene – maybe side by side. Braque’s Little Bay at La Ciotat is identical to Friesz’ study of the same spot known as the Petit Mugel. Braque’s study of the chapel Notre Dame de la Garde directly above the Figerolle reveals a search for colour and pattern in a setting adjacent to the highest cliffs on the European mainland. As Braque had painted the countryside around the town in a manner closer to divisionism this suggests that his more formally structured painting of the chapel
came last. Friesz and Braque then appear to have returned to l’Estaque, painting the Hotel Mistral almost identically and with an increasing formality that hinted at the direction their work would eventually take. The idyll that was Fauvism, associated with the group’s time in the south of France, was left behind by 1908; their work evolved in other directions. Braque was well on the way toward cubism by 1908. His House and the Trees reveals the use of a restricted palette and the formality that would characterise his later work. Matisse, increasingly involved in flattening the surface of his paintings, made intensely coloured, pattern-like arrangements influenced by an interest in primitive art – yet the constant factor that distinguishes his work was a love of pure colour that remained undimmed even in old age. Fauvism and the excitement it generated was like first love, a glorious episode never to be repeated when anything seemed possible. Their journey, though short-lived, was not in vain; it influenced how we perceive the South of France as a land of light and colour creating a painterly product that enhanced, and was enhanced by this conjunction of art and place. Among the galleries in the area, in St Tropez the Annonciade has an astonishing collection of Fauvist works. More are to be discovered in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Marseille. The gallery in St Cyr runs regular exhibitions of the artists who have worked in the area. To supplement these exhibitions, a trip to Mugel Park in La Ciotat is a must, with the artists who worked there seeming to linger on in a landscape every bit as exuberant as any Fauvist work produced at its dazzling peak. The examples I have referred to represent a fraction of the work produced during those Fauvist
summers in the South of France. Many of these works have mistaken identification with specific landscapes, and as most of the sites are still intact it is worth checking these out to increase an understanding of how much of their work was due to actual location and how much due to the artists’ personal inspiration. Great art transforms our perceptions. For many of these artists Fauvism became seen as a phase from which they wished to disassociate themselves. Not so Matisse; he remained wedded to colour for the rest of his life, stating that Fauvism was the basis for everything that came after. Had the Fauvists possessed sufficient courage the most logical outcome of their approach would have been pure abstraction. If Fauvism as a movement dedicated to pure colour failed to live up to its early intentions this is possibly due to a region whose reality proved too vibrant, too characterful to resist.
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Their journey, though short-lived, was not in vain; it influenced how we perceive the South of France as a land of light and colour... art
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Richard Corbett Paintings
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5th September - 10th October www.newleafgallery.co.uk
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www.modernroom.co.uk
Š Stephen Morris
The Holburne Extension I have always loved the Holburne Museum. My favourite museums and art galleries, the Holburne, the Soane, the Burrell, and the Wallace Collection, are all small or relatively so, and display together all the visual arts – paintings, sculptures, ceramics, furniture, and so on. It is no coincidence that they all house the collections of one man or one family, though the Holburne has been subsequently augmented.
Mike Jenner
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I cannot love the National Gallery, despite the glories it contains and the hundreds of times I have been to it. It is simply an enormous warehouse of superb paintings. They would be greatly enriched if they were displayed with sculptures created in the same periods. I think it is a mistake to select only one art and display it alone. The great collectors (who stand behind all Europe’s national galleries) never did so. The reason why the Soane is so glorious is that its creator demanded as a condition of his legacy that the collections should remain as he displayed them, and should never be moved, augmented or sold. When Lady Wallace gave the nation the princely collection assembled by her husband’s father and grandfather, she recognised that its personality could only be diluted by subsequent acquisitions, and ordained that it should remain as it was when her husband died. It appears that Sir Thomas William Holburne of Menstrie always intended that his collection of paintings, bronzes, maiolica, silver and so on, should form the basis of an art museum in Bath, but it was his surviving sister Mary Anne Holburne who bequeathed them to be Bath’s first art gallery, very wisely ordaining that “no Corporation or other Society should have anything whatever
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to do with her bequest”. (Bath City Council, presumably in a huff, then decided to build the Victoria Art Gallery, which, under municipal control has remained second-rate ever since, whilst the Holburne, under the guidance of carefully chosen Trustees, has constantly gained in prestige.) Mary Holburne realised correctly that her brother’s collection was hardly splendid enough to stand on its own, and she therefore permitted future Trustees to add to it. Even with the two thousand subsequent gifts, purchases, loans and bequests, the collection still remains small enough to be digestible, and still retains its unique personality. Long may it remain so. In 1893 the Museum opened in the old Bath Savings Bank building in Charlotte Street (now the Register Office), but this proving too small, in 1912 the Trustees bought the long disused Sydney Hotel at the end of Great Pulteney Street. On the advice of the Royal Institute of British Architects they selected Reginald Blomfield to remodel the building to make it suitable. He gutted the interior, installed a grand marble staircase, blocked the second floor windows to provide an exhibition gallery at that level, added the central parapet on the front and built the single-storey Doric screens on either side
of the façade. The aesthetic price for this was that the rear elevation, previously the best, now became the worst, stripped of its main feature, the great semi-circular balcony on which, in the early years of the century, bands had played to the revellers in Sydney Gardens. It was a small price to pay: Blomfield’s façade and the great bank of trees behind it, made a superlative termination to the finest long classical street in Britain. The Museum re-opened in 1916. The building and its contents were a joy, but many objects were never displayed because there was insufficient space for them, and the collections kept growing in various ways. In 2005, for example, the spectacular Witcombe Cabinet was given by the government, which had taken it from some poor soul in lieu of death duties. Gainsborough’s superb group portrait of the Byam family is on longterm loan. In 1996 the Trustees bought Angelica Kauffmann’s enchanting portrait of the eleven year old Henrietta Laura Pulteney, which is not only a wonderful painting but an important local document since it was with her money and in her name that her father built Pulteney Bridge and a few years later developed Laura Place and Great Pulteney Street. Long before her portrait arrived at the
Holburne it had become clear that the collections had outgrown their home. More space was needed, not only to display them, but to accommodate a café, shop and gallery for visiting exhibitions, on all of which museums now depend for much of their vitality and income. Expansion was clearly going to be difficult because the conservation lobby is, quite rightly, stronger in Bath than almost anywhere else. Unfortunately it is too often blind when faced with a proposal of high architectural merit. Indeed, the more outstanding the proposed design, whatever its style, the more violent has been the opposition to it. William Bertram’s delightful New Cavendish Lodge in Cavendish Road, though Palladian in style and faced with Bath stone, provoked vicious opposition. Nick Grimshaw’s brilliant but uncompromisingly modern new Spa was just as fiercely opposed. Mediocre designs always get an easier ride because they don’t arouse deep passions, as the tame sub-Georgian new Southgate shopping centre demonstrates all too clearly. The Holburne Trustees naturally wanted their extension to be of the highest architectural quality, so in 2002 they decided to hold an architectural competition. The winning entry was designed by Eric Parry, a London architect whose work was beginning to earn him a splendid reputation. He and the Trustees then went through the predictably long process of public consultation, vilification and unhelpful interference from the planners, until in May of this year the Museum finally reopened with its new extension.
