UPDATED 29-3-2023: Friday 31 March (morning) – Saturday 1 April (evening)
Join us anytime over the two days to witness the firing of Thiébaut Chagué’s giant sculpture in the 6 metre high wood-fired kiln.
The kiln, sited in the front sculpture garden, will be lit on Thursday afternoon and remain at 600 degrees until Friday when the temperature will be raised to 1200 degrees.
Thursday 2 and Friday 3 March
Messums is thrilled to announce the arrival of new works by international artist Makoto Kagoshima in Melbourne, Australia this March. Based in Kyushu, the southern island of Japan, Makoto Kagoshima originally studied ceramics in Okinawa, Japan before working in the design sector and becoming a full-time artist at age 35.
18 February – 31 March by appointment only
Approximately 30 works by the artist Brian Taylor (1935-2013) will be on show in the exhibition including many bronze sculptures which have rarely been on public display since the early 1960s. Taylor studied at the Slade School of Art in the mid-1950s and his early prowess as a sculptor of the human figure resulted in him gaining a coveted three-year scholarship to Rome.
Monday 13 and Monday 20 February, 11:30am
A key highlight of the exhibitions and events programme will be a dramatic wood-firing spectacle from French ceramicist Thiébaut Chagué whereby the act of making becomes part of the exhibition.
14 January – 26 February 2023
In his book “To Bless the Space Between Us,” the Irish scholar and poet John O’Donohue writes: “A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms, and atmospheres.”
The latest pictures by Richard Hoare demonstrate that any landscape is defined as much by where it leads to and what adjoins it, as by what it contains.
Thursday 22 December, 5pm
Join us before the carol singing starts to decorate your own gingerbread man.
The Messums Restaurant team have baked some scrumptious gingerbread men. Come along and decorate your own one to take home or devour here with a complimentary hot chocolate.
Thursday 22 December, 6pm
Join 200 voices and the Woodfalls Band for a carol singing event at the barn in Messums Wiltshire.
This is a free event open to everyone. Just bring your voice and best Christmas wishes and help us raise money for Tisbury Fire Service.
12 – 24 December 2022
Makoto Kagoshima trained as an artist, and then worked for the Conran Shop in Japan, but it is with clay that he has found his medium. On carved and moulded terracotta bodies, whether plates, vases, tiles or simply designed, three dimensional animals, Kagoshima unfolds a joyful and dreamlike universe of curling tendrils, bursting blooms, charming animals, darting fish, soaring birds, strutting geese and alluring snakes.
26 November – 15 January 2023 by appointment only
In 2019, the working world of Elisabeth Frink arrived at Messums Wiltshire with the reconstruction of her Woolland studio in our historic tithe barn. The studio was rescued from collapse and revived as an exhibition space displaying works from Frink’s studio and elements of her working practice and environment. As well as providing insight into her creative process, it formed a backdrop to a programme of events exploring creative environments. Now the studio has once again taken on a new life and, sited at a location nearby, will provide the venue for a series of in-focus exhibitions to be showcased online or by special appointment in person.
26 November – 8 January 2023
Hannah Mooney (b.1995) is an Irish painter based in the west of Ireland. She currently works in two distinct subjects; still life and the landscape. In both she is an instinctive, natural painter concerned with the matière and traditional composition. She studied at University of Ulster and Glasgow School of Art.
Sunday 20 November, 11am
Join us for a talk and (optional) brunch with ceramic artist Christie Brown on the final weekend of her exhibition ‘Icons of Uncertainty’.
We are delighted that Christie Brown will join us on the last day of her show to discuss the ideas and inspirations behind her latest collection of work.
22 October – 20 November
This October, Messum’s Wiltshire is devoting its spaces to contemporary female artists. Each makes work centring around the body, using either their own or other bodies to reflect upon ideas around power, pleasure, and disgust. All of these women has interrogated the nature of flesh – abstracting it into sculpture, focussing on its surface or recreating it from porcelain.
Saturday 22 October
Join us on the opening day of a remarkable collation of exhibitions to hear and discuss with artists and thinkers on their own personal experience working with their body across a range of artistic platforms.
22 October – 20 November
“My new body of work deals with ideas around protection, vulnerability and potential loss. Drawing upon historic religious references in a secular age I am referencing grave goods, especially those made from clay, as a source of style and expression. Grave goods come in many shapes and sizes and performed many functions but ultimately, they existed to help with the transitions from life to death and in many cultures, the transition to the afterlife.@
22 October – 15 January 2023
As part of our ‘Body Language’ exhibition this autumn, we are presenting a series of digital sculptures by artist Charlotte Colbert. Language, psychoanalysis and socio-political constructions of gender and identity are at the heart of Colbert’s practice. Her multi-part video piece, Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, 2017 (pictured below)
Saturday 17 September
Whether the re-use of an old building that might once have been earmarked for demolition, re-cycling what might once have been disposed of, or the adoption of new and alternative materials, how we choose to build is the footprint of our carbon use. Who would have thought, for example, it might be possible to organically grow building materials?
Saturday 15 October, 6:30pm
Film screening of the two year Yoxman project introduced by Laurence Edwards, followed by a Q&A with the artist.
The film follows sculptor Laurence Edwards as he undertakes the most significant challenge of his career: the creation of a monumental 26ft figure for the Suffolk landscape.
6 August – 17 October
Based in Suffolk, Laurence Edwards trained at Canterbury College of Art and then at the Royal College of Art, where he studied bronze casting and sculpture with Sir Antony Caro.
