6:14pm Sunday 28th February 2010
By Jo Bayne
A £10 painting in a charity shop set Mandie Stone on an artistic journey from war time London to the secret war time underground aircraft engine factory beneath Corsham and into the world of stage and cinema.
The results of her ongoing exploration into the life of Olga Lehmann, whose 1975 painting of a hippie girl, was her charity shop bargain in 2004, are the subject of the latest exhibition, Underground/Overground, at The Pound arts centre in Corsham.
Artist Ms Stone went in search of Olga Lehmann whose address was on the back of the painting, but discovered to her disappointment that Miss Lehmann, who arrived in England from Chile in the 1920s, had died three years earlier.
But Ms Stone, who lives in Frome with her husband Brian Outten, a teacher at the John Bentley School in Calne, was hooked.
She discovered that Miss Lehmann was commissioned to paint murals on the canteen walls in the underground aircraft factory and talked her way into the building to find them. There are about 40 left out of about 70 originals, and one has been reproduced for the exhibition. The paintings are now listed but very few people are allowed into the underground gallery to see them.
Some of Ms Stone’s striking modern interpretations of aircraft engines are also in the exhibition, which features original drawings of costume designs for stage and screen by Olga Lehmann, and her book illustrations, particularly for her husband Carl Huson’s poetry.
She also illustrated dozens of covers for the Radio Times, which are not in the exhibition and are worthy of a show of their own, Ms Stone said.
There is also work by Lee Kirby, which developed out of a graffiti movement which took over the empty buildings at the former Navy base, HMS Royal Arthur at Corsham.
The exhibition remains at The Pound until April 9.
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.thisiswiltshire.co.uk/trade_directory/