Haringey Independant Article : How Muswell Hill Sculptor Naomi Blake forged hope out of Holocaust Hell

This is my heaven,“ says sculptor Naomi Blake as she wanders around her crowded studio tenderly stroking figures carved from polystyrene.

The 90-year-old’s home in Muswell Hill is a stunning exhibition of her incredible 52-year career, with sculptures of all sizes filling the house and garden – many are copies of the originals, which decorate cathedrals, universities and private collections, including those of the late Queen Mother and the Prince of Wales.

Looking at the pure, flowing forms, it is hard to believe that each one is inspired by the living hell she went through during the Holocaust.

“Her driving force has always been the promotion of humanity, of understanding between faiths,“ explains daughter Anita Peleg, who has just finished creating two books, Dedication in Sculpture and a biography Glimmer Of Hope, to coincide with Naomi Blake: A Retrospective at the Curwen Gallery in Fitzrovia.

It will celebrate the life’s work of the sculptor, who was born Zisel Dum on March 11, 1924, the youngest of ten children to a strict Jewish orthodox household in Mukacevo, Czechoslovakia.
Her mother, Chay-Adel Shlussel, died before war broke out, but in 1944, when Naomi was 20, most of her family was deported to Auschwitz and she was separated from everyone except her older sister Malchi, as her father, another sister and her nieces and nephews were led into the gas chambers.

“There wasn’t time to feel,“ says Naomi of the harrowing times that followed.
The sisters were sent to two concentration camps and put to work making bombs for the Nazis, but were shown by fellow prisoners how to sabotage them and Anita says this gave her mother “a lot of satisfaction”.

“She’s always talked about what happened to her,“ continues the 54-year-old. “There are some survivors who find it hard, but she told me her story when I was about eight and it never frightened me because she told it in a way that made me feel very proud of her.“ As the war ended, Naomi and her sister were led on one of the infamous Nazi death marches to the Baltic, but bravely “made a dash for it“ in snow up to their knees.

Miraculously they managed to escape and over two months trekked and hitch-hiked back to Mukacevo, where they found their house destroyed.
Of the 32 family members before the war, only seven survived and Naomi found it “overwhelmingly sad“ to be back.“There were no children, no old people. The only people who had survived were over 16 and under 35,“ says Anita.

So in 1946, without telling her family, she made the arduous journey to Palestine to help the Jewish defence groups set up to resist Palestinian forces.She changed her name to Naomi and eventually became part of the Israeli army, in charge of 100 women, but she was hospitalised at Mount Scopus after being injured by flying shrapnel, a piece of which remains in her neck.

While recovering, a friend brought her a piece of olive wood and a knife and Naomi carved a dog – her first sculpture.“It was tiny and small enough to fit in my pocket,“ she recalls.

It sparked something inside Naomi and a few years later, after moving to London and marrying German refugee Asher Blake, she embarked on a five-year evening course at the Hornsey School of Art.

From the start, her work was inspired by her experiences during the Holocaust and frequently features a mother and child, Jewish and religious imagery, figures that are sheltered or "breaking out".
Over a career stretching more than half a century, she has created more than 100 large scale bronze sculptures and held more than 60 exhibitions.

“It started off as a hobby,“ says Naomi summing up her career, “and I didn’t realise it would become so important."It has always been influenced by my history and what happened. Always."

Naomi Blake: A Retrospective is at the Curwen Gallery, Windmill Street, W1, from April 2 to 26. curwengallery.com, www.naomiblake.co.uk. Anita will give a talk at the gallery on April 24 from 6.30pm. Dedication in Sculpture is available from April 1, Glimmer of Hope from April 24.

The website for the exhibition is http://www.curwengallery.co.uk/gallery/blake14/title.htm

Naomi Blake : A Retrospective

2nd - 26th April 2014
Marking the Artist’s 90^th Birthday

Exhibition and launch of a new book ‘Naomi Blake – Dedication in Sculpture’

From Left: Jonathan Blake, Naomi Blake and Anita Peleg. Photo credit: John Ross

This special exhibition at Curwen Gallery in April marks the 90th Birthday of Naomi Blake, sculptor, holocaust survivor and advocate of understanding between faiths. The exhibition will include highlights of her work and will launch a new book ‘Naomi Blake – Dedication in Sculpture’ which catalogues her life’s work. 

