First Editions: Re-covered
Three artists well known to St Jude’s followers - Christopher Brown, Mark Hearld and Rob Ryan - are involved in a fund raising project for The House of Illustration, the UK’s only public gallery dedicated to illustration and the graphic arts, founded by Sir Quentin Blake and opened at the heart of King’s Cross in July 2014.
This weekend Sotheby’s will display First Editions: Re-covered, an exhibition of 33 unique first editions of classic books with beautiful original dust-jackets specially created and generously donated to House of Illustration by leading contemporary artists and designers.
Artists chose a book they felt a strong connection to and then created a new jacket, or artwork, in response to it: Maggie Hambling has created a cover for The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch; Peter Blake responds to Alice Through the Looking Glass; Richard Wentworth has created a sculpture out of Zadie Smith’s White Teeth and Quentin Blake has created a cover for The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo.
After four days of public display the books and their wonderful dust-jackets will be auctioned to benefit House of Illustration at 7.30pm on Monday 11 December 2017 - you can view the auction lots on the Sotheby's website. The evening auction is held in partnership with Winsor & Newton. Find out more about the auction
Monica Poole
This is Monica Poole's 'Piddock Architecture' wood engraving from 1975, one of the prints that feature in A Printmaker's Journey, the exhibition I've curated for Hampshire Cultural Trust which reopened at its final venue in Lymington last week.
When I began wood engraving again in earnest a few years after leaving college, the clarity and attention to detail in Monica Poole’s depiction of natural forms was a huge inspiration. I never looked at a piece of seaweed or pebble in the same way again and discovered the fascination of studying nature in close detail.
A Printmaker's Journey features over 60 works from over 20 artists including Edward Bawden, Barnett Freedman, Jonny Hannah, Gertrude Hermes, Mark Hearld, Enid Marx, Paul Morrison, Eric Ravilious, Rob Ryan, Graham Sutherland and Emily Sutton.
Until 25th November at St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery, Lyminton, Hampshire SO41 9BH Find out more
Image courtesy of Folkestone Art Trust
The Lumber Room: Unimagined Treasures
We're delighted to announce the publication of our latest Random Spectacular project, The Lumber Room: Unimagined Treasures (RS011).
Prior to the reopening of York Art Gallery in 2015, Mark Hearld spent two years visiting the stores of the Yorkshire Museum and York Castle Museum as well as the Gallery researching the objects and artworks to include in his curated exhibition, The Lumber Room: Unimagined Treasures, which engaged visitors from August 2015 until May 2017.
His choices included pottery, costume, oil paintings, works on paper, furniture, and taxidermy, many items of which had not been on public display before.
Alongside these were new works that Mark has created especially for the show which is inspired by the collections.
The exhibition is influenced by a short story called The Lumber Room, by Saki, which was read to him in an English class when he was 15.
Mark explains…
“Since I heard Saki’s story I have always been intrigued by the idea of a locked room that contained treasures so wonderful they are beyond what your mind can imagine. In this exhibition, I wanted to create the sense of excitement and wonder that you get when you discover the key to the room and see the “forbidden” objects for the first time.”
The exhibition closed early May 2017, but we’re delighted to publish this Random Spectacular journal which records and celebrates the spirit of Mark’s curation and creation with contributions from Emily Sutton, Chloë Cheese, Alan Powers, Jonathan Gibbs, Angie Lewin, John Andrews and many more.
Take a look inside The Lumber Room: Unimagined Treasures
A Printmaker’s Journey
I'm delighted to share news of a forthcoming exhibition that I have curated for Hampshire Cultural Trust, A Printmaker's Journey, which opens in Winchester on Saturday 11th March and then tours Hampshire until early November 2017.
A Printmaker's Journey includes work selected from a wide range of disciplines and periods which will lead the visitor through the inspirations and affinities which have influenced my journey as a printmaker and designer. Paintings, textiles, prints, posters and ceramics by artists and designers including Eric Ravilious, Edward Bawden, Mark Hearld, Alan Reynolds, Emily Sutton and Paul Morrison will be displayed alongside work from various stages of my career.
I'll be at The Gallery, Winchester Discovery Centre on and off throughout the opening day, Saturday 11th March. I hope that you might be able to visit. Find out more
For those of you further afield, over the next few months I'll share details of some of the works selected and their significance to me. Keep an eye on my Instagram and Facebook pages for updates.
