British Art News
The latest news in Modern and Contemporary British Art.
by Alex Leith
Charming wonkiness | Lucy Harwood, at Firstsite, Colchester
In 1920, 27-year-old Slade School graduate Lucy Harwood had an emergency appendix operation on the kitchen table of the house she lived in. 3 days later, it was discovered she was paralysed down her right side, and had lost the use of the right hand she painted with. But she was determined not to give up painting.
Lucy Harwood: Bold Impressions, which runs until April 14, is the third in an ongoing series at Firstsite exploring the careers of Benton End artists.
Magical ruralism | Sean Jefferson at David Messum Fine Art
Sean Jefferson: The Twelve Days of Christmas and Other Works runs at David Messum Fine Art, St James until December 22.
Each painting demands a careful reading, though few viewers will be able to decipher all the folkloric and spiritual symbols. It’s a feast of fairies, sprites, jesters, druids, winged dogs, ominous ravens, runic symbols, gnarly trees, medicinal herbs and slivers of moon in yellow skies.
Splashy Sublime | Nick Archer at Long & Ryle
Discover the latest show at Long & Ryle gallery of Nick Archer, as well as a brief history of his practice.
Moving into another intensity | Anthony Eyton at Browse and Darby
2023 has been an eventful year for the painter Anthony Eyton. In May he celebrated his 100th birthday. In June he was awarded an OBE in King Charles’ first Birthday Honours, and was featured in an exhibition of portraits at Michael Richardson’s Art Space Gallery, alongside Arturo di Stefano. And in September he enjoyed the opening of a retrospective of his work at Browse and Darby. The show continues until November 10.
Alternative Eden | James Mortimer at SOLO CONTEMPORARY
If Eve hadn’t gone for that apple, would the Garden of Eden have remained, for evermore, an unspoilt, innocent paradise? James Mortimer’s surrealist, symbolic, uncanny paintings suggest not, describing an alternative Eden, where: ‘Freed from social constraint, people behave unthinkingly with a blissful lack of self-awareness, and once governed by their basest instincts soon find themselves given over to shameless naked abandon: to foolish acts of wanton violence, sexual impropriety and long afternoons of listless indolence’.
Less hairy | Eric Ravilious, at the Fine Art Society
Soon after WW2 broke out in 1939, the watercolourist and commercial illustrator Eric Ravilious applied to become an official war artist, and this application – to his great delight – was accepted in January 1940.
In the spring of 1941, he was commissioned to depict the newly developed control rooms. From this space the Ministry of Home Security organised air raid precautions and collated bomb damage. This painting – fresh to market having been bought from a private collection by the Fine Art Society – is from that series. Fire Control Room will be shown by The Fine Art Society at British Art Fair 2023.
Not to her face | Tracey Emin at The Conran Shop
Tracey Emin has never been shy about putting herself at the centre of her art. In her early career, this reflected a provocative, feisty personality, though it would be short-sighted to dismiss Emin as a mere provocateur. She has, over the years, demonstrated her prodigious talent in many mediums, including installation, sculpture, painting, printing, textiles, photography, film and neon.
Several examples of Emin’s prints will be on display during British Art Fair (and until October 9) on the ground floor of The Conran Shop’s new flagship store in Sloane Square, to mark a partnership with the Fair. The prints have been chosen by the Conran group from the collection of Chelsea gallerist Tanya Baxter.
Throw yourself in! | David Bomberg at Crossing Borders
Before WW1, Slade drop-out David Bomberg made his name as a radical, avant-garde artist, creating complex, geometric compositions, blending elements of cubism and futurism. Without Bomberg we wouldn’t have had Auerbach or Kossoff.
Bomberg’s work, Calle de San Pedro, courtesy of Osborne Samuel Gallery, can be seen at the Crossing Borders exhibition on the second floor of Saatchi Gallery during British Art Fair.
Gifted with synaesthesia | Margaret Mellis at Redfern
Happy birthday to the Redfern Gallery, who are celebrating their 100th anniversary with two consecutive centenary exhibitions of paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures. The first is currently on show in their Cork Street space, where the gallery has been based since 1936 (having moved from Redfern House in Old Bond Street, hence the name).
