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Andrew Williamson

Summer of Sculpture Launched at Harewood

Harewood is pleased to announce two exciting exhibitions celebrating sculptural works by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and Thomas J Price.  The elegant, contemporary sculptures reflect the artist’s fascination with the human form; dynamic movement in Gaudier and subtle facial and body expression in Price. Working 100 years apart, both artists have taken inspiration from the cultural trends of their day to create powerful bronze works which can be enjoyed throughout the summer in the historic setting of Harewood House.

4th July – 1st November, Watercolour Rooms, State Floor
Thomas J Price: Recent Works

Harewood House has a Thomas Price exhibition

Thomas J Prices’ works all share a preoccupation with the body, particularly the face. Price is fascinated in the minute detail of body language and facial expression, the ability to suggest a state of mind without words, with just a flicker of an eye or the clenching of fists. The cast bronze sculptures are presented in a seemingly traditional manner, on reclaimed plinths in the historic, Georgian setting of Harewood.

11th July – 1st November, Terrace Gallery
New Rhythms: Henri Gaudier-Brzeska: Art, Dance and Movement in London 1911 – 1915

Harewood House in Yorkshire has Gaudia Brzeska sculpture

Harewood will be the only venue to receive a major new exhibition from Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, featuring work by renowned French-born sculptor and draughtsman, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. It is the first time Brzeska’s fascination with dance and movement has been fully explored. New Rhythms brings together sculpture, drawing, photography, film, and archive material in a display which marks the centenary of his untimely death, killed in action at the age of 23 near Arras at Neuville-Saint-Vaast in WW1. Harewood’s own Brzeska sculpture Firebird will be on display in the exhibition.

Ensure you don’t miss out on CLA Game Fair advanced ticket discounts! Offer ends on Monday 20 July!

CLA Game Fair

Visitors that haven’t yet bought tickets for this year’s CLA Game Fair are encouraged to go to the CLA Game Fair website as soon as possible to ensure they benefit from advanced ticket discount prices.

The advance ticket discounts for this year’s event, to be held at Harewood House in Yorkshire from Friday 31 July until Sunday 2 August, ends on at midnight on Monday 20th July.

Buying advanced tickets via the Game Fair website means visitors can take advantage of significant savings: a one-day adult ticket for the Friday costs just £30 online, giving a £5 saving on the gate price of £35. Advance one-day tickets for Saturday and Sunday cost £25, a saving of £5 on the gate. In addition each adult ticket also allows free entry for a junior visitor up to the age of 16 and free parking, making it superb value for money.

Advance online Adult ticket prices will increase to £34 for Friday and £29 for Saturday or Sunday ensuring purchasing online continues to be worthwhile compared to purchasing on the gate—and of course you will beat the queues!

Two and three-day tickets, which are only available online will remain at a discounted price for the Friday and Saturday or Friday and Sunday costing £50 while a two-day ticket for the Saturday and Sunday is just £45. An adult ticket for all three days is £75. Senior citizens also benefit from reduced prices for advanced tickets.

Tony Wall, Director of the CLA Game Fair commented: “Our advance ticket prices really do offer some great savings which make the CLA Game Fair even better value for money! Buying tickets via our website is both easy and quick so please do go online now. After all why pay more?”

For more detail, visit www.gamefair.co.uk.

The Art and Antiques Fair at Harewood returns

The fourth annual Antiques & Fine Art Fair at Harewood opens from Friday 11 September until Sunday 13 September 2015 in The Marquee in the grounds of Harewood House, Harewood, near Leeds in West Yorkshire LS17 9LQ, organised by The Antiques Dealers Fair Limited and supported by Knight Frank’s Harrogate office. Antiques Fair ticket holders will have the added advantage of access to Harewood’s grounds and ‘below stairs’, as well as a special ticket price offer to visit the House’s state rooms and current exhibitions, over the three days of the Fair.  Harewood members will receive free entry to the Fair and free parking. Antiques Fair tickets cost £5 each on the door or in advance.

