Galleries - October 2014

could there be than this exhilarating and ever-developing place. Dora Holzhandler A painting by Paris-born, London-based artist Dora Holzhandler (b.1928) was much admired by Victor Pasmore, a visiting tutor, when she studied at the Anglo-French Art Centre in the late 1940s. Since then there have been numerous exhibitions of her enchantingly childlike yet intuitively sophisticated paintings. Dora Holzhandler: A Celebration is the title of both her Goldmark Gallery exhibition (until 25 October) and an accompanying publication (edited by myself). Maureen Lipman writes, ‘There are recurring themes of chequered borders, water, children, flowers all suffused in warm light but never twee or kitsch because they are so full of wit and tenderness.’ Matthew Sturgis rightly emphasises that ‘in Holzhandler’s work . . . the divine may be ever present, but it is rooted in the human.’ In Sister Wendy Beckett’s words, looking at Holzhandler’s luminous art, ‘one feels a delight almost of recognition . . . This is a precious gift in our confused and violent world.’ Philip Vann National Museums of Scotland and Crafts Council, the most significant collection of 20th Century jewellery in the country. I knew about their world-class contemporary painting, drawing and ceramic collections, all housed in the most striking of contemporary purpose-built spaces but, until a recent press release announcing the opening of a brand-new permanent Jewellery Gallery this month, I had no idea they also had holdings of well over 100 pieces and all, remarkably enough, put together since 1984. That of course is well before MIMA opened (2007), the collection being started by the Cleveland Art Centre. Most of the big names in contemporary jewellery going back to the 70s are here – Ted Noten, Wendy Ramshaw, Caroline Broadhead, Karl Fritsch, Emmy Van Leersum and Felieke van der Leest among them – to which have recently been added, to mark the launch, some 15 pieces donated by one of the big new names of the last decade, Tatty Devine. This fresh gallery means that all 100+ pieces can be displayed together for the first time in what the Institute describes as “an interactive space that uses state of the art digital technology and films to bring jewellery alive.” With an image of industrial decline and economic hardship clinging stubbornly to the view the South East still has of Teesside, what more remarkable refutation of it ANTENNAE Continued 12 GALLERIES OCTOBER 2014 editorial space tends to be on solo shows and special exhibitions, we rarely give them the kind of attention they really merit. Take, for example, Anthony Hepworth, Bath-based for many years now, whose latest series of ‘Pictures from Private Collections’ this October includes the most stunning group of five Keith Vaughan canvases. Recently acquired from an Australian collection, they are of terrific quality, the star to my mind being Bathers at Highgate II, a picture previously believed to have been lost. Hepworth always retains a very soft spot too, understandably enough, for Christopher Wood and this show contains a couple of beauties, most notably his Dahlias in White Jar, Treboul 1929, a work given to the celebrated galleriste and collector Lucy Wertheim in 1930 and in the family ever since. Along with works by Hitchens, Clough and Frink, this is a show full of visual treasure – and pleasure. Public Treasures The sheer richness and variety of the holdings in this country’s regional museums and galleries never ceases to amaze, with surprises arriving on my desk on an almost routine basis. Like, for example, the fact that MIMA (Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art) has, alongside the Victoria & Albert Museum, Peter Chang ‘bracelet 2007’ at MIMA Dora Holzhandler ‘Nigel (Kennedy) in Autumn’ at Goldmark Gallery