Sculpture at

Lord’s WoodThe Studio, Lord’s Wood,

Marlow Common, Bucks, SL7 2QS

01628 486565

‘An Outpost of Old Bloomsbury in the Marlow Woods’ – was how Frances Partridge, the last surviving member of the celebrated Bloomsbury Group, described Lord’s Wood in a 1958 diary entry. Partridge, an accomplished writer, diarist and translator, was a close friend of the renowned psychoanalyst, James Strachey (1887–1967) and his wife, Alix (1892–1973), the house’s previous owners.

In 1974, when David and Millie Messum purchased Lord’s Wood, the house was considerably run-down and the gardens were a veritable wilderness, largely because Alix had become increasingly eccentric and reclusive in her last years. Originally built in 1899, the house was designed by Granville Streatfield in the currently fashionable

Lutyens style. However, its interior details bore the hallmark of its original owner, Alix’s mother, the eccentric mural painter, Mary Sargent Florence. Around the turn of the

century, Mary, a widow following the death of her American husband, Henry Florence, arrived in Marlow from London. Looking for a place where she could raise Alix and her

brother Philip, as well as found an artists colony, she settled on Marlow, where she collaborated with Streatfield on the plans for Lord’s Wood, specifically the design of The Studio.

The StudioFrom the very beginning, The Studio was the heart of Lord’s Wood. It was here that Mary planned and made studies for her two most important fresco commissions: at the Old School, Oakham in Rutland (c. 1909–14), and at Bournville School near Birmingham (1912–14). After 1920, The Studio took on a new identity as an important centre for psychoanalysis, when Alix and James married. Following a pilgrimage to Vienna to see Sigmund Freud, and subsequent analysis, Freud entrusted James and Alix to undertake the first English translation of his groundbreaking theories. Upon their return to Lord’s Wood, they completed the first draft in 1922, and working with a team at The Studio, eventually produced the first English version of Freud’s On Dreams, effectively changing the face of British Psychoanalysis.

Equally, throughout the 1920s, the house played host to James’s older brother Lytton Strachey, founding member of the Group, and author of Eminent Victorians, as well as Virginia and Leonard Woolf, Mark Gertler and Dora Carrington. Eventually, Lytton’s library came to be stored at The Studio, following his death in 1932, and remained there until Alix’s death. In his biography of Lytton Strachey, Michael Holroyd described the state of the The Studio at in the 1960s: “In the middle of the building were two great wooden tables piled high with boxes and files, and on the floor were littered innumerable trunks and suitcases – all full of letters, diaries and miscellaneous papers. Cobwebs and a pall of dust blanketed everything...”

This was still very much the state of the house when David and Millie took possession, but in the intervening years The Studio has undergone a remarkable transformation. Cleaned, extended and restored, it now houses another collection of books and pictures, and it is wonderfully fitting that Lord’s Wood, and particularly The Studio, which were designed and built as havens of creativity, should now be the focus of a new artistic enterprise. What was formerly a working artist’s studio, then Alix and James Strachey’s think-tank, and Lytton Strachey’s library, The Studio is now the practical heart of Messum’s. It is here that the Gallery researches and organises its Cork Street exhibitions, and co-ordinates a skilled creative team of conservators, framers, photographers and designers.

The Gardens and SculpturesThroughout the gardens, you will find works by several renowned British sculptors exclusive to Messum’s, including Laurence Edwards, Dominic Welch and Bridget McCrum. The gardens were reclaimed and redesigned by David and Millie Messum, with the later help and expertise of Roger Langman (Head Gardener), and lately with Chris Pilkington the gardens have undergone further improvements. Both Roger and Chris will be more than happy to answer any planting queries you may have during your visit, as well as point out particular highlights, such as the long border on the north lawn and the herb garden, where the herbaceous plantings are just now reaching maturity.

Top left, Maynard Keynes at Lord’s WoodBottom right, Alix Strachey with Lytton Strachey at Lord’s Wood

Lord’s Wood

Laurence Edwards b. 1967

As a sculptor working primarily in the time-honored material of bronze, Laurence Edwards has a major advantage. While still a post-graduate student at the Royal College of Art, he studied casting under the Sri Lankan Master Founder Tissa Ranasinghe and subsequently spent the summers of 1989 and 1990 travelling in the Indian subcontinent, studying traditional methods of bronze casting and working alongside Indian sculptors.