Towards Tomorrow’, bronze, 33 x 30 x 8cm

Naomi Blake’s experiences as a survivor of Auschwitz have been a huge influence throughout her artistic career. Her work contains recurring themes inspired by her desire to commemorate the past horrors of persecution and move towards the promotion of understanding and good will between people of different faiths and backgrounds. Naomi Blake’s sculpture expresses her personal experience of the Holocaust and her hopes and optimism for a better future.

This retrospective exhibition marks the artist’s 90^th year, a milestone and time for reflection upon her career. During the exhibition, a new publication will be launched; ‘Naomi Blake – Dedication in Sculpture’ which catalogues the development of her work.  Toward the end of exhibition there will also be a talk about Naomi’s life.

Early works in Naomi Blake’s career began figuratively, moving into more abstract phases. Her later work often incorporates abstract forms alongside a figure. One reason for this, Blake explains, is that despite her experiences in her life, she realised that ultimately humans are very positive beings and these sentiments are reflected in the titles of her works. 

Glimmer of Hope, bronze

Examples featured in the exhibition are ‘Glimmer of Hope’, ‘Man Against the Odds’ and ‘Towards Tomorrow’. In some pieces, figures in embryonic-like forms, are placed enclosed and protected by abstract forms around them. In other works, figures are free from these surroundings to stand against all adversity.

Naomi Blake has a great interest in Jewish life and learning. In a significant series of work, Biblical figures such as King Solomon, Abraham and Isaac are brought to life in expressive and imposing sculptures, reflecting the strength and the characters of the Old Testament.

Glimmer of Hope, bronze

Naomi Blake was born in Czechoslovakia. She studied at Hornsey College of Art and is a Fellow of the Royal British Society of Sculptors. Naomi lived in Milan, Rome, Jerusalem and now resides and works in London.

Over sixty major works can be seen on permanent sites including:

Norwich Cathedral; Bristol Cathedral; St Anthony’s College, Oxford; St Botolph’s Church, London; Waterlow Park, London; The Sternberg Centre, London; The Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Oxford Synagogue; Leeds Synagogue; Portsmouth Cathedral; Fitzroy Square.

Article in Galleries Magazine: Robin Richmond 'On Solitary Fields'

Agrigento, Sicily, acrilic on canvas, £3500

Robin Richmond transcribes landscape and stirs emotion, confidently evoking that intangible sense of infinity, known as the romantic Sublime.  A fiery heat glows in renderings of ancient Sicilian places like Agrigento. In others, like Chekhov’s Dream and Ice Sings –  the diaphanous textures of Lake Rouffiac in January – blues, whites, violets, mauves and jades float and freeze. Warmth and cold enhance one another in Solitary Fields.

Chekhov's Dream, acrylic on canvas, £4750

These canvases encourage the eye and the mind to negotiate distance, depth, reflection and even time, exploring the very borderlines and edges of perception. The notion of an “event horizon”, a boundary in space-time where new forces come into play, springs to mind. Time haunts her History of a Silver Birch Tree in Six Chapters.  Weathered bark becomes almost like human skin, a metaphor for deep time. Her ninth and biggest show so far at Curwen & New Academy reveals a heightened power and concentration.

Corinna Lotz, Galleries Magazine, March 2014

Robin Richmond : On Solitary Fields

6-29^th March 2014

Private View: Wednesday 5^th March 2014 from 6-8pm
Artist Talk: Tuesday 18^th March at 7pm

“Robin Richmond is one of the finest painters working in Britain today” 

Art Review

“Robin Richmond has surely found herself a secure space within the upper echelons of the present incarnation of British Landscape painting”

 Julian Freeman, British Art Journal

Robin Richmond’s work has always been about the physical act of remembering. Her landscapes appear as if glimpsed fleetingly, like mirages with only trace elements of the reality behind seeping through. Swathes of layered colour allude to sky or soil, creating atmospheric, half remembered impressions of horizons, lakes and fields. All are definite places in the world; each painting is precisely titled as an existing location, however we view them as if through a veil or a dream.

