Month: January 2015

Mr Turner at Petworth

Mr. Turner – Timothy Spall, as J.M.W. Turner, paints in the Old Library © Simon Mein, Thin Man Films.
Mr. Turner – Timothy Spall, as J.M.W. Turner, paints in the Old Library © Simon Mein, Thin Man Films.

Mike Leigh’s textural depiction of the life and work of Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) in his award-winning film Mr. Turner has been brought to life in an exhibition at Petworth House. This fascinating show runs until 11th March 2015. It brings together rarely seen works by J.M.W. Turner with props, costumes and paintings from the film by the actor Timothy Spall.

Andrew Loukes, Curator of Collections and Exhibitions at Petworth House, is clearly excited by Mr. Turner – an exhibition, which he has co-curated with Dr Jacqueline Riding. Andrew enthuses: “Mike Leigh’s work on Mr. Turner at Petworth is arguably the most significant cultural moment at the ‘house of art’ since Turner himself was a frequent guest here in the 1820s and 30s.” The third Earl of Egremont was amongst the most important English patrons of art in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The film Mr. Turner has provided the opportunity to re-examine the important role that Petworth and the third Earl played in Turner’s later work.

As we walk up the Old Library staircase in conversation, I remark on one of my favourite scenes in the film, in which Turner stands painting at his easel in this library with three ladies, bathed in light from the arched window. As we reach the landing, we are greeted by the very same scene and light. Andrew smiles and explains, “Mike Leigh wanted to recreate some of Turner’s iconic pictures. Turner painted several sketches of this room.”

J.M.W. Turner – The Old Library © Tate, London, 2014
J.M.W. Turner – The Old Library © Tate, London, 2014

The Old Library is often called ‘Turner’s Studio’. This particular scene is taken from Turner’s luminous gouache of 1827, titled The Old Library: The Artist and his Admirers. Here three ladies watch as the artist paints. Turner’s delight is obvious in his depiction of light, colour and movement. It provides the viewer with a remarkable impression of a particular moment in time. The sketch is one of a number produced by Turner in the autumn of 1827. Painted for his own pleasure, they illustrate life behind the scenes at Petworth House.

Timothy Spall studied under London artist Tim Wright for two years as part of his preparation for the role of Turner. His vigorous performance in the film convincingly reflects something of the practical physicality of creating art and it is surprising to see the level of accomplishment in his paintings and drawings first hand. Spall depicts J.M.W. Turner as an artist consumed by his art, confident, eccentric, prosperous, forthright, both detached and tender in his personal relationships.

Like the film, the exhibition offers a revealing and very personal insight into the character of this great artist. Andrew reverentially shows me Turner’s leather watercolour pouch, which is one of the objects on display. Although worn, it shines, displaying the patina of years of use and handling by the artist himself.

As Andrew and I continue around the exhibition into the Carved Room with its Turners, Grinling Gibbons carvings and costumes from the film, it becomes apparent that I am in the company of a man whose depth of understanding and love of the collections he curates at Petworth House have rooted him in this place in a very particular way. He remarks, “I am excited to be able to expand the exhibition offer at Petworth, based around the remarkable collections here.” Andrew Loukes’ quiet passion, vision and dedication are bringing life to this important house and its collections and he deserves our thanks.

Demand for tickets for Mr. Turner – an exhibition at Petworth House is expected to be high, so book your tickets early! For more information go to www.nationaltrust.org.uk/petworth-house and to book tickets telephone 0844 249 1895.

By Revd. Rupert Toovey. Originally published on 14th January 2015 in the West Sussex Gazette.

Terry Frost and the Poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca

Katy Norris, Assistant Curator at Pallant House Gallery, with Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías by Sir Terry Frost
Katy Norris, Assistant Curator at Pallant House Gallery, with Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías by Sir Terry Frost

A dramatic exhibition of Terry Frost’s prints from his Lorca Suite is currently on show in the De’Longhi Print Room at Pallant House Gallery in Chichester, West Sussex.

It focuses on the British abstract artist Terry Frost and his engagement with the poetry of the Spanish poet, playwright and theatre director Federico García Lorca. Lorca became one of the first martyrs of the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War when he was killed by fascist Nationalist rebels in 1936. Assistant Curator Katy Norris explains, “Lorca’s death has come to epitomise the violent suppression of the intellectual left by right-wing partisans.” When General Franco seized power in 1939, at the end of the conflict, he banned Lorca’s work from publication in Spain.

