It is rare for a creative artist to work in the privacy of his garden shed, in a challenging medium, and almost entirely for his own pleasure, but such a one was the slate-carver, John McKenzie. His day job was working as a steward in the Petty Officersí Mess aboard H.M.S. Condor, the Fleet Air Arm Training School at Arbroath, Angus, on the east coast of ScotlandÖ. It has been said that sculptors can be divided into two categories – whittlers and modellers. McKenzie definitely falls into the former, as he was clearly never happier than with a knife or some other cutting or engraving tool in his hand; rejecting wood as too soft, perhaps too feminine, he sought for something more challenging and settled on Welsh slate, a hard and obdurate material. The small body of work he produced, probably not more than a hundred and fifty pieces in total, form a unique record of the dreams as well as the everyday genteel world of this working-class Phidias from Glasgow who, after his fatherís death, moved to Arbroath with his mother, living with her for the remainder of her life.

Victor Hume Moody created timeless images of an Arcadian idyll at a time when most artists had turned their backs on the classical tradition. The centuries old heritage of Western art was too inspiring and too valuable for him to simply abandon. Over a working life of nearly 70 years he tirelessly researched and worked to revive traditional painting techniques. At the same time he created a unique fusion of classical figure composition and the pastoral English landscape. Very little survives of Victor Moodyís thoughts on art and he published nothing to explain the evolution of his distinctive and idiosyncratic style of painting. His daughter Catherine Moody, who took over from him as Head of Malvern School of Art, felt that he had expressed ì… all that he wished to convey through his brush and not with the supplement of verbal statement.î

Ziegler was born in London in 1903 and studied at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. He subsequently (from 1927 to 1930) studied at the Royal College of Art under William Rothenstein, whom he recalled as a lively and inspiring Principal.
After leaving the RCA Ziegler taught drawing and painting at St. Martin’s School of Art (where he was a visiting instructor for Figure Drawing and Painting) and Art History at Morley College in London and for the Worker’s Educational Associa-tion. His work was widely reproduced in publications including Illustrated London News, Country Life, Architectural Review, Master Builder, Architecture Illustrated, Studio Artist, Courier, London Mercury Leader, Bookman and The Artist. His Royal Academy exhibits (which between 1931 and 1970 numbered 12) were mostly of his locality: Chelsea in the 1930s, Hendon and Hertfordshire in the 1940s and Hampstead from the 1950s onwards. In the final year of his life, 1971, Ziegler was given an exhibition at Kenwood House, London ñ the first living artist to be so honoured

This is the first exhibition of Kettering-based artist Walter Bonner Gash since his death, some 83 years ago. While Gash’s ceuvre is full of the period charm that might be expected from the decades that bridge either side of the Edwardian era, his pictures consistently offer something more substantial. His genre paintings bring to mind those of Charles Spencelayh but they display a less predictable and less laboured narrative. As a landscape painter he painted en plein air with relish; he excelled in the medium of pastel. According to his daughter, portraiture was the genre he enjoyed most. His portraits are consistently striking, moving impressively from conversation pieces, such as I. elegant and engaging family group of c.1919, to the tradition of Swagger portraits which recall those of Gainsborough, Lawrence and Sargent. For an artist who died before he was sixty, it is striking that his most memorable images are amongst his last. It is hoped that Walter Bonner Gash: Unsung Edwardian Hero will firmly re-establish Gash’s reputation and demonstrate that his talent stands comparison with those of the better known Kettering artists.

Stanley Lewis (1905-2009) was reluctant to sell his art during his life-time. He kept all his major works. He later gave some to museums. He turned down offers from galleries, preferring to work without constraints, choosing to eam a much needed regular income through teaching (over 10 years at Newport School of Art and 22 years as Principal of Carmarthen School of Art). His work is highly distinctive and he remained faithful throughout his life to a graphic and stylised manner developed early on in his career. Perhaps the most enduring aspect of his legacy is the remarkable cycle of paintings exhibited at the Royal Academy celebrating Welsh subjects: The Welsh Dresser, The Welsh Mole Catcher and The Welsh Farmer. Stanley also strongly identified with the land: on the one hand his calling to art was a vocation; on the other his approach was disarmingly unpretentious.

