Gutters of Gold

Throughout his life, Stephen Tennant (1906?1987), a decadent socialite, modernist, dandy and ?the brightest? of the ?Bright Young People?, contemplated a novel about ?high life with a capital H and full of crude impossibilities?. Despite his elaborate preparations, the book itself never materialised. Yet, over the course of his life?sequestered in a manor in the English countryside decorated with fishnets, pink satin and golden conch shells, his hair long and died mauve?Tennant produced abundant drawings of potential covers for the book he was never to write. In 'Gutters of Gold', the artist Volker Eichelmann has responded to Tennant?s drawings with his own series of freewheeling, evocative paintings and collages. In so doing, and in combining his images with Tennant?s, Eichelmann has finally realised Tennant?s long-dreamed-of book. As an artist?s publication, Gutters of Gold innovatively highlights and expands on preoccupations shared by both Tennant and Eichelmann, such as hedonism, Modernism, and, unusually, how these two concepts can play out in the countryside rather than in an urban landscape.