An exquisite array of fine art and antiques will be for sale, including silver, antiquities, jewellery and watches, paintings, clocks and barometers, glass, traditional and country furniture, books, English and Continental ceramics, contemporary and 19th century sculpture, objets d’art and much more. The majority of the high calibre dealers, convening at The Marquee at Harewood from around the country, are members of the British Antique Dealers’ Association or LAPADA The Association of Art & Antiques Dealers, the two main UK bodies governing the antiques trade.

Local silver dealers, Jack Shaw & Co from Ilkely offers a wide selection of silver, including pieces made in York: a set of three Victorian meat dishes, £6,750, a seal top spoon, c1650, £1,875 and a George III cruet set, £2,250.  Malka Levine brings an impressive pair of Sheffield plate wine coolers, c1820, priced at £4,800, as well as a pair of Mappin & Webb silver vases, 1925, with a price tag of £1,200.

Olde Time has a diverse collection of clocks and barometers. One highlight is a cast bronze elephant clock surmounted by a figure blowing a shell, 16½” high, c1860, £12,950, possibly by Miroy Frères, Paris.  The elephant’s trunk is raised, which is a sign of good luck, and it stands on an ormolu rococo base.

TV personality and antiques dealer Mike Melody of Melody Antiques, from Chester, deals in oak country furniture, including a matched set of six ash and elm Lancashire  spindle back chairs, c1830,  priced at £1,495 for the set and a late 19th century Orkney  chair, £975.  S&S Timms Antiques has an exceptionally rare Queen Anne period walnut miniature chest on stand, with original brassware, raised on cabriole legs, c1710, £14,500 and a Queen Anne walnut wing back armchair, c1710, £9,500.

With this being the year commemorating the Battle of Waterloo 200 years ago, a Baccarat crystal glass paperweight of bottle form with a sulphide inclusion of Napoleon, c1840

£1,600 is fitting and to be found on Mark J West’s stand. Jewellery and precious objects from T Robert include an 18ct gold and platinum calibrated emerald, diamond and natural pearl Belle Epoque necklace, c1910, £4,450  and  an exceptional lacquer and multi-gem set Shibiyama double sided table screen, c1880, £1,850. Other jewellery specialists exhibiting include Plaza with designer pieces and Anderson Jones.

Paintings include Owen Bowen’s A Yorkshire Farmhouse, £1,850 from Ashleigh House Fine Art. Bowen (1873-1967) studied at Leeds School of Art and was elected to the Staithes Group in 1904. He painted landscapes in and around Leeds and in Northumberland.  Harry Sutton Palmer’s watercolour of River Ure and Vale of Mowbray near Ripon measures 20¼” x 14½” is priced at £3,800 from Baron Fine Art.

In addition, Tim Phelps of T L Phelps Fine Furniture Restoration will be on hand to advise and show examples of his work. Tim Phelps has worked on restoration of Chippendale furniture at Harewood House.  Advisers from Wilson Mitchell & Co Ltd, a partner practice of St. James’s Place Wealth Management, will be happy to discuss investments with their clients and other interested visitors.

Renowned fieldsports artist Owen Williams wins 2015 CLA Game Fair official show guide cover competition

Harewood House will host the CLA Game Fair

Owen Williams, a renowned wildlife watercolour artist based in west Wales, has won the CLA Game Fair’s third annual Official Show Guide cover competition. His work will now feature on the cover of the 2015 show guide as well as on the contents page which will display Owen’s name, stand number at the show and website address.

The competition was open to all artists that exhibited at last year’s CLA Game Fair and also to those submitting an application for this year’s event, to be held at Harewood House in Yorkshire from Friday 31 July until Sunday 2 August.

Entrants were asked to submit a piece of art in colour that followed a British countryside theme, was influenced by fieldsports or game and which depicted the essence of CLA Game Fair. Judging of the competition was by CLA Director-General Helen Woolley, CLA Game Fair Director Tony Wall, and PR & Marketing Manager, Charlie Thomas.

