Art Exhibition – Page 4 – Toovey’s Blog

John Minton Retrospective

Illustration from Time was Away: A Notebook in Corsica, by John Minton and Alan Ross, published by John Lehmann Ltd, 1947, pen and ink on paper © Royal College of Art

A retrospective of the British Neo-Romantic artist, John Minton, has recently opened at the Pallant House Gallery, Chichester to mark the centenary of the artist’s birth.

The exhibition has been curated by Pallant House Gallery Director, Simon Martin, and art historian and author, Frances Spalding. It highlights how John Minton’s art is inseparably bound up with his life. The work holds in tension what Simon Martin describes as ‘an atmosphere of poetic melancholy [and]…an exuberant joie-de-vivre’. Minton was at once an extrovert at ease in the company of his contemporaries but also suffered from periods of introspective self-doubt. Minton’s sensitivity, self-doubt and introspection are poignantly captured in the portrait of him by his friend Lucien Freud. Freud’s portrait is one of the highlights of the show.

John Minton was part of a group of British Neo-Romantic artists. He is perhaps best remembered as the illustrator of Elizabeth David’s revolutionary cookery books on French and Mediterranean cuisine. Minton gave post-war austerity Britain a glimpse of the foreign and exotic through his illustrations and paintings. Take for example the beautifully conceived illustration for Alan Ross’ Corsican travel memoir, Time Was Away. It depicts a contemplative male figure seated on a quay. The artist draws the viewer’s eye beyond the introspective youth to the boats and town beyond. These vignettes are united within the composition by the bold use of light and colour.

John Minton, Jamaican Village, 1951, oil on canvas, private collection, photograph © 2016 Christie's Images Limited/ Bridgeman Images © Royal College of Art — John Minton, Jamaican Village, 1951, oil on canvas, private collection, photograph © 2016 Christie’s Images Limited/ Bridgeman Images © Royal College of Art

Jamaican Village has not been seen since it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1951. The heat of the Jamaican night is richly articulated in the artist’s use of colour. John Minton explained that in this painting he sought to give a sense of disquiet in response to something unknown and impending. This large decorative canvas is certainly atmospheric but lacks this sense of foreboding. There is however a stillness and poignancy to the silent figures caught up in their own thoughts as they stand framed by the moonlight and electric lights.

John Minton, Portrait of David Tindle as a Boy, 1952, oil on canvas, Pallant House Gallery (Hussey Bequest, Chichester District Council, 1985) © Royal College of Art

The beauty, strength and vulnerability in John Minton’s portraits reflects something of the artist’s character and life. In a period when homosexuality was not accepted by British society Minton’s sexuality, at times, left him conflicted. This tension is reflected in many of his paintings and especially his portraits. His study of the artist David Tindle illustrates this and is filled with poetic melancholy and emotional intensity. Minton would tragically commit suicide in 1957 at the age of just thirty-nine, the same year as the Wolfenden Report was published recommending the decriminalisation of homosexuality.

John Minton’s work displays an emotional intensity born out of the contradicting stresses between his often vivid social life and his introspection and self-doubt. I am delighted that Toovey’s and De’Longhi are amongst the headline sponsors of this timely exhibition. John Minton: A Centenary runs at the Pallant House Gallery, Chichester throughout the summer until 1st October 2017.

By Rupert Toovey, a senior director of Toovey’s, the leading fine art auction house in West Sussex, based on the A24 at Washington. Originally published in the West Sussex Gazette.

Horsham’s Art Gallery Attracts National Attention

Christian Mitchell, Nicholas Toovey, Rosa Sepple., PRI, Robin Hazelwood., PPRI, and Jeremy Knight at the opening of the RI: Now 17 watercolour exhibition

The Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours, Now 17 summer exhibition is currently on show at The Horsham Museum & Art Gallery. The Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours (RI) rarely holds exhibitions outside London and this show highlights the growing reputation of Horsham’s exceptional regional art gallery.

The exhibition was opened by the President of the Royal Institute, Rosa Sepple, and the Chairman of Horsham District Council, Christian Mitchell, in front of a large audience.

The RI can trace its origins back to 1807 when it was first formed as the New Society of Painters in Watercolours. Early exhibitors included the luminaries William Blake and Paul Sandby. The Society closed in 1812 but was resurrected by the artist Joseph Powell in 1831. The Society acquired its Royal status by order of Queen Victoria in 1883. For much of its existence its home was opposite the Royal Academy in Piccadilly but in 1971, together with a number of other leading societies of artists, it moved to the Mall Galleries as part of the Federation of British artists. Her Majesty the Queen is the RI’s patron.

