Catherine Yarrow

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Catherine Yarrow
Born(1904-06-27)27 June 1904[1]
Harpenden, Hertfordshire, England
Died14 November 1990(1990-11-14) (aged 86)[2]
London, England
EducationRoyal Academy of Dramatic Art
Known forPrintmaking, Ceramics
MovementSurrealism
Websitehttp://www.catherineyarrow.com/#

Catherine Yarrow (27 June 1904 — 14 November 1990) was an English artist known for printmaking, painting, ceramics and pottery in a surrealist mode.[1] She studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, graduating in 1925.[3] The art historian Patricia Allmer has described her as 'one of the international figures of surrealism and its developments in the 1940s.'[4]

Career[edit]

Reacting against what she saw as the conformity of life in Britain, between World War I and World War II Yarrow lived, worked and exhibited in Paris.[5] During her time in Paris, Yarrow associated with many surrealist artists, including Leonora Carrington, Isamu Noguchi, Marcel Duchamp and Max Ernst.[6] Her entry into this milieu was provided by an early acquaintance with the poet Pierre Reverdy.[7] She also formed an important relationship with Alberto Giacometti.[8] Yarrow studied etching at Atelier 17, a workshop established in Paris by Stanley William Hayter, an English printmaker, in 1929.[9] This resulted in a number of prints characterized by surrealist and biomorphic forms. In the 1930s, Yarrow was also apprenticed to the potter Josep Llorens i Artigas.[10] Yarrow later discussed the importance of pottery in the development of her career: 'It wasn't until I came to the pottery that I had any craft. And that's why it was extremely important for me in the early thirties. [...] It absolutely changed by life - this pottery, this occupation and the craft.'[11] In the 1930s Yarrow suffered an emotional breakdown and spent time in Switzerland, where she met Carl Jung, and entered a clinic in Morges where she underwent analysis.[12] Yarrow's experience of undergoing Jungian therapy resulted in a series of watercolours, many of which feature menacing, brightly coloured geometric personages, and some of which specifically reference Morges in their titles.[13] She used art as a way to cope with her anxiety, creating pieces with somber tones that reflected how she felt.[14]

Together with many other Surrealist artists fleeing the war, in 1940 Yarrow moved to New York, where she lived until 1948.[1] Yarrow's move to New York was prompted in part by Hayter's relocation of Atelier 17 to the city in 1940, and she continued to associate there with surrealists in exile such as Ernst, Carrington and André Breton.[8] In New York, Yarrow's straightened financial circumstances prompted her to start experimenting with making leather goods; these enabled her to make a living.[7][15] As well, she worked with New York ceramist Carol Janeway who sold to Georg Jensen Inc. (New York, NY) and is proposed to have built Janeway's kiln at the 46 East 8th Street studio, across from Hayter's Atelier 17.[16] [17] During this period, Yarrow became an acquaintance of the artist Louise Bourgeois. In an interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist, Bourgeois noted that the title of her sculpture Portrait of C.Y. (c. 1947–49), made of painted wood and nails, was a reference to Yarrow.[18] After her years in New York, Yarrow returned to Britain, where she focused increasingly on ceramics and pottery, establishing a workshop/studio that included an oil-fired kiln in the garden of her mews cottage in St John's Wood.[11] Her pottery was considered to be experimental, both visible in her ceramic sculptures as well as her pottery which had themes of simple shapes, symbols, and balance throughout her pieces.[14] With fellow St John's Wood resident Buntie Wills, a Jungian therapist, Yarrow undertook further Jungian analysis.[19][20] The 1950s and 1960s saw her experience a period of creativity, producing a diverse array of work in using mono print and pastels, as well as mixed materials such as sand.[21] Associates during this later period of her career included the potter, founder and co-editor of the magazine Ceramic Review Eileen Lewenstein.[22] From the mid-1960s onwards, Yarrow also took up painting.[8] During the 1960s, Cecile Elstein, the artist, was her studio pupil.

