National Trust’s Petworth House unveils Royal Academy of Art’s ‘Explorations in Paint’

National Trust’s Petworth House unveils Royal Academy of Art’s ‘Explorations in Paint’, launching year-long celebration of colour

The National Trust’s Petworth House in West Sussex is delighted to host the Royal Academy of Art’s Explorations in Paint exhibition. 

The exhibition, which explores the material possibilities of paint and its expressive potential, brings together nine artworks by current and recent Royal Academicians. These are practising artists elected by their peers in recognition of their work, to lead the Royal Academy. The show includes works not previously lent by the institution, and a new work that has never been exhibited by Rebecca Salter PRA, the Academy’s first female President. 

The exhibition was inspired by Sir Joshua Reynolds’ Studio Experiments canvases, one of which is included in the display. Reynolds (1723-1792), the founding President of the Royal Academy, was fascinated by the physical properties of paint, and often experimented with different mixtures in his studio. 2023 marks the 300th anniversary of his birth. 

Explorations in Paint has been curated for the National Trust by Dr Lois Oliver and the Royal Academy Collections team. Many of the artworks on display hold special significance for the artists, as the ‘Diploma Works’ that they chose to present to the Royal Academy following their election as Royal Academicians.

The artists and their artworks include:
Rebecca Salter’s JB26 is a diptych in ink and gouache creating a conversation and sense of equilibrium. Salter has described her practice as ‘involved with the attempt to capture stillness in movement, a stillness with potential, not a passive quiet.’ 

Colour and form merge in Salix, a boldly textured painting by Gillian Ayres. The artist developed her work instinctively, often using her hands loaded with paint. The artist’s gestures are traced by trails left by fingers and brush. 

Another bold work, As in Alberto by Frank Bowling, is on loan from the artist and has never been exhibited outside London before. It was made using a technique that he originally pioneered in the 1970s, using acrylic paint, liquified with ammonia, water and acrylic gel, here poured over canvas printed with computer-generated striped colours. As Spencer Richards, Bowling’s New York studio manager describes: ‘Frank danced on the stripes, layering painterly gestures on top.’

Pictured above: "Winter light, Lammermore by Barbara Rae"

The show also features artworks by Royal Academicians Ian McKeever, Barbara Rae, Sean Scully, Tess Jaray and John Hoyland.

Rebecca Lyons, Director of Collections and Learning at the Royal Academy of Arts: “We are delighted to bring this display of works by contemporary Royal Academicians and from the RA Collections to Petworth. Sir Joshua Reynolds advocated for art and art education, while also constantly looking and learning from the artists around him, both historic and contemporary. It is this spirit of exploration and enquiry that we bring to the beautiful location of Petworth, a place with strong links to the RA, both past and present.”

The exhibition forms part of a wider programme at Petworth House and across the National Trust celebrating the legacy of Joshua Reynolds in the 300th anniversary year of his birth. Visitors to Petworth, which houses one of the National Trust’s finest art collections, can explore some of the twelve paintings by Reynolds in its care, and learn about recent Reynolds conservation projects. 

Pictured above: "Studio experiments in Watercolour" by Joshua Reynolds
    
National Trust Curator, Rebecca Wallis: ‘’We are delighted to be working with the Royal Academy to host this exhibition. George Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont and Petworth’s great art collector, was sketched by Reynolds in the 1760s and ‘70s, who is thought to have visited Petworth in 1789. The 3rd Earl was actively involved, as a patron and collector, with the RA and his collection includes significant artworks by Reynolds and other Royal Academicians, such as J.M. W. Turner, John Flaxman and Angelika Kauffmann.’’ 

2023 is also a celebration of colour at Petworth, with a full programme of activities and events under an overarching ‘Colour’ theme [see Notes to editors for more information]. Drawing from Petworth’s famous art collection and celebrating nature’s changing colours in Petworth Park and the Pleasure Garden there will be new ways to experience the property and create moments of joy, curiosity, and inspiration.

