This Pallant House Gallery exhibition, called The Shape of Things: Still Life in Britain, starts with Dutch paintings from the 17th century, when still life was regarded as the lowest genre in art. Representations of fruit and flowers – usually hyper-realistic and giving artists an opportunity to show off their skills – highlight the brevity of life and reminded us that ripe fruits and beautiful blooms will die and decay, just as we will. The exhibition traces the journey of still life through the centuries, and the final room is full of big names in the contemporary art world (Grayson Perry, Cornelia Parker and Wolfgang Tillmans among them) proving that the genre is alive and kicking. Here are my highlights.
Flowers by Ursula Tyrwhitt (1912)
I was surprised by the date of this watercolour because it struck me as extremely modern, very graphic, loose and spontaneous. Ursula Tyrwhitt was a new name to me. She was classically trained at the Slade, and she became good friends with fellow students Gwen and Augustus John.
Still Life with Glass Jar and Silver Box by Winifred Gill (1914)
Another name I was not familiar with but I was drawn to this painting because it is so very Bloomsbury. Along with Roger Fry, Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell, Winifred Gill was involved with the Omega Workshops and became the business manager in 1915.
Mushrooms by Walter Sickert (1920)
I’ve admired many paintings by Sickert – naked women in dingy North London interiors, spooky music halls, sunny streets in Bath – but hadn’t seen this one before. I like the impressionist mushrooms, the muted colour palette and the straight lines.
Lemons in a Blue Basket by Christopher Wood (1922)
Kit studied in Paris and knew all about modern French painting so it’s not surprising that this luscious image shows the influence of Cezanne. Not long after this work, Kit hooked up with Ben Nicholson, they went to St Ives and discovered the Cornish fisherman Alfred Wallis, whose naïve approach to painting profoundly influenced both young men. Sadly, Kit’s troubled mental state led to his suicide at the age of 29.
Striped Jug and Flowers by Ben Nicholson (1928)
From the early 1930s, Nicholson was a pioneer of abstract art in Britain but this painting owes more to the influence of the naïve style of Alfred Wallis than the European avant-garde. After he and Winifred divorced, he married Barbara Hepworth in 1938, they set up home in Cornwall in 1939, and became the nucleus of the St Ives School.
Vermillion and Mauve by Winifred Nicholson (1928)
A painting of joyful colour and light. In the 1920s, Jim and Helen Ede hosted artistic get togethers in their large Hampstead house and befriended the young couple Ben and Winifred Nicholson. Jim later credited Winifred with giving him the idea for Kettle's Yard, saying that she taught him much about the fusing of art and daily life.
July Change by David Jones (1930)
A strangely compelling watercolour, all nervous energy. Jones was a writer and poet as well as an artist and studied wood cutting under Eric Gill. In 1921, he joined Eric Gill’s Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic in Ditchling and later followed the Gill family to a religious community in Capel-y-ffin. Jones became engaged to one of Gill’s daughters in 1924 and who knows if he was aware of Gill’s incestuous activities. After three years, the engagement ended and Jones never married.
Lords and Ladies by Gluck (1936)
Gluck (born Hannah Gluckstein, she rejected her first name and refused the term 'Miss') has become an icon of gender-nonconformity. Among her lovers was the society florist Constance Spry and during their liaison, flowers took centre stage in Gluck’s art. This is a stunning example.
Still Life Variations 2 by William Scott (1969)
In the 1950s, Scott exhibited kitchen utensil still life paintings alongside Ben Nicholson, Terry Frost, Victor Pasmore and Patrick Heron. In his later work, he stripped away everything but the essentials and this painting still offers a hint of a frying pan. Scott’s austere Protestant upbringing informed his work and he said: ‘I find beauty in plainness.’
Conoid, Sphere and Hollow III by Barbara Hepworth (1937)
I love everything about this: smooth polished marble, curves and straight lines, the placement of each element – it’s all brilliant. Is it a still life? It’s scale is domestic and the forms could be seen as suggestive of a jug, a bowl and an apple. In contrast to expressive or naïve still life paintings I’m drawn to in this exhibition, Hepworth’s piece is about the beauty of geometry.
Flowers by Ivon Hitchens (1943)
Lovely blowsy flowers painted after Hitchens relocated from his bombed-out London house to the a caravan home in the Sussex countryside near Petworth. The local woodland became a source of inspiration for his work for the rest of his life.
Round White Table: St Ives by Patrick Heron (1954)
Heron is one of my all-time favourites and this is one of his early paintings when he was influenced by Braque and Matisse. It has a manic feel and the lines seems to be buzzing around, looking for somewhere to go. Very different from his later abstracts, when lines have disappeared and big areas of vibrant colour are the focus.
Cat with Flowers by Elizabeth Blackadder (1981)
Breaking from the traditional Western organisation of space, Blackadder arranges her objects of interest on a flat background and there’s a child-like quality in the way things just float in the space. The flowers appear spontaneously drawn but also botanically precise and the scale of the painting is quite a surprise.
Love by Peter Blake (2007)
'Tut' is rubbish, junk, worthless goods, and I think plastic flowers, a devil doll’s head, a toy London bus and scruffy old book covers fit that category. Blake has a knack for turning old tut into wonderful art. And I LOVE it.
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