Multi-tasking arts lover keeps busy with head in the Cloud at Harewood

Not only is she the Countess of Harewood, she’s also an artist and curator, having worked as a painter and a sculptor before setting up Project Space Leeds in 2006, a contemporary art space in the city’s centre.

Her most recent venture, co-curating the latest exhibition at Harewood House alongside university friend and director of London’s Whitechapel Gallery, Iwona Blazwick, will be a testimony of what she can really do.

In Cloud Country sees the works of British and internationally renowned artists hung on the walls of what used to be a room set aside for dogs and mud-splattered boots, transformed over 20 years ago into The Terrace Gallery, Harewood’s first contemporary arts space.

“Since Turner came to Harewood at 22, his first visit to the North, we have been supporting contemporary art and that is a tradition we want to continue,” she says.

The house exudes history, telling a story of its own. Gradually though, that story has evolved; morphing in to a venue where contemporary art spanning across centuries fills the walls.

Explaining her reasoning behind the exhibition she says: “When you start looking at different artists’ work alongside each other you discover a different kind of relationship between them.

“We have pieces next to each other from centuries apart, yet next to each other you can see lots of different relationships.

“Some of the images will be spectacular in the sense that you can experience different dynamics which I think people will really enjoy.”

Artists including New York’s Agnes Denes, Gary Hume and Julian Opie will display their work in addition to special pieces from the works of Degas and Constable, varying from their usual works focusing on realism and romanticism.

Their paintings, alongside other masters of modernism and surrealism, such as Henry Matisse, will grace the walls of The State Rooms, where elaborate Chinese wallpaper hangs in the East bedroom.

For Howse, or Diane Lascelles, Countess of Harewood to use her official title, In Cloud Country has been about creating a vision “where trees and clouds... pay no notice.”

The line, taken from Sylvia Plath’s poem, Two Campers In Cloud Country, gave the exhibition its name, and inspired Howse and Blazwick to look at artists inspired by nature.

Its secondary title, Abstracting From Nature, would seem to sum up Howse and Blazwick’s vision.

“You have to find a connection. “We found ours curating the exhibition and we now have a nature theme running throughout the year.”

The collection, loaned from the British Council, The Hepworth, and the national art collection as well as other high-profile lenders, explores how the artists express different themes from the political to the poetical.

Chosen by the two co-curators, is this Howse hinting at what visitors can expect for the future of Harewood House?

“It has been an organic process of evolution, and a really interesting thing has happened this year as we’ve mixed it up,” she says.

After 18 months working on the concept, visitors can now enjoy a guided tour through the exhibition, which opened March 29 and will remain open until June 30.

There’s a quick turnaround for July’s exhibition which will showcase Clare Woods’ The Seven Eggs collection, which has been designed for Harewood.