PREVIEWS
uncle with three companions
from a Sheffield ‘Pals’ battalion.
All four died in the first assault on
the Somme in 1916 and it was
Cattrell’s visit in 1989 to the
memorial at Thiepval, to find his
name, followed by a visit to the
battlefield itself, that sparked off
multiple trips to the historic site
and a huge and compelling body
of work. The landscape feeling
captured in Cattrell’s earlier work
is a subtle and contradictory one,
the unmistakable traces of war
softened by the renewals of
nature into tranquil beauty and
apparent normality. Similarly his
later work, recording the
shrapnel and debris he picked
up on his visits, mixes ferocity
and beauty to simple,
astonishing effect. The show is
then lent a final, nice, symmetry
by the fact that it was Cattrell
who was commissioned in 2004,
by the Scottish National Portrait
Gallery, to transfer Lewis’ original
negatives (in the Imperial War
Museum) to silver gelatin prints.
An altogether lighter mood
prevails in the show at
Curwen
,
which is showing the original
paintings made by veteran
watercolourist Albany Wiseman
to illustrate Robin Ollington’s
2006 children’s book
Tommy
Atkins in the Great War
. Their
purpose was to make the story of
the war accessible for young
children and in this they succeed
admirably, humane and touching
and implicit with the sharp
humour and wit of the ordinary
infantryman.
NU
and as an infantryman in the
Royal Berkshires on the Salonika
front; on his return he feared he
might have lost his way
artistically: “Oh no, it is not
proper or sensible to expect to
paint well after such
experiences”.
However, his native Cookham
rekindled inspiration and this
show concentrates on works of
the early 1920s, depicting his
immediate surroundings as in
Unveiling Cookham War
Memorial
(his brother Sydney’s
name is on it) and beginning to
address his service in
Macedonia. Catch them at the
converted chapel gallery in his
Thames-side village until 2
November.
AA
Leaving a Trace
Before the trickle of WW1 related
shows turns into the expected
flood, a note of two more very
different shows getting in early.
Firstly, a remarkably moving
exhibition at the
Fleming
Collection
featuring the work of
distinguished Glasgow-born
contemporary photographer
Peter Cattrell, alongside the
much earlier work of George P.
Lewis – one of 16 official British
photographers to document the
war – who was commissioned in
1918 to record the role of women
in Scottish transport and heavy
industry.
Cattrell’s interest in the war
was sparked when he came
across a photograph of his great
12
GALLERIES JUNE 2014
Water Mysteries
Water is at once the most
abundant and most mysterious
of substances, formless and
shape shifting, colourless and yet
filled with light and hue. To Qin
Yuhai, a remarkable
photographer from the far north-
east of China, a land defined by
great rivers, the Amur above all, it
has been a lifetime’s subject
matter. “Water always fascinates
me and tranquillity overcomes
me every time I fix the lens of my
camera on it” he once
commented and that feeling is
very much the one that
predominates in the exhibition of
his work held at the Saatchi
Gallery this month (11 to 15
June). Entitled
Ebb and Flow
,
we are asked to ponder, as the
great Japanese photographer
Hiroji Kubota has observed “the
countless changes water
assumes in volume, colour and
shape. Only by possessing the
keenest comprehension of
Chinese culture can a person
create art of this calibre. Visitors
will marvel at the wonder water
generates and will find a sudden
love and admiration for it.”
Demob Happy?
Appropriately in this Great War
centenary year, the
Stanley
Spencer Gallery
’s exhibition
‘Paradise Regained’ looks at the
artist in the immediate aftermath
of that conflict. Spencer served
both in a Field Ambulance unit
