Power of Place: painting

Showing posts with label painting. Show all posts

Thursday, 6 April 2017

Antonia Monson

Dartington years 1973 -1976

Antonia was born in London in 1959. She grew up in Berkshire but loved South Devon where she was educated at Dartington Hall School. She went on to study painting at Bath Academy of Arts and later spent time in Italy before settling in the Cotswolds. Here she lives and paints from a deep connection with the local landscape , fused with memories of rural Tuscany .

Saturday, 22 March 2014

Fiona Green
Dartington years 1958-1960

Lilies - oil crayon on paper

White still life - oil on board

Fiona spent a year studying textiles under Susan Bosence after her time at Foxhole and subsequently went on to Bath Academy of Art.

After graduating she dedicated the next 40 years of her life working with some of London's most disadvantaged children and ended up being in charge of a Service of 50 teachers in

Southwark, working - often using art - to re-educate and help children and their families.

Saturday, 16 June 2012

Liz Elmhirst

Dartington years 1960 - 1965

Still life, watercolour on paper

Image copyright Liz Elmhirst

Friday, 18 November 2011

Exhibition

Sophy White

Dartington Years 1975 - 1977

Three earth paintings by Sophy White from her new collection that will be on show in Tavistock, Devon from Monday 28th November to Friday 9th December at THE WORKS Gallery, 3 Dolvin Road, Tavistock PL19 9EA

Opening hours 1 - 5.30pm daily except Sunday

Image copyright Sophy White

Monday, 3 October 2011

Hein Heckroth

Dartington years 1935-1940

Still life, Oil on board c1935

Heckroth trained at the Bauhaus but was blacklisted by the Nazis because his wife was Jewish. He sought refuge at Dartington and not only taught at the School but he was the artist and designer attached to the Ballet Jooss School. Kurt Jooss, the German dancer and choreographer, had similarly needed to escape Nazi Germany and had arrived at Dartington a year before Heckroth. He is most famous for his work on Powell and Pressburger's film The Red Shoes for which he won an Oscar (1948).

Thursday, 29 September 2011

Mark Sontag

Still life by Mark Sontag.

Sontag came to Dartington in the thirties with his wife Irenie,the piano teacher at Aller Park, and taught art.

Thursday, 23 June 2011

Annabel Gault

Dartington Years 1963 - 1966

Mesa and Sage Bush, New Mexico

Landscape New Mexico

Image copyright Annabel Gault

Friday, 10 June 2011

Roger Birchall

Dartington Years 1973 - 1984

The Blue Lady after Tretchikoff

Image Copyright Roger Birchall

Tuesday, 24 May 2011

Josh Partridge

Dartington Years 1953 - 1959

Long Dean. No 1, 2007 Watercolour and Gouache

Gwilym with Two Cows, 2003 Watercolour and Gouache

Image Copyright Josh Partridge

Thursday, 19 May 2011

Rachel Nicholson

Dartington Years 1945 - 1952

View with Bird Cup

Acrylic on canvas, 2010

Image copyright Rachel Nicholson

Tuesday, 17 May 2011

Inigo Batterham

Image copyright Inigo Batterham

Monday, 2 May 2011

Lee Belcher (Godfrey)

Dartington Years 1946 - 1954

Charlbury under Snow

Sable antelope, Malawi

Image copyright Lee Belcher

Monday, 11 April 2011

Benedict Pulsford

Dartington Years 1972 - 1974

What was I supposed to do?

Only girls understand

Paintings, enamel paint on board, by Benedict Pulsford

Image copyright Benedict Pulsford

Friday, 18 March 2011

Stephen Collingbourne

Dartington Years 1950 - 1960

“There should be nothing you’re not allowed to do.”

In the frame

Blue Pool

Above Below

Rhythm in Blue

Monday, 7 March 2011

Rachel Nicholson

A new monograph of Rachel Nicholson, daughter of Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson, by Dr Alan Wilkinson (published by Sansom)

Saturday, 5 March 2011

Maria Ruhe

Dartington Years 1961 - 1967

Life drawing, ink

Maria taught painting and pottery at Aller Park.

Tuesday, 25 January 2011

Roger Birchall

Dartington 1973 - 1984

'Moving to the North East has surprised me by its combination of natural grandeur and a post-industrial landscape that has stimulated my increasing desire to “just paint”. The steep sided dales, the miles of stonewalls, the light and the man-made geography are very exciting and to my delight I am starting to get things finished.

