If you love art I would recommend a visit to the Jerwood Art Gallery in Hastings Old Town. The outing is well worth it. There are two exhibitions by different artists and some pictures from their collection.
Unknown Countries exhibit at Jerwood Gallery
Prunella Clough’s “Unknown Countries” runs until Wednesday July 6. I particularly liked her figurative depiction of fishermen and their work environment.
Prunella Clough (1919-1999) found beauty in the mundane and joy in the industrial landscape. The new retrospective of her work celebrates Clough’s early industrial and later experimental work. Director Liz Gilmore says: “We are highlighting the two major elements of her artistic practice and for Unknown Countries we have sourced works from right across her career, with the earliest piece from 1944 to one that she completed two years before she died in 1999.”
The second exhibition is a display of self-portraits collected by the writer Ruth Borchard (1910-2000) “The Painter Behind the Canvas”. These wonderful portraits, (a very interesting idea) are exhibited alongside other paintings the artists created that are held in the Jerwood Collection. There are 100 British self portraits in the Borchard Collection, the majority of which are from 1950s and 60s, capturing artistic influences from Camden Town, Expressionism. This exhibition includes artists such as Maggi Hambling, Michael Ayrton, Alberto Morocco and others.
2011 at the Jerwood Gallery
Ruth Borchard fled Hamburg, Germany in 1938 as a Jewish refugee and settled in Reigate, Surrey. She wrote to artists and asked if they could send her a painted portrait of themselves which many supplied and she started collecting them. One particular painting of the artist Maggi Hambling more than impressed me, it was extraordinary.
“The Painter Behind the Canvas” exhibition is in association with Piano Noble Gallery/Robert Travers and is on until October 9.
Don’t miss this interesting viewing.
Photos and details provided by Jerwood Gallery