Home of the Paleoethnobotanist by Lottie Cole

LOT T I E C O L E

front cover

Juno Chair Oil on canvas 80 × 70 cm

LOT T I E C O L E HOME OF THE PA L EO E T H N O B OTA N I S T

PRIVATE VIEW 4 MAY 2022

EXHIBITION 5 MAY – 1 JUNE 2022

LONG & RYLE 4 John Islip Street London SW1P 4PX t: +44 (0) 20 7834 1434 • e: gallery@long-and-ryle.com www.longandryle.com • tues – fri 10 – 5:30 sat 11– 2

LOTTIE COLE “I would venture to guess that Anon […] was often a woman.”

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

The rooms in Lottie Cole’s paintings are

rooms, with its country garden - hollyhocks

unoccupied. Whoever lives here hasn’t gone

and all – pressed up against the windows, the

far, they have only stepped out of the room

temptation to take a closer look at that large,

leaving us momentarily alone. A fire roars

framed painting on the far wall while its owner is

in the open hearth; a game of gin-rummy,

briefly absent is impossible to resist. Intriguingly,

interrupted mid-way through, has been left

doesn’t it seem familiar? And that bronze on

on a coffee table to be continued presently;

the mantle-piece. And the decorated plates by

a book has been hastily left behind on a

the mirror… Like Dorothy, haven’t we somehow

window sill while matters outside this room

seen all this, someplace before?

are attended to. The flowers (everywhere) – whether abundant in over-sized vases, or

Given temporary free-reign inside the home

simple posies of snowdrops placed into an

of our host we can enjoy the idiosyncrasies

artist’s mug on a mantelpiece – are fresh and

of someone else’s private tastes and relish

open and have surely been picked from the

this unfettered access to masterpieces which

garden only this morning.

might otherwise only be seen publicly in a museum’s temporary exhibition once in a

This is a home, certainly: loved and inviting.

lifetime. Fleetingly, for a little while at least,

We want to stay awhile, fall back into the

they belong to us. In this room and just for a

plumped-up cushions and run our fingers

moment we are spoilt for choice: ours alone

reassuringly across a velvet armrest. But

to enjoy is the Elisabeth Frink head, a Marlow

alone in this most lavish of English living-

Moss double line, a Jessica Dismorr abstract.

A Welcoming Corner Oil on canvas 76 × 61 cm

There are layers of paint and layers of art

perhaps to look across the pond to another

histories embedded in Lottie Cole’s imagined

(unrelated but contemporaneous) Gilman:

living-rooms, but these domestic interiors are

to the American novelist Charlotte Perkins

far removed from Walter Sickert’s austere and

Gilman and her 1890 semi-autobiographical

sparse drawing rooms or the solitary chair in

short story The Yellow Wallpaper. In this

the corner of Gwen John’s Parisian quarters.

cautionary tale our protagonist is imprisoned

Even with circle-painted fireplace surrounds

within a room, hidden from view, oppressed

and hand-decorated lampshades, these

in equal measures by the ‘infuriating […]

rooms are beyond even Bloomsbury: we’re

torturing’ patterned, yellow walls of her

in an Instagram-like realm of private homes

bedroom jail-room and society’s limitations

with a world of interiors pressed into the four

on her sex. Like the mysterious woman who

corners of the canvas. Scheele’s poisonous

lurks, trapped behind the pattern of Gilman’s

Georgian greens are replaced with Farrow

yellow wallpaper, Cole’s paintings too are

and Ball colour cards of pinks and yellows

filled with unseen, anonymous women: Vera

and blues, lime-washed across walls, abutting

Spencer, Helen Saunders, Mina Loy – all are

brightly patterned wallpapers which run

far from being familiar, known, ‘household’

towards brightly glazed tile fire surrounds and

names.

down again to zig-zagging carpets and rugs.

The chairs of the Irish designer Eileen Grey We might be reminded of Harold Gilman’s

– importantly one of the first women to be

zingy patterned wallpapers in gloomy

admitted to the Slade in 1898 but whose

Edwardian houses, but it is more useful

name has inexplicably dropped from wider

recognition - become a focal point in Cole’s

abstract paintings and sculptures, blousy

latest paintings, some with vases boasting,

floral arrangements, repeats on curtains and

brimful with cut flowers, shouting ‘Look at

stripes on settees – we’re pulled up through

me! I exist!’ and demanding our attention.

a rush of art history and see that there

These chairs are as good as any by Mies van

exists a cacophony of women clamouring for

der Rohe or Le Corbusier (whose own tubular

recognition. It transpires they were there all

designs in fact came later). She is the pioneer.

along, these anonymous women. Hidden in

Her name and work need to be seen.

plain sight, we needed only to look a little longer to see them.