Saturday 23 July, from 9pm
One to not be missed – the finale of the Festival of Dance 2022 with drinks and great dance music. Join the cast and crew of the show in our post-production afterparty.
Friday 22 – Saturday 23 July
The highlight performance of the Festival of Dance: Anti-Body by Alexander Whitley Dance Company. Free transport available for London and Bristol based ticket holders.
Tuesday 19 July, 7pm
Performances by our 4 by 20 winners are a fantastic way to see work by up-and-coming choreographers. Free transport available for London and Bristol based ticket holders.
16 – 31 July
The Birdman competition is the quintessence of British humour and eccentricity. Held each summer along the south coast of England in West Sussex, people dressed in different garb attempt to fly off piers – the further the possible for prize money before splash landing in the water.
16 – 31 July
On show in Wiltshire this summer are a selection of works representing the breadth of our collection with works ranging from the nineteenth century to the present day. The display includes a significant selection of British Impressionism featuring masterpieces by Henry Lamb, Sir Matthew Smith, Julius Olsson, Raymond Coxon, Alice Maud Fanner, Percy Craft, James Brown, Mark Senior and Lucy Kemp-Welch. Together with these, a display of highlights from our modern British painting collection features works by Dame Elisabeth Frink, Alison Britton, John Beard, Kurt Jackson and James Dixon.
15 – 24 July
Join us this summer for our inaugural Festival of Dance featuring ten days of exceptional performances, workshops, suppers, talks and events at Messums Wiltshire.
Friday 15 – Saturday 16 July
A rhythmic, fiercely energetic and exhilarating performance from celebrated choreographer Hofesh Shechter and his award winning company Shechter II.
Saturday 2 July
Celebrating the best in environmental writing, Messums Wiltshire is dedicating a day to Little Toller Books; the award-winning independent publisher based in west Dorset. For twelve years Little Toller has been publishing books about nature, culture and place
11 June – 10 July
The exhibition ‘Documenting Conflict’ casts light on two distinct approaches and narratives surrounding the photographic documentation of conflicts in the 1930-50s and in 2000-2010s, as seen through the lens and eye of Robert Capa and Laura El-Tantawy.
3 – 26 June
Messums Wiltshire are delighted to announce a new three-year creative collaboration with Britten Pears Arts for the Aldeburgh Festival in 2022, 2024 and 2025. It launches with Remains To Be Seen, featuring recent and historical works by Paul Benney, Laurence Edwards and Kiki Smith.
2 June – 4 July
In conjunction with our half-term week dedicated to experiencing and learning about the fascinating RAKU firing process, we are celebrating the work of renowned ceramicist David Roberts with a new display showcasing a group of his vessels. Roberts will be joining Messums Wiltshire as part of the RAKU Retreat weekend (30 May – 5 June) and will deliver a talk about his practice of the ‘Naked Raku’ on Thursday 2 June.
Wednesday 18 May, 6:30pm
Join us for a fascinating talk, Q&A and supper at the barn gallery with the award-winning author Clover Stroud.
A few weeks before Christmas, Clover’s sister Nell Gifford, founder of Gifford’s Circus, died of breast cancer, aged forty-six. Just days before, she had been given years to live. Nell’s sudden death split Clover’s life apart.
Friday 13 and Saturday 14 May, free events
Join us to celebrate the opening of two exhibitions Tideline and Ground. Come for the preview party and stay for supper or some along to the free talks and events on Saturday.
Saturday 7 May, 6:30pm
The ACE launch party is to not only raise awareness of Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) but also to raise a significant amount of money to kickstart a research project with Oxford University.
7 May – 5 June
The ground beneath our feet has never felt less solid than it does at the moment – yet our awareness of it has never been greater.
As the evidence mounts up about our destruction of the earth, painting, poetry, drawing and sculpture can offer some sort of marker in time – visual metaphors for our Grand Awakening.
7 May – 3 July
The ground beneath our feet has never felt less solid than it does at the moment – yet our awareness of it has never been greater.
As the evidence mounts up about our destruction of the earth, painting, poetry, drawing and sculpture can offer some sort of marker in time – visual metaphors for our Grand Awakening.
Saturday 30 April
We are delighted to host a special birthday supper event here at Messums Wiltshire for sculptor and friend Bridget McCrum. Bridget will introduce us to some of the new pieces she has been working on followed by supper created by our team at The Mess Restaurant.
Friday 29 April, 6:30pm
Join us for a fascinating online panel discussion with experts and artists working in ceramics today. Canadian ceramic artist Greg Payce joins Professor Paul Greenhalgh and Dr Claudia Milburn.
Saturday 23 April, 6:30pm
Join Rupert Everett in conversation and enjoy a private viewing of the current ceramics, in aid of Julia’s House Children’s Hospice. Actor and writer Rupert Everett has been a patron of Julia’s House for six years and helped to promote their Wiltshire work by appearing in one of their films.
Online Viewing: 16 – 22nd April
Online Auction open 29th April closes 12:00pm Monday 2 May
9 April – 1 May
A selection of dishes and vessels by ceramic Agalis Manessi will be in show in the foyer of the Long Gallery this Spring. Agalis Manessi is dedicated to working in the maiolica tradition. Her range of forms comprise dishes, vessels, figures, animals and plaques constructed from red terracotta clay, biscuit-fired and dipped in a tin oxide glaze to give an opaque finish.
