Postcard from the Isle of Wight

Finally had a full week away and am now able to string a sentence together again. Must have been quite tired after putting on Ravilious show, but a week on Wight has set me straight. I can't believe it's taken me this long to cross the Solent, especially as we went to Poole every summer for years when I was a kid, but I think I know why I failed to discover the island before now: it's because of the Beatles.

Every summer we can rent a cottage in the Isle of Wight
If it's not too dear
We shall scrimp and save
Grandchildren on your knee
Vera, Chuck & Dave

In my mind these lyrics got scrambled perhaps, so that I imagined an island entirely populated by people with cheery old-fashioned names, all scrimping away. Not a very glamourous picture.

At first sight the island didn't seem any different to 'the mainland' (ie the rest of Britain). Red brick houses, mini-roundabouts, Waitrose, lots of trees. Driving on the left seemed disappointing, as did the excessively regimented, hedge-bound campsite we had booked. Rather more startling was the nearby town of Shanklin, which ought to be made a World Heritage Site for its concentration of thatched tea shops.

The fabulous Compton Bay

It took a day or two, but we gradually discovered another Wight, away from the yachts and caravans, the tea shops and bizarrely named amusement parks - fancy a day at Blackgang Chine anyone? Ventnor, a town that sounds as though it belongs in a Terry Pratchett story, offered impressive Victorian buildings and family-owned shops - a feature of the island generally. Saturday afternoon everything seemed to be shut by 4 (except for the inevitable Tesco Express). We had fish and chips on the Esplanade, looking out over the sea with a simultaneous sunset/moonrise for atmosphere and about a million less people than you would find in, say, Lyme Regis.

Barbara Jones was a fan of the island

My favourite region of this surprisingly magical island was the south west coast. We did try to see the Needles but were stymied by thick fog. Instead we went bodyboarding in the rain in Compton Bay, which ought to be in a Top Fifty British Beaches, and probably is. There's a campsite above it which seemed impressively bleak in the generally grim weather; behind a farm which should be used as the set next time someone films 'Cold Comfort Farm'. Geese guarded the approach, while a turkey glared out from an open shed. Fabulous.


Having taken the tent down in an outrageous downpour we sought shelter in the lovely Piano Cafe in Freshwater Bay, surely a building dating from the island's late Victorian heyday, then walked up onto the downs to visit the Tennyson Memorial, put up to commemorate his years living in Freshwater.

I studied the gloomy laureate for A Level but could only remember:

She only said, 'My life is dreary,
He cometh not,' she said,
She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!'

This was deemed too miserable for a (now) sunny day. To which I ought to have responded with this...

Break, break, break, 
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! 
And I would that my tongue could utter 
The thoughts that arise in me.
 
O, well for the fisherman's boy, 
That he shouts with his sister at play! 
O, well for the sailor lad, 
 That he sings in his boat on the bay! 

And the stately ships go on 
 To their haven under the hill; 
But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, 
And the sound of a voice that is still!
 
Break, break, break 
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! 
But the tender grace of a day that is dead 
Will never come back to me.
 
Back in Bristol the drizzle is a-drizzling and it doesn't look like we will ever be able to get through the inevitable mountain of post-camping laundry. Meanwhile, the Ravilious show is about to end, and we're putting the finishing touches to 'The Lost Watercolours of Edward Bawden'. More about that soon.

Ravilious on Film: Dangerous Work at Low Tide

Here's the third part of the film shot at Dulwich Picture Gallery by the splendid Acap Media. Great close-ups of several lovely paintings from the last room of the Ravilious exhibition: Darkness and Light.

Summer at the RWA, feat. James Ravilious

James Ravilious, Archie Parkhouse & his dog Sally, copyright Beaford Arts

Exhibition launches at the Royal West of England Academy in Bristol are always fun, partly because the building is so impressive and the staff so cheerful, but mostly because the work on display is so varied. This time around there are three exhibitions, linked by a broad theme but otherwise remarkably diverse.