It occurs to me that over thirty-five years late I am completing some of the opportunities that were put in front of me at art school.'

Image copyright Roger Birchall

Thursday, 20 January 2011

Anna Raven

'My painting is about a synthesis of the experience of the land in which we live with the inner landscape of the self. I am committed to finding a visual equivalent for our internal landscape as seen and experienced in our external world. Having finally achieved the ambition of living on the West Coast of Scotland I have now embarked on a process of submission. I want the place to work on me so that I can find a voice to represent what it has to say. '

Image copyright Anna Raven

Monday, 10 January 2011

Liz Elmhirst

Tuscan landscape, Watercolour

Image copyright Liz Elmhirst

Saturday, 8 January 2011

Sarah Whittington

African scene, Watercolour

Sarah also has a lovely B&B in Totnes so if you're in need of a bed at the reunion in September.....

http://www.dartvillasbb.co.uk/

About us

Power of Place

The Power of Place project, led by artist and ex-Dartingtonian Alice Leach, was set up in 2010 to celebrate the cultural legacy of Dartington Hall School 1926 – 1987.

Part of a unique social experiment, Dartington Hall School was in the vanguard of progressive co-education. Founded by Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst, the school was central to the Dartington Venture – widely regarded by Victor Bonham-Carter as ‘the most important private enterprise ever undertaken in the economic, social and cultural rehabilitation of a rural area’.

Dorothy was the guiding spirit behind the school, having played a leading part in progressive education in America, but Leonard’s unhappy memories of his education at Repton School and his experience working for Rabindranath Tagore in his ‘community’ in W. Bengal, helped cement their joint vision.

The original concept was a school without buildings, where the estate and surrounding countryside were to be looked on as the ‘classrooms’. ‘I want the thing to grow quite naturally out of our own home life and never to mention the word school from the start,’ wrote Leonard. It was to be a school that was ‘prepared to break with a number of outdated, but often unquestioned, traditions from the past.’ All the full-time workers on the Estate were regarded as members of staff, and expected to contribute to the ‘joint adventure’ in learning. Instead of a headmaster there was an education committee.

This initial experiment, between 1926 and 1930, represents one of the most radical attempts of the 20^th Century to break down the boundaries between learning and life. As numbers increased both within the school and on the Estate it was clear that this approach had to change.

W. B. Curry, the first ‘Director of Education’, appointed in 1930, was convinced that progressive education would usher in a ‘Brave New World’, producing saner humans capable of solving political problems without war. Writing in 1934, in his book, The School he explained, ‘A modern school is one which recognizes that the social order must be radically changed if civilization is to survive at all, and which also recognizes that education will have perhaps the most difficult and the most important part to play in the changes which must come about.’

Among the 20th century’s leading private patrons of architecture, the arts and education in England, Dorothy and Leonard saw the arts as integral to their vision and wanted artists to contribute to the education of children at the School. Dorothy was particularly passionate about them, arguing ‘if at Dartington we aim to provide a full and balanced life, then it is essential to include the arts.’ Not surprisingly the School became a Mecca for imaginative parents including Jacob Epstein, Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson, Aldous Huxley, Sir Clough Williams-Ellis and Bertrand Russell.

In the thirties, Dartington became a vibrant, virtually international artistic centre with many cultural refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. Hein Heckroth, designer to the Ballet Jooss, who trained at the Bauhaus, but was blacklisted by the Nazis because his wife was Jewish, Cecil Collins, the painter, and Willi Soukop, the Austrian sculptor, were all resident at the Hall. Naum Slutzky, who also trained at the Bauhaus, taught metalwork to a youthful Lucian Freud. Bernard Leach and his son David taught pottery and the American Abstract Expressionist Mark Tobey was the school’s resident artist.

Other departments were equally international. Kurt Jooss and Sigurd Leeder brought their dance school from Essen to escape the rising tide of Nazism. Michael Chekhov, a Russian refugee, was invited to set up a Theatre Studio and Hans Oppenheim, assistant conductor at Glyndebourne, was asked to initiate some opera. ‘By any standards it was an extra-ordinary set-up – the first highly professional arts centre of its kind in England. Sadly the outbreak of war brought it to an end…’