During this long and painful process Parry’s design went through several changes. What has finally emerged is a roughly cubic block which is attached to the back of the Museum, and being narrower and slightly lower than Blomfield’s building, is completely invisible from the front, and ringed by trees is almost invisible from the sides, only rare glimpses through foliage being seen from the side roads. While keeping his extension low, Parry managed to give it four storeys connected to the old threestorey building. It is surprising how much new accommodation this little Tardis provides. On the ground floor there is the income and visitor-generating café which was urgently needed (previously only teas were available from a tiny wooden hut in the grounds). The top floor houses a gallery for visiting exhibitions, the first and second floors provide permanent exhibition space, and the old cellars were extended to accommodate improved toilets and picture storage. In addition Parry made the planning of the whole complex more efficient by moving the stair. This also re-instated a historic link. In the 19th Century the Sydney Hotel was the entrance, through its central hall, to the Pleasure Gardens behind. This was blocked by Blomfield who put his stair in the centre of the building. Parry’s dismantling and rebuilding of it to one side reinstated the way that the axis of Great Pulteney Street continued through the Museum and on into Sydney Gardens. When it was announced that the new extension was to be faced with green ceramic tiles and glass I confess that I,
like many other people, was puzzled. I realised from the plans that the extension would be invisible until one walked round to the back of the Museum, and I knew that the back was of no architectural interest, but even so, how could a green cube be attached to a Bath-stone classical building without looking bizarre? My worries were unfounded: it looks magnificent because Parry had realised what I had forgotten; that his extension was not going into a Bath-stone context but into an all green setting of trees and grass. His building looks as natural in this location as a hay stack in a newly mown meadow. The large green ceramic tiles are separated by irregularly spaced vertical ceramic fins. Some of them hang down below the others, giving the extension something of the appearance of falling water or a cascade of foliage. The effect is mesmerising, changing as the light changes, sparkling in sunlight and going a subdued greyish-green in shade. The extension is a triumph for everybody concerned. On my visits all the people I spoke to loved it, and an editorial in the Bath Chronicle proclaimed it a success. It is that rare thing: a popular as well as a critical success. The Museum has been fitted for a further century of life, Bath has acquired yet another fine building, and the long axis of Great Pulteney Street again continues unbroken into Sydney Gardens. It will be interesting to see whether the hard core of protesters is converted.
1 (p39) The extension in sunlight 2 The extension in shade
3 Detail of the fins 4 The glorious termination of the view looking up Great Pulteney Street
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Euan Uglow (1932 – 2000) was principally a painter of female nudes. He painted the female form as he saw it, obsessed by truth rather than beauty, his unusually rigorous method of working demanded meticulous technique, precise analytical observation and constant revision. Having chosen his subject, Uglow would use plumb lines and marks, posing his models in strict geometrical and often contorted positions. He worked at a snail’s pace, sometimes taking five years to finish a painting – and since he only ever painted from life, the model would be compelled to keep up this pose for some length of time.
In 1976 the London Weekend Television programme, Aquarius, followed the painting of a nude figure by Uglow. Refusing a formal commission, Uglow agreed to work with director Derek Bailey and presenter Peter Hall if they could provide three things: a new, strange studio, a model he’d never seen before and six uninterrupted months to complete the work. Once a studio had been found Uglow set about constructing a table with a curved edge for his model to lie upon, and a low chair to put his eye on a level with the table. He decided to frame the painting as a root five rectangle, which has within it two Golden Sections. And, finally committed to shape of canvas, pose and model, Uglow set to.
His model for that painting was Sietske Smid, now in her late fifties and living in France, where fellow artist John Callaghan met her for this exclusive interview:
Euan Uglow: Root Five Nude John Callaghan
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“
I first met Euan when I was 21. I was modelling at various art schools and he was teaching and painting. It was a coincidence that LWT approached me to pose for Root Five Nude as Euan had already started the painting with another model, who left when she could no longer take the strain. He interviewed many models before he selected me; the previous girl was blonde, pear-shaped and with a pinkish skin. I was the opposite. And because my shoulders are broad, I couldn’t lie flat – so he had to include my face. This involved substantial re-arrangement of his original, careful measurements. I posed for nine months – in ninetyminute sessions. During the breaks we talked constantly; about ideas, art, life – everything. Sometimes I would talk about the problem I had with the pose. We discussed compromising the position, because the pose was so difficult to keep up for long stretches. So I got him to bang a nail into the table in order that I could hold onto it with my right hand while posing. This kept my hand still and took some of the physical strain that I had to endure. Euan always mapped out my exact position. He had – between him and me on that horrible, hard table – a plumb line and a horizontal so he knew exactly where I was supposed to lie. He never used chalk marks because for him it was more to do with space – he had a lot of reference points; for instance, the top edge of the table facing him was marked out with a border in the Greek Key design of ten times ten units – in total a hundred units which meant that every bit of my naked body had to connect with one of these Greek Keys.
At first it was very painful. Sometimes, I would do a kind of yoga as I was lying on the horizontal holding on to the nail – I could not sleep or doze off – but I was kind of levitating, not knowing whether I was on a horizontal or a vertical plane. For me it was a job: for Euan, a passion. We would work a 30 or 35-hour week. Sometimes to catch up on lost time, we would work an extra day taken from both the Christmas and Easter holiday – a seven-day week. Euan would not use the same model twice, so for the duration of Root Five Nude I became his muse. He seldom conducted a conversation during the painting, never played the radio, just smoked constantly, speaking only to instruct me to change position. But in the evenings we would go to bars and restaurants with his friends and as time went on we got to know one another very well. Meanwhile, when the six months was up, the Aquarius team decided that the painting was finished. But Euan wanted to continue. So I carried on posing for a further three months. Even though Euan was twenty years older than me, I think he always had to fall in love with his model. And I loved him back – but not sexually. He did not want to let me go, he wanted me to continue with the pose. Finally, I knew I had to give up; for me, the end had come, the painting was getting to me. Root Five Nude could easily have continued for another three, four, five years. Shortly after, when I was accepted by Chelsea School of Art, Euan became my teacher and it was then that we fell in love. And through him, I ended up becoming a painter myself. We remained very good friends for the rest of his life.”
Was the painting ever completed? As Uglow himself put it: “How can you ‘finish’ a painting? You try to reach past conventions to an image that means something. You might get close, for a moment, to what you want to do, but if you are painting perceptually you can never finish.” Despite Uglow’s misgivings, Root Five Nude was eventually sold through his London gallery, Browse and Darby – to Paul Getty.
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Knorr’s sensuous works are, for most of us, encounters with the surreal and we feel compelled to gaze.