There is an exciting departure for Cole in this exhibition, as she continues her explorations beyond living-rooms with figurative groupings often found outside. Following on from her 2021 Ski Slopes holiday snaps series, now Barron and Larcher go shopping in a French market, Virginia and Angelica sit out in the dappled shade, and three anonymous sisters pose together on a garden lawn.

Back inside, in Cole’s kaleidoscopic world of colour – in geometric rugs, in the patterns up the walls, in the circles on fireplaces,

Harriet Olsen is the founder of Eiderdown Books, an independent publishing house established to get more books about female artists onto our bookshelves. The latest book from the ‘Modern Women Artists’ mini-series about the British artist and illustrator Eileen Mayo is out now. Visit www.eiderdownbooks.com for more information or follow the story on Instagram @ eiderdownbooks

Interior of the Paleoethnobotanist Oil on canvas 102 × 76 cm

Orlando Oil on canvas 102 × 76 cm

Dutch Swag, Slipware and Anon Woman Oil on canvas 76 × 61 cm

Centre Stage, Garden Flowers on Chair Oil on canvas 70 × 60 cm

Italian Coastal Interior with Horse Chestnut Chair, Barry Flanagan Horse on an Anvil & Japanese Cermaic Plates Oil on canvas 100 × 100 cm

Interior of an Impresario Watercolour and gouache 51 × 36 cm

Siblings Watercolour and gouache 51 × 36 cm

Eileen Gray IV Experimental S Chair and Black Bird Oil on canvas 50 × 60 cm

Eileen Gray I Non Conformist Summer with Evelyn Wyld Designs Oil on canvas 120 × 100 cm

Leonard Woolf’s Chair, Monk’s House Watercolour and gouache 61 × 46 cm

Eileen Gray II Winter Turns to Spring Oil on canvas 120 × 100 cm

Is that Phyllis Barron’s Hat Oil on canvas 100 × 120 cm

Interior with Patience Watercolour and gouache 61 × 46 cm

Cornish Coast and Blue and White Collage, Blow & Knight Watercolour and gouache 51 × 36 cm

Eileen Gray III I Wound to Heal, Sweetbriar and Jessica Dismorr Oil on canvas 120 × 100 cm

Interior with Sandra Blow, Eileen Agar and Woman (Anon) Oil on canvas 100 × 100 cm

Traces from Mina Loy’s Lampshade Shop Watercolour and gouache 61 × 46 cm

Eyre de Lanux and Her Daughter Anne Oil on canvas 61 × 45 cm

Interior of an Irish Artsit, with her Grandaughter Barbara Hepworth and Elisabeth Frink Oil on canvas 120 × 100 cm

Midsummer Night with Bloomsbury Rugs Tread Watercolour and gouache 50 × 36 cm

Interior with Agnes Martin, Alice B. Toklas & Ethel Grant Watercolour and gouache 61 × 46 cm

Gothik Nautical Cottage Overlooking Christopher Wood Lighthouse Oil on canvas 80 × 80 cm

Matriarchy Watercolour and gouache 40 × 36 cm

Virginia and Angelica in the Garden Watercolour and gouache 31 × 40 cm

LOTTIE COLE 2022

Home of the Paleoethnobotanist, London & Ryle London Art Fair with Long & Ryle 2021 ING Discerning Eye, London Elected associate of the Royal Watercolour Society London Art Fair with Long & Ryle 2020 ING Discerning Eye, London Sunday Times Watercolour Competition Royal Watercolour Society, Contemporary Watercolour Competition 2019 Selection of Work at Ainscough Gallery and Cricket Fine Art, London & Hungerford, McAllister Thomas Godalming One the Square at Zimmer Stewart, Arundel The Sunday Times Watercolour Competition Exhibition & Tour Royal Watercolour Society, Contemporary Watercolour Competition 2018 One the Square showcase, Forest Row, RH18 The Sunday Times Watercolour Competition Exhibition & Tour ‘The Tetrarch & Other Stories’ Cricket Fine Art ‘Recalled: Poetry & The London Library’ London Review of Books Cafe 2017 Living with Art – Collectors’ Interiors, Cricket Fine Art, Park Walk 2016-17 Potterton Books, Lower Sloane Street, SW1 2013 October-July 2014 Lamb Chambers, Middle Temple November Solo Show, Cricket Fine Art, Park Walk 2011 Christmas Show, The Studio Gallery, Midhurst Cricket Fine Art, Cricket Fine Art, Park Walk Autumn Show, Moncrieff Bray Gallery, 2010 Moncrieff Bray Gallery, Solo Show Summer Exhibition, Thompson’s Gallery, Marylebone 2009 National Art Open, Group Exhibition Summer Exhibition, Thompson’s Gallery, Marylebone 2007 Thompson’s Gallery Marylebone, Group Exhibition 2005

Josephine Mews Fine Art, Solo Show

LONG & RYLE