Wikipedia:

Berenice Sydney

Berenice Sydney (b. Berenice Frieze 1944 d.1983) was a prolific British artist who produced a substantial body of work from the late 1960s until her untimely death in 1983. Her oeuvre consists of paintings, drawings, prints, children’s books, costume design and performance. A memorial exhibition of her work was held at the Royal Academy in 1984 followed by solo shows in Italy and Switzerland as well as England. Her work is in over 100 private and public collections.[1]

Biography

Berenice Sydney was born in Esher in 1944 and educated from the age of six at the Lycée Français de Londres. From her early school years she took ballet lessons with Marie Rambert and studied classical guitar at the Guildhall School of Music. Later in life she studied flamenco dancing in London and New York, incorporating this form of dance into the performance of her own work.

In addition to reading the classics and studying mythology she was fluent in five languages. She was enrolled at the Central School of Art and Design, but left formal art education to set up a studio in Chelsea.[2]

She participated in over 40 exhibitions before her untimely death of an asthma attack at the age of 38. She is buried in Highgate Cemetery with her father the documentary filmmaker, Joseph Sydney Frieze.

Career

She had ten group exhibitions between 1963 and 1975 and eleven one man shows, and was invited to represent Britain at the Biennale della Grafica d’Arte in Florence in 1974. The following year she showed her “stained glass effect” canvases at the McAlpine Gallery of the Ashmolean Museum.

Her earliest oils, including Hercules, Charlie the Pigeon, Four Figures, Rape of Nymphs, Dancers, were exhibited in 1966.

She began to exhibit her drawings including Dancing Nymphs, Hermaphroditus, Pan and two Nymphs, The Marriage of Psyche and Eros, Naiads surprised by Satyrs, in 1968. Linocuts were also exhibited that year and included Aphrodite and Ares, Nymphs dancing, Psyche and Eros, Nude fiddling with toe, Pan and two Nymphs and Hebe and Artemis.

Writing at the time of the exhibition 'Salute to Berenice Sydney' held at the Royal Academy Max Wykes-Joyce wrote:

In the Spring of 1968 I was much charmed by a first one-person show at the Drian Galleries of large, lively paintings which evidenced the artist's interest in dance and music, and a group of black and white drawings on mythological themesm made in her late teens and very early twenties by the young self-taught Berenice Sydney. I praised them greatly: subesequently show of her work were in turn singled out for admiration in Arts Review by Marina Vaizey, Pat Gilmour, Oswell Baakeston and Charles Bone. And these praises were more recently joined by those of Kenneth Garlick of the Ashmolean Museum and David Brown of the Tate Gallery. Her painting evolved from figuration to an apparent abstraction which was, in truth, a dance of colours, an expression of natural exuberance. She was continually researching new means of printmaking and mixed media works, each kind of which is represented in this, her memorial exhibition.

[3]

Painting

Sydney’s work developed from representational to semi-abstract and she soon established her style in purest abstract form starting with tiny delicate Persian Garden designs, miniatures in naturalistic colours that become abstract etchings: (Bakhtiari, The Sultan’s Garden, Shirvan Kabistan II, Hachly Moons, Little Squares, Saruk, which were exhibited in 1969.

From 1973 her oils on canvas also began to develop into conceptual abstractions. From discernible figures worked in flowing brush strokes her forms became multi-faceted describing movement in hundreds of colour mutations and shapes.

Printmaking

Sydney continued to experiment in oils and other media and produced etching, engravings in steel (Art in Steel exhibition 1972), copper and perspex monoprints. One of her influences was Charles Hayter and her etchings would then use multiple colours on a single plate. She also produced aquatints and lithographs using one plate for each colour process. Her work in serigraphy was also extensive and first exhibited in 1974.

Drawing

Sydney's drawing consistently used acrylic and oil pastels, ink and brush.

Sydney’s attention to the quality of her materials was meticulous. She sought out the best materials available, travelling to New York to get her Gemini handmade paper upon which she liked to work, Paris for other materials, Cornelissens of London for artists materials and to Robersons for her canvases.

The Swiss art historian, Florian Rodari encouraged her to write and illustrate a Book of Nonsense Verse 1982/3 which she dedicated to him and to the First of April. [4] The black and white illustrations are aquatints etched in a delicately delineated style. The text is written in French and English. Four artist's proofs of the book subsequently titled Book of Fools were printed. One is known to be housed at the Bibliothèque Nationale Paris purchased in October 1982. An audiocassette was recorded at the Flamenco studio in Zurich of the artist reading the work, singing and dancing the verses (two verses read in Yorkshire and Scottish accents for added impact) accompanied by Gypsy Flamenco musicians.

