Eileen Agar: An Eye For Collage 25 October 2008–15 March 2009
'Am I a Surrealist?' Agar in her own words Victor Willing: In Focus Lee Miller by Antony Penrose Philip Jones Griffiths: Agent Orange Full What's On Guide
ÂŁ1.50 Number 16 October 2008−March 2009 www.pallant.org.uk
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Jason Wason 4 – 25 October 2008
Lemon Street Galler y 13 Lemon Street, Truro, Cornwall TR1 2LS ¡ 01872 275757 info@lemonstreetgallery.co.uk www.lemonstreetgallery.co.uk
Catalogue on request
The Redfern Gallery represents the estate of Eileen Agar
Eileen Agar, The Illusionist, 1979, Acrylic on canvas, 71 x 91.5cm
Upcoming Exhibition
Danny Markey
Recent Paintings of South Wales
30 September - 30 October, 2008 The Redfern Gallery 20 Cork Street London W1S 3HL Tel: 020 7734 1732 art@redfern-gallery.com
www.redfern-gallery.com
Sandra Blow RA –
A MAJOR EXHIBITION 12–27 NOVEMBER 2008
The Fine Art Society Dealers since 1876 Sandra Blow Glad Ocean, 1989 Oil on canvas and collage 1455⁄8 x 1023⁄8 inches · 370 x 260 cm Exhibited: The Royal Academy, 1994; The Tate Gallery, 2001
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Contents Eileen Agar: An Eye for Collage 20 24
Am I a Surrealist? by Eileen Agar Recollections by Julia Cussins
Features 26 30 34 38 40
Victor Willing by Simon Martin Lee Miller and Friends by Antony Penrose Philip Jones Griffiths: Agent Orange by Helen Cadwallader and Julian Stallabrass Artist's Christmas Cards by Frances Guy Art Cymru: Modern Art in Wales by Simon Martin
Community 42 44 46
Outside In Award Winner 2007 Joel Howie Disability and Access Focus Group Objects by Nina Saunders
Friends 57 58 59 60
Chairman's Letter Friends News Friends Visit to Northampton Forthcoming Friends Events
Regulars
Top Eileen Agar, Butterfly Bride, 1938, Collage on paper, Courtesy of Birch and Conran, Š Estate of Eileen Agar Bottom Victor Willing, Swing, 1978, Oil on canvas, Wilson Loan (2004), Š Estate of the Artist
8 11 12 14 47 52 62 73 74
Editorial Director's Letter What's On: Exhibition Diary Collection News Gallery News Book Reviews What's On: Events Pallant Photos Artwork of the Month 7
Editorial EDITORIAL Editor Harriet Wailling, h.wailling@pallant.org.uk Sub Editor Emma Robertson Gallery Editorial Frances Guy, Simon Martin, Megan Mikel, Sarah Norris, Stefan van Raay, Marc Steene Guest Editorial (with many thanks) Julia Cussins, Joel Howie, Jillie Moss, Antony Penrose, and Nina Saunders and the Disability and Access Focus Group Design, Editing and Production David Wynn, d.wynn@pallant.org.uk ADVERTISING Booking and General Enquiries Kim Jenner +44 (0)207 3005658 Jane Grylls +44 (0)207 3005661
Pallant House Gallery is the Museum of Modern Art in the South. With one of the best collections of twentieth century British art in the world, and an outstanding range of temporary exhibitions, its Collection is a must see for any art enthusiast. And with a lively programme of lectures, talks, tours and art workshops for children, students, families and adults, an on-site restaurant delivering locally sourced, delicious food and a specialist Bookshop brimming with every art book you could want, a visit to the Museum of the Year 2007 is a day out for all. Supporter of the Collection 2008
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Gallery Information Pallant House Gallery 9 North Pallant, Chichester West Sussex, PO19 1TJ, UK Telephone +44 (0)1243 774557 info@pallant.org.uk www.pallant.org.uk Opening Times Monday Tuesday–Saturday Thursday Sunday/Bank Holidays Gallery FREE Day
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The Priory and Poling Charitable Trusts, The Garfield Weston Foundation and other Trusts, Foundations and anonymous benefactors. Pallant House Gallery makes every effort to seek permission of copyright owners for images reproduced in this publication. If however, a work has not been correctly identified or credited and you are the copyright holder, or know of the copyright holder, please contact the editor.
John Craxton, RA (b. 1922) A crucial moment in John Craxton’s life and art was his first visit to Greece in 1946. Previously he had been more associated, in his early work, with the darker palette of Neo-Romantic painters including his close friend Graham Sutherland, however for Craxton the light and life of Greece changed that forever. He also studied Picasso’s stylistic development and this has influenced the way he divides up the picture space. He came to think of himself as an Arcadian painter. His palette lightened and he realised that his main interest in landscape was its human associations. Lemon Harvester 1951 is a portrait of a young Greek man surrounded by greenery with a basket on his head. Craxton describes the scene: ‘As an escape from the heat of the midsummer afternoon on the Greek island of Poros it was possible to be ferried across to Galatas on the mainland in a dinghy with a sail or oars. There, after a twenty minute walk I would reach the lemon groves, a cool thick green paradise of citrus trees watered by springs from the hills above, Lemon Harvester is a memory of this place’. Craxton always understood that he was creating imaginatively rather than representing reality. As well as being a legible portrait, Harvester is a lively study in contrasts of colour and tone, with sunlight creating jewel-like effects as it filters through shadow.
Lemon Harvester, 1957 Oil on canvas 41 x 31 cm
Osborne Samuel specialise in twentieth century British painting and sculpture and have a number of works available by John Craxton. To request a copy of our recent catalogue or to request further information about our collection please contact the gallery: info@osbornesamuel.com Osborne Samuel Ltd 23a Bruton Street London W1J 6QG Tel: +44 (0)20 7493 7939 Fax: +44 (0)20 7493 7798 www.osbornesamuel.com
Director's Letter Stefan van Raay
This autumn’s major exhibition turns the spotlight on the Surrealist artist, Eileen Agar. The only British woman to be invited to take part in the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition alongside Picasso, Man Ray and Roland Penrose, her work received significant acclaim and was shown all over the world. However, despite the initial boost it gave her career, Agar was ambivalent about being pigeonholed as a Surrealist. She discusses her feelings on the subject in an extract from her autobiography, ‘A Look at My Life’ reproduced on page 20. Agar’s independence of spirit was evident in all aspects of her private life. Her friends and lovers were drawn from the far flung corners of the international art scene. Fittingly, though, many of these artists came into contact with each other in and around Sussex through Edward James at West Dean and Roland Penrose and Lee Miller at Chiddingly’s Farley Farm. In homage to this, the Eileen Agar retrospective is to be the springboard for a series of exhibitions celebrating the women of Surrealism in a programme which includes Lee Miller and Leonora Carrington, culminating in the summer of 2010. Whilst each of their stories will provide a stand-alone portrait, they will come together to form a startling insight into the often problematic place of the women on the edges of the Surrealist movement. Antony Penrose gives a taster of the forthcoming Lee Miller exhibition at Pallant
House Gallery on page 30. Further, you can read about the Surrealist house party which brought the group together in ‘The Surrealists in Cornwall’, also by Antony Penrose, and reviewed by Sarah Norris on page 52. Elsewhere this season our ‘In Focus’ exhibition looks at the work of Victor Willing. Simon Martin, Assistant Curator, introduces a beguiling artist who often resists interpretation, on page 26. Brighton Photo Biennial comes to Pallant House Gallery for the first time in a Prints Room exhibition of the sometimes challenging work of photo journalist Philip Jones Griffiths introduced by guest curator, Julian Stallabrass (page 34), Artist and Outside In award winner, Joel Howie, talks about his life, residency and opportunity to exhibit at the Gallery on page 42, Nina Saunders, the artist behind the extraordinary installation in the stairwell of the 18th century house, lets us into the secrets of her working methods on page 46, and festive cheer comes to the Gallery in the seasonal exhibition of artists' Christmas cards in the Prints Room, details on page 38. Finally, I would like to express a very warm welcome to Field & Fork at Pallant House Gallery, an exciting new venture between the Gallery and the critically acclaimed restaurateurs, Sam and Janet Mahoney. Solarized portrait of Agar taken by Helen Muspratt in Swanage, 1935 © National Media Museum / Science of Society Picture Library. Courtesy of Jessica Sutcliffe. 11
What's On Main Galleries ‹ Eileen Agar: An Eye for Collage 25 October 2008–15 March 2009 Identified for many years with the Surrealist group with which she exhibited, Eileen Agar was in fact equally influenced by abstraction and cubism. This exhibition will span from perhaps her greatest period of work, the 1930s, to the collages she made in the last decade of her working life, the 1980s. In these witty and amusing works, the fruit of a lifetime’s picture-making is distilled into images of undiminished inventiveness. Eileen Agar, Demeter, 1949, Mixed media on panel, Private Collection © Estate of Eileen Agar
Modern British Art: The First 100 Years › Ongoing/permanent Beginning with an examination of the influence of the European avant-garde on British art in the early 20th century this exhibition goes on to explore the impact of the two World Wars and the work of the War Artist’s Advisory Committee, the significance of ‘The Independent Group’ in the 1950s and the development of British Pop Art during the 1960s. Walter Sickert, 'Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies in 'The Lady with the Lamp'', 1932 –34, Oil on canvas, Wilson Gift through The Art Fund
Lee Miller and Friends 17 January– 29 March 2009 The muse of Man Ray, Picasso and Roland Penrose, Lee Miller was also an extraordinary photographer who has risen to iconic status for her extensive archive of works. This rare exhibition places her images alongside original pieces by her artist friends, from Eileen Agar to Picasso, given to Miller in exchange for her photographs. Lee Miller, Photograph of Picasso, Chiddingly, East Sussex, England, 1950, © Lee Miller Archives, England. All rights reserved.
‹ Victor Willing: Revelations, Discoveries, Communications 13 September 2008–11 January 2009 The first solo show in a public gallery of Willing’s work since his retrospective at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1986, this exhibition brings together over twenty enigmatic paintings and drawings from the visionary artist’s estate and the Pallant House Gallery collection, including a selection of rarely seen early paintings
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What's On Prints Room and Studio ‹ Philip Jones Griffiths: Agent Orange, Brighton Photo Biennial 2008 30 September–16 November 2008 A powerful exhibition of images by controversial photo-journalist Philip Jones Griffiths documenting the horrific legacy of the toxic defoliant, Agent Orange which was sprayed over South Vietnam during the war. Photograph by Philip Jones Griffiths Quynh Lan, 11 years old, at her home in A Luoi, Vietnam, Her father was sprayed many times with Agent Orange. © Philip Jones Griffiths/Magnum Photos
Art Cymru: Modern Art in Wales › 6 January–8 March 2009 The geographical focus of the Golder Thompson Gift has moved west to include Wales with the acquisition of prints by leading Welsh contemporary artists including Laura Ford, David Nash, Shani Rhys James, and David Tress. They will be displayed alongside a selection of works by earlier 20th century Welsh artists, such as Augustus John. Ceri Richards, The force that through the green fuse drives the flower (detail), 1945, 'Lithograph for Poetry London', Pallant House Gallery
Christmas card (detail) by Edward Bawden © Estate of Edward Bawden
Artists' Christmas Cards 18 November 2008– 4 January 2009 A quirky selection of handmade Christmas cards designed and made by artists to send to their families and friends, drawn from private collections including the Breuning-Eve Gift of Enid Marx Prints given to the Gallery in 2006 and the Hardie Williamson loan from Patrick Reade.