Exhibition history[edit]

While in America, Yarrow's ceramics were exhibited at the Julien Levy Gallery in 1943, together with drawings by Ernst.[13][23] In 1943, her work featured in The Women's Exhibition organised by Peggy Guggenheim at her Art of this Century gallery, New York, a follow-up to the Exhibition by 31 Women at the beginning of the year.[8] In 1944 Yarrow was included in the exhibition New Directions in Gravure: Hayter and Studio 17 at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, which traveled for two years across the United States.[24][25] In 1950 Yarrow had an exhibition at the Hanover Gallery in London.[26] During the 1960s she exhibited her ceramics together with artists including Bernard Leach and Lucie Rie at the Marjorie Parr Gallery, London.[1] In 2012 an exhibition of her prints, drawings and watercolours at Austin Desmond Gallery, London, attracted serious interest from collectors.[27] In 2017, a pen and ink drawing by Yarrow was included in the exhibition 31 Women by Breese Little gallery, an homage to Guggenheim's 1943 exhibition of women surrealists.[28] In 2018, Yarrow's ceramics featured in the Collect 2018 exhibition Masters of Studio Pottery, co-curated by the Crafts Council and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.[29] The same year, her watercolours were included in the exhibition Neolithic Childhood: Art in a False Present, c. 1930 at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt.[30]

Works in collections[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d "Catherine Yarrow". www.catherineyarrow.com. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
  2. ^ "Wills and Probate 1858 - 1996". Gov.uk. Retrieved 31 August 2020.
  3. ^ "RADA student and graduate profiles".
  4. ^ Allmer, Patricia (2016). "Feminist Interventions: Revising the Canon". In Hopkins, David (ed.). A Companion to Dada and Surrealism. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 376. ISBN 978-1-118-47618-5.
  5. ^ "Catherine Yarrow". Issuu. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
  6. ^ "Head with Insect". National Galleries of Scotland. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
  7. ^ a b "Catherine Yarrow: Not What I Want". Artlyst. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
  8. ^ a b c d "Catherine Yarrow". www.catherineyarrow.com. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  9. ^ "Austin Desmond Fine Art | Exhibitions | Catherine Yarrow: 'Not What I Want'". www.austindesmond.com. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
  10. ^ "Catherine Yarrow - Erskine Hall & Coe". www.erskinehallcoe.com. Retrieved 7 March 2019.
  11. ^ a b "Catherine Yarrow". Issuu. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  12. ^ "Catherine Yarrow 1904-1990". St John's Wood Memories. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  13. ^ a b "Austin Desmond Fine Art | Exhibitions | Catherine Yarrow: 'Not What I Want'". www.austindesmond.com. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  14. ^ a b Erskine, Hall (1 May 2013). "Catherine Yarrow". Ceramic Review.
  15. ^ "Austin Desmond Fine Art | Exhibitions | Catherine Yarrow: 'Not What I Want'". www.austindesmond.com. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
  16. ^ Jenssen, Victoria (2022). The Art of Carol Janeway: A Tile & Ceramics Career with Georg Jensen Inc. and Ossip Zadkine in 1940s Manhattan. Friesen Press.
  17. ^ "Carol Janeway". www.caroljaneway.com. Retrieved 6 October 2022.
  18. ^ Obrist, Hans Ulrich (2016). Lives of the Artists, Lives of the Architects. Penguin. ISBN 978-0141976631.
  19. ^ "Catherine Yarrow 1904-1990". St John's Wood Memories. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  20. ^ "Catherine Yarrow 1904-1990". St John's Wood Memories. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
  21. ^ "Catherine Yarrow 1904-1990". St John's Wood Memories. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  22. ^ "Eileen Lewenstein". The Independent. 26 March 2005. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
  23. ^ Levy, Julien (2003). Memoir of an Art Gallery. MFA Publications. p. 308. ISBN 0878466533.
  24. ^ Weyl, Christina (8 January 2014). "Networks of Abstraction: Postwar Printmaking and Women Artists of Atelier 17". www.aaa.si.edu. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
  25. ^ "Catherine Yarrow | MoMA". The Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
  26. ^ Exhibition of Work by Renato Guttuso & Catherine Yarrow. Hanover Gallery. 1950.
  27. ^ Gleadell, Colin (19 November 2012). "Art market news: exhibition for surrealist artist Catherine Yarrow attracts collectors". ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 7 March 2019.
  28. ^ "31 Women". frieze.com. Retrieved 7 March 2019.
  29. ^ "Masters of Studio Pottery: Siginificant [sic] British ceramics from the 20th and 21st centuries. - Crafts Council". www.craftscouncil.org.uk. Archived from the original on 27 February 2018. Retrieved 7 March 2019.
  30. ^ Welt, Haus der Kulturen der (12 July 2018). "Neolithic Childhood. Art in a False Present, c. 1930". HKW. Retrieved 3 April 2019.
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