Stanley Picker Gallery

Creative Review online are currently profiling a unique project initiated earlier this year by two of our Stanley Picker Fellows Andy Holden and Daniel Eatock who worked together to create the new 7″ vinyl limited edition for the band Ice, Sea, Dead People.

Now the Stanley Picker Gallery and Lost Toys Records are delighted to announce the release of the double a-side 7″ picture disc for the band’s tracks ‘You Could be a Model’ and ‘Ultra Silence’.

The picture discs were made as the result of a collaboration between the band with Stanley Picker Fellows Andy Holden and Daniel Eatock. Eatock’s concept to spin paper discs on turntables with pens being held down on them for the duration of the music on each corresponding side, was born into fruition at the Stanley Picker Gallery in May 2012, when the band played each song 10 times consecutively whilst music lovers and participants from the local community drew on the paper discs as they rotated before them. 180 discs were pressed into records with each side of every record a unique. The video for the single was filmed at the event by by Kingston University BA Film making students Aris Maleas, Vasia Ntoulia and Vincent Descourtieux.

Creativity and fun at 45rpm – Local Participant
A high-paced, fun-filled evening that left me in a spin – Local Participant

Click here to watch the music video and pre-order a Picture Disc
Click here to read the article on the Creative Review Blog
Click here to listen to an Ice, Sea, Dead People interview on BBC Radio 6 Music

A book detailing the extraordinary private house and art collection of Stanley Picker on Kingston Hill, written by staff from Kingston University’s Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture, is to be published by Philip Wilson Publishers in October 2012 and launched at the Stanley Picker Gallery, to mark thirty years since the death of arts patron Stanley Picker in 1982.

Born in New York in 1913, Stanley Picker arrived in England, having completed his studies at Harvard University, to take over his father’s cosmetics business. Under Picker’s leadership, the company developed as a large and successful cosmetics manufacturer that produced make-up brands Outdoor Girl, Miners and Mary Quant, among others, and created a wealth that permitted Picker to indulge his greatest love: the arts.

Picker’s connection with Kingston upon Thames began in June 1945 when he purchased a factory at Hook Rise, off the Kingston by-pass. In 1957 he then purchased a plot of land in Kingston with the idea of creating a modern home. His desire was realised in the remarkable house that was designed in 1968 by British architect Kenneth Wood. When Picker retired in 1976, he devoted more time to his interest in art, and Wood returned to build a private gallery in the garden, dedicated to the more important items of Picker’s growing collection. In 1977 he established the Stanley Picker Trust to support the education and careers of young arts practitioners.

The book draws on Picker’s extensive private archive, charting the development of the Picker House as a luxury home for its owner and for the significant collection of modern and contemporary painting and sculpture that he amassed over a 25-year period, beginning in 1957 and ending with his death in 1982. Beginning with a biographical introduction to Stanley Picker and his personal, artistic and business connections, written by Dr Jonathan Black, the book then goes on to examine aspects of the development of the Picker House and its interior and garden. Dr Fiona Fisher explores the central role that Picker’s art collection played in the creation and realisation of Wood’s design for the house and garden; while Professor Penny Sparke charts the remarkable project for the interior of the house that Stanley Picker, Kenneth Wood and staff at Conran Contracts and Conran Design Group implemented together; and Rebecca Preston examines the history of the Picker House site and the garden that was created by designer Victor Shanley.

Picker’s collection of paintings and sculpture and his artistic legacy are examined in chapters written by Dr Jonathan Black, Professor Fran Lloyd and David Falkner. Jonathan Black situates Picker’s collection of paintings within the context of London’s rapidly growing contemporary art market of the 1950s and the personal relationships that Picker developed with galleries and gallery owners. Fran Lloyd’s chapter maps Picker’s acquisition of an important collection of over a hundred modern and contemporary sculptures, and discusses the themes and influences that underpinned Picker’s selection of artists and works and the significance of their staging within the private spaces of his house and garden and the public environments of the cosmetic company’s offices and factory. Stanley Picker Gallery Director David Falkner’s concluding chapter reviews Kingston University’s Stanley Picker Fellowship scheme, established in 1977, and the responses of recent fellows to the Picker House and its painting, sculpture and furniture collections. Stanley Picker wanted his house and collection to be preserved for study and enjoyment by future generations. For conservation reasons, the house and gallery can only open to a small number of visitors each year, but an important aim of the book is to bring to a wider audience the extensive knowledge of the house and collection the team has developed through their research.

