121 High Street

Portsmouth, PO1 2HW

info@jackhousegallery.co.uk

Fine Art Gallery

Reflections

by Garrick Palmer

Preview 31st March
Exhibition 1st to 28th April 2022

Gallery open
Wednesday to Saturday 12-4.30pm
or by appointment

On Reflection

‘I can only look back with any degree of comfort since looking forward would be unwise. After my brush with mortality which was a sombre reminder how easily one's life could change. Since my last exhibition," Trees from the Bus "nobody could have imagined how much was going to change, and on a global scale.

Drifting back to my post graduate student days at the R A Schools in the mid sixties I recall the impression portrayed by senior members of the R A. Sir Alfred Munnings P R A. were inclined to use the image of Modern Art, and in particular Picasso as offering fodder for amusement. The R A, as an Institution was not inclined to change easily. However, the evidence of the wind of change was showing signs they were coming into the 20th century. Prominent artists such as Tracey Emin R A C B E was elected to the R A , as well as Grayson Perry. This would have seemed inconceivable at the time I had been a student there.

Garrick Palmer 2022 photographed by Pat Attridge

After I graduated I took a teaching job at Winchester School of Art, and remained there until I took early retirement on the grounds of ill health. At this point I obtained my first photographic commission to record sculptures in Hampshire for the newly created Hampshire Sculpture Trust. Soon after this period I experienced the worst period in my life, that is engraved in memory, my very dear Ellis died having spent the last five weeks of her life at the Rowan's Hospice.

I continued to photograph sculpture, in particular Roche Court. Finally I favoured "Themes " the first being " At any Time" The Winchester Gallery 2006. "A Place of Worship" Portsmouth Anglican Cathedral 2006.and lastly "A Walk along Portsmouth the Sea Front " 2008 Portsmouth Museum and Art Gallery .

It was at this stage the development of Digital photography was gradually to overshadow the use of film cameras making all previous equipment obsolete, or with a very limited use. I found at this point it was a good opportunity to return to my original medium painting and pick up the threads again returning to where it had started.’

Garrick Palmer March 2022

Garrick Palmer A Life in Art

In a nearly 70 year career as an artist Garrick Palmer has excelled in every medium he has adopted through painting, wood engraving & photography and his work is in The Tate, Southampton City Art Gallery, Reading Museum & The Towner in Eastbourne but by far the largest body of his work is in the collection of Portsmouth City Museum in his hometown with the earliest paintings dating from the 1950s & every decade represented thereafter.

Prize giving for Garrick Palmer’s painting ‘Lazarus’ Royal Academy 1958

Born in Portsmouth in September 1933 Garrick Palmer remained in the Portsmouth area all his life and now lives in Horndean in a house given over almost entirely to his art as evidenced by rooms filled with stacked engraved woodblocks & prints, photography equipment and at the top, with the best natural light, his painting studio. While the younger artist David Hockney has adopted technology to work on a large & prolific scale Garrick Palmer continues with the laborious & for him somewhat tortuous process of making paintings on large canvases using brushes & paint.

Garrick Palmer went to school at St John’s College Southsea and started his artistic training at Portsmouth College of Art & Design following up with postgraduate painting study at the Royal Academy London in the 1950s. He was something of a star student at the RA and was awarded the David Murray Landscape Scholarships in 1955, 1956 & 1957, the Leverhulme Scholarship in 1957 and the Royal Academy Gold Medal and the Edward Scott Travelling Scholarship in 1958. While still at the RA, Palmer took a position at Winchester School of Art where he eventually retired from teaching after some 20 years as Head of the Foundation Department in 1986.

Illustrations
His first commission was for the Folio Society in 1967 when he embarked on illustrations for the first of several Herman Melville books working in the medium of wood engraving. He was eventually to produce further wood engraved commissions for ‘Three Stories’, ‘Benito Cereno’ & ‘Moby Dick’ along with further to illustrate ‘The Destruction of the Jews’ by Josephus in 1974, The Sea & the Jungle by H.M. Tomlinson, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge, Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde and most recently ‘Land’ in 1995.

The Tricorn Centre Portsmouth demolished in 2006

Photography
In the 1980s Palmer embarked on a career as a photographer and again was awarded several commissions amongst them for the Hampshire Sculpture Trust in 1987 & photographs of Portsmouth seafront for an exhibition of his photographs, entitled "Portsmouth, A Personal Reflection" in 1988; a collection now held at Portsmouth City Museum. With something of a specialisation in architectural subjects Hampshire County Council asked him to photograph ‘Early Churches in Hampshire’ in 1997 & in 2001 Palmer was commissioned to document the demolition & build of Pallant House Gallery until 2006. He also took photographs of the demolition of the Tricorn Centre in 2004.

When Garrick Palmer’s wife *Ellis, an accomplished artist jewellery maker, became seriously ill he decided to return to his home studio to work alongside her. The engraving ‘Memory of a Poignant Landscape’ was made at this time & undoubtedly shows the anguish of a time he has described as the worst of his life. Ellis died in 1998 & Garrick Palmer remains in the house in which they raised their daughters & where he now paints with the company of a cat called Ginger Nuts.

Ellis Palmer nee Ellis Leach-Moore was a jewellery maker & silversmith who produced extraordinary sculptural pieces using organic forms and natural materials. Several of her large sculptural brooches will go on display at Portsmouth City Museum in May 2022 as part of the major ‘Silver City’ exhibition.

Drawing of Ellis Palmer by Garrick Palmer date unknown.