Sir Joshua Reynolds PRA
1723-1792
Studio Experiments in Colour and Media
Sir Joshua Reynolds, the founding President of the Royal Academy, was well known among his contemporaries for his bold experimentation with painting materials and techniques. Occasionally his practice of creating unusual mixtures of wax, oils, gums and varnishes led to problems in his finished works, with paint flaking and cracking.
Reynolds used canvases like this to test out colours and combinations. It contains over 150 colour samples, ranging from translucent glazes to thicker samples applied with a palette knife. Alongside the samples are written notations indicating the various combinations of pigments and media such as 'Orp. White Y with the Varn' (orpiment, white, yellow with the varnish) and 'Prussian Blue Cer' (Prussian blue and wax). 
Oil and mixed media on canvas

Rebecca Salter PRA
born 1955
JB26
2021
In December 2019, Rebecca Salter was elected 27th President of the Royal Academy of Arts and became the first female President since the Academy was founded in 1768. 
Salter’s art has an understated complexity, the two halves of this diptych creating a conversation and sense of equilibrium. Ink and gouache were applied on both sides of the fine muslin fabric before it was laid onto white-painted linen. The subtle step between the two parts adds to the sense that this is an object rather than a two-dimensional surface. 
Time and place are intimately entwined in the artist’s works, which take months to complete. Salter has described her practice as ‘involved with the attempt to capture stillness in movement, a stillness with potential, not a passive quiet.’
Acrylic, gouache and sepia ink on muslin on linen
 
Barbara Rae RA
born 1943
Winter Light, Lammermoor
1997
This painting was inspired by a midwinter walk on the Lammermoor hills in Scotland. In winter the starkness of the landscape is evident and the outlines of pylons, tracks, fences and burnt heather are clear. 
Rather than recording external appearances, Rae finds a painterly equivalent for the experience,  translating it into bold gestural sweeps and blocks of colour, and scratching into the surface with the handle of a brush. As Rae explained ‘During January’s snow there were some incredible sunset-quality colours: inky blues, pale mauves and lavenders, pink fluffy clouds. Obviously strong rose and purple were not present – but the feeling, the atmosphere of pink, indigo and purple was there.’
Acrylic and collage on canvas
 
Sir Frank Bowling RA 
born 1934
As in Alberto
2017
Over his 60-year career, Bowling’s inventive approach to the materiality of paint has expanded the boundaries of abstraction. As in Alberto embodies his ongoing exploration. It was made using a technique that he originally pioneered in the 1970s, using acrylic paint, liquified with ammonia, water and acrylic gel, here poured over canvas printed with computer-generated striped colours. As Spencer Richards, Bowling’s New York studio manager describes: ‘Frank danced on the stripes, layering painterly gestures on top.’ 
 
The title alludes to sculptor Alberto Giacometti, because Bowling perceived an affinity between his own painterly gestures and the sculptor’s tall slender figures. Bowling writes: ‘My aspiration is to make my work as my life has been. The unfolding of light, and the total experiences of my body within history, making real those moments when the material I’m using registers the wholeness of life.’
Acrylic on printed canvas

Ian McKeever RA 
born 1946
Sentinel X
2003
In Sentinel X, McKeever explores effects of translucency and opacity, light and darkness, delicacy and strength. The finest membranes of colour appear to fold in on themselves, as if opening or closing around an inner light source that seems to emanate from the centre, the whole floating on a pool of black. This is paint as material and metaphor.  
The series title ‘Sentinel’ implies a state of watching and waiting. As McKeever has written: ‘Paintings stand still before our eyes. In looking at paintings the task is not to understand them, nor to read meaning into them, but to accept them as experience, to ‘be’ with them and begin from there.’ 
Oil and acrylic on canvas
 
Gillian Ayres RA
1930-2018
Salix
1990-1991
Colour and form merge in this boldly textured painting by Gillian Ayres. The artist developed her work instinctively, often using her hands loaded with paint. The artist’s gestures are traced by trails left by fingers and brush. 
 
