ISSN 2044-2653
Stephen Farthing issue // John Huggins RWA
// Andy Warhol // Mary Fedden // Sir Peter Blake
RWA
Warhol feature // When Sarah met Andy
In the Studio // Mary Fedden
BackChat // Sir Peter Blake
Summer 2010 £4
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Profile // John Huggins
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Stephen Farthing’s Fourth Wall
Barbara Rae
Donald Hamilton Fraser
Patrick Hughes
Sir Peter Blake
Exhibition June 18th – July 10th
Mending Broken Hearts portfolio 1 CCA Galleries is delighted to announce the publication of the Mending Broken Hearts - portfolio 1 in aid of the British Heart Foundation to be launched in the West Country at Innocent Fine Art. The portfolio comprises of 15 original silkscreen prints by a group of Britain’s leading contemporary artists. Each artist has created a unique vision around the theme of ‘mending broken hearts’. Sir Peter Blake
Maurice Cockrill
Patrick Hughes
Donald Hamilton Fraser
Duggie Fields
John Hoyland
Tom Phillips
Brad Faine
Barbara Rae
Bruce McLean
Brendan Neiland
Antony Micaleff
Storm Thorgerson
Gerard Hemsworth
Maggie Hambling
7a Boyces Avenue, Clifton, Bristol, BS8 4AA Telephone 0117 973 2614 enquiries@innocentfineart.co.uk www.innocentfineart.co.uk Mon-Sat 10.00am - 5.30pm
welcome
Welcome to ART, the new quarterly magazine published by the Royal West of England Academy, Bristol. ART, with its coverage of the West of England, builds on the strengths of the excellent magazine, published by the Friends of the RWA; we will continue their work and take the journey to another place. The publication of the magazine you now hold would not have been possible without the help of a truly creative Art Director and a remarkable team of writers, photographers, researchers, proof-readers, advertising and distribution personnel who have come together to make this happen. Thank you all for your ideas, enthusiasm, hard work and dedication. The quality and style of advertisements add to the look and feel of any magazine. I want to thank all those advertisers who have placed their trust in this new RWA venture by advertising, sight unseen, in issue number one. ART is about the fundamentals of art: what do we mean by it, how is it made, who makes it and how to enjoy it. With a new look at a very old subject, our aim is to take the reader closer to all forms of fine art in an accessible, engaging way. Interesting, informative, readable articles will illuminate the reader’s view of art – in most cases through the voice of the artist, rather than the voice of the writer, in ways that constantly inform, educate and entertain. We recognise that feedback can offer a splendid opportunity for us to learn, so please do write or email your thoughts and comments. We believe passionately in the RWA and its future development; Jodie Inkson, the team and I go into this exciting challenge with big hearts. We want you to enjoy the journey also.
Richard Storey Managing Editor
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Inside
Contributors
// Richard Storey took a BA Honours degree in Drama from Bristol University. He worked for the Bristol Evening Post for 12 years and is the author of Perfect Persuasion. He was formerly a Board member of Bristol Arts Centre and Travelling Light Theatre Company.
// 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 which will be published by Liverpool University Press autumn 2010.
// Gary Legon is a former Hollywood documentary filmmaker; his many subjects include James Dean, Paul McCartney, Ray Charles, James Brown and the Harley-Davidson motorcycle. He is an occasional photographer/writer, now retired to the South of France.
// Christine Porter has taught, lectured and judged quilting throughout Great Britain and the United States. She is the author of Quilt Designs from Decorative Floor Tiles, Tessellation Quilts and Viva Venezia! – based on exquisite floor tile designs from Venice.
// 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.
// Cliff Hanley was born in Glasgow, where he studied at Glasgow School of Art. He later took up design and writing as a sideline to a career in music. Gave up guitar session work in London to return to painting and more recently, writing.
// 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.
// 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.
// Katharine Cockshaw is an independent project manager, curator and art historian, currently based in Bristol. Her professional specialisms include museums management, museology, twentieth century painting and architectural history.
// 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.
// Stephen Morris is a photographer and journalist, and editor of the Bristol Review of Books. His last book was Cheltenham for Frances Lincoln. He spent 10 years standing on the Kop at Anfield.
// Roger Silver is a freelance editor/writer. A reporter on regional newspapers and The Guardian, he later worked as an NHS communications and PR specialist. With wife, Hazel, he is an enthusiastic art collector with a chronic inability to resist the irresistible.
EDITORIAL Publisher Royal West of England Academy Managing Editor Richard Storey Art Director Jodie Inkson – Wire Sky Editorial contributors Katharine Cockshaw, Francis Greenacre, Cliff Hanley, Gary Legon, Hugh Mooney, Stephen Morris, Christine Porter, Gregory Reitschlin, Roger Silver, Sam Storey, Jenny Weston, Claire Young Specialist photography Alice Hendy Research Liz Huyton Proof readers Roger Silver, Liz Huyton RWA and Academicians’ news claireyoung88@hotmail.com Friends of the RWA news rolandharmer@blueyonder.co.uk ADVERTISING The Clifton Agency, 8 – 10 Whiteladies Road, Bristol BS8 1PD t: 0117 906 4060 Leza Jagroop e: leza.jagroop@thecliftonagency.com t: 07770 888 456 Peter Robinson e: peter.robinson@thecliftonagency.com t: 07530 212 841 FRIENDS OF THE RWA Friends annual subscriptions Single Joint Individual life Joint life Student Country single Country joint See membership application form page 43
£25 £36 £375 £500 £13 £20 £30
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.
// Sam Storey took a BA Honours degree in film from the Arts University College in Bournemouth. He has been a freelance editor for 5 years, working on a number of feature documentaries, and is a lecturer of film theory.
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// Jennie Weston is a Drama and English teacher. She has worked for Radio Bristol in educational broadcasting. With a lifetime interest in the Arts, she is presently a committee member of the Wells Literary Festival and Creative Writing classes.
// Claire Young is a student of nineteenth century literature and European history at the Open University. She has previously studied German and Classics at the University of Birmingham during which time she spent a year at Ludwig Maximilians Universität, Munich.
To read an electronic version of ART, or to visit the RWA online: www.rwa.org.uk twitter.com/royalwestofenglandacademy
Cover Detail from A Cowboy’s Sweetheart, 2007 (207 x 173cm) one of Stephen Farthing’s Fourth Wall paintings, showing his fondness for adapting the principles of Cubist collage. Editorial, Contributors
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Exhibitions, Talks & Tours, Diary
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RWA news
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Academicians’ news
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Stephen Farthing’s Fourth Wall 16 Independent Curator Katharine Cockshaw met Stephen in his UAL studio, Pimlico, for this exclusive interview. Image of the issue: the sculpture on the Academy’s façade 20 An illustrated essay from Francis Greenacre. Academician profile: John Huggins RWA Roger Silver spends a day with one of our most popular sculptors.
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Gallery review: View Art Gallery, Bristol
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Party People: private views, openings, farewells
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When Sarah met Andy 30 Gary Legon, relates the extraordinary story of the time when his wife, Sarah Dalton worked with Andy Warhol. Quilts 1700 – 2010, Victoria & Albert Museum Quilting guru Christine Porter reviews the V&A’s unseen quilt collection as well as key national loans.
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Close-up: Charlie Waite 34 Hugh Mooney interviews Charlie Waite, one of Britain’s most famous and best-loved landscape photographers. Inside the artist’s studio: Mary Fedden OBE D.Lit RA PPRWA Richard Storey meets Mary Fedden.
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Friends of the RWA notes, news, lectures, exhibitions
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Letters, Reviews
44 & 45
Listings BackChat: Sir Peter Blake
47 CBE RA
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ART is printed in Bristol by Taylor Brothers on sustainably sourced FSC certified paper using vegetable inks. www.taylorbros.uk.com
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23 May – 4 July Stephen Farthing RA The Fourth Wall May brings us a spectacle of scale and colour as we welcome Stephen Farthing RA into the RWA galleries. Stephen Farthing is an important contemporary British painter and Professor of Fine Art. Since his appointment as Head of Painting at the Royal College of Art in 1985, Stephen Farthing has held many distinguished posts during his career and won the John Moores Contemporary Painting Prize eight times. He was Executive Director of the New York Academy of Art from 2000 to 2004 and currently holds the post of Rootstein Hopkins Research Chair of Drawing at the University of Arts, London. He lives and works in London and New York.
Wednesday 26 May Evening talk: Stephen Farthing Marking this RWA exhibition of a selection of his large paintings, Stephen will be giving an evening talk on aspects of his work over the past thirty years. 6.30-8pm Admission £8, concessions £5 (includes a glass of wine) Please call the RWA to book a place – 0117 973 5129.
18 July – 5 September David Hockney RA Six Tales from the Brothers Grimm An extraordinary exhibition of etchings illustrating six fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm. Hockney has given each tale his own contemporary and humorous interpretation, reflected in the quirky nature of the images. (A Hayward Touring exhibition from Southbank Centre, London on behalf of Arts Council England.)
Near and Far “It is not down in any map; true places never are” Herman Melville. From Bognor to Bogota, this exhibition will draw inspiration from travel. RWA members have been encouraged to broaden their minds and get creative with the theme of near and far. This broad-ranging show is set to be surprising.
Running alongside the exhibition is an exciting set of events:
30 July Grand Day Out Another exciting event – join us for a drawing tour of Bristol on an open-top bus. Equipped with sketchbooks we will be taking in the grand vistas from the top deck. A real chance to stop, look and sketch this amazing city.
7 August The Art of Travel A lecture by Jan Cox. Join him for a journey of artistic discovery interspersed with tales of travel – from Vesuvius to Van Gogh’s Provence, from Rousseau’s jungles to Gauguin’s Tahiti, from Wallis in Newfoundland to Hopper in New England.
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Please call the RWA for further information on any of these events – 0117 973 5129.
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Exhibitions, Talks & Tours
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Gallery tours of The Fourth Wall
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There will also be three gallery tours of this exhibition which are not to be missed. // 29 May, 2pm Katharine Cockshaw, Independent Curator // 5 June, 2pm Simon Quadrat, RWA President 6
1 & 2 David Hockney RA // 3 Ann Christopher RA RWA // 4 Chris Dunseath RWA // 5 Stephen Farthing RA // 6 Lucy Willis RWA
// 12 June, 2pm Maxine Relton RWA 5
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Diary
ROYAL WEST OF ENGLAND ACADEMY Patron Her Majesty the Queen Board of Trustees Chairman Dr Norman Biddle HON RWA Honorary Treasurer Bob Barnett Trustees Simon Baker Jennifer Bryant-Pearson Stewart Geddes RWA Maxine Relton RWA Paul Wilson
Full page ad Berkeley Place
President Simon Quadrat PRWA Immediate Past President Derek Balmer PPRWA Past Presidents Peter Thursby FRBS PPRWA Leonard Manasseh OBE RA FRIBA FCSD PPRWA Mary Fedden OBE D LITT RA PPRWA Bernard Dunstan RA PPRWA Academicians’ Council President Simon Quadrat PRWA Vice President Peter Ford RE RWA Honorary Architectural Advisor Michael Jenner FRIBA FRSA RWA Council Members James Beale RWA Professor Paul Gough PHD MA FRSA RWA Margaret Lovell FRBS RWA Peter Swan RWA RWA Office Staff Interim Executive Administrator Miranda Jacobs Facilities Manager Nick Dixon Gallery Technician James Ferguson Gallery Assistant Ben Harding Senior Front of House Assistant Tristan Pollard Senior Front of House Assistant Lorraine Guest Senior Front of House Assistant Alison Hunte Creative Apprentice Ben Giles Exhibitions Manager Kate Morgan Exhibitions and Collections Officer Louise Holt Exhibitions (New Gallery) Officer and Shop Co-ordinator Tanya Wildgoose Finance Assistant Pat Daw Acting Membership and Events Manager Anouk Mercier Marketing and PR Louisa Davison Front of House Assistants Emily Rhind Annabel Page Alice Jones Keira Sidford Amy Taylor Royal West of England Academy Queens Road, Clifton, Bristol BS8 1PX
June – // 51 September
RWA Programme of Events, Talks and Workshops
The RWA offers the following programme of special events in association with its exhibition season. For information, and tickets where necessary, call 0117 973 5129 or email info@rwa.org.uk. Concessionary prices, where applicable, refer to full-time students (with card), RWA Friends, 60+, registered unemployed, registered disabled, and those on income support. For further details, visit www.rwa.org.uk.
Exhibition The Fourth Wall: Stephen Farthing // 23 May – 4 July Sat 5 June: 2pm // Exhibition Tour led by Simon Quadrat, RWA President. 35-40 mins, free with exhibition admission fee
Sun 6 June: 2–5pm // Children’s Art: Framing Session Bring your children’s work for professional framing by RWA Gallery Technician James Ferguson, £15 per work, A4 maximum size. Or create your own artwork for framing with Draw Group Artist, Lucy Cox. Booking essential.
Sat 12 June: 2pm // Exhibition Tour led by Maxine Relton RWA. 35-40 mins, free with exhibition admission fee.
Thu 1 July: 10am–4pm // Mixed-media Painting Workshop led by Art and Design Teacher, Holly Dunham in response to Stephen Farthing’s paintings. Limited to 12 places, £20 including materials and exhibition entrance. Booking essential.
Exhibition Near and Far and David Hockney’s Etchings // 18 July – 5 September
Sat 24 July: 2pm // Exhibition Tour led by the Curator, Rachel Nee RWA. 35-40 mins, free with exhibition admission fee.
Thu 29 July: 10am–1pm or 2–5pm // Drawing Tales: two practical drawing workshops using innovative drawing, collage and print techniques, with artists from the Draw Group. Limited to 20 places, £10 per person, including materials and exhibition entrance, suitable for adults, and children over 14 yrs. Booking essential.
Fri 30 July: 10am–4pm // Grand Day Out: Drawing Tour of Bristol on an open-top bus. Join academicians and other artists for this entertaining day out, taking in Bristol’s grand vistas from the top deck. Sketching stops en route and shared picnic on the Downs. All experience levels welcome. Places limited to 30, £20, tickets essential. Generously sponsored by steppestravel.
Sat 31 July: 2pm // Exhibition Tour led by Ros Cuthbert RWA. 35-40 mins, free with exhibition admission fee.
Sponsors: Near and Far & Grand Day Out
Near and Far & David Hockney’s Etchings
Near and Far
Sat 7 Aug: 10am–1pm // Lecture: The Art of Travel by Jan D.Cox MA. A journey of artistic discovery interspersed with tales of travel, from Vesuvius to Van Gogh’s Provence, from Rousseau’s jungles to Gauguin’s Tahiti, from Wallis in Newfoundland to Hopper in New England. 40 places, £10 including coffee, Fedden Gallery. Booking essential.
