Stanley Spencer: Visionary Painter of the Natural World

Stanley Spencer was a rather good landscape artist.

'Cliveden Woods' by Spencer, familiar #Cookham scene in our current exhibition. @VisitThamesCoUk @AlongTheThames pic.twitter.com/aTX4R0vEoH

— The Spencer Gallery (@SpencerCookham) 8 May 2016

I must get to the Stanley Spencer Gallery at Cookham. Here's the description of the current exhibition

Stanley Spencer: Visionary Painter of the Natural World
24th March to 31st October 2016

Glorious depictions of the natural world, exploring Spencer's consummate skill in a series of exquisitely executed flower paintings, garden vistas and landscapes. Figurative and spiritual scenes amongst these wonderful paintings movingly remind us of the visionary element pervading all of Spencer's work.

American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School

Cover of the exhibition catalogue re. American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School

American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School

You can download this catalogue of the exhibition American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The exhibition was held between 4th October 1987 and 3rd January 1999.

The reproduction qualities of the pdf copy available for download on the Metropolitan Museum of Art website is very good.

You won't find it by including the title in the websites' search facilty. Instead you need to know to go to their MetPublications website

The title is out of print hence why the Met is making it available online.  You can also:

• Read online
• Print on Demand (although you might want to think twice about this given that the book is 348 pages!)

About the exhibition

Prior to 1987, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has focused on individual artists when mounting major retrospectives and had highlighted prominent American artists in doing so.

This exhibition was the first time a major retrospective had been undertaken of an important school of art unique to the USA. The book and the exhibition represented a summary of the (then) current scholarship relating to the Hudson River School.

The exhibition - and the catalogue - brought together some of the finest and most historically important of the paintings associated with the School.  It also provided a survey of the work of the various artists involved with the School.

Prior to this exhibition, there had been three initiatives by museums in the USA to highlight the art, scope and role of the Hudson River School

• 1917 - the Museum had held a much smaller exhibition - Paintings of the Hudson River School;
• 1945 - the Art Institute of Chicago mounted the The Hudson River School and the Early American Landscape Tradition exhibition
• 1949 - The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston published a book about M. and M. Karolik Collection of American Paintings, 1815–1865 

The Hudson River School

The Hudson River School was America's first true artistic fraternity. Its name was coined to identify a group of New York City-based landscape painters that emerged about 1850 under the influence of the English émigré Thomas Cole (1801–1848) and flourished until about the time of the Centennial.

This is the webpage for the Hudson River School in the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History on the Met's website

The Wynne Prize - Finalists 2013 + their websites

The Wynne Prize ($35,000) for Best Landscape Painting of Australian scenery, or figure sculpture by Australian artists had 773 entries this year - which is marginally down on last year (2012: 783 entries; 2011: 712 entries)

The Wynne Prize is awarded annually for 'the best landscape painting of Australian scenery in oils or watercolours or for the best example of figure sculpture by Australian artists’.

Richard Wynne left a bequest which established the prize.  It's run and judged on an annual basis by the Trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney.  The prize was first awarded in 1897 when the present Gallery opened in its current home next to the Botanical Gardens and Sydney Harbour  (I know - I've been!).

Those whose artwork will be in the exhibition were announced last week.

You can find the Wynne Finalists 2013 listed below.  You can also explore past winners and finalists on the prize webpage on the AGNSW website

• GW Bot - Glyphs and Moon GW Bot is the the exhibiting name of Chrissie Grishin, who was born in Quetta, Pakistan of Australian parents
• Linda Bowden - The others  Linda Bowden is a sculptor
• Jun Chen - North Queensland  Born in China in 1960, Chen migrated to Australlia in 1990 and now lives in Queensland. He graduated from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in China in 1986 and converted from being a brush and ink painter in China to using oil paint thickly applied with a palette knife in Australia!
• Xiuying ChenCentral Railway Station, Sydney  
• He is a member of the Australian Chinese Painting Society
• David Collins - Hawkesbury crossing
• Dale Cox - Tract 17 - He paints the geomorphology of the land - above and below the ground.  I'm thinking this one might be in with a chance./li>

