Jacqueline Poncelet shudders as she recalls her shocking treatment from parts of the art world earlier in her career. It was while she was making art from carpet remnants and there were people who hated it with a passion.
“It was very upsetting because people responded so viscerally,” she says. “They had such strong opinions. You can’t imagine how emotional they were. I’ve always had some supporters within the art world but at the same time have had some people who were so against me, which was very upsetting. You’re having to take on this extraordinary negativity and a kind of anger. It has taken me literally years to find a way of talking about them that liberated me from their … well, I can’t even find the words to describe what they were doing.”
Poncelet was making her own carpets by collaging remnants bought from carpet shops. She has come to see them as a “representation of Britain”, raising questions about class and colonialism. “The British have been aesthetic thieves as well as every other kind of thief you can think of,” she says. “These carpets represent a place in society, but also things we’ve taken from other cultures. They are like an extraordinary social document.”
Did ordinary gallery-goers, not the “art establishment”, like Poncelet’s carpets? “They did,” she replies. “They saw them as a chance to reminisce and talk about their own experiences in life – and children loved them. But the art world were: ‘Don’t show me that, I’ll vomit.’”
Poncelet is talking as she prepares for her biggest, most ambitious exhibition where there will, praise the Lord, be a carpet, loaned from the British Council collection.
Hopefully people won’t want to be sick over it. “I think life has moved on,” she says. “At least I hope it has.”
Poncelet, 77, is an artist many people believe should be widely known, but the truth is that she isn’t. It might have been different if she had been a man. Or stuck to one thing, instead of being an artist impossible to pigeonhole.
Instead, she has been working largely under the radar for 50 years; a star to some and an inspiration to many. Her work is in collections including Tate, the Stedeljk Museum in Amsterdam and MoMA in New York but she has never really had her “moment” until, it is hoped, now.
Mima in Middlesbrough has opened a show surveying Poncelet’s diverse career from her early days as a ceramicist and taking in her forays into sculpture, textiles, wallpapers, paintings and public art. It is a big deal for her but also a huge moment for the gallery, which is staging the show after Poncelet won the £100,000 Freelands award in 2021.
The prize was created in 2016 to enable a UK arts organisation to present an exhibition by a female artist who “may not yet have received the acclaim or public recognition that her work deserves”. Poncelet is unquestionably in that category, says Mima’s artistic director Elinor Morgan who has been working with the artist on the exhibition for the last two and a half years.
It is, Morgan says, “phenomenal to have such a kind of stateswoman of contemporary art” as Poncelet at Mima and the generous prize money allows the gallery to do things it would normally not be able to afford.
The exhibition itself will include some of Poncelet’s earliest ceramics – bone china pots which weigh almost nothing – as well as newly commissioned works made after the artist’s hours and hours wandering the streets of Middlesbrough. They include new wallpapers in the lifts and on a huge swathe of a gallery wall.
Poncelet thinks the British have an odd attitude to wallpaper, but she loves it. “My background isn’t entirely English and we always went abroad in the summer and I fell in love with those mad French hotels where everything is wallpapered, including the ceiling. There would be a dresser and even the dresser would have it. So I always think of wallpaper as like a space for your imagination. I love the idea that you create a different kind of imagined space.”
Poncelet was born in Belgium and moved to England as a young child, studying at Wolverhampton College of Art before going on to the Royal College of Art, which was liberating because of the freedom she was allowed. “It was glorious,” she says. “Everything is accountable now, isn’t it? Everything has a form which has to be filled in.
“In those days there was a generosity which allowed you to develop without constraints. It meant that when you left college you were actually quite self-sufficient. You hadn’t had a million tutorials, you hadn’t had to justify everything you did. You learned to justify it to yourself.”
As she was starting on her career the Crafts Council was also starting, helping to create an audience for the work of artists such as Poncelet. One memorably strange early exhibition experience was being asked by the furniture store Heal’s to show work on its shopfloor.
“They put me in the ceramics area with the plates and the cups and saucers,” said Poncelet. “People were totally mystified. They thought, what on earth are these objects and why are they so expensive?”
After she abandoned ceramics she turned to sculpture but never achieved the success of her mostly male peers in the 1980s new British sculpture movement, including her then husband Richard Deacon.
