In Southampton this spring discover the work of Andy Warhol (1928–1987), one of the icons of twentieth century art. Nearly two hundred works will be on show across two of the city’s galleries, Southampton City Art Gallery and John Hansard Gallery, as part of the ARTIST ROOMS 2011 national tour.
◄ Andy Warhol, Andy Warhol 1982. © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / DACS, London 2010. ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland. Acquired jointly through The d’Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008.
Gallery 7. The Camden Town Group was a group of English Post-Impressionist artists active 1911-1913. They gathered frequently at the studio of painter Walter Sickert in the Camden Town area of London. Influences include Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin whose work can clearly be traced throughout this groups work. Their portrayal of much of London before and during World War I, which is historically interesting and artistically important. This exhibition shows work from the collection by each of the 16 members.
The 'Cut to the Chase' 6ft x 4ft Lino cut that was printed by a steam roller at the Ejector Seat Festival in June of this year will be on display in the Education Bay of Southampton City Art Gallery until 25th February. Another fascinating production from print making workshop Red Hot Press! You will also be able to purchase A3 size reproductions of the print from the gallery shop.
2D3D South are a group of exhibiting artists including painters, sculptors, printmakers, multi-media and textile artists. Most of the group originally trained at Southampton College of Art and have continued to make work and exhibit together in the region. All the art in the exhibition is for sale in the foyer, and is a wonderful opportunity to buy a unique present.
(Gallery 6)
Richard Demarco is one of Scotland’s most celebrated, passionate and influential advocates of fine and performance art. His name has been synonymous with the Edinburgh Festival since its inception, which he has never failed to attend. Since the early 1990s Demarco has directed his activities through the Demarco European Art Foundation. His ventures have never been commercial and he has continued to take substantial financial and artistic risks. Demarco has amassed a unique and valuable archive documenting his career, of which a relevant sample has been selected for this exhibition to complement the works he has selected from Southampton’s collection; an intriguing display and a chance to show some of the collection in a new light.
The Contemporary Art Society, founded in 1909, have been buying works of art and donating them to British museums and galleries for 100 years. They have been exceptional supporters of Southampton City Art Gallery gifting over 60 works of art to the Collection. To acknowledge and reflect this outstanding contribution, we will highlight the history of the collection in a new display. On Monday 8 November 2010 CAS host a National Network Seminar at the gallery.
In addition to the Contemporary Arts Society display, the side galleries are a selection of related works grouped around the Allegreto Nuzi 14th century altarpiece, and a display from the city’s Camden Town School collection.
Bridget Riley is one of Britain’s most respected artists, and has achieved international acclaim for her distinctive and optically vibrant paintings that generate sensations of movement, light and space. 'Flashback' tracks her influential career from its sensational beginnings in the early 1960s to the powerful large-scale works of recent years. Eight large-scale paintings are complemented by thirty works on paper that illuminate her very different working methods over five decades. 'Flashback' was a Hayward Touring Exhibition from Southbank Centre.
Image credit: Bridget Riley, Movement in Squares, 1961. © Bridget Riley. All rights reserved. Courtesy Karsten Schubert, London.
This exhibition from the National Portrait Gallery celebrates some of Britain’s finest literary talents. Writers of Influence: Shakespeare to JK Rowling features many important British writers and lyricists including William Shakespeare, Geoffrey Chaucer, George Eliot, Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, Virginia Woolf, Agatha Christie, John Lennon and Jarvis Cocker. The exhibition includes artwork by Vanessa Bell, Bill Brandt, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Man Ray, Patrick Heron and Lord Snowdon.
One of the National Portrait Gallery’s most important possessions - the ‘Chandos’ portrait of William Shakespeare will be the centrepiece of the exhibition, displayed alongside 60 of the National Portrait Gallery’s most important literary portraits.
The exhibition’s learning activities have been developed with young people from Southampton City Art Gallery’s Youth Forum.
The exhibition is supported by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS)/Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) Strategic Commissioning Programme.
