On Loan
Rachel Reckitt
(1908 - 1995)
The Tower
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Rachel Reckitt (1908 - 1995)
Size:
Height – 100cm
Width – 74cm
Provenance: Private collection, Norfolk
The
scene is one of Rachel Reckitt‘s ‘conversation’ pieces
the woman putting up laundry is talking to a baker whose premises are next
door. The place is St Emilion in the Bordeaux
in the Spring summer of 1955 or 1956, the painting would have been done in the
studio at Golsoncott from photographs, or quick sketches often in biro,
during the autumn or winter of the same year. Conversation pieces often involve
boys on bicycles, queues at bakers, gossiping women in the street, peasant
farmers in the fields etc.
We are grateful to Hal Bishop for assistance and the Golsoncott Foundation (who hold Reckitt’s copyright).
Exhibited: Rachel Reckitt, ‘Where Everything that meets the eye … A retrospective’, 2001.
Artist in mild steel, wood, stone, paint and wood engraving, born in St Albans, Hertfordshire. She studied at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art in late 1930s under lain Macnab, and in 1970-5 at the Roadwater Smithy, Somerset, with Harry and Jim Horrobin. After training Reckitt worked from home in west Somerset at Rodhuish, Minehead. Carried out commissions for pub signs; wood-engraved book illustrations and single prints; and did sculpture in five Somerset churches and for private commission. She was an honorary member of the Somerset Guild of Craftsmen and SWE and a member of British Artist Blacksmiths’ Association. Other group shows included Wertheim Gallery and LG. Had solo exhibitions at Duncan Campbell Contemporary Art and Bridgwater Arts Centre. A retrospective publication, Rachel Reckitt: where everything that meets the eye… appeared in zoos, Hal Bishop’s survey of her work, supported by Somerset County Museums Service and the Golsoncott Foundation, accompanying shows in Taunton, Glastonbury and Exeter. Public collections in Salford and Bridgwater hold examples, as do Withycombe, Old Cleeve and Leighland.