Sat 14 Aug: 2pm // Exhibition Tour led by Peter Ford RWA. 35-40 mins, free with exhibition admission fee.
Sat 21 Aug: 2pm // Exhibition Tour led by Trevor Haddrell RWA. 35-40 mins, free with exhibition admission fee.
Tue 24 Aug: 10am–4.30pm // Adult Printmaking Workshop with artist Amanda Lowery. A look at adult interpretations of Hockney’s illustrations of Grimms’ Fairy Tales, explore mark-making, drawing, tonal contrasts and composition using a dry point tool on Perspex, monoprinting and chine colle. Just bring sketchbook, drawing tools, rubber gloves and an overall. 20 places, £35 including materials and exhibition entrance. Booking essential.
Thu 2 Sept: 6.30pm–8pm // Travels with a Sketchbook: illustrated talk by Maxine Relton RWA. Alongside a display of her travel journals and sketchbooks, the artist offers anecdotes and insights into her experiences of travelling abroad with sketchbook in hand. 40 places, £8 including a glass of wine. All proceeds to the RWA. Booking essential.
Sat 4 Sept: 10am–1pm // Lecture – Crossing the Pond: Transatlantic Exchanges in Early 20th Century Art. Tricha Passes MA considers the work of several 20th Century artists who benefited from crossing the Atlantic Ocean in search of new vistas and experiences that were to impact on their creative practice before WWII. £10 including coffee, booking essential.
Sat 4 Sept: 2pm // Exhibition Tour led by Maxine Relton RWA. 35-40 mins, free with exhibition admission fee.
Tue 10 Aug: 10am–3pm // Children’s Printmaking Workshop with Artist Amanda Lowery: make your own print inspired by Hockney’s etchings of Grimms’ Fairy Tales. Dry point, monoprint and chine colle using water-based inks and printing press. 15 places, £15 including materials and exhibition entrance, ages 8-14 yrs. Booking essential.
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of our permanent collection of some 1,300 paintings and sculptures. l Our fund raising target of £1.6m has gone reasonably well with just under £1m being raised to date. We now need to focus on securing the balance and to improve our revenue generation for the day to day running costs of the gallery. l Change is essential for all ongoing long term businesses; it is never easy but the Board are responding to the many challenges and difficulties we face. We are grateful for all the support we receive from many organisations and individuals including our Academicians, Benefactors, Friends, staff and volunteers. l The Board look forward to supporting our new magazine ART under the editorship of Richard Storey, his team and Board supporters and I thank them all for their considerable help and assistance. I wish the new magazine all the success it rightly deserves and look forward to it developing and becoming the major visual arts magazine for our region. Dr Norman Biddle FRICS, MAACE (USA), Hon RWA Chairman of the Board of Trustees
The publication of the first issue of ART magazine which replaces the Friend’s magazine coincides with significant activities and changes at the RWA.
Chairman’s notes
l The RWA President for the past 10 years, Derek Balmer Hon D.Art, Hon RA, PPRWA has retired after giving outstanding service to the Academy for some 17 years and guiding it through its changes and the adoption of a modern form of charitable Governance with a new Board of trustees. The Academy owes much to Derek and on a personal note I thank him for his support and guidance to me as Chairman of the Board. l Our new President Simon Quadrat PRWA, unanimously elected by Council, has also been of great support to the Board over its first year; we look forward to working with Simon in developing the future strategy of the RWA. l The Board warmly welcome our new Executive Director, Trystan Hawkins, who joins us at the end of July. We look forward to working closely with Trystan who, with Simon Quadrat, will lead significant changes designed to transform the Academy. l We are currently awaiting the outcome of our Heritage Lottery Fund grant for the climate control of one of the galleries and the new storage racking for the display and protection
Open Painting exhibition // Jenny Weston meets some visitors
I think a lot of the paintings are very good. They are all very similar, mostly abstracts, which I like. I think my favourite painting was Cherry Blossom, the Tokyo railway.
I definitely enjoyed the show very much. I think the paintings are all about expressing emotions. Which do I prefer? My Motherin-law has a painting here, so naturally I think that’s the best one.
Joe Sorapure, 9
Kaew Kelsey, chef, 39
I really enjoyed looking around. There’s lots of variety. I came with my Dad and we always have different opinions. We both like the abstracts and there are a few that have definitely jumped out at me. Ellie Steers, university student, 18
I think it’s a very delicious exhibition. There are a lot of varied pieces which will interest almost everybody. I know my son, who’s 8, will love it. Plenty to look at, lots of quality and skill. Kit Edwardes, portrait painter, 58
I really liked all the paintings and the colours. I specially liked the painting of the dog and the bird, called Mutt, by Simon Garden. I think it’s a really interesting exhibition and I can’t wait to come back and see it again. Edith Morris, 12
Most enjoyable. But there does seem to be an overall colour palette; some pictures are very sombre. But also, there are brighter, younger painters that have been selected this year, which is a good thing. Sylvia Jordan, retired, 69
This exhibition is fantastic, amazing. Such a range of styles and all of a very high quality. I specially liked Black Sun – very striking, lots of pinks and blues. It’s my first visit here and I’m blown away. The RWA is a hidden gem. Peter Davison, PR consultant, 38
I usually go for portraits as I paint too – caricatures. Despite being a vegetarian, I particularly liked the Martin Bentham’s butcher’s shop; there are an awful lot of meat dishes in there, lots of cameos, too, within the picture itself. Chris Davies, Lord Mayor of Bristol, 65
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It started slightly, my acquaintance with the RWA, in 1967. University Law Finals to be sat and the galleries filled with desks and chairs. Abstruse questions on Roman law and Jurisprudence to be answered and not a single painting on the walls to help provide enlightenment. And then University was over and it was back to London, a new flat high in the air above an Angus Steak House and a seat in Chambers in the Temple. My old clerk gave me two pieces of advice – don’t get friendly with the clients and never consort with journalists ie don’t go into the Wig and Pen. The life of a criminal barrister can be put simply. According to what is on front of the brief, you are either trying to persuade a jury to convict the scoundrel before them or pleading with them to let the poor wretch off. And in case you wonder, no it doesn’t matter whether you think he is guilty or not. Then there was art. I had always drawn and by the age of 16 knew all the London museums and galleries well. When my wife and I moved house I turned a room into a studio and thus began my struggle with oil paint that has lasted to this day. My teachers were the artists in the National Gallery, the dead ones on the wall. Twenty years on and back living in Bristol, I was still at the Bar and soon to become Head of Chambers, but painting was taking over by degrees. I had resumed my acquaintance with the RWA by becoming a Friend, as I still am, where eventually the talent I possessed was recognised – as a barman and mixer of cocktails I mean. But my paintings were getting into the Annual Exhibition, and one work chosen was even given a prize. The bemused gentleman from the Institute of Directors who handed the cheque over to me had, I believe, a different opinion of the work.
Thus it was that I gave up the Bar to paint full time. Galleries started to call and I found myself working towards exhibitions. Encouragement followed from John Huggins RWA and I was elected an Academician in 2004. Within a year I was on the Council and the Exhibitions Committee and two years after that I was elected to be the Academicians’ Chairman, and found I was now chairing the selection panels for exhibitions and new members. When the Board came into being in March 2009 I became a nominated trustee. And so I eventually come to the point, my election by the Council in March this year as President of the Academy. If like me you are interested in numbers I am the 18th president in the 166 year history of the Academy, the 9th artist president to take office since Lord Methuen in 1939. I am honoured to follow in the steps of many fine artists and presidents before me, among them my predecessor Derek Balmer. Since that day I mentioned in 1967 the RWA has changed beyond recognition. We have, as we have always had, our own resources, our willing staff, our Academicians, our body of Friends and now our Board of Trustees. Now we are casting the net, as we need to, much wider for support. Significant changes are already in place and more are planned, all designed to bring in a busier schedule and wider range of exhibitions and so to encourage more people from all backgrounds into the Academy. Everyone connected will have a part to play and the contributions of Academicians, whose standing as artists and architects will be integral to our reputation, will help secure our success. With a new Director we will I believe, be well placed to secure the future of the RWA as a key Bristol landmark and as a major regional centre for the visual arts fit for the modern age.
Simon Quadrat
Introducing our new President 10 art Summer 2010
Trystan Hawkins
Royal West of England Academy appoints Director Trystan Hawkins has been chosen as the new RWA Director of the Royal West of England Academy. He will be working closely with the new Board of Trustees and Simon Quadrat to lead the future development of the Academy following the significant governance changes made to the RWA at this time last year. Trystan Hawkins takes up the role, which is a new position, at the end of July. As the chief executive of the RWA, the Director of the RWA will head up the general management and running of the RWA and will work with the RWA Trust Board as he leads a programme of change and development at the Academy. Trystan has made it clear that he is delighted to be joining the RWA at this critical point in its history. He impressed the selection panel, which included Charles Saumarez Smith, Chief Executive of the Royal Academy in London and Professor Paul Gough, Pro Vice Chancellor of the University of the West of England, with his vision, experience and insight. He is
excited by the huge potential of the RWA galleries, the art school within its building and the strength of its Academician body – as well as by the opportunities to mount interesting and challenging exhibition programmes and to enhance the visitor experience. Trystan will be leaving his present role as Head of Design, Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust, Plymouth, one of the largest NHS Trusts in England. At the Trust and as a member of the senior management team, he has led the vision for art and design within Plymouth Hospitals as part of its c£400 million strategic capital development. He has been responsible for all aspects of the artistic programme, devising programmes, curating exhibitions, managing the Trust’s collection, fundraising externally, recruiting artists and arts organisations, commissioning and marketing. Prior to his role in Plymouth, Trystan was Chief Executive and Artistic Director at the award winning Wysing Arts Centre in Cambridge. Among many other involvements which he has, or has had, in the visual arts, he is Chair of the Plymouth Visual Arts Consortium, which has been successful in securing British Art Show 7 for the City in 2011, and has been a Council member of Arts Council England. Trystan is a graduate of Holschule der Kunste, Berlin, Middlesex University and Exeter College of Art and Design.
George Ferguson is awarded the CBE George Ferguson has been awarded the CBE for services to architecture and the community in the South West. He received his award at a ceremony held at Windsor Castle. George said “I am completely bowled over, surprised and delighted. To receive an honour like this is extremely encouraging, but life doesn’t come to a stop, and I will do everything I can to continue to make improvements to the environment and people’s lives.” art
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John Sansom
Alan Kingsbury
RWA was born in London in 1960 and began painting in oils at the age of nine. After studying psychology and art history at the University of Wales, he turned to painting full time in 1986. Over the last twenty years, Alan Kingsbury has become known for his idiosyncratic figure compositions which seem to imply an underlying narrative. Occasionally motivated by surreal elements or unexpected juxtapositions, the paintings search for a kind of poetry of inner emotions, combining reminiscences within a framework that is ambiguously distant, elegiac and witty.
Sue Whale
RWA draws upon her childhood
memories. After her parents separated. Sue and her sister were allowed to see their mother for the weekends once a month. “She wasn’t always sure what to do with us and where to go. But I loved the silent dusty hours in the Horniman Museum on my own. A seven year old wandering and looking at the cases and cabinets, while my immaculately dressed mother sat outside. There are now eighteen pieces in the series ‘Case Studies – The Entomology of Love’. Preserved, contained and arranged narratives of love and loss that began in the Horniman Museum in 1965.”
New academicians Chris Dunseath
RWA was born in 1949. He studied at Yeovil School of Art, Cheltenham College of Art and The Slade School of Fine Art. He was awarded a Sculpture Fellowship at Cardiff College of Art and a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship for Sculpture. Chris later worked in Egypt. He is a Fellow of the Royal British Society of Sculptors. From 1974 to 1999 he was Associate Lecturer and Head of Sculpture, Coventry University. More recently, he has been a Visiting Lecturer at various Art Faculties including the Royal Academy Schools. He has exhibited widely, both internationally and throughout the UK. Chris lives & works in Somerset.
Mark Prescott
RWA trained at Bath
Academy of Art, 1964-1967. He was selected for his first show, the ‘National Ceramic Sculpture Exhibition’, at the Craft Potters Association, London in 1969. During the 1970s he worked at Farnham Pottery, Wrecclesham, Surrey making handmade bricks and tiles for restoration projects, skills which came in useful when he was craft advisor on community development projects in Southern Sudan and Kenya. He has regularly exhibited in the UK and Europe. For the past six years he has shown in the RWA Open. He is an associate member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors.
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By Stephen Morris
NEW GALLERY Summer programme 2010
Paintings of the life, city and landscapes of Bristol
Join us on the first RWA drawing day – a Grand Tour of Bristol on an open-top bus.
Guildhall Chambers, Bristol’s leading set of barristers, have recently completed a major refurbishment of their premises at 5–8 Broad Street. As part of their commitment to the local community they have dedicated the wall-space in the entrance foyer as a gallery for up-and-coming local artists. Every three months, they will display the work of a single local artist. Although the space is not open to the public, the art will be on display to all of Guildhall Chambers’ many clients. Guildhall Chambers would like to invite artists to submit their work for consideration. To find out more, please contact Louisa Hope: e: Louisa.hope@guildhallchambers.co.uk t: 0117 930 9000
Works in response to, and inspired by, recent visits to the English Coast and landscape.
2 – 27 July Roger Conlon
Grand Day Out: Friday 30 July
Part of the Near and Far exhibition, and generously sponsored by steppestravel, our day out offers a wonderful opportunity to stop and look at this amazing city afresh. Starting from the RWA, we will take in the major sights of Bristol including Suspension Bridge, Docks and Harbour with plenty of sketching stops along the way. We’ll enjoy a picnic lunch on the Downs (or back at RWA, if inclement), so please bring some food to share. Places are limited to a maximum of 30 to ensure there will be plenty of space available to spread out, take equipment and retreat downstairs if necessary. Whatever your level of experience, join Academicians and other artists for this entertaining day out. The tour costs only £20 from 10.00am – 4.00pm. For more information, or to book a place, please telephone RWA on 0117 973 5129.
