An Overview of the Collections
Frances Guy, Curator


Pallant House Gallery is much more than an art gallery. It tells the story of a number of individuals, all passionate collectors of art who generously donated their lifetimes’ labours to the Gallery for the benefit of the public. Since Dean Walter Hussey’s gift of works by Henry Moore, John Piper, Ceri Richards, Graham Sutherland and others that led to its inception in 1982, the Gallery has attracted the interest of other benefactors, most notably Charles Kearley and now Sir Colin St John Wilson. The core of this ‘collection of collections’ is Modern British art but other artworks figure such at the Bow Porcelain of the Geoffrey Freeman Collection. Each group of works has been formed by different impulses and lends its own character to the collection, making the experience of Pallant House Gallery engaging, insightful and unique.

Walter Hussey’s collection centres around the artistic commissions he instigated at Chichester Cathedral where he was Dean from 1955 to 1977. Offered the position by Bishop George Bell, himself an advocate of modern church art, Hussey’s commissions were founded on the tenet that “Whenever anything new was required in the first seven hundred years of the history of the cathedral, it was put in the contemporary style”. His bequest includes preparatory works for the magnificent altar tapestry and festival vestments by Piper, abstract collages by Richards for a set of copes and a version of Sutherland’s ‘Christ Appearing to Mary Magdalen’. Other works reflect Hussey’s former position at St Matthews in Northampton: a Crucifixion by Sutherland based on the major painting he commissioned in 1944 and drawings and small sculptures by Henry Moore whose controversial Madonna and Child at St Matthews in part provoked Sir Alfred Munnings’ infamous attack on modern art in his address to the Royal Academy in 1949. Many of these works were given as gifts through the friendships Hussey made with the artists he commissioned.

Hussey started his collecting career after a trip to the theatre in 1932 when he was inspired to buy one of the production’s costume designs for Romeo and Juliet, and later he was to buy other stage designs by Léon Bakst and Alexandre Benois. His taste was informed and eclectic, encompassing prints by Old Masters such as Dürer and Rembrandt, drawings by Tiepolo and Watteau and some fine examples of 18th century British watercolour by Cozens and Varley.

The generous offer of his collection to the Chichester District made upon his retirement in 1977 fuelled the foundation of Pallant House Gallery since Hussey made the gift dependent on the restoration of the Queen Anne townhouse to display his artworks. When the Gallery opened in 1982, presenting Modern British art in an historic setting, the intimate space and stimulating juxtaposition of old and new inspired another collector to make a similar gesture. Charles Kearley’s bequest is remarkably complementary to that of Hussey, featuring many of the same artists but including works by a number of continental 20th century artists such as Paul Cézanne, André Derain, Fernand Léger and Gino Severini.

Kearley inherited his father’s property development business and undertook a number of projects in the 1930s including flats by the architects Myerscough-Walker and Maxwell Fry that are recognised as important examples of modernist housing. Kearley took Fry’s open-plan penthouse flat in Kensal House in Ladbroke Grove for himself and his need to furnish it prompted the start of his art collection. Many of his purchases were bought on the advice of the art critic R H Wilenski, a champion of Modern British art who helped Kearley develop his taste. With a budget of around £700 a year spent mostly at auction houses, the collection grew to include key works such as John Piper’s painting of a bombed-out church in Bristol, commissioned by the War Artists Advisory Committee, and Ben Nicholson’s ‘1946 (still life – cerulean)’, a work showing the influence of the Cubists and, in particular, Juan Gris.

Kearley’s house at Hathill Copse just outside Chichester, which he commissioned architect John Lomax to build in 1975, now the home of the Cass Sculpture Foundation, was a perfect setting for his collection. His approach had an aesthetic sense of purpose and the artworks complemented the modernist interior and vice versa. With no immediate family to whom to leave his collection, his gift to Pallant House Gallery, made through The Art Fund in 1989, was prompted by nothing more than an interest in the public good.

