Houghton Hall

Ace of Diamonds III, etc

Ace of Diamonds III - 1986-1996, Stainless Steel

As far as I remember, my first encounter with Lynn Chadwick was a year or two ago at the Sainsbury Centre Sculpture Park at the University of East Anglia, where Lion I, Beast Alerted I, and Crouching Beast II were among the collection of arresting and dramatic sculptures that feature in the grounds surrounding the Sainsbury Centre.  

Lion I - 1990, Stainless Steel

While I knew nothing about the artist, I was fascinated by the way he had created forms from sheets of metal that seemed to have life and character.

Beast Alerted I - 1990, Stainless Steel

My second encounter was earlier this year, through Farley Farm and Lee Miller, where the tall Lynn Chadwick appears in a photograph entitled The Classical Greek Sculpture arrives at Farley Farm, c 1956. Roland Penrose and Lee Miller hosted many artists at their home in Sussex, including Paul Éluard, Henry Moore, Max Ernst and Pablo Picasso, and it was amongst a group in the garden that this sculptor appeared.

Crouching beast II - 1990, Stainless Steel

These sculptures won't be seen in Norwich again until October, as they are currently part of a major exhibition at Houghton Hall, organised by the Houghton Arts Foundation, supported by Pangolin London and the Estate of Lynn Chadwick.

As with Stephen Cox last year and Antony Gormley the year before, the exhibition is staged across the house and grounds at Houghton Hall, with over thirty works representing the largest show of Lynn Chadwick's creativity since his retrospective at Tate Britain in 2003, the year of his death.

The works vary in size, style and material, but Jubilee IV sets the tone as they stride to greet you outside the Stable Block.  The male head is rectangular, the female's triangular, but they step out with their cloaks flapping and flowing behind them, as alive as statues can be....

Jubilee IV - 1985, Bronze

You then find yourself threatened by a Large Barley Fork which for me has something of the fizz and snap of Gnasher from The Beano, though I hope the Chadwick family will forgive this irreverence, as I am sure that the artist had a great sense of humour among his other attributes......

Large Barley Fork - 1975, Bronze

Then, calmly seated in front of the house, we find another couple, like the pair we initially met on entrance, but this time immaculate in stainless steel, reflecting the sky and the grass, and posing in effortless grace as should be the case in such a setting....

Sitting Couple on Bench - 1990, Stainless Steel

Sitting Couple on Bench - 1990, Stainless Steel

In contrast to other famous British sculptors of the twentieth century, for example Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore, Lynn Chadwick's works are built up on a framework of straight rods, which he then clad with sheets of metal or metallic materials.  Chadwick was not a product of an Art School, but trained and worked as an architectural draughtsman.  

He then served as a pilot in the Fleet Air Arm in the Second World War, which experience almost certainly informed his eye for design.

Rising Beast - 1989, Stainless Steel

After the war, having moved to Gloucestershire, he produced textiles, furniture and architectural designs, and then started exhibiting mobiles.

Howling Beast I - 1990, Stainless Steel

Then, in 1952, he was one of a group of sculptors who exhibited in New Aspects of British Sculpture at the Venice Biennale, where he then went on to win the International Prize for Sculpture in 1956, ahead of Giacometti who was favourite.

Little Girl, Little Girl II & Little Girl III - 1987, Bronze

Little Girl, Little Girl II & Little Girl III - 1987, Bronze

As a result of his success at Venice, and following the acquisition of his piece, Inner Eye, by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Chadwick was able to buy Lypiatt Park in Gloucestershire, a dilapidated medieval and Tudor Manor House, which became his home until his death in 2003.  

The Watchers - 1960, Bronze

In the 1990s, Rungwe and Claude Kingdon, bronze founders, took up residence in the coach house at Lypiatt and created a foundry for Chadwick's works.  This relationship led to the creation of the internationally renowned Pangolin Editions, which is now based just four miles from Lypiatt.

Sitting Figure - 1962, Bronze

The Park is now the home of Daniel Chadwick, Lynn's son, and is also the address for Imogen Snell and Riccardo Castano's creative design enterprise Isstudio, which has organised music or fashion campaigns for Madonna, Dua Lipa and Jamie XX.....

