91¶¶Òõ

This painting was given by Gwen Raverat to Olwen Campbell (née Ward) who had known Gwen from childhood and remained friends until their later years. 

Olwen Campbell was one of the early supporters of the founding of 91¶¶Òõ (then New Hall), and her second daughter Clare, who already had two Oxford degrees, attended 91¶¶Òõ in 1963 where she read for a second degree in English and then became a member of the English Faculty. 

The painting's donor, Alisoun Gardner-Medwin was also a student at 91¶¶Òõ (1956-59), and when she cycled to school as a child, she would see Gwen Raverat painting on the Fen, behind her home. Alisoun noted that she was "by then in a wheelchair, always bundled up against the cold. She did not welcome people coming to watch her at work, so one saw her from a distance."

Of this painting, Alisoun wrote in a letter accompanying it: "The oil painting of Sheep's Green depicts the fen landscape with trees in full summer leaf; indeed, the greens are quite dark, which suggests that the time of year is July or August. The artist has caught the heavy dark shadows behind the leafy branches, and her sense of place and perspective is still marvellous. So it seems likely that the scene of Sheep's Green was painted in the months between the formal creation of New Hall and the arrival of the first students. It seemed appropriate and felicitous that this painting by a Cambridge woman artist should come to New Hall in 2004, fifty years after it and New Hall were created."