Scrap in a Yard

Clough’s habit of collecting experiences and visual memories while journeying around England by car helped developed her interest in the overlooked, nowhere more so than in the industrial regions of the Midlands or the Black Country. She not only painted industrial and post-industrial landscape scenes but also went inside factories. She was familiar with the acrid tang of mechanical labour, with the small of hot metal or iron filings or oily grime. Even though the objects found in this scrapyard are hard to decipher, the intensity and richness that she has brought to this work tells of her involvement with its subject.

We are very grateful to Frances Spalding for preparing this catalogue entry.