Studio Outside In award winner 2007 Zoe Leonard 28 October–30 November 2008 Outside In award winner 2007 Andrew Hood 2 December 2008–6 January 2009 In House 2–27 January 2009 A vibrant and eclectic display of artwork by the staff and volunteers at Pallant House Gallery.
Creative Response, Richmond Fellowship 28 January–2 March 2009 Artwork produced by the participants of Creative Response, an arts organisation working with people with mental health problems and substance misuse. Lily French 3–30 March 2009 Illustrations and passages from Lily's fantastic novel Doodles, Dreams and Imaginings: Visitors from Kado. 13
Collection News
Eduardo Paolozzi, Maquette for the Unknown Political Prisoner, 1952, Wilson Gift through The Art Fund, © The Trustees of the Eduardo Paolozzi Foundation
‹ Cold War Modern: Design 1945–70 Pallant House Gallery is lending Eduardo Paolozzi's 'Maquette for the Unknown Political Prisoner' (1952) to the exhibition 'Cold War Modern: Design 1945–70' at the V&A Museum (25 September–11 January 2009). This is the first exhibition to examine contemporary design, architecture, film and popular culture on both sides of the Iron Curtain during the Cold War era. Paolozzi's unrealised design was created for an international competition for a monument to be sited in West Berlin 'for all those men and women who in our time have given their lives or their liberty for the cause of human freedom.'
The Dennis Andrews and christopher whelan Gift › A significant group of prints and drawings has been presented to Pallant House Gallery by Mr Dennis Andrews and Christopher Whelan. These include an etching by Georges Rouault entitled 'Au pays de la soif et de la peur' ('In the Land of Thirst and Fear') (1914–27), Ivon Hitchens' only venture into lithography 'Still Life' (1938), three of Eric Ravilious's iconic Submarine Lithographs (1940–1), a monotype by Robert Colquhoun depicting a couple with a cat, a screenprint by Tom Phillips of 'Virgil in his Study' (1982), an etching/aquatint by Joe Tilson on a Greek theme entitled 'Dionysus/ Hyron' (1982) and a sinister Peter Howson drawing of a silhouetted man in a doorway. In addition Mr Andrews has presented the Gallery with a number of catalogues relating to Modern British artists, including several books featuring lithographs and illustrations by Paul Nash.
Eric Ravilious, Commander Looking Through the Periscope from the Submarine Series, 1940-41, © Estate of Eric Ravilious. All rights reserved. DACS 2008
‹ New Contemporary Scottish Prints The Gallery’s collection of contemporary Scottish prints continues to grow with the support of the Golder-Thompson Gift. New acquisitions include an etching by renowned abstract artist Callum Innes and prints by Nathan Coley, Moyna Flannigan, Alasdair Gray and Bronwen Sleigh. A humorous look at politics characterises the prints by both Moyna Flannigan and Alasdair Gray while 'Nigg II' by Bronwen Sleigh, a recent printmaking graduate from the Royal College of Art, explores the relationship between the natural environment and industrial architecture. The group of prints also includes an untitled print from the ‘Blueprint Portfolio’ by Nathan Coley, a Turner Prize nominee in 2007 who has recently had a solo show at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea. Nathan Coley, Untitled from the 'Blueprint Portfolio', © The Artist 14
MODERN PAINTERS OF WEST CORNWALL
Alan Lowndes (1921-1978) Painter and Critics
oil on board 90.2 x 116.8 cms 35½ x 45¾ ins signed and dated lower left; inscribed ‘Completed April 1963, St Ives’ on reverse
The inspirational confluence of light and landscape at the westerly tip of the Cornish peninsular has proved popular with visual artists for several generations. In the post-war period it was at the hub of the modernist avant-garde and the area has attracted painters and sculptors of the highest calibre from across Britain and beyond. Best known for their championing of the plein-air artists of Newlyn and St Ives who were working at the turn of the last century, Messum’s interest in the region and the individuals it continues to inspire extends right up to the present day. Many of
the paintings selected as part of this year’s studio selection are by artists who have, or have had, significant connections with Messum’s over the years. For the large part, their work explores that fertile territory that lies between figuration and abstraction and represents some of the very best that this westernmost edge of England has to offer. Artists include Jeremy Annear, Michael Forster, Roger Hilton, Alan Lowndes, Michael Finn, John Miller, Rose Hilton, David Andrew, Michael Upton, Mark Stork and Kurt Jackson.
LONDON PREVIEW Monday 8th to Saturday 13th September 2008
MY MESSUM’S
On view at The Studio by appointment Monday 15th September to Saturday 25th October 2008
private
collecting
an easier way to buy art www.messums.com 8 CORK STREET LONDON W1S 3LJ Tel +44 (0)20 7437 5545
online
MESSUM’S
new exhibitions:
Š Paul Arden
A New York style gallery in Petworth
20th September Andrew Holligan, Louise Dignand 1st November Andrew Shaylor
Arden and Anstruther 5 Lombard Street, Petworth, West Sussex, GU28 OAG. tel:
01798 344411 www.ardenandanstruther.com
5 7cbh]bicig @]bY 6Yb B]W\c`gcb ]b 9b[`UbX Exhibition open every day 10am–6pm, Admission: £5.50 Joint offer with Pallant House Gallery: Visitors to the Eileen Agar exhibition at Pallant House Gallery receive £2 off the ticket price to A Continuous Line: Ben Nicholson in England Organised by Abbot Hall Art Gallery, De La Warr Pavilion and Tate St Ives
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1947, November 11 (Mousehole), Oil and pencil on canvas, 46.5 × 58.5 cm, British Council. © Angela Verren Taunt 2008. All rights reserved, DACS
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WWW.ARTWALES.COM
20th Century and Contemporary Welsh Art
Sarah Carvell ‘Path Through the Bracken’ oil on canvas 2008 20 x 50cm
The gallery exhibits work by all the important figures in 20th century Welsh art, and the very best of the current generation of artists. Stock includes work by Gwen John, Augustus John, James Dickson Innes, Edward Morland Lewis, David Jones, Sir Cedric Morris, Ceri Richards, Graham Sutherland, John Piper, Josef Herman, John Elwyn, Jack Jones, Ernest Zobole, Peter Prendergast, Sir Kyffin Williams, Harry Holland, Kevin Sinnott, Gwilym Prichard, Shani Rhys James, Claudia Williams, Charles Burton, Mary Lloyd Jones, Sally Moore, John Macfarlane, John Knapp-Fisher, Keith Bowen, Neil Canning, Sarah Carvell, Mike Briscoe, Mary Griffiths, Vivienne Williams, Clive HicksJenkins, Sigrid Muller, James Donovan, Dick Chappell, Dewi Tudur, Iwan Gwyn Parry, Darren Hughes, Sarah Thwaites, Emrys Williams, Stephen Young and others.
M A RT I N T I N N E Y G A L L E RY 18 St. Andrew’s Crescent Cardiff CF10 3DD t:029 20641411 mtg@artwales.com
Balance by Vanessa Pooley Bronze, 2008, length 50cm
This piece is similar to ‘Flying Lessons’, but larger, and suitable for displaying outside
Vanessa Pooley_Win07.indd 1
tel: 01603 663775 www.vanessapooley.com 22/8/08 15:58:36
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Am I a Surrealist? Eileen Agar
Roland Penrose and Herbert Read thought she was a Surrealist when they invited her to join the International Exhibition of 1936, but the spirited Eileen Agar (1899–1991) wasn't so sure. In an extract from her autobiography, 'A Look at My Life', she explores that enduring question in her own words.
Surrealism came from France to the shores of Albion (to mingle with our native roots in Blake, Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear) largely through the efforts of two remarkable men: Roland Penrose and David Gascoyne. In 1924 on Roger Fry's suggestion, though against his father's wishes, Roland had gone to Paris, and as a student he began to realise his affinity with certain of the young Surrealist painters and poets. The prodigious young poet David Gascoyne had also gone to live in France and was deeply involved with the Surrealist movement. […] Gascoyne managed to combine an intellectual approach to Surrealism with intuition and commitment to the cause. It was a crucial day for English art when he and Penrose met on a Paris pavement, for they decided then and there to launch an international show of Surrealist work in London.
Page 20 Eileen Agar, Collage Head, 1937, Collage on paper, Private Collection, London, © Estate of Eileen Agar Page 22 Eileen Agar, Muse of Construction, 1939, Oil on canvas, Private Collection © Estate of Eileen Agar Page 23 Eileen Agar, Butterfly Bride, 1938, Collage on paper, Courtesy of Birch and Conran © Estate of Eileen Agar
Early in the spring of 1936, Roland Penrose and Herbert Read came to the studio to see my work, and to decide if they should choose something for the newly-organised International Surrealist Exhibition to be held in the New Burlington Galleries in June. André Breton and Paul Eluard were to be on the French committee, and Paul Nash with Penrose and Read were on the English commitee. I think Paul Nash had suggested my name to them as a potential exhibitor, but the sudden attention took me by surprise. One day I was an artist exploring highly › 21
The International Surrealist Exhibition was welltimed, and that very hot summer the new Burlington Galleries became a new source of wonder as we made living contact with the materialisations of strong spiritual forces, and sought to hunt down the mad beast of convention. You turned into Burlington Gardens, symbolically between the Royal Academy and Bond Street, and took the lift to the third floor of an ordinary-looking building. After that the spectacle began. The large rooms were crowded with the works of de Chirico, Dali, Duchamp, Brancusi, Giacometti, Klee, Miro, Picabia and Picasso amongst others. There were many notables present as well as many respectables, and they acted as people usually act when observed in an 'immoral place'. They tried to be invisible.
personal combinations of form and content, and the next I was calmly informed I was a Surrealist! It was through Paul Nash that I met Roland Penrose and Herbert Read, but Paul played no part in the selection of my work for the 1936 exhibition. Read and Penrose together chose three oil paintings and five objects, and I became one of the English representatives of Surrealism amongst the thirteen other nations which contributed to the show. The English contingent also included the powerful biomorphic sculptures of Henry Moore, the inspired linearity of Bill Hayter and the sinister creations of Edward Burra. Roland was the guiding force behind the exhibition in England. His years in France had led to acquaintance with all the great masters of Surrealism, so he was well-cast in the role of co-ordinator. Roland himself was a Surrealist in his life as in his art, a polymath who was a famous collector as well as a writer and an artist, a Quaker who was gentle and courteous. He had known some wild men and women in his time and never been provoked. But perhaps he sometimes felt the tension between the free, uninhibited and occasionally violent world of the Surrealists, and the douceur de vivre of the Society of Friends. But Roland was bold and far-seeing and set the Thames on fire with the organisation of the dream world of 1936.
