Galleries - June 2013

Forgotten Victorian masters, open studios, re-evaluated 60s artists, top-notch gallery shows – it’s all going on at the moment. Just to give it some shape and order let’s start at the far south- western end ofthe region in Winchester and work our way round eastwards. There one of the cathedral city’s longest established commercial galleries, Minster, is mounting a very lively looking Summer Show, featuring this month the vivid abstract work ofthe London based French artist Marc-Antoine Goulard together with a very good overview ofthe wide range of artists, both figurative and abstract in character, which the gallery always has in stock – Heath Hearn, Raziye Palmer and Margaret McLellan are just some ofthe names that caught my eye. While you are in this part ofthe world, do make an expedition to the lovely small town ofAlresford, just 6 or 7 miles east of Winchester, up the Itchen Valley, where the Jane Fuest Gallery shows a really strong selection ofcontemporary paintings, ceramics and sculpture. Ifit’s the latter you’re particularly interested in, you could always make a slightly longer journey to another small riverside town, Stockbridge on the River Test where, despite the place’s obsession with all things angling-oriented, the Garden Gallery outside the town has a special focus this month on contemporary stone sculpture for cross-section ofhis key pieces. Not far east again from here and you are across the border into East Sussex. Head down south to the delightfully arty town ofLewes where painter Ann Johnson is showing her bold and colourfully semi- abstract landscape and garden pieces at the Hop Gallery , a handsome space in the old Star Brewery. The other particular feature of this show are the new poem cards she has produced in collaboration with the Anglesey based poet Fiona Owen, for whose new book, ‘A Screen of Brightness’ (itselfa collaboration with another poet Meredith Andrea) she has recently done the front cover. Now continue further south-east again, right down to Udimore near Rye, where the gifted and prolific printmaker Brenda Hartill , is opening her beautiful home and studio to show a wide variety ofwork from some 30 years, over two June weekends (15-16 and 22-23) as part ofthe Northiam & Rye (Two Valleys) Art Trail. With the gardens ofGreat Dixter nearby what a nice expedition that makes . . . A major event in the eastern region this month is Goldmark Gallery ’s show ofR.B. Kitaj’s prints; with the British Museum, Pallant House and the Jewish Museum’s current major exhibitions ofKitaj’s work doing a great deal to restore a reputation that had been somewhat in decline since his death in 2007 (following some severe critical maulings), this is a splendid opportunity for collectors to get in on the moment. Kitaj was always a superb, virtuoso printmaker and the 100 or so examples Mike Goldmark has brought together show clearly why he is regarded as such. Finally, to coincide with the Aldeburgh Festival, Fulham gallery owner Piers Feetham holds his annual show of paintings, sculpture and ceramics at his home in the seaside town. Nicholas Usherwood the garden. Now, moving eastward into Surrey, we find the diversity really clicking in – whoever said it was suburban and commuter- oriented? Key event here is the Surrey Artists Open Studios annual ‘open house’ event which happens over the three central weekends of June, viz 8-23, and in some cases at weekdays in between as well. With 146 individual sites, some with multiple studio spaces, this probably means something like 170-180 artists spread right across this often surprisingly beautiful and remote county. To help you focus there is a really comprehensive website with an interactive map (see their listing for details). Meanwhile for something very different, the wonderfully refurbished Watts Gallery at Compton continues its excellent special exhibition programme with a show dedicated to a great forgotten Victorian, Frank Holl RA. Holl was a leading light of the Social Realists of the 1870/80s whose images were based on realistic observation and avoided the melodrama and stereotyping of earlier generations – his Newgate; Committed for Trial one of the great masterpieces of the movement. Turning later to portraiture he was so successful that he literally worked himself to death by 43. This is the first retrospective of his work in a century and shows a great 24. GALLERIES JUNE 13 art in the SOUTH & EAST A nn Johnson ‘Striped Pot’ Hop Gallery