Although produced from numerous studies made in nature, these paintings attempt to evoke a sense of place rather than making a literal transcription of a particular environment. They tread a delicate balance between figuration and abstraction, as much recalling an emotional response to the landscape as its factual contours.

[1] The majority of her current works are inspired by French, Sicilian and Italian landscapes. Amongst these are the characteristic skies and textured grounds which are recognisable as archetypal depictions of locations in these countries. Many of the works in this show are made from an isolated studio in South-West France, next to the forested Lake Rouffiac (left) which so often appears as a subject in her paintings.
	[2]

The title of the show, On Solitary Fields is taken from A Light Exists in Spring a much loved poem by Emily Dickinson describing Dickinson’s almost religious experience of nature, specifically in relation to a particular quality of light experienced in Spring. When alone in nature Robin Richmond too is touched briefly by this light whilst in “solitary fields”, a transient experience which she attempts to encapsulate in her paintings.

Robin Richmond lives and works in London and South-West France. She is the author of 7 books and is a regular contributor to numerous arts journals. She has work in a number of museum collections, as well as many private and corporate collections. She attained both her Fine Art BA and her MA in Art History at Chelsea School of Art. She has been a fellow and Artist in Residence at Yale University, USA since 2003. Last year her work was the subject of a major retrospective at the Château D’Excideuil.

For more information see the gallery website for the exhibition: http://www.curwengallery.co.uk/gallery/richmond14/title.htm

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[1] Shadows Hold Their Breath, Reflection, Lake Rouffiac, France, Autumn, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 102 x 152cm

[2] Agrigento, Sicily, 2013, acrylic and lava sand on canvas, 66 x 82cm

Cass Art Interview with Robin Richmond- Currently showing at Curwen Gallery

Interview with Georgia Stephenson

Robin Richmond has been described as ‘one of the finest painters working in Britain today’, and we can see why. Her evocative studies are produced in the natural environment, and seek to document the sense of place rather than making a literal translation. Born in Philadelphia, raised in old Rome, student at Chelsea College of Art in the swinging sixties and now with her largest show to date at the Curwen & New Academy Gallery on the way, the artistic journey of Robin Richmond is one we’re eager to find out more about…

Can you tell us a little about how you became a landscape painter?

I became a landscape painter in 1985 when I had a visiting professorship at the University of California at Santa Cruz. I had previously been a very rigorously figurative portrait painter having grown up in Rome and schooled in Renaissance painting (which is why I did a masters in the History of Art and later wrote art history books) but being exposed to California light and the huge skies of the deserts of Arizona, Nevada and Utah changed me forever.

In 1989 I bought a house in the middle of nowhere in rural South-western France and this became my main studio. The landscape surrounding my French home has become my chief subject. The lake at the bottom of my fielding all seasons and weathers; the molten skies; the furze of trees; the horizon; these are all my subjects. I also travel a lot and this new show contains paintings of Sicily, Tuscany and Umbria.

My work is not transcriptive but evocative. I consider myself to be figurative but am often called abstract. I am not sure what this means....

You paint with a mix of oil and acrylic; do you have a special technique for blending the two? What’s your process like?

 

I became allergic to turpentine after using it for 35 years (my doctor says this is not uncommon!) and as a result began to experiment with acrylics. I was devastated at this development, but over time discovered Golden Acrylics, stocked now by my wonderful branch of Cass Art.

 My London studio is in Islington and I used to traipse down to Charing Cross but now just hop on the bus to Cass Art's flagship store. Very frequently! I love it - such helpful staff and such good materials. My daughter shops there all the way from the South of France, and can’t wait until she can shop online to be delivered there! Lots of my artist friends in France will be thrilled too.

I am trying to use oil again sparingly but as I use my hands a lot I have to use rubber gloves which feels too clinical to me. I like getting my hands dirty and have permanently colourful finger nails, no matter how hard I try.  I am starting again to put glazes of oil over acrylic layers. My work is a matter of many glazes and Golden is so good it mimics oils but without the long drying period and it uses water of course.

