Artistic outpost

Roddy Martine visits The Pier Arts Centre, an artistic gem on Orkney.

The south west tip of mainland Orkney is not where you would might expect to find a major collection of contemporary British art, but all becomes clear when you discover that the founder of this scenically entrancing gallery on the Stromness waterfront, a 30 minute drive from Kirkwall, was a close personal friend of many of the artists represented in the collection.

Margaret Gardiner, who died in 2005, was born in Berlin in 1904, where her father, the wealthy Egyptologist Sir Alan Gardiner, was working on his groundbreaking study of Egyptian language. The family returned to Britain when the First World War broke out.

However, from an early age, Margaret's enduring passion was art and, on inheriting a large fortune, she was able to indulge herself as she chose. During the 1930s and 1940s, she became friend, patron and confidant to many of the best emerging artists of the time.

Several of them were based in the Cornish village of St Ives, among them the painter and seaman Alfred Wallis, of whom Margaret became an early champion. When the Second World War ended, she was in a position to encourage an entirely new generation of artists which included Peter Lanyon, Patrick Heron, Terry Frost, Margaret Mellis, John Wells and Roger Hilton.

At the same time, her friendship with the sculptress Barbara Hepworth brought her into contact with many of the established figures of the post-war European art world, including Hepworth's second husband Ben Nicholson. Her warm relationships wi...

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• By : Roddy Martine
• In : Art and Antiques
• Issue : 37
• Page : 60
• Words : 792