Rose Garrard facts for kids
Rose Garrard was born on September 21, 1946, in Bewdley, England. She is a talented artist who creates different kinds of art, including installations, videos, and sculptures. She is also a writer. Rose Garrard's artworks have been shown in famous places like the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Tate Gallery in London. Her art was also part of a big international art show called the Venice Biennale in 1984. Her work has been seen in art galleries in Austria and Canada too.
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Early Life and Art School
Rose Garrard was born in Bewdley, Worcestershire. When she was just three months old, her family moved to Malvern. Her mother owned an antique shop there for many years. Her father was an artist and a soldier. After World War II, he ran an art college in the Sahara Desert to help soldiers adjust to civilian life. He even received a special award called the MBE in 1953.
Rose Garrard started her art education at Stourbridge College of Art in 1965. She then went to Birmingham School of Art and earned a top degree in Sculpture in 1969. She continued her studies at Chelsea College of Arts in 1970. From 1970 to 1971, she received a scholarship to study at the Ecole de Beaux Arts in Paris, where she won a gold medal for her sculptures.
Starting Her Art Career
Since the late 1960s, Rose Garrard's art has explored ideas about gender, identity, and power. She often combines her own experiences with historical events in her work. After her art show called 'Boundaries' in 1969, she won an international art prize. She then showed her "especially fascinating" sculptures of clear, veiled female figures at places like the Serpentine Gallery.
In 1977, Rose Garrard had her first solo exhibition, 'Incidents in a Garden,' at Acme Gallery in Covent Garden. This show included performance art and sculptures. One artwork, 'Monument,' featured bronze figures of Hitler and Churchill having tea.
For her 1983 exhibition, 'Frames of Mind,' at Kettles Yard, Garrard questioned the old idea that women in art should only be models, not the artists themselves. For an artwork called 'Models Triptych,' she showed three female artists who were famous in their time but later forgotten. She placed them in open frames, making them look like they were escaping their boxes. This work was about bringing forgotten women artists back into history. In 1984, she spent three months at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. There, she looked into why so few women artists were in the museum's collection and why some anonymous works were thought to be by men.
Accident and Later Art
In 1988, Rose Garrard was in a serious car accident. She had to spend time in the hospital with a broken arm. While recovering, she was inspired to create new art for the 1988 Biennale of Experimental Art. One piece, 'Out of Line,' included recordings of patients, plaster casts of body parts, and videos of accidents from the news. The accident also led to a series of drawings called 'Talisman.' These drawings were based on an ancient text called 'The Thunder, Perfect Mind,' which she found helpful during her healing.
In the early 1990s, Garrard explored new ways of making art during artist residencies in Canada, at the New Art Gallery in Calgary and the Vancouver Art Gallery. She created art installations in specific places and talked with people about their experiences. She used these conversations to create visual art and explore local issues. She continued this type of work in 1994 for her exhibition 'Archiving my own History' at Cornerhouse.
In 1995, Rose Garrard moved her art studio from London back to the Malvern Hills. She suggested a project called “The Spring Water Arts Project” to help improve Great Malvern. This project involved creating a new sculpture trail to find and celebrate lost spring sites in the town. Among her sculptures created after moving back to Malvern are the Enigma Fountain and a statue of Sir Edward Elgar. This fountain was unveiled by The Duke of York in Great Malvern in 2000. Other works include the Malvhina drinking spout, unveiled in 1998, and the Hand of Peace war memorial in Portland stone in Malvern. She also created Women's Work in 1998 in Bilston, Wolverhampton, and the Cascade Gates in 2007 in North Malvern.
Notable Artworks
- “Models Triptych” (1982 – 83), New Hall Art Collection, Murray Edwards College
- Talisman: The Wooden Box From Her Father (1988), Victoria & Albert Museum
Solo Exhibitions
- Incidents in a Garden, Acme Gallery, 1977
- Surveillance, International Performance Symposium, 1980
- The Fall, Women Live, Arnolfini, 1982
- Frames of Mind, Kettles Yard, 1983
- Between Ourselves, Ikon Gallery, 1984
- Openings, Laing Art Gallery, 1985
- Casting Room One, Third Generation of Women Sculptors, Canterbury Festival, 1986
- Redressing the Balance, Neue Gesellschaft fur bildende Kunst, 1987
- Talisman, Louise Hallett Gallery, 1988
- Calgary Conversation, live-art residency, New Art Gallery Calgary, 1991
- Disclosing Dialogues, live-art residency, Vancouver Art Gallery, 1992
- Archiving my own History, documentation of works 1969 > 1994, Cornerhouse, 1994
- Rose Garrard: Arena for Conversation, South London Gallery, 1994
Historian and Author
Rose Garrard became very involved in restoring the local springs and studying the history of Malvern. In 2006, her research showed that "well dressing" (decorating wells) has been a tradition in the Malvern area since the 12th and 13th centuries. In 2001, she started organizing the well dressing event in Malvern, which now happens every year with over 28 wells being decorated.
As an author, Garrard has written three books about Malvern. Two of them are about the springs. Her book A Malvern Treasury, published in 2010, was written because older history books about the town were no longer available.
Personal Life
Rose Garrard met fellow artist Kerry Trengrove at Birmingham School of Art in 1966. They became friends and later married in 1969. They separated in 1987 and divorced in 1989.
