Barbara Hepworth – Frames of Reference

At The Hepworth Wakefield

We were on our way home, driving back to London by a circuitous route, still dazed and drained after my mother’s funeral, going through the motions and not really focussed, just not wanting to arrive too soon. From one Barbara to another. It seemed a fitting tribute to visit the Barbara Hepworth museum to remember our own Barbara. After a beautiful eulogy these beautiful sculptures can be remembered as a monument to her passing. Somewhere to pay our respects on our way home. Continue reading “At The Hepworth Wakefield”

The Journey Of Things

At the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich to see Magdalene Odundo’s exhibition The Journey of Things, a celebration of 45 years of her amazing hand-built pots, featuring many of her iconic vessel sculptures, and accompanied by a history, or rather a herstory, of inspirational encounters along the way – touchstones first seen at the British Museum, the Commonwealth Institute, the Museum of Mankind, the Pitt Rivers Museum, Kettle’s Yard and the Sainsbury Centre itself, to name but a few. Continue reading “The Journey Of Things”

A Walk To Sainsbury’s

We were in Norwich recently, staying at a hotel in the city but eager to visit the Sainsbury Centre just out of town. We were advised to take a taxi because buses were temporarily diverted. “It will take you about half an hour on foot but it’s not a pleasant walk. Better to cab it.” And yet, despite the advice, we walked it, and the sun came out, and the way was lined with trees and other hopeful signs. Continue reading “A Walk To Sainsbury’s”

Hepworth | Nicholson

Another beautiful Ben Nicholson exhibition, this one shared with Barbara Hepworth and framed within the elegant rooms of Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert in Bury Street, St James’s, until 12th July.

‘Barbara Hepworth | Ben Nicholson: Sculpture and Painting in the 1930s’ brings together over thirty works created by two of the most influential artists of the Twentieth Century. As the first ever loan exhibition to focus solely on this pivotal period in their careers, co-curated by their granddaughter Sophie Bowness and Professor Christopher Green of the Courtauld Institute, it presents sculpture, paintings and works on paper produced during this formative decade. The show contains work borrowed from major private and public collections, including Abbot Hall Art Gallery, the Courtauld Gallery, the Pier Arts Centre, the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts and the National Galleries of Scotland, and will feature rarely seen works from the artists’ family collections, as well as archival material from the Hepworth Estate. Continue reading “Hepworth | Nicholson”

St Luke Blesses St Ives

We were blessed to be in St Ives when the period of clear sunshine and late, late, late summer, known as St Luke’s Little Summer broke over the town. Continue reading “St Luke Blesses St Ives”

Some Nicholson Frames

Oval Form no.2 by Barbara Hepworth, pencil and gouache on paper, in a frame constructed by Ben Nicholson, was recently sold at auction. We were asked to frame a photograph of the drawing. Making the frame was like making a Ben Nicholson construction; it was a great privilege. I used a simple pine moulding, the horizontal sides overlapping the vertical sides, and painted white. Continue reading “Some Nicholson Frames”

Abbot Hall & Packwood

This white metal fencing is so distinctive and evocative. It instantly conjours childhood memories of days out, picnicking on the banks of the River Hodder. It must have been erected by the Lancashire County Council in the 1950s all around Ribblesdale and Bowland. This view is somewhere near Kirkby Lonsdale, possibly skirting Farleton Fell, a wet landscape of sheep and wind turbines. We were hoping for sunshine; there was a distant patch illuminating Blackpool Tower. And then there was a curlew, on the wall beside the road, right next to us, but in the time it took to stop and get the camera it lifted off and soared away. The closest curlew we ever saw, and it saw us closely too. Continue reading “Abbot Hall & Packwood”

A Short Diversion

Driving to work the other day I was diverted from my normal course and led to discover the Isokon building. I’d never seen it before but instantly it seemed familiar and true, as if it were an archetype, elegant and beautiful, the epitome of 1930s utopian modernism. Continue reading “A Short Diversion”

Autumn Song

A walk on Hampstead Heath a couple of weeks ago, just as the leaves began to turn, trying to catch the low sun shining through golden leaves, the dappled light that takes your breath away. Continue reading “Autumn Song”

The Sky At Snape

SNAP HQ, a cor-ten steel shed at Snape Maltings, nerve centre of the SNAP visual arts programme for this year’s Aldeburgh Festival, directing our gaze towards the great Suffolk sky. Continue reading “The Sky At Snape”