The Widening Gyre by Tessa Beaver

Accession Code: wu0804 Title: The Widening Gyre Date completed: 1987 Medium: Prints Material: Etching Height (mm): 819 Width (mm): 628 Depth (mm): 0 Inscription: n/a Location Name: Picture Store Location Description: Location Floor:

 

This etching and the one on the following page were produced partly in response to the desolation Tessa Beaver felt on learning that a house she had formerly occupied in Leamington had been demolished. The house was built in 1951 by the distinguished architect Hidalgo Moya; it had Californian and Japanese overtones and was designed around a large, spreading cherry tree. The house, the tree and other beautiful shrubs on the site were removed by developers to make way for a small block of flats. The two etchings reflect the artist's feelings about this, the titles being taken from a poem by WB Yeats 'The Second Coming':

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer.
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold,
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world."

This work was bought for the collection in 2002 by the Friends of the Mead.