4 June – 29 June Stephen Jacobson RWA and Frank Tinsley
30 July – 24 August Martin Bentham RWA
Thirty-four years ago John Sansom published his first book as Redcliffe Press, the hugely successful Children’s Bristol. Some years later, John and wife Angela launched Sansom & Co, an imprint now synonymous with beautiful books about twentieth-century British art and in particular artists John describes as ‘neglected’. Now Sansom & Co has a list of around 100 art books, including two about the RWA: Public View and Pictures in an Academy. There are few pre-modernist artists in the Sansom imprint. Last year’s catalogue of Joshua Reynolds’ ‘Acquisition of Genius’ exhibition, for Sam Smiles at Plymouth University, was a rare departure: exhibitions generate sales that can make or break a Sansom book. And always the book must look good and read well. Sansom & Co attracts writers of the calibre of Nick Usherwood and John Russell-Taylor and production values are impeccable – ‘every bit as good as (and better than most) major university presses,’ says Professor Smiles. Reproduction costs are a headache. ‘I understand the pressure on galleries to maximise income,’ says John, ‘but some books do well to break even.’ Public View and Pictures in an Academy sell steadily but not especially well. ‘After all these years I can still be naïve,’ says John. ‘I couldn’t belong to an organisation like the RWA and not buy the book, but most Friends of the RWA have done just that – not bought them.’
Recent works including figurative paintings by one of the Academy’s newest, most popular and supremely gifted members. Well known for his use of texture and strong, rich natural colour, Martin’s paintings celebrate the basic realities of working people centred around his home at Blagdon.
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1 Frank Tinsley // 2 Roger Conlon // 3 Anne Adamson // 4 Stephen Jacobson RWA // 5 Martin Bentham RWA
27 August – 28 September Anne Adamson Enigmatic scenes exploring memory and imagination.
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Calling all artists The RWA launched an online system for submitting artworks back in March for Open Painting. The new process is a great improvement in the streamlining of open exhibitions. All details for artworks can now be entered and paid for online. You can print your own labels at home which means on Hand-in Day the bar-coded label is scanned making the whole process much faster and easier for everyone. Very soon you will be able to submit to the Autumn Exhibition so please keep an eye on our website for more details in the summer – www.rwa.org.uk. art
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Claire Young
Academicians’ news 14 art Summer 2010
We have a lot to look forward to as the Academicians have many exhibitions and shows planned in the forthcoming months. Bridget McCrum will be showing at the Coombe Gallery in Dartmouth from 28 May until 21 June with Sarah Gillespie and Francis Gynn (www. coombegallery.com). She will also show work in the Onform Sculpture exhibition at Asthal Manor, Burford from 12 June until 11 July (http://onformsculpture. co.uk) as well as in an exhibition at Messum’s, Lords Wood, Marlow from 25 July for the weekend and then by appointment on t: 01628 486565 www.messums.com John Eaves and Kathryn Williams have recently completed a trio of paintings/ collages for the new Conran designed hotel at Sagres, South Portugal. Collaborations are not easy, but working in collage enabled John and Kathy to explore alternative moves. They reached their painterly solutions through trial and error, finally settling for the colour of the plastic waste on the beach, the fiery sienna/orange rocks nearby and the blue church tiles at Vila do Bispo. Charlotte Ardizzone will be exhibiting at a mixed show at Messums, London from 26 May until 20 June and in the New English Art Club annual exhibition at the Mall Galleries from 25 November until 5 December. She will
also be teaching a painting course in the Lot region of France from 4 – 11 September. Anyone interested can find out more information at info@ studiopreniac.com. Kurt Jackson has a solo exhibition, ‘River’, at Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery from 27 March – 10 July. In aid of Greenpeace he is having a solo charity Glastonbury Festival exhibition showing at the Bargehouse in London from 1 – 7 June. A book launch is planned at the Tate Gallery in St Ives on 3 July to launch his book ‘Kurt Jackson: A new Genre of Landscape Painting’, published by Lund Humphries. In addition, he has a book launch and solo exhibition at the Osborne Samuel Gallery, Bruton Street, London from 7 – 24 July. Margaret Lovell had an exhibition of her sculpture at Easter at the Porthminster Gallery, St Ives and will be showing there until the end of the summer. There will be a series of small sculptures made during a recent stay in New Zealand. Margaret is also exhibiting some new works using polished bronze and carved slate. Alongside her works in St Ives there will also be sculptures by her colleague, the late Deirdre Hubbard, who was also a Fellow of the Royal British Society of Sculptors. www. porthminstergallery. co.uk Margaret has been invited to show at an exhibition entitled ‘The Heart, Head and Hands – Sculpture in the Garden 2010’ at the Botanic Garden, University of Leicester, from 27 June – 19
September. There will be two of her large bronze heads and a large slate carving on display. She will also be exhibiting in Yorkshire during the summer at The Himalayan Garden and Sculpture Park near Ripon, which opens 24 April to 13 June. Michael Porter is exhibiting recent works on paper from the Seashore series at Wills Lane Gallery, St Ives. In the summer he will be participating in a group exhibition at Purdy Hicks Gallery, London and also in another at Stoneman Gallery, Penzance. In July he will also be showing several large paintings in the Near and Far exhibition at the RWA. Anita Mandl, Diana Armfield, Tom Coates and Ken Howard showed work in a special 25th Anniversary Exhibition which ran from 24 April to l5 May 2010 at The Wykeham Gallery, High Street, Stockbridge, Hants. Anthony Whishaw RA at 80, is transforming his studio for an exhibition and the paintings have been chosen to celebrate 30 years with ACME. His solo exhibitions include one at the Acme Studios, 44 Bonner Road, London E2 9JS from 10 – 27 June 2010 (Closed Mondays). He also has an exhibition entitled ‘Drawing (Landscape)’, 1983, to celebrate his 80th birthday at the Tate Britain, London SE1 9TG from 10 – 27 June 2010. Another solo exhibition entitled ‘Large Paintings’ will be at the Kings Place Gallery, Gallery Level, 90 York Way, London N1 9AG from 20 August – 1 October 2010 as well as one to be held
at The Fine Art Society, London W1S 2JT from September 2010. As well as showing in the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy, London W1J 0BD from 14 June – 22 August 2010, Anthony is also showing at the Richmond Hill Gallery, London TW10 6QX, in their exhibition called ‘The RA’s come to Richmond’ from 17 June – 13 September 2010. He will show his work in ‘30 Years of Eigse Art’ at the Visual Centre for Contemporary Art, Carlow, Ireland from 11 June – 31 August. Ann Christopher’s work will feature in the ‘Sculpture Promenade 2010’ at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge running from 23 March 2010 – 28 January 2011: www.fitzmuseum. cam.ac.uk. She will also be showing in the group exhibition at Racconigi Castle near Turin, Italy which will include Ann’s sculpture ‘The Edge of Light’. This exhibition will be entitled ‘Scultura Internazionale a Racconigi 2010’ and will run from 6 June – 10 October 2010. Stewart Geddes participated in two shows in mid-April. He took part in a 3 person show that opened on Wednesday 21 April at Howard Gardens Gallery at Cardiff School of Art and Design, Cardiff CF24 0SP and in a 4 person show called ‘Scratching the Surface’ opened on Thursday 22 April at the gallery BayArt, 54B/C Bute Street, Cardiff Bay CF10 5AF. Peter Ford is a finalist in the 14th International Biennial Print Exhibition to be held this summer in the National Museum of Fine Art in Taipei,
Taiwan. Peter will also be a participant in an international congress on paper and paper art to be held in Wonju, South Korea from 8 – 14 September 2010 and during that month a woodcut by Peter will be included in an exhibition of international prize winning prints to be presented in the Grafik Hus Gallery in Mariafrei, near Stockholm. This exhibition runs from 5 September – 20 November and there will be an illustrated catalogue. Maxine Relton has taken on the newly created role of Academicians’ Liaison to provide a communication link between Members and the Board, as well as between Members themselves. Contact her on 01453 832597 or email: maxine. relton@tiscali.co.uk. Linked to the Members’ show ‘Near and Far’, Maxine will be giving an illustrated talk entitled Travels with a Sketchbook at the RWA on 2 September, 6.30-8pm. Booking essential, call 0117 973 5129 £8, concessions £5 including a glass of wine, all proceeds to the RWA. Alongside a display of her travel journals, Maxine’s visual presentation will compare her artist impressions with some original locations in Europe, Asia and the Far East. This will include her experience as a guest artist of SCAD (Social Change and Development), a remarkable Tamil NGO in South India that was founded 25 years ago and now working with some 500,000 villagers, transforming lives through educational,
health and agricultural initiatives. That encounter inspired Maxine to set up Sketchbook Journey to India in support of SCAD’s important work; this twice-yearly guided trip through South India offers artists, beginners and nonsketchers alike a taste of the real India. Maxine will also show some of the painting equipment she has developed on other trips in extreme weather conditions, travelling light in remote regions. In addition, Maxine’s Studio Gallery will be showing her new paintings, prints and drawings between 27 June and 11 July 2010, 11am–5pm daily at 4 The Street, Horsley, Stroud, Glos GL6 0PU, 20 mins north of Junction 18 on the M4 close to Bristol. It is open to visitors by arrangement throughout the year. Maxine is also running a 3-day summer course on Inspirational Sketchbooks, 5 – 8 August 2010 at Hawkwood College, Stroud, just north of Bristol. Email info@ hawkwoodcollege.co.uk for full details. Paul Emsley won the BP Portrait Award, the National Portrait Gallery’s annual painting competition and exhibition in 2007. A painted portrait of Nobel Prize winning writer V.S. Naipaul was commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery and unveiled there on 10 February 2010. It was on the strength of Paul’s portrait of fellow artist Michael Simpson that the Gallery was able to persuade the Nobel Prize-winning writer to have his portrait painted for the
Collection. Late in 2008, the artist visited the writer’s Wiltshire home. Naipaul wished to be depicted in his garden, and Emsley photographed him sitting on his folding stool. The attention to the pose of the subject is complemented by the artist’s atmospheric treatment of the garden, which appears to disappear into the wintry darkness, an effect achieved through the application of layers of translucent glazes and the use of just two colours. ‘Sir V.S. Naipaul by Paul Emsley’ is on display at the National Portrait Gallery’s Contemporary Collections in the Lerner Galleries (Room 41), Admission free, National Portrait Gallery, St Martin’s Place, London WC2H 0HE opening hours: Saturday-Wednesday: 10am – 6pm (Gallery closure commences at 5.50pm) Late opening: Thursday, Friday: 10am – 9pm (Gallery closure commences at 8.50pm) Recorded information: 020 7312 2463, General information: 020 7306 0055 www.npg.org.uk Lucy Willis’s London exhibition ‘Venice and Beyond’ ended 22 May. In case you missed it, you can see all 58 pictures in the exhibition and buy online by going to this link www. curwengallery.com/ gallery/willis10/title. htm
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1 John Eaves & Kathryn Williams // 2 Ann Christopher // 3 & 4 Maxine Relton // 5 Paul Emsley & V.S. Naipaul
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1 Boucher: The Back Story No.3 (detail) oil on canvas 207 x 173cm
British contemporary painter, Stephen Farthing RA is currently the Rootstein Hopkins Chair of Drawing for University of the Arts, London. A major exhibition of his work, ‘The Fourth Wall’ runs at the RWA from 23 May – 4 June 2010. Independent Curator Katharine Cockshaw met Stephen in his UAL studio, Pimlico, in March 2010 for this exclusive interview.
2 Fiado (detail) acrylic on canvas 207 x 173cm 3 Mary Queen of Scots 1995 (detail) oil on canvas 173 x 206cm
KC: Stephen, one of the things I want to ask you is, why paint? Looking at your work, I pick up on the use of multiple planes and an interest in Cubism… Is there a role for new media in your work? SF: Well if I’d been born 20 years later I might have been quite excited about being a film-maker. I don’t think there’s much I can’t cover with painting rather than new media. Obviously the narrative side of film-making is very different to the narrative side of painting; it’s a different discipline. Because I’ve learned to see the world in a certain way and learned to output my relationship with the world in a certain way, to me it doesn’t seem very important to change it. But you can’t not be informed by new media, it changes the way we all see things. The Internet is crucial in the way we perceive the world now. KC: Especially in terms of ‘layers’, which applies to the production of your work… 1
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SF: Yes, in fact I think the way new technology has allowed us to see the world is in keeping with the way I’ve always painted. I think new technology perceptually has caught up with Cubism, Simultaneity and a lot of the excitement of explaining how the world looked in the early 1900s. Picasso, Braque, Léger, Man Ray, they got there first. They were way ahead of their time because they were looking at philosophy, physics, science; they weren’t looking at technology. I feel fortunate that I was attracted to Modernism. I think Modernism has left the door open for engaging with the kind of intellectual and physical directions that are going on today.
Katharine Cockshaw
Stephen Farthing’s Fourth Wall
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KC: I came across some writing you did called ‘The Raw and the Cooked’ about the physical presence of documents and artists’ sketches in archives, which resonated with me as an historian. Do you still use archives? SF: A lot, yes. It’s where I go to explore. I think one aspect of life in which artists are often involved is exploration. The more you know about art, the more you realise it’s less about wanting to be an artist, than having an enquiring mind. Archives are my default place to go. The more artists see their relationship with the past, the better they’re going to be at handling the future. I don’t think you get better at the future by ignoring the past. So I started with galleries then moved on to museums, but I realised the trouble with museums is that everything is slightly ‘cooked’. The curators decide that things are going to be there. I’ve spent considerable amounts of time in archives looking at stuff, that for the most part other people haven’t bothered with. That’s when it gets really exciting. KC: Like ephemera? SF: Yes, as a professor of drawing I spend a lot of time looking at drawings not just in books or hung on walls, but drawings on letters sent home by World War Two servicemen or drawings made in journals by explorers on Cook’s voyage… just looking at surprising examples of drawing. KC: Those that have a ‘raw’ quality to them? SF: Yes, if you go and look at Harry Beck’s drawing for the London underground map in the V&A – it’s on two sheets of exercise paper. Seeing that drawing changes your whole view of the London underground. You’re looking at his corrections, some spindly little red line that was the Central line, the way he whited out the Northern line and decided it should be at 90 degrees. I’m fortunate that I’ve never had to divorce myself from the idea that I can keep on learning which is why I’m so happy – because I keep on learning.