For a sculptor to be both able and willing to cast his own work in bronze is very unusual, but it provides him with artistic opportunities, in terms of process, technical experiment and advance, open to few others. Unlike many other sculptors, therefore, who hand over their maquettes at the foundry-door and relinquish many technical decisions along with them, Edwards is involved with his work all the way from first conception through to ultimate culmination.

As time has progressed, Edwards’ work has grown in terms of physical stature and public regard. With titles like ‘On the Edge’ and ‘Predicament’, many of his two thirds to life-size figure sculptures hint at psychological tensions as much as formal ones. Their normally hidden iron armatures, which act as physical supports for the cast bronze, seem to act as emotional supports for the figures kept within their bounds.

Several works from this series will be on display in the grounds of Lord’s Wood, while a collection of smaller scale pieces will be on show in the Studio.

The writer and curator John Sheeran has commented,

“Edwards is not only producing work of great authority, but also of relevance to the wider world. His art addresses past, present and future and stimulates strong thoughts and ideas about who and what we are, where we belong, and the perilous consequences of our dislocation from nature and our roots. His work has a refreshing integrity and honesty about it.”

Bridget McCrum b. 1934

Bridget McCrum’s work is a potent fusion of the ancient with the modern. She works primarily in stone, from which some pieces are also cast in bronze. Inspired by archaeological finds as well as by the work of Brancusi, Hepworth and Moore, her sculpture also contains oblique references to the landscape and fauna around her homes in Devon and Gozo.

McCrum continues to draw every day. Set high above the Dart Estuary, her drawing studio is the perfect vantage point from which to view the birds circling and gliding above their prey and this vertiginous view is the starting point for many pieces of her work. The basis of her work is a lyrical abstraction of living forms, a process after which only the primary elements of her animals and birds remain identifiable.

One of her larger works, Merlin, was commissioned by Rolls Royce for their new factory at Bristol. Cast in stainless steel, it stands at over four metres high and reflects the proportions not only of the Merlin bird, but also of the Spitfire aircraft. Timeless in its elegance, Merlin is available in a bronze edition of nine, each piece measuring 7ft including base.

Nicolas Moreton

For over 25 years, Nicolas Moreton has carved British stone into powerfully organic sculptures, which he often gives a additional, contemporary twist by the inclusion of electrical lighting. He has exhibited his work extensively throughout Britain, and in Italy and examples of his work are in private collections in Britain, Europe, North America, New Zealand and Hong Kong. His awards and honours include The Brian Mercer Fellowship, grants from the Arts Council and most recently, The People’s Choice Award at the National Sculpture Exhibition. At heart, a hands-on, deeply communicative artist, he also holds regular carving workshops and his recent stand at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show incorporated a studio section.

Giles Rayner b. 1975

Giles Rayner describes himself as a water sculptor, creating complex and intriguing forms that interact with this essential, life-giving element. He trained as a sculptor at Kingston University and specializes in producing pieces in copper, bronze and stainless steel. His portfolio is surprisingly broad, ranging from the futuristic to the grand and traditional, but this diversity reflects the range of contexts in which his pieces are situated. He produces work largely to commission, and his pieces have found their way into private gardens, atriums and public spaces both contemporary and historic where they add a touch of timeless elegance. An impressive list of patrons includes HM The Queen and The National Trust and his sculptures have been a consistent presence in award winning gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show for a number of years.

Guy Taplin

Guy Taplin creates birds from found and reclaimed wood with almost Dada-like imagination and wit. Often composed of driftwood and parts of disused boats, Taplin forms his stylised, but utterly vital birds with such a canny eye for found objects and a complete lack of guile, they often appear more evolved than carved.

Born in the East End of London on the eve of World War Two, and evacuated to Herefordshire before returning to roam the woods and hedges of Epping, Guy Taplin had an obsession with birds from the outset. But, after a near-lethal spell in the army, he careered through endless menial jobs, finding brief fame making hippy buckles in ‘Swinging London’ before hitting on his vocation by happy accident. It is now almost legend that, while caring for the ornamental waterfowl in Regent’s Park and training to become a Buddhist monk, the Bird Man began on a whim to whittle crude, decoy images of his charges in wood and never stopped.

Likened by Michael Palin to a ‘magician’, there is certainly something of the alchemist about Taplin as, with the minimum of tools and techniques, he turns driftwood and other pieces of discarded timber into stands or flights of birds. Now collected around the world, they are vessels for our dreams.

