Search results for ""liss llewellyn""

By the end of John Cecil Stephenson’s art school training – first a scholarship to Leeds Art School then to The Royal College of Art – he was in a position to produce still lives, landscapes and portraits in a professional capacity. Like many painters of his generation, who had received similarly conventional instruction, he became a competent teacher, appointed in 1922, as Head of Art at The Northern Polytechnic. In this mould Stephenson might have remained a largely undistinguished painter – but in the early 1930s he found himself at the centre of a group of artists with avant-garde credentials, and his own art underwent a remarkable transformation. By 1934 he was exhibiting groundbreaking works such as Mask (CAT. 7), at the 7 & 5 Society, and in 1937 was a key contributor to the watershed publication and exhibition Circle, where his work was showcased alongside that of luminaries such as Kazimir Malevich, Le Corbusier, Fernand Léger, Alberto Giacometti and Pablo Picasso. What led Stephenson to become, in the words of the celebrated art critic Herbert Read, ‘one of the earliest artists in the country to develop a completely abstract style’? Between March 1919 and November 1965, John Cecil Stephenson lived in London at No. 6 Mall Studios, off Tasker Road, Hampstead. As the father figure of what Read christened ‘a nest of gentle artists’, his next door neighbours included, during the course of the decade leading up to World War II, Barbara Hepworth, John Skeaping, Ben Nicholson and Henry Moore. Such fertile ground was further enriched by visits from artists fleeing persecution – including Piet, László Moholy-Nagy and Alexander Calder – just a few of the many internationally acclaimed artists who, whilst passing through London, formed part of the art set who congregated around Read’s house at No. 3 Mall Studios.

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Originating from Berlin Hagedorn moved to Manchester in 1905 to train in textile production. Having studied art under Adolphe Valette at the local Manchester School ofArt and then The Slade School of Art, his training was completed by a period in1912-13 where, working under Maurice Denis, he absorbed a range of avant-garde styles. On his return to England, he made a consciously pioneering attempt to introduce Modernism into Manchester through his work as both painter and designer, exhibiting at the Manchester Society of Modern Painters, RA, RBA, RSMA and with the NEAC.. He became a British subject in 1914 and served as a Lance-Corporal in the Middlesex Regiment during World War I. In 1925 he received the Grand Prix at the International Exhibition of Decorative Art, Paris and in 1935 he was elected RBA. He exhibited at a number of leading galleries in London and the provinces, and was elected to the Royal Society of British Artists, the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, the Royal Society of Marine Artists, the New English Art Club and the NS. Hagedorn has only been the subject of one exhibition and publication: ‘Manchester’s First Modernist’, a catalogue produced by the Chris Beetles Gallery on the occasion of the retrospective organised in conjunction with the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester.

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‘Drawings’ is a collaborative venture combining two exhibitions that have been timed to coincide: British Drawings: 1890-1990 at Sotheran’s, and Drawings 1990-2022 at Purdy Hicks Gallery. Both shows emphasise the importance of drawing to artists of the last 120 years: though many of the artists have used myriad other art forms, they have invariably returned to the honesty of drawing, time and time again.The artists reflect their times. The artists from 1890-1980 are very much associated with strong schools of thought. One school in particular, the Slade School of Fine Art, dominates. Its rigorous process of drawing underpins much that we see, but is of course interpreted differently artist by artist. There was most definitely a British School, and in terms of drawing its greatest, though largely unacknowledged, triumph can be found in the remarkable works produced by the artists of the British School at Rome with their use of drawing techniques dating back to the Renaissance.This catalogue contains outstanding examples by Winifred Knights, Evelyn Gibbs, Anne Newland, Thomas Monnington, Robert Austin, Alan Sorrell and Reginald Brill. Slade student Winifred Knights exemplified the teachings of Henry Tonks, (Professor of Fine Art at the Slade from 1918 to 1930), with her observation of nature and meticulous methodology, working through endless studies, which were in turn painstakingly transferred to create finished works. Gilbert Spencer, another of the Professor’s students, recalled how Tonks talked of dedication, the privilege of being an artist, that to do a bad drawing was like living with a lie, and he proceeded to implant these ideals by ruthless and withering criticism. I remember once coming home and feeling like flinging myself under a train, and Stan telling me not to mind as he did it to everyone.Methodology aside, many of the artists in this catalogue share common traits – an obsession with the minutiae of nature, an unbreakable attachment to landscape, an immersion in the narrative tradition, and an inability to resist humour and affection for the quirky and mundane.