But I digress. As Sarah Chadwick writes in the foreword to the exhibition catalogue, This exhibition at Houghton Hall is a unique opportunity to showcase [her] father's work..... whether in the park, the church, or in the house. 

Here are the Three Elektras, which, under the passing glance of the exhibition's host, David Cholmondeley, 7th Marquess of Cholmondeley, seem to be quite at ease in the Stone Gallery....

Three Elektras - 1969, Bronze

Chadwick's figures are extraordinary representations of life. As he himself said, no expression is an expression, and we are drawn to imagine life through the dynamism and attitude of these steel or bronze figures, whether human or not. I hesitate to say more, as my words cannot describe the effect these sculptures may have on another viewer, particularly as they reflect the ambient light and seem to shift with the sun. Please visit, and see for yourself. The exhibition is on view three days a week until October 4th this year, and more information is available on the Houghton website, https://www.houghtonhall.com/whats-on/lynn-chadwick-at-houghton-hall

White Deer Circle - Richard Long

But Lynn Chadwick is not the only artist on display.  Within the park and the walled garden there are a number of installations by well-known figures in the art world.  Three Antony Gormley's stand atop the walls of the wonderful garden.....

Domain CXI - Antony Gormley

Domain CXIII - Antony Gormley

With an infinite vista stretching away to the west, Bristolian Richard Long (b 1945), who installed the White Deer Circle above (surely with a nod to the Seahenge at nearby Holm?) and who filled the Stone Hall with stones (North South East West) here in 2017, has laid a circle of slates to reflect the full moon over the parklands..... [Methinks you exaggerate?  Ed]...... (and well I might....)

Full Moon Circle - Richard Long

And if you seek it out, you will find Ryan Gander (b 1976) - self described as a sort of neo-conceptual no-style-style amateur philosopher - has placed a steely glitter ball.....

More really shiny things that don't mean anything - Ryan Gander

Among the vegetation not far from Chadwick's Rising Beast

Rising Beast - 1989, Stainless Steel

And within the walled garden you can marvel at the burning waters of Jeppe Hein's Waterflame:

Waterflame - Jeppe Hein

But then the five acres of walled gardens, divided into several different sections, created in 1991 as a memorial to Lord Cholmondeley's grandmother, Lady Sybil, are a delight whenever you visit:

And if you are quick, you can even pick and take home your own sweet peas.....

But then, it is not possible to deny that Lynn Chadwick is the star of the show this year.....

Crouching Beast II - 1990, Stainless Steel

Jubilee IV - 1985, Bronze

Mobile - 1952, Steel rods and shapes

Ace of Diamonds III - 1986-1996, Stainless Steel

Thank you to all those involved.... It has been a delight.....

Sitting Couple on Bench - 1990, Stainless Steel

And to the artist

*****

And, if I may, I would like to dedicate this piece to the memory of David Hockney, in memoriam the art of seeing.....

*****

Spirit of Place

Far Horizons

The other day, on my Thames Path Walk, I stopped briefly at Kelmscott Manor, the summer home for many years of William Morris and his entourage. 

Kelmscott Manor

It is a peaceful place, its old stones and leaded windows giving it a dignity that is then gently upheld by the unpretentious gardens.

In keeping with the charitable aim of my walk, I remember the visit here in 2013 that I made with my wife, Amanda.

Amanda was fond of the designs that Morris, Burne-Jones, Webb and Rossetti produced under the general umbrella of the Arts and Crafts movement.  

But perhaps I was more interested in the collective efforts, the dynamic of such groups of people who shared ideas and thoughts and inspired art that was essentially something to be lived with..... 

Red House, Bexley heath

I may be wrong [You often are.... Ed] but I have found visiting the homes of writers and artists (too many to mention, but for example, W B Yeats's Thoor Ballylee, Dylan Thomas's Boat House, Hardy's Cottage, Shaw's Corner and Henry Moore's Perry Green, T E Lawrence's Clouds Hill and New Place in Stratford-upon-Avon..... As well places abroad such as Thomas Mann's Buddenbrookhaus in Lübeck or Leopardi's House in Recanati.... [As you said, too many to mention.... Ed].....  Yes, I have found that visiting the homes of artists, writers and musicians (Elgar's, Britten's, Palestrina's.... I could go on [You do.  Ed]) gives me more of an idea of their lives and inspiration that any amount of academic research, [Lightweight!  Ed].

