Rowley Gallery Blog
A couple of months ago I drove down to Southampton to collect a car load of paintings and prints from Jonny Hannah. Since I was going one of Jonny’s publishers asked if I might return some of his books. I couldn’t refuse. It was a privilege to carry this select library of his marvelous book jacket designs. And I couldn’t miss the opportunity to photograph them. Feast your eyes. Continue reading “Jonny’s Jackets”
Herewith a message from Robert Macfarlane:
I’ve come to realise, in the eight years since I first wrote about holloways, that many people share my fascination with these sunken lanes, which have been harrowed down into the landscape by the passage of feet and rainwater (and sometimes 4x4s…). People have sent me photographs of the holloways they know, the paintings and sketches they have made of them, maps with their locations indicated, or the stories, memories and folklore they associate with them. Continue reading “Flickr: Holloway”
Don’t Spill The Milk! is a new book by Stephen Davies and Christopher Corr, just published by Andersen Press. It’s their second collaboration and hopefully it will be just as successful as their first, The Goggle-Eyed Goats, which was launched last year at The Rowley Gallery. Continue reading “Don’t Spill The Milk!”
Holloway is published this month by Faber & Faber. Caught By The River are hosting a launch party at Rough Trade East on May 14th. Its original publication last year inspired this earlier post, Holloway.
If she sells sea shells on the sea shore these are the sea shells she sells I’m sure… Continue reading “British Shells”
Samuel Beckett rehearsing Endgame and ‘having an idea’ with the San Quentin Drama Workshop at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith in 1980. I worked there intermittently in those days, even had a small exhibition of my paintings there, and the house photographer Chris Harris, knowing how much I loved Beckett, gave me a print of this photograph for my birthday. Continue reading “Beckett At Sixty”
This is another book from the collection of Evelyn Hallewell. It was published in 1940 as a paperback unlike most King Penguins which were usually hardbacks. It contains examples of Penguin’s earliest attempts at colour printing. Continue reading “Portraits Of Christ”
There is something about books of a certain period that I find special. This book cover is for a novel from my grandmother’s youth though not owned by her. I bought it in a junk shop some twenty years ago. It is from that time when a book was special. All books. Before paperbacks. I have a collection of books that belonged to my grandmother. Often given to her by her father, inscribed on the flyleaf with a message and expressions of affection. Dated from the 1890s. These books were made to be cherished. Read and re-read and kept for a life time. Passed on from generation to generation. Therefore the covers are an expression of the reverence held for these containers of our imaginings. The paper though yellows and becomes brittle. Spines crack, pages loosen. And there is the smell. Old paper and dust. It sets off memories of secondhand bookshops and the marvelous experience of browsing. Writing this I am nostalgic for Hay-on-Wye and the strange pleasure of more books than it is possible to understand gathered in one small town. So. One old book, a trigger for thoughts streaming off to all points of the compass.
Andrew Walton / The Rowley Gallery
Editor’s note: Mention of inscriptions and expressions of affection reminds me of a blog devoted to Book Dedications.
There was a lot of fuss last week about Edward Gorey’s 88th birthday, even though he died at the age of 75. There was a Google doodle and he featured in The Guardian and the Los Angeles Times and at Brain Pickings to mention just three, then Margaret McLellan sent me this catalogue of gruesome infant deaths – Hi Chris, This came today. I thought you might enjoy it. Best wishes, Maggie. Continue reading “The Gashlycrumb Tinies”
Dear Chris, As mentioned here are a couple or so photos and two sketchbook pages of bird images. I could write for a thousand pages about Port Meadow. I’ve been there ever since I was six years old. It floods in winter, gathers over wintering migrant wild fowl. In the summer it’s a place people swim, sail, walk, make love, do archaeology etc. If you want I can get David to send his poem about the meadow which refers to a drawing of mine. Best wishes to all, love, Andy. Continue reading “Port Meadow”