The Analysis of Beauty from Connoisseurs
// Close-up
Karen Knorr Karen Knorr is one of the most imaginative artist photographers working in Britain today. Hugh Mooney has been looking at her work. Contrary to the view held by some that of all the visual arts, photography is limited to a rather mimetic response to the world and is merely an easy means to image making, is the fact that in the hands of the artist it can be a versatile and plastic medium readily moulded to the creative intent. Augmented by the resources of modern technology, it has huge ability to captivate the senses and to examine complex issues and ideas. One of today’s most celebrated photographers to exploit this potential is Karen Knorr. An influential figure in the contemporary art scene, Knorr’s work luxuriates in a rich sense of place and explores a range of concerns from the sociological to the allegorical. Born in 1953, Knorr, an American, has been Professor of Photography at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham, Surrey since 2003. Her practice
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includes both video and photography and she exhibits extensively at major venues including Tate Britain, Tate Modern, The University of Westminster, Goldsmiths College, Harvard, the Pompidou Centre in Paris and The Art Institute of Chicago. On seeing Knorr’s images for the first time I was immediately taken by their photographic perfection, the beauty of their settings and by a visual language which combined wit and poetry and hinted at underlying meaning. Wild animals, for example, were to be seen wandering in grand country homes, men stared through telescopes at works in magnificent art galleries, contemporary nudes posed in beautiful rooms full of paintings of the Virgin Mary. The verisimilitude of the photograph gave vivid reality to these dream-like concoctions and object and setting seemed fused into a single, intriguing subject which resisted easy interpretation. At first view, therefore, Knorr’s sensuous works are, for most of us, encounters with the surreal and we feel compelled to gaze. Soon, however, Knorr’s distinctive language and her exploitation of photography’s great facility for the production of ensembles of thematically
related images which collectively allude to narrative, indicates that she is laying before us her own programme of exposition and we become aware that her images are laden with meaningful signs. Knorr’s photographs, therefore, are not only art objects whose visual richness delights our eyes but like all worthwhile art they are also expressions of the artist’s take on the world. The focus of much of Karen Knorr’s work is cultural heritage. Some years ago, she embarked on an examination of European high art culture and the sensibilities, spaces, traditions and social contexts of its institutions; the interiors of academies, museums and great country houses being used as theatre. Making photographic images of staged scenarios, Knorr employs unexpected but always eloquent juxtaposition of object and setting to create allusion and the suggestion of metaphor. In effect, she uses juxtaposition as an investigative tool and a means to articulate her perspectives. The potential reading of her work is often further enriched by her use of titles which complement rather than merely label and which sometimes imply reference to philosophy and literature.
The Queen’s Room, Zanana, Udaipur City Palace from India Song
Present day institutions of European high art are largely inherited from the Enlightenment. In Academies, an ensemble of some thirty images, Knorr creates scenarios in the grand spaces within such institutions which often involve human actors and other props and through which she explores the foundation myths of fine art culture and the aesthetic concerns and scholarly preoccupations of the times. However, we also detect a darker side, that of social exclusiveness and the associations with privilege and ethnic and national identity which high art and its institutions inevitably implied. In the ensemble Fables her images variously depict wild animals – apes, foxes, wolves, birds, boars and so on – and even contemporary humans, sometimes shown as the human animal engaged in risqué acts, in 18th Century settings of decorative elegance and stylised animal representation. While there are clear hints here of allegory and the traditional moral tale, some of the images have an almost shocking impact, showing the presence both of animals and sometimes their unrestrained, but natural behaviour in places from which, by tradition, they would have been excluded. We are
provoked to ponder the disjuncture between the world of nature and the rather rarefied, even contrived one of high culture. In Connoisseurs she examines received assumptions of taste and their contribution to underpinning class identity. Set in British country houses and museums its images hint at the interests of people of means who travelled Europe in earlier centuries, absorbing its culture and accumulating its art and who have now, perhaps, metamorphosed into today’s critics and serious collectors. In The Analysis of Beauty we see a gallery space of immaculate symmetry in which the transcendent qualities of art seem as properties for gentlemen arbiters of critical judgment to observe and on which to pronounce. A parody of an elitist preoccupation, perhaps: “I felt like an outsider observing a strange tribe” comments Knorr. More recently, in her work India Song, Knorr has moved her gaze to the East, creating a blaze of sumptuous images which celebrate the rich cultural and social heritage of India. Once again we witness Knorr’s visual language in play with iconic animals seen wandering through the fabulous interiors of the palaces and
sacred places of Rajasthan. These are works which evoke the rich storytelling culture of Northern India. The animals, perhaps representing embodiments of caste and the feminine, also suggest social hierarchies and relationships with the natural world whose origins are rooted in ancient Indian myth. Although I find that the lyrical qualities of Karen Knorr’s images often dominate her more analytical agenda, her work remains dense and cerebral and resonates with readings on many levels. It is difficult, therefore, satisfactorily to sum it up in a short article such as this. I urge the reader to further investigation and to visit the exhibition of her work currently underway in London. It should already be clear, however, that in the hands of the artist photography can both create objects of great beauty and work well beyond the literal and the simple document. Karen Knorr Transmigrations James Hyman Gallery, Mayfair, London 8 September to 15 October 2011 Winter issue Close-up: Gary Fabian Miller
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Inside the artist’s studio Four-time Oscar winner Nick Park was ‘discovered’ in 1985 by Aardman, the animation company that had been established in Bristol a decade earlier by Peter Lord and David Sproxton. He now works from a hi-tech purpose built office and studio on Bristol’s dockside. But it all started in his dad’s garden shed. Richard Storey and photographer Alice Hendy met Park for this exclusive interview.
Richard Storey 48 art Autumn 2011
Nick Park
CBE
“The house where I was brought up was a 60s bungalow in a village – not very conducive to artistic needs. There were five of us kids in the family, so as we had to share bedrooms it was very hard to find space. My parents would always actively encourage creativity; my dad was an architectural photographer and my mother was a dressmaker, so there were always scraps of stuff everywhere. My dad would find a load of paper in a skip and bring it home. They thought: if you’re good at something, do it. At one point I grabbed a corner of my dad’s shed. He had bought an 8mm cine camera and urged us kids to go off and make a film. I remember finding out one day that it had a single frame button on it; I was by this time obsessed with cartoons and drawing, making Harryhausen dinosaurs and so on, so in my corner of the shed I started to make puppet animation films. I was thirteen at the time and very inspired by series like the Clangers and Noggin the Nog, I also grabbed the attic and set up an Anglepoise lamp. So anything which needed me to look down and film meant the attic; but I hated the heat up there. I made this character called Walter the Rat out of my mum’s scrap-bag and animated it, but as I needed more light I
reverted to the shed. I used the light from the window and you can see it on the film, varying as the sun goes down. I spent a whole summer making an animated film for entry in a competition, sitting on my bed drawing. I learnt about animation through my dad. Being a photographer, he knew a bit about animation; he’d never done it, but he knew someone who had. I just scoured the libraries, and studied magazines, or looked at pictures in old books such as Movie Maker. I started on dad’s old Bell & Howell Standard 8 film camera, using a basic cement splicer; I never had sound – I couldn’t afford it. It was all very low budget: camera, editing bench and projector set up in my bedroom. I did a sixth-form foundation art course, left school at 18 and went to Sheffield Art School where they had a film course and studio space. They knew I wanted to do animation. This was the first time I came across 16mm film, and video was just starting to happen. We used Bolex and Beaulieu cameras – it was all so professional to me; I couldn’t believe it. And the Bolex cameras could all be single frame, which gave a good, steady picture. They had a projection theatre which doubled as a
studio, so as I was the only one in my year into full-time animation they let me have a corner of that for about two years, so I was in Heaven. Then I applied to the National Film and Television School where I mainly did stop-frame puppet animation. I also did a film using chalk on blackboard. I set up an easel with a blackboard and drew with a piece of chalk, took the picture, rubbed the image out, drew a similar image… and so on. I like techniques that are quick to execute. The NFTS gave me a room, an old film storage space; full of old cans. I painted it black to prevent light bouncing off the walls. It was there that I was first introduced to 35mm cameras. I adapted old Mitchells to take one frame at a time. Another student and I were the first to use stop-frame cameras in that way. And it was there that Wallace and Gromit were born. The school turned a blind eye as I spent three years working on the project. But my time at the college was over, I was running out of money. I’d worked here at Aardman in the summer in the 80s. Pete [Lord] and Dave [Sproxton] had seen some of my work and they called me and said could I come and work for them. I thought: “Of all the people in Britain,
“
...one animator may produce three seconds of finished work per day. However, you can fit a lot into three seconds; a character can do and say a lot in just one second.