9 April – 1 May
Born in Reykjavík, Iceland, Haraldsdóttir’s works are inspired by Nordic pattern and folklore. Her family was originally from a small village on the Snaefellness Peninsular called Olafsvík in the shadow of the celebrated twin peaked glacial mountain that inspired Jules Verne’s novel Journey to the Centre of the Earth.
9 April – 1 May
Makoto trained as an artist, and then worked for the Conran Shop in Japan, but it is with clay that he has found his medium. On carved and moulded terracotta bodies, whether plates, vases, tiles or simply designed, three dimensional animals, Kagoshima unfolds a joyful and dreamlike universe of curling tendrils, bursting blooms, charming animals, darting fish, soaring birds, strutting geese and alluring snakes.
17 March – 1 May
Christie Brown’s figures teeter on the foggy intersection between art and craft. Very clearly sculptural but informed by a deep history of clay. Upon graduating from a diploma in Studio Pottery at Harrow in the early 1980’s, Brown found her work without an obvious niche.
5 March – 1 May 2022
Linda Sormin (b.1971) lives and works in New York City, and is Associate Professor of Studio Art at New York University. She has taught ceramics at Emily Carr University, Rhode Island School of Design, Sheridan College and Alfred University. Born in Bangkok, Sormin moved to Canada with her family at the age of five. She has a BA in English Literature and worked in community development for four years in Thailand and Laos. She studied ceramics at Andrews University (BA, English Literature, 1993), Sheridan College (Ceramics Diploma, 2001) and Alfred University (MFA, Ceramic Art, 2003).
5 March – 1 May 2022
For the last number of years Messums has taken a lead role among our major private art galleries in promoting the ceramic arts. This has been realised through an innovative exhibition programme, one important thread of which has been exhibitions on national ceramic cultures. Korean and British ceramic have both been subject of ground-breaking shows. The focus now is on Canada.
March – June
We present an exhibition of major architectural sculptures by American master metalsmith, Albert Paley, in the grounds of our gallery in Tisbury.
24 February – 3 April
From as early as the 1970’s John Walker was one of the most influential and imitated painters working in the UK; he exhibited alongside Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, represented his country at the 1972 Venice Biennale, had extensive survey shows at both the Tate and Hayward galleries and was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1985.
Friday 4 February 2022
On the occasion of Messums London first contemporary photography exhibition ‘Resonances’, visual artists Nii Obodai and Justin Keene in conversation with Stephanie Blomkamp, founder of Oath magazine, on the visibility, circulation and championing of African photography today.
Friday 21 January 2022
Messums London presents its first contemporary photography show by artists Nii Obodai and Justin Keene. Through a selection of delicately composed and elusive images, this exhibition encourages us to ponder our relationship with nature and read cultural history through the environment.
until Sunday 27 February
A selection of some of glass artist Dante Marioni’s best work is on display in the tithe barn. Dante Marioni burst onto the international glass scene aged nineteen, becoming famous for his sophisticated glass objects, which evoke the rich tradition of classical Mediterranean pottery and bronzes.
15 January – 27 February 2022
The drawings start with the square sheet of paper and a drawn square frame within. The square is chosen for its stability, calmness and because there is not the same association with landscape or the portrait of a rectangle.
15 January – 27 February 2022
The drawings start with the square sheet of paper and a drawn square frame within. The square is chosen for its stability, calmness and because there is not the same association with landscape or the portrait of a rectangle.
Friday 14 January 2022
Land as a conscious being: Nii Obodai presents ‘Big Dreams’ and ‘Paradox of Paradise’.
Messums London presents its first contemporary photography show by artists Nii Obodai and Justin Keene.
Wednesday 12 January 2022
Can plastic packaging ever be better for the environment than paper? Why don’t we just get rid of packaging altogether?
Why isn’t all packaging recyclable? Is all plastic made from petrochemicals?
The answers to these questions may surprise you.
Our photography programme features international, renowned and emerging artists and photographers working in various parts of the world encourages dialogue between contemporary imagery and archives, reflecting on the evolution of photography as a storytelling genre.
Clay courses at our Chilmark workshops
Messums has established a new set of studios for making in clay, in which artists of all ages and all walks of life will be welcome to practice, learn, develop ideas and thrive.
Wednesday 15 December, 6:30pm
Join us to discuss with Minette Batters why Farming is facing potential ruin through ill advised trade deals.
What farmers are actually doing for the environment and net zero and what more they could do given the chance.
Makoto Kagoshima trained as an artist, and then worked for the Conran Shop in Japan, but it is with clay that he has found his medium. On carved and moulded terracotta bodies, whether plates, vases, tiles or simply designed, three dimensional animals, Kagoshima unfolds a joyful and dreamlike universe of curling tendrils, bursting blooms, charming animals, darting fish, soaring birds, strutting geese and alluring snakes.
Sunday 5 December, 4pm
Join 200 voices and a brass band for a carol singing event at the barn in Messums Wiltshire. In aid of Tisbury Fire Station. This is a free event open to everyone.
Sunday 5 December, 2:30pm and 3:30pm
Join our Mess Restaurant and bakery team for a children’s biscuit decorating event. Use icing to decorate a Christmas biscuit house and then enjoy your creation with a free hot chocolate.
3 December – 9 January
Ti Parks graduated from the Slade School in 1962. He moved to Australia in 1964 and became an important influence in the contemporary art world there.