A Printmaker's Journey runs from 11 March – 30 April 2017 at The Gallery, Winchester Discovery Centre then tours until early November 2017. Find out more
Angie Lewin 'Sollas Sands' linocut, 2015
Edward Bawden 'The Road to Thaxted' linocut, 1956
Lizzie Farey 'Almost Spring' woven willow, 2017
(photograph by Shannon Tofts)
Eric Ravilious King Edward VIII Coronation Mug, 1937 (originally designed in 1936)
Angie Lewin 'Festival Mug' lithograph
Emily Sutton 'Olive Cook's Settle' watercolour, 2013
Edward Bawden 'Church and Dove' wallpaper, 1925
Sussex Modernism at Two Temple Place
Looking forward to visiting the latest exhibition at Two Temple Place in London where Sussex Modernism - Retreat and Rebellion has just opened.
Created by the Bulldog Trust in partnership with nine museums and galleries based in Sussex (including Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, Charleston, De La Warr Pavillion, Towner Art Gallery and Pallant House Gallery) the exhibition examines why artists and writers were drawn to the rolling hills, seaside resorts and villages of Sussex in the first half of the 20th century, creating artistic communities whose innovations developed alongside political, sexual and domestic experimentation.
Curated by Dr Hope Wolf, Lecturer in British Modernist Literature and co-Director of the Centre for Modernist Studies at the University of Sussex, the exhibition runs until 23rd April 2017. Visit the Two Temple Place website for opening times.
David Jones The Garden Enclosed, 1924
Oil paint on canvas © Tate, London 2015
John Piper View of Chichester Cathedral from the Deanery, 1975
Ink, watercolour and crayon on paper © The Piper Estate / DACS 2016
Eric Gill Icon (for Divine Lovers), 1923
Courtesy of the Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft
Barnett Freedman
I'm currently curating an exhibition which will open at Winchester Discovery Centre on Saturday 11th March 2017. A Printmaker's Journey will then tour Hampshire until the end of November.
The exhibition will include work selected from a wide range of disciplines and periods which have in some way influenced my work as a printmaker and designer. Paintings, textiles, prints, posters and ceramics by artists and designers including Eric Ravilious, Edward Bawden, Alan Reynolds and Paul Morrison will be displayed alongside examples of my own work.
Full details of the exhibition will be announced soon - do subscribe to my newsletter if you'd like to find out more.
I'll be including two works by artist and illustrator Barnett Freedman, a contemporary of Bawden and Ravilious.
Over at Spitalfields Life, author David Buckman takes a look at the work of this prolific artist and illustrator...
"Barnett Freedman is among my top candidates for a blue plaque, as one of the most distinguished British artists to emerge from the East End. There was a 2006 campaign to get him one in at 25 Stanhope St, off the Euston Rd, where he lived early in his career, but English Heritage rejected him, along with four others as of “insufficient stature or historical significance” – an unjust decision exposed by the Camden New Journal. The artist and Camden resident David Gentleman was one among many who supported the plaque, writing “He was a very good and original artist whose work deserves to be remembered. He influenced me in the sense of his meticulous workmanship. He was a real master of it.” Read David Buckman's article in full
A portrait of Barnett Freedman
Advertisement for Shell, 1951.
Barnett Freedman’s ‘Claudia’ typeface.
Lithographs for ‘Oliver Twist,’ published by the Heritage Press in New York, 1939.
Barnett Freedman works courtesy Special Collections, Manchester Metropolitan University
All Creatures…
Mark Hearld has curated a new exhibition at Scarborough Art Gallery entitled 'All Creatures...' for which he has selected specimens of taxidermy from the Scarborough Collections.
Mark shared some of the details of this new exhibition with us...
"It has been a delight to take Scarborough's fantastic natural history collection out of the stores and display it afresh - a Galápagos tortoise and an egg from the extinct Great Auk are among many scientifically significant specimens. I took great pleasure in displaying a pair of mute swans and a group coughs restored and remounted for the exhibition by York taxidermist David Astley against aquamarine painted walls in the gallery. The exhibition is collage of forms in space and beauty in nature."
Mark has also created three new works of his own for the exhibition and these collages (of Grey Plovers, a Peregrine Falcon and a Herring gull) will become part of Scarborough Museum Trust's collection. and you'll have a chance to see Mark's largest linocut yet.
Mark takes inspiration from his wonder at the natural world, with animals and plants at the heart of his work. His work encompasses a range of different artistic forms including limited edition prints, unique paintings, collages, hand-painted ceramics. He also designs a range of fabrics and wallpaper for St Jude's.
Scarborough Museums Trust collections manager Jennifer Dunne explains...
"Mark’s work is known and admired around the world, so we’re delighted to have three new images of his as part of the Collections. His view on our taxidermy specimens is unique – visitors to the gallery will see them in a way they’ve never been seen before.”
The exhibition runs at Scarborough Art Gallery until 25th September 2016. Find out more from the Scarborough Museums Trust website.
