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A major exhibition entitled John Craxton: Drawn to Light can be seen at Mesher Istanbul until 23 July 2023.

This is the first solo show for the artist in Turkey. The latest leg of the Craxton centenary tour is the largest yet thanks to the inclusion of 40 paintings and drawings from the Omer Koc collection, most of which are available for Istanbul only. Drawn to Light also includes the monumental Landscape with the Elements tapestry made in Edinburgh for the University of Stirling and never previously seen outside Scotland. Entry to the Turkish exhibition is free, with brochure, cards and posters also freely available.

A wonderful exhibition catalogue is priced at 550 Turkish lira. The show has been curated by Ian Collins, whose Craxton biography has also been published in Turkish to coincide with the Drawn to Light show. See the gallery website for a range of events – including showings of the new film John Craxton: A Life of Gifts, directed by Tony Britten and produced by Anwen Hurt.

Meşher
İstiklal Caddesi No: 211 Beyoğlu
34433 Istanbul
Türkiye
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 11am–7pm

T +90 212 708 5900
F +90 212 292 0790
info@mesher.org

www.mesher.org
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Drawing a record audience at the Benaki Museum in Athens since its launch in April, John Craxton’s centenary exhibition has been extended until Sunday 25 September. See museum website for a programme of events in the closing week. Click here

This very special retrospective survey then tours to the Municipal Art Gallery in Chania from 9 October until 31 January – and to Mesher Istanbul from 21 March to 21 July.

Nearly 100 exhibits chart the entire Craxton career, and most especially his abiding love for Greece. Many have never been seen before. The show’s centrepiece is the vast Landscape with the Elements tapestry John designed and oversaw in Edinburgh, for the University of Stirling, during Greek exile under the military junta in Athens. Paying homage to traditional Cretan weaving, and to the mythology, climate, scenery and sensuality of Greece, this masterwork has never left Scotland until now.

The display is partly lit by mermaid lamps John designed for his friend, the Greek poet George Seferis.
John Craxton’s biography by Ian Collins is available at the show in English and Greek, and there is also a beautiful bilingual catalogue.

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The biography John Craxton: A Life of Gifts, written by Ian Collins and published by Yale University Press, has won the 2022 Runciman Award.

Professor Peter Frankopan, chairman of the judges, hailed a book that is “incredibly original, highly readable, beautifully researched and wonderfully written”.

Ian Collins received the award from HRH Prince Michael of Kent at a well-attended ceremony hosted by the Anglo-Hellenic League in King’s College, London. In his acceptance speech, the author said that, given the close friendship between artist John Craxton and scholar Sir Stephen Runciman, the prize was a matchless honour.

Launched in May 2021, A Life of Gifts has nearly sold out in its second edition. Yale will publish a paperback in the New Year.

A Greek edition is now available from Patakis Publishing and a Turkish version will be launched in the spring.

This year’s extended Aldeburgh Festival will include a tribute to John Craxton. All of the 13 Craxton paintings and drawings collected by singer Peter Pears, and normally hung in the Red House – the home he shared with composer Benjamin Britten – will be on view in the Concert Hall Gallery at Snape Maltings. Free entry.

An essay on this very personal Suffolk collection has been written for the festival book by Ian Collins.

Image: Two Greek Dancers (detail), 1951

This centenary exhibition will pair Craxton pictures with Picasso ceramics, many from the collection of the late Sir Richard and Lady Sheila Attenborough. The display will be augmented with often previously unseen works by mould-breaking artists in Craxton’s circle, including Lucian Freud, Graham Sutherland, John Piper, Robert Colquhoun and Nikos Ghika.

Free entry. Details of talks and other events will be announced soon.

Image: Shepherd and Rocks, 1943. Lender: Britten Pears Arts

This exhibition focuses on the friendship of the artists Niko Ghika and John Craxton, and the writer Patrick Leigh Fermor. Their shared love of Greece was fundamental to their work, as they embraced its sights, sounds, colours and people.

Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghika (1906–1994), John Craxton (1922–2009) and Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915–2011) were significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Leigh Fermor is perhaps the most widely known of the three – largely through his travel writings – and Ghika and Craxton are now recognised as two of the most remarkable artists of this period. The three first met at the end of the Second World War, becoming lifelong friends and spending much of their subsequent lives in Greece. The time they spent together and their close bonds would shape each other’s work for the rest of their lives.

The exhibition brings together their artworks, photographs, letters and personal possessions in the UK for the first time. Highlights include Ghika’s extraordinary painting Mystras and Craxton’s exuberant Still Life with Three Sailors. Also featured is Craxton’s original artwork for the book covers of Leigh Fermor’s travel classics A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water. Many artworks and objects on display are on loan from the Benaki Museum, to which Ghika donated his house and works, from the Craxton Estate, and from institutions and private collections in the UK and Greece.

The exhibition focuses on four key places – Hydra, Kardamyli, Crete and Corfu – where they lived and spent time together. Hydra is an island where Ghika’s family home became a gathering place for the three friends, and Leigh Fermor built a house with his wife Joan at Kardamyli. Craxton restored a house at Chania on Crete, and Corfu is where Ghika and his second wife Barbara transformed an old building into an idyllic home and garden.

Together, these places chart the story of this remarkable friendship, and how the people and landscapes of Greece were a great influence on their enduring works.

Exhibition Details

The British Museum, London
Duration: 8 March – 15 July 2018

The Craxton Estate now works with the leading London gallery of Osborne Samuel. Headed by Peter Osborne and Gordon Samuel, the gallery specialises in Modern British Painting and Sculpture and has a high reputation for the quality of its exhibitions and publications.

Our launch exhibition John Craxton in Greece: The Unseen Works ran from 10 May to 8 June 2018 and was an enormous success. With daily crowds, the show was the most popular in the West End gallery’s history.

While most of the featured works have now sold, the fully-illustrated, 68-page catalogue – with essays by Ian Collins, Richard Morphet and Gordon Samuel – can be viewed here. 

Osborne Samuel always keeps a stock of Craxton pictures in its Dering Street showrooms and also exhibits at major art fairs in Britain and abroad.

Osborne Samuel
23 Dering Street, London W1S 1AW
Tel: 020 7493 7939
Email: info@osbornesamuel.com
www.osbornesamuel.com

Opening Times: Monday to Friday 10am-6pm
Nearest tube: Bond Street