This being Bristol's year of being European Green Capital the three exhibitions are united by the artists' shared interest in nature and our relationship with the natural world.

In the main room, with its wonderful high ceiling and natural light, are gigantic works on paper by Peter Randall-Page RWA and (as of last week) RA, across which flow great tributaries, or family trees, or neural pathways in brown or black ink. Pattern and order on the one hand, freedom on the other, combining to give an impression of organic systems.

One work forms a screen, behind which lurk other, rather different forms. Actually some of these are beautiful, while others recall Surrealist fantasies of creatures alarmingly combined. It would really spoil the surprise if I described them. Suffice to say, Kate MccGwire must spend an awful lot of time collecting feathers, while the installation of her gorgeous-but-monstrous creations is surely a logistical nightmare.

James Ravilious, John Bennett, traveller, copyright Beaford Arts

In a way the world of James Ravilious is equally strange. No fantasy here, mind you. His photographs, taken in the last quarter of the last century, represent real places and real people, all (as far as I remember) in rural North Devon. The strangeness is found partly in the subject matter, a hands-on country life far removed from modern urban existence, and partly in the photography itself.

Although he chose photography over drawing or painting, James shared important qualities with his father Eric (who died, it should be noted, when he was only three), such as clarity of focus, a powerful sense of structure and a willingness to work with the sun in his eyes. Here and there one can see the influence of Edwin Smith, whom James got to know through Peggy Angus, but most of the work is unmistakeably, charismatically his.

One of Eric's less well known skills lay in making friends with people - the owners of greenhouses or abandoned lighthouses, patrons, etc - and in his decades taking photographs for the Beaford Archive James demonstrated an even greater sociability. Rather than snap people anonymously he got to know them, often very well, so that they trusted him and were themselves in front of his camera. Go and have a look, and if you know anyone who is studying photography tell them they HAVE to go.

Laura Knight, Spring, 1916-20, Tate

Finally, through the heavy door and into the climate-controlled rooms, where paintings from (or loosely associated with) the Newlyn School are on display. Instead of fishing boats and bays here are fields, farms and working people, the same kind of people portrayed by James Ravilious but romanticised somewhat. The colours throughout are fresh, the mood generally light, with the freshest, lightest painting of all being Laura Knight's effervescent 'Spring'.




 

Ravilious on Film part 2: Inspired by Place

Eric Ravilious: The Westbury Horse - on film!

Here's a short video of me discussing Ravilious on the day the Dulwich exhibition opened. If you feel I'm not talking complete rubbish please come along to one of the talks I'm giving over the next month, and say hello! - details in the sidebar...

Wanted: Artist's Face for £20 Note

Laura Knight with model, self-portrait, 1913, copyright artist's estate

So the Bank of England is looking for a new face for its £20 note, the face of a visual artist. We the public are being asked to make suggestions, a handful of which will eventually be presented to a committee including a trio of experts - among them Andrew Graham-Dixon - for a final decision. Given that the artist concerned has to be dead to qualify, we can't nominate Tracy Emin, Banksy or Grayson Perry. So who does that leave? Which no-longer-living artists still matter to people at large? Turner? Constable? Ravilious???

Barbara Hepworth, photo copyright Peter Keen, 1950s, NPG

These are all men, obviously, and here we have the first potential source of conflict. Today we are used to men and women sharing the white cube of the contemporary art space, but this relative equality is a recent phenomenon. Before Laura Knight's generation successful women artists were few and far between, and even during the 20th century there were not many household names. Come to think of it, Dame Laura would be a good choice, not a modern like Barbara Hepworth but a painter whose work has given pleasure to many.

I can't see AGD plumping for anyone from the last century. His History of British Art got through the interwar years in just a couple of pages. But Modern British is in the ascendant, and the auction houses would love to see Hepworth's face printed on the piles of money the publicity would generate. She has a good face for a banknote, a serious face with plenty of character. Then again, choosing Lucien Freud might give the Queen an opportunity for revenge; large HM on one side, tiny Lucien on the other...

