Landscape Artist of the Year 2019 - Exhibition

Today, I finally visited the Landscape Artist of the Year 2019 Exhibition at the Clarendon Fine Art Gallery in Dover Street in London - and learned about aspects of the exhibition which are very beneficial for those who exhibit

It was impressive - particularly the exhibit of artwork by the winner and Landscape Artist of the Year - Fujiko Rose. (Facebook)

Artwork by Fujiko Rose

The exhibition includes artwork by semi-finalists and finalists. Of these artists, three artists have sold out and others have sold most of their work. More of this below.

I've uploaded images of the exhibition to an album on my Making A Mark Facebook Page - which anybody can see. Some of the images can also be seen below.

Things I noticed at the Exhibition

Llanthony Priory by Fujiko Rose

Fujiko Rose and Cathy Reddy (Facebook) both SOLD OUT. Both work in monochrome on paper - using ink and linocuts respectively.  Interesting! Who would have predicted that

Cathy Reddy's Linocut from Episode 1

James Murch's submission entry to the competition

Of the painters the most successful artist in percentage terms is James Murch who also sold ALL his work as well.

Patsy Moore and Sue England also sold some but not all their five artworks.

Commissions are, to my mind, what decides who wins the title and all the commissions were large and had a lot of impact - but Fujiko Rose's commission (priced at £5,000) was both stunning - and has sold!

What was also fascinating about her work was the paper she was working on - which was really interesting and looked handmade. I think it might be printmaking paper.

Things I learned at the Exhibition

Paintings by Sue England and Patsy Moore

The Clarendon Fine Art Gallery is a partner of Sky Arts. They

• do a lot of the marketing and generate a respectable level of visitors - and buyers - to the exhibition
• frame the artwork for the artists
• do NOT take any commission for sales - which is a major benefit to anybody who makes it to the exhibition. 

Sales by Fujiko Rose totalled £10,500!  This is on top of the £10,000 commission of Venice for RIBA - so that a very good result for entering an art competition.
There will be no tour of the exhibition around the UK - so the exhibition is now finished.

More about Landscape Artist of the Year 2019 

This is my post about the Call for Entries: Landscape Artist of the Year 2020 (6th Series).

The deadline for submission of your digital entry is 17th April 2020 - and entries are now being accepted online. 

Below is more about the episodes and learning points from Series 5 and Series 4

Edward Bawden at Dulwich Picture Gallery - last few days

The exhibition about Edward Bawden at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in South London finishes on Sunday 9th September - and if you've not seen it yet and can do so, I urge you to get along to the Gallery to see it.  It's a fabulous exhibition.

I saw it this afternoon with Felicity House and we enthused our way around the show - finding lots to like and lots to marvel at in terms of how he worked and what he produced.

Edward Bawden, Untitled landscape with sunset, 1927, 
watercolour on paper, 
Private Collection, Photo: Mark Heathcote, 
© Estate of Edward Bawden 

If you can't get to see the exhibition, but are interested in Bawden, the alternative is an excellent exhibition catalogue which you can either buy from

• the Gallery at full price (as I did this afternoon)
• the Gallery's online shop - at full price - which has lots of very nice images of pagespreads
• Amazon - at a discount

Below is less a review of the exhibition and more an assortment of notes - about both the man and the artworks we saw. (Plus news of another exhibition about Bawden at the end)

First a few notes about Edward Bawden - not from the exhibition but rather from online sources which you can investigate at your leisure.