The Picker House and Collection: A Late 1960s Home for Modern Art and Design by Jonathan Black, David Falkner, Fiona Fisher, Fran Lloyd, Rebecca Preston, and Penny Sparke will be published by Philip Wilson Publishers in October 2012. The publication of the book coincides with the re-opening of the Stanley Picker Gallery at Knights Park, following a period of closure for refurbishment.

The workshop was different and very amusing – Student, Kingston College

The Stanley Picker Gallery has been delighted to welcome Foundation Diploma Media Students from Kingston College, young people from the Anstee Bridge Project and the Stanley Picker Gallery Art Club, to participate in ‘Working Title (Working Title)’, a series of practical and discussion-based workshops followed by an exhibition, inspired by Daniel Eatock’s creative practice and dynamic installationOne + One.

During the workshops, which formed part of our Participation Programme, students explored Eatock’s exhibition and responded by making their own drawings and ‘one + one proposals’ that incorporated the stock of displayed objects. They imagined, designed and constructed their own, unique pairings, beginning with collages made from catalogue cut-outs, followed by images taken from google search engines, photo-shopped to design specifications set by the artist. In groups, students championed a favourite idea that had been suggested by their peers, then planned and sourced the physical components for construction. They photographed their combinations and made prints as artistic records of the outcomes.

Kingston College students, who were enrolled on a college module, titled ‘Designing Print-based Media’, learnt about the process involved with creating digital prints as artworks and for publicity and took a tour of the printmaking rooms and digital media suites at Kingston University, guided by Art & Design students and technical staff. Making use of this knowledge, new and existing skills, and with the advice of Rob Mann, Senior Graphic Designer at Kingston University, pupils used special templates to design their very own Stanley Picker Gallery exhibition posters – each unique to the artist making it. Their final challenge was to collaborate to curate and install their artworks ready for exhibition.

The Stanley Picker Gallery team were extremely impressed by the creative thinking and team-work displayed the group, whose final challenge was to collaborate to curate and install their artworks ready for exhibition, also named ‘Working Title’. Both workshops and the exhibition, were a great success and many congratulations were shared among all involved.

Open: Tues-Fri 12-6pm, Sat 12-4pm

Stanley Picker Fellow Daniel Eatock will be working on-site at the Gallery every Wednesday for the 8-week duration of his new exhibition One + One to produce a brand new body of work that has originated as part of initial developmental research for the re-branding of national television network BBC2.

One + One has been developed over the course of Eatock’s Stanley Picker Fellowship, in close collaboration with staff and students at Kingston University, and will result in an extensive series of new object-based works that each establishes a range of formal, practical or conceptual conceits connecting two otherwise independently existing objects.

As well as containing around 100 specific objects that have been specially sourced over recent weeks ready to combine into their One + One pairings, the Gallery installation (pictured above) is dominated by a specially commissioned ‘infinity-cove’. The largest single structure built for the Gallery by technician Marc Bultitude in the eight years he has been working for the venue, the imposing structure is nontheless designed in such as way so as not to be visible in the completed works.

Over the course of the exhibition, Gallery visitors will be invited to participate in aspects of the production process; the exhibition content evolving continually as the original objects are employed, and re-employed, in the execution of the final works.

Participants and Gallery Visitors are all invited to a special Closing Event on Saturday 31 March 12 – 4pm being held to celebrate all 8 weeks of works made for One + One.

Click here to read more about the exhibition.
Click here to read an interview with Daniel Eatock about the One + One exhibition in Dazed Digital.