Sculpture
Hannah Peschar Gallery and Sculpture Garden (Ockley, Surrey) New Art Centre Sculpture Garden at Roche Court (East Winterslow, Salisbury)
Out to grass
Giles Auty
As one who wrote that the woods at the Kroller-Milller Sculpture Park at Otterlo in Holland would be a more attrac- tive place to walk in if only most of the sculpture were removed, I do not want to sound hypocritical by saying how much I enjoyed two visits I made last week to pri- vately run sculpture gardens in the South of England. Just one of the features that distinguished between these contrasting experiences was a question of scale. At the Tim Harrison's Heaven's Gate; 1990, at the entrance to Roche Court (above), and (below) Hesta Keller's slate `Spires' in the Hannah Peschar Sculpture Garden Krifiller-Muller the more modern artists have set out generally to overtop the natu- ral order of things by making tree-sized objects in hideous colours, as Claes Olden- burg did, or otherwise making the woods look like a tipping ground for industrial detritus. Nor does one suffer elsewhere the appallingly pretentious commentaries delivered at the Kroller-Miiller by robotic guides who aspire to multilingual status. Telling us about a piece by Richard Serra, consisting of three large, rusty sheets of steel let into grassy banks, the guide to my particular party explained that this symbol- ised 'a relationship with friend of the artist who die. You will notice angles made by the metals do never meet. So, you see, the two friends don't see one other, no more. . . . ' Needless to say, no one in my party had noticed anything at all about the angles of the steel sheets. Nevertheless a damp-eyed German member was moved to mutter 'wonderful', while a fruity Aust- ralian voice behind me suggested contrari- wise that we might all benefit from an immediate issue of vomit bags. Clearly it is difficult to pitch art commentaries accu- rately to suit persons of all nations and sen- sibilities.
Happily the work on view at the Hannah Peschar Sculpture Garden is modest in scale and pretension and very generally in price. In short, such sculpture does not seek to swamp its watery environment, amid the leafy lanes of Surrey, but rather to complement it. Hannah Peschar is Dutch and has brought in work by Dutch, Belgian and German sculptors to augment what some of our own better younger prac- titioners are doing. Evert den Hartogh's works in bronze are well-made and unde- manding and somewhat Home Counties in their sensibility. It is known the British love birds and animals; here Sophie Ryder and Jane Truzzi-Franconi also contribute good bronzes. For those whose liking for the organic is less specific, Peter Randall-Page carves marble tellingly.
There are 100 pieces to choose from chez Peschar, which is situated in lovely, land- scaped terrain at Black and White Cottage, Standon Lane, Ockley, Surrey. Ockley is on the A29 and the uninitiated, heading south, should turn right there after the Old School House inn and proceed down Cat Hill Lane, whence signs will lead them direct to Black and White Cottage. Streams and small, artificial lakes abound there, as the presence of hovering mayflies testifies. The garden is open from May till October on Fridays and Saturdays (11-6), Sundays (2-5) and other days by appointment (tel: 030679 269).
Traditional sculptural materials tend to sit more happily in their environment, out- doors or in, but cost more to use for the aspiring artist than do less dignified alter- natives. While admiring the wit and panache of Coral Lambert's use of var- nished scrap metal, I must admit my incli- nations are towards materials which are not recycled but rather hewn from the immemorial. By contrast, Lambert Rocour's slender, decorated monoliths in Belgian granite, which taper towards their base, are distinguished as well as different. I admired also Herta Keller's pyramidal spires made from carefully cut slate mount- ed on steel spines. These rock gently in the wind and possess the kind of natural poetry that can add genuinely to an outdoor envi- ronment.
Roche Court Sculpture Garden at East Winterslow, near Salisbury, provides a charming contrast to the frondose lanes of Surrey. The garden is open at weekends only (11-5) from May to the end of September and on weekdays by appoint- ment (tel: 0980 862204/862864 or 071 235 5844). A relatively foolproof way to drive from London is via the M3, A303 and A343, turning left a little beyond the junc- tion of that last road and the A30. Roche Court is on the left as you enter East Winterslow and is typical of the fine period country houses and outbuildings found on the borders of Wiltshire. The garden, too, looks long established and marks its senior- ity by displaying sculpture which dates back to Gill and Gaudier-Brzeska, Dalwood and Hepworth as well as by more recent pur- suers of their calling. Circling rooks, a dis- tant prospect of a herd of cattle, well-kept lawns and a riot of choisya in flower added to an ambience shot through with spring- time fragrances of which I could not trace the source.
Three curved spines carved from single trees guard the drive to Roche Court. This is a 12-ft piece named 'Heaven's Gate' by the able sculptor Tim Harrison, who is the subject of a one-man exhibition opening next week (22 May-22 June) at New Art Centre (41 Sloane Street, SW1), the art gallery which organises the displays in Wiltshire. Mary Spencer-Watson's 7-ft carved and coloured ash wood figure 'The Hero' is one which might surprise the mod- est and maidenly in any woodland setting. Bridget McCrum supplies the avian inter- est necessary to a British audience with finely made, simplified bronzes which are patinated pleasingly, while Peter Randall- Page performs much the same function here as at Ockley. His 'Ways to Wrap a Stone' are squat yet satisfying. Sculpture tends to be bigger at Roche Court on the whole, in keeping with a more open setting in which small pieces might look lost.
Other sculptures which took my eye par- ticularly before taking off back to my own more modest and sculptureless garden in London included two by George Kenneth- son, one each by Mark Dunhill and Sadiq and an excellently conceived and made standing steel 'Acrobat' by Kit Twyford. Regrettably, to buy the last might involve acrobatics with my bank accounts. In the meantime, I enjoyed searching for a work to loom from shrubs at the bottom of my lawn, but I fear a minor megalith from Easter Island still remains my ideal.
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