they’ve asked me…” Actually, I was the only one working in stop-frame animation. So I worked here for two summers, on Morph. Aardman was in its early day, at the top of St. Michaels Hill, with only about three people in the studio. We were also working on Animated Conversations [a series of shorts for BBC4]. Eventually, they invited me to come here and finish my own film; they gave me a corner of their new studios in Wetherell Place in Clifton where I worked until we took temporary accommodation in the old Fyffe’s banana warehouse on the docks. And from there we moved into this place. Stop animation is a slow process; one animator may produce three seconds of finished work per day. However, you can fit a lot into three seconds; a character can do and say a lot in just one second. I did A Grand Day Out [1989: 22m 40s] pretty much on my own, so it’s rather solitary work. A Matter of Loaf and Death [2008: 30m] would have had twenty animators on it, each doing their three seconds a day so at the end of a week you have completed around five minutes of film. At present our team of over 500 people are working on two feature films, including a film using CGI, which I now embrace
as being ‘in the toolbox’. All our main animation is still done in the traditional method; you’re physically in touch with it. But as an example, in A Matter of Loaf and Death, there’s flour dust in every shot; we wouldn’t have been able to do that but now we put it in digitally. And with commercials, we’ve had to go that way. In a feature film, it’s far cheaper to use stopframe animation; with CGI, the processes involved are much bigger, far more people involved, less immediate, with many more stages to go through. Although the crew here has got bigger and bigger, I try to stay ‘hands on’; I still design my own characters and make a maquette of them first. I find it hard to hire a character designer because I want to give it ‘The Look’. I like to think that all the work I put in back in the shed, the bedroom, the attic has spawned an entire generation of stop-animators, who make very good CGI animators. The problem with CGI is that if you are not constantly in control of it – whipping it into shape – the computer can simply work out movement mathematically, in a completely soulless way. Although I have come a long way from my early ‘studios’ it’s a delight to be working here in this modern complex, part of what is in effect, a cottage industry. art
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Friends of the RWA 50 art Autumn 2011
Chairman’s Column At the Extraordinary General Meeting of the Friends on 25 June 2011, members agreed to an increase in subscriptions. The new rates will apply to new members from September 2011 and from the renewal date for existing members, see application form page 8. The increase, the first since 2008, will allow Friends access to new benefits, including discounts, as well as a continuing opportunity to make a contribution to the RWA’s development. On the 30 June 2011 we welcomed over a hundred guests to our social event, Midsummer Magic. It was an enjoyable evening thanks to Claire Hamilton, a brilliant harpist, delicious food provided by Pudsey’s and an excellent band, The Harrisons, who encouraged us to dance until midnight. Organisations and individuals donated splendid prizes and our dynamic raffle ticket sellers helped us raise £600 towards the improvement of visitor facilities at the RWA. Thank you to everyone who attended and volunteers who helped on the evening. We welcome new members who would like to participate in our successful Meet and Greet scheme. You will meet people who share an interest in the visual arts and others including young people who are visiting the wonderful RWA building and exhibitions for the first time. Volunteering can be enjoyable and stimulating so do contact Mary Drown, our Volunteers Coordinator for further information. e: Mary.Drown@blueyonder.co.uk Maureen Fraser – Chairman
Choosing Not to Study Art A promising young artist Friend has decided to study French and Linguistics. Rebekah Pendlebury first showed her work in a Friends Room Exhibition in 2010 and has exhibited at the Glass Room at the Colston Hall. Rebekah, in commenting about her choice said: “Landscape painting has become a definite passion of mine and I intend to paint throughout my life. However, I’m going to study French and Linguistics at York University in September. People have asked me why I’m not doing an art degree. Like most things, there is never one way to go about a task. I would love to do an art degree, but I know that I
would never understand the mysteries of language without the challenging environment of a university. There are so many branches of learning that interest me and I’m sure that they can inspire me and complement my art. I know that I’m very much at the beginning; my current work is a form of release and exploration, which still needs a lot of refining. Nevertheless, every time I paint something it feels like an advance. Among the many things I’d hope to achieve in life, understanding myself as an artist and creating is a big priority. It may just be a more elongated process.” Gillian Hudson
Friend Wins Award The St Cuthbert’s Mill Award was received by RWA Friend Andie Clay for her abstract artwork entitled Rhythmscape at the Society of Womens Artists 150th exhibition, held at the Mall Galleries in London. Not only did Andie Clay receive this prestigious award but she also had two other pieces of artwork selected at this open submission exhibition. The selected work shown at this exhibition is of a very high standard and the Award itself was presented by HRH Princess Michael of Kent. Andie Clay was complimented on her work by the President of the Society of Women Artists Barbara Penketh Simpson and encouraged to enter the exhibition again next year. Carolyn Stubbs
Carolyn Stubbs shows in Cornwall “If there is one art show that you should see this week... mud, mud, glorious mud.” So urged The Cornishman newspaper in recommending people to visit Dipping into Nature by RWA Friend, Carolyn Stubbs, at the Mounts Bay Contemporary art gallery. The show, which encompassed a wide range of media including sculpted paper and acrylic painting, ran from 1 – 23 July. www. mountsbaycontemporary.com
Friends painting holiday: New Forest We enjoyed exploring local attractive towns, Hurst Castle and the many art galleries of Lymington and Lyndhurst, while others visited Salisbury Cathedral, which was hosting a John Constable exhibition. There were plenty of painting opportunities: New Forest ponies, Highland Cattle and large spotted pigs and across the Solent one could see the liners in Southampton Water. At the end of the week we had the usual review of our paintings with best picture prize going to Joan Weir.
George Tute: an artist and his collection Saturday 28 May in the Fedden Gallery George said his talk to the Friends was in part a personal acknowledgement of, and thank you for the many years of support given by the Friends to the RWA. George’s talk was a privileged insight into the way his working life has evolved and developed, from the early nine year period of formal training beginning in 1950, through the years of development that followed. Painting and wood engraving pursued in tandem (with commissions for engraving work from, among others, The Folio Society, Batsford Press, New Scientist and Readers Digest) right up to his present day work in both disciplines within and beyond the RWA.