A monster lay drooling | Beyond the Gaze at Saatchi Gallery
I’m pretty sure that when Lisa Ivory lay awake at night as a young child, she was convinced that a monster lay drooling under her bed. Such creatures reappear in all her oil paintings: dark, shaggy beasts of vaguely humanoid form.
You can currently see the artist’s latest series of paintings at Saatchi Gallery, in the show Beyond the Gaze – Reclaiming the Landscape, curated by Zavier Ellis. The exhibition explores landscape painting through a contemporary female gaze.
Touché | Bruce Bernard, by Lucian Freud
Meet, if you dare, the inscrutable glare of Bruce Bernard, a man who didn’t suffer fools gladly, as depicted in 1985 – aged 57 - by his lifelong friend Lucian Freud, about whom the same could be said.
Freud’s etching of Bernard – supplied by Julian Page - is to be shown in Crossing Borders: Internationalism in Modern Art, a stand-alone exhibition at British Art Fair 2023, featuring émigré artists who came to Britain from all over the world during the 20th century.
A surrealist snap | Eileen Agar at Austin/Desmond
1936 was quite a year for Eileen Agar. In the spring she was visited in her studio by Roland Penrose and Herbert Read, who, to her surprise, declared her a surrealist and selected two paintings and five objects for inclusion in the International Surrealist Exhibition they were organising at the New Burlington Galleries in Mayfair, running from June 11 to July 4.
Pop went the Easel | Derek Boshier at Whitford Fine Art
“I’m very interested in the whole set-up of the American influence in this country,” states the 24-year-old Derek Boshier, rather earnestly, in Ken Russell’s seminal BBC documentary Pop Goes the Easel, made and broadcast in 1962. “In the infiltration of the American way of life. It’s through advertising… that this infiltration has come through”.
Her version of real | Chantal Joffe, Scarlett and Lola
“I don’t find men very interesting to look at,” Chantal Joffe told the Telegraph a few years ago. She doesn’t feel the same way about women: her subject matter is almost always portraiture of female figures. She paints her mother, she paints her daughter Esme, she paints herself, unflinchingly (in 2018 she produced a self-portrait every day of the year), and she paints friends, and friends’ children, such as Scarlett and Lola (pictured) who have featured in her work since they were toddlers…
Threshold of the modern History of the New, at the Fine Art Society
A big welcome to the Fine Art Society, exhibiting for the first time at the British Art Fair this Autumn.
‘A volley of fish heads’ British Impressionists at David Messum
One can safely assume that Laura Knight’s Baiting Lines, Staithes (c1900) was not painted on a Sunday.
Interview with Simon Shore, owner of Stow Art House
Interview with first-time exhibitor at British Art Fair, Simon Shore of Stow Art House.
Emily Young at Thirsk Sculpture Park | Conversations in stone
Emily Young, ‘Britain’s greatest living land sculptor’ (FT), talks about having a friendship, even a marriage, with every bit of stone she works with, whether that’s Onyx or Speleothem, or Jaisalmer, or Quartzite, or Calacatta, or Lapis or Alabaster.
CURLICUE MOUNTAINS | MARO GORKY, AT LONG & RYLE
A retrospective of the vibrant paintings of Maro Gorky, to celebrate her 80th birthday, has just opened at Long & Ryle, round the corner on John Islip Street. In the show’s catalogue, Cressida Connolly writes: ‘any room would sing with one of her paintings on the wall.’ Well here are 20 or so of her exuberant creations in a single – rather intimate – gallery space: make that a joyful chorus.
DECONSTRUCTING MARILYN | MARK LANCASTER AT THE REDFERN GALLERY
1964 was an eventful year for the Yorkshire artist Mark Lancaster. He was studying fine art, under pop-art guru Richard Hamilton, at King’s College, Newcastle. In his summer break, he went to New York, where he wangled a job assisting Andy Warhol in the first incarnation of The Factory, on East 87th Street. How? Here’s a lesson: he found his number in the phone book, and rang him up.