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Roland was a close friend of the poet Paul Eluard, and it was their inspired enthusiasm and combined doing which led to the success of the exhibition. It attracted large crowds, and, sensational and exciting, was the great event of the year, causing much controversy; it burst on London like a manyfaceted flower, sending its petals all over the world, and its seeds fell in many countries. Record crowds were drawn to the New Burlington Galleries on that June day, and some two thousand people saw the exhibition officially opened by Andre Breton. Joseph [Bard] mentioned that his outstanding pleasure was to see T.S. Eliot come in with Herbert Read, and linger in front of Meret Oppenheim's tea-cup and saucer covered in fur, obviously moved by this super-objective correlative of the female sex. There was a fervent of stimulation everywhere, for the sight of nearly four hundred paintings, sculptures, objects, collages and drawings, in a completely new visual language, was overwhelming. Across the room, an incredulous smile was staring at a melting watch hanging on to its memory. A fantastic painting of a Paranoic Head was watching a mask insulting aesthetes, while a painted man was executing a dance of liberty. Arguments, agreements, forthright with hatchets or with love, I was proud to be among them. ◊ This abridged extract was taken from A Look at My Life by Eileen Agar, in collaboration with Andrew Lambirth (Methuen, London, 1988) Š Eileen Agar Estate
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Recollections Julia Cussins
When Eileen and I first met at the New Art Centre in 1981 I was working in the gallery and had spent that week hanging a series of large, vibrant and colourful acrylics that we were showing for her latest oneperson show. It did not seem possible that the woman I met before the Private View could have created them. Eileen was tiny, bird-like and elegant. She seemed fragile physically, but her output belied her appearance. As Madeleine Bessborough, director of the New Art Centre told me recently: 'Eileen was a true surrealist, there was nothing fake about her, she had that combination of eccentricity and an element of surprise in every part of her life. Just before she died she came to the Sculpture Park for an opening. She arrived in a cerise satin suit, holding a circle of students enthralled, answering questions and relating anecdotes.' Olivia Dalrymple, who had brought her down from London that day, related her memories of her great aunt: 'Eileen used to come to our house every Sunday for lunch, always dressed in stylish, quirky clothes, even in her 90s. I particularly loved the black and white shirt she used to wear that looked as if it had handfuls of letters and numbers thrown at it. I remember her being very bird-like with a bob of silver hair, intelligent owlish eyes, and an amused expression on her face...and she always carried her marvellous black, wand-like stick which she used to walk and which could be collapsed into her handbag when not in use.' Eileen Agar, Aurora (detail), ca1942, Watercolour, bodycolour and coloured chalk on paper, 46 x 56 cm, Private Collection, © The Estate of Eileen Agar
She continued: 'Eileen's flat was an Aladdin’s Cave for us children: 'I loved visiting it - covered as it was from floor to (high) ceiling with a riot of colourful paintingsmost of which were by Eileen, though a few were by her friends and contemporaries. It was like visiting a gallery and it was always fun to see what pictures she had moved or changed each time we visited.' Eileen was a strong character; she was the only woman represented in the 1936 Surrealist show in London in an era when many women were considered only as a 'Muse' rather than artists in the their own right. Replying to the present owner of 'Aurora', Eileen wrote: 'Yes, I am quite sure that your painting was called ‘Aurora’, for now I remember that H.G.Wells remarked when he saw it, that he didn’t believe in Romantic titles and that I should have called it’ Morning’-with which I disagreed strongly! After all it is obviously Romantic…' 'Aurora' was first shown in an exhibition at The Redfern Gallery in 1942. Paul Nash, a close friend and mentor wrote in his foreword to the catalogue: 'Eileen Agar was one of the 'discoveries' of the International Surrealist exhibition … contemporaries at the Slade of 1925 and 1926 remember her as a brilliant student' Like so many great artists, Eileen Agar defies any attempt to pin her down. We will find instead, as Paul Nash wrote: 'We are aware of a sensitive, active mind busy over a myriad pictorial schemes; some obviously experimental, others happily matured after long preoccupation. There is evidence, too, of a skilful hand, creating, sometimes with abrupt, alarming results, but as often with a delicate persuasive magic.' ◊ 25
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Victor Willing: Revelations, Discoveries and Communications Simon Martin
In his later years, artist Victor Willing (1928–1988) retreated into an interior world of hallucinatory revelations. Curator Simon Martin explores how this obsession with the subconscious came to inform his work.
Page 28 Victor Willing, Judge, 1982, Oil on canvas, Wilson Gift through The Art Fund, © Estate of the Artist Page 29 Victor Willing, Self-Portrait at 70, 1987, Oil on canvas, Wilson Gift through The Art Fund, © Estate of the Artist
As viewers we constantly strive to understand the 'meaning' of a work of art. Yet sometimes the notion of 'meaning' is irrelevant and the work resists any form of literal interpretation. One simply has to respond on a deeper level to what is there before you. The paintings of Victor Willing have this enigmatic, sphinx-like quality, for any 'meaning' therein is essentially unknowable. As viewers, we may never fully understand Willing's art but, just as one will probably never know the real reason for the Mona Lisa's smile, this is perhaps also why Willing's art continues to engage and resonate twenty years after his death from multiple sclerosis. His work appeals to the viewer on an existential level; not perceptions of the world, but rather, perceptions of the mind. Unlike many of his fellow Slade School alumni, Willing did not aim in his mature work to faithfully convey external reality. Although he admired the work of William Coldstream, the meticulous measuring and mark-marking of his tutor's approach was not for him. In a monumental painting entitled 'Judge' (1982) a motionless plumb-line hangs from a scaffold, wryly referencing the Slade approach to factual observation. It is a heroic work, not least because when Willing painted it he could only stand with the support of a walking frame and the tops of his canvasses could only be reached after they had been turned upsidedown for him. Given the context of his debilitating illness, which was first diagnosed in 1966, the epic › 27
scale and vitality of his late work is humbling. His motivation is indicated in a passage he wrote for a catalogue of an exhibition devoted to Outsider Art: 'Beneath the desire to change society, and the need to communicate is a need, urgent in some of us, to affirm with our scratches that "I exist". The activities going on in our mind – thoughts and memories – are ephemeral, disappearing when we do. So scratch the wall and step back. "I did that". Turn around and look again tomorrow. There it is still – tangible proof.' The scenarios depicted in his images are usually impossible, except in the imagination. He was interested in Surrealist automatism and often quoted the Dada artist Tristan Tzara's definition of associative imagery as 'thought made in the mouth.' He spoke of his pictures as: 'scenarios in which something has happened or is about to happen but is not happening at the time depicted.' The fractured narratives of his paintings have affinities with the metaphysical paintings of Giorgio de Chirico: unlikely combinations of objects in unlikely, theatrical settings. They have a dream-like intensity. Indeed, he described his paintings as 'apparitions not appearances. Visionary not visual. Between 1975 and 1980 I saw them through the wall. Call that hallucination.' In Night (1978) we see a boat floundering in a storm, its sails billowing, yet it is in a dark basement, seemingly grounded in the mire. Both Willing and his wife, the artist Paula Rego, were interested in the role of the subconscious in art, and underwent Jungian psychoanalysis. 'In Jungian imagery the sea represents the unconscious, and so does a basement,' he explained. 'If you put a boat in a basement, you're obviously in pretty deep.' Yet this can only partially explain this extraordinary painting, or indeed the hallucination, which inspired it. Willing spoke of how, 'We all have this problem – we have an inner reality which only we know. And this is the 'self' we're inclined to forget about because there isn't very much use for it in the world – this more real part of ourselves. But there comes a point when you begin to realize that this is the important bit – the bit that only you know. Now I think my painting is almost exclusively to do with that self which is normally neglected." After having a 'revelation', Willing would immediately draw and then use the drawings as source material for paintings. Not in the way that many artists copy or square-up preparatory drawings on to the canvas, 28
but treating the drawings as real objects, as if painting from life. His paintings sometimes have an 'unfinished' quality, because he wanted them to look like drawings. The light in his paintings is not English but has a glare, suggesting the heat and clarity of Egypt, where Willing was born and spent his early years, or of Portugal, where he lived with Rego and his children from 1957 to 1974. In his haunting Self Portrait at Seventy (1987) the blue of his eye-sockets matches exactly the cerulean blue of the surrounding sky, as if he is disappearing into the ether. Willing once wrote of pictures waiting to be painted as being 'like an open door one hesitates to go through.' What is so moving about this work is that he knew he would never live to actually paint himself at the age of seventy when he painted it at the age of fifty-nine, a year before his death. It was as if he had gone through that open door and confronted his own mortality. He also wrote of painting as 'a revelation, simultaneously discovery and communication.' Willing may have seen painting as something intensely personal, as a means of communicating with himself, of discovering himself, but the revelation of his painting is that through the communication of his inner thoughts and feelings, we can discover something of ourselves. ◊
Victor Willing: Revelations, Discoveries and Communications 13 September 2008–11 January 2009 Talk by Paula Rego Paula Rego on Victor Willing Thursday 23 October, 6pm For details see p62
Page 29 (Top) Victor Willing, Night, 1978, Oil on canvas, Wilson Gift through The Art Fund, © Estate of the Artist Page 29 (Bottom) Victor Willing, Study for 'Night', 1978 (March), Charcoal and pastel drawing on paper, Wilson Gift through The Art Fund, © Estate of the Artist
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Lee Miller and Friends Antony Penrose
Lee Miller (1907–1977) counted amongst her friends artists from Eileen Agar to Pablo Picasso - many of them the subjects of her penetrating photographic portraits. Antony Penrose, son of Lee Miller, introduces a rare exhibition at Pallant House Gallery which sees Miller's iconic images alongside the extraordinary gifts she received from them.
Lee Miller's present elevation can give the impression that she was a sort of isolated goddess whose beauty and achievements caused her to live surrounded only by the big names of the day, like Pablo Picasso, Man Ray, or Roland Penrose. This exhibition gives us an insight into her wider circle of friends, and shows us not only their importance to Lee Miller, but her importance to them. The people Lee Miller photographed came from all walks of life. Some of the most engaging are of soldiers and people in the war that she encountered and who will most likely for ever be anonymous faces. Of course there were actors, ballet stars, military men and women and figures from the worlds of literature, music, the visual arts and even politics she photographed for Vogue magazine. There were also the men and women who worked on Farley Farm, her home in Chiddingly who would have been astonished if they had known that decades later their portraits would appear in books and exhibitions of Lee Miller's work. This selection is of friends who have a special intimacy with Lee Miller. They are carefully chosen from those who reciprocated the compliment of Lee's photographic portrait by giving her or her husband Roland Penrose one of their works. Fittingly Man Ray, Lee's lover and mentor, gave her his delicate drawing La Couture, his cynical take › 31
Page 30 Lee Miller with David E. Scherman, Lee Miller in Hitler's bath, Hitler's Apartment, Munich, Germany, 1945, © Lee Miller Archives, England. All rights reserved. Left Lee Miller, Photograph of Eileen Agar, Brighton, England, 1937, © Lee Miller Archives, England. All rights reserved. Right Lee Miller, Photograph of Picasso, Chiddingly, East Sussex, England, 1950, © Lee Miller Archives, England. All rights reserved.
on the world of fashion that also hints at his own penchant for snipping up images of Lee Miller. Her eye appears on the pendulum of his famous metronome titled 'Object to be Destroyed'. Eileen Agar appears as a shadow against the Brighton Pavilion. When Picasso saw the photograph he declared Agar was pregnant – with a camera – for the bulge on her abdomen was in fact her Rollieflex. Agar made her tenderly affectionate drawing of Lee within the next few days. A week or so later Lee photographed Dora Maar in Mougins, Provençe, and Dora drew Lee's profile on the paper tablecloth of the cafe. Her signature appears as the pearls in Lee's necklace, the preciousness of friendship worn like beautiful and treasured jewellery. These carefree holiday images sit in jarring contrast to the double portraits of Lee Miller and her wartime buddy, the LIFE magazine photographer David E. Scherman, sitting in Hitler's bathtub in his Munich apartment. Lee's boots have just stamped the filth of Dachau into Hitler's pristine bathmat and unknown to Miller and Scherman at that moment, Hitler and Eva Braun, his bride of a few minutes, were killing themselves in Berlin. Two images which at first seem relatively uncomplicated symbolise the closing of giant circles on both global and personal levels. Jean Cocteau directed Lee as the star of his 1930 film Le Sang d'un Poete. Taken fourteen years later Lee's photograph of him outside his apartment in Palais Royale during the Liberation 32
of Paris conveys the closing of more circles and gives a sense of the world returning to normal. The post war years at Farley Farm begin with Picasso's visit and the wonderfully Surrealist juxtaposition of the artist and an English village signpost. The lithograph of the flying bulls comes from the original drawing he made the same evening in the ICA visitors' book whilst seated by the fire in the farmhouse. The drawing is in a sense a portrait – of Henry our Ayrshire bull who had made friends with Picasso that morning. Paul Éluard, Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning, John Craxton and Richard and Terri Hamilton appear later and I slip into some of the pictures. Lee never shot my formal portrait. By now I think her aversion to formal studio photography had reached its peak, so instead I appear doing what I did best – goofing around with this amiable crowd of strange people who were all Lee's friends. I am so glad she chose her friends so wisely. ◊ Antony Penrose 18 September 2008 © Antony Penrose 2008 All rights Reserved. Lee Miller and Friends 17 January–29 March 2009 Prints Room Discovering Lee Miller Talk by Antony Penrose Thursday 19 March, 6pm For details see p62
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Philip Jones Griffiths: Agent Orange Brighton Photo Biennial 2008 Helen Cadwallader and Julian Stallabrass
The Brighton Photo Biennial has established itself as one of the most important photography festivals in Europe. Here, Helen Cadwallader, Executive Director of the Biennial introduces the theme behind this year's programme, while Julian Stallabrass, curator, takes a look at the man behind the series of powerful photographs which will go on display at Pallant House Gallery as part of the 2008 Biennial.