Owen’s striking watercolour image of a red grouse in flight, which is a detail from a larger work, was picked as the winner thanks to its drama, movement and its unique ‘splash’ style that differs from his traditional sporting landscapes. It was also chosen thanks to its relevance to the 2015 CLA Game Fair’s location in Yorkshire, which has large populations of red grouse on its heather moorlands.

Owen is highly regarded for his fine and atmospheric watercolours portraying animals and birds such as stags, woodcock, grouse and snipe. He is also director of the Woodcock Network and is well known for his work ringing and tagging woodcock on his site in Wales.

Charlie Thomas, PR & Marketing Manager of the CLA Game Fair, commented: “Owen’s superb image of a flying grouse is a very worthy winner of our cover competition. As well as being absolutely stunning it will also give our show guide immense local relevance.”

Owen Williams added: “Having exhibited my work at the CLA Game Fair for the past 30 years it is a great accolade to have been chosen as winner of the competition and I’m very excited about seeing my work in print. For anyone that wants to see the painting in its original form it will be on display on the Redspot Artists stand, along with other examples of my work and that of my fellow Redspot Artists so do come along and say hello!”

For more details, visit www.gamefair.co.uk

Battle of Waterloo: what are the odds?

On 18th June 1815, two armies battled in muddy Belgian fields. The Duke of Wellington with the allied British army and Napoleon with the seemingly unstoppable Imperial Guard. Outnumbered, the British forces fought fiercely for their country. Their victory at the Battle of Waterloo represents one of the bloodiest battles in British military history and also one of our most celebrated strategic victories.

3rd Earl of Harewood

3rd Earl of Harewood painted by Francis Grant

The 3rd Earl of Harewood, Henry Lascelles, was an Ensign, a junior rank of commissioned officer, in the 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards and he found himself at the historic battle. Although we don’t know much about his involvement, we know he was injured on 18th June 1815 and that he received a medal for his part in the events of that day.

6th Earl of Harewood

6th Earl of Harewood by John St Helier Lander

Almost a century later Europe was plunged into the next brutal chapter of conflict with the outbreak of World War One. It was in France, on the 18th June 1915, that the 6th Earl of Harewood, Henry Lascelles, was wounded in battle. A truly amazing coincidence that members of the same family should be injured exactly 100 years apart in two of the most significant wars ever fought in Europe! Henry Lascelles later married to the King’s only daughter, Princess Mary, in 1922 bringing Harewood into the Royal household. They moved to Harewood House in 1929 where they lived for many years raising their family in Yorkshire.

Lord Harewood

7th Earl of Harewood in WW2 uniform

The 7th Earl of Harewood, George Lascelles, was the next member of the family to be drawn into a European war. World War Two saw the highest loss of life in any conflict. On the 18th June 1944, George Lascelles was injured and captured in France. The irony was not lost on him; in his autobiography, The Tongs and the Bones he wrote, “We were the three Earls of Harewood who saw active service in the ninetieth and twentieth centuries and the coincidence is at least odd.”

What are the odds?

The odds of such a fascinating coincidence happening are long! For the statisticians among us, the chances of all three Earls being wounded in each war on the 18th June is 1 in 1.472 million. You’re 49 times more likely to get struck by lightning!

Harewood is home to portraits of all three Earls which are hung in the State Dining Room along with the Napoleonic medal received by the 3rd Earl. Visitors can see each figure represented in their military uniforms and learn about who these men were and how they influenced Harewood.

Explore the rooms in the House on our website.

Notes:
Odds calculated that the three Earls would be injured on the same date by:
Firstly, using the total number of people that fought in each war vs the total number of people who were injured/killed in each war – the odds that any solider would be injured or killed in each war were calculated.
Secondly, the likelihood of this injury occurring on the 18th June within each war was calculated.
Finally, the two sets of odds were combined to produce the 1 in 1.472 million chance of three people being injured on the same date in a war.
NB: The likeliness that people from the same family would be injured could not be easily calculated without significant research.
Lightening: according to The Improbability Principle by David Hand, the odds of being killed by lighting in 1 in 300,000.