Rockery, 1963
- Artist: Prunella Clough
- Date: 1962–3
- Medium: Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions: support: 660 x 508 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is the "Rockery" by Prunella Clough. Created in 1962‑63 in London, this oil on canvas blurs the line between landscape and abstraction. The artist talked about her palette as “muffled, tonal, and murky”, and you can see that in the earthy browns, beiges and soft whites that swirl across the surface. It’s a garden scene, but not a detailed depiction – plants sprout among rough, heaped stones, the shapes of which are hinted at with thick, textured layers of dark brown that carve out a curved, almost sculptural frame. Clough didn’t just copy what she saw; she walked the places she wanted to paint and let the feeling of the spot—its light, its texture, its quiet mood—take root in her memory. She would sketch on the spot and later translate that memory onto canvas, sometimes with the help of a photo. The painting sits in the Modern and Contemporary British Art display at Tate Britain, a place that houses her work from that pivotal era when her exposure to American abstract expressionists pushed her toward a more gestural, yet still recognisable, style.
See it in person
Rockery, 1963 is in the collection of Tate Britain on Millbank, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