Friends visit: Paris May 2011 On our first day many visited the Musée d’Orsay and the blockbuster Manet Exhibition, the Louvre, Le Marais and Montmartre. On Sunday we visited Giverny, Monet’s House and his garden. Later we visited the Impressionist Museum showing Bonnard in Normandy before moving on to historic Vernon. The Musée AG Poulian, dating from the 16th Century, exhibits modern art as well as local artists such as Monet and Bonnard. The Collegiate Church of Notre Dame has beautiful stained glass windows. We stopped at Auvers-sur-Oise, the home territory of van Gogh and
Dr Gachet and the Auberge Ravoux where van Gogh stayed. On our final day we visited Fontainebleau; the palace and its gardens were especially peaceful. A small but memorable exhibition – Enfance Imperiale – was a celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of The King of Rome, Napoleon’s son Napoleon François Joseph Charles. Our visits ended in Barbizon, one of the famous ‘Artist’s Villages’ in the Fontainebleau Forest south of Paris where, in the mid 19th Century, a group of landscape artists worked to achieve a truer representation
All offered to us through a cornucopia of images, with an unassuming commentary and explanation of incentives and methods which made appear simple what has to be a complex combination of imagination, talent and dexterity at work in the creative process. George then showed and discussed some of the many paintings he has amassed and offered a few words of insight and advice for the budding collector. The veritable roll-call of artists whose works he has collected – and some of whom are friends – served only to underline the rich professional and artistic depth and extent of his knowledge, experience and interests. Thank you George, for this, your ‘thank you’ to the Friends. John Eley
Elaine Cooper: washi – a paper -maker’s art Saturday 25 June in the Fedden Gallery Elaine Cooper is recognised as a leading, world expert in the art of papermaking as well as in the use of washi in fine art. This lecture, demonstration and exhibition started with a video of an annual spring festival in Mino which sits at the confluence of two rivers which flow from the Japanese Alps. Historically, small pools were created in the rivershallows to soak lengths of kozo tree saplings in order to soften the bark prior to its removal. It is from this bark that the washi is made. We saw all the processes involved in producing washi and the skills and hard work involved. Elaine then expanded on the different types and uses of washi and on her own part in
of the countryside. They were possibly inspired by John Constable. The delightful museum holds a large and intriguing selection of their work. We explored the village to find Millet’s and Rousseau’s houses which are now fascinating museums in their own right. Our thanks to Tom Western-Butt. Linda Alvis
its uses in her art, practice and wider activities. It was wonderful to be able to touch the wide variety of samples of paper in varying weights and types from the gossamer fine to the more heavily textured and to marvel at their strength. There were samples of stencilled, printed and dyed papers; of paper string and of paper woven into fabric. There were fans, umbrellas, small books; all things that were a delight to handle. Last but not least we were shown examples of the artist’s work including paintings, etchings, screens (shoji), parasols, fans and much more. Roz Wallace
pages 6 – 7 for // See full details of Friends lectures and events art
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art b ooks
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This is a compilation of posters submitted by their designers to a website greenpatriotposters. org. One does get the impression that this is a vehicle to show off the contributing designers’ skills rather more
than getting across a coherent message about environmental destruction so in that sense this is more about the medium than the message and thus perhaps of more interest to fellow designers than environmentalists. That said it is still a useful book of ideas as to how to get an important message across in a glance, or how not to – not all of them work in my view. It is also completely USA centric. The publisher’s blurb states that the editors were inspired by World War II posters that encouraged a whole country (the USA) to respond to a crisis, which is a fine and valid starting point. However the production, with its commendable recycled paper, vegetable inks, and 100% wind powered embodied energy no less, unfortunately results in rather a strange muted feel to the posters.
None of the posters selected have either the visual impact or the emotional punch of the Austrian artist and architect Hundertwasser’s posters such as You are a guest of nature. BEHAVE which must surely be the gold standard of this genre so far. The 50 posters are detachable and framed would make a quick and interesting corridor wall display. Perhaps seeing them all in one hit might give them more impact. But one must be thankful for small mercies. That the visual arts, after 30 – 40 years of urbanised self-absorption (with some exceptions of course), are finally emerging from this latter day Dark Ages to recognise that the natural world exists, and even that it is in deep trouble and in need of help, is progress of a sort. Richard St.George
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Wood Engraving: How to do it Simon Brett
Tessa Newcomb Philip Vann
160pp: A&C Black, 2011 ISBN 978 1 4081 2726 1
128pp Sansom & Company, 2010 ISBN 978 1 904537 94 6
TUVAQ: Inuit Art and the Modern World Eds. Ken Mantel, Heather Lane
An easy-to-follow, practical manual for the beginner. The processes of printing and engraving are clearly explained; up-to-date variations on techniques, and all the tips and methods that the author has found helpful in 30 years as a practitioner are included. Brett’s work is highly collectable and this book is a beautiful object in its own right. Greg Reitschlin
This exceptionally wellillustrated book is the first survey of this artist of singular vision. It reveals how her subtly multi-layered paintings are illuminated by an interior radiance, an awareness of what Newcomb calls ‘spaces and silences’, and a rare, magical poignancy. Among her sources of inspiration, she counts watching slow, atmospheric films, early 20th Century urban photography, going places and rail journeys and reading poetry. RS
Foyles at Cabot Circus
1 Banksy
Wall and Piece
and Beyond 2 Bristol Trevor Haddrell Bristol 3 Banksy’s Steve Wright Artists’ Manifestos 4 100 – From the Futurists to the Stuckists
Alex Danchev (ed)
5 Herakut: The Perfect Merge
// BOOK Green Patriot Posters: Graphics for a sustainable community Dmitri Siegel and Edward Morris 128pp inc. 50 detachable posters: Thames & Hudson, 2011 ISBN 978 0 500 289266
Jasmin Siddiqui and Falk Lehmann
Klimt 6 Gustav Landscapes Stephan Koja
This Journal: 7 Wreck To Create is to Destroy Keri Smith
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Japan Season by Season
Sandrine Bailly
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The Mourners – Tomb Sculpture from the Court of Burgundy Sophie Jugie
Romantic 10 The Moderns: English
Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper Alexandra Harris
52 art Autumn 2011
262pp: Sansom & Company, 2010 ISBN 978 1 906593 42 1
In this ground-breaking book, authorities on Inuit art from both sides of the Atlantic provide fascinating insights into how Canadian Co-operatives have created a market place for emerging artists. Their work transcends ‘native art’ and at its best is art of great quality sought by collectors world wide. TUVAQ is designed to appeal to committed collectors and anyone interested in the contemporary art scene. RS
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For publication 10 October 2011 this unique and fascinating portrait of one of the most influential and celebrated British artists of all time is destined to become a classic as an essential exploration into the nature of creativity.
