Portraits, Politics and Passion

A 4-part online series, which will explore four contrasting artists, their personal gardens and landscapes: Thomas Gainsborough, William Morris, Winston Churchill and Cedric Morris.

This ticket costs £16 for the entire course of 4 sessions or you may purchase a ticket for individual sessions, costing £5 via the links above.

Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk. A link to the recorded session (available for 1 week) will be sent shortly afterwards.

A course presented by Caroline Holmes which examines four contrasting artists, their personal gardens, and landscapes. Starting with ‘Capability’ Brown’s contemporary Gainsborough; his childhood garden, portraits and landscapes. The politics and passion of Arts and Crafts is encapsulated by William and May Morris at Red House and Kelmscott Manor. Winston Churchill appreciated the military landscaping of water at Chartwell and the peace of his studio. Lastly, Artist Plantsman Cedric Morris took consummate botany into expressionist flower paintings with a dash of surrealism and cubism.

Caroline Holmes is an experienced and accomplished lecturer working for a wide range of organisations including leading tour and cruise operators. She is also a Course Director for the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education including this year’s Virtual Summer Festival of Learning 2020. Her own gardens are open to the public and have featured in many magazine articles and on television in both Britain and Japan. She is author of 11 books including a comprehensive history of Water Lilies published in 2015. For more information about Caroline see her website here.

Week 1. 2nd February: Thomas Gainsborough – a silken thread of painted landscapes

The silken thread starts with the gnarled mulberry tree that still dominates Thomas Gainsborough’s childhood garden in Sudbury, Suffolk continuing to London, Bath and Chatsworth. Contemporary with England’s greatest landscaper, Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown, Gainsborough was an originator of the English landscape painting school.

Week 2. 9th February: William Morris – beauty and utility

Morris’s romantic utopianism was derived from nature and medieval craftsmanship, expressed in the gardens of Red House. Kelmscott Manor, growing out of its own site was the setting for Morris’s socialism and inspiration for his philosophy and crafts. May Morris’s outstanding botanical drawings and embroidery skills put the final threads into the weave and saved Kelmscott.

Week 3. 16th February: Winston Churchill at home – Chartwell

Churchill’s family connections lead to the availability of many early marital homes. In 1921 Churchill made the unilateral decision to purchase Chartwell, the children were ecstatic whilst Clementine was appalled. Away from politics, the development of the gardens at Chartwell, his craftsmanship as a bricklayer in ‘biographical garden buildings’ was matched by the solace of painting.

Week 4. 23rd February: Cedric Morris – irises and beyond

The sole Artist Plantsman in this series, his final Suffolk home Benton End was saved in 2019, here he intertwined art and botany expressed in his glorious flower paintings, he cultivated over 90 new irises. His portraits and landscapes present his wide friendships and expansive travels. Benton End gardens also cultivated a new generation of artists not least Maggi Hambling.