Viewing Nancy Cadogan: The Lost Trees & At the Bend in the River

Branching out.

Nancy Cadogan has two reasons to leave London this autumn. At Compton Verney in Warwickshire, The Lost Trees continues the project first shown at the Garden Museum last year. From 10 October, At the Bend in the River opens further north at Beningbrough, with both exhibitions prompting new work made in response to their surroundings.

The Lost Trees grew in part from Cadogan’s experience of trees near her home being felled for HS2. At Compton Verney, the project draws on memories submitted by people living in the area, turning individual trees into portraits with their own histories. New works include a larger painting of the Wild Pear of Cubbington and Compton Verney’s diseased Lucombe Oak, currently considered at risk. Cadogan has also made drawings using local soil, bringing something of the landscape itself onto the page.

At Beningbrough, the River Ouse provides another starting point. At the Bend in the River brings newly commissioned and existing works to Beningbrough, shaped by the house, the River Ouse and the surrounding Yorkshire landscape. Cadogan has painted the river and gardens, made drawings using soil from the riverbank and looked to the region’s literary history. Beningbrough’s first writer-in-residence, Kathryn Tann, has also created new poetry in response to the exhibition.

Across both shows, landscape becomes much more than just scenery, carrying what people remember and pass on, whether through a tree that has disappeared or a river that continues past the house. If ever there were an excuse for two country-house detours this autumn, this is it.