Tract paintings in acrylic by Dale Cox
Tract 17 (burning) is bottom right

• Lucy Culliton - Table Cape
• Elisabeth Cummings - Sunrise, The Kimberleys
• Keith Fyfe - Untitled
• Neil Haddon - After the burn, Mt Nelson (a new landscape emerges)
• Nicholas Harding - Yuraygir pandanus with samp oak and pigface
• Belynda Henry - The trees
• Timothy Hutchinson - Back creek, Cowra
• Matt Huttlestone - Hardies Creek, Northern Territory
• Dinni Kunoth Kemarre - My footy heroes
• Fiona Lowry - Alone with you
• Guy Maestri - Last light over Ball’s Pyramid (won the 2009 Archibald Prize)
• Robert Malherbe - Govetts Leap
• Noel McKenna - Centennial Park<
• Shaelene Murray - Blossom
• Yukultji Napangati - Untitled



Winner of 2012 Wynn Prize
Waterfall (after Willams) by Imant Tillers

• Theo Papathomas - Figures dancing
• James Powditch - Kornfield XIV
• Mark Rodda - Alabaster Valley, Tasmania
• Margarita Sampson - Anemone incursions III: puss puss
• Alex Seton - Soloist
• Imants Tillers - Namatjira (won the 2012 Wynne Prize)
• Aida Tomescu - Sunburn
• Sokquon Tran - Wombeyan Caves
• Daniel Walbidi - Kirriwirri, Great Sandy Desert
• Annie Hsiao-Wen Wang - Conversations IV
• Susan J White - On the Hawkesbury
• Philip Wolfhagen - Thirteenth journey
• Joshua Yeldham - Yeoman's Bay, Hawkesbury River (also an Archibald finalist 2013)
• Salvatore Zofrea - Morning light

I'm hoping they will produce the online display of the individual works as they did last year

See my post The Wynne Prize 2012 - Selected artists and winner (which was published a little later than planned)

British Council - Landscape Art Collection

British Council: Landscape Art Collection

A happy accident led me to this website which is home to an index of Landscape Art and Landscape Artists in the collection of the British Council.

The British Council is the UK's international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations.  Its aims is to build engagement and trust for the UK through the exchange of knowledge and ideas between people worldwide.

For more than 60 years the British Council has been collecting works of art, craft and design to promote abroad the achievements of our artists, craft practitioners and designers. The Collection, started in the late 1930s, with a modest group of works on paper has now grown to a collection of more than 8000 artworks covering all media and all aspects of British art and design of the 20th and 21st Centuries. The Collection has no permanent gallery and has been referred to as a 'Museum Without Walls'.
About the British Council Art Collection

The links to the artists provide:

• an overview of each artist
• sources for further reading about the artist (if available)
• links to the works in the collection - including larger views of each work.  (Note that as the index is artist-oriented, not all of the works oin the collection are landscapes - but ach artist listed will have at least one work designated as a landscape)
• which British Council sponsored exhibitions in which the works have been included

It's a veritable treasure trove of viewing for fans of British Landscape Art!

Some of the artists are extremely well known - including prominent artists of the past and present.  Some I've never heard of - but will look forward to discovering more about them.