During the Second World War Terry Frost was a prisoner of war under the Nazis and a victim of fascism. Katy keenly describes how this loss of freedom awakened his political and artistic consciousness, an experience which would inform his life and work, saying: “Frost exercised a lifelong pursuit of his artistic right to freedom of expression.”

Sir Terry Frost 1915–2003, The Moon Rising, 1989, etching with hand colour on Somerset Satin paper, Austin / Desmond Fine Art © The Estate of Sir Terry Frost
Sir Terry Frost 1915–2003, The Moon Rising, 1989, etching with hand colour on Somerset Satin paper, Austin / Desmond Fine Art © The Estate of Sir Terry Frost

Frost would later acknowledge how, as a prisoner, his hunger and suffering gifted him with “a tremendous spiritual experience [and] a more heightened perception”. The artist described this formative experience as “an awakening”. Katy adds: “Frost discovered his profound sense of connection with nature and landscape at this time.”

The liberal society in which Terry Frost was working in the 1970s and 1980s was certainly in complete contrast to Franco’s earlier repressive regime. Frost would return to Lorca’s work over a fifteen-year period, creating paper collages, drawings and prints in response to the writer’s work. It culminated in the portfolio of coloured etchings on display here. Produced in 1989 and titled Eleven Poems by Federico García Lorca, they have become known as the Lorca Suite. Together these images, each based on a specific poem, provide a visual window illuminating Lorca’s writing.

Lorca’s writing employs an economy of vocabulary. In these poems life is stripped back, allowing clarity of vision expressive of the author’s heightened perception. This writing is filled with ambiguity and a lack of fulfilment, which gifts it with space and nobility.

Sir Terry Frost 1915–2003, The Spinster at Mass, 1989, etching with hand colour on Somerset Satin paper, Austin / Desmond Fine Art © The Estate of Sir Terry Frost
Sir Terry Frost 1915–2003, The Spinster at Mass, 1989, etching with hand colour on Somerset Satin paper, Austin / Desmond Fine Art © The Estate of Sir Terry Frost

This distance between the artistic representation and the reality of the subject would give Frost space for freedom of expression. Terry Frost, like Lorca, also distilled the world around him. He, too, used a carefully conceived vocabulary, though Frost’s was one of colour, light and form in the abstract.

I remark on the dramatic hues of black, white and red which are apparent in many of these works. Katy responds, “Lorca used black, white and red to describe the blazing light and heat of the Mediterranean sun. In the 1960s Frost had begun to use these colours in relation to the Spanish landscape, years before engaging with Lorca’s writing. However, it is in the Lorca Suite that we perhaps see his most sophisticated use of this colour scheme.”

This is clearly illustrated in The Spinster at Mass and The Moon Rising. I am drawn to the emblematic etching Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías. Sánchez and Lorca were friends. The matador Sánchez died in the bullring. Lorca’s awareness of death informed his creative spontaneity in this poem; its repetitive rhythm informs this lament. Take, for example, these lines:

“Oh white wall of Spain!

Oh black bull of sorrow!

Oh hard blood of Ignacio!”

Katy Norris reflects on the economy of colour, shapes and form used to the same dramatic effect in Terry Frost’s etching of the same title. She says: “The black of the bull’s horn and the red blood of Ignacio against the white ground echo the description in Lorca’s poem. The action takes place beneath a setting sun represented by a pulsating yellow disc in the etching.”

The drama and tragedy of the Spanish Civil War and the life and death of Lorca are captured with real intensity in Terry Frost: Eleven Poems by Federico García Lorca. Entrance to this exhibition is free but it is worth treating yourself to tickets for Conscience and Conflict: British Artists and the Spanish Civil War. Both exhibitions run until 15th February 2015 at Pallant House Gallery, 9 North Pallant, Chichester, PO19 1TJ. For more information go to www.pallant.org.uk or telephone 01243 774557. You must add them to your 2015 New Year’s must-see list!

By Revd. Rupert Toovey. Originally published on 28th December 2014 in the West Sussex Gazette.