Ships of Stone: The Islands of Mervyn Peake

'Ships of Stone: The Islands of Mervyn Peake' takes a new look at the work of the visionary artist, writer and illustrator by focusing on one of Peake’s lifelong obsessions: islands.

Peake’s fascination began with the desert islands and adventure stories of his childhood and led to him moving to ‘the strange, wasp-waisted ship of stone’, the Channel Island of Sark. We find the real landscapes and characters of the island emerging in his illustrations for Treasure Island (1949), his novel Mr Pye (1953) and in his descriptions of the metaphorical island of Gormenghast Castle. The exhibition uses audio recordings to bring Peake’s writings alive alongside objects and artworks that span his career, many of which are on public display for the first time.

'Ships of Stone' explores the ways in which island fantasies were variously fulfilled and challenged by the reality of Peake’s life on Sark. By the time he left the island in 1949, he wrote ‘Islands should be left to the imagination. That is where they flower.’ From the paradisiacal island of his first book, Captain Slaughterboard Drops Anchor (1939), to the gothic and dystopian islands of his later novels, we see the theme emerge in different guises across Peake’s career. The exhibition reveals the grotesque and piratical characters and creatures that populated Peake’s islands, from Sarkese fishermen to Long John Silver and the figure of Peake himself.

The exhibition is curated by Lauren Barnes and is made possible thanks to major loans from The Estate of Mervyn Peake and public collections in the UK.