Colour at Mottisfont

It’s not often that I get the chance (or time) to go out for the day to visit a quilt exhibition but when we received notification of the latest exhibition featuring work of Kaffe Fassett at the National Trust property, Mottisfont in Hampshire this autumn, I decided it was time I made the effort even though it was a couple of hours drive away.

- Joanna Kent

There have been several exhibitions over the last few years celebrating Kaffe’s Fifty Years of Colour. Many of us will have fallen in love with his knitted designs and tapestries many years ago, becoming enthralled with his use of colour. Nowadays, he is just as well known, and perhaps more so, for his patchwork quilt designs and fabrics which embody that same balance and use of tone and colour.

And so it was that I set off on a grey late autumn day in search of colour and wonder.

Mottisfont itself is a romantic house and gallery owned by the National Trust in the village of Mottisfont, near Romsey in Hampshire. Originally founded as a medieval priory, it is set in beautiful riverside gardens. Indeed the gardens are world renowned particularly in rose season. The property has been supporting artists since 1934 when arts patron and society hostess, Maud Russell bought the house with her husband, Gilbert. And although the venue is well established as an arts venue, hosting an annual season of exhibitions in its gallery, this was its first major textile exhibition.

The quilt exhibition is found in the gallery on the first floor of the main house. For those visitors with mobility problems, digital versions of the exhibition are available to view on iPads downstairs. The exhibition plays host to over seventy items that Kaffe has selected from his personal collection. They are housed in a series of five colour-themed rooms.