Rachel Reckitt (1908 – 1995) Exhibition

Unfortunately the Rachel Reckitt exhibition has been postponed.

Coinciding with Somerset Art Weeks the Gallery is pleased to be presenting a collection of work by the late Rachel Reckitt.  The Exhibition will be in a new venue, close to the Gallery, in the Myrtle Barn which is part of the house that once was the home of Watchet’s pioneering photographer James Date. 

Rachel, who died in 1995, had an almost lifelong association with West Somerset and worked in her studio at Golsoncott, her home.  She and her family came to Golsoncott in 1922 and it was to be her home for the rest of her life.  Rachel was a single-minded woman and came from a privileged background which, to a degree, allowed her the luxury of not having to compromise her work by the necessity of producing work either for the vagaries of the market or the dealer.

Before she took up her place at the Grosvenor School of Art under Ian McNab, she had been a pupil of Porlock artist Alec Carruthers Gould – no stranger to the Gallery.  Although he seemed to have little influence on Rachel’s early work, visits to the Grosvenor School of Art by Graham Sutherland and Mark Gertler did have a considerable impact of Rachel’s early work.

 Producing art was, for Rachel, no idle hobby.  She devoted her life to it and went at it ‘hammer and tongs’ – quite literally in later years as her associations with the Horrobins at Roadwater was to prove.  Her fascination with the forge is quite evident in the wonderful drawings, paintings and most especially the wood engravings of the blacksmiths forge.  It is not surprising that she became a Member of the British Artists Blacksmiths Association.

 Inspiration for her work came also from her travels in Europe and from her period in London during the Blitz when she helped the bombed-out families in the East End.  It was, however, West Somerset and her direct experiences of the people, its architecture and environment from which she drew much of her inspiration.

 To understand her work fully it is important to understand her as a person.  She rode to hounds but was a long life socialist.  Her niece, Penelope Lively remembers how her aunt and her grandmother enjoyed ‘energetic political arguments’.  Apparently they never voted as they felt that they cancelled each other out – the grandmother being a staunch conservative.  Jocelyn Hemming, a friend of Rachel’s, recalls that Rachel’s domestic life was latterly quite Spartan and her tastes simple – fashion and dress meant little to her.  She was no gardener and favoured the ‘back to nature’ approach.  In fact she kept bullocks and drove a Land rover.

 Locally, there is a considerable legacy of Rachel’s work.  Prior to her working at the forge in Roadwater she produced a number of remarkable pub signs from sheet tin.  The Valiant Soldier sign at Roadwater still hangs outside but rather bizarrely, the White Horse at Washford prefers to hang Rachel’s sign in the skittle alley having replaced her sign by a modern and rather characterless one.

 A number of local churches afford a chance to see her work at first hand.  At Rodhuish can be seen her ‘Jacob Wrestling with the Angel’, at Withycombe stands ‘St. Nicholas’, a statue in forged mild steel and aluminium and my particular favourite is the screen at the end of the nave at St. Andrews in Old Cleeve which she produced in collaboration with James Horrobin.

 The range of Rachel Reckitt’s work is considerable.  She worked as a painter in various mediums and left numerous drawings.  She sculpted in stone and pride of place in my desk I have an early piece of carved alabaster which is wonderfully tactile and extremely original.

 Rachel created highly innovative constructions, a number of which will be included in the Exhibition; these pre-date the sculptural pieces from the forge. Some of her earliest works were her woodcuts for which she is rightly acclaimed and examples of which will also be in the Exhibition.

 For those fortunate enough to have seen the Exhibition of her work in 2001 in the Somerset County Museum compiled by Hal Bishop, Rachel’s exceptional vision and talent will come as no surprise.

 The Exhibition will contain a wide and varied collection of her work, much of which will be for sale.  It seems appropriate that the many visitors to Somerset Art Weeks should have the opportunity of viewing the work of this very individual and interesting artist.

 There will be directions indicating where public work by Rachel Reckitt can be seen and photographs of her work posted shortly.

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