Victoria Art Gallery - Bath

Victoria Art Gallery, Bath.

Located next to the Pulteney Bridge, the gallery houses a collection of paintings, sculpture and decorative arts. Unfortunately, we missed the Toulouse Lautrec exhibition which was going to start shortly, but we nevertheless, had a good time looking around. We started with their small collection of studio pottery.

James Tower, Oval Form

James Tower, Bowl, 1958

Lucie Rie, Long-necked vase, 1960

Eddie Curtis, Pot

Howard Hodgkin, Silence, 1997 and 2004

John Armstrong, Psyche Crossing the Styx, 1925

William Scott, Bottle and Fish Slice, 1949

Howard Hodgkin, Untitled (Reclining Woman), 1950

Walter Sickert, London Street, Bath, 1941

Paul Klee, Small Harbour Scene, 1919

William Roberts, The Dressmakers, 1931

Glyn Warren Philpot, The Pearl, 1914

Joseph Southall, Children at Play, 1920

John Nash, Canal Bridge, Sydney Gardens, Bath, 1927

Frank Brangwyn, Sketch of Two Figures, 1895

The Lichfield clock, mid-18th century. 

Peter Randall-Page, Solid Air III, 2010

Kenneth Armitage, People in the Wind, 1950, (bronze) front

the back of the sculpture

Taut, streamlined shapes. The long necks of the four figures recall the stalks of a plant growing at Armitage's studio door. He explains however, that the sculpture is concerned primarily with movement.

'If you look at a crowd, you do not count the arms and legs, you just see odd arms swinging and the odd leg moving...  looking out of the window on a very windy day I saw a woman walking, holding two children, all three leaning against the wind, and this gave me an idea. I started making tiny maquettes with, I think three figures with long necks'.

side

E. Whitney Smith, The Scarab, 1924