Art
The Emma Sergeant Art and Design Studio at the top of the school has inspiring panoramic views right over London. The department works in a wide variety of media, including ceramics, etching, screen printing, textiles and fine art. Computer design work is an integral part of our curriculum and we have our own darkroom and pottery.
Click here to see the photos from the latest Art Exhibitions
The Art department has been privileged to welcome a range of artists to speak to pupils. Lucian Freud, arguably the world's leading figurative artist, visited Channing to talk to sixth form students about his work in December 2005. Everyone found this session extraordinarily interesting. Lucian Freud spoke in some detail about his paintings, his models, his long career as an artist and his ideas about art. His total commitment to his art was evident in everything he said and serves as an inspiration for every aspiring artist. Other recent speakers include Wilma and Peter Spens.
Surfing the artistic waves
Art students recently enjoyed a journey through the age of performance art to inspirational international travels. Wilma is an expressive autobiographical painter and demonstrates, by her career of spontaneity, the freedom and excitement of using creativity as a medium to express oneself.
Wilma Johnson was born in London in 1960 and studied at Central St. Martin College of Art from 1978-1982. She founded a group of performance artists in 1980 called the neo-Naturists, with Christine and Jennifer Binnie and established ceramicist Grayson Perry. The group performed in a variety of venues throughout the 1980s, including the Royal Opera House and the Spanish Anarchist Centre.
Wilma explained that, during this time, her paintings were influenced by hitch hiking around the arctic wastes of Iceland and Lapland. She then moved to Mexico in 1987, when she left the neo-Naturists, staying in hotels to paint and following any fiesta from the Veracruz carnival to the Night of the Radish Oaxaca. Wilma spoke passionately about this period of her life, which clearly made an impact on her. There is evidence of this passion in her recent paintings, which, she told the group, have been heavily influenced by her time in Mexico.
Shortly after returning to London she got married and went to live in Ballydavid, an isolated fishing village on the West coast of Ireland. She stayed there for 10 years, until she moved to Biarritz, France in 2001 and took up surfing, swapping a board for a painting in a bar in San Sebastian.Wilma now lives in Guéthary, a Basque whaling village and international surfers’ paradise, with her three children.
Every other year, the A-Level Art students visit Amsterdam.
Year 11 Art students visit the Henry Moore Foundation at Perry Green, Hertfordshire
New Hall
Amid peaceful gardens, the concrete architecture of New Hall College strikes a dramatic note. This is one of the newer Cambridge colleges, built in the 1960s for female students only. It now houses the second largest collection in the world of work by women artists. Year 11 GCSE Art students were shown round the collection by Sarah Greaves, one of the curators.
Many pictures had a story behind them; for instance, we learned that Mary Husted's 'Dreams, Oracles, Icons' was a heart-rending image of her feelings at having to give up her baby for adoption. However, this story had a happy ending, as Ms Husted's son later searched for his natural mother and found her through this picture in the collection. Soon the mother and son would be coming to see the picture together, we were told.
Lunch was provided in the luxurious surroundings of the dome room, where the walls were hung with larger canvases. One picture, by Maggie Hambling, depicted an Arab woman, dressed in traditional black costume, firing a lethal-looking weapon. When it was painted, it was thought shocking that a woman should be shown carrying a gun, but now sadly it is something we have come to expect.
After lunch, we had another hour to draw some more of the work on view. Lots of excellent drawing had been done in short visit, and a great deal of insight had been gained by everyone into the wide variety of subjects and styles that have been tackled by contemporary women artists.
We are very grateful to Sarah Greaves for arranging our visit and for making our time at New Hall College so interesting.
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Years 7-9
Girls in Year 7 to 9 follow a carousel of three different areas of study: textiles, two- dimensional art and ceramics. Each area of study is taught for approximately one term. While specialist skills appropriate to each area of study are being learned, girls also learn to draw with greater accuracy and to look at the wider world of Art with a more critical and enquiring attitude to augment their own ideas and improve their own practice as artists. A trip to the Tate Modern gallery is arranged for Year 7 girls each January.
The new Pottery studio
Years 10-11
In Years 10 and 11, girls follow the AQA GCSE unendorsed syllabus over two years. The main essentials of this course are well covered: recording visual information using a variety of media (generally in sketch books); commenting critically on the work of other artists; developing personal ideas in sketch books; and realising a final piece of work after a period of intense practical research. Course enrichment is provided in the form of weekly life drawing classes and visits to major Art galleries and museums.
Post-16 studies
Sixth form students follow the OCR AS and A level Art examination syllabus. Each of these levels takes one year of study and comprises (as of September 2008) a coursework portfolio including a study of a relevant topic in Art, plus a controlled assignment or test. Substantial preparation is expected before the final timed test is taken in the Summer term. The coursework portfolio is also submitted in the Summer term and should demonstrate not only skill but also imagination, originality and a knowledge of the wider world of Art practice, both past and present. Portfolio advice is given to those intending to apply for a place on a course at an Art college or Architecture faculty.
AQA
History of Art can be studied for 1 year to AS Level.
Beyond the classroom
As well as the lively studio work that goes on in the Art department on a daily basis, trips are arranged to major Art galleries and museums and to less well-known destinations including (in 2007) the Zabludowicz collection of contemporary art and the Henry Moore Foundation at Perry Green in Hertfordshire. Every two years, a Sixth Form trip is organised to Amsterdam, usually in the October half term. In the intermediate years, an Art Week is held to encourage interest in Art, during which creative activities take place, speakers are invited into school and competitions are held. Links have been established with "The Big Draw" campaign, the "Young at Art" competition and with local art galleries, the Highgate gallery where occasional exhibitions of students' work are held and the Catto Gallery in Hampstead, which has generously established a "Catto Gallery prize for Art" at Channing School.
After-school clubs include ceramics and photography (Middle School), life classes and senior photo club (Upper School and Sixth Form). End-of-year exhibitions are held in the Art studios and school halls. These are public exhibitions, which attract a good deal of local interest.
- Everyone gets involved in Art Week
Trips
On a damp and overcast Friday we boarded our coaches for the first of our exhibitions; “Indian Highways” at the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park. There we were met with a wild assortment of contemporary Indian Art including brilliantly coloured paintings; video installations; a sculpture that you could crawl through and a true-to-life reconstruction of a dusty Indian sub-post office.
We forgot about the weather and hurried to explore this fascinating collection of contemporary art. We then walked across Hyde Park to have our sandwiches sitting on the steps in front of the Albert Memorial. After the colourful confusion of “Indian Highway” there was something calm and majestic about Prince Albert’s statue perched within his ornate Gothic shelter, forever worrying about the state of British design.
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Moving on to Trafalgar Square we next visited the National Portrait Gallery to see the work exhibited on all three floors. Everyone made drawings of the portraits from the Tudor and Modern portrait sections, admiring the sheer skill and draughtsmanship of the artists we were studying. We then stopped by to look at the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize entries on the ground floor. These were brilliant; almost as good as the entries for the Channing Portrait Photography competition that was held last term.
After an exciting and productive day at the galleries we made our way back to our coach for our ride back to Channing.