The reasons why Poncelet has never got the recognition she deserves are varied and by her own cheerful admission, she makes it difficult for people to get a handle on her. She has moved from thing to thing and it’s sometimes difficult to join the dots. As well as ceramics, sculpture and wallpaper, her career has included watercolour painting, oil painting, weaving, complicated photomontages – “I loved Snappy Snaps” – and, partly to earn a crust, teaching and public art commissions.
Morgan says Poncelet’s diversity of output was one reason she was not the famous name she deserved to be. “The infrastructures of the art world, academic and commercial and curatorial, have formed around artists who maybe have a signature medium or way of working,” she says. That and the “myth of the male, solo genius artist”.
Poncelet these days divides her time between London and south Wales where her partner, former gallerist Anthony Stokes, lives. She agrees that her career would have been different if she had been a man. But she is not bitter.
“There is always that but it doesn’t particularly bother me. I just think it’s a fact of life and I’ve had such an interesting life that I can’t sit here weeping about it. Maybe it would have been less interesting. Maybe somebody would have tidied me up. Maybe somebody would have tried to manage me. Maybe this is my moment. Because I’m older.”
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
In a case that has sent shockwaves through the Vancouver Island art community, a local art dealer has been charged with one count of fraud over $5,000. Calvin Lucyshyn, the former operator of the now-closed Winchester Galleries in Oak Bay, faces the charge after police seized hundreds of artworks, valued in the tens of millions of dollars, from various storage sites in the Greater Victoria area.
Alleged Fraud Scheme
Police allege that Lucyshyn had been taking valuable art from members of the public under the guise of appraising or consigning the pieces for sale, only to cut off all communication with the owners. This investigation began in April 2022, when police received a complaint from an individual who had provided four paintings to Lucyshyn, including three works by renowned British Columbia artist Emily Carr, and had not received any updates on their sale.
Further investigation by the Saanich Police Department revealed that this was not an isolated incident. Detectives found other alleged victims who had similar experiences with Winchester Galleries, leading police to execute search warrants at three separate storage locations across Greater Victoria.
Massive Seizure of Artworks
In what has become one of the largest art fraud investigations in recent Canadian history, authorities seized approximately 1,100 pieces of art, including more than 600 pieces from a storage site in Saanich, over 300 in Langford, and more than 100 in Oak Bay. Some of the more valuable pieces, according to police, were estimated to be worth $85,000 each.
Lucyshyn was arrested on April 21, 2022, but was later released from custody. In May 2024, a fraud charge was formally laid against him.
Artwork Returned, but Some Remain Unclaimed
In a statement released on Monday, the Saanich Police Department confirmed that 1,050 of the seized artworks have been returned to their rightful owners. However, several pieces remain unclaimed, and police continue their efforts to track down the owners of these works.
Court Proceedings Ongoing
The criminal charge against Lucyshyn has not yet been tested in court, and he has publicly stated his intention to defend himself against any pending allegations. His next court appearance is scheduled for September 10, 2024.
Impact on the Local Art Community
The news of Lucyshyn’s alleged fraud has deeply affected Vancouver Island’s art community, particularly collectors, galleries, and artists who may have been impacted by the gallery’s operations. With high-value pieces from artists like Emily Carr involved, the case underscores the vulnerabilities that can exist in art transactions.
For many art collectors, the investigation has raised concerns about the potential for fraud in the art world, particularly when it comes to dealing with private galleries and dealers. The seizure of such a vast collection of artworks has also led to questions about the management and oversight of valuable art pieces, as well as the importance of transparency and trust in the industry.
As the case continues to unfold in court, it will likely serve as a cautionary tale for collectors and galleries alike, highlighting the need for due diligence in the sale and appraisal of high-value artworks.
While much of the seized artwork has been returned, the full scale of the alleged fraud is still being unraveled. Lucyshyn’s upcoming court appearances will be closely watched, not only by the legal community but also by the wider art world, as it navigates the fallout from one of Canada’s most significant art fraud cases in recent memory.
Art collectors and individuals who believe they may have been affected by this case are encouraged to contact the Saanich Police Department to inquire about any unclaimed pieces. Additionally, the case serves as a reminder for anyone involved in high-value art transactions to work with reputable dealers and to keep thorough documentation of all transactions.
As with any investment, whether in art or other ventures, it is crucial to be cautious and informed. Art fraud can devastate personal collections and finances, but by taking steps to verify authenticity, provenance, and the reputation of dealers, collectors can help safeguard their valuable pieces.