Johnny Messum Archives - The Stray Ferret

State of the art: Harrogate’s boom in independent galleries

If you have wandered around Harrogate, you may have noticed a boom in the number of independent art galleries in the town.

In recent years, at least three have launched, including Messums Yorkshire, Watermark Gallery, and Bils and Rye.

And this is in the addition to the established galleries in the town, such as the Mercer, Silson Contemporary, RedHouse Originals and York Fine Arts – to name but a few.

All have proved to be a major draw for both artists and collectors, with many placing an emphasis on promoting Northern talent.

Silsen Contemporary Art Gallery, based at Sarah Collier’s home on Harlow Oval.

Liz Hawkes, director of Watermark Gallery, which opened on the historic Royal Parade in March 2020, said:

“I think there are lots of reasons why Harrogate is great for art. There is the town’s antiques and art heritage.

“There’s also Yorkshire’s art heritage. From Hockney to Hirst, you have got very well-known Yorkshire artists. This area is very well-served by local artists who love to come here and paint, because it’s so beautiful.

“A lot of people also love to visit Harrogate and it’s a very affluent area, with lots of residents who like to buy art.”

Liz, who owns the gallery with her husband Richard, said all the galleries in the town offered something completely different, from ultra-modern contemporary art to traditional Victorian watercolours.

She said:

“You’ve got some fabulous galleries. Each have their own identity.

“We have 57 artists across all media, which is the main point of difference for us.

“Not everybody is always in the market for a painting, but you might pop in for some ceramics or jewellery.

“I think the other thing about us is accessibility. We have really focused on making this gallery accessible to all people. So many people find galleries intimidating.”

Liz explained that art had become more accessible than ever in recent years thanks to the Own Art scheme. The national initiative makes buying contemporary art and craft affordable by providing interest-free credit for the purchase of original work.

The Watermark gallery is holding six exhibitions this year, with the next, Off the Beaten Track, featuring Yorkshire ceramicist Michele Bianco and Scottish-based Swiss painter, Pascale Rentsch, planned in March.

A number of workshops, courses and lectures will also take place in the studio space at the back of the gallery.

The Watermark Gallery.

Liz said:

“I think the days of dusty old galleries have gone. The modern gallery is one where things are happening. It’s interactive and fun.”

Johnny Messum, director of Messums Yorkshire, also known as Messums Harrogate and Messums North, agrees that the town is a perfect location to showcase artistic talent.

After an extended stay on James Street following a successful temporary pop-up exhibition in 2020, Messums is moving out of the building at the end of this month.

However, the contemporary art dealer is hoping to find another location in Harrogate and is currently looking for a new site.

Photograph: @messumsyorkshire, Instagram

He said:

“We really want to stay, we just need to find the right venue. We hold very good relationships with our collector base here and have a strong presence in Yorkshire.

“Harrogate is a great place to act as a lightening rod for drawing attention to creativity in the area.”

Johnny said the quality of the art and the number of galleries in Harrogate attracted to people to the town, with many collectors making a special visit.

The gallery’s most recent exhibition, Routes North, has just come to an end, which brought together multiple artists whose work reflects the variety and vibrancy of the region, from Knaresborough to Newcastle.

The exhibition represented the first presentation in the North of this programme, which has been championing emerging talent across Messums sister galleries in London and Wiltshire for the last five years.

It’ also set out to prove that that all roads don’t lead to London when it comes to the quality of work and artistic talent.

Johnny said:

“What’s driving the future of our stay in Yorkshire is that the creativity of the art produced in the area is really exciting.”

Work by Jill Tate and James Thompson at the Routes North exhibition. Photograph: Messums Yorkshire.

Pret A Manger set to arrive in Harrogate

The Harrogate district’s first Pret A Manger looks set to open.

The Stray Ferret understands the sandwich shop franchise will open on Harrogate’s James Street in the unit currently occupied by Messums Yorkshire, a gallery curated by artist Johnny Messum.

It is not yet known precisely when Pret will open but it is believed to be some time in March.

Besides sandwiches, Pret is also known for coffee so its arrival will add to the wide range of options available for caffeine fans.

The landlord of the unit was not available for comment but a well placed source told the Stray Ferret that Pret would be arriving soon.

Photograph: @messumsyorkshire, Instagram

In the last six months, James Street has seen numerous retail units open and close; Hotel Chocolat opened a cafe in October; this was followed by a new yoga studio Ebru Evrim arriving in the former Laura Ashley building. Harrogate Discount Store is due to close this week.

Pret currently has over 450 cafes in England, with 310 of those in London. Currently, the closest to Harrogate is in Leeds.