Brian Taylor 1935–2013

Throughout the late 1960s, Taylor’s exploration of the human figure was informed by themes of mental instability. He based several works on characters from ‘Alice in Wonderland’, and his freely modelled heads of Alice, The Cook, The King, The Duchess recall both the expressive satire of John Tenniel’s illustrations, and the sinister distortions of a funhouse mirror. It was also at this time that Taylor became acquainted with Mr Stanhope, a local homeless man, and Lily Piers, a former student at Camberwell, who suffered from severe mental illness. Taylor sculpted a a portrait of “Old Man Stanhope’, which he cast in 1978, and several sculptures of Lily Piers ‘dancing’ in poses that were both indebted to Rodin and specifically arranged to distract his often distraught model.

Dominic Welch b. 1970

Born in Taplow, Buckinghamshire, Dominic Welch has moved from a county of wood to a region of stone, settling at Drewsteignton in Devon after securing a highly-productive apprenticeship with the sculptor Peter Randall-Page for the decade from 1989. Like Randall-Page, Welch became fascinated by fruit, seed and fossil shapes, helping to create what his tutor referred to as “vessels for life” in homage to both men’s heroes, Brancusi and Naguchi. When positioned outdoors on completion, these organic forms swiftly become part of the landscape.

Following the success of his one-man show with Messum’s last year, Dominic Welch continues to produce work in stone that is both fluent and fluid, as if the stone were swelling with inner life, flexing and stretching into new organic forms and structures. Exhibited widely at home and abroad, his sculpture features in many public and private collections. It is now part of many landscapes—even standing high above the breakers of Australia’s Bondi Beach.

Neil Wilkin

Graduating with a degree in 1981, Neil immediately set upon a career in glass making. He set up his own workshop with fellow artist Rachael Woodman in 1984 and completed hundreds of projects. Over the years, Neil has perfected many different glass-making techniques including restoration work (he was awarded the coveted commission to make the ‘blanks’ for the fire damaged chandeliers from Windsor Castle); speciality collaborations with international artists such as Rachael Woodman, Peter Bremers, Floris Meydam, Menno Yonker producing their own art works. Corporate clients include Thomas Goode, Asprey, Four Seasons, The Grove, Liberty, Cunard, Langham & Natural History Museum of Copenhagen who commissioned 5 x 85cm diameter spiders!

His work is found in public and private collections and exhibited throughout the UK – for example V&A London, Crafts Council London, Bristol City Art Gallery etc and Europe, USA, South America, Asia, Australia.

2014 celebrates 30 years since opening his first workshop in Bath with Rachael Woodman.

“Neil Wilkin is Britain’s most important hot glass maker … an artist in his own right with a vision that he uses his own skills to articulate and a glass master in the old sense …”.

Michael Robinson, former Curator of Applied Arts, Ulster Museum

Neil’s garden sculptures, chandeliers and interior artwork are inspired by nature and the natural world.

“All my forms are derived and inspired from the natural world – especially the many forms, structures, colours and textures of plants, seeds, flowers, grasses, fruits & leaves. The exploration is a constant search for form. The shapes come from the environment and I enjoy placing them back outside as the changing light and weather work well with the reflective qualities of the glass”

His work communicates his design philosophy – “keep things simple and make people smile”.

Visiting Lord’s Wood

The Studio, Lord’s Wood, Marlow Common, Marlow, SL7 2QSDIRECTIONSFrom the top of Marlow High Street take the Henley Road, but before leaving town turn right at Platts Garage up Oxford Road towards Frieth. Continue up this road for about 11⁄2 miles ascending a hill with high banks on either side, passing the Royal Oak Pub, and two turnings left to Bovingdon Green and then Marlow Common. 300 yards further on, opposite a sign saying Valley View Stables, turn left down the drive towards Lord’s Wood. Continue past the first white gate on your right and park on the grass in front of the house before walking in through the Studio entrance.

The Studio, Lord’s Wood, Marlow Common, Marlow, SL7 2QSDIRECTIONSFrom the top of Marlow High Street take the Henley Road, but before leaving town turn right at Platts Garage up Oxford Road towards Frieth. Continue up this road for about 11⁄2 miles ascending a hill with high banks on either side, passing the Royal Oak Pub, and two turnings left to Bovingdon Green and then Marlow Common. 300 yards further on, opposite a sign saying Valley View Stables, turn left down the drive towards Lord’s Wood. Continue past the first white gate on your right and park on the grass in front of the house before walking in through the Studio entrance.

Lord’s Wood Sculpture Gardens and The Studio are open during the Open Weekend (11th and 12th June) and by appointment all year. Please contact The Studio on 01628 486565 to make an appointment

www.messums.com