A new Cotswolds campaign
Stow Art Week brings together everything from kit furnishings to Surrealism and photojournalism
IN the days when The Cotswolds Art & Antique Dealers’ Association put on annual fortnights of shows, Stow-on-the-wold was predominantly a town for antiques, although it had several respected picture galleries. Now, the balance has swung the other way and it is an art centre with good antiques shops. As well as galleries, a number of artists live and work in the town and 10 dealers and artists have come together to launch Stow Art Week between September 28 and October 6.
One of them is, as it were, a crossover business, as Christopher Clarke Antiques on the corner of Sheep Street and the Fosse Way started as a furniture dealer in 1961. Now run by the founder’s sons Simon and Sean, the principal focus is on campaign furniture, the sort of things on which the British Empire sat, slept, powdered its nose, dined and wrote its reports. The dealership is one of the very few specialists in the country.
Among the ingenious kit furnishings and travel-related items, the shop often has associated paintings and prints. For this occasion, there will be a show of 18th- and 19th-century Indian paintings on mica (Fig 2), which were popular with Europeans in much the same way as photographs would become in later generations.
This chimes with an exhibition of paintings and works on paper from the Napoleonic Wars, which will be shown by Stow’s newest space, the 1793 Gallery, Mascot House, Digbeth Street. The gallery may be new, but the
owner, Simon Shore, has been dealing for more than 20 years as one of the founders of Trinity House paintings in the neighbouring Cotswold town of Broadway, as well as in London and New York.
Best known for 20th-century and contemporary paintings, his Napoleonic enthusiasms have produced this show, which includes portraits of Wellington and Ney, plus battle scenes by Dirk Langendyk and others. The highlight will be a drawing by Benjamin Robert Haydon for his painting Napoleon Musing at St Helena, in the National Gallery. The drawing was commissioned by Sir Robert Peel in 1832.
There will be two shows, or perhaps a two-part show, at the Sam Wilson shop in The Square. Sam Wilson is an illustrator, printmaker and textile artist, whose inspiration is drawn from the countryside. She also designs homewares and pottery. As well as her exhibition ‘Tales of the Countryside’, there will be daily demonstrations of printmaking techniques (Fig 3) and the shop is hosting a display of John Nash watercolours (Fig 1) and memorabilia, lent by Martin Elliott, grandson of the celebrated plantsman Clarence Elliott, and his family. Clarence became a great friend of Nash through their mutual love of horticulture and fly-fishing.
The Red Rag Gallery, 5–7, Church Street, will be showing ‘The White Wood’ series of Surrealist works by Mark Edwards (Fig 5), who lives beside Loch Hope in the farthest north-west of Scotland. There, it would seem, apart from the trout, pleasures include Waiting for the Train to Pass. Mr Edwards is also a highly successful illustrator of book jackets.
The well-regarded and awardwinning Canadian photojournalist Peter Martin has opened his own gallery at 2, Digbeth Court. There, he will exhibit his own work (Fig 4), together with fine art and documentary work from both British and international photographers. During the week, he will be showing a series of short documentaries on some of them.
Another artist who will be demonstrating her trade is the portrait painter Lindy Allfrey, in her gallery at Walton House, Sheep Street, where she has combined her living and working space; her husband, Paul, is a picture framer. The ground floor acts as a gallery for her portraits (Fig 6) and still lifes.
Square One (at No 1, The Square) is not only a gallery showing work by mid-20th-century to
contemporary artists, but the Cotswold home of cameo-glass engraver Helen Millard (Fig 7). The gallery has an impressive stock of Grosvenor School linocuts.
Fosse Gallery at The Manor House in the Square will be showing work by the local landscape painter Annabel Playfair, and by Richard Pikesley. Also in The Square, Clarendon Fine Art will show international contemporary paintings and Artysan, ‘purveyors of the art of the country’, will offer contemporary landscape painting.