John Norris Wood, The Bee Tyger Hawk Moth, Linocut© Courtesy the Fry Art Gallery. Photograph Stephen Bond
The Fry Art Gallery is inviting visitors to explore its menagerie: a host of creatures great and small enlivening the walls and animating the display cases in its exhibition which focuses on beasts, birds and the natural world.
The pieces have been chosen from the North West Essex Collection by co-curators Mark Hearld and Iris Weaver and their final selection evidences the importance of colour and humour when painting this kind of subject matter.
Artist, printmaker and natural history enthusiast Hearld describes the display as "pamphlets, books, and ephemeral smatterings" which "run rife with snails, bluebottles, mice and sparrows, portly pigeons and mad harvest hares."
He adds "a cat sitting in quiet repose on a kitchen chair, a farmyard bullock, tongue lolling at the promise of beet pulp or a cockerel full-crow in the morning meadow remind us of the joy to be found in the natural world.”
Hearld has created a five colour lithograph, The Menagerie Swan, especially for the display. There's also a chance to see works by classic Fry artists including Edward Bawden, Eric Ravilious, Michael Rothenstein, John Norris Wood, Sheila Robinson and Olive Cook, alongside other pieces from the gallery's permanent collection.
- Open: Tuesday, Thursday Friday 2-5pm (Saturday 11am-5pm, Sundays until end of October 2.15-5pm)
Admission free.
More pictures:
Edward Bawden, 'That's What We Want', Lithograph© Courtesy Fry Art Gallery, Photograph Stephen Bond
Edward Bawden, Braintree Market, Lithograph© Courtesy Fry Art Gallery, Photograph Stephen Bond
John Aldridge, Essex Farmyard, Watercolour© Courtesy Fry Art Gallery, Photograph Stephen Bond
Bernard Cheese, A Fisherman's Story, 1956, Lithograph© Courtesy Fry Art Gallery, Photograph Stephen Bond
Richard Bawden, Pink Eyes, Etching© Courtesy Fry Art Gallery, Photograph Stephen Bond