Photograph by Philip Jones Griffiths Quynh Lan, 11 years old, at her home in A Luoi, Vietnam, Her father was sprayed many times with Agent Orange. Š Philip Jones Griffiths/Magnum Photos
Helen Cadwallader The Brighton Photo Biennial presents the work of international artists, from a range of cultural backgrounds, commissioning new work, premiering recent work and exhibiting historical work in new contexts. For the 2008 edition, entitled 'Memory of Fire: The War of Images and Images of War,' the provocative writer and critic Julian Stallabrass is curating ten exhibitions exploring photographic images of war, their making, use and circulation and their currency in contemporary society. The Biennial is taking place not only in Brighton but in venues across the South East region, including for the first time Pallant House Gallery. These include Aspex in Portsmouth, Charleston, the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill on Sea, Fabrica and Lighthouse in Brighton, The Independent Photographers Gallery in Battle, The Winchester Gallery, the University of Brighton Gallery and in Brighton Photo Fringe venues across the city. Given the continuing conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East, the representation of war dominates the wider culture. From the horrors portrayed in the Vietnam war to the wildly divergent imagery created during the current conflict in Iraq, and the melancholy of defeat in Latin American resistance movements to the futility of trench warfare in World War I, the Biennial will explore the history and diverse scope of images of war using vernacular, documentary, art, digital, montage, › 35
historic and contemporary photography. The exhibition in the Prints Room of Pallant House Gallery focuses on photographs taken in Vietnam by the British photojournalist Philip Jones Griffiths (1936–2008). Julian Stallabrass on Philip Jones Griffiths Philip Jones Griffiths (UK), one of the most extraordinary photojournalists of the Magnum agency, is best known for his 1971 book Vietnam Inc., a remarkably systematic and eloquent photographic condemnation of the 'American War'. CartierBresson said of his work that not since Goya had anyone portrayed war like Philip Jones Griffiths. Yet Griffiths did not merely chase wars, but over a period of more than thirty years, until his death in 2008, continued to go back to Vietnam to document the effects of the conflict, and the changes brought to the country first by the Communist government and then by market 'reform'. In particular, he pursued with great tenacity a story few wanted to talk about or hear about: the horrific legacy of the defoliant Agent Orange that was sprayed from the air over great swathes of South Vietnam. The active chemical of the defoliant was dioxin, one of the most toxic substances known, and one which lingers in the environment and the body, causing cancers and genetic mutations. Griffiths went to the hospitals to photograph the afflicted, showed how families, schools and medical staff dealt with them, and the resilience and courage of many of those worst affected in their struggles to do things many of us take for granted. In the US, many of the military personnel who merely had to handle the chemical, loading it on to the crop-spraying planes, have received compensation for their resulting sicknesses. For the Vietnamese, on whom it was sprayed, and whose environment was devastated, there has been, so far, nothing. Indeed, it was a condition of Vietnam's re-admission to the world of trading nations that it pay compensation to the US for the cost of the weaponry used to devastate it. A court case for the Vietnamese victims now makes its way through the US courts, and Griffiths' book, Agent Orange, from which this exhibition is drawn, has been an important catalyst in its prosecution. ◊
Brighton Photo Biennial 2008 3 October–16 November 2008 www.bpb.org.uk Philip Jones Griffiths: Agent Orange 30 September–16 November 2008 Pallant House Gallery Photographing the First World War by Frank Hurley 31 August–2 November 2008 Charleston, Lewes
Frank Hurley, Looking out from the entrance of a captured Pill-Box on to the shell ravaged battlefield 1917/18, © Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales
Designs for Solidarity Photography and the Cuban Political Poster 1965–1975 22 September–24 November 2008 Design Archives at the University of Brighton Photography & Revolution: Memory Trails Through the Latin American Left 3 October–7 November 2008 The Winchester Gallery, Winchester
Anonymous photographer © Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen, El Salvador
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Iraq Through the Lens of Vietnam 3 October–16 November 2008 University of Brighton Gallery, Brighton
Why, Mister, Why? and Baghdad Calling by Geert Van Kesteren 3 October–16 November 2008 Lighthouse Gallery, Brighton
Ashley Gilbertson, Specialist William Wimberly watches George W. Bush apologize on behalf of the US military for the torture that took place at Abu Ghraib prison. © Ashley Gilbertson
The Incommensurable Banner by Thomas Hirschhorn 3 October–16 November 2008 Fabrica, Brighton
A couple of friends from Bagdad travel for holidays in a second-hand middleclass cabriolet to Suleymania in Kurdish Iraq. © Geert van Kesteren/Collection Baghdad Calling
The Sublime Image of Destruction 3 October 2008–4 January 2009 De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea
The Incommensurable Banner, 2007 (Studio view) Thomas Hirschhorn, © Thomas Hirschhorn
Unveiled: Voices of Women in Afghanistan by Harriet Logan 3 October–16 November 2008 Independent Photographers Gallery, Battle
Simon Norfolk, Street corner where five boys were killed US soldiers came to destroy an Iraqi tank that had been left behind. They threw in an incendiary grenade and left. People came to watch the burning tank and when its ammunition exploded, five were killed. Street 60, Mechanical City, Dora. Baghdad 19-27 April 2003, © Simon Norfolk
War Memorial 4 October 2008–23 November 2008 Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth
Harriet Logan, 1997, Fahrida lost her leg during a mujahideen mortar attack in Jalalabad © Harriet Logan Details from War Memorial by Julian Germain 2008. Photographs © Steve Armon/Tricia Cane
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Artist's Christmas Cards Frances Guy
Since working at Pallant House Gallery, I've often had the pleasure of visiting artists and collectors in their homes in order to assess a potential gift or loan to the Collection. This can involve picking through boxes and portfolios of drawings, letters and other archive material, sometimes producing unexpected delights that are more intriguing than the artworks on offer. In particular, I've always been struck by the Christmas cards designed and made by artists to send to their families and friends. Sometimes these are in-miniature facsimiles of an artist's professional output but more often than not they appear to be an outlet for their more playful, humorous or quirky side. And so the idea of mounting a year-on-year display of Artists' Christmas Cards in the Gallery's Prints Room was born.
he died in 1994. The cards, however, were thrown out by the house clearance agent and were only just retrieved from the bin-bags before the dust cart arrived. They are mostly by a group of artists who were ex-students at the Royal College of Art or who taught at the RCA with Williamson from the 1930s to the 1950s. They include Edward Bawden, John Nash and Gilbert Spencer as well as lesserknow artists who, together with Williamson, had a huge impact on post-war design from illustration and fabrics to stained-glass and mural-painting.
This year's exhibition is a selection of hand-made cards drawn from private collections and the Breuning-Eve Gift of Enid Marx Prints given to the Gallery in 2006. Marx was one of Britain's foremost designers and illustrators who studied at the Central School of Arts and Crafts and the Royal College of Art. Her wood-engraved and linocut cards are typical of her work and that of her contemporaries Edward Bawden and Eric Ravilious.
Artists' Christmas Cards 18 November–4 January 2009 Prints Room
The majority of the exhibition is comprised of a collection from the artist Hardie Williamson, on loan to the exhibition by Patrick Reade, Williamson's GP who bought the contents of the artist's studio when
I hope you enjoy this first exhibition and remember to keep any artists' Christmas cards you may receive this year – it's a good way to start your own collection. ◊
Christmas at Pallant House Gallery A programme of live events from 6–8pm every Thursday in December leading up to Christmas Enid Marx Christmas Cards Produced exclusively for Pallant House Gallery. See page 50 for details. Illustration: Christmas card from ca1950s by Joan Dawson On loan from Patrick Reade
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Art Cymru: Modern Art in Wales Simon Martin
The label 'Modern British Art' with which Pallant House Gallery defines its collections is an inclusive one, encompassing artistic activity across the British Isles. In spring 2009, the Prints Room hosts a display of works on paper by artists in Wales, building upon the gallery’s collection of contemporary Scottish prints that has been formed through the generosity of Mark Golder and Brian Thompson. Besides Scottish prints, the Golder-Thompson Gift has enabled the purchase of a portfolio of prints by leading Welsh contemporary artists, which has been published by the Contemporary Art Society of Wales to celebrate its 70th anniversary. The portfolio includes 'Espaliered Girl': a strange hybrid being of a child and tree by Laura Ford, an artist who recently represented Wales at the Venice Biennale, and Shani Rhys-James's etching 'The Hand Mirror' which represents the artist as a young girl searching for herself in a room of dressmaker's dummies. Other prints by David Nash and David Tress reflect the Welsh landscape: 'Red Flash' by Nash is a hand-stencilled edition based on a large sculpture in yew, while 'Winter at Clegyr-Boia' by Tress reflects man's presence in the Pemrokeshire landscape. Alongside these contemporary prints will be a selection of works by earlier twentieth-century Welsh artists, such as Augustus John's striking double self-portrait and his drawing of 'Young Girls by the Sea' (c.1905–10), which reveals continental influences on his early work
that demonstrates that 'Welsh art' is by no means provincial in its references. The display will also feature a stereotypically Welsh subject by Merlyn Evans – a darkly powerful etching entitled 'The Miners' (1946), which contrasts with David Jones' delicate drawings, whose light pencil lines seem to dance across the paper. The influence of Welsh poetry and music is unmistakable in the work of Ceri Richards, particularly in his lithographs inspired by Dylan Thomas's poem 'The Force that through the Green Fuse drives the Flower.' This romantic tradition from which such works stem has also inspired more recent artists such as Clive Hicks-Jenkins, whose etching 'December' (2000) relates to his collaboration with the poet Catriona Urquhart on a cycle of poems and images entitled 'The Mares Tale'. ◊ Art Cymru: Modern Art in Wales from Augustus John to David Nash 6 January to 8 March 2009 Prints Room Making an Impression: Print making in Wales Talk by Tony Curtis Thursday 12 February, 6pm See page 62 for details Ceri Richards, The force that through the Green Fuse drives the Flower, 1945, 'Lithograph for Poetry London', Pallant House Gallery © The Estate of Ceri Richards. All rights reserved 2008. 41
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Outside In Award Winner 2007 Joel Howie
Joel Howie, artist and one of six award winners for Outside In 2007, talks about his life, residency and opportunity to exhibit at the Gallery. Since my stroke at 14 the early part of my life was an ongoing battle with the education system to allow me to do what I want to do, paint and be taken seriously as an artist. This eventually led to me taking a BA in Fine Art at Portsmouth University as a disabled student. My struggle to gain access and understanding from the education system were significant and helped pave the way for others in my situation. Of the many achievements in my life, I see learning to use my left hand as one of the most important. I have always striven to prove myself as an artist, first and foremost. I have had a studio at Art Space in Portsmouth for the past seven years. I work mainly in oils, but also use watercolour, charcoal and pencil. My large scale works are all in oil on canvas and focus on the human figure, either in movement or within an environment. They combine both the figurative and abstract and an expressive use of paint and colour. My previous work has included several series of studies of dancers, boxers and people involved in their daily lives and occupations. I have also painted pictures of people with disabilities and this work reflects my personal experience of having been in a centre for people with disabilities for some years and my own personal experience of being disabled.
