We are delighted to share details of our exciting exhibition programme for the year ahead:
Lubaina Himid: Lost Threads
19 January – 21 April 2024
Turner prize-winning artist Lubaina Himid CBE (b.1954) will present Lost Threads at the Holburne, one of her most expansive and dramatic works. The vibrant and colourful installation, which has only been shown in public once before, comprises four 100-metre-long lengths of Dutch batik fabric that will cascade through the museum, interrupting the space literally and symbolically. The textiles used highlight the juxtaposition of fashion with themes such as colonialism, women’s labour and migration; echoing histories of suffering, exploitation, global trade and migration.
Gillian Lowndes: Radical Clay
26 January – 21 April 2024
One of the most daring, radical and original artists of the post-war period, Gillian Lowndes’ (1936–2010) work occupies the space between pottery, sculpture and crafts. Defining herself as a ‘materials driven artist’, these materials would range from fibreglass dipped in liquid porcelain slip, to Egyptian paste, nichrome wire, bricks, and latex. Her methods involved burying work in sand and destroying fired pieces with a hammer, only to reassemble them again with ceramic mortar. In her lifetime, Lowndes’s use of clay – which was in stark contrast to the ceramic conventions of the time – caused her to be overlooked. Now, however, as artists’ use of ceramic is increasingly re-examined, her innovative and transgressive approach shows her to be one of the most unique and exciting artists working in Britain in the 1970s and beyond.
Henry Moore in Miniature
3 May – 8 September 2024
In 2024, Holburne will dedicate an entire retrospective to Moore’s sculptures that could fit in the hand, with over 60 works that do not exceed 30cm in size. At the heart of Moore’s practice from his earliest years to the end was the directness of working on a small scale, whether it was carving small stones or pieces of wood, casting lead, modelling in clay or, as was usual in later years, modelling in plasticine around a found stone or bone to be cast in bronze.
The exhibition will include sculptures in many media, including stone, wood, terracotta, plaster, lead, plasticine and bronze; and span themes recurrent in his work: the reclining female figure, the mother and child, the human head, and the fallen warrior. It will include maquettes for some of his best-known, public sculptures alongside lesser-known works, including the display for the very first time in a museum exhibition of a recently discovered early lead cast of Mother & Child. The exhibition is presented in partnership with the Henry Moore Foundation.
Mr Doodle! Museum Mayhem
3 May – 1 September 2024
The Holburne is proud to present the first ever UK museum exhibition of internationally renowned artist and internet sensation, Mr Doodle. While his 2.9 million Instagram followers are familiar with Mr Doodle’s graphic decoration of his clothes, car and home, inside and out, few have seen his personal sketchbooks which are overflowing with his extraordinary doodles. The selection of Mr Doodle’s sketchbooks will provide the starting point for a show that will fill the gallery and spread across the walls, floor and ceiling of the Holburne Museum, its Café and the city of Bath.
Uncanny Visions: Paula Rego and Francisco de Goya
27 September 2024 – 5 January 2025
This major exhibition will explore the theme of the uncanny that runs through the works of both Francisco de Goya (1746–1828) and Dame Paula Rego (1935–2022). A noted influence on Rego throughout her career, this will be the first time that two sets of Goya’s The Follies (Los Disparates) etchings will be displayed alongside Rego’s Nursery Rhymes in their entirety.
The exhibition will also include a number of drawings by Paula Rego, addressing the same theme, including some of the haunting, three-dimensional figures that she used as sources for her pictures. Working closely with Rego’s estate, the show will also include the etchings by Goya that Rego kept close to her at home until her last days.
Further details on all these shows will be published in the coming weeks.
For further press information, contact Sophie Woodward, Head of Marketing & Communications
s.woodward@holburne.org
Image credit: Paula Rego, Untitled (People Eating), 1993. Pen, ink and watercolour on paper. Courtesy Ostrich Arts Ltd and Victoria Miro © Ostrich Arts Ltd