Four generations of artistic family celebrated at Burgh House

Spanning 100 years – and six artists – the exhibition features work by siblings Sydney, Hilda and Richard Carline, whose home in Downshire Hill became a hub for a glamorous artistic group in the interwar years.

Richard Carline; Gathering on the Terrace at 47 Downshire Hill, Hampstead circa 1924. (Image: Copyright information and licence terms for this image can be found on the Art UK website at http://www.artuk.org/artworks/78289)

Those Remarkable Carlines is the first public exhibition in 40 years to celebrate the three influential artists and brings together landscapes, portraits and domestic images from public and private collections.

Also at Burgh House, Richard's daughter Hermione exhibits Shifting Memories under the newly launched Artist In Focus programme.

And her daughters Josie and Madeleine Hunter have created an installation in the drawing room for the Burgh House collection which ties the artistic family and gallery together.

Sydney (1888-1929), and Richard (1896-1980) both studied in Paris under avant-garde teacher Percyval Tudor-Hart, with Hilda (1889-1950) joining them in 1915 when he moved his Académie de Peinture to Hampstead. The youngest of five children born to artists George Francis and Annie Carline, Richard created camouflage designs for aeroplanes and painted surveys of battlefronts after flying over frontlines during WWI.

Sydney Carline The Shah's Palace, Tehran, 1919 (Image: The artist\'s estate)

In 1918, he and Sydney, who had been shot down over the Somme, became official First World War artists. Sydney would sketch aerial battles from a Sopwith Camel before the pair travelled extensively in Palestine, Syria, Iraq and Iran as official war artists for the RAF. Sydney went on to create illustrations for TE Lawrence's Revolt in the Desert, but died of pneumonia at 41.

Their family home in Downshire Hill hosted artistic gatherings, including Paul and John Nash, Mark Gertler, Stanley Spencer and Henry Lamb, who referred to them as “Those Remarkable Carlines”. Hilda, who had served in the land army but was by now studying at the Slade, met Spencer at a dinner there in 1919.

He proposed six times, and they were married in 1927, living first in the Vale of Health. But their marriage – and her artistic career – faltered when they moved to Cookham and had two daughters. Post divorce, Stanley remained fascinated by Hilda until her death from breast cancer at The Royal Free in 1950.

Portrait of Elsie, 1931 by Hilda Carline (Image: Copyright reserved. Please contact Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove for details on copyright ownership and permission)

The same year, Richard married fellow artist Nancy Higgins and daughter Hermione was born at the Royal Free in 1951 when they were living in Pond Street, Hampstead. The third in the Carline artistic line, she studied at Camberwell School of Art and, after taking an MA in textile design, co-founded The Collection, selling her designs to leading fashion houses. She returned to painting in 2004 and is drawn to subjects of architecture, nature and abstraction.

Shifting Memories features her layered translucent oil paintings, influenced by her father's travels and her own explorations of the Far East. Her interiors and landscapes portray dream-like botanicals and mountain rivers. She says: “I became interested in the use of screening and light in Japanese architecture and began to explore ideas of sunlight, shadows, echoes and reflections.

Nature View by Hermione Carline (Image: Courtesy of the artist)

"Transience, impermanence and ambiguity also interest me. My way of translating ideas and memories into paint has been through fragmenting images using semi-opaque and transparent layers of oil. I am always in search of colour that connects to my memories and the shape and feeling of them. My work is a balance between harmony and excitement, with just a hint of discord.”

Moonlight Sky by Hermione Carline (Image: Courtesy of the artist)

Daughters Madeleine and Josie Hunter used their backgrounds in set and production design, art direction and textiles to create a bespoke installation for Burgh House. After researching family archives, they noticed the mantelpiece as a common thread, linking interiors, objects and people, and as a place where the family congregated.

Framed by hand painted embroidered drapes, their mantlepiece installation is adorned with items which represent the family through the ages - bringing past and present together and reflecting how the objects and artefacts that people place on their mantelpieces define their sense of identity.

Electric Blue by Hermione Carline is on show at Burgh House from October 19 until November (Image: Courtesy of the artist)

Those Remarkable Carlines and Mantlepiece run October 19 until April 10, 2023. Hermione Carline's Shifting Memories runs October 19 to November 6. Go to www.burghhouse.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/those-remarkable-carlines