I am a member of the Partners in Art scheme run at Pallant House Gallery and with my partner I have been visiting dance studios and developing a series of paintings that I hope to exhibit in the near future. I rely on support to carry on with my work and to prevent me from becoming isolated. During my residency at Pallant House Gallery I have developed a body of work inspired by the interior spaces of the Gallery, the people within them and the light and space in the building and rooms, there are also images of Chichester, the City and Cathedral. My paintings are derived from photographs and often capture people in repose or reflection. I would like to thank Frances Peppercorn for her help with writing this article and supporting me in my exhibition at Pallant House Gallery and also my mother. â—Š If you are interested in contacting Joel, either to find out more about his work or exhibiting his paintings please contact Mark Steene, the Head of Learning at Pallant House Gallery.
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The Disability and Access Focus Group was set up in 2001 to provide advice on access and disability during the building of the new gallery. The membership of the group has changed over the years and it still continues to provide invaluable advice and guidance on issues to do with access and disability. Here, some of the members of the group speak about their experience of being involved with Pallant House Gallery.
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Peter Cornish When I was with what the West Sussex Disabilities Network I was invited to be involved in the Disability and Access Focus Group at Pallant House Gallery, I think that was nearly six years ago - at the time Pallant House Gallery was starting its refurbishment. I have never been involved in so much of a struggle to achieve the aims of creating an accessible building, the lift modifications, the doors, the gate, the list was never ending, but we did manage to solve the issues very well, and also keep within the rules of the present building regulations and disability legislation. Whenever I visit the Gallery or go to any of the Disability and Access Focus Group meetings I always stand at the entrance and say to myself, that’s some achievement. As a deaf person I have come to love the fact that when I am at Pallant House Gallery there are never any barriers to communication as apart from having an interpreter at meetings every one has been so friendly (especially Marc he tries ever so hard but I do lip read him very well). Since I became a member of the Disability and Access Focus Group I have grown to love Pallant House Gallery to the extent that I have started painting watercolours at home. Finally I thank the members of the Disability and Access Focus Group for making such a difference to disabled visitors and Pallant House Gallery for having me! Peter Neuner Derek Groves my partner in the Partners in Art Scheme at Pallant House Gallery and myself were invited to join the Disability and Access Focus Group in 2004. I felt very much the lay representative, it was fascinating and informative to hear from other group members whose experience of dealing with access and disability was a part of their daily lives. It was great to be involved in the developmental phase of planning for the new gallery as we had inputs from the architects, site visits, and were given virtual tours of other European galleries that provided some pointers towards good practice. As with any new building, every minute aspect needs to be considered. As a group we discussed everything from disabled toilet transfers, baby change units, to the language used by reception desk staff when addressing carers. This may seem small in the context of the architecture of the Gallery, but as we can see the new Gallery is much more than just the sum of the parts. The work of the group continues to fine tune the access to the Gallery to make it a significant experience for all members of the community.
Roger Wheatfill When I was asked by the manager of the Judith Adams Day Care Centre to join a group of people with different disabilities (I am in a wheelchair) to give advice to the people involved in the design and construction of the new Pallant House Gallery I personally thought it was just a token gesture. So, you can imagine my pleasure when at the first meeting they were actually taking notice of what was said. My personal input was for two accessible toilets instead of one to enable transfer from the left or right side and Pallant House Gallery now has two such toilets. Overall, I think that the gallery is as disability-friendly as it can possibly be. Glynis Spencer I am a practising artist and I live, with my family, in West Sussex. Primarily a painter, I became disabled during the first week of studying for my degree and had to adapt my art to accommodate my disability. I did this by turning to digital media, whenever my condition dictated, which gave me the opportunity to include another area of interest, photography. Having just joined the Disability and Access Focus Group, I am very impressed by the wide range of issues the Group is considering in order to make the Gallery, and its outreach enterprises, more accessible to all people with disabilities. I look forward to many more enjoyable meetings. Ben Hockliffe I have been part of the Disability and Access Focus Group for five years. I have attended in both a professional capacity (managing projects that involve disabled people in the services they receive), and a personal capacity (as someone who is partially sighted). It has been very interesting to witness Pallant House Gallery transform from an empty shell to the amazing gallery it is now, and to have been a part of that process, in ensuring that disabled people have the opportunity to access the building, both physically and culturally. I am looking forward to continuing to work with the group as new projects and challenges arise. ◊ Pallant House Gallery has been nominated for an accessibility award. Please see page 48 for details.
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Objects Nina Saunders
The artist behind 'Autumn Flowers', the extraordinary installation in the stairwell of the 18th century House, lets us into the secrets of her working methods. I am a Danish born British artist I live in London with my partner and my cat and I have two grown up children. I collect lots of things, objects mostly but furniture especially. Objects can make me laugh, but they can also make me sad. They can remind me of things I don’t like; things that have happened to me or to other people, or things that are happening in the world that I want to explore. Other times I feel very strongly about something and feel I have something important to say. Making artwork is like a language or a landscape. I love working with familiar and ordinary objects like chairs because most people recognise them. Most people have a favourite chair or object, if they sit in a chair and they are not comfortable they don’t like it. I like to transform ordinary things and make them strange or unusual. I made Autumn Flowers especially for the entrance hall of the old part of Pallant House Gallery. I used an ordinary Victorian chair as part of the artwork, a chair that looked like it could always have been there, but something is growing in the chair and huge 46
pod-like forms are hanging from the ceiling above. In making Autumn Flowers I was inspired by different elements and one of these was bees; for example their swarming, when they swarm the shapes are similar to that of the pods hanging above the chair, they work collectively, just as an art collection consists of many pieces brought together in a gallery and they also make the most beautiful honeycomb patterns in wax which inspired the upholstered pattern in Autumn Flowers. Many artists are inspired by patterns in nature, such as William Morris who lived from 1834 to 1896. He loved nature and he designed many beautiful fabrics and wallpapers based on natural patterns. He believed in the joy of creating things. If you take a chair with its upholstery and buttons and combine it with natural elements, you create a tension, this tension is what makes you think about what the artwork is about. It all depends on you looking at it. â—Š Nina Saunders: Autumn Flowers Until Spring 2009
Nina Saunders inspires participants in a Hans Feibusch Club workshop to transform household objects into artworks.
Gallery News Open Art Competition St Wilfrid's Hospice, in association with Pallant House Gallery, have launched an open art competition for artists of all ages and ability. Judged by a panel which will include Jack Vettriano and Stefan van Raay, the winners and 'highly commended' will be able to exhibit their work in Pallant House Studio Gallery (29th April -24th May 2009). Up to six images will also be chosen for the hospice to use as greetings cards. www.stwh.co.uk or www.pallant.org.uk
Ben Nicholson, 1935 (White Relief), Oil on carved and built up wood, British Council, © Angela Verren Taunt 2008. All rights reserved, DACS
Modern Art at Pallant House Gallery Pallant House Gallery have teamed up with the WEA to offer a new course exploring the cultural and historical contexts of the wide range of artworks on display at Pallant House Gallery, from 1900 to the present. The course will be delivered each week by the Gallery's volunteer Guides over ten sessions on Wednesday mornings between 22 April and 8 July from 10am–12pm. No previous art history knowledge is necessary. Course fees £68 (or free to claimants of Income Support or JSA). To book a place please contact Elizabeth Walker on 01243 785710.
Special Offer: A joint offer with the De la Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea To coincide with the Eileen Agar: An Eye for Collage exhibition (25 Oct 2008–15 March 2009), Pallant House Gallery have teamed up with Bexhill's De La Warr Pavilion to provide a discounted ticket offer for their concurrent exhibition Ben Nicolson: A Continuous Line (11 Oct 2008 –4 Jan 2009). This is the first major tour of the work of Nicholson in the UK for over fourteen years, focusing on his career from the 1920 to 1958. Simply retain your full price ticket stub for admission to Pallant House Gallery and get £2 off entrance to Ben Nicholson: A Continuous Line (usual price £5.50). Offer valid from 11 October 2008 to 4 January 2009 47
Eileen Agar An Eye for Collage
Photograph by Jason Hedges
Tourism ExSEllence Awards Pallant House Gallery is proud to announce that it has been shortlisted for two of the region’s prestigious Tourism ExSEllence awards, receiving nominations in the Access for All and Business Tourism catagories. Designed to honour excellence, quality and innovation in all areas of the tourism industry including accommodation, attractions and transport, selections are given for the provision of high levels of service and facilities. Previous acclaim for the Gallery’s work in these areas have included the ADAPT ‘Excellence in Access’ Award and the GoEasy Best Design for Accessibility. Winners will be announced at a Gala Dinner and Awards Ceremony, on Thursday 28 October.
AND REW LAMB IRTH
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Readers Offer For the duration of Pallant House Gallery’s Eileen Agar exhibition (25 October 2008– 15 March 2009), readers can purchase the catalogue, written by Andrew Lambirth, at the reduced price of £14.95 (rrp £19.95). The catalogue is available from the Pallant House Gallery Bookshop (01243) 770813. Please show a copy of this magazine or your Friends Membership card when claiming the discount.
EILEEN AGAR: AN EYE FOR COLLAGE
Gallery News
Cover image: Eileen Agar, Erotic Landscape (detail), ca1942 Mixed media and collage on paper, 25.5 x 30.5 cm Private Collection
More than just a Gallery › Looking for somewhere unique to entertain? From receptions, conferences, and meetings to children’s parties, Pallant House Gallery provides the perfect venue to create an unforgettable experience. And with the Gallery’s Events Co-ordinator on hand to guide clients through a broad range of tailored options, guests can relax and enjoy being surrounded by one of the best collections of modern art in the world. For more information contact Helen Ward on 01243 770838 or h.ward@pallant.org.uk Photograph by Jason Hedges 48
The inspiration of China on art and design
Chinese Whispers at Brighton Museum
‘You won’t see a prettier show this year’ Richard Dorment Daily Telegraph
Admission payable Ticket sales 01273 292798 Continues to 2 November 2008 www.virtualmuseum.info
The way we were
The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art
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Our ancestors’ homes and the way they built them, their animals and the way they raised them, their crops and flowers and the way they grew them... Explore the Museum’s village, working watermill and superb collection of rescued buildings set in glorious Sussex countryside. Children are free to run, play and learn. Come and discover six centuries of our rural heritage.
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ˇ Nina Saunders Little White Chair Was £75 Now £60
20% Off
ˆ Enid Marx Christmas cards Two unique designs inspired by the Breuning-Eve Gift of Enid Marx Prints given to the Gallery in 2006. One of Britain’s foremost designers and illustrators, these wood-engraved and lino-cut cards are typical of her work. £6 for pack of ten cards. Two designs.
