CALENDAR OF EVENTS

KIRKCUDBRIGHT PONT-AVEN: ARTISTS IN SEARCH OF INSPIRATION - MAY/JUNE 2004

Kircudbright Pont-Aven 

Drawing on their shared history as sites of artistic inspiration, the towns of Kirkcudbright, in Dumfries and Galloway, and Pont-Aven in Brittany, collaborated earlier this year on a comparative exhibition of paintings by French and Scottish artists, held in Kirkcudbright's Tolbooth Art Centre from May 8-June 20.


During the later 19th century, artists around Europe left their city studios to seek inspiration in remoter rural areas, in pursuit of simplicity, honesty and a new artistic language. In the mid 1880s Paul Gauguin found Pont-Aven. At the same time E.A. Hornel and his friends amongst the 'Glasgow Boys' set up their easels in Kirkcudbright.


The Kircudbright exhibition, featuring around 60 works from collections in Scotland and France, set out to compare and contrast the artistic history of these two small harbour towns, situated in the similarly lush landscapes of Galloway and Brittany. Among the French artists represented were Paul Serusier, Emile Bernard, Maxime Maufra and Claude Emile Schuffenecker, while their Scots counterparts included George Henry, George Lacombe, W.S. MacGeorge, S.J. Peploe, Jessie M King and E.A. Walton. The juxtaposition of work from the period 1875 - 1965 highlighted the European context of Kirkcudbright's art heritage - unique in Scotland for the longevity of its artistic community - while raising wider questions about the nature of 'artist colonies'.


A second, accompanying exhibition was staged by Pont-Aven's leading contemporary gallery, La Galerie du Bois d'Amour, in the Harbour Cottage Art Gallery, Kirkcudbright from June 7 - 27, featuring some of France's best glass sculptors, alongside paintings by Partrick Le Tualt and Cathiane.

CONTACTS

Stewartry Museum
Kirkcudbright
01557-331643