Veronica Bailey
dal 26/9/2005 al 29/10/2005
Segnalato da
26/9/2005
Veronica Bailey
The Blue Gallery, London
An exhibition of 2 new bodies of work. With Postscript, she addresses the written correspondence from 1937 of model/muse/ photographer/war correspondent Lee Miller mostly with artist/writer and ultimately husband Roland Penrose, but also with her wartime employer, Audrey Withers, editor of Vogue. In About Face, in the gallery's project space, she has manipulated a wooden Man Ray's figurine into a variety of provocative and claustrophobic poses
Postscript – Main gallery
About Face – Project space
by Veronica Bailey
The Directors of the Blue Gallery are pleased to announce an exhibition of 2 new bodies of work by Veronica Bailey entitled Postscript and About Face.
In 2003 Bailey won the inaugural Jerwood Photography Prize for 2 Willow
Road, a photographic essay on the library of modernist architect Ernö
Goldfinger. With Postscript, she addresses the written correspondence
from 1937 of model/muse/ photographer/war correspondent Lee Miller
(1907-77) mostly with artist/writer and ultimately husband Roland
Penrose (1900-1984), but also with her wartime employer, Audrey Withers,
editor of Vogue. Bailey was granted full access by the Lee Miller
Archive at Farley Farm in East Sussex and the resulting work largely
concerns itself with letters written during World War II, by the end of
which she was a photographer accredited to the US Army. During the year
after D-Day she witnessed the siege of St Malo, the
http://www.leemiller.co.uk/gallerydisp.aspx?cat=12 Liberation of
Paris, the fighting in Luxembourg and Alsace, the Russian/American link
up at Torgau and the liberation of Buchenwald and Dachau.
Although Postscript echoes themes addressed in 2 Willow Road, for
Bailey, and hence ultimately the viewer, the involvement is more
personal than that series. Much of this correspondence represents the
residual echoes of a passionately charged relationship and while we are
never privy to the content, Bailey’s titles, drawn from the texts, and
the form of the work itself leave one in little doubt as to its power
despite Miller’s apparent inability in this period to stand still and
immerse herself in it, even after hostilities ended – they actually only
married in 1947. The images illuminate this through the visual evidence
of the letters/telegrams themselves, the privacy of the lovers often
protected by the original envelopes, yet their intimacy somehow
emphasized. Shirking a conventional narrative, Bailey has again
formulated a visually arresting and meditative body of work from simple
and spare resources usually regarded as the rather arid fiefdom of the
professional biographer.
About Face, in the gallery’s project space, on the other hand, marks a
distinct departure. Loosely referential to Man Ray’s erotically humorous
Mr and Mrs Woodman series of 1947, Bailey has manipulated a wooden
artist’s figurine into a variety of provocative and claustrophobic poses
cropped tightly within the image borders. The imposing scale of the
works and the lush hues of well thumbed wood against a dense black
background act as counterpoint to the overtones of gender subjugation
and servility suggested by these poses. Again Bailey’s titles emphasize
her intentions, here referencing female artists broadly affiliated with
the surrealist movement.
For further information and/or visual material, please contact Giles Baker-Smith or Philip Godsal
on 020 74903833.
PRIVATE VIEW – Tuesday 27th September 6-8.30pm
The Blue Gallery
15 Great Sutton Street
London EC1V 0BX
open
Monday – Friday 10am – 6pm
Saturday 11pm – 3pm