JMW Turner, self-portrait, Tate

Is it unusual for a banknote to have potential as a marketing tool? I don't think the current incumbent of the £20 note, Adam Smith, makes anyone much money, does he? But an artist's image would surely do wonders for sales, especially if it's someone whose reputation could use a bit of a boost. Sir So'n'so Somebody, as featured on the new £20 note. Will there be lobbying by Interested Parties? What about artist in the Bank's own collection? It could all get rather murky.

Tim Spall as Turner, in Mr Turner, 2014

No doubt the bookies' money will be on one of the big names from the glory days of yore. Turner must be the front-runner, although people might not recognise him unless Timothy Spall reprises his movie role for the occasion. But there is a self-portrait in the Tate which would be perfect; the note could be launched at TB, alongside the mother of all Turner exhibitions. As well as the actual notes (Gift aided for the occasion?) we could buy postcards of the notes, not to mention teatowels, pencil cases and what have you.

Thomas Gainsborough, self-portrait, NPG

Gainsborough would make a rather more elegant subject. Although he hasn't been portrayed on the big screen lately, he would be no more obscure than Sir John Houblon, the 17th century banker who presently adorns £50 notes. His self-portraits are suitably dignified, whereas Turner may be a bit wild for a banknote. Stubbs is another option, perhaps represented by one of his horses. Hogarth is a contender too. And William Morris, though I'm not sure how he felt about the banking system. And Rossetti...

But the winner will no doubt be Turner, which is a shame. It would be fun to have the kids asking, 'Dad, lend us a Grayson.'

Hastings

I travel quite a lot doing research and giving lectures, but it isn't very often I come across a town like Hastings. Admittedly I was only there one night, but the place made an impression. I was there to give a talk on Eric Ravilious at the Beacon Arts Centre, an eccentric and altogether delightful institution that I would recommend as a place to stay; unusually for an arts venue, it also does B and B.

A former boarding school, the Beacon is, as its name suggests, perched on a hillside overlooking the town, with a garden surrounded by trees that made me feel as though I'd wandered into a Paul Nash painting. The audience for my talk was so lively I wondered at first whether I'd be able to get a word in; I also recorded my youngest lecturee, an exuberant 9-month old baby.

The next morning I set off down the hill into Old Hastings, negotiating a maze of alleys and stairways between houses and gardens. With its junk shops, cafes and characterful old buildings the place is a bit like Rye, but more real and less postcardy. In a particularly notable shop called Robert's Rummage I found a copy of 'Pompeii and Herculaneum: The Glory and the Grief' with photos by Edwin Smith; the proprietor described how, on a recent visit to Pompeii, he had stood for hours in a queue for the brothel.

'Crazy,' he said, 'The place had been shut for 2,000 years!'

On down the hill to the seafront, which has been known since pre-Norman days as the Stade. I'd planned to have a look at the Jerwood Gallery before catching the train home, but ended up wandering round for hours. There can't be many other stretches of the south coast where so much is going on, from an impressive array of seaside entertainments - gokarts, crazy golf, etc - to the bustle of an extremely active local fishing industry.

I remembered reading a few years ago that the siting of Jerwood on the Stade had been unpopular with the local fishing community, but I had no idea quite how close the new building is to the fishermen (about twenty yards) and quite how striking the contrast is between the workaday sprawl of huts, boats and gear, and the elegant gallery.

The Jerwood really is a fine building, rather unassuming from the outside and nicely proportioned within to fit a collection of Modern British Art that is generally on a modest scale. There was a small but invigorating exhibition of Edward Burra watercolours upstairs - including two beautiful 1920s landscapes - and a rather grander show of Scottish paintings that featured some lovely work by Anne Redpath, John Bellany and Craigie Aitchison, among others.

