Painter, author and filmmaker Andrew Lanyon seems to have achieved the impossible as he combines the histories of Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim Von Ribbentrop and Cornish fisherman-turned-painter Alfred Wallis in the new exhibition at Kettle’s Yard.
Painter, author and filmmaker Andrew Lanyon seems to have achieved the impossible as he combines the histories of Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim Von Ribbentrop and Cornish fisherman-turned-painter Alfred Wallis in the new exhibition at Kettle’s Yard.
Von Ribbentrop in St Ives, which opened at the weekend, explores two seemingly unrelated moments in history illustrating the remarkable intersections of art and history.
Faithfully following the narrative structure of the exhibition’s accompanying books, ‘Von Ribbentrop in St Ives’ and ‘The Daughters of Radon’, everyday life in St Ives in the years leading up to the Second World War is explored. The ‘discovery’ by London-based artists Ben Nicholson and Christopher Wood of the Cornish fisherman-turned-painter Alfred Wallis in 1928 is interwoven with Joachim Von Ribbentrop’s holidays to Cornwall during the 1930s.
Lanyon turns these two stories into a thought-provoking and often humorous exploration of the debates on abstraction and realism in the inter-war years.
Through this process, Lanyon has unearthed evidence of Von Ribbentrop’s role in the gathering of intelligence about the English coastline through his collection of seaside postcards. Lanyon believes these were included in a 1942 handbook for invading German troops.
Complementing this, Lanyon furthermore challenges many of the commonly-held ideas about Cornishmen Alfred Wallis’s relationship with the sophisticated artists from London. He has created painted scenes with titles such as ‘Wallis choosing not to be discovered after all’. Alongside Lanyon’s paintings and films are paintings by Alfred Wallis, Ben Nicholson and others and numerous models and automata by artists such as Paul Spooner. Visiting this exhibition is a theatrical experience.
Lanyon reflects on the role of the epic and the everyday in art, and highlights the power of imagination and memory in shaping not only creative work, but also war.
Andrew Lanyon, Peter Lanyon, Alfred Wallis, Ben Nicholson, Christopher Wood, Naum Gabo, Paul Chaney, Kenny Everett, Olly Hadfield, Chris James, Sam Lanyon, Peter Mates, Debbie Prosser, Paul Spooner and Carlos Zapata’s work can all be seen in Lanyon’s exhibition at Kettle’s Yard this summer. It runs until September 18.
You can view an interview with Andrew Lanyon here: http://www.kettlesyard.co.uk/exhibitions/ribbentrop.html
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