The artists are:

• Norman Ackroyd
• Jankel Adler
• Craigie Aitchison
• John Arthur Malcolm Aldridge
• Hurvin Anderson
• Michael Andrews
• Leonard Applebee
• Ray Atkins
• Stanley R Badmin
• Robert Bates
• Edward Bawden
• Adrian Berg
• Vivien Blackett
• John Blakemore
• Muirhead Bone
• Derek Boshier
• Boyd And Evans
• Christopher Bramham
• Bill Brandt
• Henry Stuart Brown
• Eveleen Buckton
• Rodney Joseph Burn
• David Young Cameron
• Jeffery Camp
• Bob Chaplin
• Charles Cheston
• Sir George Clausen
• Cecil Collins
• Charles Conder
• Raymond Teague Cowern
• Alan Cox
• Alistair Crawford
• John Craxton
• Lawrence Cutting
• Robin Darwin
• John Davies
• Tacita Dean
• Dominic Denis
• Frank Dobson
• Catherine Dodgson
• Willie Doherty
• Peter Doig
• William Dring
• Wilfred Fairclough
• Peter Fraser
• Sir Terry Frost
• Roger Fry
• Hamish Fulton
• Ori Gersht
• Charles Ginner
• Fay Godwin
• Andy Goldsworthy
• Paul Graham
• Duncan Grant
• Anthony Gross
• Siobhan Hapaska
• Martin Hardie
• Marcus Haydock
• Tony Hayward
• Thomas Hennell
• Ivon Hitchens
• Frances Hodgkins
• Sir Charles Holmes
• Marine Hugonnier
• Mustafa Hulusi
• John Kippin
• Henry Kondracki
• Tania Kovats
• Peter Lanyon
• John Loker
• Richard Long
• Rachel Lowe
• Iain Macnab
• Elizabeth Magill
• Guy Malet
• Bateson Mason
• Peter Matthews
• Chad McCail
• Ian McKeever
• Charles Meecham
• John Minton
• Lynne Moore
• Raymond Moore
• Rodrigo Moynihan
• David Muirhead
• Henna Nadeem
• David Nash
• John Nash
• Paul Nash
• Mariele Neudecker
• Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson
• Winifred Nicholson
• Simon Norfolk
• Glen Onwin
• Julian Opie
• Roger Palmer
• Martin Parr
• Victor Pasmore
• G W Lennox Paterson
• Claughton Pellew
• John Piper
• Dominic Pote
• Michael Raedecker
• Gwendolen Raverat
• David Rayson
• Alan Reynolds
• Carol Rhodes
• Alfred W Rich
• Albert Richards
• Randolph Schwabe
• Colin Self
• Sara Selwood
• George Shaw
• David Shrigley
• Walter Richard Sickert
• Ross Sinclair
• Douglas Ion Smart
• Bob And Roberta Smith
• Sir Matthew Smith
• Gilbert Spencer
• Sir Stanley Spencer
• David Spero
• Philip Wilson Steer
• Graham Sutherland
• Alfred Thornton
• Wolfgang Tillmans
• Henry Houghton Trivick
• John Tunnard
• Keith Vaughan
• Edward Wadsworth
• Sir Kyffin Williams
• William Wilson
• Paul Winstanley
• Christopher Wood
• Bryan Wynter

Landscapes at Christchurch Art Gallery, New Zealand

John Gibb Clearing up after rain, foot of Otira Gorge 1887.

Oil on canvas.
Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, purchased 1964.
About 4 kilometres south of Otira, in the Southern Alps, is the Otira Gorge, the original staging place for coach traffic in the earlier days of transport between Canterbury and Westland via Arthur's Pass. The hotel in Otira, seen in this work, was washed away when the Otira River flooded in 1886.

Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu in New Zealand has an exhibition of works in the pastoral tradition called An Idyllic Country: Pastoral Landscapes from the Collection. This is a collection of paintings, watercolours and prints portraying romanticised visions of the countryside will go on view at Christchurch Art Gallery this month.

The pastoral tradition in art is the idealised portrayal of country life, often idyllic views of a tamed countryside inhabited by shepherds and livestock. An Idyllic Country brings together a collection of paintings, watercolours and prints spanning several centuries, and includes works by seventeenth-century Dutch artist Danker Danckerts, British artists Joseph Mallord William Turner, John Arnesby Brown and Gwendolin Raverat and New Zealanders John Gibb, Evelyn Page and John Weeks.

