- Venue
- barnstaple museum
- Starts
- Saturday, May 24, 2025
- Ends
- Saturday, July 5, 2025
- Address
- the square, Barnstaple
- Location
- South West England
In 1980 the artist Peter Stiles dropped out of the Slade and came to North Devon where it was possible to rent a cottage for £10 a week and earn enough through working on farms and gardens to support himself and carry on painting. This exhibition investigates a very small area of land where he settled and which at first glance might seem to represent a kind of retreat from broader society but reflected the history of the 20th century in a startling fashion. The show features newly discovered letters to a farm labourer serving in Palestine during WW1 from his fiance – describing life in the village, a painting by Dora Carrington completed in 1919, and research into a commune set up in the 30s that was influenced by the writer Ronald Duncan’s visit to Gandhi but which attracted both pacifists and fascist sympathisers. A publication was produced there that featured work by Ezra Pound, Brancusi, ee cummings and many other significant writers and artists. The whole valley was purchased by Christopher Cadbury in order to form a nature reserve in the 1950s and it has reflected the changing approaches to nature conservation ever since. Gillian Ayres and Henry Mundy arrived during the 80s providing further input into this rich mix of cultural history.