Monday 22 November, 6pm
Join us for an online talk with acclaimed documentary photographer Martin Parr CBE, social and art documentary photographer Sophie Green and documentary photographer Dod Miller as they discuss British eccentricities, cultural customs and humour in photography.
Thursday 18 November
Weighing 8 tonnes, it is one of the largest bronze sculptures to be cast in the UK in recent years. Commissioned by the Estate at Cockfield Hall, Edwards described it as “an attempt to embed Suffolk and the idea of Suffolk in the landscape and create a main focal point for it.”
Friday 5 November, 6:30pm
A talk during our Elisabeth Frink ‘Man is an Animal’ exhibition. Frink created much public art in her lifetime, a genre dominated by men.
A collection of maquettes by sculptor Laurence Edwards, including for the first time ‘Creek Man’, the working study for ‘Yoxman’ Laurence’s epic 26-foot sculpture recently installed at Cockfield Hall, Yoxford.
Friday 29 October, 6:30pm
The Bridgepoint Ensemble return to perform a recital of Elisabeth Frink’s favourite music during the Frink ‘Man is an Animal’ exhibition.
22 October – 28 November
In October 2021, Messums Photography will present ‘Showtime’, a solo show of young documentary photographer Sophie Green in our Wiltshire venue. Green’s
Friday 22 October 2021
A talk with documentary photographer Sophie Green interviewed by our director of photography Dr Julie Bonzon on the occasion of ‘Showtime’ her first solo show in our Wiltshire gallery in October.
Friday 15 October, 6:30pm
Gallery talk with curators and experts on Elisabeth Frink repositioning her work in the 21st century.
Join Dr Helen Pheby and Jo Baring for a discussion on the importance of Elisabeth Frink’s sculpture and it’s relevance in the 21st century. Chaired by curator Catherine Milner.
Wednesday 13 October, 6pm
Talk at Messums Wiltshire gallery and online with V&A director and author Tristram Hunt as he introduces his new book ‘The Radical Potter’.
26 September – 16 January 2022
Man is an Animal is the most extensive collection of large-scale sculptures by Dame Elisabeth Frink to be shown in this country since the artist’s death in April 1993. Loaned from various institutions and private collectors, it was first exhibited at the Gerhard Marcks Haus Museum in Bremen, Germany.
25 September – 28 November
Bridget McCrum’s work is a potent fusion of the ancient with the modern. She works primarily in stone, from which some pieces are also cast in bronze.
Saturday 25 September, 10:30am
Join a talk in the barn gallery with Dr Arie Hartog assessing Elisabeth Frink’s wider contribution to figurative sculpture in the 20th century.
Wednesday 22 September, 6:30pm
Join us for a talk with award-winning British Egyptian documentary photographer Laura El-Tantawy interviewed by our director of photography Dr Julie Bonzon.
Saturday 18 September, 10:30am – 5:30pm
Join us in the barn gallery for a day of talks on the nature of materials within contemporary architectural practice.
We will be joined by some of the leading minds and innovators within architecture as they discuss how we can better use resources and learn from our natural environment to find solutions to some of the problems affecting building, design and the environment.
Wednesday 15 September, 6:30pm
Collecting Capa: A Conversation with David Kogan. Join us for a talk with David Kogan OBE interviewed by our director of photography Dr Julie Bonzon. In this conversation, David Kogan will take us through his journey as a collector, his interest in significant events of modern history and his incredible collection of conflict photography which includes vintage prints by the renowned war photographer Robert Capa.
17 September – 17 October
A new body of paintings by Tom Robinson will form part of Messums’ Emerging Talents Programme this Autumn.
Sunday 12 September
Following their weekend performances at Messums Wiltshire, the Kennedy Muntanga Dance Theatre team will host three free dance workshops.
10 & 11 September, from 7pm
World premiere of the contemporary dance performance ‘Greater than Lion’ choreographed by Kennedy Muntanga. Kennedy is one of the most exciting talents in contemporary dance and follows in the footsteps of emerging, young talented choreographers supported and commissioned by Messums Wiltshire.
Online exhibition and sale 25 – 29 August
Starts 9am 25 August
Collecting is about making an object part of your life. It is also about the enjoyment of deepening your knowledge of a field and the pleasure of exploring its perameters.
Friday 13 August, 6:30pm
Join artists Rebecca Partridge, Hannah Brown and Narbi Price in conversation on shifting aesthetics in landscape painting.
Wednesday 28 July, 6:30pm
Join us talk with photographer Yan Wang Preston interviewed by our director of photography Dr Julie Bonzon.
Saturday 24 July, 10am, free event
Join multimedia artists Sonia Leber & David Chesworth live from Melbourne during their latest exhibition ‘What Listening Knows’ & ‘Myriad Falls’.
Wednesday 21 July, 6:30pm
Artist & environmentalist Kurt Jackson has created a new body of work and a book about biodiversity. The exhibition is on tour from May.
17 July – 5 September
‘What Listening Knows’ is an immersive 3-channel audio and video installation by Australian artists Sonia Leber & David Chesworth, commissioned for our second Moving Image exhibition at Messums Wiltshire. It creatively interrogates different concepts around the act of listening, particularly the concept of ‘the microphone’s gaze’, which shifts the idea of the ocular gaze, or camera gaze, into an acoustic dimension.
16 July – 12 September
Messums is delighted to present ‘Unkempt’, an exhibition recognising the advent of a changing aesthetic in landscape – one that is by its nature wild, messy and more empathetic to the environment. Opening in the Long Gallery at Messums Wiltshire this July ‘Unkempt’ showcases established and emerging artists who are questioning how aesthetics can shape our opinion about the environment and creating a different way of finding beauty in our landscape.