Edward Burra, The Harbour, Hastings, 1947 (copyright Burra est/Lefevre Fine Art)

One or two fishing boats had made it into the Burra show, but there were many more out on the shingle, showing great variety in age and design but sharing a robust fitness-for-purpose. With a brisk sou'westerly blowing and the sea crashing on the stones below this was the sort of scene that inspired a number of the artists on show at Jerwood. Let's hope both the gallery and the fishermen enjoy a prosperous future.

PS If you enjoyed this post, then you may well enjoy the one over here.

Angie Lewin: New Watercolours in Edinburgh

Angie Lewin, Spey Still Life & Yellow Book (artist copyright)

Just received some lovely pictures of new Angie Lewin watercolours, ahead of her exhibition in Edinburgh. Is it my imagination, or is there a hint of Charles Rennie Mackintosh in some of these flower paintings? The layering of translucent colours seems to be new, or maybe I'm just looking properly! As ever, the paintings are carefully composed, at once structured and loose, realistic in some ways and stylised in others. Lots of energy too - I love the way the pattern springs away from the Persephone bowl.

Angie Lewin, Calendula Study (artist copyright)

Angie Lewin, Dice Cup and Feather (artist copyright)

Angie Lewin, Cone Flower  (artist copyright)

Angie Lewin, Persephone Bowl (artist copyright)

Angie Lewin, Wild Garden Seedheads (artist copyright)

Angie Lewin, Auden Thalictrum (artist copyright)

These and other watercolours will be shown in Angie's exhibition 'A Natural Selection' at The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, during May. Gallery Director Christina Jansen comments:

"We are delighted to present Angie Lewin’s first solo exhibition with The Scottish Gallery. She is best known as a designer and printmaker whose sensitive patterns and motifs are inspired by the English Arts and Crafts movement and the work of Bawden and Ravilious. She divides her life between homes in Edinburgh and Speyside and this geographic diversity is reflected in her plant observations and interweaving of the natural and domestic worlds.

"She walks, looks and draws; she collects and assembles and her studio is full of reference material, beautiful in itself witnessing a life lived in art and nature. Her chosen medium for this exhibition is watercolour, that most sensitive and difficult medium and her virtuosity is complete but should be no surprise in the context of her rigorous apprenticeship. The playful title for this show hints at her obsessive observing, refined through the artist’s editorial eye to make order out of chaos."

FFI: The Scottish Gallery

Ravilious in Pictures: Iron Bridge at Ewenbridge

Eric Ravilious, Iron Bridge at Ewenbridge, 1941-2, Fry Art Gallery

Beneath bare winter branches a bridge leads across a stream to open country beyond. For a rural footbridge this is an impressive structure, with iron railings and posts supported by elegant iron hoops, but on closer inspection it appears that the bridge was built not for human traffic but for sheep. The ground in front of the bridge is well worn, the hill beyond ideal for grazing. The name too is suggestive. Charles Strachey recalls that his family always referred to the farm as Ewenbridge and, despite a lack of hard evidence, believes that the site may mark an ancestral crossing place for livestock.

This was one of several watercolours Ravilious painted in lieu of rent (to Labour politician and author John Strachey); it is unlikely that we would have any pictures of Ironbridge – or, for that matter, any non-war related paintings from this period – if the arrangement had not been in place. And this is an exquisite piece, one that celebrates good, everyday design and workmanship while inviting an imaginative response. A fairytale troll might live beneath this bridge; a pilgrim might cross to the other side. The elegant ironwork suggests a faith in the power of good design to carry us safely into the future.

In September 1942, only months after completing this painting, Ravilious was reported missing off the coast of Iceland. Still weak from surgery, Tirzah now found the government reluctant to pay either her late husband’s outstanding salary or her widow’s pension. She was forced to argue her case repeatedly, until she finally received the money owed to her a year later and was able to concentrate on the business of living. She began painting in oils, and in 1946 married BBC man Henry Swanzy. However, her cancer returned and she died in March 1951, with Anne not quite 10 years old.

