Rowley Gallery Blog
A couple of days later we discovered another ancient abbey, a counterbalance to the beauty and elegance of Sant’Antimo, the Abbazia di San Galgano stands open to the sky, with all the breathtaking grandeur of a canyon carved out of the rock, its great hulk like a ship run aground. Continue reading “San Galgano”
After visiting San Quirico d’Orcia and Montalcino we headed south looking for Bagno Vignoni, a spa since Roman times, but we got distracted along the way by the Abbazia di Sant’Antimo, a beautiful Benedictine monastery set in a lovely landscape of wooded hills and olive groves. Continue reading “Bagno Vignoni”
It was half term. Sue was on holiday from school for a week so we went down south to the South Downs for a weekend. I don’t get a half term break otherwise we might have stayed longer. But it was perfect. Blue skies and a chance to breathe some clear Sussex air. Continue reading “South Downs Saturday”
This post is for Hank & Paula, friends from the USA who have visited London so many times I think they know it better than we do. They really should be showing us the sights but instead we go out of town for a change. Last time we went to the Henry Moore Foundation at Much Hadham so it seemed appropriate that this time we should meet by his Large Spindle Piece outside King’s Cross station. Continue reading “Hatfield & The North”
Ivan Bruschi was an antiquarian and collector and founder in 1968 of the Fiera Antiquaria in Arezzo, the first and still the largest antiques market in Italy. He was inspired by his frequent visits to London’s Portobello Road. After his death in 1996 his home was opened as a museum, but without labels. It’s a treasure-trove of anonymous artefacts, a cabinet of curiosities. Continue reading “Casa Museo Ivan Bruschi”
Tate Modern has a new offspring, grown out of the former power station’s oil tanks. It’s called the Switch House, with a similar tweedy brick texture to its parent building – a new London vernacular. It has a utilitarian look with no decorative frills, polished concrete inside, minimal, neo-brutalist, multi-storey car park aesthetic but beautifully tailored. In retrospect it feels a bit like we just visited an enormous new sculpture and discovered inside the seeds of its own germination. Continue reading “Between Object And Architecture”
I built my large wooden studio in our garden more than 30 years ago. I previously had a number of productive and happy years sharing a studio in Holborn with Graham Crowley, Vanessa Jackson and others. But when the men in suits with laser rulers came round we knew our days in the studio were numbered. The building owned by the church was to be converted to flats. So with the help of a few friends, including very fortuitously a master carpenter and an architect, I decided to build my own. Continue reading “My Garden Studio”
One evening we came down the hill from Pienza to see the original parish church, which dates from the time when the town was still known as Corsignano. Luckily we found the caretaker sweeping up rose petals after a wedding and he invited us to look inside. Continue reading “Pieve Di Corsignano”
Pienza was the creation of Pope Pius II. He was born here in 1405 when it was known as Corsignano, and in 1458 he commissioned the architect Bernardo Rossellino to replace it with a Utopian new town, intended to be the rival of Siena. The buildings around the main piazza were built within three years, but the rest was never completed. The ideal city remained little more than a village. Continue reading “In Pienza”
I’m sifting through photos from Italy. We just got back from holiday and I’m surprised at how many arches there are. I didn’t consciously set out to photograph them but it turns out I’ve got more photos of arches than of anything else. Not only are they structurally efficient but they’re also intrinsically graceful and irresistibly photogenic. Here’s just a small selection from our first day in Perugia. Continue reading “Underneath The Arches”