Accompanying the retrospective of work by Christie Brown in the barn, this exhibition in the Long Gallery presents an analysis of 20th and 21st century figurative drawing practice. A collection of Christie Brown’s drawings are on display prompting the dialogue between drawing and sculpture, between two and three dimensions. As a figurative artist, Brown believes that life drawing is critical in providing that vital source of information on the form and structure of the human body.

Writing on Brown’s drawings, Dr Claudia Milburn, Director of Programming at Messums Org comments, “Overlaid, rubbed out, worked over and collaged together, creating pentimento effects, her drawn figures appear and disappear, pushing and pulling at the picture plane. In some images, figures are pared down, abstracted, and reduced to fragmentary shapes and traces, offering a sense of countless glimpses but denying the possibility of ultimate revelation. The figure may be part absent, but the essence of the figure’s presence is always retained. The work prompts questions – who are these seemingly connected but disconnected figures, caught in apparent existential moments?”

Together with the works by Christie Brown, the presentation includes drawings by a number of other notable sculptors including Elisabeth Frink and her son Lin Jammet, Laurence Edwards, Brian Taylor and Peter Logan, the latter, a figure drawing in space using steel wire. Further highlights in the exhibition include a collection of drawings by Antony Williams, winner of the Herbert Smith Freehills Portrait Award 2024 and a group of works by Australian-born British artist, Henry Lamb.