Gutters of Gold

In 1925, Stephen Tennant (1906-1987), perhaps the most intriguing of England's "Bright Young Things", contemplated a novel about "high life with a capital H & full of crude impossibilities". He favoured amongst other titles The Monkey House as well as Gutters of Gold but despite his elaborate preparations the book itself never materialised. Over the course of his sequestered life, in a Wiltshire manor house, Tennant produced abundant drawings of potential covers for the books he was never to write.Now, 30 years after Tennant's death, Volker Eichelmann has visually resurrected Gutters of Gold as a publication that brings together his own collages and paintings alongside a rare selection of Tennant's neglected oeuvre. As an artist's publication, Gutters of Gold innovatively highlights and expands on preoccupations shared by both artists. Here, reflections on landscape-gardens and water-features, Greek antiquities and ruination, horticulture and interior decoration unfold in a succession of evocative scenarios conceived by Eichelmann under chapter headings such as "Weekend in Valmouth", "Mme d'Arpajon gets Drenched" and "Dinner at van Storck's".With Tennant figuring amongst a number of historical and fictional protagonists who populate Eichelmann's work, Gutters of Gold will provide a unique opportunity to appreciate the wider conceptual remit of Eichelmann's practice. Published in partnership with Focal Point Gallery.