ˆ Nina Saunders Christmas card A traditional William Morris fabric inspired Christmas card by the Autumn Flowers artist. Was £6 per pack of ten. Now £3
New In
Just £40
ˆ Hardie-Williamson prints As featured in the Artists' Christmas card Exhibition. See page 38 Two prints £10 each
ˆ POPART By Peter Blake 2006, Signed by Peter Blake Edition of 2000 £40 50
20% Off
Val Biro etchings Original etchings Was £50 Now £40
Books and Catalogues
Bookshop 01243 770813
Christmas Gift Membership Looking for a unique Christmas present? Why not give the gift of membership to Pallant House Gallery? Your friends will enjoy free entry to Pallant House Gallery and all exhibitions, free copies of the Magazine and early booking opportunities for Friends events, visits and talks, while helping support one of the best collections of twentieth century British art in the world. Gift memberships will be sent out in a limited edition Enid Marx Christmas card.
Special Offer E I L E E N AG AR : AN E YE FO R C O L L AG E
Andrew Lambirth is a writer, critic and curator. Currently the art critic for The Spectator, he has written for a wide range of publications including The Sunday Times and The Independent. From 1990 to 2002 he was Contributing Editor of RA, the Royal Academy of Arts magazine. He is the author of numerous art books, including Ken Kiff (2001), LS Lowry: Conversation Pieces (2003), Craigie Aitchison (2003), Kitaj (2004), Allen Jones (2005), Maggi Hambling: The Works (2006), Roger Hilton: The Figured Language of Thought (2007) and Nigel Hall: Sculpture and Works on Paper (2008). The first book he worked on was Eileen Agar’s autobiography, A Look at My Life (1988), which he helped to compile and edit. He lives in Suffolk.
Often pigeon-holed as a surrealist, Eileen Agar (1899–1991) was in fact a highly original and independent imaginative artist. Working within the tradition of English romantic painting, she made a unique contribution to the art of her times. The lyrical resonance and inventive breadth of her work is only now beginning to be properly recognized, and this book is the first to draw upon previously unpublished research. The writer and critic Andrew Lambirth, who knew Agar well, has written an in-depth study of her work as it developed over seven decades. Focusing on the use of collage which was central to her practice, Lambirth examines key examples from the different periods of her career. Not only does this book illustrate many previously unknown works, but it unveils an unusual depth of insight into the subject. Writing with the authority of long collaboration with the artist, Lambirth is able to reveal many details of her thought and artistic methods. Agar emerges as an artist overdue for re-assessment, capable of holding her own beside such contemporaries as Paul Nash and Graham Sutherland.
Eileen Agar An Eye for Collage
Special Offers New Bookshop Promotions and Offers for autumn 2008.
From 1 October until 31 December 2008, Pallant House LABOK OQ FK QEB LRQE Gallery Bookshop will offer a 10% reduction on a large selection of new, remaindered, and out of print books to all Friends of Pallant House Gallery and students on production of their membership cards. Many titles with red dots now reduced by 70% of the RRP for all customers. New Christmas stock arriving daily including 2009 diaries, children’s books and limited edition prints. Please call into the Bookshop for more details on our discount offers or ring 01243 770813. Last day post out of items from the shop will be Friday 19th December with orders placed by Thursday 18th to allow time for processing and wrapping. £19.95
In Camera: Snowdon Robin Muir 2007 ÂŁ12.95
A N D R E W L A M B I RT H
Autumn Flowers Introduction by David Gleeson 2007 ÂŁ6
Cover image Eileen Agar, Mixed media Private Colle
Eileen Agar: An Eye for Collage A fully illustrated catalogue containing essays by Andrew Lambirth Published by Pallant House Gallery 2008 ÂŁ19.95 (ÂŁ14.95 for Magazine readers and Friends)
Colin Self: Art in the Nuclear Age Simon Martin and Marco Livingstone 2008 ÂŁ19.95 (ÂŁ14.95 Exhibition Price) 51
Books Reviews New in the Bookshop
New in the Art Library
Ravilious: Engravings John Craig & Jeremy Greenwood The Wood Lea Press (2008) £185.00 Limited Edition 800 copies
The Surrealists in Cornwall ‘The boat of your body’ Antony Penrose Falmouth Art Gallery Collection Volume 3
During his relatively short lifetime the artist Eric Ravilious produced a prolific and varied output. This substantial hardback book, presented in a protective slipcase, is the most up to date publication to concentrate on and faithfully reproduce all known Ravilious engravings. The enlightening introduction discusses Ravilious’ life, the popularity and commercial success of his imagery and the evolution of his style and technique. This is followed by useful short definitions of wood engraving and woodcuts. The extensively researched catalogue consists of over 400 blocks chronologically ordered and reproduced in full size and colour. The engravings and their corresponding catalogue entries provide a fascinating overview of the contextual background to commercial printing of woodcuts and engravings in Britain in the 1920s-30s and beyond. Megan Mikel
In the summer of 1937, Lambe Creek on the Fal Estuary in Cornwall provided a place of seclusion and personal freedom for a group of Surrealist artists including Max Ernst, Man Ray, Paul Éluard, Leonora Carrington and Eileen Agar led by Roland Penrose and his ‘Surrealist muse incarnate’, the photographer Lee Miller. These previously unpublished photographs, discovered by Antony Penrose while researching a biography of his mother Miller, were exhibited at Falmouth Art Gallery in 2004. They record the complex intertwined relationships and genuine friendship of the group at their most intimate and at the height of their artistic creativity. War was to fracture both relationships and the Surrealist Movement itself and these images give a fleeting glimpse of the social and artistic world of some of the most original painters, writers and photographers of the 20th Century. Sarah Norris
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O PEN THE NATIONAL OPEN ART COMPETITION CHICHESTER President The Duke of Richmond
A National Showcase of Painting, Drawing & Prints The Minerva, Chichester Festival Theatre West Sussex PO19 6AP 8th - 22nd November 2008
Total Prize Money ÂŁ26,000
Exhibition Open Daily 10am - 5pm (and until 9pm on Minerva Theatre Performance Evenings)
Free admission • All work is for sale The Prize Winners will be shown at The Arts Club, 40 Dover Street, London W1 Monday 24 - Saturday 29th November The winning entries will be exhibited in The Pallant House Gallery Chichester for one week from December 1st to December 6th inclusive. A series of talks & discussions will take place throughout the exhibition, please see our website for more details
www.thenationalopenartcompetition.com For further information contact the Administrator: 01243 513873
info@thenationalopenartcompetition.com
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Chairman of the Friends Letter Lady Nicholas Gordon Lennox
After very many years as Deputy Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Friends, Angus Hewat has decided to step down. I am deeply indebted to Angus for all his support and advice over such a long time. Happily he will still be a member of the Committee, where I know his contribution to its work will, as always, be of great value. Jillie Moss, formerly Chairman of the Friends Events Working Group, has now become the Deputy Chairman in Angus's place. Jillie has done a wonderful job with the Events Group, for which we are all very grateful. I am certain that we will benefit greatly from all she has to offer to the Executive Committee. I am delighted to welcome Sarah Quail as Chairman of the Friends Working Group, a position she took over on in June from Jillie. Sarah was formerly Head of Portsmouth City Museum and Records Service where she set up a Friends organisation. A very exciting programme of events has been put together by Sarah and her group, and the details of these can be found in pages 60–61. I am sure you will agree that the Friends Working Group do a magnificent job in arranging such interesting and varied events programmes and I would like to thank each one of them for all they do.
© Peter Durant / arcblue
The first two meetings of the Art Book Club have attracted a large group of Friends. Under the leadership of Greg Moss there has been much lively discussion and some interesting exchanges of views on the chosen books. Local authors are invited to meetings and there is much of interest to be learnt from them about the techniques of writing books. I hope that we will see you all often in the Gallery during the next few months. The Friends contribution to Pallant House Gallery is of immense importance and I thank you all for your continued and valuable support. With best wishes,
A three day trip to north Norfolk next summer is presently being considered by the Working Group. As you may well know Pallant House Gallery has links with this part of the world through the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, and the Salthouse Summer Art Show is being curated by Simon Martin, Assistant Curator at Pallant House Gallery. If you are interested in this trip please let the Friends’ Office know.
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Friends News › Advance Notice: A Trip to Norfolk News of several exciting exhibitions to be mounted in Norfolk galleries next summer has prompted us to begin investigating the practicalities of organising a short three to four day trip to that part of the country next summer. Visits suggested thus far include the Castle Museum in Norwich; Norwich Cathedral and the new Michael Hopkin buildings; the Margaret MacManus exhibition at the Sainsbury Centre at the University of East Anglia; Norwich Contemporary Art Festival; Salthouse Summer Art Show as well as the possibility of some private house collections. We shall be looking for dates in late July-early August 2009, after the Chichester Festivities. To assist with planning it would be very helpful to have indications of likely interest in this proposed trip as soon as possible. Hopefully we can contain costs within the region of £350 to £400.
Saltwood Castle We are very sorry that so many of you were disappointed not to secure tickets for this event on 16 July. We could in fact have filled almost three coaches, such was the level of interest this trip generated – and we were limited to just 25 participants. We shall do our best therefore to try and organise another visit next year.
Photographer: Andy Crouch Copyright SCVA, UEA, Norwich.
Concert: sergei dukachev On 5 February 2009 the distinguished Russian pianist Sergei Dukachev will give a recital at Pallant House Gallery. Dukachev was born in Magnitogorsk, a city in the Ural Mountains, and is currently Professor at the State Academy of Art in Ufa in Bashkortostan, an appointment which allows him to maintain a busy national and international concert schedule. In 1989 he was a prizewinner in the International Beethoven Competition in Vienna. Since the late 1990s he has developed close artistic links with Great Britain and has visited this country annually to give concerts. Dukachev has developed particularly close links with Royal Holloway College, University of London where he was Artist in Residence in 2000 and later taught. More recently he has joined the teaching faculty of Chethams International Summer School and Festival for Pianists in Manchester as well as given concerts in London, Shrewsbury, Cheltenham and here, in Chichester Cathedral. Details of this Pallant House Gallery programme on 5 February 2009 will be sent out to Friends towards the end of 2008.
