Exhibition that is a tribute to ‘mother figure’ - Ham and High
"One of the forces for good on the London art scene is celebrated in the exhibition Angela Flowers at 80 at Flowers in Shoreditch. It's more than 40 years since Angela, then a mother
of four living in Kentish Town, opened a gallery within the Artists' International Association, a leftwing co-op in Soho. Now, after many changes of location, there are two smart Flowers galleries in London and one in New York - and some of the original artists are still part of their stable. The first to sign up was Patrick Hughes - whose trademark is "reverspective", a disturbing optical illusion painted on a construction. His contribution is Hope Our Love Lasts And Never Dies - first letters spell out Angela's maiden name - which is nearly a metre long, with key people and places in her life. Some are depicted using miniatures of paintings in her collection: Lucy Jones's epithalamium portrait of Angela and her second husband, management writer Robert Heller who died last year, and of a painting by their daughter Rachel, a gifted artist who has Down's syndrome.
Cross-section
Angela was born in Croydon - her great-grandfather founded theCroydon Advertiser- and studied singing before working in film, photography and advertising. In 1952 she met and married the photographer Adrian Flowers, who was soon after asked to go to St Ives to photograph some of its artists, including Nicholson, Hepworth, Hilton and Frost. They often paid in artworks and this was the start of the Flowers' collection and of Angela being part of the professional art world. She met Heller in 1970, Rachel was born in 1973, and the family lived in Fitzroy Park, Highgate, from 1977 to 2008. Angela Flowers at 80 presents artworks by a large cross-section of artists who have showed with Flowers - "a nod to an exciting past and a reminder that more is yet to come", according to the gallery. Some works have a direct connection - as with Andrew Logan's glittery portrait and Glen Baxter's drawing Looks Like Some Almighty Shindig is Going on Way Over East at the Flowers Place. Others give an idea of Angela's distinctive taste. These include a lively landscape by Hampstead resident Tai-Shan Schierenberg, which is a tribute to another painter associated with the area - Constable. Schierenberg, who has been represented by Flowers since 1989, says: "Angela has a fantastic eye and is a great supporter of her artists - I'm sure I wouldn't be the only one to feel she is more of a mother figure to us all."
Alison Oldham