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
