“Anne Redpath and Her Circle”: Exhibition Review
- jackieholmsartist
- Jul 29, 2023
- 4 min read
Updated: Sep 16, 2024
“Anne Redpath and Her Circle”, is showing at the Maltings Gallery, Berwick-upon-Tweed. This exhibition displays some of the works from the Fleming Collection related to Anne Redpath and her contemporaries and includes works by Redpath between 1920 until 1964, tracking her life and career from her time at Edinburgh College of Art in 1913 until her death in 1965, aged just 70.
It documents Redpath’s life from her upbringing as the daughter of a tweed designer in the Scottish Border towns of Galashiels and Hawick, to her time as a star student at the ECA, her return to Scotland after 14 years in the South of France and finally establishing herself at the centre of the Edinburgh Art scene. The exhibition provides a real insight into the Edinburgh Art establishment during the early and mid-20th century, and how it continues to educate and inspire students of Art to this day.
Readpath’s works (15 in total) are punctuated by a further 10 works by her friends, teachers and contemporaries including key members of what was to become known as “The Edinburgh School”. Numerous plaques around the exhibition document key moments and influences in Redpath’s life, including her numerous foreign travels which were a great and enduring influence on her work.
The first painting chronologically in the exhibition is a portrait of her new husband, James Michie, from around 1920. Its striking tenderness and luminosity and strong use of linear composition are indicative of Redpath’s early work, and the influence of her drawing and painting tutor, David Alison, is clear. The painting’s background depicts a decorative frieze similar to a mural she had copied from an Etruscan tomb she had seen during her scholarship travels to Siena. This was where Redpath had first encountered the Italian primitives whose influence lent a formality and structure to her subsequent paintings.
Works from this time also included “Woman Reading by Window” by David Alison, “Bank Holiday, Portobellow Beach” by David Macbeth Sutherland, and “Girl with Fruit” by Dorothy Johnstone, all of whom were Redpath’s teachers at ECA. Each of these paintings are suggestive of a strong post-impressionist influence and have yet to fully embrace the Avant-garde art movements that were taking hold in Europe and across the Atlantic at the time.
Works by Redpath’s fellow students and contemporaries (William Crozier, William Wilson, John Maxwell and William MacTaggart) are also featured, many of whom went on to teach at ECA. Notable works in the exhibition include Maxwell’s “Corner Table” (1954), a riot of luminous colour in thick impasto, and Gillies’s sinewy and stylised “Sunflower” (1955). Both works illustrative of how seismic changes had taken place in the modernist art movement in Edinburgh following both World Wars. These later works clearly demonstrate the influence of the Avant-garde, which was encouraged through travel scholarships from both ECA and RSA, and commonly used to study with leading member of the European Avant-garde including Joseph Fernand Henri Léger and André Lhote.
Redpath’s “Houses on a Hill” of 1960, the dramatic vibrant blue masterpiece which dominates the exhibition, demonstrates Redpath’s shift towards abstract expressionism echoing Fauvist colours and composition techniques. Her work now exhibiting a dynamism through vigorous multi-layered impasto, the use of palette knife and energetic brushwork which has been dripped and scraped to produce a weathered surface.
Abstracted, but not the point of being unrecognisable, Redpath felt a deep connection with her subject matter and was greatly influenced by her frequent travels. Commenting in the BBC Counterpoint film in 1961: “I do feel so concerned about the things I paint, whether they are houses or alters, I paint houses on a hillside - I would exaggerate the buttress quality of the building. Instead of having it at right angles to the Earth I exaggerate the fact that the base of it was broader than the top of it. As if it were growing out of the hill. And then to come back home and paint still life, I couldn’t paint it in a smooth way anymore I had to paint it as if it were a sort of encrusted jewel.”
Redpath’s final work in the exhibition, “Madonna” (1964), was painted in the Church of San Nicolo dei Mendicoli in Venice where she was struck by the contrast between simplicity and the extravagant trappings of devotion. This simple gouache sketch demonstrates Redpath’s interest in deep contrasts demonstrating her love of deep darks and bright highlights, the opulent lushness of the deep reds and gold contrasting against the gentle tenderness of the Madonna.
“I think an artist’s life, by the very nature and temperament of an artist, it is a life of contrasts. You would find - in the same Church for instance, which interested me - an altar which was gold and silver and purple almost vulgar in its extravagance but very paintable, but not far away from it you would get again a whitewashed wall with a bit of wrought-iron and a little black figure and I found both those things so eminently paintable.” [Anne Redpath, Counterpoint, BBC Film, 1961].
Much appreciation goes to the Flemming Collection and Maltings for hosting such an enjoyable and informative exhibition.
Anne Redpath and Her Circle runs at the Maltings Gallery, Berwick-upon-Tweed until 5th November 2023. Entry is free.
Guided Tours
1pm, last Saturday of the month until 28th October 2023.
Join art historian and Berwick Education Association tutor, Professor Maria Chester for a guided tour of the “Anne Redpath and Her Circle” exhibition, exploring her life and work and other artists from the ‘Edinburgh School’ in more detail.
Expert Lecture
“Anne Redpath - Edinburgh’s New Town Salonnière”. 7th September in the Henry Traverse Studio, Maltings, Berwick-upon-Tweed.
This two-hour lecture by art historian and Berwick Educational Association lecturer Professor Maria Chester will examine the life and work of Anne Redpath, one of the most important Scottish artists of the 20th century.
Caption image: "Self Portrait", Anne Redpath, The Fleming Collection.
Very informative. Thank you.