Putnam Farms Gallery

Why the gallery keeps a record, not a wall

Putnam Farms Gallery grew out of a working exhibition space and an online picture archive. The idea was simple: a photograph of a fence line or a silo should arrive with its context attached, so a visitor can follow a body of work instead of scrolling past disconnected images.

The catalogue entry is the unit

Every work carries the maker, the medium, the year and a short note on where it was made. That record is what turns a single image into something you can trace across seasons.

The hang, mirrored online

The online gallery follows the physical hang room by room, so the sequence of a show stays intact. A zoom view brings paper grain and brush marks close enough to read.

Documentary, unhurried

Warm bone-white walls, deep olive and rust accents, large uncluttered image plates and small serif captions. The photographs and prints are left to carry the page.

What we hold to

Artists working close to the land come first, and the work is shown at the scale it was made for.
Selected editions are offered as print-on-demand, and the catalogue states plainly which works are available that way.
Looking slowly is part of the programme, whether through a Saturday walk-through or a studio visit with a resident artist.

A gallery that keeps records, not just pictures

Putnam Farms Gallery is a working exhibition space and an online picture archive. The subject is the farmland itself: fence lines, silos, grazing camps and the weather that moves across them. Four seasonal shows run each year, and each one pairs large-format photographs with paintings and linocuts by artists who live and work close to the land.

The gallery is built for people who want to follow a body of work rather than scroll a wall of disconnected images. Every catalogue entry carries the maker, the medium, the year and a short note on where the work was made. That record is the unit the whole archive is organised around.

Documented, not styled

Works are hung in a plain grid with small captions, so the surface of a linocut or a large-format print stays the thing you look at first.

Local makers

The paintings and relief prints come from artists working within an hour of the property, which keeps the subject tied to ground the makers actually walk.

The online mirror

The archive follows the physical hang room by room, and a zoom view brings paper grain and brush marks close enough to read.

Editions on request

Selected works are offered as print-on-demand editions, while others stay in the physical hang only. The catalogue states which is which.

Who the gallery works with

The gallery does not list sponsors, partners or endorsements. What it does record, work by work, is the relationship behind each piece: the maker, the medium, the year and the place the work came from. That record is the only credit line the gallery publishes, and it is written into every catalogue entry.

The maker

Each entry names the person who made the work, whether that is a photographer, a painter or a printmaker cutting linoleum by hand. No work in the catalogue is shown without that name attached to it.

The medium and the year

Large-format photograph, oil on canvas, hand-printed relief. The medium and the year sit beside the name, so a visitor can see how a body of work develops across seasons rather than reading a single image alone.

The place it was made

A short note on where the frame was taken or the block was cut, kept plain and specific. It ties the work to a stretch of farmland instead of leaving it as a picture without a location.

If you want to follow a specific maker or a specific run of work, the catalogue record is the place to start. Enquiries about the archive can be sent to contact@putnamfarms.com, or you can call +27 62 180 3972.