Kelmscott House, Hammersmith

William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow

But this, however, is/was merely a preamble to the recent trip we made to Sussex, to follow up an exhibition of the work of Lee Miller at The Tate....

My point is, perhaps [You don't know?  Ed] that open communities of people with similar interests can be very fertile ground for developing ideas.  It is true that some artists and writers work best in isolation (and need much undisturbed time to get to grips with their creations) but, I think, it is rare that such people don't also enjoy conversation and socialisation and contact with others.  An example might be Joyce in Paris, where he would work scrupulously through the mornings, but then frequent Les Deux Magots, or such haunts, for white wine (which he called electricity) and company later in the day.

However, before we track down Lee Miller at Farleys, we visit Charleston, which in 1916 became the home of Vanessa Bell with her friend and lover Duncan Grant (and his partner David Garnett), who, as conscientious objectors, sought farm work and a place out of London.

Charleston in Firle, East Sussex

They never bought the 16th century farmhouse, but rented it continuously until Grant's death in 1978 (Vanessa Bell died in 1961).  In between the wars they returned to London, but used it as a retreat and holiday home.  At the start of the Second World War they returned here permanently.

The Bloomsbury Group, which included Vanessa's sister Virginia Woolf, as well as the artist Roger Fry, frequently met here and it would have been buzzing with experimental thinking and alternative ideas. My late friend, the novelist Simon Mawer, was fascinated by the life of the place and was working on a novel set here when he died prematurely last year.

Right from the start, Bell and Grant decorated every room with their art work - not just paintings, but also textiles, ceramics and furniture.  Now preserved by the Charleston Trust it is today a place where visitors may appreciate the ambience as it was but may also enjoy exhibitions or take part in a year-round calendar of festivals and events.

The studio is especially interesting - though it was an add-on and is in need of repair now. It has a real sense of being lived in and used, and it is almost as if it is only temporarily without a practising artist.....

Outside, the gardens are another work of art, with a naturalness that goes well with the informality of the house.

Anyway, after a breath of air and some wonderful views from nearby 217 metre high Firle Beacon:

Looking north from Firle Beacon - Charleston is off to the right

The horizon stretches beyond our vision, teasing the imagination, befuddling the focus - we head to Farleys Farm.....

Farleys House, Muddles Green, Chiidingly, East Sussex

As the website for Farleys House & Gallery (Home of the Surrealists) says, The exterior of Farleys House gives no hint of the visual excitements to be discovered within. You will find brightly coloured walls, rambling corridors and generously proportioned oddly asymmetric rooms filled with a remarkable and eclectic collection of artworks, all of which provides the visitor with a glimpse into the remarkable lives of its former occupants Lee Miller and Roland Penrose.

Farleys House, Muddles Green, East Sussex

All of the above is true, though you can only visit the ground floor, and photography is prohibited, so I cannot share with you the variety of exhibits nor the range of rooms, from Lee Miller's custom-built kitchen (towards the end of her life she became a cordon bleu chef) to her own book-lined study, but, thanks to the Farleys Team, this is the Dining Room, a part of the original farmhouse,

Fireplace, Farleys House, East Sussex, England by Tony Tree (j13a)

Tony Tree © Lee Miller Archives, England 2026. All rights reserved. leemiller.co.uk

and this is a corner of the sitting room:

Sitting Room Farleys House, East Sussex, England by Jim Holden (JH 0278)

Jim Holden © Lee Miller Archives, England 2026. All rights reserved. leemiller.co.uk

The tour is fascinating - but the legacies of Lee Miller, one of the twentieth century's most remarkable photographers (she was, among many other things, a brilliant fashion photographer in New York but then also an extraordinarily tenacious and risk-taking war photographer in the Second World War, capturing the fall of Hitler's Eagle's Nest in Berchtesgaden, and being amongst the first to enter the concentration camp at Dachau) and that of her husband Roland Penrose, an artist in his own right, but also founder of the ICA and biographer of Picasso..... These are closely guarded and, with reason, so are the art works within the house.