Since Horsham’s art gallery was opened in 2010, to compliment the museum’s already outstanding program, visitor numbers have doubled making the Horsham Museum and Art Gallery one of the most visited arts and heritage destinations in the whole of Sussex.

Responding to this demand the museum changed its collecting policy. It now collect’s not only Sussex related art, but also watercolours by leading exponents of the medium. A watercolour collection of national significance is being built with financial support from The Friends of Horsham Museum, collectors, businesses, trusts and institutions. I am delighted that Toovey’s have already donated a number of watercolours by key British artists and are sponsoring the exceptional RI: Now 17 show. This exceptional selling exhibition includes watercolours by some twenty leading RI artists including works by the current President.

Charles Bone’s watercolour, Sussex Downs

The beauty of the Sussex Downs never fails to excite me. The watercolour, ‘Sussex Downs’, by RI past President Charles Bone, captures the shifting grey-green hues of the late spring and early summer. His broad but delicate brushwork gives us a sense of the fast changing play of light and weather on this ancient landscape. Charles Bone is understandably celebrated for his ability to record landscapes and architecture.

Lillias August’s Hanging by a Thread watercolour being painted in her studio

Lillias August’s watercolour ‘Hanging by a Thread’, in contrast, conveys a stillness which appears out of time. The three-dimensional quality of the light bulbs depicted is emphasised by the economy of her palette and the building up of painstaking layers of wash. ‘Hanging by a Thread’ seen here in her studio allows us to glimpse something of the artist’s working method.

These are just two of the delights in the RI: Now 17 exhibition which gives the backdrop for a number of summer events celebrating watercolour paintings and artists at the Horsham Museum & Art Gallery.

Highlights include a talk by Art Historian, Nicola Moorby, on Turner’s watercolour technique on the 8th June 2017, and Nick Toovey of Toovey’s Auctioneers will once again be holding a fundraising valuation event for paintings, prints, books, postcards and other paper collectables on Saturday 10th June 2017, 10am to 1pm at the Horsham Museum & Art Gallery.

This current show, RI: Now 17, is proof of Horsham Museum & Art Gallery’s growing national reputation. Curator, Jeremy Knight, is once again deserving of our thanks.

The RI: Now 17 exhibition runs until 15th July 2017 at Horsham Museum & Art Gallery, The Causeway, Horsham, RH12 1HE and entrance is free. For more information visit www.horshammuseum.org or telephone 01403 254959.

By Rupert Toovey, a senior director of Toovey’s, the leading fine art auction house in West Sussex, based on the A24 at Washington. Originally published in the West Sussex Gazette.

Hans Feibusch: The Unseen Drawings

Hans Feibusch - Study for a Mural (Diana and Actaeon), Pallant House Gallery, (Feibusch Studio, Gift of the Artist, 1997) © By Permission of The Werthwhile Foundation — Hans Feibusch – Study for a Mural (Diana and Actaeon), Pallant House Gallery, (Feibusch Studio, Gift of the Artist, 1997) © By Permission of The Werthwhile Foundation

An exhibition of drawings and mural studies by the German émigré artist Hans Feibusch (1898-1998) is currently on show at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester.

Feibusch represents a classical, figurative tradition in 20th century art which has sometimes been overlooked in favour of abstraction and other modern artistic expressions. He also has an important place in the tumultuous history of the 20th century and the revival in church patronage of art in the Modern British Period.

The Pallant House Gallery was gifted the entire contents of Feibusch’s North London Studio which included hundreds of drawings, sketchbooks and sculpture in 1997.

Hans Feibusch arrived in England in 1933 from Nazi Germany to escape persecution as a Jew. He had become an established painter in Germany, being awarded the German Grand State Prize for Painters in 1930 by the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin. His talent was soon recognized in England and he exhibited regularly, often with the London Group, to which he was elected in 1934. The London Group included many of Britain’s leading artists.

Hans Feibusch - Baptism of Christ, c. 1951, Chichester Cathedral, © 2012 Rupert Toovey — Hans Feibusch – Baptism of Christ, c. 1951, Chichester Cathedral, © 2012 Rupert Toovey

Kenneth Clark, later Lord Clark, was very influential as director of the National Gallery in London during the war. He introduced Feibusch to George Bell, the then Bishop of Chichester. This resulted in a number of commissions across the diocese. One of Feibusch’s most important works is ‘The ‘Baptism of Christ’ painted in 1951 which can be seen in the baptistery of Chichester Cathedral alongside John Skelton’s font sculpted out of Cornish polyphant stone and bronze in 1982/83. The maquette for the font now holds the paschal candle which represents humanity’s salvation through the passion, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. It can be seen on the wall beside Feibusch’s painting. It is interesting to note that Skelton was a pupil of his Uncle, Eric Gill. Representations of the Baptism of Christ are surprisingly uncommon but there are notable similarities between Feibusch’s depiction and Piero della Francesca’s Renaissance version painted in the 1450s which is now in the National Gallery, London.

