Galleries - November 2019

ARTicle this month’s news L O S T & F O U N D “Choosing every day to be completely lost – often happy lost” is how Naomi Frears describes the process of painting for her. In her latest series of work at Beaux Arts London this month she depicts a variety of enigmatic human forms who do indeed also seem lost in their own worlds. Continuously re-worked, each painting can take Frears years to complete, using an editing process as if it were film (she is also a filmmaker) – framing, moving, removing and introducing new elements with paint. Naomi Frears is St Ives based, working out of a studio that was previously occupied by Francis Bacon who thought it “the best room in St Ives.” OF THEIR TIME 'Pre-Raphaelite Sisters' at the National Portrait Gallery gives considerable new insight into how society 179 years past let the seminal movement emerge and prevail, and how the 'Sisters' were a central part of the masculine artistic political movement that aimed to 'overturn the conventions of Victorian Art’. The exhibition demonstrates how there was a dependency of the perceived male genius on the interaction with an extraordinary group of women as much dedicated to and instrumental in the movement as their peers. Looking at any original artwork gives a connection with the artist that is unique and revelatory, here many items brought together from around the world and shown publicly for the first time, are a prime example of this. . . . fountain of youth Opening an art gallery is an aspiration of many and gallerists will attest, that once open, sustaining the momentum becomes an act of faith. In 2000 Andrew Blyth bought a modest space from the National Trust at no 26 Bridge Road, East Molesy and put into practice his vision of how The Fountain Gallery might survive and even prosper. Recruiting artists, now 20 of them, to share running costs and management tasks in return for a two week exhibition slot of their own, the space has been filled year on year with a variety of works and shows – exhibitions that draw local residents and those vistors to Hampton Court who venture across the adjacent River Thames to Bridge Road, lined by cafes and independent shops complementing each other and the gallery itself. Happy 20th anniversary Fountain. Like Father Like Daughter May Morris was the youngest daughter of William Morris, in her own right a significant artist in the British Arts and Crafts movement of the early 20th century. She described herself in a letter to George Bernard Shaw in 1936: “I’m a remarkable woman – always was, though none of you seemed to think so.” Now a major exhibition at Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh at the end of the month will show over 80 textiles and drawings in ‘May Morris Art and Life’. John Everett Millais ‘Sophy Gray’1856, private collection above : by Andrew Blyth below left: Naomi Frears ‘Come in Darlings’ below right: May Morris ‘Maids of Honour’ (c) William Morris Gallery