HELLO FROM THE EDITOR / SPRING 2025

COVER IMAGE: A detail from Island Summer, 2014, by Angie Lewin

Welcome

Seasons in the arts often emerge with a strong theme. This spring not one but two areas are in focus: the life and work of JMW Turner and the art world’s fascination with all things arboreal. Let’s start with the former. Across Britain and overseas a slew of great exhibitions are now open, or in the planning, to mark the 250th anniversary of the artist’s birth. Inside we examine the making of a great Turner work from a show at the Yale Center for British Art in Connecticut, USA. And in our ‘What’s on’ section we include the top Turner exhibitions to see in the UK this season.

If displays of the master’s works are high on the arts agenda, so too are those dedicated to trees. On at Yorkshire Sculpture Park until 13 July is Tony Wade: Keepers of Time – a series of beautiful drawings of the UK’s ancient trees, created by the artist over the past year. At Compton Verney near Stratford-upon-Avon you can even synchronise with the rhythm of an Amazonian wilderness in Breathing With The Forest – an immersive, multisensory video installation happening until 6 April. The great nature writer Richard Mabey once wrote: ‘To be without trees would, in the most literal way, to be without our roots.’ Artists, poets and writers certainly find them a constant source of wonder. We explore this in depth in our special feature inside (from page 26).

Artist Angie Lewin, whose work is on our cover, knows full well how the natural world can feed an artist’s practice. Like Turner she loves nothing more than to be out on the land. One of Britain’s best-loved contemporary artists, she is the subject of our interview inside. Her work never fails to uplift, and gives this issue a real sense of the joy of the season to come.

Sue Herdman, Editor

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