The golden age of garden painting is celebrated in this selling exhibition presented in partnership with Liss Llewellyn. Sanctuary: Artist-Gardeners 1919-1939 will show over 20 artists including Charles Mahoney, Edward Bawden, Eric Ravilious, Evelyn Dunbar, John Nash, Nancy Nicholson, Kenneth Rowntree and Winifred Knights.
Between the two world wars there were an exceptional number of artists who gardened, taking their activities as plantsmen and plantswomen as seriously as they took their art.
Charles Mahoney shared his unbridled enthusiasm for plants with Edward Bawden, Geoffrey Rhoades, John Nash and Evelyn Dunbar who swapped cuttings with each other by post. Dunbar, along with Mahoney and Nash, even produced books on the subject, while Harry Bush’s oeuvre evolved around painting and repainting his garden in the south west London suburbs.
UPDATE: While the Garden Museum is temporarily closed, we have made the exhibition catalogue available to view free online.
View the catalogue
This selling exhibition is in support of the Garden Museum’s education programmes. If you would like to know more about any of the works for sale, please contact christina@gardenmuseum.org.uk.
Associated Talk
Artist-Gardeners in the Interwar Years
This talk, hosted by Liss Llewellyn co-founder Paul Liss, will journey through some of the most memorable images created by artists of the interwar years, and consider how the gardens they created (both real and imaginary) served as a source of inspiration and sanctuary in a period of upheaval.
Tues 24 March, 7pm – NOW POSTPONED until 3 November
Book tickets
Charles Mahoney, The Garden (1950). Image courtesy of Liss Llewellyn
Phyllis Dodd (1899-1995), Summer Doorway with African Lilies, c.1948, Image courtesy of Liss Llewellyn
Charles Mahoney (1903-1968), Miss Edith inspects the Sweetpea, c.1934, Image courtesy of Liss Llewellyn
Harry Bush (1883-1957), Snowfall in the Suburbs - A View from the Artist's House, 1940. Image courtesy of Liss Llewellyn.
