Exhibitions
In addition to its own permanent gallery when suitable premises have been identified, TLF is actively engaged in the curating or support of exhibitions of work by Robert Lenkiewicz. Check thse pages regularly for up to date news of places to see work by the artist and for listings of related educational events organised by The Lenkiewicz Foundation.
Exhibition organizers, please check our Resources page or contact TLF for information on the support we can offer museums and galleries wishing to collaborate.
Death and The Maiden
Torre Abbey
Diogenes and Belle at Prayer with Chairs. 1974
TORRE ABBEY
'Death and The Maiden'
15 July — 2 Oct 2011
(Admission charges apply to the abbey, gallery and gardens)
Death and The Maiden will focus on works from the painter’s 1974 ‘Project’ exploring the traditional ‘Death and The Maiden’ theme. This theme counterpoints death and decay with the potential for new life usually represented by the nubile female figure. Numerous paintings and drawings will be shown which have not been exhibited in the years since Lenkiewicz’s death.
Death and The Maiden was first exhibited in 1974 at Lenkiewicz’s new Clifton Street studio, The Fool. Much of the exhibition comprised framed works on paper which were later bound, together with the painter’s original research notes, into a large folio. The folio contains more than 70 watercolours and drawings and modern facsimile techniques now make it possible to exhibit the contents of the Project notebook much as they would have looked when originally shown.
The exhibition will also include oil paintings and original works on paper from the Project as well as the major works from the Foundation’s permanent collection, including the newly restored iconic painting Belle and Diogenes at Prayer with Chairs (above). A programme of events accompanies the show.
For more information visit: www.torre-abbey.org.uk
Details of the schedule of educational events surrounding the exhibition – including gallery talks, lectures and discussions – are available here.
For further information about admission prices click here.
Diogenes at Night in Studio Window. 1977
DIOGENES (Edwin Mackenzie 1912-1984)
Diogenes was the iconic figure of the 1974 Death and The Maiden Project and features in a number of the folio illustrations. The Foundation will exhibit his embalmed remains as a memento mori at Torre Abbey together with paintings and studies of the vagrant.
As Lenkiewicz remarked in 1997:
"I was building up a library on the theme of death and I thought it would be very
nice if the library room on death had artefacts that related to the theme. I had all
kinds of things: an unusual collection of skulls and objects of one kind or another
that related to death, and felt there couldn’t be anything more thought provoking
than the corpse of a human being.
...There was a phrase I used - that one can be very struck by 'the total presence of the
corpse and the total absence of the person', particularly if one knew the person.
This is the primary sensation, in my view, that one gets in viewing a dead body – and I’ve seen many – the total absence of the person running parallel with the
total presence of the corpse. And the corpse has menace, has potential for decay
and putrefaction, almost like an attacking machine, but the person has curiously
vaporized. I’m not making claims for self or soul or essence or spirit – I regard all
these as poetic metaphors. But in witnessing a corpse one can certainly understand
how these poetic metaphors arise."
Diogenes - study from the Death and The Maiden folio, 1974
Review
The site now has a new Review section where you can look back at previous exhibitions and events.
The years 2006 – 2011 are covered. Where possible we will provide photographic walkthroughs or YouTube video of the events.
TLF thanks all contributors who gave permission for their content to be used.