Although comprising only twenty works, the bequest made by Doreen Lucas in 1995 of her husband’s collection of Modern art contains many important works. Norman Lucas was headmaster of Midhurst Grammar School and collected works by artists connected with the area, such as Ivon Hitchens and Kit Barker, as well as sculptures by Denis Mitchell and John Milne and studio pottery, including examples by Norah Braden, Michael Cardew and Bernard Leach.

The Geoffrey Freeman Collection of Bow Porcelain is probably the most comprehensive record of the output of this London factory, consisting of over 300 key examples produced between the years 1747 and 1776. Freeman began collecting late in his life with the sole intention of developing a historically important body of work, undertaking extensive research and co-authoring a book on the subject. The Bow Factory was the largest in England and the first to specifically produce porcelain, aiming to compete with Chinese and European imports. Its output would have been used in households such as Pallant House and the collection was loaned to the Gallery and subsequently offered as a bequest on the death of Freeman’s widow Norah in 1999.

The Wilson Gift, also the result of a passion for collecting that Professor Wilson likens to ‘a lifelong addiction’, is an important step in the Gallery’s development, not only for the collection but for the building itself. Wilson’s obsession initially focussed on his contemporaries and friends, many of them associated with the Independent Group and the Institute of Contemporary Arts where he was an influential contributor. He bought works by Richard Hamilton, Eduardo Paolozzi and others at the start of their careers, celebrated in Room 14 where there is a display marking the 50th anniversary of ‘This is Tomorrow’, the Independent Group’s landmark exhibition. Importantly for the Gallery, Wilson’s collection not only includes an important group of works by Sickert but exceptional examples of British Pop art and post-war figurative art, thus enabling the Gallery to present an almost comprehensive overview of 20th century British art.

However there are already plans for future growth. The initial exhibition, ‘Modern British Art: The First 100 Years’ includes a trail called ‘Promised’ consisting of works that will come to the Gallery in the future. Sometimes representing only a proportion of the overall gift, these artworks have been loaned by individuals who have chosen Pallant House Gallery as the eventual recipient of their generosity. Included are examples from the collection of Dr John Birch, already on loan to the Gallery, that form a link with Hussey’s initial gift. In 1958 Hussey appointed Birch as Organist and Master of the Choristers at Chichester Cathedral. As a result of their friendship and through Hussey’s direction, Birch also began to collect Modern British art, naturally reflecting his mentor’s taste. The collection includes theatrical designs from Chichester Festival Theatre and works by artists including Edward Bawden, Jacob Epstein, Duncan Grant, Ivon Hitchens, John Minton, Paul Nash, John Piper, Ceri Richards and Edward Wadsworth.

Also on display in the Prints Room are works from the Golder-Thompson Gift, a collection of Scottish works on paper being developed through a fund provided by two supporters of the Gallery. This alone numbers over 80 items and includes work by established contemporary Scottish artists such as John Bellany, John McLean and Adrian Wiszniewski, and newcomers Christine Borland and Toby Paterson. The fund is an ongoing annual donation and there are plans to expand the scope of the purchases to encompass Scottish prints from the first half of the century.

Finally ‘Modern British Art: The First 100 Years’ contains some highlights from two other significant art collections in West Sussex that were founded as the result of an infatuation with collecting: an internationally important group of Surrealist art based at West Dean, built up by the patron and eccentric Edward James; and a teaching collection of post-war British art formed by two contemporaries of Hussey’s, Betty Murray and Sheila McCririck of the Bishop Otter College in Chichester. Again, these reflect the extraordinary commitment of individuals who have dedicated their lives to collecting and the wealth of high quality examples of British and international art that is held in West Sussex, of which the collections at the new Pallant House Gallery form the cornerstone. The first exhibition will be an opportunity to celebrate this and to thank those people who have selflessly offered the products of a lifelong obsession for the enjoyment and benefit of the public.

Kit Barker Archive
The Gallery has recently benefited from an interesting and important archive of catalogues and letters representing Kit Barker, an artist who lived in West Sussex at the end of his life, but who spent much of his early career in Cornwall and then New York and San Francisco where he mixed with an influential circle of artists, writers and critics.