Sussex Modernism: Retreat and Rebellion

Brilliant exhibition at One Temple Place looking at the artists and writers who settled in Sussex in the first half of the 20th century.

The core of the exhibition was based on the collections of various Sussex museums and houses such as Charleston Farmhouse, Farley Farm, Ditching Museum of Art and Craft, Pallant House and many more. However it was enhanced by lovely loans from other galleries and museums. I have been to three of these annual exhibitions of items lent by regional galleries and this was the best curated one. It built a good narrative rather than just being about slightly random objects.

If you follow my blog you’ll realise that this exhibition was right up my street and full of old friends. It was fascinating to see objects from Charleston in a different setting, and in fact I had been there the Saturday before and tried to work out what was missing! Thank you for the wonderful hang of Grant’s Venus and Adonis behind his Leda and the Duck chest as I realised the visual link between them for the first time.

The section on Eric Gill and the Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic was interesting and I loved the two grass rollers! It was also good to see surrealism included both via Edward James, loved the carpet with footprints on it, and Roland Penrose and Lee Miller.

I loved the section upstairs on religious art bringing together Grant and Bell’s work on Berwick Church with Hans Feibusch and Graham Sutherland’s work for Chichester Cathedral and Eric Gills religious work. 

Closes on 23 April 2017

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