A portrait of Wilfred Owen by Michelle Cioccoloni - 100 x 120cm matches and acrylic on paper - showing in War and the Pity of War at 118, 1st-8th Nov

"This book is not about heroes. English Poetry is not yet fit to speak of them. Nor is it about deeds, or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, might, majesty, dominion, or power, except war. Above all I am not concerned with Poetry.

"My subject is War, and the pity of War.The Poetry is in the pity. Yet these elegies are to this generation in no sense consolatory. They may be to the next. All a poet can do today is warn. That is why true Poets must be truthful."

IT'S ALL UP IN THE AIR.
Paintings by Hester Berry
21st-29th October 2009

Hester Berry writes: My first solo exhibition in London aims to raise awareness of local issues which affect climate change - in particular the impending destruction of the village of Sipson in order to make room for a third runway at Heathrow airport. Sipson is a small village in the London borough of Hillingdon, which has had to contend with the construction and growth of the airport since the First World War. Now BAA (the owner of what was once a small military airfield, and is now the busiest international airport in the world) wants to force the sales of 700 homes, pubs, restaurants, shops, garages and a school – and bodies laid to rest in Cherry Lane Cemetery would be exhumed in order to make way for new infrastructure. The proposed expansion, backed by the Labour Party, would make Heathrow the single largest emitter of CO2 in the UK.

Robin Saikia of Gallery 118 writes: Recent reports that the Heathrow expansion scheme is to be scrapped in the wake of Conservative opposition should be taken with a pinch of salt. Whilst concerted opposition in the UK and throughout Europe has undoubtedly slowed things down, BAA remain committed to the project: “We [BAA] remain convinced that a third runway is the only viable, costed and thought through way of meeting the need for extra runway capacity to maintain this country’s global connections to the rest of the world, particularly in an era where long haul links to markets such as China and India are increasingly important. The process was always going to take until after the general election. We continue to work on the application and will take as long as is necessary to prepare a proper submission.” In other words, they’ll wait until the dust has settled before attempting to force through a superficially modified – but no less lucrative and damaging – proposal.

CHELSEA AND ST IVES: Artists from the Marjorie Parr Gallery, 1963-2009. Wednesday 7th October - Sunday 18th October 2009. (Photo: Study for Red Rum by Enzo Plazzotta). This landmark exhibition, curated by Mary Lambert, Peter Davies and Robin Saikia, includes work by Vivien ap Rhys Price, Peter Eugene Ball, Thetis Blacker, John Christopherson, Tom Davison, David Evans, Ernst Eisenmayer, Ewen Henderson, Philip Hicks, John Hitchens, Jeff Hoare, Eardley Knollys, Margaret Lovell, John Milne, Denis Mitchell, Margaret Neve, Breon O'Casey, Enzo Plazzotta, Douglas Portway, Barbara Rae, Peter Thursby, Jill Tweed, Aart van Kruiselbergen, Guy Worsdell and Catherine Yarrow. Private views: Wednesday 7th and Thursday 8th October 2009. Peter Davies will be discussing his acclaimed new book Marjorie Parr's Artists.

Marjorie Parr (1906-2007) belonged to a distinguished coterie of London art dealers who effectively and enthusiastically promoted modern British art to an expanding audience during the 1960s and 1970s.

Parr's move, after beginning as an antique dealer specialising in glass, into the adjacent field of abstract sculpture and modern studio ceramics was almost fortuitous. Like many connoisseur dealers of the old school, she mixed business with pleasure and developed a particularly close rapport with her artists based as much on a belief in their work as on purely commercial factors. Many of these artists were based in St Ives in Cornwall, where she eventually opened a gallery to complement the one opened in the King's Road, Chelsea in 1963.

She was born Marjorie Hidden in 1906, the daughter of a music master at Rugby School, and music and ballet were her early passions. She married three times; and her third marriage, to Sam Parr, proved financially ruinous, leaving her in need of earning a living.

Accordingly, she opened a small shop in Watlington, Oxfordshire in 1959, trading in glass and antiques. Her real education as a dealer, however, came about on the Portobello Road in west London, where she ran a small street stall during the early 1960s. In late 1963, having found suitable premises (an old shoe shop) in Chelsea, she relocated to the King's Road. Bit by bit, Parr replaced glass with the equally precious, pristine shapes of abstract sculpture. The mixture of modern painting and antique furniture was unusual. The homely feeling recalled the domestic informality of Jim Ede's collection at Kettle's Yard in Cambridge whose dominant theme - St Ives artists - would likewise exert a decisive hold on Parr.

As the gallery established itself during the mid-1960s, Parr's faith not only in contemporary St Ives artists but also in the younger generation (including the children of famous artists) came to the fore. The result was an often imaginative and commercially successful mix of older and younger artists, London- or St Ives-based, who belonged to both the fine and applied arts.

As a girl Parr had been painted by Ivon Hitchens's father Alfred. Later she would exhibit both Ivon and his son John. Kate Nicholson, daughter of Winifred and Ben Nicholson, was also exhibited in thematic displays such as the broad-ranging floral still-life show held during the "flower power" summer of 1967, an exhibition that included Duncan Grant, Jean Marchand and Winifred Nicholson. By this point, Parr was respected enough to borrow from bigger, more established galleries like Waddingtons. A particularly ambitious exhibition in May 1971 included Jankel Adler, Jean Helion, John Piper, Victor Pasmore and Ben Nicholson.