Wednesday 14 July, 6:30pm
In this online talk, Johnny Messum and Julie Bonzon will share advice on how best to start a collection of photography.
Wednesday 30 June, 6:30pm
During the Korean ceramics exhibition in Messums Yorkshire, ceramics director and curator Paul Greenhalgh and designer HyunJoo Kim discuss the work of Ree Soo-Jong. HyunJoo Kim works with Ree Soo-Jong and introduced us to his work.
25 June – 7 August
Danish artist Malene Hartmann Rasmussen works with figurative narrative sculpture and installation, creating work from individual hand-modelled ceramics and found objects. She is part of a vanguard of artists who choose not to define themselves by discipline or craft but instead blur the boundaries between Applied Art, Design and Fine Art, with exceptional hand-craftsmanship at its core.
24 June – 26 July 2021
We are delighted to announce that we have been invited to curate a programme of exhibitions at The Grange in Hampshire. The programme opens this summer with sculpture, photography and painting placed amongst magnificent architecture and open parkland.
Thursday 24 June, 6pm
Join us for an online talk and tour of the exhibition Plenty by the Netflix ‘Blown Away’ winner the glass artist Elliot Walker. Plenty is Elliot Walker’s debut solo show in situ at Messums Yorkshire.
18 June – 11 July
Jack McGarrity trained at the Glasgow School of Art, close to where he grew up in the West of Scotland, before moving to London to start at the Royal Drawing School. His works on paper are a hybrid of painting, drawing and collage of small everyday moments mixed with the high drama of cinema and the ambiguity of memory.
16 June – 9 July
From as early as the 1970’s Walker was one of the most influential and imitated painters working in the UK; he exhibited alongside Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, represented his country at the 1972 Venice Biennale, had extensive survey shows at both the Tate and Hayward galleries and was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1985.
Friday 4 June, 10am
Join us at the gallery for an introduction by the artist to ‘Homecoming’, the new sculpture by Laurence Edwards on view until end May.
Thursday 27 May, 6pm
In 2019, Jeffrey Milstein received a special permission to photograph in the restricted airspace above Paris.
Paris is, without question, one of the most photographed cities in the world, but Jeffrey Milstein’s aerial vistas provide an unparalleled visual experience of the city.
15 May – 11 July
In a miasma of delicately tessellated marks, After the Raft of the Medusa by painter John Beard is painted in black and white oils and wax and is accompanied by a mirrored image etched onto a vast black aluminium sheet suggesting the dark and inky depths of the sea.
15 May – 11 July
Over the last year John Beard has painted the Fovant Hills in Wiltshire for a new body of work to be shown in the Long Gallery at Messums Wiltshire. Four large scale paintings and a selection of smaller-scale oils and watercolours form a remarkable exploration light, colour, and the experience of southern Wiltshire landscapes.
9 April – 2 May
Born in Reykjavík, Iceland, Haraldsdóttir’s works are inspired by Nordic pattern and folklore. Her family was originally from a small village on the Snaefellness Peninsular called Olafsvík in the shadow of the celebrated twin peaked glacial mountain that inspired Jules Verne’s novel Journey to the Centre of the Earth.
9 – 25 April
This spring ceramic artist Makoto Kagoshima will exhibit his latest pieces in the Elisabeth Frink studio at Messums Wiltshire, a collection of which were inspired by the sculptor.
Makoto Kagoshima, based in Kyushu, the southern island of Japan, illustrates whimsical and heart-warming motifs on clay, making each ceramic object a unique, one-of-a-kind piece of art. Kagoshima’s designs are all done freehand.
9 April – 9 May
In this exhibition we are showing forty paintings by Alan Cotton, one of Britain’s leading landscape artists, of the coasts of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, County Kerry, Jersey and the Isle of Skye.
Depicting the the varying moods of the sea as well as the precipitous rock formations and crags that form our coastline, Cotton’s carefully constructed pictures reflect the quiet convolutions of nature and yet its constancy.
17 March – 10 April
Laurence Edwards’ While the Whole Earth Changes Tune was born out of a shift in approach to making and suggests the start of a new juncture in his work. With his foundry closed during the national lockdown and clay difficult to use in the hot weather Edwards turned to plaster.
6 March – 2 May
Ree Soo-Jong (born 1948) has long been recognised as one of Korea’s principal ceramic artists. Vitally, he has always been engaged with painting and drawing, running this thread alongside his ceramic activity.
6 March – 2 May
Lee Hun Chung (born 1967) has a national reputation as an artist who has engaged with conceptualist approaches to practice. He often works with large-scale installations, that deliberately confound any demarcation between the various disciplines.
Art critic Chang Dong Kwang tells us that “Lee is a potter, sculptor, designer, architect, painter, installation artist, poet, and labourer, because he is full of raw human character”. Much of his work is multi-media, with large-scale ceramic sculptural forms at their heart.
6 March – 2 May
For our third annual celebration of ceramic we are delighted to invite Paul Greenhalgh, Director of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, to curate this collection of senior twentieth century ceramicists; Magdalene Odundo, Alison Britton, Carol McNicoll, Martin Smith & Steve Dixon.
4 February – 13 March
We are delighted to announce an exhibition of oil paintings and sketches from the Estate of Henry Lamb.
