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In the gallery
Sep. 16th, 2008 09:23 pmTuesday morning we breakfasted with the relief nurse: when the Shapinsay nurse is away, she comes over from Rousay for the three midweek days, and a colleague who lives on Mainland covers the four-day weekend. I suppose eventually you become accustomed to the casual nature of this island hopping. Certainly the ferry back to Kirkwall was as straightforward as a commuter bus journey, if rather more pleasant (always bearing in mind that we were very lucky with the weather).
We spent most of the day in Stromness; it's a very agreeable town to wander about in, and I wanted to visit the Pier Art Gallery. It's a gallery I've loved since my first visit to Orkney, not so much for its collection as for its setting. It has a fine collection of modern - that is, what I think is still called "modern" - British art, but I'm not particularly modern in my tastes. The building, though, was once the offices and stores of Hudson's Bay Company, very plain and simple interiors, running down to the harbour with - like many of Stromness's harbourside buildings - its own pier. So a Barbara Hepworth sculpture could be displayed in a small, deep set window, framed by the white walls but with the sea behind it. I love sculpture in landscape, and this comes as close as an indoor gallery can. Since our last visit the gallery has been dramatically extended, and the new building has one entire wall of glass looking out onto the harbour.
The other charm of the collection is that the heart of it is just that, one woman's collection. Margaret Gardiner was a friend of many of the artists whose work she bought, especially Barbara Hepworth and Ben NIcholson. Many of the pieces are accompanied, on the descriptive label, by her comment on what it is, and how and why she bought it. I liked her account of visiting an artist (not a name I recognised, and I've now forgotten it) and saying "Everyone tells me what a good paimnter you are, but I can't see it." He replied that she needed to live with one of his paintings for a few months, unhooked one from the wall and sent her home with it. And, she explained, he was quite right, and after a few months she couldn't bear to part with it, so she bought it, and here it was.
Some of the descriptions, however, come from a different source: children from the local primary schools have also been invited to suggest what some of the works might represent. This is more successful with the purely abstract works. Works which actually do represent something are liable to fox the children: this Paolozzi collage of an oil lamp, for example (probably my favourite piece in the collection), was described as two people facing each other in profile - up to a point. But Barbara Hepworth's 'Group III (evocation)' - there's a clearer picture here, but mine has the advantage of showing it in situ - is another matter. Margaret Gardiner's note explained that it is one of a sequence of works resulting from Hepworth's visit to Venice, and observing the groups of people in St. Mark's Square. Willie Deans of class 2, however, saw it as "the Hamnavoe in the water going by the standing stones." He wins.
And at midnight we caught the ferry to Shetland.
We spent most of the day in Stromness; it's a very agreeable town to wander about in, and I wanted to visit the Pier Art Gallery. It's a gallery I've loved since my first visit to Orkney, not so much for its collection as for its setting. It has a fine collection of modern - that is, what I think is still called "modern" - British art, but I'm not particularly modern in my tastes. The building, though, was once the offices and stores of Hudson's Bay Company, very plain and simple interiors, running down to the harbour with - like many of Stromness's harbourside buildings - its own pier. So a Barbara Hepworth sculpture could be displayed in a small, deep set window, framed by the white walls but with the sea behind it. I love sculpture in landscape, and this comes as close as an indoor gallery can. Since our last visit the gallery has been dramatically extended, and the new building has one entire wall of glass looking out onto the harbour.
The other charm of the collection is that the heart of it is just that, one woman's collection. Margaret Gardiner was a friend of many of the artists whose work she bought, especially Barbara Hepworth and Ben NIcholson. Many of the pieces are accompanied, on the descriptive label, by her comment on what it is, and how and why she bought it. I liked her account of visiting an artist (not a name I recognised, and I've now forgotten it) and saying "Everyone tells me what a good paimnter you are, but I can't see it." He replied that she needed to live with one of his paintings for a few months, unhooked one from the wall and sent her home with it. And, she explained, he was quite right, and after a few months she couldn't bear to part with it, so she bought it, and here it was.Some of the descriptions, however, come from a different source: children from the local primary schools have also been invited to suggest what some of the works might represent. This is more successful with the purely abstract works. Works which actually do represent something are liable to fox the children: this Paolozzi collage of an oil lamp, for example (probably my favourite piece in the collection), was described as two people facing each other in profile - up to a point. But Barbara Hepworth's 'Group III (evocation)' - there's a clearer picture here, but mine has the advantage of showing it in situ - is another matter. Margaret Gardiner's note explained that it is one of a sequence of works resulting from Hepworth's visit to Venice, and observing the groups of people in St. Mark's Square. Willie Deans of class 2, however, saw it as "the Hamnavoe in the water going by the standing stones." He wins.
And at midnight we caught the ferry to Shetland.
