“For a long time I hesitated writing about my life. For the mind is tricky, colors with infinite subtlety the ramifications of any act.
In the early part of my life, it is as if I made nothing but mistakes. I am convinced we would not be on earth, if we did not make mistakes, only through them do we learn. But through the bad I was always battling for the light.
“No” may be the most important word in the English language. Now near the end of my days, it falls glibly from my tongue. Much protected in childhood, I wanted to know what the world was like, willing to pay any price to understand humanity. I paid the price.”
An extract from the introduction to Beatrice Wood’s autobiography I Shock Myself.
Omen of Victory by Mina Loy published 1958
Women in uniform
relaxed for tea
under a shady garden tree
discover
a dove’s feather fallen in the sugar.
In Dream by Anna Akhmatova 1946
Black and enduring separation
I share equally with you.
Why weep? Give me your hand, Promise me you will come again. You and I are like high
Mountains and we can’t move closer. Just send me word
At midnight sometime through the stars.
Oh, what a lark! He Does Not Have a Chance brings together the work of I.W. Payne and Beatrice Wood. The exhibition offers brief glimpses into a mischievous femme
life. Connected through dry humour and the subtlety of line drawings; a whole world of eroticism, love and untethered radical spirit emerges. The dinner scene and the obvious domesticity of the BOHEMIAN ironing board together speak to Berthe Morisot’s The Cradle or Marie Bracquemond’s Under the Lamp. Except there is more contempt towards the masculine! The spider Widows are distant lovers scuttling up the wall whilst the almost religious power of the skipping sculpture confronts you on entering; its title taken from Wood’s drawing of the same name He Does Not Have a Chance.
This exhibition is dedicated to Grace Payne, I.W. Payne’s grandmother who left this world in December 2025 at the age of 101.
A special thanks to Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York.
