Last week I accompanied Martin Salisbury and the current full time MA students on a trip to the Fry Art Gallery in Saffron Walden. As always I fell in love (again!) with this jewel of a town and extraordinary art gallery. It is a miniature gem, a doll’s house sized gallery with a fabulous classical-baroque entrance hall and a collection of work from a golden age of British art that’s to die for…
Many years ago, when my father left the RAF, he went into banking and eventually became manager of the HSBC in Saffron Walden. And so my family upped sticks from Suffolk and moved to the Essex village of Great Chesterford. So Saffron Walden – which became our nearest town – holds many memories for me, and it was good to return with my students and make new ones.
The pride of the Fry Art Gallery is it’s significant association with the artists generally called the Great Bardfield group, who included Edward Bawden (they have his magnificent poster for The Titfield Thunderbolt – one of my favourite films!), and Bernard Cheese. Eric Ravilious is another important artist represented there. It’s simply wonderful to be able to see the sketchbooks and processes of these great artists, printmakers, designers. Inspiring and humbling all at the same time. Their influence on design cannot be overestimated, stretching into the 21st Century with the work of Allan Drummond and Angie Lewin (whose St Jude’s Gallery was until recently based in Aylsham, where my parents live now!).
Most extraordinary of all was a sketchbook and dummy for a version of The Twelve Dancing Princesses created by the woefully neglected Sheila Robinson, mother of Chloe Cheese. This miniature masterpiece, created entirely and lovingly by hand reveals a God like deftness of line, planning, colour, composition, pacing and design. It’s something I’ll never forget seeing as long as I live.
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