Here the story takes a twist in keeping with Ravilious’s optimistic nature. With the upheavals of the war, their old Hedingham friend Kay Goodden had parted from her first husband Robert, and by coincidence married Henry Swanzy’s brother John. On Tirzah’s death Kay and John took the Ravilious children in, and gave them a stable and happy home.

This future lay ahead, unseen, as Ravilious sketched the bridge. He was at Ironbridge on and off during the summer, as the farm became idyllic once again. In June he reported, ‘The river here looks lovely and I bathed today. The old man Brown who keeps the boats wears a battered old Panama and stinging vermilion football jersey in these grey green willows.’

He came and went, returning for the last time in August to find the children waiting. ‘The Baffy (James) and Anne were at Overall’s corner when I returned…’ he wrote, ‘James chasing a cat and Anne laughing with joy to see her Father.’

This is an excerpt from 'Ravilious in Pictures: A Country Life', published by The Mainstone Press.

Introducing 'Ravilious in Pictures'

In a recent post about the catalogue for 'Ravilious' at Dulwich, a reviewer noted that there were perhaps some opportunities missed to discuss locations and other details relevant to particular paintings. This criticism may be valid but if you're looking for more in-depth discussion of individual Ravilious watercolours, don't despair!

Much of what I know about this elusive artist and his deceptively simple watercolours I learnt during the four years I spent working on the series 'Ravilious in Pictures' for the Mainstone Press. Actually there was never supposed to be a series. One book simply led to another, until we ended up with a trilogy of four books. Each is a kind of exhibition in book form, featuring twenty watercolours with accompanying essays, and a couple of other paintings for good measure.

The aim was to talk about Ravilious's work in ways suggested by the watercolours themselves, looking at social history and biography rather than art history per se. You can see a couple of sample essays here, and here.

When it came to writing the 'Ravilious' catalogue I naturally had different things to say, but the four books are well worth looking at if you've fallen under the spell of this alluring artist and want to know more about particular aspects of his work. All four books draw inspiration both from the paintings and from the artist's marvellous letters, as edited by his daughter Anne Ullmann, and published by the Fleece Press. The volumes and the paintings included are as follows:

Sussex and the Downs (a study of Ravilious's downland paintings, with reference to interwar social/landscape history, and some amusing interludes):
Firle Beacon, Furlongs, Interior at Furlongs, Waterwheel, Downs in Winter, Cement Works 2, Caravans, Chalk Paths, Greenhouse: Cyclamen and Tomatoes, Mount Caburn, Wiltshire Landscape, Beachy Head, Cuckmere Haven, Tea at Furlongs, The Wilmington Giant, The Westbury Horse, Train Landscape, Vale of the White Horse, Chalk Figure near Weymouth, The Cerne Giant.

The War Paintings (focusing on his wartime career, and the places and people he encountered - some proper history in here!):
Observation Post, Warship in Dry Dock, Ship's Screw on a Railway Truck, Dangerous Work at Low Tide, Barrage Balloons Outside a British Port, Norway 1940, HMS Glorious in the Arctic, Ark Royal in Action, Ward Room No1, Coastal Defences, Coastal Defences (2), No1 Map Corridor, Bombing the Channel Ports, Convoy Passing an Island, Morning on the Tarmac, RNAS Sick Bay Dundee, Spitfires at Sawbridgeworth, Corporal Stediford's Pigeon Loft, Runway Perspective, Hurricanes in Flight.




A Country Life (the most domestic of the books, exploring Eric and Tirzah's life in Essex):
Prospect from an Attic, Two Women in a Garden, The Attic Bedroom, Tractor, Garden Path, No.29 Bus, Back Gardens, Friesian Bull, The Brickyard, Hull's Mill, Butcher's Shop, Train Going Over a Bridge at Night, Halstead Road in Snow, Vicarage, Village Street, Salt Marsh, Late August Beach, Ironbridge Interior, Tree Trunk and Wheelbarrow, Ironbridge at Ewenbridge.