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KC: That’s good to know. SF: Yes, yes it’s not medication. I think the really good thing about being an artist is knowing how to be an artist, as opposed to a jester. That’s a different kind of artist; they still make a living, they work for courts, they end up extremely well remunerated, but it doesn’t necessarily make them happy. KC: Understood. You work on a large scale most of the time. Do you make preparatory sketches in a formal way, fill up notebooks, or do you just crash on with things? SF: Ooh, all of those things. I probably spend the greatest number of hours actually working on big paintings. I do all the things that normal people do but always somewhere in the back of my mind, I’m asking myself whether something is or isn’t a painting. I look at the world completely as raw material for a painting. KC: Can you say a bit about the show’s title, ‘The Fourth Wall’? SF: It seems rather a good way of describing what I’ve done over a long period. The fourth wall in the theatre is what you look through in order to see the play. If you think of it in a bigger conceptual way, where the audience is part of the play, the fourth wall is the back of the theatre with two doors in it, which say ‘Exit’. What I’m doing a lot of the time when I paint is to wonder what kind of ‘veil’ people are looking through at my work. That veil is the knowledge that the audience brings to the picture and what I try to slide in front of them before they see it. KC: Yes, I understand that SF: I’m not a great lover of the idea of letting the audience make what they like of your picture. You want people to really get where you’re going with your arguments. Not all of the paintings in this exhibition will have a fourth wall. There’s one massive painting of the Atlantic Ocean, which doesn’t have one... If it does, it’s very, very subtle – the brushstrokes
themselves, which stand between you and the illusion of the ocean. I’m messing with my audience, I’m not massaging them. That’s what Matisse does. Matisse is a masseur… I just mess with them. KC: I pick up strong influences from Matisse, the Cubists, Picasso, Braque in your work. Is there a particular Modernist artist who has influenced you more than another? SF: I studied at St Martin’s School of Art when American Abstraction was very fashionable… but I never really got it. It’s interesting, in hindsight, I adore Abstract Expressionism. I get it now, because I’ve painted a lot of pictures and I can see why someone would get to there. I absolutely adore Jackson Pollock’s late paintings, they’re just beyond belief good. I don’t really have paintings that I like more than those. So I went through four years at St Martin’s being taught about the kind of painting I didn’t really want to do. Then I went to the Royal College where I was taught by John Golding, who wrote on Cubism; Peter de Francia, who wrote on Léger and Le Corbusier; and Howard Hodgkin taught me for a short time. They were all people involved in Modernism. Not only did I understand what they were talking about, but I believed in it and actually, aesthetically I liked the look of it. In 1974 I painted a picture of Louis XV and now I can say it was Post-Modern, but at the time I’d never heard the word said. I spent some time in Paris as a student, saw these paintings, thought they were really funky and I wanted to do something with them! It wasn’t a case of “Oh my God isn’t Hyacinthe Rigaud a great court painter.” I applied the lessons I learned in Modernism to my work. And something else, which interested me, was Pop Art. Put together Pop Art and Cubism and you’ve got a kind of Post-Modernism. Actually Post-Modernism came out of Italian architectural ideas, but I got to it through a different route. KC: Can you tell me a bit about your experience at
Oxford University? Did you find it quite a ‘tight’ environment? Were you able to be as creative there? SF: I enjoyed it there. I had to completely change my lifestyle. Everything had to change. Well in my mind it did. You know, I didn’t fit. And there’s no point in doing a job in a place where you don’t fit. So you have to make yourself fit, or you don’t do it. KC: I think that’s what I got from reading about you… I thought this is a guy who’s not going to fit at Oxford, which is what provoked the question. SF: Yes and I think I was good at it because I treated it as a job. It wasn’t a case that they invited Stephen Farthing to come and be an artist in Oxford; it was that they appointed Stephen Farthing to do a job – and he did the job. It did me a lot of good. I learned to write and I’d never really written much until I had that job. KC: So what took you to New York? SF: Well, I’d done my time at Oxford. I thought I’d done everything I needed to achieve. I was 49 years old. One day I got a call from a headhunter who asked me to meet the Chairman of a not-for-profit graduate school in New York. We got on together and I ended up taking the job. After about four years I realised I didn’t want to work in art schools any more. I was getting old enough just to make stuff, you know, before anything started to go wrong. So I left and one day I was painting happily away on the end of Long Island when I got another call from a headhunter, asking if I could recommend anybody for the post I’m in now – and I said, “I’ve got a great idea…” and I got it. So now I have a place here and I’ve still got the place there. I do most of my best painting there, so here I draw. Interview took place at UAL (University of the Arts) studios, Pimlico, 8 March 2010
// Image of the issue
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It was the most richly adorned public building in Bristol. Three tiers of sculpture enlivened the façade – a proud declaration of intent. Francis Greenacre
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Painting, Architecture and Sculpture by John Thomas on the Royal West of England Academy, with Bomb by FilthyLuker during the ‘Crimes of Passion’ exhibition, 2009
The sculpture on the academy’s façade “...evid ence of a high state of civilization” When the Fine Arts Academy opened in 1858 it was the most richly adorned public building in Bristol. Three tiers of sculpture enlivened the façade – a proud declaration of intent. Two years earlier the President had looked forward to the opening of the building which would remove ‘for ever from Bristol the stigma of neglecting those Arts which are the result and evidence of a high state of civilization.’ The sculptor was John Thomas, the most prolific and successful architectural sculptor of the high Victorian period. The façade was designed by John Henry Hirst, but the building behind it, together with the interiors, was by Charles Underwood. This unusual division of responsibilities appears to have been an amiable compromise that succeeded a long and courteous ‘Battle of the Styles’ between these two Bristol architects. The minutes of the Council describe Mr Underwood’s proposals as in the ‘Classic style’ and those of Mr Hirst as in the ‘Italian style’. Charles Underwood’s crisp neo-classicism is still well represented in Clifton by Worcester Terrace, begun in 1851, and he had earlier designed the more austere Greek Doric lodges to Arno’s Vale Cemetery. Underwood would certainly have been the choice of the Academy’s President, John Scandrett Harford, himself an amateur classical scholar and the employer at Blaise of Charles Robert Cockerell, the finest of the later neo-classical architects. Hirst, on the other hand, the younger of the two architects, had deliberately visited new art galleries in Berlin, Dresden, Vienna and, most significantly, Munich, where the two end façades of Leo von Klenze’s earlier Alte Pinakothek are almost shockingly similar to Hirst’s subsequent Academy elevation. Hirst was also affected by work closer to hand. W.B.Gingell’s exuberant design for the West of England and South Wales District Bank in Corn Street (now Lloyds Bank) incorporated a profusion of sculpture. Hirst followed his example, even proposing the same sculptor, John Thomas. A decade earlier, Thomas, no doubt with the help of assistants, had carved the six figures on the front of the Guildhall in Broad Street.
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2 John Flaxman RA by John Thomas, after conservation in 2002
The style of that building was influenced by Sir Charles Barry’s Houses of Parliament, begun in 1839, and it was John Thomas, whom Barry employed to superintend the stone carving on the new parliament buildings, a massive undertaking. When in 1856 subscriptions were sought by the Academy trustees to pay specifically for the two full-length statues in the first-floor niches, it was the sculptor’s work at the Palace of Westminster that was trumpeted rather than his three earlier Bristol commissions. Besides the Guildhall and the Corn Street bank, there was also the carving of John Norton’s Victorian High Cross, the sad remnants of which are in Berkeley Square. At the Academy the top group of laurel-crowned figures represent the Arts, in the order of Painting with brush and palette, Architecture with scroll and dividers and Sculpture with a mallet. For the sake of the composition, Architecture rises above her colleagues. This central
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position, like the division of architectural responsibilities between Hirst and Underwood, possibly involved much heated discussion, for only in the early 1850s had the artists finally admitted the architects to full membership of the Academy of Fine Arts. Painting, on the left, rests her elbow casually on the head of Raphael. Sculpture, on the right, is supported by the bust of Phidias, sculptor of the Parthenon. On the Academy’s front elevation there are also the two full length figures of Reynolds and Flaxman, painter and sculptor. So giving pole position to Architecture may have been an almost condescending compromise. Half a century later, on top of Bristol Art Gallery, it was to be Painting that was in the centre, flanked by Architecture and Sculpture. Below the top group are the five lunettes containing putti and pots in very high relief, often projecting well beyond the vertical plane of the semi-circular surrounds. The rather plump children are engaged in activities connected with the so-called decorative or applied arts, determinedly illustrating the Academy’s inclusion of a ‘School of Practical Art’ in the new building. Under the chairmanship of Philip Miles, vice president of the Academy, this art school had been founded in 1853 with its curriculum based on the Government’s pioneering South Kensington model. It was to become the Bristol Municipal School of Art in 1904 and its successor, today, is the School of Creative Arts at UWE. In 1912-13 Hirst’s often windswept external staircase was replaced by today’s covered entrance hall and offices. It was an impressively harmonious marriage designed largely by Henry Dare Bryan, but it fundamentally altered the front elevation and our relationship with the sculpture. No more do we climb a grand open staircase, overlooked by the muses of painting, architecture and sculpture. We are more distant, also, from the five lunettes and we no longer pass between the statues of Flaxman and Reynolds that flanked the open loggia. Sir Joshua Reynolds, wearing an academic gown, is portrayed as if lecturing and his left hand rests on a copy of his influential Discourses. The volume stands on a broken column, on which there is a relief portrait of Michelangelo in profile. John Flaxman had been the Royal Academy’s first Professor of Sculpture. He had died in 1827 and his reputation was now in decline. His presence on the façade may owe much to the Academy’s President, John Scandrett Harford,
whose translation of Aeschylus’s Agamemnon had been illustrated by engravings after Flaxman. Harford had also written a life of Michelangelo and translated his poetry. It is as if Harford, having lost the first battle of the styles to Hirst’s Italianate design, rather than Underwood’s purer neo-classicism, which he would have much preferred, was now re-exerting his influence. Flaxman wears a working smock and stands beside a pedestal on which there is a model of one of his own marble groups – St. Michael overcoming Satan. This was made for Lord Egremont and it remains on display at Petworth, Sussex. The portrait relief on the side of the pedestal probably represents the sculptor of the Parthenon, Phidias. The technique of all the statuary is of considerable historical importance. Conservation work undertaken in 2002 revealed that it was cast, not carved, as all the sculpture on the façade had been presumed to be. The figures were hollow cast in sections in a terracotta or artificial stone compound and were finished with a shelter coating that gave a smooth stone-like appearance. Thomas’s name is boldly incised on the statue of Reynolds but not on the statue of Flaxman. We cannot be sure of how closely he was involved in the preparation of these works. He was running the most productive workshop in Britain, employing many assistants and there were probably occasions when the finished works were carved by assistants from models made only under his supervision. In this instance, the quality of the two freestanding statues and the relative novelty of the technique employed, make it very much more likely that Thomas gave this project his particular attention.
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No more do we climb a grand open staircase, overlooked by the muses of painting, architecture and sculpture.
// Academician profile
It’s an artist’s life: the Plasticine and Bronze Ages of John Huggins RWA John Huggins has been a sculptor throughout his working life. He continues to produce bronzes from his studio in the Gloucestershire village of Woodford where he lives with his wife, Nicola. He has held senior posts at the Royal West of England Academy, including that of Vice-President and since 2001, the crucially influential one of Academicians’ Chairman. He was rewarded for his achievements in March when he was elected an Honorary Vice-President for Life. As he told Roger Silver, he could be said to have begun his career at the age of seven…
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That was when my parents gave me some Plasticine – yellow, blue, green, red, I seem to remember. I loved moulding it into figures of soldiers and animals to go with my toy trains and cars. This love for modelling and making things never went away. When I was at King’s School, Bruton, one of my teachers was a German refugee who was a very accomplished woodcarver in the north European tradition. He couldn’t speak a word of English, but he taught me a lot about woodcarving. The art master was Bruce Killeen who later became an Academician. He encouraged me to think seriously about art school. My father, an architect and a talented Sunday painter, said, “It’s the only thing you seem to be any good at.” I’d thought of being a soldier or a nature warden, but art school seemed more logical. I was accepted by the West of England College of Art and began a four-year course in 1956. It was disciplined work, full five days a week, but for me it was paradise. There was a small canteen where guys from the university would come over with their musical instruments at lunch-time and we had informal skiffle, jazz and blues concerts. I bought a guitar and taught myself in very short time so that I could take part. It was fantastic for a young man who wanted freedom, the chance to do sculpture and painting, play music, and whatever. All kinds of colourful people came to talk to us – people like David Hockney
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and the American Pop artist, Larry Rivers. In my last year, our tutors took us to meet the sculptor, Lynn Chadwick, at his Victorian mansion at Lypiatt, Gloucestershire. Chadwick was famous for his bronzes and flamboyant lifestyle. We sat down for lunch at an enormous carved marble table in a huge room, strewn with black and white cowhide rugs. There seemed to be a lot of beautiful women around, and we thought it was pretty cool that somebody could become famous doing just what he wanted to do, making images he wanted to make. I was 21 and very impressed. This was how I wanted to live. Not only would I meet interesting, exciting people, but the cars, the women, the mansions, the galleries, the gallery owners, the travel, no restrictions… what more could I ask for? I gained a second-class honours – one of only three sculpture graduates nationwide to receive the award that year. Soon afterwards, my first wife, Dawn, another sculpture student, and I set up a studio in a basement flat in Canynge Road, Clifton. The flat was owned by a judge, the father of Hilary Spurling, the author and biographer of Matisse. It was damp but inexpensive and we had plenty of room to model and carve there. We were there six or seven years. A mixture of letter-cutting, stone-carving and teaching kept our heads above water, and I had a succession of shows in Bristol and Bath. It was while we were there that I started to cast in bronze, partly thanks to a rather primitive
foundry established in the rear garden of the RWA. Bronze is the ultimate sculptor’s material. It will cast fantastic detail. It will cast a fingerprint, and can be worked beautifully to an egg-like finish. I like the spontaneity of making the clay maquette quite quickly, but the rest of the process is fairly slow – finishing the clay, making a mould, taking the wax to the foundry, deciding what colour the patina is to be, whether it is to be a polished surface, what size the base is to be, and so on. Even the smallest sculpture will take weeks. It was while at Canynge Road that I was given my first London show – at the Alwin Gallery, Brook Street. The gallery had work by big-hitting names like Chadwick, Reg Butler, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore and Michael Ayrton and a stable of sculptors of lesser reputations who were its bread-and-butter. It was owned by Denys Alwin-Davis. He’d come to Bristol to see Deborah Jones, who ran the Arts Centre in Kings Square, and asked her if there were any other artists he should see while he was in the city. So one Sunday afternoon he knocked on our door, had a cup of tea, said he liked what I was doing and offered me a show. Later, after two or three one-off shows, I joined his stable. He was a rather dictatorial taskmaster but an inspiring one. He was also very possessive. I once sent work to the Royal Academy for the Summer Exhibition.