This is a record of a decade of private conversations between Hockney and art critic, Martin Gayford. Hockney reveals via reflection, anecdote, passion and humour the fruits of his lifelong mediations on the problems and paradoxes of representing a three-dimensional world on a flat surface. The conversations are punctuated by wise and witty observations from both parties on numerous other artists and enlivened by shrewd insights into the contrasting social and physical landscapes of California and Yorkshire. Some of the diverse people he has encountered along the way – from Henri CartierBresson to Billy Wilder – make entertaining entries into the dialogue. Be sure to add it to your Christmas list – if you can wait that long. Richard Storey
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Cocoons Fantasies Therapies: A tour of my murals Alexander Thynn
Alec French Architects 1980 – 2010 Richard Lee and David Mellor
Stone: Andy Goldsworthy Andy Goldsworthy
65pp: Zigzag, 2011 ISBN 978 1 84445 458 7
168pp Alec French Architects, Bristol, 2011 ISBN 978 0 9568016 0 9
// BOOK A Bigger Message: conversations with David Hockney Martin Gayford 248pp: Thames & Hudson, 2011 ISBN 978 0 500 238875
For the past fifty years resident artist the 7th Marquess of Bath has been using the interior of Longleat House as his canvas. Every inch of wall in his private apartment is daubed with brightly coloured high relief murals. Thynn talks the reader through each mural, explaining the meanings of the painted scenes as well as the process and beliefs behind them. Thynn’s work is highly personal, sometimes beautiful and often controversial. Alice Hendy
A lucid, detailed and superbly illustrated record of architecture by Alec French Architects. Bristol owes both Richard Lee and David Mellor a great debt, not only for the quality of their buildings, but for their affection and sympathy for Bristol. They have demonstrated repeatedly that a profound sensitivity to the local context into which a building should fit requires no compromise in modernity, sustainability, fitness for purpose or even, usually, the appetite of the developer. Francis Greenacre
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Anish Kapoor: turning the world upside down Julia Peyton-Jones and Hans Ulrich Obrist 240pp: Thames & Hudson, 2011 ISBN 978 3 865 609168
The major outdoor sculptures by Kapoor were shown in Kensington Gardens at the beginning of 2011, sited to contrast and reflect the changing colours, foliage and weather. Despite their
120pp: Thames & Hudson, London ISBN 978 0 500 516010
After some years out of print, this beautiful collection of photographs of Goldsworthy’s work is once more available. It includes installations that involved not only stone but leaves, flowers, sand, clay and scrap steel. Stone offers a special opportunity to appreciate the breadth of this exceptionally talented sculptor’s output. GR
monumental scale, the works appeared as pure reflection of their surroundings: the sky, trees, water, wildlife and changing seasons. The distortions in the works’ mirror-like surfaces called into question the viewers’ relationship to both the work itself and the surrounding environment. This catalogue, co-written by the Director of the Serpentine Gallery and the Co-Director of Exhibitions, brilliantly illustrates Kapoor’s installation with photographs of the works in situ. It is the first monograph to feature a comprehensive overview of all stainless steel sculptures within the artist’s oeuvre. Highly recommended. T O’S
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Trick Of The Eye: Art and Illusion Silke Vry 89pp: Prestel, Munich, 2010 ISBN 978 3 7913 7026 2
The perfect gift for a child with an enquiring mind. The history of art and architecture is also the history of illusion. Starting with the premise that Ceci n’est pas une pipe, this hands-on book explores most of the well-known aspects of artistic trickery. Projects describe how the reader can make their own trompe l’oeil, flip book, thaumatrope, perspective box, inkblot pictures and much more. Recommended. T O’S
art
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// Listings The Architect’s Gallery The Powder Rooms 69 – 71 Broad Street Teddington, TW11 8QZ t: 020 8977 2175 m: 07814 005 b554 e: info@paul-bennett.co.uk 11am – 5.30pm Mon – Sat Closed Wed except by appointment 12 September 2011 – 1 January 2012 Recent paintings by Paul Bennett A contemporary selection of Paul Bennett’s latest series of seascape, landscape and abstract paintings.
Arnolfini 16 Narrow Quay Bristol BS1 4QA t: 0117 917 2300 e: boxoffice@arnolfini.co.uk Tues – Sun 11am – 6pm 24 September – 19 November Museum Show Part 1 A large scale exhibition, the first of its kind in contemporary art, Museum Show is a museum of museums, displaying idiosyncratic, semi-fictional institutions.
SUBTLY STRIKING QUIETLY SHOUTING INTANGIBLY DEFINED EVOCATIVELY STARK AUDIBLY SHINING CLEVERLY SIMPLE DRAMATICALLY CALM UNASSUMINGLY BOLD WWW.WIRESKY.CO.UK we are designers, listeners, thinkers.
Art On The Hill: The Windmill Hill & Victoria Park Arts Trail Multiple addresses around Windmill Hill and Victoria Park. Information desk on trail days at Windmill Hill Community Centre Vyvian St, Windmill Hill. Brochure and map available locally 2 weeks prior to event. Prior information and contact at: www. artonthehill.org.uk Sat – Sun 12 – 6pm 1 – 2 October Artists in various media, performers and workshops in private houses and community venues. Closing parade and performance of Haydn’s Creation on Sunday.
Barley Wood Walled Garden Long Lane,Wrington N. Somerset BS40 5SA t: 01934 863 713 www.walledgarden.co.uk Open all year Tues – Sun Art and Craft Studios open to visitors Paintings, enamels, pottery, garden ceramics, prints and cards. Café and parking – lovely garden.
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Bath Contemporary (formerly Bath Fine Art) 35 Gay Street, Bath BA1 2NT t: 01225 461 230 e: gallery@ bathcontemporary.com Mon – Fri 10am – 5.30pm Sat 10am – 5pm Neil Pinkett: To the Edge A solo exhibition by Neil Pinkett exploring his journey to secret places around the British Isles including Cornwall, the Scilly Isles, Snowdonia and Scotland.
Birdwood House 44 High Street Totnes, Devon TQ9 5SQ t: 01803 847 861 e: janet.artifex@gmail.com www.birdwoodhouse.org.uk Sun – Sat 10am – 5pm 10 – 17 Sept Totnes and Dartington Open Studios Collective Exhibition 27 artists who opened their studios in May 2011 now exhibit together in this exciting new group show.
Brian Sinfield Gallery 57 High Street, Burford OX18 4QU t: 01993 824 464 e: gallery@briansinfield.com Tues – Sat 10am – 1pm & 2 – 5pm 19 November – 10 December PJ Crook: new paintings and sculpture
R E Bucheli Fine Art @ Western Tutorial College 12a Broad Street Bristol BS1 2HL t: 0117 929 7747 www.rebucheli.co.uk Wed – Thurs 10am – 6pm Fri/Sat 10am – 5pm Other times by appt. 7/8 October Special Opening 10am – 6pm 17 November – 24 December Submission of smallwork 3 – 5 November
BV Open Studios 37 Philip Street Bedminster, Bristol BS3 4EA m:07787 797339 e:contact@bvstudios.co.uk www.bvstudios.co.uk Fri late Sat/Sun 15/16 October 11am – 6pm Open Studios Over 100 artists showcasing their work. Free entry. Refreshments available. All welcome.