Christchurch Art Gallery’s collection has traditionally been very strong on pastoral views of the rural landscape. Many of the works on display were created to offer a respite from the urban chaos of city life; they offer a place to escape, to relax and reflect. An Idyllic Country offers visitors to the Gallery the opportunity to enjoy both modern and contemporary takes on the traditional country landscapes.
Jenny Harper, Gallery Director

The Gallery has chosen to provide a striking contrast for these idealised portrayals of country life and tranquil landscapes by including work by Barry Cleavin and Bing Dawe that comment on modern intensive farming methods and the abattoir as the inevitable fate for livestock.

The exhibition opened on 15 May and continues until 8 August 2010.

The Christchurch Gallery Collection

For me, when I looked at the Gallery's website, what was more interesting was the online database of images in the permanent collection - a number of which relate to the landscapes of New Zealand and are by artists who were born or lived in New Zealand. You can see two of these by John Gibb at the top and bottom of this post.

One of the things that the gallery also does is provide excellent information sheets about various works. This link to New Zealand landscape art includes infosheets such as

• An Early Settlers Homestead near Auckland - John Weeks - Infosheet
• The Sun-bathed Clay Pit - John Weeks - Infosheet
• Lyttelton Harbour, N.Z. Inside the breakwater by John Gibb (.pdf)
• Canterbury Plains from Dyers Pass Road - Margaret Stoddart - Infosheet
• Lake Wakatipu - Claus Edward Fristrom - Infosheet
• Lyttelton from the Bridle Path - Sydney Lough Thompson - Infosheet
• Mountain Stream Otira Gorge - Petrus van der Velden - Infosheet
• Mt Cook & Francis(Franz) Josef Glacier New Zealand From Freshwater Creek by Sir William Fox (.pdf)

When i interrogated the collection database I found that some of the landscapes came up with a map reference - which identified the location of the painting on the map which I found very impressive!

These are the locations for the two paintings in this post

• Show this location (Otira Gorge) on Google Maps
• Show this location (estuary) on Google Maps

John Gibb Shades Of Evening, The Estuary 1880.
Oil on canvas.
Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, presented by the Canterbury Society of Arts, 1932.This view of Christchurch’s Avon / Heathcote Estuary, known to Mâori as the Opawaho / OtakaroEstuary, looks west towards the foothills of the Southern Alps. A much more settled landscape today, in 1880 John Gibb shows only a small limp red flag and a derelict rowboat as signs of human activity.

This is how the gallery describes John Gibb

When the painter John Gibb arrived in Christchurch from Scotland, in 1876, he had already more than quarter of a century's activity in Britain as an artist and exhibitor. Early in his life, Gibb had shown a natural aptitude for drawing and painting that was encouraged by his family. By 1849 he was receiving tuition in the studio of John Mackenzie of Greenock, and the Clyde River and the environs of the Firth of Clyde were the focus of Gibb's paintings during the 1850s, 60s and early 70s. A traditionalist, Gibb aligned himself with the picturesque style akin to such artists as Sam Bough, Joseph Farquarson, Alfred de Breanski Snr. and John Harvey Oswald. He followed the academic practice of sketching the landscape and gathering information which was later worked up in the studio with intense attention to detail. In later years, as a keen photographer, he regularly used his half-plate camera to good effect as an aide memoire. Within three months of his arrival in Christchurch, Gibb held the first showing of his work and began making painting excursions around the South Island. As there was no art society in Christchurch, he exhibited at the Otago Society of Art Exhibitions in Dunedin from 1878 on. When the Canterbury Society of Arts was formed in 1880, Gibb was a foundation member and exhibited hundreds of works with the Society until his death in 1909. He also showed in Auckland and Wellington from the early 1880s and sent works to all the international and inter-colonial exhibitions beyond New Zealand. In the 1880s Gibb was regarded as New Zealand's major professional marine painter, a specialisation that enabled him to exercise his fascination with detail and which led to many private commissions in New Zealand and Australia.