He rang up and said, “I see you’re putting work in the Royal Academy.” I said, “Yes, that’s right”. “Fine,” he said, “ but I shan’t be offering any of your work for six months. You’re not exclusive to me any more. I suggest you take them away from the Royal Academy straightaway”. And I did. I couldn’t afford the risk of losing my only outlet and grinding to a halt. I felt, rightly or wrongly, that I could end up not only without a studio, but without a home. Alwin-Davis maintained a firm, prescriptive grip on my prolific output of figurative and abstract work from a succession of studios but we eventually parted company in 1989. The long period with him had been challenging and highly creative, but I vowed never to be captive to one dealer again. I would show where I wanted, when I wanted, how I wanted. And that is how it has been ever since. I’m often asked how I get my ideas, and am likely to answer, serendipity (defined in the dictionary as ‘a talent for making happy and unexpected discoveries by accident’). For example: one day in 1970, I was driving along a country road with my niece, when she cried out, “Stop, stop, Uncle John, there’s a poor bird in the road.” It turned out to be a kestrel. It was alive but had concussion. I took it home, fed it from my hand and it recovered and became quite tame and compliant.
I read a book on falconry and realised that what I had done was to train the bird. I became very interested in flight and falconry. The movement and articulation of the wings and the feathers in flight, and their precision, appealed to me and that led to my bird series, the most extended sequence of all my work. On another occasion, I was watching a film on underwater archaeology. It showed, not very distinctly, a small Neolithic piece made about six-and-a-half thousand years ago. It has become known as the Maltese Goddess. Without any idea of its size, I copied it. Later, I saw the real thing in the Museum of Archaeology in Valetta in Malta. The version I had made was to within two millimetres of the original size. I thought: six-andhalf-thousand years ago somebody was sitting under an olive tree in Malta, modelling the figure out of clay exactly as I have done, to two millimetres. I felt that was about as near to spirituality as I have come across in my career. I thought, wouldn’t it be nice if in six-and-a-half thousand years from now somebody dug up one of my pieces and said ‘Now, that’s really neat’. Ideas are also triggered by my interests – fast cars, surfboarding and jazz, for example, as well as falconry – and by
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1 Cabeca 2 Bather 3 High Kick 2005 4 Reclining Goddess & Sleeping Goddess
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The essence of all my sculpture is the language of form and space, presented as an imagined view, not a copy of reality or nature.
Where to see sculpture outdoors Sculpture al fresco demands to be touched – bronze, stone, wood, steel are interactive in a way that interior sculpture cannot be. Barbara Hepworth Museum St. Ives, Cornwall Sculptures in bronze, stone and wood www.tate.org.uk/ stives/hepworth New Art Centre Nr. Salisbury, Wiltshire Richard Long RWA, Anthony Caro, Helen Chadwick and Anthony Gormley. All works are for sale. www.sculpture.uk.com Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield 500 acres of 18th C parkland display Goldsworthy, Gormley, Paolozzi, many others including Land Art www.ysp.co.uk Chatsworth House Derbyshire Barry Flanagan, Allen Jones, Elisabeth Frink, Damien Hirst. www.chatsworth.org
Morning Head
the snapshots, doodles, postcards and other ephemera festooning the walls of my office, a place of inspiration as well as administration. The essence of all my sculpture is the language of form and space, presented as an imagined view, not a copy of reality or nature. The work is more likely to be rooted in variants than in original ideas. It’s rather like the composer who, say, writes ten songs for his next album; he has a theme, but each song is a variation on the theme. And when he has completed the album, he doesn’t just stop there; he has a compulsion to go on composing and producing. It’s much the same for the sculptor. When I was elected Academicians Chairman I wasn’t keen at first. You have to put on five exhibitions a year for three
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years and be in charge of every one. It’s the biggest job of the lot – hands-on hard work, contacting artists, visiting them, hanging every exhibition. I reluctantly agreed. The job was time-consuming, but I met new artists and some favourites from years gone by, including people I was a student with. I got a lot of new ideas, and I think the experience has enhanced my work. There was an important, if less tangible, reward – recognition from fellow artists. What most artists aspire to is recognition, not necessarily from the critics (nice as that is) but from their peers. There is even more pleasure in somebody acquiring and taking away a piece of one’s work and putting it in their home. That’s probably the best accolade of all.
Another Place Figures Cosby Beach, Liverpool Antony Gormley’s 100 cast-iron, life-size figures www.visitsouthport.com (follow links) Sausmarez Manor and Art Park, Guernsey Peter Thursby PPRWA, John Huggins RWA and Emanuela Camacci. www.artparks.co.uk Andy Goldsworthy Trail Cote d’Azur, France A 150km walking trail in the Haute Provence. www.refugesart.fr/Refuges_ acces.pdf Beddington Fine Art Bargemon, Var, France 7 hectares, 60 contemporary sculptures and installations. By appointment only. www.beddingtonfineart.com
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
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// Gallery review
View Art Gallery, Bristol
We asked Nick Waugh, Director of View, to talk us through his vision for reinvigorating Bristol’s contemporary art scene. My childhood was spent in a bohemian family of artists; my father a painter, my mother a sculptor. Our home would host parties and creative events full of artists and musicians. After-school activities would involve sketching, arc welding, or accompanying guitars with my drums. A few years ago, now an independent management consultant, I was driving through Hotwells and saw a massage parlour for sale by auction. For the rest of my journey I started to develop a vision. I saw myself at the opening evening of a contemporary art gallery, sharing a glass of wine with my father, showing his paintings in my first exhibition – a proud father son moment. I was curious to see the inside of this seedy establishment and afterwards popped into the fireplace shop next door for a chat about their old neighbours. We soon agreed a price for his shop. I then made an offer for the massage parlour and found myself with two run down properties in an area that was in the very early stages of redevelopment. My design for the building became more complicated and took longer than expected. Internal walls were removed to create a shell full of space and light. A flat roof was replaced with 3 rows of large skylights to create a soft, north facing, natural light. The frontage was replaced by floor to ceiling windows and the basement opened up to create a double height wall. The architectural vision was to create a flexible space for innovative exhibitions, accommodating many different art styles and media. A video/installation room was built in the basement and an extensive light and sound system installed throughout the gallery’s five zones. The floor was left very rustic while the walls were smooth and painted white to complement the grey metal structures. Two years after my initial vision I had my open evening.
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y t r Pa e l p o Pe 1
The origins of the name ‘View’ appears obvious – it reflects the visual aspect of a gallery. However, the primary intention of the meaning is of opinion, the belief that everyone has a valid view on art that is neither right nor wrong. We welcome ideas, challenge, and the sharing of people’s response to our art and space. We aim to create a community of art lovers who engage with the gallery in whatever way they prefer. To achieve this personalised accessibility we create a choice of engagement. People who sign up to our mailing database are invited to private views and other events, always in a relaxed and informal environment. Our website has text, photos and videos of artists, artwork, and events. We share opinions on our blogs and welcome others to respond. Most importantly, when people visit the gallery we are as happy to have an in depth discussion as we are to let people walk around undisturbed. There is a mass of talent in the area and we are keen to promote local artists; most of our exhibitions have been sourced from the South West. We select a mix of art, from the familiar to conceptual, original work that is high on impact, that stimulates an emotional response, and that will be talked about outside of the gallery. When people buy our art, I hope they leave with a story that is special to them, whether it is from the artist, nostalgia, or their own imagination.
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1 Mike Harvey, Josie Reed and Lord King: Chapel Row Gallery
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2 Zanne Andrea, Gordon Bon, Diana Smith: Centrespace, Boxfresh exhibition 3 Andrew Giaquinto and Peter Bullen: Comfortably Strange private view View Gallery
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4 Sarah Holmes, Nick Waugh, Ann Goodfellow: View Gallery, Life in Stillness opening 5 Fiona Davies, Jack Douglas, Tanya Wildgoose, Derek Balmer and Lynda Bryant: Dee Smart’s farewell party
View Art Gallery is open: 11–6 Wed–Sat, 12–4 Sun, or by appointment. e: nick@viewartgallery.co.uk or sarah@viewartgallery.co.uk t: 05603 116 753 159-161 Hotwell Road, Bristol BS8 4RY
6 The Coleman family: RWA Open Portrait private view 7 Darren and Nicky Edwards, Christine Mann, Gemma Hurdle: New Gallery, May exhibition 8 Dee Smart 9 Jules Pritchard, Carole Innocent, Sir Peter Blake: Innocent Fine Art 8
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Photograph by David McCabe
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When Sarah met Andy Gary Legon
My wife, Sarah Dalton was a shy and frightfully British schoolgirl when she sailed with her mother from Southampton to New York City. Standing on the bow of the ship, they saw the same astonishing view of Manhattan that countless emigrants had for centuries – a city of tall buildings seemingly rising out of the sea, touching the sky; a city both daunting and exciting. Once there and with plenty of free time, 13 year old Sarah and her older brother David prowled the art galleries. One favourite haunt was the Leo Castelli gallery which represented Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg; gallery manager Ivan Karp decided to take the two British kids under his wing and show them his New York. On their first outing they visited the lower east side and ended the day at a party at the apartment of Art Kane, a well known art director. Also present that evening was a pale young man, introduced to David and Sarah as Andy Warhol, who made his living as a commercial artist producing fanciful handbag, shoe and glove drawings. Warhol was cripplingly shy, and possibly because of this immediately took to the two wide-eyed children. Towards the end of the evening he hesitantly invited them to see his paintings. In the Brownstone house painted blue, where Andy lived with his Czech mother and a cat, David and Sarah saw for the first time Andy’s work – hand painted advertisements. They were stunned by what they saw. “Do you like them?” Andy nervously asked. “Oh yes, totally, they’re simply amazing.” And so began a life-long friendship. In POP, the newest book about Andy Warhol, written by Sarah’s brother with Tony Sherman, the authors credit her with changing the course of art. Sarah Dalton takes up the story: “At the time I certainly didn’t think I was helping create art history. If I did, it was totally by accident. I had taken some classes at Traphagen School of Fashion, thinking I might become a costume designer. I arrived at Andy’s one day and he was bemoaning the fact that his paintings of news photos looked messy. I asked him why he didn’t use a silk screen, as we did at school. He seemed pleased with the idea and I offered to show him the technique. Nat Finkelstein, who became a kind of house photographer, credits me in his book with showing Andy how to do silk screening but Andy must have studied silk screening at art school, although maybe not from photos. Perhaps that accidental conversation did cause a change in direction for Andy, and hence modern art. But let’s face it, much of what happened to Andy was by accident. My brother wanted to call his book Accidental
Genius, which I think would have been very appropriate. Later on, Andy, David and I would silkscreen clothes for me to wear, a dress ‘Fragile Handle With Care’ for Andy’s opening exhibition, when guests mistook me for one of his art works. After that I was enlisted by Andy to edit his first film, Sleep. It’s funny, I have ended up being a film editor when I thought I would become a costume designer. Andy had shot lots of footage of John Giorno, a New York poet, sleeping and he asked me to edit it, taking out bits where John moved too much – he wanted the movie to be without movement. I protested that I hadn’t a clue how to edit but he fished out an old moviola editing machine, showed me how it operated and so to work I went. Andy was a chameleon. Different with different people; the Andy you knew reflected who you were. Because I was an English schoolgirl, the Andy I knew was sweet and protective. Perhaps the best story to illustrate the person I knew is that many years later I returned briefly to New York to visit my mother. The day before I was to leave, she began sentimentalising about Andy and how she missed him and really wanted to visit him at his studio. By now, Andy had become an iconic celebrity and I groaned at the thought of making a call but Andy picked up the phone immediately and I told him that Mama would like to come and visit him at his studio. “That would be wonderful,” he exclaimed. “Why doesn’t she come for brunch on Sunday? Who would she enjoy meeting? Would she like Elizabeth Taylor to come along too?” I’m sure she’d like that, I laughed. And so Mama went to brunch and had a fabulous time with the typically generous and sweet Andy. And Elizabeth Taylor. The Andy I knew as a young girl and later as a fellow artist, was obsessed with the magical aspect of art: he used to say that anything an artist does becomes in itself a work of art. Picasso, drawing street directions on a paper napkin, Rauschenberg erasing a de Kooning drawing; anything the artist conceived of – was art. Andy Warhol was the man who re-invented art”. POP – the genius of Andy Warhol by Tony Scherman and David Dalton is reviewed on page 45. Andy Warhol: the Factory Years 1964 – 1967 by Nat Finkelstein, 2000 (available through Amazon).
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I asked him why he didn’t use a silk screen, as we did at school. I offered to show him the technique.
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Quilts 1700– 2010
Victoria & Albert Museum Christine Porter
This exhibition showcases the V&A’s collection of patchwork and quilted covers to bring together over 300 years of British quilting, displayed chronologically and thematically, from 18th century bed hangings and coverlets, to the creative reinvention of the quilt by contemporary artists such as Natasha Kerr. The collection of 65 quilts shown here is also impressive for the wide variety of geometric designs and beautiful fabrics, the colours of which remain remarkable, underlining the importance of textile conservation and preservation. Over the centuries, quilts have been used in a variety of ways: as rites of passage marking births, marriages, celebrations and even deaths. And there are several exquisite examples of quilts made as political statement. Commemorations of important events are also on display; for example, a large quilt 113 x 113 inches made in 1803 with a central appliqué panel showing a review of volunteer troops in Hyde Park by King George III, surrounded by intricately pieced circular designs, breathtaking in their workmanship. The early 19th century saw the introduction of commemorative printed panels, incorporated into quilts celebrating Royal events and wars such as the coverlet made in 1829 featuring inscriptions on the Peninsular War in 1813. Quilting has never been restricted to women and there are fine examples of
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19th century soldiers’ quilts made from minute pieces of woollen military uniforms; quilting was used as therapy for soldiers serving in India, or confined to hospital where they produced interesting large symmetrical and intricate designs. For more contemporary quilts made by men there is an example of work crafted by present day inmates of Wandsworth prison. Messages embroidered on this quilt speak of longings for freedom and the hatred of being locked up for long periods of time. Two other very moving examples of quilts made during imprisonment are the Rajah quilt, made by women on a convict ship sailing to Australia in 1841, and the coverlet made in Changi jail in 1943 by the Changi Girl Guide group as a secret present for their leader. From ways of earning a living by the Welsh and Durham Miners’ wives in the 1900s, to expressing personal emotions in the 2000s, all are on display in this fine exhibition. Sadly the work by a handful of contemporary quilters is simply not representative of the art form which flourishes in Britain today. The exhibition gives no hint that quilting is currently enjoyed by at least 20,000 quilters, most of whom are members of the Quilters Guild of the British Isles. However, to display and heavily promote quilts by Grayson Perry and Tracey Emin has certainly succeeded in drawing in a new audience.