Exhibitions

Exhibitions during her lifetime 1968-1982

1968

  • Drian Galleries, First One Person Show, London
  • Leicester Galleries, - Group Show, London
  • Edinburgh Festival Costume Designs for Workshops Production of Clown - Televised, Grampian Productions
  • Magdelene Street Gallery. Group Show, Cambridge
  • 1969 Traverse Theatre Gallery, Group Show, Edinburgh
  • Lumley Cazalet Gallery, Group Show, London
  • Camden Arts Centre Group Show, London
  • Tib Lane Gallery, Group Show, Manchester
  • Royal Institute Galleries, Group Show F.I.B.A., London WI

1971

  • 'International Student House, One Person Show, London
  • Leicester Galleries. Group Show, London WI
  • Richard Demarco Gallery, Group Show, Edinburgh
  • Tib Lane Gallery, Group Show, Manchester

1972

  • Galleria Stellaria One Person Show, Florence
  • Zella 9 Gallery, Group Show, London
  • Art in Steel Exhibition, Group Show, Millbank, London
  • F.B.A. Galleries, Group Show, London SWI
  • Magdelene Gallery, Group Show, Cambridge

1973

  • Christopher Drake Gallery, Group Show, London
  • Kenwood House Museum, Two Person Show, London

Mounted by the Greater London Council

1974

  • Education Gallery, One Person Show, Leeds City Art Gallery
  • Willis Museum and Art Gallery. One Person Show, Basingstoke
  • Biennale della Grafica d’Arte. Invited to represent Britain, Florence
  • Haworth Gallery, Accrington, One Person Show

1975

  • McAlpine Gallery, One Person Show, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
  • County Museum, One Person Show, Warwick
  • Museum and Art Gallery. Three Person Show, Leicester
  • Galleria d’Arte, One Person Show, Milan
  • St Catherine’s College, Oxford One Person Show, Oxford
  • Trinity College, Oxford. One Person Show,

1976

techniques 1982 Exhibited with:

  • The Society of Graphic Artists
  • Hampstead Artists Council
  • Free Painters and Sculptors
  • Chelsea Art Society

POSTHUMOUS EXHIBITIONS: 1984

  • Salute to Berenice Royal Academy. One Person Show, London
  • Exhibition of British Art, Abu Dhabi Group Show
  • Exhibition of British Art, Gulf of Bahrain, Group Show
  • British Council Paris, Group Show
  • Centenary Exhibition, Leicestershire Museum and Art Gallery, Group Show

1985

  • Homage a Berenice Sydney, Edwin Engelberts Galerie d’Art Contemporain, One Person Show, Geneva

1986

  • Christmas Exhibition’ Lumley Cazalet Fine Art, Group Show, London

1987

  • Berenice Sydney, Gallery of British Contemporary Art, One Person Show

Lausanne 1988

One Person Show 1989

  • Women in Art, Bowmoore Gallery, Group Show, London

1990

  • Contemporary British Artists, Waterman Fine Art, Group Show, London

1991

  • The London Original Print Fair, Royal Academy of Art. London

Represented by Lumlev Cazalet

  • From Fautrier to Rainer, La Galerie Foex, Group Show, Geneva,

including Henri Michaux, Brice Marden, Ben Nicholson 1992

  • Homage to the British Artist Berenice Sydney, Galerie Nelly L’Epattenier, One Person Show, Lausanne

1993

  • Homage a Berenice, L’Exemplaire, Geneva, One Person Show
  • The London Original Print Fair, The Royal Academy of Art, Represented by Peter Black

1994

  • Berenice Sydney, L’Exemplaire, Geneva, One Person Show

1995

  • Art’95 Contemporary British Art Fair, London
  • Milan, Book Print Fair Group
  • The Chelsea Art Society Group Exhibition
  • A private exhibition of rare and original European prints l8th-20th century at Austin Desmonds, Campbell Fine Art

1996

  • L’Exemplaire, Geneva, One person show

1998

  • Girls, Girls, Girls, Deborah Bates Gallery, London

Public Collections

Museums and Galleries

University Collections

Corporate and Commercial Collections

References

  1. ^ The papers of Berenice Sydney (TGA200711), Tate Archive, The Archive of British Art since 1900, London
  2. ^ Buckman, David Artists in Britain Since 1945 (Art Dictionaries Ltd; Enl Upd edition: Oct 2006) ISBN-10: 095326095X ISBN-13: 978-0953260959
  3. ^ Max Wykes-Joyce, “Berenice Sydney”, 'Arts Review', March 1984
  4. ^ Florian Rodari Homage to Berenice Sydney, Edwin Engelberts, Galerie Art Contemporain, Geneva 1985
  5. ^ http://www.marteprint.com/

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