StrayArt with Johnny Messum: Photography

StrayArt is a monthly column written by Johnny Messum, Director and Founder of art gallery and centre, Messum’s Wiltshire, London and Harrogate. Johnny’s passion is for contemporary art and sculpture.

Each month he will look at art, exhibitions and events across Yorkshire and sometimes further afield with the aim of guiding and inspiring us.

Considering photography requires a shift in the understanding of what we would ordinarily consider as images. We often think of photography as the pursuit of truth and realism and forget that the process of making photography involves much more creativity than meets the eye.

In fact, as we now know all too well, photographic images do not always speak the truth – certainly that is the case in some of the famous doctored images that have been used to present ‘reality’ in the news agenda.

However, luckily, we are not dealing with those issues today. We are dealing with the question of creativity and originality in the photographic image, and for that we need to start with the maker. That is the artist who is behind the lens.

Often with photography, because we are so caught up in the image, we forget that the person behind the camera is not only capturing the frame in terms of what can be seen, but also creating the composition. Perhaps we should start to think about the different techniques by splitting them first into digital and analogue. Digital has given us one of the greatest creative expansions of photography, so much so that the unique originality of images taken with Polaroid and other analogue techniques was considered dead. In fact, that has proved not to be the case at all. They have resurged and now there is a vibrant and exciting artisan scene using Polaroid and even tintype, which is the earliest form of photography

Gin Bottles, photographed by Tiff Hunter

Tif Hunter is perhaps one of the most extraordinary photographers working today. He not only carved out a career in analogue perfectionism in the advertising photography world of the 1980s and 1990s, but also perfected the historical technique of tintypes, and more recently mastered the art of digital technology to create still lives of exceptional beauty. Their beauty speaks to us most strongly when we think about how his photographic images are so inspiring in their details and composition. It is the sense of time captured which really turns them into an art form that deserve an appreciation of their own.

Once Covid restrictions are lifted, and you find yourselves in Bradford you could step into the National Science and Media Museum (formerly the National Museum of Photography) which is dedicated to the understanding of how photographic images are made.

Tiff Hunter’s tintypes will be on show at Messums Yorkshire in 4-6 James Street, Harrogate from 20 March to 1 May 2021. Paintings of Yorkshire – many of Harrogate – painted outside in January 2021 by Peter Brown, President of the New English Art Club opens on 20 March. www.messumsyorkshire.com. While current restrictions are in place, the next exhibition, In Arcadia by Henry Lamb R.A., will be available online from 4 February to 13 March.

StrayArt with Johnny Messum: Painting Outdoors

Each month he will look at art, exhibitions and events across Yorkshire and sometimes further afield with the aim of guiding and inspiring us.

En plein Air painting was a game changer in the sensibilities of Western art. Some of our greatest and most celebrated works of art – think Van Gogh, Monet, Pissarro, Sisley are part of that idiom. Yet it has a refreshingly practical origin that led to the flowering of an entire and enduring art genre. Up until the 19th Century paint was ground and mixed – ideally by an assistant and normally by yourself in a laborious process, in fact this had largely been outsourced to professional mixers who supplied pigment in pigs bladders, an improvement but with obvious limitations.

The advance of mechanics and science led to an American painter John Rand coming up with a means of storing and delivering paint via a zinc tube that could be squeezed, capped and crucially manufactured on a smaller scale to make pigment transportable. Who could have foreseen that convenience and science would sow the seeds for such remarkable flowering of art that continues to this day? The art world had seen nothing like it. Suddenly paintings could be painted “En plein Air” colliding with a rampant affection for the bucolic set fire in this country by Wordsworth and Coleridge and in France by Hugo and Baudelaire.

Painting en plein air in this country started with and is maintained by the New English Arts Club, a revolutionary group of artists founded by Grimsby born Thomas Kennington amongst others. There are degrees of technique to the process all of wihhc are acceptable. Probably the most exemplary is the current President of the New English Arts Club Peter Brown who works outside assiduously regardless of weather or obstacle. Other artists will work in part outside and then from the studio touch up and complete the works. Painting from photographs is very much a no. Light is at the heart of the en plein air principle, it changes constantly so the skilled artist knows how to capture that part of the day they are aiming for it and to return another day if not completed in time.