It would have been greatly strengthened by the inclusion of contemporary work also based on traditional techniques, which would have so brilliantly linked the past with the present. This exhibition has been heralded as the most pre-booked event at the V&A. If you enjoy this, don’t miss the specialist quilt shows at the American Museum in Bath (ends 31 October 2010), and the Festival of Quilts at the NEC in Birmingham (19th – 22nd August). Quilts 1700 – 2010 Supported by the Friends of the V&A with further support from Coats Crafts and the Coats Foundation Trust Runs until 4 July 2010 £10 Adults; £8 Seniors; £6 Students, 12-17 yrs; ES40 Holders, free to V&A Members www.vam.ac.uk/tickets or call 020 7942 2211. For the largest stock of antique Welsh quilts for sale, go to www.jen.jones.com The Festival of Quilts 2010 – from19-22 August, NEC Birmingham. www.twistedthread.com Special exhibition: Classic American Quilts, shows until 31 October 2010 at the American Museum, Bath www.americanmuseum.org
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Quilting has never been restricted to women and there are fine examples of 19th century soldiers’ quilts.
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1 At the End of the Day, 2007 Natasha Kerr © V&A Images 2 George III reviewing the troops (detail), 1803 –1805 Unknown maker © V&A Images
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4 Liberty Jack, 2008 Tracey Emin The Saatchi Gallery, London 5 Right to Life, 1998 Grayson Perry © The Artist /Victoria Miro Gallery
3 Ann West (detail), 1820 © V&A Images
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// Close-up
Chateau Sully, France
Charlie Waite Charlie Waite’s landscape images, and tireless promotion of photography as an artistic medium, have made him hugely influential in British landscape photography. Hugh Mooney met Waite for an exclusive interview. The world of contemporary photography resounds with post-modernist rhetoric and analysis – then there is the art of Charlie Waite and the simple joy in beautiful images for their own sake. Instantly recognisable, Waite’s landscapes are rare perfections of light, colour and composition and offer the viewer a luxuriant portrait of a planet at peace,
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where mankind and his activities are in harmony with his surroundings. There is no explanatory verbiage to endure, no theory to absorb and one’s emotions are immediately engaged. It is no surprise that Waite has become one of the most celebrated landscape photographers in the world. A charming and eloquent man, Waite has developed his art and his business over a career of thirty years, during which time he has had innumerable solo exhibitions, sold widely and produced 27 books of his photographs. His tireless commitment both to his own work and to promoting photography in general have made him highly influential, both nationally and internationally. His promotional activities include major lecture tours, commissions and sponsorships of important competitions. Landscape photography is a passion for Waite. When we talked he described the making of his images as a deeply involving personal experience – “a rather fine interaction between me and the landscape, with the camera as the intermediary”. His pictures are as much about his state of
absorption, rapture if you will, in which mind, technique and his feelings come into perfect alignment; they are a strict evocation of place and of the world external to his lens. In discussing his work he employed the term ‘pre-visualisation’, first used by the great American landscape photographer, Ansel Adams, to whom he has been compared. This is the creative act of the artist-photographer who, in visualising a poetic or revealing image within the scene in front of him, anticipates what the final print must convey to express what he sees and feels. From this insight flows the creative decisions he must make to realise his vision, involving selection, framing, composition, light, camera setting and so on. Waite’s images, therefore, are the inspired product of a deeply felt response to the visual world, followed by meticulous preparation and a total control over the photographic process and often, of patient waiting for the confluence of circumstance and conditions to permit his visualisation to come about. “The fewer the compromises I have to make,” said Waite, “the closer I get to what I first conceived or ‘saw’ in front of me”. Working in both black and white and colour, he largely uses a medium format camera and a judicious choice of filters, and strictly avoids subsequent manipulation of his images, considering that they would lose integrity and potency if he did. What the viewer sees is what Waite ‘saw’ in his mind at the time when everything was right. If landscapes are constructs of our imagination and cultural predisposition, what makes Waite’s work so special, so recognisable? There is no doubt that he sees the world within a very conventional aesthetic, his work sometimes presenting a pastoral ideal in which mankind uses the planet wisely and there is order in both the natural world and in human affairs. He offers an alternative to the bleak realism and sombre concerns of much modern landscape photography. It is his supreme sensitivity to rhythm, shape and colour and his marvellous compositional sense which sets his work apart from mere romantic rhetoric; his reluctance to compromise permits him fully to explore photography’s unique relationship with light. In addition, the square format of his Hasselblad often confounds our expectations of landscape by subordinating breadth and a sense of space, enhancing the potential for the non-spatial qualities in whose exploitation he excels. His photographer’s eye selects with such precision that often what we see in his images are beautiful designs, some verging on abstraction; one might almost believe that man’s use of the land, where shown, has an aesthetic as well as a productive purpose. His pictures have luminosity, an inner quietness and possess a sense of ‘being there’. “Nature suspended in one of its most powerful performances,” he said of one of his images. The reason for Waite’s success, therefore, is clear. In these environmentally uncertain times, however, something else intervenes when we look at his work, something wholly unintended which would have been unnoticed in earlier times. We view photographs, no matter how reliable or in whatever style or context, as reports from the ‘real’ world and his beguiling images appear to show our planetary home as unspoiled and profoundly beautiful. In so doing they provide us the reassurance that sometimes it is. This is therapy indeed. Nevertheless, the very perfection of Charlie Waite’s vision leaves a slight aftertaste of unease since we are reminded of what we might lose. Charlie Waite’s many books include, In My Mind’s Eye: Seeing in Black & White (2004) and Landscape: The Story of Fifty Favourite Photographs (2005).www.charliewaite.com Charlie Waite’s original photographs can be bought from Gallery 2C, The Mall, Clifton Bristol BS8 4JG Coming next in the Autumn Issue: Barry Cawston art
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Inside the artist’s studio It is not unusual for Lovers of Art to harbour romantic illusions about artists’ studios. Beyond the mere mystery of celebrity, it is as if a peep into the way an artist organises their painting space, how brushes and paints are kept, where and how canvases are stored, and how messy or otherwise they are may confer upon the voyeur some of the artist’s bohemian magic.
Richard Storey
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Mary Fedden While a studio visit may not fuel our own creativity it is often an uplifting and inspiring experience. A recent visit to one of Britain’s bestknown artists, Mary Fedden, included a guided tour of her studio on the Thames in West London, where she has lived and worked since 1949. Easily recognised and much imitated, her style of painting has influenced a huge number of contemporary artists. But Fedden hasn’t always painted in this manner. Before she met her husband, Julian Trevelyan, she had little direction, but he soon became her best and most constructive critic. He died in 1988 and Fedden says that she still misses ‘his bright, discerning eye. “At the beginning, my painting was more literary, more detailed,” Fedden explains. “Julian was very critical of my work; he showed me how to make my pictures more simple, less fussy – darker, too. He changed me from being
much too photographic and I’ve more or less painted that way ever since. Still-life – it’s always what I like to do; I can’t seem to get away from it.” Hers is no single room garret; a large, airy, square building, annexed to her house is where Fedden spends pretty much all day, every day. It appears cluttered, but closer inspection suggests that she knows where everything can be found. A few paintings adorn the walls – the ones she can’t bear to part with. Other, more recent works, are stacked three deep against a cupboard. A bench holds the large collection of objects from which she makes her daily selection. “This was Julian’s studio and after he died I moved into here. His printing press, palettes and brushes are still next door and sometimes I let young artists come in to use it, giving me company. My work pattern never changes. I get up eight-ish, always have
breakfast – coffee and toast. About nine o’clock I come in here. If I’ve got a blank, virgin canvas I have to have a bit of a think. I go through phases, I have no real plan, I just come into the studio and see what excites me; on the whole I invent my subjects. I always start with a background colour. At the moment I am painting black, before that it was mauve and blue; I suppose this will be known as my Black Period. I’m much happier if I start the day with a half-finished painting – much easier than starting a new one. Sometimes I over-paint or re-paint a part of yesterday’s work. I paint until one, stop and have lunch – might read a bit or have a snooze. Then paint again until I’m tired – sometimes until six or seven. I paint every day. Last summer, I came back from Glyndebourne at two in the morning and a friend, who called at nine o’clock, was amazed to see me seated at
OBE D.LIT RA PPRWA the easel, as usual. Nothing interrupts my day. I don’t usually paint to commission. I was once persuaded by a friend to paint a picture with an Indian theme, which was to include a tiger. So to get some movement into the painting, I showed the tiger chasing a zebra – a creature I later discovered was never to be found in India. I stopped doing commissions after that.” Once Fedden has selected the dominant colour, then come her classic motifs, her ‘objects of desire’ – a jug, a dish, perhaps a pomegranate, cherries, a quince, melon or a bunch of grapes. Where once her themes and variations were much wider, and offered some sort of narrative interpretation – windows, fields, distant seascapes, with the objects often laid upon a foreground table – today’s images often simply float detached on the canvas. All has been pared back to the simplicity of her classic still-life symbols. Isolated in their uncluttered inky world, the space between objects has become everything, allowing the eye to concentrate on pattern, shape and colour.
Her concentration on these smaller, simplified still-lifes doesn’t mean that Fedden has become complacent, far from it. Passion remains all. She has been quoted as saying: “If I was ever completely satisfied, I’d probably give up painting.” At 95, Mary Fedden remains an active, perceptive, feisty woman. Years ago, she penned an homage to Edward Lear, the self-deprecating start of which neatly sums up one of Britain’s best-loved painters: How pleasant to know Mary Fedden Who has painted such mountains of stuff A few find her ‘clever’ & ‘modern’ But most think her boring and bluff. Her mind is a sea of confusion, Her nose is remarkably big, When working, she hates an intrusion, But other times don’t care a fig.
(Reproduced from Enigmas and Variations by Christopher Andreae: Lund Humphries, 2007)
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Each year the Friends organise an exhibition of members’ works in the Fedden Gallery and the Friends’ room. The wide range of styles and subjects attract many visitors. Thanks to the support of numerous Friends and RWA staff it has been possible for the show to run concurrently with the RWA Autumn Exhibition.
FRIENDS COMMITTEE 2010 – 2011 Chairman Maureen Fraser e: mcf11@tiscali.co.uk
www.cliftonartsclub.co.uk
Treasurer Tony Merriman t: 01934 833 619 e: merriman38@hotmail.com Vice Chairman & Friends Exhibitions Gillian Hudson t: 0117 973 5359 e: gs.hudson@toucansurf.com Vice Chairman Roland Harmer t: 0117 924 5638 e: rolandharmer@blueyonder.co.uk Cultural & Educational Visits Tom Western-Butt e: thomas_butt05@tiscali.co.uk Lectures Wendy Mogford t: 0117 950 0712 e: wmogford@talktalk.net Volunteers coordinator Mary Drown e: Mary.Drown@blueyonder.co.uk RWA magazine liaison Carolyn Stubbs e: carolyn.stubbs@btinternet.com Liz Clarke t: 0117 977 2573 e: liz@madasafish.com Simon Holmes e: simonfhholmes@lineone.net Linda Alvis t: 0117 973 0268 e: linda@alvisfineart.co.uk Also: Friends Room Exhibitions Marion Roach t: 0117 929 0310 e: marion@manthorp.com Membership Secretary Jac Solomons t: 0117 973 5129 e: info@rwa.org.uk
Mounting such an exhibition involves many people in a process of many stages. Following a mailout to Friends, with details of the exhibition together with an appeal for help, work begins on 2 October – Hand-in Day – when artworks, forms and fees are received, checked and collated. We hope that people who submit their work will volunteer some time for stewarding. We aim to have four stewards each day throughout the six week exhibition, two in each shift – 10:00 – 1:00 and 1:00 – 4:00. This is an enjoyable way of spending a few hours meeting interesting people, exhibitors and visitors and of course there is the added ‘buzz’ when a sale is made.
Following Hand-in Day we will need volunteers for the Selection Day – 9 October. We have invited three Academicians to judge and select the works. This day offers the chance of a preview and also a fascinating insight into the selection process and a lunch for those who take part. Once the exhibition organisers have placed the works RWA technicians then hang the paintings and provide plinths for the sculptures and a catalogue is then compiled. All the works are reasonably priced. I look forward to meeting many Friends in preparation for and during our Autumn Exhibition – artist
Friends both new and returning, volunteer helpers, visitors and buyers.
Exhibition dates for 2010 Saturday 2 October // Hand-in Day Sunday 24 October // Exhibition opens Saturday 4 December // Exhibition closes Saturday 11 December // Collection Day Entry forms will be sent to Friends and will be available at the RWA from July onwards. Gillian Hudson – Exhibition Organiser
Friends of the RWA
The Friends Autumn Exhibition 2010
Committee members can also be contacted by post addressed: c/o Royal West of England Academy Queens Road, Clifton, Bristol BS8 1PX
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// Friends News // Mary Rouncefield
// Abigail McDougall Since graduating from Falmouth College of Art in 2005, Abigail McDougall has made a name for herself on Bristol’s art scene with exhibitions held all over the city and beyond.
