A Visit To Kew Gardens, Mostly To See Dale Chihuly: Reflections On Nature, 15 July 2019

After the frazzled excitement of the Cricket World Cup Final yesterday…

…a day of quiet contemplation, gardens and art seemed to be in order.

So we went to Kew Gardens. It’s ages since we’ve been and Janie was especially keen to see the new Dale Chihuly exhibits.

Just the sight of one of them made Janie’s hair stand on end…

…or was Janie still frazzled from the cricket world cup?

If we both look a bit “straight off the tennis court” in the pictures, that’s because we did go to Kew straight after playing some tennis. We had a quick bite in the pavilion on arrival before wandering on to the Temperate House.

Temperate House from below…
Temperate House from the viewing gallery above

After the Temperate House, which has several stunning Chihuly pieces, we then went to the Marianne North Gallery to see her fine works.

Then on to the Shirley Sherwood Gallery, where many of the regular Dale Chihuly’s can be found and where we bought Janie books on both Chihuly and Marianne North.

Shirley you must be joking, Mr Chihuly?

Then around the gardens some more to take in the new, scattered Chihuly works and the beautiful gardens.

Not Chihuly, this work. Chihuly do you think you are, Ged?
Eye candy galore.

Then home for some stretching and meditation with Lexi.

Did all this calm us down 24 hours after that tense cricket match? A bit…not completely. But it was a super day out.

We took loads of pictures – click here or below to see all of them:

Moore at Kew, 30 December 2007

Henry Moore at Kew - "Oval with points" and Palm House
© Copyright David Hawgood 2007, licensed for reuse under a Creative Commons Licence

We were keen to see this exhibition over the holiday period, so decided to take advantage of a bright, albeit cold day.

There weren’t many people around, which suited us down to the ground, but probably did little for the fortunes of Kew.

Janie and I have always really liked the Henry Moore stuff.

I remember going to see an exhibition in Battersea Park when I was little and crawling through some of the holes in the sculptures.

Indeed I have subsequently (March 2021) discovered some photos from my hole-crawling day and written up that 1966 exhibition (more thoroughly than this 2007 one) – click here or below:

Battersea Park Open Air Sculpture Exhibition, Summer 1966

I am delighted (while mildly disappointed) to report that there was no hole-crawling activity from me (or Janie) at Kew.