Rowley Gallery Blog
As a small boy Père Castor’s Wild Animal Books were a magical introduction to nature, along with Beatrix Potter’s stories. The series of eight books first published in France in the late 1930s were brought out in English just post war. Continue reading “Père Castor”
Das Meisterstück (The Masterpiece) is an exhibition of large format photographs of painters’ palettes by Matthias Schaller at the Refectory, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Island of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, May 8-June 7. Maybe he saw our earlier blog post, Palettes! This one is JMW Turner and it’s impossible not to see resemblances between it and his paintings. Like looking at a dog and its owner. Continue reading “Das Meisterstück”
A small attempt to combine my love of Eduardo Chillida drawings, Magdalene Odundo ceramics and Cycladic figurines in a series of two-part works, culminating in this piece – Figure 8. Continue reading “Double Figures”
This is intriguing. It’s a trailer for a film about Eduardo Chillida, titled Chillida: The Depth of Air & Chillida: Lo Profundo es el Aire, but I can’t tell if the complete film has been made available. I can’t find it anywhere. Maybe it’s not released yet. There’s another version of this trailer on Vimeo – Documentary: Chillida The Depth of Air – an alternative edit. Both of them look great and I’d love to see the whole thing. Memories of San Sebastian and Hernani and Museo Chillida-Leku.
We’d been here before, but last time was such a wonderful surprise we had to come back and show Maura. This is her beautiful photograph of Eduardo Chillida’s Topos V, hidden away in Plaça del Rei in the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona. It seems perfectly positioned, forming a corner of the square, its semi-circular openings echo the medieval arches and suggest a B for Barcelona. Continue reading “Chillida In Barcelona”
Last summer, travelling through France, I wish I could remember where this was, the first of many half-timbered buildings encountered en route. I love this style of vernacular architecture. They seem so obviously hand-made, constructed from local materials, a natural part of the landscape. More analogue than digital, I started to think of them almost as organic sculptures. Continue reading “Half-Timbered”
Another book from the wonderful and sorely missed Notting Hill Books. This one was perhaps not so beloved as the last but it was one of my favourites. I always liked its folksy illustrations and the way one thing leads to another and life just inevitably gets more and more complicated. Continue reading “The House That Jack Built”
Of all the many books I found at Notting Hill Books this one stands out as a special favourite. Our children loved it. But now it’s out of print and hard to find. Continue reading “A House Of Leaves”
The Chauvet Cave in the Ardèche region of southern France was discovered in 1994. It contains the most perfect examples of Paleolithic paintings ever found. But they are considered so fragile they must remain hidden from view. Copies of the paintings have been recreated and they can now be seen in a full-scale replica cave above the town of Vallon-Pont-d’Arc. A gallery of simulacra of some of the most authentic paintings in the world; it’s an unsettling idea. Continue reading “La Grotte Chauvet”
Over the Pyrenees a week before Easter, en route to Barcelona, the spectacular view a heartbreaking reminder of the suicidal plane crash five days earlier. A flight from Barcelona to Düsseldorf had fallen from the sky onto similar mountains near Barcelonnette in the French Alps. It was impossible not to think of it, to imagine its kamikaze descent, to remember its helpless victims. Continue reading “Flying To Barcelona”