About Edward Bawden

Edward Bawden RA CBE (1903-1989) is hardly an unknown or forgotten artist. Born in 1903, he enjoyed a long and distinguished career as graphic designer, illustrator, watercolourist, war artist, printmaker, teacher and patron of the rts. When he died at the age of 86, a retrospective of his work had opened at the Victoria and Albert Museum

So starts the exhibition catalogue

Below is a video about Edward Bawden (in his home) first broadcast on Anglia TV when the artist was 80. It includes Bawden talking about his art - including comments on his view about the absence of a distinction between fine art and commercial art

He describes himself as a pattern maker and says he has no sense of form and could never have been a sculptor

He studied at Cambridge Art School and the Royal College of Art, was taught and mentored by Paul Nash at the RCA and was a member of the Bardfield set which included Eric Ravilious.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED as a key to understand his interests and how he worked



You can find out more about him on the following links:

• Edward Bawden | Wikipedia
• Edward Bawden | The Fry Art Gallery  - lots of pics plus a biography

Edward in his studio by his friend and contemporary Eric Ravilious

About the exhibition

This brief video previewed the exhibition



This is a brief video about the exhibition - and you can see the works hung in the exhibition



These are the exhibition reviews

• The Spectator | Edward Bawden is deservedly one of Britain’s most popular 20th century artists by Martin Gayford - 
• The Economist | How Edward Bawden modernised the watercolour - Florence Hallett provides very large images of some of the works in the exhibition
• The Independent | Edward Bawden, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, review: Good wallpaper for the adult nursery - a very snotty 2 star review by Michael Glover who seems to have a habit of sneering at anything representational and who obviously no appreciation of drawing or the quintessentially English nature of this artist. Small wonder as "art critic" seems to be his side line....

The exhibition is not based on a time line - instead it has themes.

The exhibition is divided into sections focusing on:

• World Off Duty
• Gardening
• Spirit of Place
• Portraits
• Architecture
• Fable & Fantasy

Review - Society of Wildlife Artists 53rd Annual Exhibition

The Annual Exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists at the Mall Galleries was absolutely packed at the Private View with those enthusiastic about wildlife art - and there were lots of sales as a result.

• The exhibition continues until 6th November at the Mall Galleries (10am-5pm).
• If you mention "Making A Mark" at the Gallery Front Desk you can get free entry for two people to the exhibition (normal price £6)

There are 351 works in the show - all the works are for sale, and many of the artists can (and are) commissioned. (I spoke to one very popular artist with a two year waiting list for commissions!). There is a fair range of different types of paintings, drawings, fine art prints and sculpture as always. This exhibition is always a delight to see what people can do when using different media. I very often see better exponents of the use of a medium at this show than I do at the exhibitions of art societies that specialise in specific media.

Private View of the 53rd Exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists

SWLA Annual Exhibition 2016 Catalogue
Hare and Goldfinches Cover by Andrew Haslen

What's excellent about the exhibition is that the art is representational but for the most part does NOT have an emphasis on the hyperealistic which can become very boring when an exhibition lacks variation in style.

Instead what we see is art made by people who spend a lot of time observing their subject matter and understanding how it lives/works/moves and then translating that knowledge into art - rather than creating a 2D artwork out of a 2D photograph.

I saw lots of drawings and studies - which often make buying artwork more accessible.

Below you can:

• see images of the exhibition
• find out who won the prizes - and what their artwork looked like
• find out about the projects which the SWLA is involved with - the drawings and paintings from these were also on display in the exhibition.

In fact it's very refreshing to see an art society that is active and thriving that it needs all three galleries to be able to cover its activities and the work of its members and those submitting through the open submission

Sculpture is always a big feature of the SWLA exhibition
These scrap metal pieces are by the SWLA President - Harriet Mead

The feature wall end of the Main Gallery - plus hares and small elephants!

The Fry Art Gallery and the Great Bardfield Artists

We visited Saffron Walden recently and discovered the Fry Art Gallery which is open from April to the end of October each year. 

The gallery provides a home to artwork by artists known as the Great Bardfield Artists who are also the subject of a recent publication - Bawden, Ravilious and the Artists of Great Bardfield. 

The book of the exhibition | V&A Publications

On display at the Museum are some of the paintings, prints, wallpapers, books, fabrics and ceramics created by the Great Bardfield art community between 1930 and 1970. 

