Galleries - August - 2012

80th birthday show at Pallant House in Chichester, celebrating the inspiration the artist always got from Pop music. Then head east, way east, to King’s Lynn in North Norfolk, where the ever-inspiring King’s Lynn Arts Centre , now a trust and thus rescued from the maw ofa cost-cutting and largely unsympathetic local council has found a new lease of life and is putting on wonderful shows again, ‘Alla Moda: Italian Ceramics 1950s-70s’ being more than typ- ical. Finally up north, in the Lake District to be precise, the extra- ordinarily enterprising Abbot Hall Art Gallery at Kendal, is, like the Stanley Spencer, also celebrating 50 years ofvigorous and com- mitted contemporary activity with a show, ‘Francis Bacon to Paula Rego’, that looks both back, and forward to the story of British painting. 7. GALLERIES AUGUST 12 Art Scotland Quite apart from the Edinburgh Festival August really is the month when Scotland as a whole puts its very best artistic foot forward. From the Highlands and Islands to the Lowlands, dozens and dozens ofgalleries use this moment of peak tourist numbers and, hope- fully, good weather to put on ex- hibitions offine work by their leading artists and, more often than not, in the most stunning of geographical locations. It’s quite impossible to even hope to cover them all but, nothing daunted, here is our selection ofwhat we feel to be some of the more not- able ones you might aim to try to catch . . . Let’s start our tour in about the remotest and almost furthest north spot we can find, the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides where art- ists David Greenall and Ruth O’Dell have, in recent years, start- ed opening their home/studio ( In House Gallery ) to visitors on a regular basis. We told the inten- sely romantic story oftheir artistic background and the way they fin- ally found their way to the island 21 years ago in our March 2012 Antennae column, so it is enough to say simply that, ifyou find your- selfon the island this summer make a point ofaiming for the remote, beautiful and paradox- ically named hamlet ofSouth Dell on Lewis’s northern tip, where you will discover David’s shimmering landscapes and Ruth’s intensely sensitive bird and figure studies a proper reward for your efforts. Back on the mainland we head south-east now for Findhorn on the lovely shores ofthe Moray Firth where the ever enterprising Moray Arts Centre is putting on one ofthe most interesting Olym- pic-oriented shows I have yet to come across. Entitled ‘Masters & Champions – Classical Greece: 300 years ofBritish Inspiration’, the Centre has borrowed sub- stantially from both the British Museum and the private collection FESTIVAL EXHIBITION a changing exhibition by gallery artists 4 - 25 August 2012 The Leith Gallery 65 The Shore, Edinburgh, EH6 6RA T: 0131 553 5255 info@the-leith-gallery.co.uk Open Mon-Fri 11am-5pm, Sat 11am-4pm or by appt www.the-leith-gallery.co.uk ‘Snowmelt, Sutherland’, Peter Goodfellow ‘Ghost in the Machine 3’ Frank To

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