Image credit: William Shakespeare, attributed to John Taylor, oil on canvas, c.1610. Copyright National Portrait Gallery, London
On display in gallery 6 was a video piece entitled Spill by Graham Gussin. The mood of the film is calm
and gentle; yet the black and white footage presents a curious turn of events. Spill demonstrates the manner in which an artist’s intervention into an everyday location can inform the way that we contemplate architectural spaces.
Image credit: Spill, 1999 by Graham Gussin, b. 1960. Video artwork. Purchased by the Contemporary Art Society Special Collection Scheme with funds from the Arts Council Lottery Fund. Copyright the artist, 2010.
The Systems Group and Associated Artists: Curated by Dr Alan Fowler, A Rational Aesthetic will be the first major exhibition devoted entirely to the work of members of the 1970s Systems Group and some associated artists since the Arts Council exhibition, Constructive Context, in 1978.
The first part of the exhibition will be a small selection of work by the 1950s Constructionists, Anthony Hill and Kenneth and Mary Martin. This will illustrate the strong personal and artistic links between the Systems and Constructionist Groups, and show how the concept of rational systems-based art first developed in the immediate post-war period. The exhibition will close with a selection of recent work by surviving Systems artists - particularly Jeffrey Steele and Peter Lowe - together with two artists - Trevor Clarke and Steve Sproates - who as students studied under Steele and Lowe. The purpose of this part of the exhibition is to demonstrate that the systems approach - part of the long-running constructivist tradition - continues to be used to produce works of aesthetic and intellectual appeal. The exhibition will be the largest devoted to systems-based art frequently shown in galleries across continental Europe but rarely exhibited in the UK. Key figures include: Malcolm Hughes, Jeffrey Steele, Richard Allen, Michael Kidner, Peter Lowe, Kenneth and Mary Martin and Anthony Hill.
Image Credit: Jeffrey Steele, Syntagma Sg IV, 118, 2005, oil on canvas. Copyright: The Artist, 2008.
Early Twentieth Century Painting: This new display presents some of our finest early twentieth century paintings. Inspired by the French Post-Impressionists at the start of the twentieth century, young British progressive artists largely converged around two main groupings. The Camden Town Group, championed by Walter Sickert and influenced by Camille Pissarro, Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, painted gritty urban realism. However, the Bloomsbury painters, dominated by Roger Fry, Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant preferred the legacy of Paul Cézanne and even experimented with abstraction.
Image credit: Spencer Gore (1878 - 1914), Panshanger Park, 1908, oil on canvas.
(Galleries 7 and 8) We are delighted to invite members of the Pastel Society to exhibit in this unique selling exhibition. The Pastel Society is recognised as foremost in its field, showing the work of leading contemporary artists, with a diversity of style and subject matter from the purely imaginative to the representational, in any combination of dry media including oil pastel. Founded in 1898, the Society boasts many illustrious past members and exhibitors, Frank Brangwyn RA, Walter Sickert, Whistler, Degas, Dame Laura Knight RA, Ernest Shepard, and more recently, Gillian Ayres, Tom Phillips RA and Paula Rego. There are over fifty members in the society, all professional artists living and working in the UK.
(Galleries 1 - 4) This touring exhibition has been organised in collaboration with the Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Charitable Trust and is the first major retrospective of the artist’s work. After successful exhibitions at the Goethe Institute, London in 1985 and the Österreichische Galerie im Belvedere, Vienna 1994, Motesiczky was widely acclaimed as one of the most talented and original artists of her time.
Marie-Louise von Motesiczky was born in Vienna in 1906. Leaving Vienna after the Anschluss in 1938, she spent the rest of her life in England. Her artistic career, which spans seventy years, began in the 1920s when she visited Max Beckmann's master class in Frankfurt. Several critically acclaimed exhibitions, especially in London and Vienna, have acquainted the public with Motesiczky's oeuvre which comprises portraits, self-portraits, still-life, landscapes and allegorical paintings.