28 January – 13 February 2021
Messums has sought out artists that fuse together skill, traditional technique, and contemporary concepts, and with this in mind we are delighted to present Elliot Walker’s inaugural solo show at Messums London. Plenty is an irreverent look at our culture of excess, a new series of sculpture inspired by Dutch 17th Century Vanitas paintings.
23 January – 21 February 2021
For over a decade Beth Moon has been documenting the biggest, oldest and rarest trees in the world. This exhibition focuses on some of the most famous oaks in the UK. Her work highlights the delicate duality of their existence— as both powerful but also vulnerable to environmental elements and human intervention. Beth Moon was born in Neenah, Wisconsin and studied fine art at the University of Wisconsin. Beth has gained international recognition for her large-scale, richly toned platinum prints. Since 1999, Moon’s work has appeared in more than sixty solo and group exhibitions in the United States, Italy, England, France, Israel, Brazil, Dubai, Singapore, and Canada.
15 January – 28 February 2021
An exhibition of paintings by Kurt Jackson, one of Britain’s leading environmental landscape artists and campaigners, documents the spring of 2020 and the arcadia he found bursting into life immediately outside his front door in a remote part of west Cornwall during the challenging period of national lockdown.
Jackson’s inaugural show at Messums Yorkshire focuses on paintings of trees that he and his wife, Caroline, planted twenty years ago and that have, over time, formed hollow ‘greenways’ or paths in the interstices between the lines of planting, along which he walked every day from his house to his studio.
The tunnels, laced with the play of light and shade, are groves of wildflowers, insects and birds that Jackson celebrates in his paintings.
8 January – 7 February 2021
Born in Faedis near Trieste, the son of an architect and winemaker, Francesco Poiana attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome and then the celebrated Albicocca fine art printing workshop in Udine before studying for a Masters degree at St Martin’s College of Art in London.
Saturday 19 December, from 5pm
We could all do with some festive good cheer this year, so with that in mind, we are planning to host our annual carol singing event at the barn. We will have to do things a bit differently this year, we will meet outside and follow the recommended guidelines to keep us all safe. The event is free to attend as usual.
If we can go ahead we will, outside, with a band, at a safe distance… so save the date and if it is safe to do so join us. Register your interest if you would like to come and we will keep you updated.
Money to be raised for the Tisbury Fire Service.
12 – 23 December 2020
We are delighted to be celebrating Christmas with Makoto with twelve special ceramic pieces. Inspired by the traditional Christmas carol from 1780 ‘twelve days of Christmas’ marks twelve unusual and festive gifts bestowed upon a true love. We will be releasing the new collection for sale on 12:00 on the 12 December.
Wednesday 9 December, 6:30pm
As Richard’s exhibition ‘Alchemy of Light’ opens at Messums Wiltshire, join us online for a conversation with Richard and Johnny Messum.
Richard’s work is always moving forward, evolving, a reflection of a pilgrimage. This is despite the apparent paradox of his regular return to stand on the same spot in the same locations seen in his work, year after year. The journey begins, rests and then continues with every step, enriched by his experience of Light.
In his new exhibition Hoare explores the landscapes of Wiltshire, where he now lives, Dorset and South Cornwall. A focus is the lake belonging to the Fonthill Estate near Tisbury. Central to the park laid out by the estate’s original owner William Beckford in the 18th century the lake is surrounded by a myriad of caves and bridged by a weir.
Hoare captures the mesmerising effects of the large stretch of water at different times of day and season. The lime green of the sycamore trees in spring contrast with the grey trunks and rich tobacco-coloured browns and ochres of the same scene on a moonlit night in summer. The water changes from limpid and calm – an effect Hoare creates by not touching the canvas at all – to staccato-like dapples and dots giving the sensation of ripples and waves.
Wiltshire Members can login to the Members Room to join the conversation. Other attendees will receive a Zoom link before the start of the event.
4 December 2020 – 10 January 2021
Messums is delighted to announce representation of emerging talent Hannah Mooney. Mooney began painting en plein air in her third year at the Glasgow School of Art. When she began this new technique, she says ‘I found a subject matter I identified with and a release like no other. It was as though I discovered an appetite, I never knew I had.’
5 December – 10 January
Richard Hoare had a full immersion in the British countryside from the moment he was born. He grew up on a farm not far from Dedham in East Anglia where he went to school – an area made famous by Constable and Gainsborough. After roaming the woods and plains of the area his love of nature was later amplified by walking the pilgrim routes of England, France and Spain.
Wednesday 25 November, 6:30pm
Join the conversation with author and broadcaster Loyd Grossman online as he discusses his new book on the intertwined lives of Bernini and Pope Alexander VII.
By 1650, the spiritual and political power of the Catholic Church was shattered. Thanks to the twin blows of the Protestant Reformation and the Thirty Years War, Rome, celebrated both as the Eternal City and Caput Mundi (the head of the world) had lost its pre-eminent place in Europe. Then a new Pope, Alexander VII, fired with religious zeal, political guile and a mania for building, determined to restore the prestige of his church by making Rome the must-visit destination for Europe’s intellectual, political and cultural elite. To help him do so, he enlisted the talents of Gianlorenzo Bernini, already celebrated as the most important living artist: no mean feat in the age of Rubens, Rembrandt and Velazquez.
Together, Alexander VII and Bernini made the greatest artistic double act in history, inventing the concept of soft power and the bucket list destination. Bernini and Alexander’s creation of Baroque Rome as a city more beautiful and grander than since the days of the Emperor Augustus continues to delight and attract.