Central Library Exhibition Room The Podium, Bath t: 01225 470 106 www.bsba.co.uk 10am – 5pm daily (1 – 4pm Sunday and closing at 1pm on Sat 29 Oct) Tues – Sat 18 – 29 October Bath Society of Botanical Artists Annual exhibition of new works with paintings, prints and cards for sale.
The Clifton Arts Club Bristol School of Art (adjacent RWA) Queens Rd, Clifton, Bristol BS8 1PX www.cliftonartsclub.co.uk or contact Di Western t: 01454 776 916 Inviting new members to join our busy programme of events. Only £25 p.a. Lectures, workshops, gallery visits, painting days and the prestigious Annual Summer Exhibition.
The Clifton Fireplace Company 54 Princess Victoria St Clifton, Bristol BS8 4BZ t: 0117 973 6474 m: 07810 113 761 e: sales@cliftonfireplaces. co.uk Mon – Sat 10am – 5pm On-going exhibition Guo Wei: Contemporary/Abstract Chinese paintings Stunning exhibition of various unique and original paintings. All pieces reflect her ‘life series’. An impressive individualistic series of work.
The Glass Room Colston Hall Colston Street, Bristol BS1 5AR t: 0117 922 3686 e: colstonhall.enquiries@ bristol.gov.uk Mon – Fri 8am – 11pm Sat 9am –10pm Sun – Open when there is a show on 1 September – 2 October Ruth Ander: Coastal Light Delicate, atmospheric mono-prints on tissue paper and Japanese paper. Inspired by the light of the North Somerset coast.
The Courthouse Gallery: home of the Somerset Guild Market Place, Somerton Somerset TA11 7LX t:01458 274 653 e: courthouse@ somersetguild.co.uk www.somersetguild. co.uk Mon – Sat 10am – 5pm 17 September – 29 October Playing with Clay Exhibition (As part of Somerset Arts Weeks) A diverse, eclectic variety of new ceramic works including beautiful functional, decorative and sculptural creations from Somerset makers – affordable craft for home and garden.
Dorset County Museum High West St, Dorchester Dorset DT1 1XA t: 01305 262 735 e: enquiries@ dorsetcountymuseum.org www.dorsetcounty museum.org Mon – Sat 10am – 4pm 22 October – 21 January Cranborne: Art in the shadow of the Chase A sales exhibition featuring artists including John Craxton, Lucian Freud and EQ Nicholson who lived and worked on Cranborne Chase during the 20th Century.
Peter Ford Off-Centre Gallery 13 Cotswold Road Bristol BS3 4NX www.peterford.org.uk June – September 2011 Small Graphic Forms 14 Municipal Art Gallery, Lodz, Poland 23rd International Biennale of Modern Ex libris Malbork Castle Museum, Malbork, Poland 11am – 6pm 1/2 October Art on the Hill Local area Art Trail 30 October – 31 December RWA Annual Open Exhibition
Grant Bradley Gallery Bedminster Parade Bristol, BS3 4AQ 0117 963 7673 info@ grantbradleygallery.co.uk Mon – Sat 10am – 5pm 3 September – 1 October One Year On Marking the first anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the UK. Photographer Marcin Mazur captured that journey, faith-filled for both Pope and pilgrim. 3 – 26 November The West of England MS Therapy Centre A wide range of established artists have produced a beautiful and exciting exhibition. All works for sale; all profits go to the MS Therapy Centre.
Hartland Art Restormel, Staplehay Taunton TA3 7HF t: 01823 336 262 e: hartlandart@ googlemail.com www.hartlandart.co.uk Somerset Art Weeks Exhibitions and Events (see free guide for all details) 11am – 6pm, Wed – Sun 17 September – 2 October Residue Installation,photography, mixed media, painting – Rachel Hartland, David Hartland, Christopher JL Goss
The Holburne Museum Great Pulteney Street Bath BA2 4DB t: 01225 388547 e: k.jenkins@bath.ac.uk www.holburne.org.uk Mon – Sat 10am – 5pm, Sun 11am – 5pm (Closed 24, 25, 26 December & 1 January) 24 Sept – 8 Jan 2012 Gainsborough’s Landscapes: Themes and Variations The first exhibition solely devoted to Gainsborough’s landscapes explores six principal landscape types, paintings and drawings spanning his whole career. £6.50/concessions
Jane Cartney Art Studio & Gallery rear of 80 Regent Street Weston-super-Mare BS23 1SR t: 01934 418 198 m: 07779 178 736 e: artist@ janecartneyfineart.co.uk By appointment daily Jane Cartney: Paintings Permanent, changing exhibition. Recent work by Scottish West Country colourist-expressionist. Inspired by Cows; Architecture: Boulevard & W-s-M; Glasgow; Jedburgh; The Pheasant Series. Portrait Commissions.
The John Leach Gallery Muchelney Pottery Muchelney, Nr Langport Somerset TA10 0DW t: 01458 250 324 e: john@johnleach pottery.co.uk www.johnleach pottery.co.uk Mon – Sat 9am – 1pm & 2pm – 5pm 10 September – 9 November Lucy Willis: London to Aleppo This show includes a range of watercolours from Lucy’s most recent travels spanning Somerset and London, and further afield to Venice, Greece and Syria.
Lime Tree Gallery 84 Hotwell Road Bristol, BS8 4UB t: 0117 929 2527 m: 07879 475 462 e: bristol@ limetreegallery.com Tues – Sat 10am – 5pm 17 September – 13 October Philip Richardson and Steven Lindsay A two man exhibition; fine brushwork, beautiful control of light and colour. Philip Richardson will be present in the gallery Sat 17 September for the opening. October 29 – 22 November Swedish Exhibition Mixed exhibition of artists from Sweden, Elizabeth Lindstedt, Hasse Karlsson, Ia Karlsson, Mats Rydstern, Carl Gustafsson and Stanislaw Zoladz. 26 November – 8 January 2012 Christmas Exhibition Mixed exhibition of favourite galley artists, including many from Scotland.
New Leaf Gallery 19 Church Street Monmouth, NP25 3BX t: 01600 714 527 www.newleafgallery.co.uk 5 Sept – 10 Oct Richard Corbett Inspired landscapes bathed in light. Mon – Sat 10am – 5pm Admission free. Walk & Draw Sessions with the artist during the exhibition. Please contact the gallery.
Sidcot Arts Centre Winscombe, N.Somerset BS25 1PD t: 01934 845 228 e: alexis.butt@sidcot.org.uk www.sidcotartscentre.com Free entry. Tues and Thur 2 – 5pm, Sat 11am – 4pm. Open for private appointments by email. 15 October – 10 November Big Draw Family Day Wed 26 Oct: drop in between 10.30am – 2.30pm.Free entry, all welcome. Catherine Knight: Memories to Draw On Using photographs, dreams and memories as inspiration, Catherine’s paintings mix places, times and histories through playful narratives and alternative realities.
Sphere Living Design Embassy House Showroom Queens Ave, Clifton Bristol BS8 1SB t: 0117 929 2365 e: info@ spherelivingdesign.com Mon – Sat 10am – 6pm Sun 11am – 4pm 24 October – 2 November Arne Jacobsen Exhibition We are delighted to host an in-store exhibition celebrating the work of renowned furniture designer Arne Jacobsen.