Motesiczky is particularly known for her portraits, including compelling self-portraits and a moving series devoted to her ageing mother recording her decline. Related to her portraits are her figurative ‘fantasy paintings’, dream-like compositions which formed a significant part of her work in 1950s and 1960s. These magical visions blur fantasy and reality in a complex personal allegory. Motesiczky painted intimate still-lives and poetic landscapes throughout her entire career.
The exhibition has previously been shown at Tate Liverpool, Museum Giersch in Frankfurt, Wien Museum in Vienna and Museum of Modern Art in Passau.
(Gallery 6) ‘Wake Up and Hide’ is the latest work by award-winning artist Gary Stevens and reflects his ongoing fascination with the intersection between performance, visual art and video. This two wide projection piece shows a static shot of almost identical interiors with a group of people emerging from hiding places to occupy the room in ‘Hide’ and a more tense and self-conscious group in ‘Wake Up’ who run for cover at the slightest sound.
‘Wake Up and Hide’ is an interactive installation that draws on the sound created by the visitors in the gallery space to incite the action on screen.
With sound by Graeme Miller, lighting & camera by David Gopsill, art direction by Georgina Carless and interactive design & technology by Nic Sandiland. Performers include: Heather Ackroyd, Ian Bourn, Helena Bryant, Frog Morris, Fiona Templeton; Gareth Brierley, Antonia Doggett, Michelle Griffiths, Kate Meynell, Gary Stevens.
‘Wake Up and Hide’ was commissioned by and first shown at Matt’s Gallery, in association with Artsadmin.
(Galleries 0 - 4) What, in the 21st century, does 'England' stand for? In recent years, the topic of national identity and what constitutes Englishness has been the focus of both key political speeches and media hype.
North and South has invited visual artists from every region of the country to address this most pressing issue. With work from over thirty artists, including fifteen new commissions, the exhibition will be a fascinating exploration of Englishness and what it means to be English in the culturally diverse society we live in today. The artistic responses will serve to develop and help shape this national cultural debate.
The commissioned artists featuring at Southampton City Art Gallery are Yvonne Buchheim, Andrew Cross and Pippa Hale. In support, existing work by Sally Cutler, Susan Diab, Robert Grose, Matt Hearn & Sarah Warden, Chris Lewis-Jones and Chris Poolman will also be presented.
North and South results from collaboration with the John Hansard Gallery, Millais Gallery and 3 other galleries in Sunderland: The Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, The National Glass Centre and the Reg Vardy Gallery.
North and South is funded by Arts Council England.
(Gallery 7) This exhibition and newly published biography of the Southampton born artist aims to awaken an interest in Bridell’s work and accord recognition for the achievement of his short life.
Although receiving no formal art training, Bridell’s career spanned 15 years and is a testimony to a natural talent, which some have called ‘genius’. The artist’s life is set in the context of the times and includes references to people and events which occurred during this very interesting period in British art history.
(Galleries 1 & 2) East meets west this spring as Southampton City Art Gallery proudly presents a captivating display of Ukiyo-e prints from the Edo and Meiji print masters. Japan: A Floating World in Print encompasses scenes of beautiful courtesans and Geisha girls; the chance to escape into the pleasure districts and dramatic views of idyllic landscapes and vibrant seascapes.
Japan’s Edo period from 1600 -1867 was a peaceful era following civil war, controlled by a Shogun’s dynastic reign, and provided an ideal environment for the development of the art in a commercial form. While the Meiji period (1867 – 1912) was characterised by new influences as Japan opened up to the West. The Edo period is famous for Ukiyo-e prints, a people’s art depicting the transient floating world of ancient Tokyo in pictures.
Of the artists included in the exhibition, two masters stand out: Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), a forceful artist who synthesised new, dynamic landscapes like his famous Mount Fuji views. This includes the iconic and internationally-recognised print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, which helped secure Hokusai’s fame both within Japan and overseas. By contrast, Ando Hiroshige (1797-1858) produced subdued, poetic reflections of the natural world, combining well coordinated blocks of colour in designs which seem to draw the viewer into the scene.
