Island Life Magazine Ltd August/September 2009 | Page 25

ISLAND ART

life

Art at the
Farringford
and beyond
Photo: Farringford Open
Studios Boris Raku
pottery

It’s been a magnificent couple of months
for the visual arts. The Farringford’s
Garden Restaurant continues to support
local artists, offering the chance
for long-term exhibitions, while, by
contrast, other artists have thrown
open their studios (and caution to the
winds) for the annual Open Studio
weekends which take place in July.
Visitors have been able to see the artists

of his birth, include the magnificent

by Freshwater Bay Residents’

in their surroundings, to ask them about

album created by photographer Julia

Association, and dedicated to Tennyson,

techniques or just chatting with them

Margaret Cameron to illustrate his Idylls

will be unveiled. Visitors are invited to

around their inspirations and themes.

of the King. There is also the throne

Tennyson Monument to see its unveiling

Raku pottery, photography, watercolour

Tennyson commissioned for Queen

at 10.30am on 6th August.

or oil paints, the list is hugely diverse.

Emma ofthe Sandwich islands a bust of

day Farringford is privileged to host

thepoet by the Pre-Raphaelite sculptor

two of the world’s leading Tennyson

Thomas Woolner, drawings by Edward

scholars, Professors Leonee Ormond

man. If there was ever any danger that

Lear, portraits by G F Watts (illustrated).

and Marion Shaw, who will speak on

the birthday of a certain evolutionist

The illustrated catalogue Tennyson at

subjects closely connected to

should overshadow all else, the

Farringford is edited by the curator

Tennyson and the Island; the many

Veronica Franklin Gould, with an

visitors drawn to Farringford, and the

But at the Farringford Hotel,
celebrations have centred round one

Farringford have countered it with the

On this

Island’s own champion. Darwin may

introductory essay by Leonee Ormond,

creative inspiration that Tennyson drew

have been 100 but Alfred Lord Tennyson

Professor Emirita of Victorian Studies

from the surrounding countryside. After

has trumped him by a century, and the

at King’s College, available to buy from

these talks afternoon tea is available.

celebrations go on.

Farringford at £15.50.

Tickets cost £22.00 and all profits will

Highlights of Tennyson at Farringford,
the exhibition marking the bicentenary

On the actual day of the poet’s

be donated to charity.

birthday, the toposcope commissioned

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