May The Simple Joys Of The Season Be Yours

Wild Garden, Winter 1959

John Nash

Tate Collection

"Nature looks dead in winter because her life is gathered into her heart. She withers the plant down to the root that she may grow it up again fairer and stronger. She calls her family together within her inmost home to prepare them for being scattered abroad upon the face of the earth"

Hugh Macmillan "Rejuvenescence," The Ministry of Nature, 1871

Winter Garden 1929-37

Evelyn Dunbar

Tate Collection

Winter Arrangement

Gwenda Morgan, born 1908

Wood Engraving, Tate Collection

Just as we were finally feeling prepared, Christmas is over in a blink of an eye! I hope you enjoyed a very merry time with family and friends, and are now relishing these lazy days that tide us over until New Year (apologies to those already back at work - very unfair!). This year I'm keeping it quiet and cosy. I unwrapped some lovely books at Christmas so I just want to plough through those and avoid the dark, soggy mornings as much as possible! I hope you like the selection of work here, John Nash and Evelyn Dunbar are always firm favourites, but Gwenda Morgan is a new found artist, and I think her woodcuts are utterly beautiful. If you are tired of online sales shopping, drop by the V&A and Tate online collections, beautiful art without going out into the cold!

My Christmas book haul:

                

Enjoy the rest of 2012! Continue to eat, drink and be merry - we only have this excuse one month a year after all (I'll be referring to my new Nigel Slater cooking bible regularly!) 

As always, thanks for dropping by, I'll be back in the New Year with news on what I have planned for '13!

Katie