All Things Considered

Emily Sutton’s High Street
Posted by Simon Lewin

As part of our St. Jude's In The City exhibition in London which opens to the public on 24th May 2012, Emily Sutton will be exhibiting a series of High Street paintings.

Born and raised in the depths of North Yorkshire, Emily studied at the Edinburgh College of Art. With a lifelong love of drawing, painting and crafting, Emily uses a combination these approaches in her current work, producing paintings, prints and handmade birds - as featured in World of Interiors magazine.

Emily is inspired by the relics of a bygone era and afternoons immersed in the contents of the Museum of Childhood in Edinburgh and recently illustrated a children's book for the V&A Museum in London - now in its second edition.

View the rest of the series of High Street paintings and find out more about our St. Jude's In The City exhibition.

Posted by Simon Lewin on May 18th, 2012

Brita Granström
Posted by Simon Lewin

Berwick based artist Brita Granström has two exhibitions running concurrently at Northumbria University in Newcastle from 18th May until 29th June 2012.

In Butcher, Baker, Cockle Sweet-Maker, Brita focuses on the town in the same way that painters such as Bawden and Rowntree documented English towns during the 1940s. As well as the buildings, she engages with local traders - the butchers, the bakers and the pub landlords.

A Breath Of Fresh Air is a broad survey of Brita's paintings of Swedish and Northumbrian subjects. These reveal a kind of windswept paradise, a terrain of boundless adventure for children, where they might enjoy fishing, messing about in boats, or discovering a dead seal on a beach.

And in the Gallery Print Room you'll also be able to see original artwork from the children's book Charles Dickens - Scenes from an Extraordinary Life by Brita and Mick Manning. Signed copies of the book will also be available during the exhibition.

For full details on all the exhibition visit the Northumbria University website.

You might also enjoy these short films show Brita at work: One | Two

From top to bottom: Pay Here Please, Brenda On The Phone, The Butcher (screenprint), The Call Of Nature, The Dead Seal and a photograph of Brita drawing on location (photograph by Tom Band).

Posted by Simon Lewin on May 13th, 2012

Julia McKenzie – Open House
Posted by Simon Lewin

Julia McKenzie will be taking part in the 2012 Dulwich Festival Artists' Open House programme on 12th/13th and 19th/20th May.

More than 200 artists in over 150 locations across Dulwich and surrounding areas are opening their homes and studios as part of the Dulwich Festival.

Julia will be including these three box works alongside other one-off pieces and limited edition prints.

Find out more about the event from the Dulwich Festival website or visit Julia's website and Facebook page.

Posted by Simon Lewin on May 9th, 2012

Ed Kluz – Theatre Britannica
Posted by Simon Lewin

Work commitments means that we're very reluctantly able to be in London tonight for the opening of Ed Kluz's Theatre Britannica exhibition hosted by Ben Pentreath and Bridie Hall.

The exhibition features drawings, collages and other works by Ed who is fascinated by the objects of our cultural heritage. He seeks out the eccentric, the lost and the overlooked. Follies, curiosities, vanished buildings and folk lore inspire artworks which explore themes of renewal and reinvention.

Ben and Bridie have very kindly let us display Ed's fabrics for St. Jude's in one of their Rugby Street windows. I have to say we're delighted with how Painswick is looking in situ.

Theatre Britannica runs until 26th May 2012 at Ben Pentreath, 17 Rugby Street, London WC1N 3QT.

Here are some of the works exhibited. From top to bottom: a window display featuring Ed's Painswick fabric, Old London After Canaletto, Dundee Arch, Gothick Cottage, A Norwich Prospect and The Dunmore Pineapple.

Posted by Simon Lewin on May 9th, 2012

Caught By The River
Posted by Simon Lewin

Our friends at Caught By The River are publishing a paperback version of their first book, Words On Water.

Featuring a beautiful brand new cover painting by James Lewis, a rejigged design inside and a new introduction by Charles Rangeley-Wilson, all orders taken before 15th May 2012 will be despatched ahead of publication date and signed by the editors and as many of the contributors they can get their hands on.

Order your copy online today.

Posted by Simon Lewin on May 1st, 2012

David Gentleman
Posted by Simon Lewin

It's been a good year so far for books about London. Christopher Brown's An Alphabet of London is already being reprinted and Spitalfields Life continues to find new admirers.

And this week sees the launch of David Gentleman's London, You're Beautiful. David Gentleman has been drawing London all his adult life, and for the past year has spent his days focused on looking afresh at the city. The resulting book of sketches, drawings and watercolours, arranged month by month, shows a year in the life of London and reveals the city that is hidden in plain view.