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Bristol–Bath–Bradford-on-Avon cycle paths. This series, entitled ‘Adventures in Light’, communicates her passion for sustainability as well as allowing her to bring her trademark glowing style to more rural scenes. Presently Abigail has a solo exhibition at the Prema Art Gallery in Uley near Stroud, and she’s hoping to have a show at the Rostra Rooksmoor Gallery in Bath over the summer. Bristol Affordable Art Fair is also proving to be a calendar regular for Abigail. “It’s got a brilliant atmosphere, really buzzing.” Abigail is developing her style and technique. “In March I began working in oils for the first time, experimenting to replicate the vibrancy I get in my watercolours. The way I’m trying to use oils is pretty challenging because I like to dilute them, which then makes them hard to control. So far, I’m really pleased with the vivid colours this produces and I’ve been fascinated by the range of effects that appear – the results tend to be much more abstract than my watercolours because I let the colours bleed and create a blurriness that I really like.” For more on Abigail and her paintings, please visit www.abigailmcdougall.com Judy Darley
Our youngest Friend Rebekah Pendlebury, age 17, a pupil at St Mary Redcliffe School, entered two small paintings in the Friends Autumn Exhibition last year. ‘Early Morning’ and ‘Late Afternoon’, painted in acrylic were both accepted unanimously by the judges, Dawn Sidoli RWA, George Tute RWA and Martin Bentham RWA. Rebekah followed this success at the recent annual exhibition of work from all the Bristol Secondary Schools held in the Cathedral. Receiving a ‘Highly Commended’, she was also declared ‘Overall Winner’ for a superb etching, ‘A Portrait of Joe’. Although a talented artist Rebekah has been offered places to study for a degree in combined French and English. As Rebekah is taking a year off before going to university, we hope to see more of her work at this year’s Friends Exhibition. Gillian Hudson
Volunteers The Friends rely heavily on their volunteers to provide support for a range of activities and services for both the RWA and the Friends. These include stewarding at Friends exhibitions, private views and other social events, assisting at submission, selection and collection days for open exhibitions and mail out sessions. Mary Drown has recently been appointed as coordinator for volunteers. She is developing a system using our existing database to enable us to respond to an increased demand for volunteers with different skills and expertise. This will enable us better to support a range of activities and services for the RWA and the Friends. New volunteers are always welcome. For those interested please contact Mary Drown. Mary.Drown@blueyonder.co.uk
Friends Room exhibitions
She’s a Friend of the RWA and rents a space at the Jamaica Street Artist Studios, where she works on luminous paintings of Bristol, Morocco and Italy. As well as being a working artist, Abigail helped to set up the Nails Gallery at St Nick’s Market and still helps out there each week. “Though my true passion is for fine art, I studied Illustration at Falmouth College of Art. As a discipline it teaches you a high level of commercialism, and then you can wind it back, include more of your own personality.” Abigail is best known for her ‘Bristol in a Different Light’ series capturing scenes of Bristol’s most colourful streets. Her talent for seeing beauty in the most everyday sights has led to commissions from the likes of Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel, as well as exhibitions in London, Cornwall, Bournemouth, Belgium and widely across Bristol. Abigail also had two pieces from this series, named ‘Bristol Schools From Cabot Tower’ and ‘A Storm Brewing’, accepted for inclusion in the RWA’s Autumn 2009 exhibition. In April and May the Nails Gallery hosted an exhibition of Abigail’s watercolours and acrylic paintings carried out along the beautiful
Success for our youngest Friend
I was invited, with Academician Maxine Relton, to judge the student art competition ‘The Art of Nurture’ organised by Lloyds TSB Bank and Arts and Business. The South West Regional Final was held at the RWA on 30 March and three finalists were selected to go forward to the National Finals. Recently I have finished work on a mural covering all four walls of the waiting area at the Paediatric Outpatient Department at Southmead Hospital. Fellow artist Nicola Ley worked mainly on the landscape and plants, while I’ve painted most of the animals. There has been some very positive feedback from the young patients and staff, making it a really enjoyable and worthwhile project. Mary Rouncefield
Exhibition dates for the remainder of 2010 Saturday 5 June – Wednesday 7 July Artists: Rebekah Pendlebury, Xavier Azulado Invited Academician: Peter Swan RWA Saturday 10 July – Wednesday 11 August Artists: Diana Western, Neil Saunders Invited Academician: Peter Ford RWA Saturday 14 Aug – Wednesday 15 September Artists: Philomena Joyner, Joanna Eckert, Don Howard, Patricia Brownen Invited Academician: to be confirmed The exhibitions have received much favourable comment as more visitors to the gallery find their way downstairs. Sales to date this year have already well exceeded those for all of last year. Many people, who are unable to buy a painting, would like the opportunity to buy a print; I have arranged sensibly priced high quality prints of exhibited paintings to be produced to order. Details will be available in the Friends Room. Marion Roach
Friends of the RWA Annual General Meeting 2010 On Saturday 20 March the Friends held their 18th AGM in the Fedden Gallery. The meeting, with over 60 present, marked the end of a challenging year for the Friends. A report of our activities for the year, circulated prior to the meeting, included our Lecture Programme, Cultural and Educational Visits, Friends exhibitions – both the Friends Autumn Exhibition and the rolling programme of Friends Room Exhibitions, Social Events, Volunteers and the RWA Friends Magazine – now replaced by ART. Also included were Treasurer’s Report, a report on Friends membership – which stood at about 1350 – and a review of the Committee. Tony Merriman, the Friends Honorary Treasurer gave a comprehensive financial account of the past year and he presented a cheque for £15,000 to Simon Quadrat, the newly elected President of the RWA. This brings the total that we have given to the RWA, since the 2009 AGM, to £69,093. Much of this figure was made up of funds accumulated over the past few years for the development of the RWA – which is now underway. A satisfying moment.
Five Committee members retired: Di Western – now Chairman of the Clifton Arts Club, Geraldine Box – RWA Friends Magazine advertising, Valerie Barnard, Tim LloydYeates and Roger Manthorp who had resigned as Chairman in February. Stephen Macfarlane supervised the election of the new Committee. Simon Quadrat gave an account of the activities of the Board of Trustees of the RWA and their priorities. These included the second stage of building works with the reworking of the front of the building – a third stage of work that will bring climate control to the galleries to enable the RWA to host significant touring shows, as well as strategies for raising funds and developing links with other key institutions. There followed a lively question and answer session, where topics including the RWA gift shop, Friends’ donations to the RWA and the Friends’ constitution were raised. For the last part of the meeting John Palmer RWA gave one of his entertaining demonstrations on watercolour painting. John also showed us examples of his fine architectural studies. Roland Harmer
From Left // Gillian Hudson, Di Western, Tom Western-Butt, Roland Harmer, Liz Clarke & Maureen Fraser
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// Friends lecture reports
Kate Lynch Saturday 30 January 2010 at the Fedden Gallery Sixty-one Friends and guests attended Kate Lynch’s illustrated lecture of her audio-visual touring exhibition ‘From Lamb to Loom’. Kate began her talk by showing a couple of slides from the ‘Willow Project’ as a way of introducing her personal style of working and her methodology commenting: “I like words and pictures, the narrative, a series of pictures that tell a story”. She is particularly interested in age-old traditions, practices such as willow crafting, sheep farming, traditions that are often an unseen and unknown world to many. A move away from Castle Carey to the Somerset Levels also meant a change of landscape; willows were replaced by flocks
Charles Jervas Saturday 27 February 2010 The lecture took place in the newly renovated Fedden Gallery with its state of the art projection. Jackie Healy, was returning to us after her lecture on Irish Artists given to the Friends in 2008. She has a BA in History from University College Dublin, a Diploma in Art History from the Courtauld Institute and an MA in History of Art form Birkbeck College, London and is currently doing research work on Irish artists who worked in London during the 18th century. Charles Jervas (1675 – 1739) was court painter to both George l and ll. He produced images not only of the aristocracy but also of the political, social and literary worlds of his day. He was
both a portrait painter and art dealer and became a very rich man, highly thought of, witty, charming and generous. He lived in exciting times. London was awash with money; it was the time of financial revolution, the establishment of the Bank of England, the Stock Market and the National Debt. He was 20 when he decided to be an artist and after receiving an inheritance in 1697 moved to the continent where the artistic scene was very different to the sombre and subdued one in England. On his return four years later, he helped to develop a new style of art which showed a relaxed and realistic approach and used bright colours. He was also much taken by the use of light on silk. After his death in 1739 his wife Sarah, his sole beneficiary, proved to be a shrewd investor and became the richest woman in London. Jervas’s 250 paintings were eventually all bought by Catherine the Great of Russia and moved to the Hermitage in St Petersburg. Wendy Mogford
of sheep and farmers. It was in this new environment that Kate embarked upon ‘From Lamb to Loom’ as her next project. What followed were three years of travel, fieldwork and research, not only in the Somerset Levels but also throughout the West Country. With notebook in hand and accompanied by a sound recordist, Kate met farmers, auctioneers, wool-graders and even knitters to make detailed sketches and notes. The paintings, created using dry oil paint in soft muted colours and the monotone hues of her charcoal drawings, perfectly capture the mood and atmosphere of each subject. The slide presentation also included some sketchbook drawings. This was a fascinating talk and a humorous account of her travels and encounters. At the end of the lecture, Kate’s book ‘From Lamb to Loom’ was available to purchase, along with postcards depicting paintings from the book. Carolyn Stubbs
Forthcoming lectures 18 September 2010 ‘The Road to Kathmandu – An Illustrated Travel Journal of a Motorcycle Journey Through Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and India’. Simon Roberts is a freelance graphic artist and keen traveller now living in Bath. In 2005 Simon set off on his motorcycle heading overland to Nepal making sketches of the places and characters he met. In this lecture, the seven month journey unfolds in a series of witty anecdotes and lively sketches, paintings – and caricatures. 26 June 2010 ‘Café Cosmopolitanism in a Pre Starbucks Age? – La Rotonde in Montparnasse’. Tricha Passes BA(Hons) MA has lectured at UWE and at University of Bristol. She also lectures for American Universities and at the University of Oxford. Her main interests are avant-garde strategies in Britain, France and the USA, contemporary art and environmental issues and photography. This talk will examine the significance of pre WW1 Montparnasse café culture with reference to La Rotonde, a meeting place for artists, intellectuals and revolutionaries. As a cafe it was a favourite of the Picasso Gang. This talk will focus on a key painting by the Polish French painter Henri Hayden that was set in the interior of La Rotonde in 1913. Wendy Mogford
Cultural and educational visits On 8 May a group of Friends visited Kew Gardens; a report follows in the Autumn issue. The visit to Cothay Manor on Saturday 12 June and the painting trip to Hope Cove are fully booked. There are still spaces available for the visit on Saturday 17 July to Kelmscott Manor, a grade 1 listed Tudor farmhouse and the summer residence of William Morris, and neighbouring churches. Booking forms are available at the RWA. Visits are planned to the Gauguin Exhibition – Tate Modern and Tate Britain, Chelsea Art Fair and Saatchi Gallery as well as a visit to Berlin – more details later. Tom Western-Butt
Join the Friends Friends enjoy: free entry to RWA exhibitions with a vibrant programme of shows throughout the year; 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; discounts on artists’ materials at Bristol Fine Art and ART magazine each quarter. Your membership will help the RWA to serve the region and artistic community.
title (optional) first name surname title (optional) first name
Painting days The Friends run a series of painting days throughout the summer, in various locations in the Bristol area where Friends can enjoy painting and experiences together. They follow a pattern of meeting, coffee, working individually, lunch where most gather, more painting and finally discussion about the day. We leave for home at about 4pm to avoid the worst of the traffic.
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Forthcoming painting days this year are: Saturday 26 June // Barrington Court A grand house and gardens extensively restored by the National Trust. Wednesday 21 July // Freshford, near Bath A scenic village rural idyll and picturesque buildings. Saturday 21 August // Hanham Court Garden Monastic foundations, rural manor house, tythe barn set in grounds designed by award winning gardeners. Wednesday 22 September // Clevedon An uncommercial Victorian seaside town with coast views and pier. Wednesday 27 October // Kings Weston House A Vanbrugh designed Georgian manor house set in an extensive natural park on the edge of Bristol. See www. kingswestonhouse.co.uk
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types of membership single annual £25 joint annual £36 individual life £375 joint life £500 student (NUS card max three years) £13 For those living outside the Bath (BA), Bristol (BS), Gloucester (GL) and Swindon (SN) postcode areas we offer these rates:
country single annual £20 country joint annual £30 total
We can claim an extra 28p from the Inland Revenue for every £1.00 you give us – if you are a UK taxpayer. I am eligible as a UK taxpayer and consent to the Friends of the RWA claiming 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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For further information contact Roma Widger. t: 0117 924 1930 m: 07896 708031 e: widger@blueyonder.co.uk
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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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Artful quotations “Collage is a methodology born out of cultural unrest. The ripping, tearing and cutting, and the reconstitution of found images, simulate the anxiety of the times.”
Juliana Engberg “The experience of the work of art – which is our apprehension of what the artist apprehended – changes, ever so slightly, our sense of the world forever.”
Harold Pinter “The more you know about art the more you realise it’s less about wanting to be an artist, than actually having an enquiring mind.”
// Letters Your news and views are important to us and we welcome your feedback. Send your letters to The Editor, ART magazine, The Royal West of England Academy, Queens Road, Clifton, Bristol BS8 1PX or email rwamagazine@gmail.com. Unfortunately we are unable to reply to all correspondence individually. We reserve the right to edit any letters published.
// Reviews
// BOOK
// BOOK
// BOOK
// BOOK
How to Read a Modern Painting: understanding and enjoying the modern masters Jon Thompson
POP: The Genius of Andy Warhol Tony Sherman and David Dalton
Peter Blake: One Man Show Marco Livingstone
Lucky Kunst: the rise and fall of Young British Art Gregor Muir
398 pp: Thames & Hudson, London, 2006, ISBN 978-0-500-28643-2
509 pp: HarperCollins, NY, USA, 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-621243-2
240 pp: Lund Humphries, UK, 2009 ISBN 978-0-85331-980-1 (h/b)
This beautifully designed and presented first monograph on Sir Peter Blake, with over 200 reproductions has taken nearly 20 years to produce. Its author, Marco Livingstone, has a strong grasp of all things Pop-Arty, and writes economically and approachably about a lifetime of work from 1954 to 2005. The author has succeeded in producing unquestionably the definitive book on Blake. GR
320 pp: Aurum Press Ltd, 2010 ISBN 1845135288 / 1-84513-528-8
This illuminating book helps readers unlock the meaning of a painting, exploring more than 200 works, from the Barbizon school and the Realist movement of the mid-19th century, continuing right up to the 1980s avantgarde. Works by great modern artists including Bonnard, Van Gogh, Picasso, Pollack, Rauschenberg, Warhol and Basquiat are analysed. GR
The popular myth of Warhol and his wacky factory has eclipsed some of his true achievements, say Sherman and Dalton in their incisive new biography. Tackling both the ‘high culture’ perspective, and the ‘gritty’ elements of Warhol’s colourful life, POP is a sharp-eyed, insightful and entertaining trip into the complex world of the genius that was Andy Warhol. This fine book is the real deal. RS
I pre-supposed this book would be full of tittle-tattle about Damien, Tracey et al and their ‘outrageous’ celebrity artist antics throughout the 90s. I was right. But Muir gives this an intelligent context, with insights into the British political / social status quo in the late 80s. Q: How do you stop a sculpture made of your own frozen blood from melting in the car on the way to the gallery? A: Get the curator to drive bloody fast. KC
// BOOK
// VIDEO GAME
// FILM
// PLAY
The Last Bohemians: the two Roberts – Colquhoun and MacBryde Roger Bristow
Heavy Rain Format: PS3 Director: David Cage
La Belle Noiseuse Director: Jacques Rivette, 1991 237 minutes
Art: the play script Yasmine Reza (translated by Christopher Hampton)
415 pp: Sansom & Company, Bristol ISBN 978-1 906593-19-3
PlayStation 3 game Heavy Rain has given new life to the conceptual debate about whether video games can be considered art. In the third outing from French developers Quantic Dream, emotional complexity and moral choices are delivered in spades. Playing the game gives the sense that technology has finally caught up with director Cage’s interactive drama ambition. Unique in every way, Heavy Rain rewards its players not with high scores, but with moral, philosophical and, yes – emotional points. SS
Stephen Farthing “Don’t just interpret nature, become its rival.”
