Rowley Gallery Blog
This is a rare opportunity to see several pictures by Jonathan Christie gathered together in one place; it’s his first solo exhibition anywhere and we’re honoured to host it in our window throughout June. Paintings and drawings inspired by favourite places and favourite artists, from Venice to St Ives via Ben Nicholson and Eric Ravilious and all stations to Alfred Wallis. Continue reading “Jonathan Christie: Paintings & Drawings”
We detoured from the M6 via the M42 to the M40 and a few miles south of Warwick we arrived at Compton Verney to see the exhibition Ravilious & Co: The Pattern Of Friendship. There’s an echo of William Morris and Morris & Co in that title. It had been snowing when we arrived and the gallery was closing early. We only had an hour to look around. It was a mad rush with far too much to take in and too little time. I took this photo as we left, since photography was not allowed inside, and this tangle seemed a suitable souvenir of all the various artistic connections explored in the exhibition, not to mention the miles of twisting roads to get there. Continue reading “Ravilious & Co”
Two Temple Place is a neo-Gothic mansion on the north bank of the Thames, east of Somerset House on Victoria Embankment in London. It was built in Early Elizabethan style, entirely of Portland stone, for William Waldorf Astor in 1895. On the roof, there is a gilded weather vane, a model of the Santa Maria in which Columbus discovered America; the Union Jack flies from the flagpole and beside the gate hangs a wrought iron bulldog. Since 2011 the house has been managed by The Bulldog Trust as a venue for exhibitions of publicly owned art from regional UK collections. Continue reading “Retreat & Rebellion”
Sunday dawned cold and sharp, the sun straining through the early morning Ditchling mist. We took a walk around the village, just as the sun broke through, illuminating walls of flint and brick. Continue reading “South Downs Sunday”
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”
It must be at least 30 years since we first came here. We took our bikes on the train from Victoria then cycled from Eastbourne. Beachy Head and Birling Gap, East Dean and West Dean, Litlington and Lullington and Wilmington. Continue reading “The Long Man Of Wilmington”
After a trip up north to see my folks it seemed like a good idea to see some folk art on the way home. We’d missed British Folk Art when it was at the Tate, but now we had a second chance. Continue reading “British Folk Art”
This walk begins where In Epping Forest ended. Butlers Retreat turned out to be the perfect place for breakfast, with possibly the best coffee in Essex. It kick started our trip up to Saffron Walden. Along the way we passed huge fields of cultivated rapeseed and roadside banks of wild cowslips, a yellow landscape that was once purple with crocus grown for their precious saffron. Continue reading “From Saffron Walden”
First there was this Christmas card from a painting by Mick Moon, made with oil paint & string on board and called simply Tree. Then I heard the three Staveley-Taylor sisters (aka The Staves) singing Winter Trees:
Continue reading “Winter Trees”
We left the car by the duck pond at Wickham St Paul. After breakfast at Spencer’s Farm Shop of coffee and the best bacon sandwiches north of Columbia Road Market we walked down Rectory Lane past hedgerows heavy with hips and haws, and with elderberries and blackberries. There were hazelnuts and crab apples, hops, sloes, bullace, sweet chestnuts and acorns. There was ivy and bryony and guelder rose too, and there was lots of surprising blessed sunshine. Continue reading “Castle Hedingham”