(1886-1964)

Barbara Collingwood Reading Casualties

Dora was the eldest daughter of the artist W.G. Collingwood, and we can see here that she inherited his talent. This painting depicts her sister, Barbara, sometime during World War I. The newspaper in her hand is delivering the daily news of the war casualties, and Dora’s depiction of her sister’s tightly clenched knuckles reveals her inner tension. Around this time, Dora married Ernest Altounyan, an Anglo-Armenian doctor. The summer sailing adventures of their five children around Coniston inspired their friend, the author Arthur Ransome, to write his Swallows and Amazons book series.

© the copyright holder. Photo credit: Lakeland Arts Trust

(1896-1983)

Bowfell from Wetherlam

Banner painted this dramatic view of Bowfell from Wetherlam in 1940. Born in Germany, he trained as an artist in England and later settled with his Brazilian wife, the sculptor Josefina de Vasconcellos, in the Lake District. It was in Cumbria that they encountered the artist and farmer Beatrix Potter, who encouraged Banner’s development as a painter. She wrote to his wife that he had obviously mastered clouds, but needed to heed her advice in order to learn how to bring light into his art. We can see here a masterful depiction of light falling over the fells, so he certainly took her advice to heart.

© the artist’s estate. Photo credit: Lakeland Arts Trust

(1880-1954)

L’homme au visage tordu (edition 7 of 11)

The title of this bronze sculpture translates from the French to “the man with the twisted face”. Derain was born in 1880 in the Ile-de-France, and originally trained as an engineer. He encountered the painter Henri Matisse, who persuaded Derain’s parents that their son’s artistic talent must be encouraged, and his engineering career was swiftly abandoned. He is regarded as one of the founders of the school of Fauvism alongside Matisse, but this piece is from a later period in his life. He began experimenting with works inspired by African sculpture, thereby anticipating the later, more famous, work of the Cubists on this theme.

© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2020. Photo credit: Lakeland Arts Trust

(1930-1993) 

Harbinger Bird II 

This ominous creature was created by Frink as part of a series of bronze sculptures. Frink was born in 1930, and spent her early years growing up near a military airfield in Suffolk during the war. The things she heard there left a lasting impression, such as German bomber planes firing overhead. Her early works are filled with a sense of apocalyptic catastrophe, and these themes resonated throughout her entire career. In this sculpture, the looming presence of the bird creates a sense of foreboding and is very much a harbinger of doom.  

© The Executors of the Frink Estate and Archive. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2020. Photo credit: Lakeland Arts Trust 

(1903-1975) 

Torso III (Galatea) 

Hepworth was a leading member of the St Ives School of artists, who lived and worked in the Cornish seaside town. She resided there for many years, initially with her husband, the artist Ben Nicholson. However, this piece takes its inspiration from the Mediterranean coast. Hepworth embarked on a tour of Greece in 1954 to recover from the sudden death of her son the previous year. Her sculptures and lithographs produced in the period after this were significantly influenced by her travels, and often have classical themes taken from the ancient world. “Torso III (Galatea)” is part of a series of three bronze torsos. The subtitle probably refers to the Greek myth of two unfortunate lovers. The beautiful Galatea was a sea-nymph, whose name translates to “she who is milk-white”. She loved and was loved by the shepherd Acis but spurned the affections of the cyclops Polythemus. In revenge, he murdered Acis with a giant boulder. Galatea transformed his spilled blood into the river Acis, which still flows on the island of Sicily. 

© Bowness. Photo credit: Lakeland Arts Trust 

(1937- 

Minaret: Ostergan 

Jaray was born in Vienna in 1937. Her family left Austria as Jewish refugees the following year when Nazi Germany annexed the country, and subsequently settled in rural England. After studying at the Saint Martin’s School of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art, Jaray won a scholarship to travel to Italy in 1960. Her exposure on this trip to Renaissance architecture would become the defining theme of her entire career. Her prints and paintings use architectural motifs to explore concepts of line and space, encouraging the viewer to fall into her art and inhabit it. This piece is a painting from which a series of prints were developed and is entitled “Minaret: Ostergan”. The optical illusion of the diminishing diamonds cleverly evokes the curve of the cylindrical tower after which it is named. 

© the artist. Photo credit: Lakeland Arts Trust 

(1907-1977)

Sinai

Born in India in 1907, Lamb later moved to London. He initially worked for an estate agent by day and studied at the Camberwell School of Art by night. After 1930, he combined work for the Oxford University Press designing book bindings with his studies at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. As his career progressed, he went on to illustrate books such as Flora Thompson’s “Lark Rise”; produce camouflage while serving with the Royal Engineers during WWII; and receive the International Philatelic Art Society Award for his stamp designs. This oil on hardboard work, “Sinai”, was painted in 1965 when Lamb was Head of Lithography at the Slade School. It was purchased by Abbot Hall in 1989, with the generous assistance of the Victoria and Albert Museum Purchase Grand Fund and the Henry Moore Foundation.

© the artist’s estate. Photo credit: Lakeland Arts Trust