‘A total delight’ Simon Jenkins
Saturday 14 November, 6:30pm
Bridge continents and join in the online conversation with Dante Marioni, the world’s greatest glassblower live from Seattle.
Hear first hand from the master of glass making. As enigmatic as the vessels that he creates, Dante is seldom in front of camera or in conversation. We welcome him here to talk about the importance of mastering technical craft to push the boundaries of form and how aesthetics underpin good design.
Attendees will be emailed a Zoom link before the start of the event.
28 October – 29 November
Jørgen Haugen Sørensen, born in Copenhagen in 1934, is one of Denmark’s most esteemed and decorated sculptors and we are delighted to represent his work in the UK. Throughout
his entire artistic career he has consistently and independently focused his attention on the human condition in society and has shifted effortlessly between materials and modes
of expression within the sculptural sphere – each transformation has been mastered with continuous success.
Whilst Jørgen works in materials including bronze and marble, this exhibition – his debut at Messums London – will focus on his white clay works, one of the most basic of materials
that has always been in line with his aesthetic approach.
According to legend, God modelled human figures out of clay. He breathed life into them, let them live and will determine if they deserve to burn in hell or not.
In front of Jørgen’s work, we lose our sense of position and we experience uncertainness for
a moment as we determine if we are looking
at sculptures or if we are looking at ourselves. With the positions he chooses, the situation
of the human and the clay, Jørgen unveils the relationship between the human and his own filth. When we look at his figures, we don’t know what to see: the humanity of the clay or the muddiness of humanity. Is he presenting to us a humanity we don’t know or what we don’t want to know about our humanity?
Armen Agop
23 October – 29 November
‘Of all things, living or lifeless, upon this strange earth, there is but one which, having reached the mid-term of appointed human endurance on it, I still regard with unmitigated amazement…Flowers open, and stars rise, and it seems to me they could have done no less… But one object there is still, which I never pass without the renewed wonder of childhood, and that is the bow of a Boat.’ John Ruskin
30 September – 18 October
Daniel Agdag is an artist and filmmaker based in Melbourne, Australia whose practice sits at the nexus of sculpture and motionography. He creates highly detailed sculptural pieces that have been described as ‘architectural in form, whimsical and antiquated in nature and inconceivably intricate’ and we are delighted to welcome him back for his second solo show with the gallery this autumn.
Daniel sits within a group of artists represented by the gallery who take quality and the handmade to the extreme. His works, made primarily from cardboard, take many hours to complete and are strikingly beautiful in their intricacy. Drawn to the utilitarian origins and monochromatic presentation of his material, Daniel creates a paradox of fragility and strength with structures that resemble architectural forms and machines by utilising a medium that is essentially paper, preserving them under glass vitrines or bell jars. His work is both delicate and eccentric and he spends a lot of time thinking about and absorbing objects in the built environment, their peculiar details and functions, which, once resolved in his mind, begin to slowly emerge, and coalesce.
19 September – 18 October
Alexander Lindsay creates photographic landscapes of extraordinary beauty. For the past forty years, Lindsay has brought his cameras to the most extreme situations and environments on the planet. From his earliest experiences with the Maasai tribe, a five year spell in Afghanistan during Soviet occupation and his expeditions to photograph and film the wreck of the Titanic 4km beneath the oceans waves, Lindsay has always sought to immerse himself in situations where, as he explains, ‘the imagination is rendered unnecessary’.
12 September – 18 October
The return of our architectural models exhibition, which this year is centred on the role of creative spaces and set against the backdrop of Elisabeth Frink’s Woolland Studio. We will look at both the importance of creative space and highlight the beauty in the making of an architectural model with an exhibition including those designed for artists’ studios, galleries, arts schools and libraries by leading architects including Invisible Studio/ Piers Taylor, Jenny Jones, Matheson Whiteley, Feilden Fowles, Peter Clegg, vPPR, Stiff + Trevillion and Niall McLaughlin.
4 September – 18 October
Shying away from showing his work publicly in his life time, Brian Taylor’s work is seldom seen. This remarkable body of sculpture and rare drawings are indicative of Taylor’s unparalleled observation of animated volume and we are delighted to be showing this collection of sculpture and drawing in Messums Wiltshire.
Brian Taylor studied at the Slade School of Art in the mid-1950s and his prowess as a sculptor of the human figure was so impressive that he gained a covetable three-year scholarship to Rome. The artworks Taylor encountered there stimulated him enormously, ranging from classical sculpture right through to early twentieth-century modernism.
‘Italy called him back in 1971, and he could not resist an impulse to visit the Serra di Burano. This alluring rural area, not far from Umbria, enabled him to study horses – in particular an unusually large and well-built animal strong enough to run even when pulling a very hefty cart. Although this pugnacious creature threatened to bite Taylor, he insisted on studying the mighty horse at close quarters. He cunningly distracted the animal by flinging wet clay onto its nose. And while the horse licked off this muddy substance, Taylor took detailed measurements of its head and body without suffering any assault at all.’ Art Historian & Critic, Richard Cork
Taylor’s interest in sculpting animal form has pervaded his work ever since and we are delighted to show a selection of stand out bronze works focussing specifically on Taylor’s obsession with the characters and forms of animals.
