Harewood House Trust is delighted to exhibit 63 paintings by the Caribbean artist Frank Walter (1926-2009). These works have never been seen together in England before.  The majority are landscapes, including many of trees purposely selected to resonate with Harewood’s Capability Brown landscape. Apparently simple, they beautifully depict real and imaginary vistas which speak with an unmistakable visionary voice.

Frank Walter (Francis Archibald Wentworth Walter), self-styled 7th Prince of the West Indies, Lord of Follies and the Ding-a-Ding Nook, was born in Antigua in 1926. Walter was hugely talented as an artist and writer, although somewhat flawed by an obsession with his ancestral lineage which he believed linked him with the aristocratic families of Europe including Charles II (through his mistress Lucy Walter), Franz Joseph of Austria and the Dukes of Buccleuch.

His fragile mental state became more apparent and for the last 25 years of his life, Walter removed himself from society, living in an isolated shack on an Antiguan hillside, painting on all sorts of material including discarded Polaroid boxes and LP covers.

His rich legacy includes several hundred paintings and carvings, as well as 25,000 pages of his thoughts on every conceivable subject including history, philosophy, religion and science.

In 1958, he travelled to Leeds (probably Chapeltown from the description) working in poorly paid part-time jobs – feather packer, a lamp manufacturer, boot factory, floor sweeper. He was pretty much starving, which may account for some of his almost hallucinatory writing. He was researching his real and imaginary genealogy in Leeds central Library.

In 1960, he went to Scotland which had a great effect on him as he felt so strongly connected to the country through his family legacy.

Flamboyant Trees has been made possible with support from the Ingleby Gallery in Edinburgh who have championed the artist’s work in the UK and internationally. Richard Ingleby, Director of the Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh said:

“It is terrific to see this exhibition of Frank Walter’s paintings at Harewood House and I suspect that the delusions of grandeur from which he suffered would have encouraged him to see it as an appropriate setting. The view out across fields from the Terrace at Harewood seems especially fitting for an exhibition that includes so many of Walter’s paintings of trees, some of which were inspired by the time that he spent in Yorkshire and Scotland in the 1950s, before returning to the Caribbean and a life of self imposed isolation. These gloriously fresh and directly painted landscapes have an anthropomorphic quality – as if he were painting his friends, or recording a kind of companionship still offered by trees when people had long since let him down.”

Nicola Stephenson, Exhibitions and Projects Producer at Harewood House Trust said:

“Harewood is particularly delighted to exhibit a selection of paintings by Frank Walter this summer when Leeds is also celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Leeds Carnival and the contribution of the Caribbean community to our wider cultural life. Walter was a complex man – an artist, a writer and philosopher; since his death in 2009 there has been a growing recognition of his work.”

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Frank Walter’s work is now highly sought after by collectors and this year, marks Antigua and Barbuda’s inaugural representation at the 57th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia with an exhibition of Walter’s paintings, sculpture, audio recordings and writing.

Read more about the exhibition here.

• 2016 Olympic gold and silver medallists Alistair and Jonny Brownlee have confirmed their attendance at Brownlee Tri 2016
• 2016 Brownlee Tri date: Saturday 24^th September
• Entries close Sunday 11 September: brownleetri.com

Brownlee Tri is delighted to confirm that our Olympic heroes Alistair and Jonny Brownlee will be attending this year’s event on Saturday 24 September.

Back-to-back Olympic champion Alistair Brownlee and Olympic silver medallist Jonny Brownlee will be bringing their gold and silver medals from Rio 2016 to Harewood House, Leeds for their fourth annual legacy triathlon event.

Alistair Brownlee said: “We’re really looking forward to seeing everyone at this year’s Brownlee Tri for what promises to be another great event. The countdown is on and we’re sure it will be another fantastic day.”

Jonny Brownlee added: “To see so many triathletes young and old taking part at a stunning venue in our home county of Yorkshire is amazing. Best of luck to everyone competing and we’ll see you there!”

More details on opportunities to meet and greet the Brownlee Brothers will be announced prior to the race.

Entries for Brownlee Tri 2016 close on Sunday 11 September 2016.

Registrations are still open for individual super-sprint and sprint distances, along with the exclusive youth-junior wave for 15-18 year olds and the Team Relay.

Whether it’s your first triathlon, an experienced racer or simply want a great day out, there’s something for everyone at Brownlee Tri 2016. Find out more or sign-up at www.brownleetri.com

Harewood in the 21st century has become quite a complicated place. Most of you will know it as a place to visit. You might come to feed the penguins or watch the kids play on the Adventure Playground. You might come to enjoy Harewood House’s magnificent 18th century interiors or to attend the innovative and stimulating contemporary art exhibitions. You might come to stroll peacefully through the gardens, crossing the Terrace on your way round the Lake, getting caught up in the magic of the Himalayan Garden before reaching the Walled Garden with its vegetable plots and fruit trees.

I hope you do, because Harewood is somewhere for everyone to enjoy. But what you see is the just the tip of an iceberg. Harewood today is a network of businesses, all supporting each other, all designed to keep this most beautiful part of England’s most beautiful county looking good, as alive and as relevant as it has ever been through its 250 year history.

Explore the great outdoors

The bit you will see when you visit – the House, the gardens and grounds immediately around it – has been run as an educational charitable trust since the 1980s. This means that any income generated – entrance fees, gift aid, donations, grants and so on – has to be ploughed back into the charity’s activities. We have a dynamic and prize-winning programme of educational events for schools, but we take our educational remit much further than that. You’re never too old to stop learning! We get around 200,000 visitors a year and their support is absolutely vital if we are going to be able to continue to keep it all going.