Whilst the murals deserve to be celebrated it is Feibusch’s sketches and drawings which, for me, reveal his true talent.

Hans Feibusch - Seated Woman, c. 1949, Pallant House Gallery (Feibusch Studio, Gift of the Artist, 1997) © By Permission of The Werthwhile Foundation — Hans Feibusch – Seated Woman, c. 1949, Pallant House Gallery (Feibusch Studio, Gift of the Artist, 1997) © By Permission of The Werthwhile Foundation

Feibusch’s study in charcoal and crayon of a seated woman owes much to the French Classicism of the 18th century.

The study for a mural in pastel depicts the Roman goddess of the hunt, Diana. As she bathes she is attended by nymphs who are shocked when the young hunter Actaeon comes upon them in the forest. The tension in the composition and figures’ faces hints at the tragedy which is to unfold. Actaeon will be transformed into a deer only to be hunted and killed by his own hounds.

Hans Feibusch’s figures are convincing, almost sculptural, with a quality of mass and light. His composition and draftsmanship gifts them with a grace and nobility. They represent the work of a gifted artist whose life is inexorably bound up with the extraordinary history and events of his time.

Entrance to Chichester Cathedral is free providing the perfect place to pause, reflect and pray amongst its remarkable collection of art.

‘Hans Feibusch: The Unseen Drawings’ runs until the 5th March 2017 and thanks to the generosity of sponsors, DeLonghi, admission to the exhibition is free. And if you go this weekend you will have a last chance to see ‘Idealism & Uncertainty: Classicism in Modern British Art’ which closes on 19th February 2017. Both exhibitions are at Pallant House Gallery, 9 North Pallant, Chichester, PO19 1TJ. For more information go to www.pallant.org.uk.

By Rupert Toovey, a senior director of Toovey’s, the leading fine art auction house in West Sussex, based on the A24 at Washington. Originally published in the West Sussex Gazette.

Classicism in Modern British Art

Henry Moore, Reclining Figure, 1945 © Henry Moore Foundation

‘Idealism & Uncertainty Classicism in Modern British Art’ at the Pallant House Gallery is this season’s must see exhibition. Simon Martin, the gallery’s Artistic Director and Curator of this show, has once again demonstrated his remarkable insight into this period of British artistic endeavour.

The exhibition is the first to explore how Modern British artists referenced the past as they developed a distinctive form of modern art. It is a particular characteristic of the British that as we embrace the future and celebrate the modern we always have one eye on the past. Our art, like our nation’s history, reflects procession as well as revolution. The work on display reflects the experience of war and the social concerns which defined Britain in the 20th century.

Meredith Frampton, Portrait of Marguerite Kelsey © Tate

Against the backdrop of the political uncertainties of the 1930s, classicism in Britain became a style associated with progressive traditionalists. This influence is reflected in the work of artists like Meredith Frampton who sought clarity and precision in her portraits.

After the experience of the Great War artists like Wyndham Lewis and Frederick Etchells developed a more rounded form of figurative art in contrast to their earlier Vorticist and Cubist work.

Ben Nicholson, Heads, 1933, image courtesy of Tate © Angela Verren Taunt

Whilst figurative artists like Paul Nash experimented with Surrealism their art was still broadly figurative, executed with a purity of line.

This search for purity of line and simplicity, Simon Martin argues, is also expressed in the work of abstract artists associated with groups like Unit One. Ben Nicholson’s exquisite study of his lover, the sculptor Barbara Hepworth, depicted in silhouette communicates an extraordinary tenderness through its paired down qualities of line and tone. Here Hepworth’s head gazes into the eyes of a man, presumably Nicholson, who is depicted as a Roman Emperor or god. The couple had holidayed in St Rémy de Provence at Easter in 1933 and it is likely that the nearby Roman ruins of Glanum influenced the work.

Henry Moore’s figures also express a concern with, what Simon Martin describes as, ‘classicising form’ which can be seen in the recumbent figure from 1945.

The strength of the narrative of this show is exceptional. The works are confidently placed in the context of their time and the procession of classicism in art history, re-interpreted by Modern British artists. Simon Martin is to be congratulated.