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Friends visit to Northamptonshire Alan Wood
The Friends marked the Silver Anniversary of the opening of Pallant House Gallery with a visit to properties in Northamptonshire, including St Matthews Church where the Vicar, Walter Hussey, first became a patron of art. Our first stop was a small Georgian terrace house in Northampton, 78 Derngate, formerly owned by a successful engineer and businessman. In 1916 Charles Rennie Mackintosh was commissioned to redesign the building and provide much of the furniture. The bold geometric designs for the interior show that he was working at the height of his creative powers. After years of neglect, the property has been restored as an important example of Mackintosh’s later period and only completed commission south of the border. Drayton House, near Kettering, an estate with a thousand years of history, did not disappoint. The structure dates from the late thirteenth century with hall, undercroft and defensive walling largely intact, although extravagantly embellished around 1700. The Courtyard is entered through a massive gate tower where a splendid baroque façade is revealed, like a stage set, fronting the Medieval hall. It was designed by Wren’s great contemporary, William Talman. An interesting feature is the late seventeenth century cantilevered spiral staircase rising through three floors, made of oak with walnut balusters. In St Matthews the Madonna and Child by Henry Moore and Graham Sutherland’s Crucifixion occupy the north and south transepts. Commissioned by Walter Hussey as part of a Festival of Arts during war-time,
By kind permission of The Trustees of the 9th Duke of Buccleuch’s Chattels Fund
it is difficult to imagine, in their peaceful settings, the hostility engendered at the time. Moore’s inspiration came from the stations of the London Underground where he saw mothers and children sheltering from the Blitz while Sutherland’s work is about the sufferings of Christ and the millions who died in the concentration camps. The tradition of patronage continues at St Matthews with the commission for a bronze of the patron saint by the sculptor Ian Rank-Broadley. Boughton House, our final visit, is the Northamptonshire home of the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry. From modest Medieval beginnings it was transformed over time into one of the great houses of Europe and is sometimes called the ‘English Versailles’. The stable block, where we were entertained to lunch, received as much care and attention in design as the house itself. A unique feature is the Unfinished Wing. Although complete externally, the interior is a shell and open to the roof showing how houses of the late seventeenth century were constructed. The grounds originate from the early years of the eighteenth century when an ornamental and intricate landscape was created. Over the next decade these features are to be restored according to the original plans. ◊
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What's On Friends Events
Tickets 01243 774557
Friends’ Art Book Club Thursdays 6.30–8pm 13 November The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani 8 January The Three of Us by Julia Blackburn 12 February Lives of the Monster Dogs by Kirsten Bakis 26 March When We Were Bad by Charlotte Menelson Books are chosen to relate to current exhibitions and the collections generally, and can be purchased in advance from the Book Shop. £5 includes a glass of wine. Eileen Agar: An Eye For Collage Wednesday 5 November, 2.30pm A chance to explore the exhibition ‘Eileen Agar: An Eye for Collage’ with the Curator of Pallant House Gallery, Frances Guy. £5 (£2.50 Students) includes tea.
Bishop Bell Exhibition, House of Lords and Government Art Collection Tuesday 21 October 12 noon–11.30pm In this 50th anniversary year of the death of Bishop Bell, Friends will have a unique opportunity to see this exhibition of portraits, texts and memorabilia outside normal tour times. Later we shall visit the Government Art Collection in Bloomsbury for a talk and tour by curator Adrian George. The Collection selects and places 60
pieces from its holdings in major British Government buildings in the UK and abroad to promote Britain and to reflect its history, culture and creativity.There will be a break for supper in a nearby restaurant before we return to Chichester. A list of suggested places will be available on the day. £35. A limited number of tickets are available at £20 for those who wish to join the visit in London. Supper is not included in either ticket price.
Left to Right William Coldstream, The Right Reverend George Bell, D.D., Bishop of Chichester, 1954, Oil on canvas, Tate: Presented by Dr Bell 1956, © Andrew Margetson; Eileen Agar, Flower Palette, 1978, Collage on paper, Courtesy of the Agar Estate, © Estate of Eileen Agar; Christ's Hospital; Victor Willing, Man at Table, 1957, Etching on paper, Wilson Loan; Portsmouth Cathedral
What's On Friends Events Christ’s Hospital Thursday 20 November 9.30am–5pm An opportunity to see not only the school buildings, including the great Verrio in the dining hall, but also the sixteen vast paintings by Frank Brangwyn in the school chapel where Friends will enjoy a guided tour organised specially for them by Brangwyn expert and author Libby Horner. £42 includes travel, morning coffee, lunch (hot dishes and salad bar) and afternoon tea.
Friend bring a Friend Reception Thursday 27 November, 6.30pm Christmas is coming! Give someone a gift of membership for Christmas! And introduce them to our awardwinning Gallery by bringing them to this special evening with wine and a private tour of the collection by the Gallery Guides. £6 for two people includes a glass of wine.
Tickets 01243 774557
Friends’ Christmas Party Monday 8 December 6.30–10.30pm Food, music and entertainment in the Garden Gallery at Pallant House. This year’s theme is the ‘Swinging Sixties’ and there will be prizes for the most impressive ‘Swinging Sixties’ outfits. £30 includes a two course supper with wine.
Friends’ Coffee Morning Wednesday 18 February 10.30am–12 noon The History of the Friends with Beth Funnell and Julia Cooper. £4 includes coffee. A day in and around Portsmouth Tuesday 10 March, 10am–4pm The day will include St Michael’s Paulsgrove (Hans Feibusch), Portsmouth Cathedral (Patrick
The Second Gallery Art Quiz Thursday 15 January, 6–8pm The Gallery Art Quiz returns by popular request in the New Year. Come and make up a table and test your knowledge of art in this very light-hearted event. Prizes for the winning table. £6 (£4 Students) to include the first drink. Thereafter cash bar. Victor Willing: Revelations, Discoveries, Communications Friday 16 January, 2.30pm Explore the Victor Willing exhibition with the Assistant Curator of Pallant House Gallery, Simon Martin. £5 (£2.50 Students) includes tea.
Caulfield), St Agatha’s Landport (Heywood Sumner sgraffito decoration) and the Aspex Gallery (Portsmouth’s leading contemporary art gallery) in its new home on the historic Gunwharf. There we shall have a soup and sandwich lunch and Director, Jo Bushnell, will take us on a special tour of the gallery. Designed by Glenn Howells Architects, the recent conversion of this wing of the old Vulcan Building won a prestigious RIBA award. £25 includes travel, morning coffee and lunch. 61
What's On Talks and Events
Tickets 01243 774557
copies of her newly published book of poems, composed in response to works of art in the permanent collection. £8.50 (£5 Students, £1 Friends) includes coffee.
Paula Rego in front of 'Swing' by Victor Willing, Photograph by Simon Martin
Paula Rego on Victor Willing Thursday 23 October, 6pm An opportunity to hear internationally renowned artist Paula Rego discussing her life with Victor Willing (1928–1988) and his enigmatic paintings and drawings, in discussion with author and art critic, John McEwen. £12 (£10.25 Students, £8.25 Friends) includes a glass of wine. The event will be followed by a book signing by Paula Rego and John McEwen of his recent book 'Paula Rego: Behind the Scenes' and other publications. A Coffee Morning with Ros Barber Thursday 30 October 10.30am–12 noon A special event, organised by the Friends in collaboration with the Book Shop, to meet the awardwinning contemporary poet Ros Barber (former Poet in Residence at Pallant House Gallery) and purchase 62
Womb Magic: The Fertile Imagination of Eileen Agar Thursday 20 November, 6pm Curator of Pallant House Gallery, Frances Guy, introduces the work of this eclectic and imaginative artist, subject of the Gallery's current exhibition and participant in the First International Surrealist exhibition of 1936. £10 (£8.25 Students, £6.25 Friends) includes a glass of wine. Francis Bacon Thursday 11 December, 6pm Chris Stephens, Curator of the Francis Bacon exhibition at Tate Britain, will discuss the work of one of the greatest painters of the twentieth century. Exhibition highlights include, the portraits of Pope Innocent X and celebrated triptychs such as the 'Three Studies at the base of a Crucifixion', 1962. £10 (£8.25 Students, £6.25 Friends) includes a glass of wine. Concert: Sergei Dukachev Thursday 5 February, 6pm Distinguished Russian pianist gives a recital at the Gallery £12 (Students £10.25, Friends £8.25)
Making an Impression: Print making in Wales Thursday 12 February, 6pm Tony Curtis, Professor of Poetry at the University of Glamorgan, will discuss the prints of welsh artists displayed in the Prints Room exhibition, and the development of printmaking amongst artists working in Wales such as David Jones, Graham Sutherland, John Piper, Ceri Richards and contemporary artists Fred Jones, Hanlyn Davies and Terry Setch £10 (£8.25 Students, £6.25 Friends) includes a glass of wine. Discovering Lee Miller Antony Penrose Thursday 19 March, 6pm Antony Penrose, the son of the photographer Lee Miller and the Surrealist artist Roland Penrose, will speak about the many strange and amazing adventures in his journey in discovering his extraordinary mother. This talk has previously been presented to acclaim at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. £10 (£8.25 Students, £6.25 Friends) includes a glass of wine. A book signing of Anthony Penrose’s book ‘The Home of the Surrealists’ will follow the talk.
What's On Tours Exhibition Tours Eileen Agar: An Eye for Collage Thursday 30 October, 6pm A chance to explore the exhibition 'Eileen Agar: An Eye for Collage' with the Curator of Pallant House Gallery, Frances Guy £9 (£7.25 Students, £5.25 Friends) includes a glass of wine. Victor Willing: Revelations, Discoveries, Communications Wednesday 3 December, 2.30pm Simon Martin, Curator, of the exhibition discusses the paintings and drawings in the exhibition. £8 (£4.50 Students) Eileen Agar: An Eye for Collage Wednesday 11 February, 2.30pm A chance to explore the exhibition 'Eileen Agar: An Eye for Collage' with the Curator of Pallant House Gallery, Frances Guy £8 (£4.50 Students)
Thursday Evening Themed Tours Every Thursday at 6pm. Free with Gallery admission. Please meet at Reception. Landscapes and Modernity 30 October / 11 December / 5 February / 19 March / 30 April Still Life: The Language of Objects 6 November / 18 December / 26 March
Tickets 01243 774557
The Eighteenth Century House: Fine Arts and Furnishings 2 October / 13 November / 8 January / 19 February / 2 April
'Fête Gallante' by Cecil Collins Wednesday 31 December Guide, Jennifer Lynn Dicks
Pop Art and the Swinging Sixties 9 October / 20 November / 15 January / 26 February / 9 April Collectors and Collecting 16 October / 27 November / 22 January / 5 March / 16 April Portraits: Image and Identity 23 October / 4 December / 29 January / 12 March / 23 April The Love Tour: A Valentine's Special 12 February Bring someone special for this tour about the romances which inspired key works in the Collection.
Artwork of the Month Talks Last Wednesday of the month at 12 noon. Free with Gallery admission. Please meet at Reception. 'Swanage' by Mark Gertler Wednesday 29 October Guide, Mercia Last 'Lemons in a Basket' by Christopher Wood Wednesday 26 November Guide, Alan Wood
Cecil Collins, Fete Gallante, 1951, Oil on canvas, On loan from a private collection (2004)
'Hare on a Table' by John Craxton Wednesday 28 January Guide, Liz Walker 'Hers is a Lush Situation' by Richard Hamilton Wednesday 25 February Guide, Judy Addison Smith 'L'Echaffaudage' (The Scaffolding) by Jean Metzinger Wednesday 25 March Guide, Margaret Brown 'Hearth Stone' by Andy Goldsworthy Wednesday 29 April Guide, Jock Johnston
Highlights Tour of the Collection Every Saturday afternoon at 3pm Free with Gallery admission Please meet at Reception 63
What's On Films and Screenings Film Nights In association with Chichester Cinema at New Park. Dreams that Money can Buy Thursday 16 October Directed by Dadaist, painter and film maker Hans Richter , this film is a must for anyone interested in Surrealism. Comprising a number of segments, or ‘dreams’ by a different creator/director such as Ernst, Léger, Duchamp, Calder and Richter himself. The result is by turns playful, hypnotic, satirical and nightmarish. Tonight’s programme also includes two short related films. Cert 12, 5.30pm; £8 (£4 Students) includes a glass of wine and popcorn; Lecture Room. Un Chien Andalou/L’Age D’Or (English subtitles) Thursday 6 November Two landmark films, directed by Luis Buñuel in collaboration with Dalí. Un Chien Andalou (1929) created a scandal at its premier with a startling eye-slicing opening sequence. L’Age D’Or (1930), considered a Surrealist masterpiece, is a savage blend of visual poetry and social criticism. Bunuel reportedly intended this film to be ‘a militant film aimed at raping clear consciences’. The film was banned for many years for its subversive eroticism and furious dissection of ‘civilised’ values. Cert 15. 5.30pm; £8 (£4 Students) includes a glass of wine and popcorn; Lecture Room.