Japan: A Floating World in Print is a touring exhibition organised by Maidstone Museum & Bentlif Art Gallery for Maidstone Borough Council. The prints were collected by Sir Walter Samuel, the son of Lord and Lady Bearsted, during his travels to Japan and donated to the Museum in 1923 through the National Art Collections Fund.
(Galleries 0 & 2) Complimenting Japan: A Floating World in Print, this exhibition showcases Stephen Cooper's vibrantly-coloured paintings and installations, which are profoundly influenced by certain aspects of Japanese art, through historic print, architecture, landscape design and particular ideas of artifice. This has allowed the artist to pursue these ideas further in this current exhibition in the hope to create a dialogue between the elements of architecture; colour and painting through installation.
George Dannatt & John Wells: (Gallery 7) Throughout some thirty-seven years of close and rewarding friendship with John Wells, George Dannatt shared many interests. There were frequent explorations via their car and foot, of the sea-bounded landscapes between Newlyn and St Ives. Inevitably, there was much discussion of painting and painting procedures.
Drawn from his own superb collection and curated by George Dannatt, this exhibition explores the connections with his own paintings and those of John Wells. It intends to give some idea of the search of two similarly motivated artists, and of the influence of Wells, the much earlier experienced seeker, upon Dannatt, six years his junior. Their quest was to achieve in paint, and occasionally in constructions, something of the infinity of visual experience derived from that special West Penwith area. The exhibition is accompanied with a new publication that is FREE to take away.
(Gallery 4) The paintings in this exhibition were commissioned by Southampton City Council as part of the Tudor House Museum Restoration Project. They are based on plants that are grown in the reconstructed Tudor Knot Garden. All of the artists are members of the Society of Floral Painters.
A programme to repair Tudor House, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, Southampton City Council, English Heritage and the Friends of Southampton Museums, Archives and Galleries (FOSMAG), is now underway. We hope to see it re-opened, with exciting new displays and improved visitor facilities, in 2012, in time to celebrate its centenary.
'Line and Interval in Modern British Art': (Galleries 1 - 4) Abstract art has puzzled and stimulated viewers since the origins of modern art and today it continues to offer sensations of unparallel pleasure and complexity. The exhibition includes artwork by over forty different artists based primarily on our own extensive holdings aided by the Gallery's recent David Brown bequest and loans from the University of Southampton, Tate Gallery, Arts Council of England Collection and some private lenders. We have commissioned Alan Fowler and Professor Brandon Taylor from the Department of History of Art, University of Southampton to curate the exhibition and write accompanying catalogue essays.
Elements of Abstraction demonstrates how space, line and interval have formed the most basic elements of art in the last half century, aiming to re-open the debate on how abstract art exists, and why.
Artists featured:
Roger Ackling, Robert Adams, Gillian Ayres, Wilhelmina Barnes-Graham, John Bigge, George Dannatt, Ian Davenport, Robyn Denny, John Ernest, Terry Frost, William Gear, Duncan Grant, Adrian Heath, Patrick Heron, Anthony Hill, Roger Hilton, Howard Hodgkin, John Hoyland, Callum Innes, Michael Kidner, Peter Lanyon, Simon Linke, Peter Lowe, Kenneth Martin, Mary Martin, Margaret Mellis, Denis Mitchell, Alistair Morton, Marlow Moss, Paul Nash, Christopher Nevinson, Ben Nicholson, Victor Pasmore, Alan Reynolds, William Scott, Jean Spencer, Jeffrey Steele, John Stephenson, John Tunnard, Paule Vézelay, Keith Vaughan, Edward Wadsworth, Gillian Wise and John Wells
A catalogue has been published to accompany the exhibition, with generous support from from the Paul Mellon Foundation. The catalogue has 48 colour pages of illustrations, with essays by the Exhibition Curator's, Alan Fowler and Brandon Taylor. To order a copy please contact the Gallery Shop on 023 8083 2705.
Image credit: Victor Pasmore (1908-1998), Rectangular Motif:Red and Mustard, 1950, oil on canvas, 610 x 508mm Copyright The Artist's Estate, courtesy of Marlborough Fine Art (London) Ltd, 2005
Southampton City Council