4 July – 18 October 2020
The working world of Elisabeth Frink has arrived at Messums Wiltshire with the resurrection of her Woolland studio in our historic tithe barn. The studio, which Messums rescued from collapse in 2019, has been reconstructed to display a collection of original plasters alongside tools and objects salvaged from Woolland, providing a never seen before insight into one of Britain’s foremost sculptors.
from Saturday 23 May
We are delighted to present a selection of Inuit Canadian sculpture and textile, which have been brought together by Pat Feheley, Director of one of the last remaining commercial galleries in Canada dedicated exclusively to traditional and contemporary art from the Canadian Arctic and an expert on the work of Inuit textile artists.
From Wednesday 20 May
We are delighted to present two bodies of work by Peter Brown NEAC. The first collection is a snapshot into an evolving world. These are the recent works to have been completed in Peter’s studio. Here time is different, it is contemplated and paintings are returned to over 24hr cycles. Nothing moves in between. This greater period of study lends these works an intensity of observation that is in contrast to the flurry of constant action in Pete’s street scenes It is to Peter’s credit and to our enjoyment that he is able to carry off both.
The second series are street scenes from the busy metropolis of New York, this collection was originally scheduled to be part of a show on British Observational Art on New York’s upper east side this May. They are in so many ways the diametric opposite of the Life in Lockdown series. They capture street scenes of bagel stands and the view north from Madison square, to the early morning sunlight in Greenwich Village and rain falling in Soho.
He says of the en plein air paintings:
“I work entirely from life using the cities and the countryside as my subjects. I start with what tickles me, and this is likely to be a certain play of the light, weather, space and everyday life. Most of my drawings and paintings take several sittings over consecutive days and in that time I may meet police officers, dog walkers, road sweepers, residents and tourists.”
Peter Brown is president of The New English Art Club and a member of The Pastel Society, The Royal institute of Oil Painters and Bath Society of Artists. His studio is based in Bath.
Tuesday Riddell’s rich, symbolically charged lacquerware pieces take us into an ethereal nocturne of fantastical narratives and acute observation, highlighting themes of mortality and contemporary environmental concerns. It is perhaps then fitting that this new body of six paintings – originally scheduled to be shown as part of a focus on British Observational Art in New York this May – are being offered direct to our clients during this time, when both are in the forefront of our minds.
Tuesday’s intricate pieces recall sottobosco painting of the Dutch 17th Century as they magnify insect life and the of flora and fauna of the natural world. They also employ a visual language that links fairy tales and the fabulous with the real life underworld that is both harmonious and perilous, beautiful and decaying.
She is one of a number of artists supported and represented by Messums whose artistic practice is underpinned by extraordinary craftsmanship in the execution of their work. Similar to Asian lacquer work, Japanning is a European technique brought to Britain in the 17th Century that is both laborious and today is rarely studied. Tuesday’s synthesis of this traditional practice with a modern sensibility and awareness of nature points to a generation of artists who venerate the present, question the future and have embraced technical skill.
As a prelude to his solo show in the Long Gallery this September, we present an online exhibition by photographer Alexander Lindsay. We are delighted to include Alexander as one of Messums Wiltshire’s represented artists. The online exhibition of photography by Alexander Lindsay documents his 8 month journey around South America, from Bolivia to Tierra del Fuego and around Cape Horn.
Charles Poulsen’s large-scale drawings are realised in layers of pencil, wax and gouache to create striking abstractions that capture the energy of drawing as a primary means of expression.
“I was particularly influenced by commentary in Tate Modern’s catalogue for an exhibition of Agnes Martin (2015), as follows: ‘The root word for ‘grid’ in both Latin and Greek denotes ‘wicker work’ – flexible twigs or shoots woven criss-cross into a horizontal-vertical format.’* This released me – from the idea of the grid as simply a rigid structure of straight lines – and led me to start drawing loose, overlaying structures of irregular spatial elements based on fragments of the grid.” Charles Poulsen
The drawings start with the square sheet of paper and a drawn square frame within. The square is chosen for its stability, calmness and because there is not the same association with landscape or the portrait of a rectangle. They are more about energy than any particular subject matter – the invisible energies, the internal organic forces of growth, the forces which drive the winds and currents the energies within the earth. They are often drawn to music as the musical language of harmony, melody, rhythm and form has a very close relationship to the language of his drawings.
The materials he employs are deliberately limited: pencil (he favours a hard lead to begin, capable of creating grooves in the paper, but may turn to the very soft at the end of a drawing); gouache (opaque water-soluble pigment); wax (a ‘resist’ medium over which coloured wash can be laid, Poulsen sculpts a range of drawing edges from blocks of it). He begins and often ends with pencil. His process is one of layering, building form and space. There is an established sequence of his media: wax is usually the second to be laid down (where white is needed), then gouache (to provide light tones), then more wax, and so on, with the final application of gouache providing darker tones.
Charles has shown his drawings and sculpture throughout the UK and his book ‘Charles Poulsen Drawing’ was published by Hughson Gallery in 2017. He lives with his wife, the textile artist Pauline Burbidge, in the Scottish Borders.
An inaugural exhibition of original tintypes and by photographer Tif Hunter. The alchemy of tintypes is one Tif Hunter has mastered in the background of a highly successful career as a professional photographer. Celebrated by agencies for his exacting detail in the pre-digital era, Tintype has been his sole focus now over the last decade and has seen him develop this mercurial early means of image capture. It is now a celebrated medium in its own right, praised for its uniqueness and authenticity in an age that has seen image manipulation become a filter through which we are looking.