Tenby Museum & Art Gallery Castle Hill, Tenby Pembrokeshire SA70 7BP t: 01834 842 809 e: info@tenbymuseum. org.uk Daily 10am – 5pm (last admission 4.40pm) 10 September – 9 October Denis Curry: Sea Change Works in bronze, carving, drawing and sculpture. Sales exhibition.
The Toll House Gallery Clevedon Pier, Clevedon BS21 7QU t: 01275 878 846 m: 07780 621 166 e: gallery@clevedonpier.com Daily 10am – 5pm 2 – 31 October Touch of Gold: features paintings and prints by Pauline Bevan, Patricia Scott, Joan Hudson in three individual styles by these local artists. Most work for sale.
Artful quotations
Diana Porter Contemporary Jewellery 33 Park Street, Bristol BS1 5NH t: 0117 909 0225 e: web@dianaporter.co.uk Mon – Sat 10.30am – 6pm Sun – 11.30am – 4.30pm 1 – 30 September. New Designers A diverse exhibition of work by four unique 2011 graduate jewellers, handpicked by Diana Porter. Featuring; Daniela Corda, Lauracet, Min Yoo, Filipa Oliveira and Lucy Sedden.
“Painters don’t necessarily get on with one another.”
Howard Hodgkin “Painting is the art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.”
Bierce “Giacometti always wanted to look into the eyes of the model, but I don’t want the scrutiny of the model on me whilst I’m working, so you will very rarely find the eyes are looking at me.”
Euan Uglow “Some started with us at 16, others come from backgrounds such as dressmaking or the car industry. We look for people who can tell their hands what to do.”
Claude Koenig Pangolin Editions
“No nude, however abstract, should fail to arouse in the spectator some vestige of erotic feeling, even if it be only the faintest shadow – and if it does not do so it is bad art and false morals.”
Kenneth Clark
// Classifieds Photography for Artists Day Courses Saturday 1 October or Saturday 10 December 10am – 4pm Bath Artists’ Studios, The Old Malthouse, Comfortable Place, Upper Bristol Road, Bath BA1 3AJ www.bathartistsstudios. co.uk This workshop is designed for artists who want to learn more about photography and take better pictures of their artwork. Participants will learn basic photographic skills as well as how to light different types of artistic media. To book, contact Anne-Sophie Olive on 07786056446 or annesophie@ olivephotography.co.uk
“In 1941, as most men were being drafted into the Army, I was being invalided out. The medical authorities, after submitting me to numerous tests had announced that I was abnormal and advised me to become an artist. I don’t know which piece of advice worried me more.”
Kyffin Williams “Art is about communication. Being spoken to emotionally. If this dialogue between artist and viewer doesn’t exist it fails.”
John Knapp-Fisher Whistler exclaimed “Don’t
touch it, the paint is wet!” “Oh that’s all right,” replied Mark Twain with his characteristic drawl, “these aren’t my best gloves.”
Chosen by Jilly Cobbe art
Autumn 2011
55
Back Chat Mike Whitton
Sir David Attenborough OM CH CVO CBE FRS What was the first piece of art that you collected? A tall black Chinese pot from the Song Dynasty. You are known to be an admirer of John Craxton’s work. How would you sum up his qualities? Craxton’s ability – at least in his later period – to create new images in a multi-coloured linear way to convey not only volume but delight. Do you subscribe to an ‘all things bright and beautiful’ view, or do you see anything ugly or repulsive in the natural world? I prefer the saying ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’. Three hundred years ago the mountains that we think so beautiful were regarded as being horrifying and the epitome of ugliness in a landscape. Which is closest to your heart, a George Stubbs horse or a Damien Hirst sheep? Stubbs. His portrait Whistlejacket is one of the greatest of all animal paintings.
56 art Autumn 2011
What as yet unseen animal behaviour would you most like to see captured on film? The contest between giant squid and sperm whales. Little or nothing is known about the habits of the giant squid – except that sperm whales feed on them – and that is known because their beaks have been found in whales’ stomachs, and scars caused by their giant suckers have been found on sperm whales’ heads. They are assumed to live at depths which humans cannot reach except in special deep sea craft. Bits of their bodies are washed up every now and then, particularly around New Zealand’s shores. It is difficult to see how, at the present, anyone could get film of them alive – except by luck. If you had become an artist rather than a zoologist, what would have been your chosen medium? It would have been film. Is ecotourism to be encouraged? Yes. Were it not for ecotourism the Galapagos would have lost most of its wildlife and Rwanda its gorillas.
born 1926 Some of your recent television programmes have featured CGI and 3D. Are you at ease with these new technologies? Yes. They are very exciting and full of possibilities. If you were to have a coat of arms, what creatures would feature on it and what would be the motto? The motto would be ‘Protect’. The creatures would be birds of paradise. My cameraman friend Charles Lagus and I managed to film Count Raggi’s bird of paradise in New Guinea in 1957. It was, I think, the first time that their display had been filmed – in the wild – but it wasn’t much good, being in black and white and shot in very low light, in silhouette, in the early dawn. The displays of various species (there are 42 very different ones) have been filmed a lot since, of course, by many others as well as myself. And finally, who would be your ideal guests at a dinner party? Darwin and Ingrid Bergman.
CELEBRATING THE WORK OF ARNE JACOBSEN
Inspiration for every home. At John Lewis Cribbs Causeway we can turn your ideas into a reality Book a free consultation with our Home design advisor for expert, impartial advice on styles, colours and all the latest trends. Home Design Service 0117 959 1100
ARNE JACOBSEN EXHIBITION Monday 24th October - Wednesday 2nd November Sphere Living Design - Showroom - Clifton - Bristol
Sphere Living Design is delighted to host an in-store exhibition celebrating the work of renowned furniture designer Arne Jacobsen. Responsible for iconic chairs such as the Egg™, Swan™ and Series 7™, Jacobsen is acknowledged as one of the pioneers of classic Danish design.
Beside the Seaside Inspiration for every home
His work extended into architecture and most notably, the Radisson Blu Royal Hotel in Copenhagen which remains a living shrine to his career. Sphere Living Design stock a wide range of designer furniture and accessories from leading interior brands including Fritz Hansen.
Sphere Living Design Embassy House - Queens Avenue - Clifton - Bristol 0117 929 2365 info@spherelivingdesign.com www.spherelivingdesign.com
Our commitment to value means that we match the prices of high street competitors (this excludes online-only or mail order businesses) as long as their service conditions are comparable. See our “Never Knowingly Undersold” leaflet in our shops or online for details.
ISSN 2044-2653
Luke Jerram issue
// Ian McKeever RA
// Clive Head // Nick Park CBE
// Sir David Attenborough OM CH CVO CBE FRS
Autumn 2011 OM CH CVO CBE FRS
BackChat // Sir David Attenborough RA
In the Studio // Nick Park CBE // Clive Head 06 Autumn 2011
// Ian McKeever
06 Luke Jerram: edges of perception