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Ever since Linda Nochlin asked in 1971, ‘Why have there been no great women artists?’, art history has been probing the female gaze. Through scholarship and exhibitions, readings have been put in place to counter prevailing assumptions that artistic creativity is primarily a masculine affair. Fifty Works by Fifty British Women functions as a corrective to the exclusion of women from the ‘master’ narratives of art. It introduces fifty artworks by known and lesser-known women – outstanding works that speak out. Fifty commentaries by fifty different writers bring out each artwork’s unique story – sometimes from an objective art historical perspective and sometimes from an entirely personal point of view – thereby creating a rich and colourful diorama. This exhibition does not, however, attempt to present a survey or to address all the arguments around the history of women and art. Anthologies are of necessity incomplete, and many remarkable imaginations are not here represented. Women artists have been set apart from male artists not only to their own disadvantage but also to the detriment of British art. While there were some improvements for women to access an artistic career in the twentieth century in terms of patronage, economics and critical attention – all the things that confer professional status – women had the least of everything. By showcasing just a few of the remarkable works produced, this exhibition draws attention to the fact that a vision of British twentieth century art closer to a 50/50 balance would not only provide a truer account, but also a more vivid and meaningful narrative.

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WOW - a collaboration between Liss Llewellyn and the Laing Art Gallery - showcases 38 British women artists working on paper between 1905 and 1975, a transformative period for women in the arts. The featured artists approached the medium in vari­ous ways, using traditional as well as innovative techniques to transform paper into beautiful and complex works of art. The exhibition celebrates the diversity of these approaches and highlights the ways in which paper provided artists with a rich arena for artistic innovation.Paper’s adaptability allows for a multitude of techniques. Using paper in its traditional role as a support for drawings and prints, or creating collage and sculpture, the fea­tured artists responded to the medium’s inherent qualities - malleable, smooth and sensuous - to test ideas, express feelings or create a finished work. It is often in the more formative moments that the works in this exhibition most resonate; through these studies we bear witness to the seed of an idea in germination, as in Clare Leigh­ton's iconic Southern Harvest, or Evelyn Dunbar's celebrated works for the War Artist's Advisory Committee.Selecting hand-made, mould-made or machine-made papers in various weights, tex­tures and tints - depending on their intentions - artists worked with a variety of media from pencil, ink and pastel, to watercolour, tempera and oil, sometimes incorporating extraneous elements such as gold leaf and metallic forms. Working on monumental sheets, such as Winifred Knights' cartoon for St Martin's Altarpiece or tiny pages such as Edith Granger-Taylor's Small Grey Abstract, women’s choices were nevertheless some­times dictated by circumstance: the propensity of Frances Richards and Tirzah Gar­wood - by no means isolated cases - to work on paper on a small scale was in part a result of not having access to a studio.From portraits, landscapes, botanical studies and genre scenes, many of the works in WOW highlight the artist's skill and dexterity in drawing on paper, which was at the core of artistic training and practice. Some artists have used the traditional techniques of etching, screen printing and woodblock to create a diverse range of images. Others highlight the ethereal properties of paper through precise cuts, resulting in elaborate collages combining shapes, patterns and designs, or compact and manipulate paper to create inventive and surprising sculptures. Featuring both famous and lesser-known talents, WOW celebrates the many ways in which women artists expressed themselves through works on, and with paper and highlights their unique contribution to the graphic arts in 20th century Britain.

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Which artists in British 20th century art painted religious images? Broadly speaking there seem to have been two categories: The first concerns artists who created religious images when the religious content was in response to a set subject, for example The Deluge in the 1920 Rome Scholarship in Decorative Painting, or who responded to a specific commission, for example Thomas Monnington‘s works for The Ormond Chapel, Bradford, Kippen Church and Stations of the Cross for Brede Church in Hastings. The second category concerns a small minority off artists who were committed believers such as Frank Brangwyn, Eric Gill and Stanley Spencer. No account of 20th Century British art can overlook the numerous works of the period that were essentially “religious” in their content. Art, Faith& Modernity examines this question in Paul Liss‘ and Alan Powers’ essays and demonstrates the wide range of expression in more than 200 colour reproductions.

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For more than fifty years, George Kenney has dedicated himself to the study of European art. George authored a Catalogue Raisonné titled 'The Illustrated Bartsch, Vol. 51' for Abaris Books in 2017. This comprehensive work explores the etchings of Ferdinand Bol, a prominent 17th-century artist and student of Rembrandt.

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This catalogue examines the ways in which Modern British artists of the interwar period engaged with private and public spaces. The publication begins by exploring the private realms of artists, as many retreated to planting and painting their own gardens in the wake of the First World War. But while some withdrew, other artists sought pleasure and escapism, and amidst the rise of new technologies and popular entertainment, public gardens became arenas for a modern experience which they strove to capture.Moreover, this catalogue explores the blurring of boundaries between private and public spaces, as the car and other modes of transport opened up areas of the countryside beyond the orbit of the railways. And then there were the houses and gardens of estates such as Garsington Manor – brought into the public eye by artists who attended the gatherings of the great chatelaine and salonnière, Lady Ottoline Morrell. So perhaps these worlds of private and public were not mutually exclusive, after all.

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