Salix is the Latin term for the willow family of trees and shrubs, and these colourful abstract shapes have an affinity with natural forms. Primarily, however, Ayres’s art is about the process of creation, by an artist who felt compelled to paint every day. As Ayres put it: ‘When you're born an artist, it's almost like you're trying to breathe. You can't do anything else.’
Oil on canvas
 
Sean Scully RA
born 1945 
Doric Persephone
2012
Doric Persephone belongs to Scully’s ‘Doric’ series, comprising over 100 works inspired by the legacy of ancient Greece. 
The blocks, arranged horizontally and vertically in groups of two and three, assert the importance of the ratio 2: 3 in classical Greek architecture, while also evoking the spaces found between columns and architraves. Meanwhile, the muted palette reflects the Greek myth of Persephone, abducted by the god of the underworld, and compelled to remain there in darkness for six months each year.  
Scully painted it in low light levels: 'I would always start in the afternoon. I would never have any lights on and it was next to a big window, so I had magnificent side light […] and I would paint […] into the evening when I could hardly see what I was doing. I like that clarity.'
Oil on linen

John Hoyland RA
1934-2011
Taking a Dive 23.2.85
1985
Hoyland finished this on 23 February 1985, and the date forms part of the title. Bursting with vigorous energy and colour, it is one of a series of ‘circle paintings’ that he began in the early 1980s. 
The artist imagined his circle paintings as worlds spinning in infinite darkness. Each circle might potentially contain anything but is also itself contained. Paint is poured, brushed, scraped and smeared. Compositional elements might initially appear by accident, but Hoyland always modified the effects to suit his intentions. At the centre, the bold black form evokes a diver’s moment of immersion.
For Hoyland, the entire series was about taking an artistic plunge: ‘I tried gradually to break free from the rectangle and its relationship to the framing edge, and at the same time to bring physicality and tactile feeling to the surface.’
Acrylic on cotton duck
 
Tess Jaray RA
born 1937
How Strange
2001
One hundred white squares converge against an intense red. In Red: Diary of a Painting, Jaray recorded her search for the perfect red for this artwork. After experimenting with bright cadmium pigments, the artist decided: ‘The red I really want is vermilion. The vermilion of the red scarf of Ariadne in Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne… and thirteenth-century Japanese paintings on paper or silk.’ 
The lustrous effect was created by applying successive layers, each containing a little more oil than the previous coat. 
The title How Strange is taken from the 1995 book Rings of Saturn by the writer W. G. Sebald. The full sentence reads: ‘how strange it is, to be standing leaning against the current of time.’
[117 words]
Oil on linen

Petworth House Colour programme event highlights
 
Elmer’s Art Parade
Saturday 27 May – Sunday 3 September 
Join beloved children’s character Elmer the Patchwork Elephant on a colourful art parade around the Pleasure Garden at Petworth. Explore the gardens and discover ten individually designed Elmer sculptures, inspired by the work of well-known artists from across the world, including Yayoi Kusama, William Morris and Leonardo Da Vinci, along with the original patchwork Elmer by David McKee.
 
Beginners Natural Dye workshop
Thursday 22 June, 10.30am-4.30pm £90
Explore the breadth and variation of colour that can be extracted from local plants using traditional techniques to dye fabric samples in this beginners one day workshop.
 
Festival of Colour: Community Day
Sunday 11th June Free Admission
Join us for a free day out at Petworth House and Park for all the family. Enjoy games and activities in the Garden, or explore the Elmer’s Art Parade sculpture trail. Discover the unique history of Petworth in the House and Servants Quarters, with ten minute talks and see the Royal Academy Explorations of Colour Exhibition in our Gallery. Sit back and relax on the lawn with a picnic, or tasty treat from our café, and listen to live music.
 
Petworth Lates: Summer Solstice
Wednesday 21st June 19.00-22.00 £10
Spend the summer solstice admiring the colours of the sunset while enjoying the Pleasure Garden. Take a stroll around the garden to see the evening sunlight illuminate the Italian styled Ionic Rotunda and absorb the peaceful atmosphere on the woodland walk. Take a seat on one of the garden benches and take in the beauty of nature while listening to the South Downs Folk Singers 
 
Petworth Lates: House of Art
Friday 7th July and Friday 8th September 18.30-20.30 £15
Experience a magical evening atmosphere of art and culture at the National Trust’s Petworth House during these late openings from 6:30-8:30pm. Explore the rooms with their vast art collection, including works by J.M.W Turner, Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds, whose work we are celebrating this year, 300 years after his birth. Enjoy a drink on arrival, the music of a string duo, highlight talks and watch the sunset over Petworth Park.

For more information visit: www.nationaltrust.org.uk/petworth-house-and-park  
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