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The Colour of Dreams (Channel 4 Documentary) Thursday 4 December With an introduction by the film’s director, Susanna White Part of a series called 'Five Women Painters', The Colour of Dreams (1989) is the first broadcast film made by Susanna White. Since 1989, White has gone on to direct BBC dramas including Bleak House and Jane Eyre and Generation Kill for HBO in the US. Made in Eileen Agar’s ninetieth year, this film shows Agar working on a collage and also providing some of the commentary herself. Agar talks about her childhood in Argentina and going to the Slade (despite family objections), and the influences that led her to Surrealism. 5.30pm; £8 (£4 Students) includes a glass of wine and popcorn; Lecture Room Carrington (1995) Thursday 29 January Directed by Christopher Hampton, and starring Emma Thompson, Jonathan Pryce, Rufus Sewell, Samuel West and Janet McTeer. Hampton’s directorial debut is the story of the young painter Dora Carrington’s fascinating life and her relationships with Lytton Strachey, Mark Gertler and Rex Partridge. The explanation as to why Carrington and Strachey should live together while loving others is developed during the film. Cert 18. 5.30pm; £8 (£4 Students) includes a glass of wine and popcorn; Lecture Room
Tickets 01243 774557
The Lives of Lee Miller (1986) (Channel 4 Documentary) Thursday 26 February Director Robin Lough War photographer, artist, fashion model, surrealist muse; there were many facets to Lee Miller’s life and talents. This documentary, produced by her son, Antony Penrose, for Channel 4, includes interviews with many people who knew her. The film includes footage from Jean Cocteau’s 1930 film The Blood of a Poet in which Miller featured. 5.30pm; £8 (£4 Students) to include a glass of wine and popcorn; Lecture Room
What's On Adult Workshops Sunday Art Classes Time: 1–4pm Cost: £9 per workshop Location: Studio Details: Booking is required as places are limited. A £3.50 model charge may apply. Please bring your own art materials, as specified. An Introduction to Drawing 16 November Develop your drawing skills, focusing on the proportions of the human face and how to represent 3D forms. Materials: Bring sketching pencils: 2B + A1/ A2 sheets of good quality drawing paper, charcoal and a mirror.
Life Drawing 7 December Reflect on Eileen Agar's use of layering of imagery through drawing and collage. Materials: Bring your own collage materials. A1/A2 sheets of good quality drawing paper.
An Introduction to Drawing 8 March Explore how to represent surface and texture through drawing. Materials: Bring charcoal, white chalk, soft brushes, nib pens, drawing ink (black – e.g. Indian ink), sketching pencils: 2B +. A1/A2 sheets of drawing good quality drawing paper.
Life Drawing 29 March Using paint, work in the style of one artwork from the Collection. Materials: Bring your own paper and paints – water-based or oils. If a non- water based medium is to be used, please also bring an appropriate support (primed board or canvas).
Artwork of the Month Workshops Day: last Wednesday of the month Time: 12–2pm Cost: £6 per session Details: Please book early as places are limited. Please bring your own materials, as specified.
Emotional Connections to Landscapes 18 January Looking at the Art Cymru exhibition develop individual mark making to find your own connection to a sense of place.
'Lemons in a Blue Basket' by Christopher Wood 26 November Paint a still life using complimentary colours to echo the warmth and colour of 'Lemons in a Basket'.
Materials: Bring whichever materials you would like to use.
Materials: Bring oil or acrylic paints and an appropriate support (primed board or canvas).
Life Drawing 8 February This workshop will concentrate on the body and focus on light, form and musculature.
'Fête Gallante' by Cecil Collins 17 December 'Drawing is like chamber music, painting is like an orchestral piece – you've got the colours of the instruments.' Cecil Collins 1981. An opportunity to make imagery inspired by orchestral music.
Materials: Bring a range of drawing pencils, or dry media, such as conte crayon. A1/ A2 sheets of good quality drawing paper.
Tickets 01243 774557
'Hare on a Table' by John Craxton 28 January Investigate alternative ways of seeing and doing. Materials: Bring your preferred media and paper.
'Hers is a Lush Situation' by Richard Hamilton 25 February Incorporating found images and objects, explore the cross-over between collage and painting. Materials: Bring water-based materials (paints, pencils or inks), A3 cartridge paper, any images/objects to be included. The artist will also bring images/objects for the group to use.
'L'Echaffaudage' (The Scaffolding) by Jean Metzinger 25 March Using relief printing processes create your own building print exploring the semi abstracted qualities of 'L'Echaffaudage'. Materials: Bring images of your favourite buildings or buildings being built as inspiration.
'Hearth Stone' by Andy Goldsworthy 29 April An experimental drawing workshop using raw materials on different scales. Materials: Scour the local countryside and bring along any mark-making materials, such as lumps of chalk, clay, charcoal and ash. The artist will also bring images/objects for the group to use. Bring good quality paper.
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What's On Children's Workshops
Tickets 01243 774557
Saturday Workshops Ages 5–10
Free Holiday Workshops for Children
Time: 10am–12noon Cost: £6 per workshop Location: Studio Details: Booking is required as places are limited Pick ‘n’ Mix ... and Stick 8 November Using a mixture of all sorts of unusual objects we will reflect the style of Eileen Agar in our artwork, exploring her ideas of using different types of collage in lots of interesting layers. Treasures of the Deep 13 December Create a shimmering sea-bed scene full of strange plants and creatures using sand, fabric, shiny foils, paper and paint, inspired by fossils found in the local area and the box art of Eileen Agar. Hide and Seek Collage 10 January Create your own ‘hide and seek’ collage, inspired by the Eileen Agar exhibition, exploring layers and surfaces. Materials: Bring a shell or other small objects you have collected from the beach to make a multi-layered environment for your beach treasure.
Poetic Boxes 7 February Take inspiration from the Collection and collect words together to make a wonderful poem in a box.
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Looking Great! 28 February Surprise yourself! Come and make a colourful painting of your face using portraits in the Gallery's Collection as inspiration. Frames: inside/outside 28 March Take a look through John Armstrong’s 'The Open Door', Knock! Knock!....Who or what’s there? Make pictures that have windows, doors or fun frames.
Saturday Workshops for Young Artists Time: 10am–12noon Cost: £6 per workshop Location: Studio Details: Booking is required as places are limited Make Your Mark! 22 November (Part 1) 24 January (Part2) 14 March (Part 3) Be part of an exciting, collaborative art project, which will unfold over a series of three 2-hour workshops, led by artist Dinah Kelly. Come to all three or make your mark in just one! Young artists will work both individually and as a group in creating an art work to be shown at Pallant House Gallery. Young artists will be introduced to using new techniques and shown how to develop their ideas enabling them to experiment and explore their own creativity in mixed-media.
Time: 10am–12pm and repeated 1–3pm Cost: Free Location: Studio Ages: 5–16 Details: Booking is required as places are limited. ‘Pop-Ups’ for Christmas Saturday 20 December Have fun making pop-up cards and decorations for the festive season with artist Derek Matthews. Vibrant Valentine Saturday 14 February Create a special, vibrant, mixedmedia collage for the one you love for Valentine’s Day. Please bring a small, light-weight, found object along to the workshop. Weaving Springtime Tuesday 7 April Create a beautiful, woven piece of art using paper and Easter/ springtime- themed objects with artist Jane Moran. Bring some small, light-weight objects to weave into your artwork. Dressing up the Past Wednesday 15 April Looking at the depiction of people in paintings and on porcelain in the collection, we’ll make 2ft tall, flat, standing figures from cardboard and cloth them in historical costume and then decorate them with collage materials.
What's On Booking Form Please print and check all details carefully. Incomplete forms and incorrect details will delay the processing procedure.
Young Friends Halloween Party Thursday 30 October, 5–7pm
Event
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No. of Tickets
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Come dressed up and have a spooky evening with spine chilling events and hair-raising ghost stories. Free event for the Young Friends of Pallant House Gallery. To join the Young Friends please contact the Friends of Pallant House Gallery on: 01243 770815.
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Please turn overleaf for Payment Details 67
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Please cut the completed form from the magazine and send, with a stamped addressed envelope and payment to: Tickets Office Pallant House Gallery 9 North Pallant Chichester PO19 1TJ
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Terms and Conditions Credit/charge card is the preferred method of payment. Cheques should be made payable to 'Pallant House Gallery Services Ltd'. Please leave the actual amount open in case we are not able to provide all the tickets you request. For security 'Not above ÂŁ...' can be written at the bottom of your cheque and we will advise you of the cheque total. All tickets are allocated on a first come, first served basis. Friends receive an advance notice booking period for all events as part of their membership. Unsuccessful applicants will be notified that they are on a waiting list. A refund on Gallery events is only available if the event is cancelled. Refunds for Friends events may be possible if there is a waiting list and we are able to resell your ticket. We endeavour to accommodate any special requirements. Please ring 01243 774557 to discuss your needs.
coming soon
at pallant house gallery
Colin Self: Art in a Nuclear Age, Protest Wall, Copies are available to buy in three sizes. Contact h.wailling@pallant.org.uk
Simon Martin, Curator of Colin Self: Art in the Nuclear Age and Mrs Marilyn Martin
Jessica Prendergast and Coleen Self
Marco Livingstone, MJ Long and Lady Blake
Honeysuckle Weeks and Lorne Stormont-Darling
Colin Self
Ollie Munden, Tom Burden, John McFaul, Matt Stokes from McFaul Laura and Guy Fletcher
Sir Peter Blake
David Macmillan, Chairman
Artwork of the Month Jillie Moss
In creating Screen, the collage he began in 1949, Nigel Henderson (1917–1985) was following the foremost influences in his art. In the 1930s, whilst visiting Paris in his late teens, he had been introduced to key members of the avant-garde, Max Ernst, Yves Tanguy and Marcel Duchamp by Peggy Guggenheim, the wealthy American art collector. The Surrealists believed that unrelated elements could be placed together to create a sense of reality outside the everyday world. In the same way, the 'found' imagery, or objet trouvé, which make up the surface of Screen allowed Henderson to create witty juxtapositions. For example, Canova's Three Graces are a classical contrast with pornographic Victorian nudes; Charles Atlas flexes his muscles near a man with a bionic arm lighting a cigarette; a hand holding a pen is placed so that it looks as though it is finishing a drawing of a partly-clothed pin-up girl. 74
Henderson had been collecting ephemera and 'found' materials for some years before Screen was begun. As well as printed matter and photographs there are labels from beer bottles and tinned tomatoes incorporated into the collage. Henderson wrote that he 'wanted to release an energy of image from trivial data'. For him, collage was 'perpetually tentative, evasive and ephemeral', 'You can strip bits away, reallocate them, glaze them down, overthrow them'. ◊ For forthcoming Artwork of the Month talks, see page 63 and Workshops on page 65.
Nigel Henderson, Screen, 1949–52 and 1960, Collage, oil paint and photographic processes on wood panel, Wilson Loan, © The Estate of Nigel Henderson
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Specialist Dealers & Agents Exhibiting Modern British, Irish & Contemporary Art We advise and help to build collections
Alan Davie ‘Fish Hunt No 1’ 1967, oil on board
Dame Elisabeth Frink‘Goggle Head II’ 1969 - Bronze
Anthony Hepworth Fine Art Dealers Ltd. 3 Margarets Buildings, Brock Steet, Bath BA1 2LP anthony.hepwor@btconnect.com www.anthonyhepworth.com 01225 447480 / 07970 480 650 Opening hours: Tues - Sat 11 - 5 during exhibitions Please ring for hours at other times In London weekly, by appointment