And the gardens, including Lee's own herb garden, are a treat.....

And within sight of the Long Man of Wilmington on the northern slope of Windover Hill, there are some interesting exhibits which I was allowed to photograph....

Including this Sea Creature, the creation of Antony Penrose, the son of Lee Miller and Roland Penrose, who is still resident at the Farm.

Sea Creature, 2000, Oak and Lead, Antony Penrose

It was a delight to meet Antony, whose books about his mother include The Lives of Lee Miller:

  Lee Miller's War:

and Lee Miller: Photographs:

Antony was charming and welcoming and clearly loves the interest people are taking in his family and his home.  I am very grateful to him for granting me permission to use these snapshots:

Antony Penrose

I don't think I am misrepresenting history by saying that the relationship between Lee and her son could have been better during his childhood, but then not everyone's mother can be described as: Photojournalist, war correspondent, model and Surrealist muse.... one of the most important women photographers of the twentieth century.....  And not only that, when you read about her life, particularly during the war and immediately afterwards, it is exhausting just to read about it!  Imagine what it must have been like to live it? Not many could have stood that pace, that stress, that pressure. And then to marry and have a child?  Settling down can not have been straightforward.

Tony was born in London in 1947, but in 1949 they all moved to Farleys, where he grew up largely supervised by Patsy Murray, the daughter of Lee and Roland's housekeeper and cook. While the house was often alive with famous guests (Picasso visited twice, but friends and connections included a Who's Who of contemporary artists) it wasn't until he was an adolescent that he grew to know Lee better. In the sixties, as he describes in The Lives of Lee Miller, things began to improve: he had escaped from school and home early and after some years in engineering found he missed the cows and the land too much, so began to study farming. Absence from from home for long periods while he worked on other people's farms  helped heal the breaches. Gradually he and Lee became more tolerant of each other.  Whenever he brought friends home, Lee was as welcoming and hospitable to them as she was to her own guests.....

Antony Penrose

Then, in 1971, Tony embarked on a three year round-the-world trip, returning in late 1974 with his New Zealand born wife, Suzanna, and setting up home and starting his own family nearby. Sadly, however, despite the new-found closeness, Lee was diagnosed with cancer, and she died on July 21st, 1977.

*****

Ours was an inspiring trip, in a lovely part of this world.  I feel I understand Lee Miller a little better for the visit, and, when subsequently we called in at the 18th century Six Bells Pub in Chiddingly, where Lee had taken Vogue models  as well as guests such as Picasso, Man Ray and Max Ernst, I felt even more as if she was still around. The pub is a friendly delight and really has not changed much over the years. It was almost as though time had paused, and something rare was in the air.....

The weather was perfect, and afterwards we walked on the South Downs Way, near the Seven Sisters, with the land, sea and sky all distinct but interacting, each an important part of the view, contributing to something both awe-inspiring and at the same time harmonious.  It was not hard to imagine how it was once, and how it may be again.....  My horizons have been extended, I think.....

I like the phrase Spirit of Place (genius loci) - which Lawrence Durrell used as a title for some essays and letters about places he loved in Greece and the Aegean. It refers to the character of a location and melds the physical features of a place with its cultural aspects and human connections. Here, at Charleston and then at Farleys, though I cannot pretend to know much about the people who came and went through these spaces (John Maynard Keynes? OK, I should know, but it's all a blank.....) I feel the frisson of an imaginative world, and come away feeling somehow the better for it......

*****

For more details about Charleston please see:

https://www.charleston.org.uk/house/

and for more about Farleys this is the link:

https://www.farleyshouseandgallery.co.uk/farleys-house/

And should you like this and would like to know  more about William Morris, please see my earlier piece at:

https://www.richardpgibbs.org/2013/06/feeling-william-morr-ish.html

*****

With very many thanks to my autista and compagna.

*****