Textile artist, Beryl Hammill (1942-2018), was born in Harrogate and studied at Batley College, then Fine Art and Woven Tapestry at Leeds College of Art. She lived at Ilkley and her work was influenced by both the Dales landscape near her home and her travels further afield, including to the coastlines of Scotland and Australia.
‘Reflections’. Image: see ‘Art for Life’, below.
Her tapestries could sometimes take months to complete and were closely interwoven, using worsted wool that she often dyed herself, incorporated with other materials, including cotton, canvas and wrapped thread. Her work often attempted too, to catch the colour, light and movement of the sea. Although she started a work from observation, sketches and notes, Beryl responded intuitively and organically to the growing image on the frame; she said of her work:
The soft organic quality of yarns, the way they reflect light – and their endless possibilities for colour mixing – are a constant inspiration to me, as is landscape. I do not try to reproduce a specific scene but I attempt to capture the mood of a place, its light and its colour, and to convey what it feels like to be in a desert or by the sea …The challenge is to transform the feelings experienced in the landscape into a physical and meaningful object.
‘Paradise Found Paradise Lost’, woven tapestry 147 x 99cm. Image: by courtesy of the artist.
Beryl was a founder member of The British Tapestry Group, see BTG and her work is in private collections in Britain, USA and Australia. She also taught weaving and fine art at Leeds Metropolitan university, Bradford & Ilkley Community College, and Leeds College of Art, and was also Artist in Residence at the Prince Henry’s Grammar School, Otley, during 1992.
Beryl’s work was also widely exhibited in both group and solo exhibitions, both overseas and in Britain, including at the touring ‘Images of the Yorkshire Landscape’ exhibition in Leeds in 1990/1, and in recent years:
- ‘Duologue’: woven textile dialogues between Beryl Hammill and Shirley Ross, Bradford Industrial Museum, 2015/16
- Heallreaf: West Dean College, Chichester, West Sussex, 2015
- Knitting and Stitching Show, Harrogate, 2014
- A Sensitive Art, Quilt Museum, York, 2013
It is also found in private collections of Provident Financial and Brahm Agency, and in private collections in Britain, Australia and the USA.
She was an member of the ‘Art for Life’ organisation, with proceeds from sales of her work going toward cancer research.
In 2014 Beryl published ‘WaveWeave’, a catalogue of her work (see artist’s website, below). She has also contributed articles to Crafts Magazine and to the book, Small Tapestries from Twenty Countries, published in 1989.
‘Sea Words’, woven tapestry, 31 x 36cm. Image: by courtesy of the artist.
Beryl was married to the sculptor, Terence Hammil