Can you tell us a little about your upcoming exhibition ‘On Solitary Fields’?

The new show is about remembering landscape and recreating it in the mind and in the studio with all the vagueness this entails. The Harvard neuroscientist Patrick Cavanagh says;" our visual system reflexively fills in our expressions and mood...going deeper into our mental state than any fully explicit painting could."

I could not put it better. I am interested in emotion and in getting that part of my viewers' mind to participate in the act of looking at my work.

What would your advice be to those who’d are curious but a little uncertain about trying landscape painting?

Landscape painting is as easy or difficult as you want to make it. I take students out into the fields and they start off daunted and scared of all the beauty. But just allowing the mind to run free and slosh colour around is an amazing process. Landscape is easier to paint than people. It doesn't talk back and has no ego!

On Solitary Fields will be on display from 6th-19th March 2014 at the Curwen & New Academy Gallery in Central London. Visit the gallery website for more details on the show.

Andrew Ingamells and Chloe Cheese

5th February - 1st March 2014 This month Curwen Gallery is showing the work of two very different contemporary printmakers, Chloe Cheese and Andrew Ingamells. Both printmakers are respected figures within the field and have been working with their medium for many years. Chloe Cheese, a trustee of the Curwen Print study center, has a long standing relationship with Curwen Gallery. Chloe works from the Curwen Studio using lithographic methods to create her prints.After leaving the Royal College of Art in 1976 she went on to work as an artist and illustrator. Quickly becoming well known for her distinctive work, she created a much imitated style which is instantly recognisable. She has exhibited at galleries worldwide and has work in public collections including the Victoria & Albert Museum, London and the Arts Council of Great Britain.Chloe Cheese has also worked as a freelance illustrator with clients including The Sunday Times, Terence Conran at Habitat and Commes Des Garcons Japan. Chloëʼs personal work always concerns her view of the world around her which she interprets according to her own observation and sensibility. Sometimes the first use or intention of buildings and things which have been lost or altered. She tries to retain a sense of history and how this subtly infiltrates our visual landscape. Andrew Ingamells, showing in the lower gallery, is renowned for his portrayal of architectural subjects in both the U.K and abroad. His work, although contemporary in feel, continues a tradition of neo-classical draughtmanship made popular by Piranesi and others. Born in 1956, Andrew Ingamells trained at St.Albans School of Art and the London College of Printing before embarking on a career as a graphic designer and illustrator. It was during this time that he started making drawings of individual buildings and architectural landscapes of London.

New Year / New Work

9th January - 1st February 2014 New Year/ New Work is a mixed exhibition including work from many of the artists represented by Curwen Gallery. All of the work is new to the gallery and many pieces have been made especially for this exhibition. Highlights of the show include Marjan Wouda's exceptional Crescent Monkey- a solid bronze monkey with a particularly attractive verdigris patina. He's been getting a lot of interest, not least because of a rather tense stand off he appears to be engaging in with another of Marjan Wouda's works, Hare After Tsui' Po, which is eyeballing him rather inquisitively. Other works receiving a lot of attention are a selection by Richard Walker- a long time good friend of Curwen Gallery. The Trellick Tower makes another appearance in Trellick/ Relic (also seen in Trellick Day and Trellick night from his 2011 show). The card image- Richard Walker's Sacred Spaces has recieved the most inquiries of any other work in the show, although despite all this attention is still available to buy. Another artist who has proved to be a great favourite at Curwen Gallery is Robin Richmond, who will be having her 9th Solo Exhibition with Curwen Gallery this March.She has included four works for the exhibition, giving something of a sneak preview of what her upcoming exhibition may look like. There has been a lot of excitement surrounding all of these new works by her, however one in particular has stood out from the crowd (Winter Words)(below) and divided her fans and critics. Another work, more characteristic of her style Fields in Fog, Po River(below) reminds us that Robin Richmond has not lost her touch when producing subtle, dreamlike images of semi- abstract landscapes. See http://www.curwengallery.co.uk/gallery/newyearnewwork14/title.htm for more information including prices and availability of work.