Surrounding Harewood House Trust is the Harewood Estate, made up of several different businesses. The days of a country estate just being somewhere for a privileged few to stroll around and enjoy the views are long gone. Now, we let cottages in the village, offices in the converted farm buildings and provide the location for the outdoor sets for ITV’s long-running tale of Yorkshire country folk, Emmerdale. We have a farming company, managing the land in partnership with neighbouring farmers.  Most recently, we have invested in a major green energy project, which uses wood chip from our own trees to heat buildings across the estate and now Harewood House itself. This makes good business sense and it’s good for the environment too. All this – the buildings, the trees, the waterways, the many miles of public footpaths that criss-cross the estate – needs looking after: windows re-painted, woodland thinned, grass cut, footpaths properly maintained and the rest of it.

Lancelot “Capability” Brown

Each year we look at what we do afresh, especially at what happens within the Harewood House Trust, what is available for the paying public. This year’s big theme is the landscape. 2016 is the tercentenary of the birth of England’s most famous landscape designer, Lancelot “Capability” Brown and we are delighted to be part of a nation-wide celebration of his extraordinary work. Astonishingly, Brown and his team created over 100 landscapes, four or five a year during his working life, though he can have only seen a few of them reach their maturity. Harewood is one of his finest, still unchanged since the 18th century, somewhere that is designed to be enjoyed, whether you are looking across it from the Terrace of Harewood House (The Terrace, a Victorian addition, was actually built several decades after Brown) or walking through it and catching glimpses of the House through carefully contrived vistas. As well as exhibitions about Brown and his visionary working methods, we have asked several contemporary artists to respond to this landscape in their own way, something we try to do whenever we can, bringing the historic and the present day together. And we’re re-launching the boat (called The Capability aptly enough) to give you long views from the Lake back to the south side of the House, as I’m sure Mr. Brown would have wished.

This winter we are undertaken the first phase of a major re-furbishment of the Bird Garden, an ongoing project that will take two or three years to complete. This has involved clearing and re-landscaping, taking down of some unsightly fences and the introducing new bird species as well as creating better views of some old timers. Everybody’s favourites, the penguins, have a handsomely re-decorated pool, with six new arrivals from Cotswold Wildlife Park joining the colony. We are also introducing for the first time a Farm Experience, with pigs, alpacas, pygmy goats and giant rabbits.

Something for everybody we hope, young and old, newcomers and long-standing season ticket holders. Over the summer we will give you more detailed insights into what goes on behind the scenes, the inside track from the real specialists. This is just a taster of the ever-changing, multi-faceted world of Harewood 2016.

Come and enjoy it!

David Lascelles, Earl of Harewood

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.

Guests were met by the Earl and Countess of Harewood, and were invited to tour the new season exhibitions and artists’ responses in the Church and Terrace Gallery launching a medieval journey of discovery at Harewood which seeks to explore the history of this ancient landscape before the present Harewood House was built…

The evening began with a tour of the Castle, followed by a Pimms reception in the Church to celebrate the completeion of the development project funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Churches Conservation Trust.

New works by artists Susan Collins and Eleanor Moreton were on display.

The Church is a hub for Medieval Harewood with the new ‘Medieval Harewood Information Point’ located in the Church Vestry, and guests were keen to explore inside this hidden gem of a building!

Find out about the Church on our webpages…

Guests were then able to view the exhibitions in the House, with the Terrace Gallery playing host to an exhibition of finds from the recent Gawthorpe Hall excavation, as well as new works by artist Diane Howse.

The Gawthorpe excavation itself was open to view, and guests were treated to a hog roast and medieval-style entertainments on the Terrace overlooking the Gawthorpe Dig Site.

You can explore Medieval Harewood this Summer… Find out more on our Medieval Harewood webpages…

This season’s exhibitions can be found in the church, throughout the grounds and in the Terrace Gallery.

Artists Simon Warner, Susan Collins, Eleanor Moreton and Diane Howse have created artistic responses to medieval Harewood;

performance tours, moving image, paintings and photography bring stories alive to evoke Harewood’s fascinating medieval past. In the Terrace Gallery you can also learn more about the newly excavated Gawthorpe Hall.

The Artists…

Diane Howse has responded to Medieval Harewood by photographing and digitally reconstructing the alabaster tombs of Harewood Church. The tombs would have originally been painted in full colour, and if you look closely at the effigies in the church, traces of original pigment can still be seen today. Diane has digitally recreated the colours that may have been used and her photographs give us a visual impression of the human beings that lived at Harewood.

Simon Warner is a Yorkshire based photographer and performance artist. Simon will be conducting theatrical walking tours of Harewood’s medieval history enhanced with an audio experience. Tours will take place on Tues 17th July, Weds 1st August, Tues 14th August & Mon 3rd September.

Places must be pre-booked by phone, visit our event pages for details….

Susan Collins is a film artist and is currently director of the Slade school of Fine Art, UCL. Susan has created a video intervention in the church as well as a moving photograph that can be viewed in full online. It can also be streamed on your smartphone to be viewed while experiencing Medieval Harewood.

Eleanor Moreton has been inspired by the history of sisters Elizabeth and Sibyl de Aldeburgh who became joint heiresses of Harewood Castle in 1388. Her paintings respond to the relationships and power structures between families at Harewood in the medieval period as well as the illuminated prayer books, the Books of Hours, people owned at that time.
Images courtesy of the artists, and Ceri Hand Gallery for Eleanor Moreton.

Medieval Harewood is an on-going project to explore Harewood’s medieval history before the present Harewood House was built. Join us on this journey of discovery as we peel back the layers of history, where a few short miles can cover several hundred years.

Find out more on our Medieval Harewood webpages…

PS!

Harewood Medieval Faire 2013 set to take place Late May Bank Holiday Weekend

Look out for details of next year’s Harewood Medieval Faire which is scheduled for late May Bank Holiday 2013!