Had Raymond Sheppard lived beyond his mid 40s his reputation as one of the foremost illustrators of his generation might have been secured ñ his premature death resulted in his name sinking into obscurity for half a century. Only his prolific career as an illustrator (nearly 100 childrenís books in the single decade following the end of WW2) has prevented his name from disappearing altogether and secured him a credible place in the standard reference works of the period. What has never been appreciated before is the remarkable diversity of Raymond Sheppardís oeuvre. Aside from his more familiar studies of wildlife his studio has revealed a series of remarkable portraits, thrilling boyís-own period illustrations, plein air seascapes, landscapes, views of the Thames and surreal compositions, which at times verge on abstraction

This exhibition, which was five years in the making, was the largest commercial show of Brangwynís work ever undertaken. Our aim was to represent every aspect of Brangwyn’s
remarkable oeuvre in the belief that the range and diversity of his talent has never previously been fully appreciated. For too long he has been known simply as a muralist or a painter or print maker. We want him to be seen in the round: a man whose self-stated raison díÍtre was ëa mission to decorate lifeí .

Printmaker and draughtsman, Robert Austin was born in Leicester. He studied at the School of Art there and at the Royal College of Art, 1914-16 and 1919-22, winning the Rome Scholarship for engraving in the latter year. He taught engraving at the Royal College of Art, 1927-44, becoming Professor in the Department of Graphic Design, 1948-55. He showed with RWS, of which he was a member and President; RE, of which he was a member; and the RA, to which he was elected in 1949. Austin was a meticulous craftsman-engraver and a vigorous draughtsman, as his series of drawings of Women’s Auxiliary Air Force and ballooning activities done during World War II shows. The Tate Gallery holds his work.

Mahoney’s aims as artist and teacher were of a similar nature to those of the early artist-craftsmen such as Giotto. Teaching, for him, was not just a means of earning a living; it was a calling to which he devoted a major part of his life and an enormous amount of physical and nervous energy. With his appreciation of history he may have been able to afford to take a long view of the development of style, but he was passionate that students should learn their craft from the bottom up. Provided the skills were passed on the future was assured. Just as good gardeners propagate and plant for the future. Mahoney, through passion and zeal, nurtured and encouraged those students who were sympathetic to his approach to history and art.

Lawrence Gowing describes Monnington as a compositional master in the tradition of the great Tuscan and Umbrian fresco painters and quotes lohn Lessore, former pupil, as saying: ‘If anyone ever understood composition, he did, and so drawing, the volume and movement of which he explained geometrically, not in terms of measurement and surface realism: the appearance was always subordinate to the underlying structure… Every pencil mark tells us a bit more about this unique character, the extraordinary originality of his mind, every period of his life ñ the Slade. Italy, the early portraits and murals (House of Commons. Bank of England). the ceilings. the Stations of the Cross, the abstracts, every period makes its own contribution. Only in this way can we grasp the size of his mind and how it evolved and absorbed such an astonishing range of experience, art and life, all perfectly connected and related.

Winifred Knights exhibited her work with reluctance, and a retrospective exhibition of her major paintings would total seven in number. She worked inordinately slowly, with consummate care: nothing in her work was left to chance, everything was prepared and thought out. Her reluctance to exhibit was not related to strong self-criticism, indeed the opposite would be true: her son John remembers her total confidence in her work.
She attended the Slade School of Art, London, from October 1915 to July 197, when she won the Second Prize for Figure Drawing. During this period she began to be recognised as an outstanding draughtswoman. In 1920 became the first woman to win the prestigious Prix de Rome.