College Record 2019

REPORTS
38
Arts Society
by Peter Stewart
This year’s exhibition
programme started with a
subtle and humane evocation
of two marginal areas of England by Steve
Empson. ‘Two Communities on the Edge:
Dungeness and Seal Sands’ looked for
the resonances between these distantly
separated landscapes in Kent and County
Durham respectively (both as famous
for their neighbouring nuclear power
stations as for their natural beauty). We
were hugely grateful to Steve for donating
one of his works after the exhibition, the
watercolour and pastel ‘Coltsfoot Behind the
Dunes’, which currently hangs outside the
Upper Common Room. In a shift of tone,
Michaelmas Term was seen out by a series of
new abstract paintings by Jon Rowland: ‘And
Life is Colour’.
2019 opened with an unusual exhibition,
a series of photographic reproductions
of tapestries embroidered by Palestinian
women as part of the Oxford-based
Palestinian History Tapestry project (www.
palestinianhistorytapestry.org). The tapestries
are intended to show a neglected and
often fragmented history of Palestine from
antiquity to the present, a story which can
never be apolitical and whose later chapters
are particularly contested. We are very
grateful to the organisers, Jan Chalmers
and Lady English, for putting the tapestries
and their messages in context, and the
exhibition was well received. Samples of
the textiles themselves were also exhibited,
together with a historic British passport
from the period of the Palestinian Mandate,
which evoked the colonial and post-colonial
historical fault-lines of the region.
The tapestries were followed by a show
of very different photographs, Jenny
Blyth’s ‘Reflecting the Landscape’. Many
of her photographs were taken through
changing seasons in the grounds of Wolfson
and in Port Meadow. She lived with the
College, and the images of its buildings are
sometimes almost abstract as she captures
the angles and reflections of Powell and
Moya glazing. We were delighted to be able
to acquire one of these for the permanent
collection.
In April the Oxford-based painter and
illustrator Tom Cross gave us ‘Shapes
and Adventures’, an exhibition of some
of his work since 2004, which traced his
interest in different stylistic approaches
as well as enduring concern with abstract
compositions and colour combinations. Next
up was the Ulster-born artist Naomi Litvack,
whose ‘Field Notes’ presented evocative and
sometimes unsettling landscapes in oil on
panel, mostly painted in Wiltshire and the
Scottish Highlands and Hebrides.
The 2018/9 programme came to a close
with a fascinating personal selection of
Japanese Ukiyo-e (‘Floating World’) prints
from the collection of Wolfson’s own
Professor Gillies McKenna and Ruth Muschel.
This rich and gorgeous exhibition captures
the middle-class world of nineteenthcentury
Japan, a time of superficial prosperity
and relative isolation for the country. ‘The
Golden Age of Japanese Prints: Kunisada,
Kuniyoshi and Hiroshige’ exceptionally
continuing through summer 2019, to allow
as many to see it as possible. We have
also decided to host longer exhibitions in
general, typically now for three weeks at
a time, which is more economical of time
and effort by the artists, more satisfying for
their audiences, and makes Wolfson a more
attractive venue for exhibition.
The display case on the balcony above the
Marble Hall has continued to put a spotlight
on small, often exquisite art and craft
exhibits. Among this year’s highlights were
selected works by the virtuoso Londonbased
glass-maker Jochen Holz.
COLLEGE RECORD 2019