At present there are two exhibitions - closing very soon (25th October) - which cover:

• From Eric Ravilious To Grayson Perry - to mark the 30th anniversary of the opening display of the North-West Essex Collection in the Fry Art Gallery
• The Art Of Acquisition - The Great Bardfield Artists' Houses - about the interior of the houses

Watercolour paintings by Edward Bawden and Eric Ravilious

Eric Ravilious Submarine Series
Lithographs - done while he was working as a war artist

Angie Lewin and the making of 'Nature Table' (video)

Angie Lewin's website

As many people know I'm besotted with the portrayal of trees, plants and flowers in art - and I'm also eclectic in my tastes as to the way in which they are portrayed.

One artist whose drawings and paintings of plants has been catching my eye on a very regular basis in the past few years is Angie Lewin. 

Her delightful graphic artwork and designs are probably familiar to many given that her designs for greetings cards can be found in many retailers across the UK

Inspired by both the cliff tops and salt marshes of the North Norfolk coast and the Scottish Highlands, I depict these contrasting environments and their native flora in wood engraving, linocut, silkscreen, lithograph and collage. These landscapes are often glimpsed through intricately detailed plant forms.
Angie Lewin - about my work

She's an elected member of:

• The Royal Society of Painter Printmakers (2006) 
• The Society of Wood Engravers ( 2008) 
• The Art Workers Guild. (2010)

To me she's a really excellent example of an artist who has managed to combine her fine art painting and printmaking with commission work for clients and a commercial process for monetising her art - via printmaking for wallpaper, fabrics, cushion covers, greeting cards, notecards and notebooks.

Angie Lewin is also a hard worker as is evident from her website links to her prodigious output in terms of:

Fine Art

• Watercolours
• Current print editions
• Sold out editions

Commercial applications

• Collages
• Textiles & wallpaper
• Ceramics
• Illustration and books
• Her book, Plants & Places

Below is a video by St Jude's Prints (founded by Simon and Angie Lewin in 2005) of the process Angie Lewin uses to:

• collect objects for her artwork - with tough boots, a backpack and a very big sketchbook being important parts of her toolkit when working plein air
• create arrangements in her "to die for" studio (want, want want!)
• the process of cutting and creating a lino print

Current and upcoming exhibitions 

• Until 31st August 2014 - Towner - Eastbourne - as part of 'Designing The Everyday' Find out more
• Until 31st August 2014 - Scampston Hall - Yorkshire - with Mark Hearld and Emily Sutton
• October 2014 - Cambridge Contemporary Arts - Cambridge
• May 2015 - The Scottish Gallery - Edinburgh - a solo exhibition of my watercolours
• Summer 2015 - Sarah Wiseman Gallery - Oxford

You can also see her prints at the following galleries

• The Scottish Gallery - Edinburgh
• Yew Tree Gallery - Cornwall
• Cambridge Contemporary Art - Cambridge
• Yorkshire Sculpture Park - Wakefield
• Hayletts Gallery - Maldon
• Sarah Wiseman Gallery - Oxford
• The Castle Gallery - Inverness
• Bankside Gallery - London SE1
• Godfrey & Watt - North Yorkshire
• Pallant House Gallery - Chichester
• St. Jude's Prints - Online

The linocut adventure begins............

These found their way into a carrier bag on Wednesday after a visit to Cornelissen's (of which more tomorrow). I had a go at using the linocutting tools and my right hand (the one with the bad case of tenosynovitis) didn't instantly protest...and so....

• next I need to work out what I'm going to use for the ink (it's Schminke water-based ink)
  
• then I must finish reading my book about linocutting (OK - three books!)
• plus find a suitable image to try for the 'beta test'
• practise drawing as if for a linocut
• after which I'm hoping I'll be able to get the hairdryer out to warm up the lino very soon.........

For those who know about these things did I leave anything out? I've got (from the right moving clockwise)

• a set of linocutting tools
• a sharpening block
  
• different sized lino
• three tubes of Schminke linoleum waterbased printing ink
  
• a roller for the ink (a brayer?)
• a wood baren with a felt bottom