Peter Brown: View of Harrogate

Perhaps more than anything in a great en plein painting is the sense of place experienced though the eyes of some one who has really stood in that place. Who can not feel the presence of moment in Berthe Morisot’s “Summers Day” 1879 (National Gallery) . Or stood in front of a majestic series of Forest landscape by David Hockney. En plein air painting could perhaps be better described as the En plein air experience. A way to see how the landscape can be captured and translated into pigments. These works are in collections through out the country and some of our most celebrated artists working today continue the principles. However if you are passing- when we are allowed – do drop in and see the collection at Burton Agnes Hall in East Yorkshire it contains one of the most impressive collections of 19th century French paintings outside London – collected by the former owner Marcus Wickham-Boynton – it includes paintings by Corot, Boudin, Renoir and Pissarro – all of whom painted out of doors.

In the mean time, let the images of these masterful paintings draw your mind and imagination to the great outdoors, and if you are interested in starting up yourself then a window and vista on the world is a source of wonder, just look at the light.

Messums Yorkshire in 4-6 James Street, Harrogate, in the light of current restrictions, will be holding online exhibitions. From 7 January – 30 January Yorkshire debut shows of two Australian artists – works by sculptor Daneil Agdag and photographer Atong Atem “Self-portaits and family studies”. This will be followed by an exhibition of Views of Yorkshire by Peter Brown President of the New English Art Club, from 4 February to 13 Mach 2021. You can visit the exhibitions on the gallery website: www.messumsyorkshire.com

StrayArt with Johnny Messum: The role of patronage

Each month he will look at art, exhibitions and events across Yorkshire and sometimes further afield with the aim of guiding and inspiring us.

We must all be patrons of the arts and that means taking part as well as supporting artists. There is a vital capacity to art that brings people together and I think we will see this become increasingly important as the high street and the reasons we find for getting together continue to be questioned and asked to adapt. At the core of this narrative is the relationship that the process of making creates between the maker and the viewer. Art is the greatest of story tellers and objects – however formed – define capacity of human beings to connect to each other through inanimate objects.

Our role as a gallery is to help artists with a platform on which to create, your role is to take part, whether going to visit, commenting on an artists page, buying works of art or joining in a conversation. Our face to face talks and now online talks with artists and makers allow people to connect with them and to understand what frames their thinking. They are hugely popular because we are fascinated by a fellow human being’s capabilities. Who knows you may find your own object of significance and discover an eco system of creativity that enriches your life in more ways than one.

Patronage as the name suggests is about more than collecting, it is about discerning input into the artist’s career.

A collection of art at Chatsworth House. Credit: Chatsworth House Trust

In Yorkshire there are many examples of discerning patrons – the great English painter JMW Turner found sympathetic patrons in two Yorkshire men – Walter Fawkes at Farnley Hall and Edward Lascelles at Harewood House – whose support and friendship fostered his creative genius. Edward Lascelles also enjoyed a special relationship with another great man, the extraordinary furniture maker Thomas Chippendale from Otley, who received the largest commission of his career furnishing the newly built Harewood House in 1767. The present Earl and Countess commission artists and craftsman today continuing the family tradition of supporting living artists, and in their Biennale focusing on Why Craft Matters Chippendale’s creations were juxtaposed with contemporary furniture, aware as they are that one generation of artists inspires the next.

As I drove back down to London passing through Derbyshire, I passed the sign for Chatsworth House, the seat of the Dukes of Devonshire, where 16 generations of the Cavendish family have collected contemporary art from Elizabethan times to now. The current Duke and Duchess continue the tradition today, and the potter Edmund de Vaal’s vessels are exhibited next to a garniture of Chinese vessels to demonstrate both continuity and difference.

When the current restrictions lift, and these great houses re-open I urge you to visit them and reflect on the many gifted men and women who thanks to the enlightened patronage of their owners have been able to shine and pay their bills and be an inspiration to the next generation of artists and craftsmen, and revitalise us as we look at what they have made.

As you open your parcels on 25 December and find that someone has chosen to give you a beautifully made piece, spare a thought for the person or people who made it, and the ideas, imagination, skills and sensibility that lie within it. Patronage or supporting the arts is not just for Dukes and Duchesses, it is for us all to help bring objects and moments of significance together when ever we choose a hand made piece over factory made items.

Next month I shall be talking about plein air painting, the artists, who like Monet and his fellow Impressionists choose to work primarily, not in their studios, but out of doors.

Messums Yorkshire, 4-6 James Street, Harrogate is open Thursdays to Saturdays from 10am – 5pm. The current exhibition of the leading landscape environmental artist Kurt Jackson continues until 2 January. Two new exhibitions of of Australian artists Daniel Agdag and Atong Atem open on 7 January. The displays of glass artist Dante Marioni and artist Charles Poulsen continue to 30 January.

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