LONDON.- Two key pieces by 20th-century British artist John Piper have been bought for Eastbourne’s contemporary art museum, Towner, with help from the Art Fund. Newhaven, The Castle (1934) and Newhaven (1937), which featured in Towner’s hit exhibition John Piper in Kent & Sussex earlier this year, were purchased following an Art Fund grant and a public appeal.

The works
Newhaven, The Castle (1934) and Newhaven (1937) show Piper depicting the same subject, three years apart. Despite their shared subject the two paintings have a very different feel, a sign of Piper’s fast-paced development during a period in which he was at the cutting edge of British art. The Newhaven paintings were created at a time when Piper was working closely with Eric Ravilious, an English painter whose works feature prominently in Towner’s permanent collection.

Councillor Neil Stanley said, ‘We were absolutely delighted by the positive response to our appeal, with the vast majority of visitors taking the opportunity to give a small donation, and it is their generosity that made these acquisitions possible. Towner is also immensely grateful to the Art Fund, the V&A and the Friends of the Towner for their vital contribution towards the purchase of these two significant pieces of British art, which really will make an important addition to our collection here in Eastbourne.’

John Piper
John Piper (1903–1992) was an English artist known predominantly for his paintings of the British landscape. After an early flirtation with abstraction he adopted a distinctive, naturalistic style, and in the ’30s he developed a close relationship with painter Eric Ravilious. Piper was appointed an official war artist in World War II from 1940 to 1942, attracting widespread praise for his paintings of bomb damage following air raids.

In his later career he undertook a number of collaborations, working with poet John Betjeman, potter Geoffrey Eastop and artist Ben Nicholson. He designed the stained glass windows for Coventry Cathedral with artist Patrick Reyntiens, became involved with set design for the theatre and wrote extensively on modern art.  or call 01323 434670.

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You can see works by Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell in current collection display The Art of Giving.

It was Alderman Chisholm Towner who donated 22 paintings. From this nucleus, it was decided to acquire “pictures of Sussex” and the collection grew and outgrew its previous home.

When I visited, highlights on show included Downland scenes by the war artist Eric Ravilious, several beautiful Victorian watercolours of the first buildings in Eastbourne by Louisa Paris, a local artist who deserves to be better known, and a photo of a woman leaning alarmingly over Beachy Head by Wolfgang Tillmans.

Matthew Rowe, the gallery director, has a good eye. Upstairs, on the floor of a large space where he stages several contemporary shows a year, I find a dozen visitors on their knees. This is so that they can get the best view of 11 miniature carvings of men and women made by Tomoaki Suzuki, a young London-based artist having his first solo show in this country. He’ll be a Turner Prize winner one day, I’d hazard.

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