A day out at an exhibition
It was at the Pallant House Gallery, to which I had never been, indeed had never heard, located in a Queen Anne house in the better part of Chichester. This Georgian development of an ancient Roman town is unlike Bath or Edinburgh for being unplanned, rustic, a slow accumulation of houses, each individual, woven to place. The house has been added to (after much struggle with the Georgian Society and local [very wealthy] residents, a volunteer guide told me) with a new extension - ultra modern but fitting, airy and well-used, with an 'ace' restaurant attached with courtyard (where I had quite a good lunch)!
The permanent collection was built around a donation from Walter Hussey - the remarkable Dean of Chichester cathedral in the 50s and 60s who befriended many significant artists in England from the 40s onwards and built a great collection - Henry Moore, Graham Sutherland, Piper, Ivor Hitchens. This has been added to including works collected by Edward James, a friend of Carrington's, who was a surrealist (and so we had two Mae West lips sofas...)! And additional joy three Burra's - a fabulous Market Day from 1926 (probably in Harlem), the Harbour at Hastings (near his home on the south coast) and a drawing from Havana in 1928. The market bursts with colourful negro figures, seen whole, without stereotype or condecension, they are fully part of his world, there is no distancing 'otherness', they are compassionately embraced in a 'magic realism'. The beach at Hastings is filled with boats and fishermen, early in the morning, drawing in boats, emptying nets, selling fish to the newly risen seeking freshness, masculine labour admired by an artist who could not share it (as he was an invalid for virtually the whole of his life, in constant pain), and, yes, tinged with homoeroticism. The drawing is of a bar in Havana, full of rather sinister characters, suggesting you keep watch of your wallet and your eyes downcast, unchallenging.
But my primary reason for being there was to see 'Surreal Friends': an exhibition of the work of Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo and (the photographer) Kati Horna.
Leonora Carrington
I emerged full of admiration, and love, of both painters. Carrington is more intuitive, colourful and this yields varying results, none never less than interesting. Varo is more thoughtful, precise, concerned with line and form, and, thus, achieves a consistency that is remarkable but at times you feel at the price of invention, you 'know' what is coming, akin a little to iconography (though with much greater variety and a quiet humour). This reflects their differing attitudes to 'what is the case'. Varo was building a way of looking at the cosmos that is metaphysical, sacred. She is more disciplined. This was an interest shared by Carrington but she keeps rebelling against any system, any belief that we can capture the 'truth' and her anarchic sense of humour keeps breaking out. Curiously though more 'systematic' in her symbolism, and precise in her forms, Varo's world feels more vulnerable, more exact but more fragile, like china. Carrington's beings will 'make do and mend', find their own way, and probably 'kick ass' if they need to.
Remedios Varo
I was reminded how reproductions don't - they are imitations of what is to be seen but can never capture the fullness of seeing 'neat' unlike the photographs of Kati Horna most of which are reproduced in the book I bought prior to the exhibition and I felt I had indeed seen them before though I do think she is excellent, especially the series she took in a mental hospital in Mexico City in the 50s that are so compassionate, that show people as 'mad' and yet show them as real human individuals, without resorting to any stereotypes of 'madness'. You realise that paintings are not 'two dimensional' - even the flatest paintings are in 3D. Also both Carrington and Varo are 'minaturists' - though the works vary in size, everything is painted with a precision that could see them reduced in size and lose nothing - and the paintings, especially Carrington's, are full of incident - like Bruegel (and indeed he was one of her models).
Kati Horna
My favourite, subject no doubt to continuous revision, was Carrington's 'The Elements' which shows the influence of 15th century Italian and 16th Flemish paintings so full of incident, and unlike those masters, more balanced in a way that appeals to my Jungian soul - the masculine and feminine elements are aligned, nothing subordinated and the lives of humans and animals fully inter-woven, not antagonistic. It does not set out to be 'Eden' but offers a vision of its possibility that is very tranquil, and appealing. For Varo, the 'Roulette' - a magical vehicle that is a symbol of the tri-partite division of the human (in traditional terms, though here it is attributed to the influence of Ouspensky, the Russian philosopher and friend of Gurdjieff. The body is the vehicle, the pedalling driver the mind but the soul is a 'androgynous' figure at the vehicles heart, playing a piano - would that at our centre was music:-) In fact, on the way home, I thought that the perfect musical accompaniment to these pictures would be Satie - an equally gifted minaturist who shared their esoteric, magical interests.
