At last night’s private view to launch Harewood’s Epstein exhibition Finding Adam, Diane Howse (Viscountess Lascelles) announced that sculptor Antony Gormley will be showing two new pieces of work in the Terrace Gallery later this summer.

Our current exhibition ‘Finding Adam’ explores the epic journey of Sir Jacob Epstein’s magnificent alabaster sculpture Adam from his origins in Epstein’s studio in London to Harewood House in Yorkshire, via Blackpool, New York, Cape Town and the Edinburgh Festival, as well as celebrating his return from cleaning and exhibiting at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

“Adam and Epstein are a very hard act to follow,” said artist/curator Diane Howse. “I knew of Antony’s relationship to Epstein’s work and all of us here are huge fans of Antony, so we’re thrilled to have two pieces by him in the Terrace Gallery later this summer. It’s very much in keeping with our policy of showing the best of contemporary art alongside our historic collections, something my father-in-law Lord Harewood set in motion when he brought Adam here in the 1970’s. Yorkshire is rapidly becoming the place to see modern sculpture: the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and the Henry Moore Institute are well-established of course and they are about to be joined by the Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield, which opens later this month. We’re proud to be playing our part in this celebration, not only with the Epstein exhibition, but also by showing work by one of Britain’s finest living artists.”

Antony Gormley adds: “I am delighted to have the opportunity to show two works at Harewood House, long associated with ‘Adam’, Epstein’s powerful evocation of masculine yearning carved from a massive block of English alabaster.

My material is iron. Smelted and cast in Wednesbury, it also engages with the block but uses the language of architecture to interpret the male human body as an unstable space made up of individual cells fused and propped together. The room in which the works will be shown is supported by four stone columns that make you aware of the load path of the building. I hope that these two works, in which columns and masses describe an unsteady vertical stack twisting through 90 degrees, will allow the viewer to think about his or her own body as a vertical tower.”

Antony Gormley’s installation will open to the public in the Terrace Gallery at Harewood on Saturday 13th August and will run till 30th October.

You can read more about the forthcoming Gormley exhibition on our webpage here… www.harewood.org/gormley

Sir Jacob Epstein’s iconic sculpture ‘Adam’ returns to Harewood House today from the Royal Academy of Arts, where he has been displayed in the landmark exhibition ‘Modern British Sculpture’.

Click here to visit our website and watch the video to see Adam restored to the Entrance Hall here at Harewood and to hear from Anna Robinson (Head of House and Collections) as well as Jim Barrett (MOMART).

Finding Adam opens at Harewood House on 22nd April and explores the sculpture’s strange and epic journey from Louis Tussaud’s warehouse in Blackpool, to the Edinburgh International Festival, to his present home here at Harewood.

Read more about the Finding Adam exhibition here…

Image credit: The York Press

‘Adam’, an extraordinary piece by one of Britain’s most important twentieth century sculptors Sir Jacob Epstein, and one of the most important items in the Harewood modern collection, was carved from a single piece of Derbyshire alabaster in 1938 and 1939.

On 11th November this year, Adam left Yorkshire for London for conservation prior to being displayed at the Royal Academy… Removing Adam from the Entrance Hall here at Harewood was a considerable feat of engineering in itself, requiring an A-frame, winch and trackway, as well as scaffolding to support the steps and undercroft of the House and a Hiab outside the building to lift the sculpture on to a lorry… a big job for the scaffolders and art handlers, and the beginning of a long journey for Adam…

Adam was uncrated today at the conservation studio where he will remain until the New Year whilst cleaning work on his surface and repairs to his base take place.

We are filming the process – short snippets of which will be available on our website in the New Year and the final film will be shown as part of the exhibition here at Harewood in the spring when Adam returns… check out our website for details: www.harewood.org/findingadam

Norman Ackroyd RA is used to wild, romantic landscapes as well as being out in all weathers armed with sketchbooks, watercolours, etching plates and acid… which is just as well as his visit to Harewood took place on an unseasonally cold day in June earlier this year!

House & Garden were keen to photograph Norman here at Harewood as part of their piece on prominent house painters (check out the October edition of House & Garden to read the article).

Norman was first invited to Harewood in 1997 to mark the bicentenary of Turner’s watercolours of Harewood House commissioned by the 1st Viscount Lascelles 200 years earlier, in 1797. As a master of his artform, Norman was the ideal choice, especially as he is, as Turner was before him, obsessed with geogrpahy and travelling.

Retracing his steps to the hillside where he came to sketch Harewood House overlooking its ‘Capability’ Brown landscape, wreathed in autumn mist Norman was enthusiastically greeted by our cows who have been enjoying the view in their summer pasture!

Norman Ackroyd selected several watercolours from the Harewood collection as part of our exhibition ‘Twenty-One‘ this year.

What Norman had to say about his involvement in the Terrace Gallery and this year’s exhibition at Harewood:

The foundation of the Royal Academy of Arts in London by George III in 1768 opened up an awareness and patronage of British artists that had not previously existed. We are all aware of the great surge of portraiture led by Reynolds, Gainsborough et al – but it also resulted in a golden age of watercolour landscape with Turner, Girtin, Cotman, Varley, Cox and many others.

It was a great privilege to be asked to visit Harewood on the 200th anniversary of Turner’s visit, in 1997 as a 22 year old, to produce my impressions of the house and grounds. I have therefore chosen three watercolours, from that golden age, as my contribution to this anniversary.

Image left: Harewood in Autumn, Norman Ackroyd

Find out more about Harewood collections, exhibitions and more on our website… www.harewood.org

On Thursday the sales team went off to the Yorkshire Conference and Hospitality Show at Savilles near the Royal Armouries. It was the first time in a ages that we’ve been to a corporate exhibition. Our new stand, which had been put together at a rapid rate of knots by the amazing Beck Marriott, was a roaring success. We attracted 15% of the total visitors to the show on the day.

Among the many attractions to our stand were the delicious mulled wine and mince pies, prepared by our fantastic hospitality team. Yes it was a bit early for mince pies but there was method in this madness. We were launching our Christmas party options and working on developing awareness of Harewood as a Christmas party venue.

Here is a short video of the stand. It was videoed using a mobile phone so the quality is fairly low.

On Friday we hosted 20 Conference buyers, from Conference Leeds, to lunch and a show around. A great bunch they were too. Fortunately the sun shone as we showed them our new Pavilion which will hold over a 1000 theatre style when it has been completed. Maggie Mash and Sue Sharpe provided us with an excellent tour of the State Floor and highlighted that the House has always been used for business as well as pleasure.

To end the lunch we asked for a volunteer. We didn’t say what they were volunteering for. But Rachel was very overexcited when we told her it was to feed our penguins.

This is just the start of Harewood’s drive to be the best conference venue in Leeds.