Bishop Otter – Toovey’s Blog

Britain’s Coast Celebrated in Art

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham (1912-2004), View of St Ives, c.1940, oil on canvas © The Barns-Graham Charitable Trust

Chichester University’s summer exhibition, Coastal Connections, offers an exciting view of printmakers’ and painters’ interaction with the British coast. There is a particular emphasis on work from the artists’ colony of St Ives, Cornwall.

The show has once again been curated by Professor Gill Clarke. Art from the University’s Bishop Otter Collection is complimented by works loaned from private collections, the Barns-Graham Charitable Trust and the Swindon Museum and Art Gallery.

The exhibition is imaginatively hung so that the relationships between these artists and their works can be discovered by the viewer. The juxtaposition of representational and abstract images allows a glimpse of the breadth of art which would have been found in St Ives just before and after the Second World War.

Alfred Wallis, Fishing Boat, c.1930, oil © The Artist’s Estate, Courtesy Bishop Otter Trust, University of Chichester

The first picture to catch my eye is View of St Ives by the Scottish artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham. She moved to St Ives in 1940. Her early St Ives landscapes are painted in soft colours reminiscent of the self-taught painter and former fisherman, Alfred Wallis’ palette. There is a freedom in the way that the cottages, church, boats and quay interact with the shimmering sea and Cornish light. Barns-Graham also worked in the abstract and was introduced to the circle of modern artists, which included Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth and Naum Gabo, by her friend and fellow artist, Margaret Mellis.

Visiting Professor and Guest Curator Gill Clarke in the Otter Gallery with Christopher Wood’s oil on panel, Still Life with Boats, c.1930

Christopher Wood has been described as a sophisticated primitive. In the summer of 1928 he returned to St Ives with the artist Ben Nicholson. He too discovered the work of Alfred Wallis. Wood took on Wallis’ iconography depicting the Atlantic fishing industry and coast. Wood’s brushwork appears intuitive and spontaneous. Wallis’ influence is particularly apparent in ‘Still Life with Boats’. Painted in 1930, the sea is depicted as swirling bands of light greys and charcoals with boats in the distance which contrast with the intensity of colour in the pear, jug, flower and pipe. The painting brings together the naïve style which Wood had developed in Paris and a playful lyricism which imparts his sense of new-found freedom at that time.

Amongst the highlights of the exhibition are a number of significant works including a view of a Cornish harbour by William Scott painted in 1930.

Paul Feiler (1918-2013), Boats and Sea, c.1952-3, oil on canvas © The Artist’s Estate, Courtesy Bishop Otter Trust, University of Chichester

Paul Feiler’s 1950s jewel-like abstract titled ‘Boats and Sea’ excites our senses. The light glistens in this landscape as Feiler is compelled to articulate afresh the Atlantic coast which inspired him and reflect on his place in the natural world. Its heavy blocks of colours is characteristic of his work in the 1950s.

It is exciting to see Chichester University engaging with its wonderful Bishop Otter Collection of art in an increasingly assured way reflecting this academic institution’s growing reputation and confidence. Gill Clarke is once again deserving of our thanks for this joyful and evocative exhibition. Coastal Connections runs at Chichester University until 8th October 2017 and entry is free – a summer holiday must see!

For more information go to www.chi.ac.uk/about-us/otter-gallery/current-exhibitions.

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.

The Art of the Studio Potter

This week I am returning to ‘The Bishop Otter Art Collection: A Celebration’ exhibition at Chichester University to rediscover their remarkable British Studio Pottery.

The collection includes Modern British paintings as well as studio ceramics, sculpture and tapestries. Visiting professor Gill Clark explains the philosophy behind the collection “Sheila McCririck and the Bishop Otter College Principal Betty Murray founded the collection in the years after the Second World War. They both believed in the civilising influence of art and the educative value of its ability to challenge.” With this philosophy behind the collection it is un-surprising that the Bishop Otter teaching college should have also collected the work of artisan, art potters.

Britain led the world in the field of studio ceramics in the 20th century.

The British ceramics tradition is tied up with the vernacular. From medieval times its production has been widespread and diverse.

The artisan artist is at work in studio ceramics. Form, colour and decoration come together creating objects which are not only beautiful but, very often, useful as well. This is very much in the tradition of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement.

Bernard Leach (1887-1979) is considered to be the most influential potter of the 20th century. He was born in Hong Kong and lived in Japan and Singapore. The Japanese tradition of artisan artists was fading when Leach decorated his first pot there in 1909. In 1920 he returned to England with the Japanese potter, Shoji Hamamda. Bernard Leach was persuaded to set up his workshop in St Ives. His lectures and writing would have a profound influence on a generation of British potters. Gill Clark points out that Norah Braden was the college’s first specialist pottery tutor and that she had been a pupil of Bernard Leach. His work is represented in the collection by the beautiful stoneware jug seen here.

Bernard Leach was initially critical of the work of Lucie Rie (1902-1995) but they would become great friends. In contrast to the influences of the rustic folk tradition and Chinese Sung apparent in Bernard Leach’s work Rie’s pots have a metropolitan, modernist quality. She enjoyed turning on the potter’s wheel but despite her remarkable control her pots never seem tight or mechanical. The beauty of her vases and their exceptional form cause your heart to quicken. It is readily apparent to the eye why she transformed modern ceramics.

Other studio ceramic gems in the collection and exhibition include the Sussex based ceramicist, Eric Mellon’s (1925-2014) ‘Horse and Rider’ dish. His years of research and experimentation into ash glazes brought him international recognition both as an artist, ceramicist and scientist. For Eric his art was his calling and vocation.

An Eric James Mellon ‘Horse and Rider’ dish

Alison Britton’s (b.1948) sharp-edged clay jugs seem to depict different facets of a landscape which in turn include human figures, trees, fish and insects. Their decoration has an immediacy reflecting Britton’s spontaneous method of drawing in response to the asymmetric planes of the jugs.

‘The Bishop Otter Art Collection: A Celebration’ runs until 9th October 2016 at the University of Chichester Otter Gallery and Pallant House Gallery. Gill Clarke has published an insightful accompanying book about the collection and its formation which is on sale at both venues. For more information and opening times go to www.pallant.org.uk and www.chi.ac.uk/current-exhibitions/bishop-otter-collection-celebration.

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.