Appeal for art exhibition
The Museum of Somerset is appealing to members of the public to support the development of a new exhibition. A retrospective about the art and life of Alexander Hollweg (1936-2020) will open in November this year. It will be the largest ever show of Hollweg’s art. It will feature paintings and sculpture from across the five decades of his career.
Alexander Hollweg worked for many years from a studio at Nettlecombe in West Somerset. His work focused on translating the ordinary and everyday into surprising, often humorous, reflections on modern life. Space and people were enduring themes. “Landscape was my subject,” he once wrote. “Not the wilderness but the landscape made by man. Farm, factory, city, housing estate. The places where people live and work and play.”
The museum has been working hard to pull together this major exhibition. They are collaborating with the Hollweg family and The Court Gallery to uncover artworks and stories about the artist.
Now they are asking people who knew Hollweg to come forward with their memories of him. They also want to create a database of artworks in private collections and are inviting anyone with an artwork by Hollweg to get in touch.
Hollweg was an internationally acclaimed artist. He exhibited internationally and enjoyed long relationships with galleries especially in New York and Italy. His best-known work, his woodcut ‘Country Dance’. It was commissioned to celebrate the bicentenary of the birth of John Constable in 1976. Today it is part of the Tate Collection. He also created the ‘London Life’ mural for the Charlotte Street Hotel in Soho.
Stewart Geddes, a former president of the Royal West of England Academy was a student of Hollweg in the 1980s. He reflected fondly on his experiences learning from him. talking of Hollweg’s work he noted: “Often working between painting and relief forms, his work was mindful of Modernism, whilst coming to terms with the pastoral landscape tradition, particularly in British painting.”
The museum will be publishing an accompanying exhibition catalogue. In addition to a catalogue essay, it will include previously-unpublished writings by Hollweg and reflections from those who knew him.
To share your memories of Alexander Hollweg, or to provide information about artworks in private collections, please contact Sarah Cox, the museum’s Exhibitions and Programme Manager, at sarah.cox@swheritage.org.uk.