Rowley Gallery Blog
Christopher Corr painted this picture to celebrate the opening of the Shard, London’s newest, tallest building. For the past few years we’ve watched it grow from viewpoints all around the city. The inexorable rise of this arrogant and aggressive spike was impossible to ignore. Now it’s here it has quickly become another iconic landmark on the London skyline. A spire with a view – click to ascend and there’s a great view of it from the river here.
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”
More Couperin by Alexandre Tharaud in this vidéo charmant by Elise McLeod.
Alexandre Tharaud plays François Couperin. One explanation of his enigmatic title is suggested here.
We’ve been selling these ‘lenticular’ cards at The Rowley Gallery for a while now. They’ve been very popular. Seen from one angle the eye is open, look again and it’s closed. Lenticular printing is a process of combining two or more images on the surface of a corrugated plastic lens. (I don’t think lenticular has anything to do with Lent in particular.) Continue reading “Flicker Pictures”
Looking across Brunswick Square to the Foundling Museum, a memorial to the Foundling Hospital which was founded in 1741 by Thomas Coram to provide hospitality for London’s deserted children. Its patrons included Handel, Hogarth, Reynolds and Gainsborough. The museum’s current exhibition is Fate, Hope & Charity, a display of tokens left with abandoned babies. Continue reading “Fate, Hope & Charity”
This is a detail of Compass, a giclée print by Susie Freeman from 2012 and the inspiration and title for an exhibition of her recent work at Art@42 from 28th March. Continue reading “Compass”
Hojas de Papel / Falling Leaves / Installation / Handmade Paper Piece. I wasn’t sure about the title so I’ve just put it all. As a papermaker I often look at the leaves and flowers of a plant and wonder how they will react in the papermaking process in terms of texture, colour and fibres. Continue reading “Falling Leaves”
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.
Most of my working life has been combining making paintings and prints and teaching, some of the time in Art Colleges, but mostly as a schoolteacher. A while back I read David Wiseman’s lovely post, Garden Studio. When I finished full time teaching last summer, I decided to have a posh shed built, which would enable me to work at the end of my garden in suburban London. Continue reading “The Posh Painting Shed”