An associated exhibition of David Gentleman's work opens at The Fine Art Society on New Bond Street on the 4th May 2012.

Order a copy online via Amazon

Posted by Simon Lewin on April 29th, 2012

Paul Bommer – an exhibition in London
Posted by Simon Lewin

Paul Bommer is busy preparing for his next London exhibition, 'Umbra Sumus (We Are But Shadows)' which runs from April 27-29 inclusively in Spitalfields.

As part of this exhibition, Paul has created over 120 faux Delftware tiles, taking their cue from the Spitalfields area, or from the daily blog Spitalfields Life - sometimes directly, sometimes a little obliquely.

Find out more about Paul's work.

Posted by Simon Lewin on April 18th, 2012

Edward Bawden’s map of Scarborough
Posted by Simon Lewin

This wonderful map by Edward Bawden, commissioned in 1931 by hotelier Tom Laughton is now back on display in Scarborough Library.

Friends Of Scarborough Library members raised the £2,000 required to restore this forgotten treasure. Find out more about the project

Posted by Simon Lewin on April 15th, 2012

Stoke Edith House
Posted by Simon Lewin

Here's another print that's being launched at our St. Jude's At Tinsmiths exhibition in Ledbury.

Ed Kluz is fascinated by the past and inspired by our architectural heritage. He explains the background to this new print...

"Whenever I'm at the V&A I always find myself gravitating towards the British galleries. The extraordinary objects assembled there never fail to intrigue me. They posses a transfixing power in both form and historical significance; but it is the survivors, the fragments and the disconnected that really send my imagination racing. Fragments have always held a particular fascination for me. It is in absence and incompleteness where the imagination is fired - filling in the spaces and engaging with a narrative. In this way such objects present an opening into the past.

There is one piece in particular in the collection which is such a window and posses a power above all to engulf and transport to another place and time. The two vast wall hangings which once graced the interior of Stoke Edith House in Herefordshire were created in the early part of the 18th century. The hangings are works of pure theatre - their graphic boldness and huge scale are more akin to architecture than quaint pieces of decoration. They depict two late 17th century anglo-dutch style gardens peopled by characters engaged in various activities in the slanting light of a late summer day. In one a pet monkey plays with a ball unaware of a spaniel seemingly in pursuit of a chase, whilst a table of gentlemen and ladies converse overlooked by a young girl who mimics her guardian. I can imagine that when the galleries fall silent and the doors are locked, the image becomes animated. It is hard to believe looking upon the vivid scenes that the hangings are fragments - rare survivors of destruction.

The late 17th century Stoke Edith House where they hung, sadly burned to the ground in 1927. Gone are the great baroque painted interiors depicting scenes from classical history. Gone too is the green velvet bedroom where they once hung. I visited the site of the house in December 2011 whilst visiting Tinsmith's. What remains is an atmospheric landscape in decay. Where the house once stood is a huge void surrounded by the rubble. From beneath veils of brambles and dead fireweed yawn the cellar openings which run off into the hillside. The former manicured beauty of the gardens barely shows through the woodland and scrub which slowly returns it to a wilderness. Only echoes filled the air and my sight - a shattered fountain basin, the line of a lost path, the walls of an old terrace, birdsong, rustling in the undergrowth. The scenes depicted in the wall hangings which once played out in these gardens came back to me and dispelled any uneasy feelings I had about being alone in such a place. A day later, back in the studio I began work on the print."

The exhibition opens on Friday 30th March 2012 between 7pm and 9pm and runs until 29th April 2012. Full details

Posted by Simon Lewin on March 28th, 2012

The Yellow Cup
Posted by Angie Lewin

Later this week I'll be exhibiting a new screen print in Ledbury, Herefordshire as part of the St. Jude's At Tinsmiths exhibition.

The Yellow Cup includes an antique shop find featuring a strangely humorous engraved image of a donkey wreaking revenge on his cruel dandyish master which I combined with a number of elements to form this still life in my Highland studio.

Initially available from Tinsmiths, I'll have further copies of the edition available later in April. Sign up to my e-mail newsletter if you'd like details.

The exhibition also features work from Ed Kluz, Emily Sutton, Christopher Brown and Mark Hearld.

The opening event is on Friday 30th March 2012 between 7pm and 9pm but the exhibition then runs until 29th April 2012. Full details

Posted by Angie Lewin on March 27th, 2012