With a little help from Taylor’s Tea of Harrogate, the Stanley and Audrey Burton are trying something a little different this summer. For the first time, they’ll be throwing their doors open to the public on Saturday afternoons.
About time, too, say we at digyorkshire.com – we’ve long been admirers of the work the team at Stanley & Audrey Burton do in showcasing the University’s fantastic, extensive collections for the public at large. Now those of us not within an easy lunch-hour’s walking distance from the Uni can pop in and enjoy the exhibitions - and indeed, the beautiful Uni campus - at leisure.
Fittingly for this initiative aimed at strengthening the bond between the gallery and surrounding community, the summer exhibition features a trio of Yorkshire artists, in the exhibition A Malham Family of Painters: Constance Pearson, Philippa and Katharine Holmes.
It’s something of a Ronseal exhibition, really, in that the title tells you all you need to know: three women, each of successive generations, all based in Malham, and all painters. The three women all respond to the stunning landscapes of Malhamdale in their own ways, though there’s a veneration, a sense of the Wordsworthian Sublime that cascades down the generations as a literal familial resemblance.
One can trace the development from Constance Pearson’s early depiction of Malham Cove, with thick slicks of oil brutally layered onto the canvas in a manner which may seem clumsy if it weren’t so effective in bringing the vista to dramatic three-dimensional life, through Philippa Holmes’ gentler, but still striking, treatment of the limestone gorges of Malhamdale. Katharine Holmes’ depictions of the same literally subsume the landscape that provides their muse, with blades of Malham grass providing sweeping curves in her near-primitive abstractions.
The curation is touchingly sensitive to the familial ties between the three painters, with one particular trio placed together to show the three women’s intimacy with a particular space that connects them: the pantry at the High Barn Cottage where they all, at one time or another, have been resident.
It’s well worth a look in – and if you head down on 11 July, 18 July, 1 August, 15 August, they’re throwing in a cuppa, courtesy of Taylor’s.