Many of Parr's best shows revealingly juxtaposed a painter and a sculptor, as with Breon O'Casey and Denis Mitchell in May 1967. From 1967, the Chelsea-based neo-classical sculptor Enzo Plazotta was a regular. Plazotta's dancers and animated figures made him gallery breadwinner. But a more essential definition of what Parr's gallery was about was provided by a group of St Ives sculptors - Denis Mitchell, John Milne and Roger Leigh - who had worked for Barbara Hepworth during the 1950s. Together with Robert Adams, Margaret Lovell and Peter Thursby they made elegant, streamlined monolithic sculptures that cohered with the pure shapes of both glass and studio pottery. Mitchell introduced Parr to St Ives and exhibitions followed of Bernard and Janet Leach and other leading potters associated with St Ives.

The opening of the St Ives gallery (now the Wills Lane Gallery) in April 1967 encouraged Parr to renovate and simplify her Chelsea premises. From 1970 on, the Chelsea gallery relinquished antiques and concentrated more on abstract art. This did not preclude historical exhibitions such as a survey in 1969 of two centuries of English watercolour painting and an ambitious show during the summer of 1971 of "local" Chelsea artists grouped around the grand master James McNeill Whistler.

Although she never emulated the achievements of the great émigré or pioneering art dealers of post-war London, among them Henry Roland, Gustav Delbanco, Erica Brausen, Annely Juda or Andreas Kalman, Parr gained the trust and support of artists, collectors and dealers alike. She helped the businessman Stanley Picker create an unrivalled collection of contemporary British sculpture of the period and she worked with other galleries such as Michael Parkin and the Mercury Gallery. After reaching retirement in the mid-1970s she acted as a consultant to the Alwin Gallery and to David Gilbert, to whom she sold her gallery in late 1974.

Renamed the Gilbert Parr Gallery, the new gallery continued for eight years to show many of the artists, particularly sculptors, whose reputations Parr had done so much to build.

Peter Davies

For the many of us lucky enough to have known Marjorie Parr, writes Aart van Kruiselbergen, the overwhelming memory of her will be her tremendous kindness, her joie de vivre and her great gift for creating enduring friendships. Many of the clients of her gallery and almost all of us artists who exhibited there became firm friends.

Marjorie loved a good party and gave many memorable ones herself. She loved having fun and contributed joy and laughter to any gathering.

In the mid-Seventies I went on a holiday with her to the Netherlands. One evening we had dinner in a restaurant and at an adjoining table a Dutch family was having a dinner party which obviously centred on the matriarch of the family. When we were about to leave, Marjorie enquired what was being celebrated and when told that Mamma (who still walked with the aid of a walking stick) had recently come out of hospital after a hip-replacement operation, Marjorie informed the old lady that she would soon be as right as rain again. "I have had both hips done and look how well I have recovered." She then proceeded to do some very impressive high-kicks, to the great astonishment of the whole restaurant.

After she sold her gallery she dedicated her great energy to raising money for the Arthritis and Rheumatism Council.

AUTUMN EXHIBITION - works by Rosa Osborne (above, Johnny Rotten), Peter Davies, Bob Osborne, Emma Coyle and others.

SUMMER EXHIBITION

SUMMER EXHIBITION
Private View Thursday 6th August from 6.30pm

Works by Emma Coyle, Christopher Page, Robert Lenkiewicz, David de Havilland, Susana Vida, Michelle Cioccoloni, Christopher Shilling, Michael O'Malony, Jeff Hoare, Lisa Sampoh, Inkfetish, S. Danasegar, Bonzai, Krasimir Kolev, Laura Cogoni, Rabodiga, Sophia Wallace-Dunlop and many others. Music and dance by Carlo Cicero in collaboration with the Salon Gallery in Westbourne Grove.

Inkfetish, Bonzai and Rabodiga show at Gallery 118 from 20 July. The private view is on Thursday 23rd July at 6pm - please come along. Original works on canvas are exhibited alongside works on panel and on the walls painted on site in the gallery in the last few hours.

Tom 'Inkfetish' Blackford was born in London 1981, where he currently lives and works as a freelance illustrator and artist exhibiting his paintings and mural work in gallery shows and related events throughout the London area and beyond. His artwork has been featured across a range of mediums, from backdrop sets for Vanity fair and the Barbican, whilst his illustration work, originally adorned in his own self published comics has been featured in a variety of magazines as well as being exhibited at the Pixar animations studios in San Francisco. His distinct colour palette, iconic subject matter, technique and bold themes continuing to resonate with a growing audience.

www.inkfetish.co.uk




Originally from Southampton, Bonzai has been painting letter forms based on his name for nearly 2 decades, more recently evolving them into organic forms that have taken on a life of their own. Continually experimenting and collaborating with other artists accross the country, Bonzai's unique style and drive have pushed him to the forefront of UK graffiti.

www.bonzaione.com

Rabodiga was born in 1983, in Zaragoza, Spain, where she lived until she was 18. She then moved to study Fine Arts at the university of Valencia. Currently based in London, Rabodiga combines illustration, traditional painting and graffiti with her studies of photography, painting girls who represent her alter ego, through which she communicates a deep hidden world to the outside, trying to turn what she perceives into something more beautiful than the world we are surrounded by.

www.rabodiga.com

Young British artist Christopher Page opens a new solo exhibition of controversial work at Gallery 118 in Notting Hill on Thursday evening 11th June. Among the striking large-scale works on show will be his Castro 'Crucifixion'.

The painting was commissioned by someone whom Gallery 118 diplomatically describes as a "leading British socialist". Pressed to confirm or deny rumours that Gordon Brown himself is the mystery patron, the dealer's lips remain sealed: "Let's just say it's someone who's put in a lot of time on both sides of the atlantic and in the gulf."