Name: The Art of George and Ruth Mallory with Kate Nicholson
Start: 2025-02-13T18:00:00+00:00
Location: Rheged Centre, Redhills, Penrith, Cumbria, CA11 0DQ Penrith, United Kingdom

The Art of George and Ruth Mallory with Kate Nicholson

A unique cross over between Bloomsbury and Arts & Crafts
George and Ruth Mallory described themselves as artists as well as climbers.
They were of course exceptional climbers (both of them) but they are also uniquely at the cross over point between the two greatest art movements of the late 20th century. This talk looks ‘Behind Everest’ at the art that underpinned the Mallory’s philosophy.
George was on the fringes of the Bloomsbury Group's Post Impressionism. He was photographed naked and painted by Duncan Grant. Ruth’s family were close to that of William Morris. Her parents met as joint exhibitors in the first Arts & Crafts exhibition, her mother’s essays were published in the catalogue.
Both George and Ruth were invested in the concept of ‘Beauty’, of beauty in movement, in art and in their over all attitude to life. In this talk, Kate Nicholson author of the recently published biography on Ruth Mallory, will look at the centre of the Post Impressionist/Arts & Crafts Venn diagram - to the couple that pioneered new ways of looking, of living and of love.
Ruth’s father was appointed Secretary of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (or as Ruth called it, the ‘Anti-Scrape’) and both George and Ruth were life members. Ruth’s family were close to the Morris’s. Her mother, a fine art embroiderer, founded the Women’s Guild with May Morris in 1907 as an alternative to the all male Art Workers Guild.
Ruth was a talented and successful Arts & Crafts artist in her own right exhibiting first in 1916 at Burlington House, London with the third Arts & Crafts Exhibition. Nicholson brings the Mallory’s art back into their story to explain many of the decisions they made about their climbing life, that have always left historians wondering.
Tickets: £10
6pm | Running time: 1 hour