Review

Chichester and Pallant House Art Gallery

/ davidrpharmer / 9 Comments

chichester-market-cross-and-cathedral

Chichester Market Cross and Cathedral

We were here on the 31st. A lovely cathedral town with its c14 market cross, and one I remember from my youth. Pedestrianised many years ago and rightly so, I remember when traffic drove round the cross, and double decker buses clipped bits off it. Now it is safe from that sort of damage. There are still a few of these market/preaching crosses about, Winchester has a good one for example, and they need to be cherished

The city is Roman originally. Noviomagus, the new market, I believe. There was a straight road to London built by the Romans, called Stane Street. It is still there, but now called A24 and A29. It has one or two kinks in it, as it had to get through the gap in the Downs for example, but basically is straight as a die from Chichester to London Bridge.

The cathedral needs a separate chapter, and is one of the finest in England, but our main reason for going there was to visit our old favourite , the Pallant House Art Gallery, which houses a wonderful collection of modern art.. The collection includes names like Hepworth, Moore, Piper and Sutherland. Incidentally in the cathedral, there is a magnificent tapestry backdrop to the altar, designed by Sutherland. There is also a wonderful window by Marc Chagall, not always remembered for stained glass, although he did many. But I digress from the art gallery

Founded on the collection made by Dean Hussey of Chichester Cathedral , it was bequeathed to the city in 1977, on condition that it was housed in Pallant House, a Grade 1 listed Queen Anne townhouse built in 1712, for a wine merchant called Peckham and his wife Elizabeth.

The collection was added to by further donations over the years, and the impressive collection of artists represented, includes now Cezanne, Leger,Sickert,Lucien Freud, Richard Hamilton and Eduardo Paolozzi

As well as paintings, there is an excellent collection of c18 Bow porcelain

The new wing, a superb example of a modern building blending well with a Queen Anne townhouse, won the 2007 Gulbenkian Prize and was also listed for a RIBA award the same year

I try to stop after 300 words but have rattled on

Thanks for your comments on Bosham Harbour, now framed up and in store ready for the March exhibition. Thank you to those of you who enquired about this exhibition. The details are:

Guildford Institute, Ward Street, Guildford, Surrey, UK in the Assembly Rooms

Dates from 13th to 31st March this year

Thanks again

 

 

 

 

 

Exhibition at Tate Art Gallery: Art and Empire

/ davidrpharmer / 1 Comment

Risaldar Jagat Singh and Risaldar Man Singh by Philip de Laszlo 1916

Risaldar Jagat Singh and Risaldar Man Singh painted by Philip de Laszlo in 1916

We went up to London earlier today, to see this exhibition at the Tate. It was a very big exhibition, drawn from collections from everywhere, which took us about two hours to get round.

There was early stuff, mostly to do with exploration and discovery. The maps reminded me of those in my classroom at primary school, which of course today would be very non-PC

Quite a lot of paintings, as one might expect, were to do with Imperial Heroics or what Victorians considered to be heroics. Not always ending with a British victory, like the battle of Isandlwana (spelling probably wrong) in Zululand, where 1400 infantrymen were slaughtered in a very short space of time. There was an amazing painting of that last stand by an artist named Fripp, who was attached to the newspaper The Graphic. He actually visited the site afterwards to get the atmosphere before embarking on this massive reconstruction. Other memorable pictures were the Death of Wolfe and the Death of General Gordon, all good heroic stuff. The British did quite a lot of bad things around the world, but hopefully left something behind that was worthwhile as well.

If I were to be asked to name the one painting that impressed me the most, I think I would have to choose the double portrait that I have shown. This is an amazingly expressive picture by Philip de Laszlo of two Indian Army officers, named above, painted in a single sitting. What is it about working at speed, that adds so much to a painting?  They were presented to George V at Buckingham Palace, before embarking for France and the Battle of the Somme, where who knows what became of them after that dreadful slaughter. We are told that one in six British soldiers came from the Indian Subcontinent! The contribution from Commonwealth countries was staggering.

Moslem Burial Ground

Moslem Military Burial Ground, Horsell Common

This links into a local monument of which we are justifiably proud, the burial ground pictured above, built by the War Office in 1917, for Moslem soldiers from the Indian Army who died in British hospitals from wounds received in France.

Various hospitals along the south coast housed Indian wounded from the Front. Some tragically did not survive. Sikhs and Hindus were cremated but Moslems were interred, and they were brought here for burial because of the proximity of the mosque at Woking, which is the earliest purpose built mosque in the country.

There were 28 graves in the cemetery which were moved in the 1960’s to the main War Graves Cemetery at nearby Brookwood. Sadly vandalism had been a problem. After a period of neglect, this burial ground was restored in 2014 as part of the centenary remembrance. A Garden of Remembrance has been laid out within the walls, and the names of the 28 soldiers who died are commemorated on a tablet.

Nothing jolly or frivolous to report from this exhibition, I am afraid, all rather heavy, moving stuff. On a lighter note, I am moving along with the Blue Mosque painting. The drawing has been transferred to watercolour paper and various bits masked out where appropriate.