January Mailing Apology

The gallery apologises for a mistake made during the postage of our January mailing. Unfortunately a number of our envelopes were sent by us without the docket on the envelope, meaning that the postage was not paid on them. We apologise to anyone affected by this mistake.

Late Greats: 9th January- 2nd February

http://www.curwengallery.co.uk/gallery/lategreats/title.htm
This exhibition at Curwen & New Academy Gallery brings together prints by four artists whose work we greatly admire, but who have now died, leaving us a legacy in so many ways. Each of the artists were Royal Academicians and  began working with us when New Academy Gallery was still based in the Royal Academy. This exhibition celebrates their printmaking; lithographs by Josef Herman and Paul Hogarth, both of whom died a few years ago, and screenprints, etchings and lithographs by Donald Hamilton Fraser and John Hoyland, who both died more recently. Some of these prints are now very rare.

Donald Hamilton Fraser, Loose Spinnaker
screenprint, 63 x 75cm
£1575 framed

The lithographs by Josef Herman show his studying of the miners and their families in the Welsh mining village of Ystradgynlais where he lived for a time after fleeing from Warsaw. His work explored his interests in working people; their sense of purpose in their labour and the dignity and strength of human spirit they showed as they carried it out. He combined this interest in people with his passion for landscape and townscape.


Josef Herman, On The Way Home, 1975
lithograph, 72 x 84cm,
£450 framed
Paul Hogarth had a great passion for travel, this combined perfectly with his unique talent for creating energetic illustrations, with the ability to capture the essence of any location across the world. He collaborated with many well known authors, illustrating works by Brendan Behan, Robert Graves, Lawrence Durrell, and William Golding and John Betjeman. Hogarth was best known for his series of cover drawings produced in the 1980s for the Penguin edition of Graham Greene's books. His lithographs in this exhibition show some of his works based on locations in Greece, France and London.

Paul Hogarth,Mykonos
lithograph, 62 x 79cm
£470 framed

Donald Hamilton Fraser’s screenprints are energetic and colourful abstracted landscape scenes, and many of them based around the shoreline or at sea, such as in ‘Sutherland' (pictured below.) Other prints show his interest in still lifes, a vase of flowers or a small group of toys.


Donald Hamilton Fraser, Sutherland
screenprint, 51 x 58cm
£700 framed

John Hoyland’s work characteristically used simple forms and bold colours, combined with a powerful energy evoked through his use of paint or inks. He produced the striking orange ‘Anniversary Print’ for Curwen Gallery’s 50th anniversary in 2008 (below). John Hoyland RA


John Hoyland RA,Curwen Anniversary Print (2008)
lithograph, 78 x 65cm
£975 framed
This collection of works is a wonderful tribute to these artists, each with a close connection to Curwen & New Academy Gallery and shows some of the fantastic prints each of them produced during their lives.

LEE SELLERS, 06-21 December 2012

Private View Wednesday 05 December 6-8pm
http://www.curwengallery.co.uk/gallery/sellers12/title.htm

Lee Sellers’ playful paintings illustrate moments in time between people in different scenarios. He often depicts groups of people, each going about their own business, which upon closer inspection show various narratives all playing out at once.

A scene is set on a sandy beach, a busy harbour or the location may be a TV filming studio. Sellers then adds in the characters that bring the painting to life. These are sometimes purely imagined scenarios, but others are real situations he has been in. Maybe it is Sellers’ experience of working in TV as an actor himself that leads him to construct these scenes as a director would organise his cast, giving each tiny painted figure a role. In a street scene, a man enters a shop, whilst two friends stand chatting outside, and at a window high up above, a small child’s face is pressed up against the glass looking out. It’s the more hidden figures that are such a joy to discover, and they can often be found hiding around the edge of the canvas. Looking here, for example in a painting of a party scene, the viewer may see a couple that have moved away from the crowd for a secret kiss.

A scene is set on a sandy beach, a busy harbour or the location may be a TV filming studio. Sellers then adds in the characters that bring the painting to life. These are sometimes purely imagined scenarios, but others are real situations he has been in. Maybe it is Sellers’ experience of working in TV as an actor himself that leads him to construct these scenes as a director would organise his cast, giving each tiny painted figure a role. In a street scene, a man enters a shop, whilst two friends stand chatting outside, and at a window high up above, a small child’s face is pressed up against the glass looking out. It’s the more hidden figures that are such a joy to discover, and they can often be found hiding around the edge of the canvas. Looking here, for example in a painting of a party scene, the viewer may see a couple that have moved away from the crowd for a secret kiss.

Some figures even escape from the canvas altogether and are shown leaping out of the picture onto the surrounding wall. In works like these, Sellers plays with the idea of the boundaries of a painting, and in the most refreshing and unselfconscious way, disregards many of the traditional rules.

He uses the canvas as an object not just for these figures to be painted on to, but for them to interact with. Sometimes they are even armed with a paintbrush and can be seen painting a part of the scene themselves.

Lee Sellers lives and works in London, and has shown with Curwen Gallery since 2010. This is his first solo show at Curwen.