One for Sorrow

This artwork featured in House of Beasts (2012). 

Polly Morgan’s practice focuses on taxidermy, which she uses in unexpected ways. There is a quiet, haunting quality to her work, none more so than in this piece, where the association of one magpie – One for Sorrow – underlines the inherent melancholy of this room.

The period telephone can be associated with the 8th Lady Berwick’s heyday at Attingham; her controversial portrait by Sickert hangs above. This piece symbolises the losses in her life and indeed her own tragic death.

Images: Polly Morgan, One for Sorrow, Bakelite phone and taxidermy magpie, installation view, House of Beasts, Attingham Park, 2012. Image courtesy of Meadow Arts. 

 

About the artist

Polly Morgan

Polly Morgan exhibited in House of Beasts, Attingham Park, 2012.

Image: Polly Morgan, MS Found in a Bottle. Taxidermy pigeon, glass, cork. Courtesy the artist.