I will go again - either to Chichester or the exhibitions next home in Norwich.
The permanent collection was built around a donation from Walter Hussey - the remarkable Dean of Chichester cathedral in the 50s and 60s who befriended many significant artists in England from the 40s onwards and built a great collection - Henry Moore, Graham Sutherland, Piper, Ivor Hitchens. This has been added to including works collected by Edward James, a friend of Carrington's, who was a surrealist (and so we had two Mae West lips sofas...)! And additional joy three Burra's - a fabulous Market Day from 1926 (probably in Harlem), the Harbour at Hastings (near his home on the south coast) and a drawing from Havana in 1928. The market bursts with colourful negro figures, seen whole, without stereotype or condecension, they are fully part of his world, there is no distancing 'otherness', they are compassionately embraced in a 'magic realism'. The beach at Hastings is filled with boats and fishermen, early in the morning, drawing in boats, emptying nets, selling fish to the newly risen seeking freshness, masculine labour admired by an artist who could not share it (as he was an invalid for virtually the whole of his life, in constant pain), and, yes, tinged with homoeroticism. The drawing is of a bar in Havana, full of rather sinister characters, suggesting you keep watch of your wallet and your eyes downcast, unchallenging.
But my primary reason for being there was to see 'Surreal Friends': an exhibition of the work of Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo and (the photographer) Kati Horna.
Leonora Carrington
I emerged full of admiration, and love, of both painters. Carrington is more intuitive, colourful and this yields varying results, none never less than interesting. Varo is more thoughtful, precise, concerned with line and form, and, thus, achieves a consistency that is remarkable but at times you feel at the price of invention, you 'know' what is coming, akin a little to iconography (though with much greater variety and a quiet humour). This reflects their differing attitudes to 'what is the case'. Varo was building a way of looking at the cosmos that is metaphysical, sacred. She is more disciplined. This was an interest shared by Carrington but she keeps rebelling against any system, any belief that we can capture the 'truth' and her anarchic sense of humour keeps breaking out. Curiously though more 'systematic' in her symbolism, and precise in her forms, Varo's world feels more vulnerable, more exact but more fragile, like china. Carrington's beings will 'make do and mend', find their own way, and probably 'kick ass' if they need to.
Remedios Varo
I was reminded how reproductions don't - they are imitations of what is to be seen but can never capture the fullness of seeing 'neat' unlike the photographs of Kati Horna most of which are reproduced in the book I bought prior to the exhibition and I felt I had indeed seen them before though I do think she is excellent, especially the series she took in a mental hospital in Mexico City in the 50s that are so compassionate, that show people as 'mad' and yet show them as real human individuals, without resorting to any stereotypes of 'madness'. You realise that paintings are not 'two dimensional' - even the flatest paintings are in 3D. Also both Carrington and Varo are 'minaturists' - though the works vary in size, everything is painted with a precision that could see them reduced in size and lose nothing - and the paintings, especially Carrington's, are full of incident - like Bruegel (and indeed he was one of her models).
Kati Horna
My favourite, subject no doubt to continuous revision, was Carrington's 'The Elements' which shows the influence of 15th century Italian and 16th Flemish paintings so full of incident, and unlike those masters, more balanced in a way that appeals to my Jungian soul - the masculine and feminine elements are aligned, nothing subordinated and the lives of humans and animals fully inter-woven, not antagonistic. It does not set out to be 'Eden' but offers a vision of its possibility that is very tranquil, and appealing. For Varo, the 'Roulette' - a magical vehicle that is a symbol of the tri-partite division of the human (in traditional terms, though here it is attributed to the influence of Ouspensky, the Russian philosopher and friend of Gurdjieff. The body is the vehicle, the pedalling driver the mind but the soul is a 'androgynous' figure at the vehicles heart, playing a piano - would that at our centre was music:-) In fact, on the way home, I thought that the perfect musical accompaniment to these pictures would be Satie - an equally gifted minaturist who shared their esoteric, magical interests.
I will go again - either to Chichester or the exhibitions next home in Norwich.