Rye Art Gallery will be opening a new exhibition, called Timely Connections, showing from October 5 until November 3, featuring the work of two artists David Crew and ceramicist Tony Bennett.
David Crew has been influenced by the work of a German artist Mathias Hess (1899-1967) and includes elements of Hess’s work in his own, merging past and present.
He has an interesting story to tell about Hess, who was a prisoner of war in East Sussex, and who was able to paint in several locations through the kindness of two families that he encountered in East Sussex – one of which was David’s grandparents.
David Crew explained: “Admirably, Mathias used his enforced stay to creative purpose, producing many drawings and a number of paintings of local subjects, from Herstmonceux Castle to Rye’s Lion Street with St Mary’s church and much in between. He was encouraged in this by Harry Frost, a staff member of Normanhurst Court near Battle (the largest PoW camp in the area where Mathias was initially held) who helped him obtain basic art materials. In Harry’s words, the Frost family often entertained him at Beals Oak – their house near Wadhurst – and Mathias repaid them by making drawings of the family and of Beals Oak.
“Mathias Hess was to be one of the very few PoW’s billeted in local homes, his hosts being my grandparents, Arthur and Phoebe Crew at Glenthorne, their house on Battle Road, St Leonards on Sea. They came to own several of his paintings. Watercolours of Bodiam and Hermonceux Castle and of Battle Abbey hung in the sitting room and a large oil of Hastings Castle, sent from Germany as a gift in 1950, dominated the hall. These fascinated me as a child and would have been the first original artworks that I came to know. They had the advantage of being subjects that I could visit with my parents and so compare with Mathias’s representations, contributing to my understanding of what was artistically possible. His paintings of Bodiam and Herstmonceux castles will be shown alongside my own works in the exhibition.
“My grandfather had been severely wounded in the First World War, affecting his health for the rest of his life. Nonetheless, he and my grandmother were able to welcome someone into their home who had recently been on the opposing side. This symbolises for me the overriding importance of finding personal and cultural connections and of maintaining such links in our own fractured times. It is something that has very much been in my mind whilst making the works.
“In addition I have tried to repay the compliment of Mathias having so faithfully recorded aspects of my home county, by making four paintings based on the part of his homeland with which I am most familiar. Gazing at the landscape, one may wonder what lies beyond the nearest hill, or in this case, mountain. Here, the imagination provides possible answers.”
David Crew, fascinated with the work of Mathias Hess from his childhood, was determined to find out more about the artist who had spent time with his grandparents. On the back of a painting of Hastings Castle sent to his grandparents from Karlsruhe was a faint address and, with the help of the Stadtarchiv in Karlsruhe, he was able to find out more about the artist from newspaper articles and exhibition reviews. In one piece of information from there, David was amazed to discover that there was a drawing of Lion Street in Rye looking up towards St Mary’s and that it was in the church.
Little is known about how this picture, dated 1947, came to be in the church. Did Hess donate it to someone that he had met in the town or to the church? Was it discovered or bought and given to the church by a parishioner? The provenance is unknown but if anyone has any information about how it came to be in St Mary’s please get in touch with Rye News!
Rye Art Gallery is open every day except for Tuesday. Contact: 01797 222 433 or email ryeartgallery@gmail.com
Image Credits: David Crew , Andrew Bamji .