LEIS A’ GHRÀINNE – WITH THE GRAIN

Exhibition of wood sculpture and furniture by master craftsman Tim Stead.  Striking sculptures and furniture pieces created mainly from elm, oak and ash.

Tim Stead’s life’s work extended into many areas, blurring the lines between furniture design and sculpture, business and conservation, poetry and teaching.  Until his death in 2000 at the age of 48, he worked tirelessly on various and diverse projects but was most famous for his own striking sculptures and furniture pieces created mainly from elm, oak and ash.  Many are represented in the exhibition at An Lanntair.

The memorials to this inspirational man are in the Woodschool he founded near Jedburgh, in the Borders Community Woodland, the interior of the Cafe Gandolfi in Glasgow, the Millennium Clock and the numerous extraordinary pieces he created during his life from chess sets to cabinets to the Chair for Pope John Paul II’s visit to Edinburgh in 1982 to the Memorial Chapel in the Kirk of St Nicholas in Aberdeen in 1989.

The exhibition is accompanied by a book with contributions from curators, critics, collaborators, artists, admirers and friends and with a foreword by the Prince of Wales.  It is being presented in collaboration with the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh with the kind permission of his widow, Maggie Lenert Stead, and with the generous sponsorship of CalMac.