Blensdorf & Bruton

Douglas Learmond, Chairman of Bruton Museum, emailed to say that he had seen my comments on Ernst Blensdorf on the blog and wondered if I was aware there was a major retrospective of his work held by Bruton Museum in Somerset in July last year. Over 30 wooden sculptures, over 60 ceramics and over 90 sketches were in the exhibition - making it by far the largest exhibition of his work.

The museum website was recently hacked into and the images were lost but some will be restored. Since the exhibition Blensdorf's work can be seen in seven sites - church, museum, four schools and one restaurant in Bruton.

Blensdorf arrived in Somerset as a refugee in 1941 to seek employment as a teacher following internment as an “enemy alien” on the Isle of Man. He had been denounced by the Nazis as “degenerate” and driven from his native Germany to Norway. Forced to flee a second time after the German invasion of Norway, Blensdorf eventually settled in Somerset and began to rebuild a new life. Most of his surviving work dates from the thirty-five years he lived in Bruton and much of it was created in elm wood – a medium readily available and affordable.

The exhibition told the dramatic story of this extraordinary artist and, drawing together works from public and private collections, presented the largest collection of his work ever publicly exhibited. The works ranged from monumental pieces such as the larger than lifesize “Abraham’s Sacrifice” (Downside School) to semi – abstract works which exploit the swirling grain of the elm such as “Dance Rhythm” (Southampton City Art Gallery). “Last Work” (Somerset County Museum, Taunton), a poignant, unfinished piece on which Blensdorf worked to within a few days of his death, created from an intractable victim of Dutch Elm Disease, was also on display.

Terracotta maquettes, ceramic pieces and sketches set the sculpture in context and showed the full range of Blensdorf’s highly expressive work from the “totemic” style of his earlier and monumental pieces to the free – flowing, near abstraction of his later work. Blensdorf sculptures can be found in Salisbury Cathedral, Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, Southampton City Art Gallery, Somerset County Museum, St John’s Church, Glastonbury, Downside School, St Mary’s Church, Bruton and Bruton Museum.

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Paul Simon - Outrageous.