Links:

• Venue - Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, Worcester Boulevard, Christchurch. Open 10am to 5pm daily. Late night Wednesday until 9pm.
• Landscape images in the collection
• Search the Collection Online

Sketching Constable's Cornfield

After Constable's 'The Cornfield' (1826)

 9" x 6", pen and sepia ink in large Moleskine Sketchbook

copyright Katherine Tyrrell

I spent yesterday evening (see Museums at Night starts tonight!) in the National Gallery in London sketching John Constable's The Cornfield in pen and sepia ink.

The title seems first to have been used by the subscribers who presented the picture to the National Gallery. Constable referred to it familiarly as 'The Drinking Boy'. It probably shows a lane leading from East Bergholt towards Dedham; the distant church could be an invention.

The painting was exhibited several times during Constable's lifetime, first at the Royal Academy in 1826.

It's interesting that even though it's supposed to be of Fen Lane near his home, he's used artistic licence and introduced a church into the background.  fen Lane is now called Flatford Lane.

I like sketching large paintings in art galleries and museums in monochrome.  It means you look at it more closely while trying to detect the design of the tonal values.  I also don't try to be precise when I sketch.  Most of this is done with scribble hatching - although I start to work smaller and smaller areas as I progress.

It's also fascinating trying to sketch the paintings of artists who themselves frequently used a sketchbook as a start to creating their paintings of landscapes.  I've seen Constables sketchbooks and they're tiny but very effective!

It seems likely that the painting in the National gallery was painted from sketchbooks and an initial start on site.

I think this painting in the Tate is the same view the other way on.  Its caption is as follows

Constable and his wife Maria took a long holiday in Suffolk in 1817. This was to be the last time he painted directly in oils in the vicinity of East Bergholt. Constable began several canvases outdoors without finishing them, perhaps in order to secure as much fresh material as possible in the time. Some parts of this canvas are painted to a fair degree of finish, whilst others are left in a more sketchy state.

Fen Lane, East Bergholt

John Constable

Tate Britain

I think I might try and locate the original site for both these paintings. There's a good guide to walks around Flatford and East Bergholt including one which identifies Fen lane on the AA website - see Constable Country at Flatford Mill.

The bend appears to be round about #3 on the map!

Framing the West

Framing the West: The Survey Photographs of Timothy H. O'Sullivan is an exhibition which opened yesterday at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington DC.

Timothy H. O'Sullivan (1840–1882) was a photographer for two of the most ambitious geographical surveys of the nineteenth century. He traversed the mountain and desert regions of the western United States under the command of Clarence King and Lt. George M. Wheeler for six seasons between 1867 and 1874. O'Sullivan developed a forthright and rigorous style in response to the landscapes of the American West, and returned to Washington, D.C. with hundreds of photographs that revealed an artist whose reach far surpassed the demands of practical documentation. He created a body of work that was without precedent in its visual and emotional complexity, while simultaneously meeting the needs of scientific investigation and western expansion.

This is O'Sullivan's biography on the Smithsonian website. He became an official civil war photographer at the age of 21. Subsequently he joined Clarence King's geological survey of the fortieth parallel—the first federal expedition in the West after the Civil War.

Interestingly King was very interested in the arts and I speculate that it well be this influence which helped O'Sullivan create photographs which were artistic as well as scientifically useful.

Ancient Ruins in the Cañon de Chelle, N.M.
(No. 11, Geographical Explorations and Surveys West of the 100th Meridian) 1873
Timothy H. O'Sullivan(1840- 1882 )
albumen print on paper mounted on paperboardimage and sheet: 10 3/4 x 7 7/8 in. (27.3 x 20.0 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum

I'm very much minded to let this blog cover landscape photography as well as drawing and painting - in part to highlight what photography does well - as well as what drawing and painting do well.