A Travelling Artist (following Rav's travels around Britain and beyond, in search of 'a good place'):
November 5th, Strawberry Nets, River Thames, Buoys and Grappling Hook, Channel Steamer Leaving Harbour, Newhaven Harbour, Greenwich Observatory, Wet Afternoon, Waterwheel, The Duke of Hereford's Knob, Geraniums and Carnations, Buscot Park, Room at the William the Conqueror, Lifeboat, Dungeness, Bristol Quay, Belle Tout Interior, Pilot Boat, Leaving Scapa Flow.

If you'd like to know more about any of the books, or their availability (I believe they're all in print as I write this), please get in touch via the email address on my Profile page, or visit The Mainstone Press. Thanks!

New Exhibitions: Pallant House, Fry, RWA, Ashmolean & Dulwich

Leon Underwood, The Matchbox, 1930 (private collection)

April may be the cruellest month to a poet of melancholy disposition, but for art lovers it brings treats a-plenty, this year more than most. I was selling my wares at the Nadfas Directory Day yesterday and someone mentioned the exhibition of Great British Drawings which is about to open at the Ashmolean. Having visited the print room a few times I am looking forward to this survey of the collection very much. We tend to see only the oil paintings held by museums, but in many cases the drawings, watercolours and other works on paper are as good, if not better.

Visiting a print room is particularly fun, because as you gently lift each carefully conserved drawing out of a box you have no idea what you will find underneath. One Cotman watercolour of the interior of Norwich Cathedral was particularly striking, the bold colour testament to the quality of the care lavished on the painting over the years.

Like a music festival, the exhibition has some big names topping the bill; we are promised Turner, Hockney, Rossetti, Ravilious, Gainsborough and more. I'm sure Ravilious would be amused (and impressed) to find himself sandwiched between Rossetti and Gainsborough.

Whether by chance or by design, drawing is also the theme of a major spring exhibition at RWA Bristol, where fifty-five works on paper from the Ingram Collection are going on show alongside the annual open exhibition, Drawn. The Ingram Collection has a vast holding of Modern British Art, and this selection, dubbed Drawing On, promises work by Edward Burra, John Nash, Barbara Hepworth and sundry other stars of the period.

Weirdly, there's a Ravilious connection with our next exhibition, Leon Underwood at Pallant House Gallery, since Underwood was teaching at the Royal College when Rav was studying there. Apparently, Underwood liked to invite the most promising students for evening get-togethers, and the Boy was one of those so invited, along with Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore.

Underwood is one of those figures whose influence was probably far greater than we realise. A multi-talented artist and inspiring teacher, he explored wood engraving, sculpture and painting, creating memorable, innovative work in each medium. Travels to Mexico gave him a global perspective that was relatively rare among British artists of the time.

Kenneth Rowntree, Coronation lithograph, 1953

If Underwood exerted an influence on Ravilious, Kenneth Rowntree worked (at first) in a clear-sighted way similar to Rav and Bawden. Twelve years their junior he was fortunate to grow up during a golden age of British landscape painting, but less fortunate to see its glory fade after World War II. I can't help but see the giant, decorative ER he lithographed for the Coronation in 1953 as a tribute to Eric, but perhaps I'm being fanciful.

The centenary exhibition at the Fry Art Gallery is a collaboration with Liss Llewellyn Fine Art, a gallery that has done more than most to promote 20th century British art. If you haven't done so before, you should have a look at their website, which offers an ever-changing array of paintings, drawings and prints by artists familiar and obscure.

Kenneth Rowntree, Toy Boat at Selsey, 1956 (Fry Art Gallery, Artfunded)

Rowntree has his fans but deserves wider recognition for his upbeat but strangely haunting paintings of landscapes, buildings, boats and interiors. I have a copy of the King Penguin book, 'A Prospect of Wales', and his illustrations are a treat.

Meanwhile, in another part of the country... We're hanging the Ravilious show at Dulwich next week and the excitement levels are mounting. The catalogue is back from the printers and looking great - you can pre-order from Philip Wilson Publishers or from good bookshops like Much Ado Books, Hatchards or Toppings...