Free Display
In the Studio
Investigate the processes artists use to make artworks, and how our responses are integral to the piece
Mark Rothko, Black on Maroon 1958. Tate. © Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko/DACS 2026.
The close engagement between the individual and the work of art, whether an artist’s process of making or a viewer’s experience of looking, is the focus for this display.
It includes depictions of artists’ studios as well as abstract works that draw attention to the complex nature of perception.
7 rooms in In the Studio
Georges Braque, Clarinet and Bottle of Rum on a Mantelpiece 1911
A horizontal clarinet lies on top of a mantelpiece at the centre of this playful, geometric work. In front stands a bottle with the characters RHU, the first three letters of the French word for rum. The word VALSE (waltz) indicates sheet music, reinforced by fragments of treble and bass clefs found throughout the image. A scrolled form in the lower right could represent part of the mantelpiece, or a violin-head. Braque painted this during a summer he spent with Picasso in the Pyranees. They worked together depicting similar scenes and objects in the same style.
Gallery label, April 2022
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highlights in In the Studio
Amy Sherald, As Soft as She Is... 2022
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highlights in In the Studio
Francesca Woodman, Untitled, Providence, Rhode Island 1975–6
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highlights in In the Studio
Ronald Moody, Midonz 1937
We do not know for sure the identity
of this monumental head. One writer suggested she is Moody’s ‘vision of woman, primordial and awakening’. Moody himself described her as ‘the goddess of transmutation’. Moody was interested in Gnosticism, a belief in the redemption of the spirit from physical matter through spiritual knowledge. It may be this sort of transmutation that he had in mind.
Midonz was shown in Paris and Baltimore in the 1930s, after which it was lost for almost fifty years.
Gallery label, August 2003
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highlights in In the Studio
Highlights
Georges Braque
Clarinet and Bottle of Rum on a Mantelpiece
1911
Amy Sherald
As Soft as She Is...
2022
Francesca Woodman
Untitled, Providence, Rhode Island
1975–6
Ronald Moody
Midonz
1937