I am excited that Toovey’s Fine Art Auctioneers are sponsoring this ‘must see show’. ‘Idealism & Uncertainty: Classicism in Modern British Art’ at Pallant House Gallery, 9 North Pallant, Chichester, PO19 1TJ, runs until 19th February 2017.

By Rupert Toovey, a senior director of Toovey’s, the leading fine art auction house in West Sussex, based on the A24 at Washington. Originally published in the West Sussex Gazette.

Christopher Wood – a Sophisticated Primitive

Christopher Wood, ‘China Dogs in a St Ives Window, Pallant House Gallery

A major exhibition on the artist Christopher Wood (1901-1930) has just opened at Chichester’s Pallant House Gallery. Curated by Katy Norris, it explores the complex life and importance of this ‘sophisticated primitive’.

Katy Norris has delivered an exemplary exhibition which highlights the influence of continental artists on Wood and his pivotal position in the Modern British Art Movement as he navigated a path between the representational art of the Victorian and Edwardian periods and the new abstraction of the 1930s.

The exhibition charts the chapters of this talented artist’s all too short life.

Christopher Wood, ‘Self-Portrait, 1927’, Kettles Yard, University of Cambridge

The twenty year old Christopher Wood arrived in Paris in 1921 where he met Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau and others. He was also influenced by the Post-Impressionists including Vincent Van Gogh and Henri Rousseau. He wrote to his mother in 1922 explaining how these artists endeavoured to interpret their subjects as though ‘through the eyes of the smallest child who sees nothing except that which would strike them as being the most important.’ Seeking this essential view of the word lends an intensity to his work.

Christopher Wood’s first trip to Cornwall in 1926 affirmed the artist in him. It was during this visit that he painted one of his most iconic and finest pictures titled ‘China Dogs in a St Ives Window’. This playful painting brings together the naïve style which Wood had developed in Paris and a playful lyricism which imparts his sense of new-found freedom.

The quintessentially English scene is inspired by Victorian Staffordshire ceramic dogs. The Spaniels are framed by the chair and window. The composition leads our eye to the steamer and lighthouse in this primitive, artistic interpretation of St Ives harbour.

Christopher Wood depicts himself in a harlequin-patterned jumper in his 1927 Self – Portrait. There is an introspective intensity of emotion apparent in his face as we observe him. It is as though we are looking out of the canvas upon which he stands to paint. The influence of the untrained, candid representations of Post-Impressionist, Henri Rousseau can be seen here.

In the summer of 1928 Christopher Wood returned to St Ives with the artist Ben Nicholson. Whilst there he discovered the work of the self-taught painter and former fisherman, Alfred Wallis. Wood took on Wallis’ iconography depicting the Atlantic fishing industry and coast. Wood’s brushwork appears intuitive and spontaneous.

Christopher Wood, ‘Harbour in the Hills, University of Essex

Wallis’ influence is particularly apparent in ‘Harbour in the Hills’. Painted in 1928, the sea is depicted as swirling bands of light greys and charcoals which contrast with the intensity of the green hills.

In his youth in Paris Christopher Wood had become addicted to opium. By now his life oscillated between his intense social life and solitary periods of painting.

Christopher Wood, ‘Dancing Sailors’, Leicester Arts and Museums Service

In the summer of 1930 Christopher Wood painted his final series of some forty pictures at Treboul in Brittany over a period of six weeks. They depict an idealised view of these Breton seafarers, their customs and spirituality. This is captured in ‘Dancing Sailors’. Wood’s addiction lends a pulsating intensity to the painting.

Shortly after completing these works Christopher Wood tragically took his own life when he jumped in front of a train at Salisbury station.

Katy Norris’ superb monograph ‘Christopher Wood’ provides an insightful companion to this outstanding exhibition and is on sale at the Pallant House Gallery Bookshop.

At its heart the exhibition explores Christopher Wood’s pervading interest in Primitivism in the context of his life. It examines the international and domestic influences on his work, and how his faux-naïve style would contribute to the journey towards more progressive forms of modernism in art in 1930s Britain.

‘Christopher Wood: Sophisticated Primitive’ runs until 2nd October 2016 and brings together often rarely seen works – what a summer holiday treat!

For more information on current exhibitions, events and opening times go to www.pallant.org.uk or telephone 01243 774557.

By Rupert Toovey, a senior director of Toovey’s, the leading fine art auction house in West Sussex, based on the A24 at Washington. Originally published in the West Sussex Gazette.