When we heard of plans to re-issue Sven’s book ‘The Dark Monarch‘, we were happy to be able to include the launch of the book with the exhibition of works by Sven that we had been planning for some time. When we then heard some time later that Tate St Ives were planning to use the title of the book as the title for their Autumn exhibition, it made sense for us to time our show to coincide with theirs, and it has been good to have a chance to work more closely with their curatorial team here in St Ives.
Those of you who have seen the Tate St Ives exhibition will know that it includes several works by Sven, many of which are on loan from Belgrave Gallery. The beautiful, striking owl, which we have been showing in our window overlooking Fore Street in Gallery Two, looks really strong in the Tate’s Gallery One, and in the same room you will find other carvings and drawings by Sven on loan from the gallery.
The traffic between the two galleries has been, consequently, pretty brisk; many people visiting the Tate and hitherto unaware of Sven’s work have been visiting us, and conversely, several people who have visited us and really enjoyed Sven’s work have been persuaded to discover more about this colourful artist’s thoroughly life-affirming oeuvre.
There is, of course, a lot more to see both here and at Tate St Ives, but hopefully this small taste will be enough to inspire you to come and see both shows before the end of the month. Speaking personally, I absolutely love the new Tate show. Over 150 works, all interesting, some just amazing. Come on down to St Ives…