Andre Malreaux “Anything becomes interesting if you look at it long enough.”
Flaubert “The moment you know what you’re doing... it’s just another form of illustration.”
Francis Bacon “Painting is an argument between what it looks like and what it means.”
Brett Whitely “If art is a game, it is about making rules, not following them.”
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Colquhoun and MacBryde burnt out too young to capitalise on their youthful success, but MacBryde’s meeting with art critic John Tonge led to London and fame. Down south, their euro-modernist painting and homosexuality gave entré to patrons and collectors. This may not be the lavishly illustrated coffee-table book, but there are more than enough reproductions to keep the aficionado happy. CH
UK Dist: Artificial Eye (DVD available from 20th Century Flicks, Clifton)
La Belle Noiseuse is possibly the best example on film of the artistic process, providing a compelling insight into the mind and method of painter Edouard Frenhofer (Michel Picolli) as he paints a nude Emmanuelle Beart. With much filmed in real time, we watch as Frenhofer commences with light sketches, in preparation for his painting. Open a bottle of wine, take the phone off the hook and spend the evening watching paint dry. GR
63 pp: faber and faber, London, 1996 ISBN 0-571-19014-6
Serge has bought a modern painting for a ridiculous sum of money. Friend Marc, hates it. Another friend, Yvan, tries to bring the two warring pals together. Reza’s well-known play poses awkward questions: Is a painting a masterpiece because we are told it is? How much does the price of an artwork influence our desire to own it? How dangerous is it to challenge another’s concept of beauty? GR
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// Listings The Architecture Centre Narrow Quay Bristol BS1 4QA t: 0117 922 1540 e: info@architecturecentre. co.uk Main gallery 7 May – 27 June The story of Aardman’s new Gas Ferry Road headquarters in Bristol
Arnolfini 16 Narrow Quay Bristol BS1 4QA t: 0117 917 2300/01 www.arnolfini.org.uk Until 4 July Me, myself and I: Otto Zitko and Louise Bourgeois Say Parsley: Caroline Bergvall and Ciaran Maher
The Art Room 76 Fore Street Topsham Exeter EX3 OHQ www.theartroom topsham.co.uk e: theartroom @eclipse.co.uk Open weekends 11am – 5pm or weekdays by appointment 26 June – 15 August Clifford Fishwick and Michael Garton RWA
Badcocks Gallery The Strand Newlyn TR18 5HW t: 01736 366 159 www.badcocksgallery. co.uk 7 July – 2 August Elizabeth Hunter RWA: Paintings
Bohun Gallery 15 Reading Road Henley-on-Thames Oxfordshire RG9 1AB t: 01491 576 228 Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri 10.00 – 5.00, Sat 10 – 5 14 June – 14 August The Living Art of British Painting
Bristol Drawing School Unit 5.3 Paintworks Bath Road Bristol BS4 3EH t: 0845 680 1409 www.drawingschool.org.uk Offer drawing courses and workshops throughout the year As well as Summer Sculpture Workshops Summer Starter Workshops
Central Library Exhibition Room The Podium Bath t: 01225 834 424 www.bsba.co.uk During library opening hours Tuesday 6 – Sat 17 July Annual Exhibition by the Bath Society of Botanical Artists
City Museum & Art Gallery Queen’s Road Bristol BS8 1RL www.bristol.gov.uk/ museums Until 22 August 2010 Art from the New World The first world-class international exhibition of Pop, surreal, neofigurative and street art from 48 of the finest emerging and noted living U.S. urban and contemporary artists.
ClarkArt Ltd 155 Ashley Road Hale Cheshire WA14 2UW t: 0161 929 5150 e: art@clark-art.co.uk Specialists in Modern British Art with a wide stock of works by Mary Fedden
Clevedon Art Club The Science Atrium Clevedon Community School Valley Road Clevedon BS21 6AH t: 01275 340 832 www.clevedonartclub. co.uk 10.30am – 6pm Sundays 2.00pm – 6pm 14 – 28 August 2010 54th Annual Open Exhibition For further information regarding entry of your work contact Patricia Scott on t: 01275 340 832 pbscott@btinternet.com
The Clifton Arts Club Bristol School of Art (Adjacent to RWA) Queen’s Road Bristol BS8 1PX Mon – Sat 10am – 4.30pm Sun 10am – 4pm 17 – 31 July 102nd Open Exhibition Showcasing original, affordable art. Free admission. Inviting new members, join our busy programme of events, £25 per year www.cliftonartsclub.co.uk
The Clifton Hotel Group (The Rodney, The Square & The Clifton) Bristol-based Julian Cox ARBS On-going exhibitions of sensual original Indian ink drawings. www.juliancoxartist.co.uk
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The Drawing Gallery The Old Chapel Walford, Nr Leintwardine, Shropshire, SY7 0JT (8 miles west of Ludlow) t: 01547 540 454 www.thedrawing gallery.com Wed – Sat 12 – 5pm and by appointment 9 June – 17 July Stephen Farthing RA ‘The Knowledge’ Paintings and drawings covering twenty years of travel to cities throughout five continents.
Forest and Valley Open Studios Meet the Forest of Dean and Wye Valley artist and makers while meandering through beautiful countryside. www.forestandvalleyopenstudio.co.uk t: 01600 719 045 Opening times 10 – 6pm 10/11, 17/18, 24/25 July
Gallery 2C The Mall Clifton Bristol BS8 4JG t: 0117 904 7216 20 May – 9 June Terry O’Neill: photographs at the Hotel du Vin
Grant Bradley Gallery 1 St. Peter’s Court Bedminster Parade, Bristol BS3 4AQ t: 0117 637 673 www.grantbradley gallery.co.uk Until 3 July 2010 The Urbis Open Art Prize exhibition Bristol artists who work in 2 dimensions.
Innocent Fine Art 7a Boyces Avenue Clifton Bristol BS8 4AA t: 0117 973 2614 www.innocent fineart.co.uk Monday – Saturday; 10am – 5.30pm 18 June – 10 July Mending Broken Hearts: Portfolio 1 – Breath of Life Limited edition silkscreen prints sold in aid of The British Heart Foundation to fund cutting-edge cardiacregenerative research. Includes: Sir Peter Blake RA; Patrick Hughes; Donald Hamilton Fraser; Bruce Mclean; Brendan Neiland; John Hoyland RA; Barbara Rae RA
Jamaica Street Artists 37–39 Jamaica Street, Stokes Croft Bristol BS2 8JP t: 07766 221 266 Contact: Gemma Brace at jsadevelopment09@ yahoo.co.uk Opening Night: Thursday 10 June (Invitation Only) 6:00pm – 9:00pm Friday 11 June Open House 7:00pm – 10:00pm Saturday 12 June and Sunday 13 June 11:00am – 6:00pm Jamaica Street Artists Open Studio is an evolving collective; each Open Studio is as diverse as the next, with some of the regions most exciting graduates exhibiting their wares alongside seasoned professionals.
John Noott Galleries 20 High Street Broadway Worcestershire WR12 7AA t: 01386 858 969 Mon – Sat 9.30 – 5.00 Sun 11 – 5.00 Three galleries to enjoy
Knowle West Media Centre Leinster Avenue Knowle West Bristol BS4 1NL t: 0117 903 0444 www.kwmc.org.uk Until 23 July 2010 Anyhow, Anywhere 50 years of popular culture seen through the photographic lens covering the transition from childhood to adulthood via the label of ‘teenager’.
Lime Tree Gallery 84 Hotwell Road Bristol BS8 4UB t: 0117 929 2527 www.limetreegallery.com
Llewellyn Alexander 124 – 126 The Cut, Waterloo, London SE1 8LN t: 020 7620 1322 www.Llewellyn Alexander.com Mon – Sat 10.00am – 7.30pm Paintings not hung at the RA Summer Exhibition
Park Place Fine Art Park Place London SW1A t: 07983 587 888 e: art@parkplacefineart.com www.parkplacefineart.com By appointment Specialists in Mary Fedden, Modern British & International Art
Quest Gallery 3 St. James Street Bath BA1 2TW t: 01225 444 142 Tues – Fri 11.00am – 6.30pm Sat 10.00am – 6.30pm From 8 June Martyn Yeoman: paintings
Pallant House Gallery 9 North Pallant Chichester West Sussex PO19 1TJ t: 01243 774 557 www.pallant.org.uk Until 13 June 2010 Julian Trevelyan: Centenary Celebrating the work of the renowned British artist and printmaker Julian Trevelyan. Until 5 September 2010 Surrealism and Sussex Works patronised by the famous benefactor and resident of West Dean Edward James, and key pieces by the photographer and model Lee Miller and Roland Penrose. Until 12 September 2010 Surreal Friends: Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo and Kati Horna Surrealist women artists, Carrington and Varo and photographer Kati Horna escaped the Nazis in France in 1939 to live and work in Mexico.
Off the Wall Gallery The Old Probate Registry Cardiff Road Llandaff Cardiff CF5 2DQ t: 029 2055 4469 e: art@gallery offthewall.com Tues – Fri 9.30am – 5.30pm Sat 10.00am – 4.00pm Martyn Jones – ‘atelier’
Royal Academy of Arts Burlington House Piccadilly London W1J 0BD t: 020 7300 8000 www.royalacademy.org.uk Until 22 June 2010 Paul Sandby RA: Picturing Britain, a Bicentenary Exhibition Until 22 June Relics of Old London: Photography and the spirit of the city 10 July until 26 September 2010 Sargent and the Sea
Tate Modern Bankside London SE1 9TG t: 020 7887 8888 www.tate.org.uk Until 19 September 2010 Exposed 15 June – 5 September 2010 Francis Alys
Tate Britain Millbank London SW1P 4RG t: 020 7887 8888 Until 8 August Henry Moore 9 June – 5 September British Comic Art
Tate St Ives Porthmeor Beach St Ives Cornwall TR26 1TG Until 26 September Lily van der Stokker
View Art Gallery 159–161 Hotwell Road Hotwells Clifton Bristol BS8 4RY t: 05603 116 753 From 4 June Urban View From 22 July Artists from Haiti From 29 July Naked Truths
V&A Cromwell Road London SW7 2RL www.vam.ac.uk Open 10am – 5.45pm Fri 10am – 10pm To 4 July Quilts: 1700 – 2010
Wetpaint Gallery The Old Chapel 14 London Road Cirencester GL7 1AL t: 01285 644 990 Tues – Sat 10am – 5pm 30 September – 30 October Sir Peter Blake
Sky Blue Framing & Gallery 27 North View Westbury Park Bristol BS6 7PT t: 0117 973 3995 Summer Mixed Show: John Knapp-Fisher; John Nash; Eric Ravillious; Mary Fedden; Quentin Blake From July: Susie Brooks; Steve Hanson
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Back Chat Richard Storey
Sir Peter Blake
CBE RA born 1932
What influences you today? To be truthful almost nothing properly influences me any longer. Certainly not art; all the art influences occurred decades ago and are now thoroughly embedded in my psyche. All that’s left is what takes place in my life – a continual influence. Which living artist do you most admire? May I cheat here and select two? Oh, good. Lucien Freud and Damien Hirst. Jeff Koons – love him or loathe him? I started off loathing his work, but I have gradually come to admire it. I loved his big flower dog Puppy (1992) – extraordinary. So my loathing has gone, to be replaced by admiration. What is your greatest fear? I suppose I should say Death. But the reality is, like David Attenborough, I don’t care for rats. Silence or sounds while working? I like listening to music when I’m working. I generally play records, old vinyl LPs – Brian Wilson I love; Dionne Warwick; Under Milk Wood, the original
48 art Summer 2010
radio recording with Richard Burton. Otherwise, it’s mindless radio – probably sport. Dylan Thomas seems an unusual background choice Thomas featured first on my 1967 Sgt. Pepper album cover and I’ve been fascinated ever since. I often play Milk Wood because I’m illustrating it – I’ve been doing so for 10 years. I’ve played this record countless times lately. I have now completed 26 water colours of the dreams, plus portraits of all the characters. Which artist now dead would you most like to have met? John Everett Millais – we’d chat away about technique. I always thought I’d like to meet Constantin Brancusi, the sculptor, but I suspect we’d have nothing to say to one another, not least because he was Romanian. In the event of a fire in your studio, what is the one thing you’d rescue? A tiny pair of hand-made leather boots that belonged to the Victorian midget known as General Tom Thumb. They are my oddest and rarest possession.
What is your greatest achievement as an artist? (Thinks for a long time) I’d like to say the Under Milk Wood project, or a piece I’m doing for St. Pauls, but I suppose works in progress don’t count, do they? So it would have to be Self-Portrait with Badges (1961). I painted it when I was young, 29, and I’m still proud of it. Which three artists would you invite to your last supper? Picasso, Dame Laura Knight, Tracey Emin. You’ve been described as both Godfather and Peter Pan. Which do you prefer? I’ll accept both. Richard Hamilton recently opened a new show, Modern Moral Matters, at the Serpentine and they’ve started calling him The Godfather of Pop Art. He can have title as long as the show runs, but I want it back afterwards. But secretly, I prefer Peter Pan. Peter Blake: One Man Show by Marco Livingstone (2009) is reviewed on page 45.
Barbara Rae
Donald Hamilton Fraser
Patrick Hughes
Sir Peter Blake
Exhibition June 18th – July 10th
Mending Broken Hearts portfolio 1 CCA Galleries is delighted to announce the publication of the Mending Broken Hearts - portfolio 1 in aid of the British Heart Foundation to be launched in the West Country at Innocent Fine Art. The portfolio comprises of 15 original silkscreen prints by a group of Britain’s leading contemporary artists. Each artist has created a unique vision around the theme of ‘mending broken hearts’. Sir Peter Blake
Maurice Cockrill
Patrick Hughes
Donald Hamilton Fraser
Duggie Fields
John Hoyland
Tom Phillips
Brad Faine
Barbara Rae
Bruce McLean
Brendan Neiland
Antony Micaleff
Storm Thorgerson
Gerard Hemsworth
Maggie Hambling
7a Boyces Avenue, Clifton, Bristol, BS8 4AA Telephone 0117 973 2614 enquiries@innocentfineart.co.uk www.innocentfineart.co.uk Mon-Sat 10.00am - 5.30pm
ISSN 2044-2653
Stephen Farthing issue // John Huggins RWA
// Andy Warhol // Mary Fedden // Sir Peter Blake
RWA
Warhol feature // When Sarah met Andy
In the Studio // Mary Fedden
BackChat // Sir Peter Blake
Summer 2010 £4
01 Summer 2010
Profile // John Huggins
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Stephen Farthing’s Fourth Wall