WADDESDON.- Edmund de Waal is making a welcome return to Waddesdon Manor, the Rothschild house and garden in Buckinghamshire, this summer.

The exhibition centres around two pieces - psalm, IV and sukkah - which are being presented to the new National Library of Israel when it opens early next year. This major project in Jerusalem is being supported by Yad Hanadiv, the Rothschild philanthropic foundation, so it is particularly appropriate that the pieces should also be shown at Waddesdon.

They have been joined by a group of new works, created by one of the world’s leading artists, in a display in the Drawings Room at the Manor, next door to the newly opened Rothschild Treasury.

de Waal has a longstanding relationship with Waddesdon - during 2012 he created a new series of pieces inspired by the collections and interiors of the house, that were displayed throughout the ground floor rooms.

The two central works in this exhibition were created for a major exhibition, psalm, shown to great acclaim during the 2019 Venice Biennale. psalm, IV (2019) is one of four vitrines originally installed within de Waal’s library of exile – a porcelain covered pavilion structure holding over 2000 books by writers in exile and a quartet of vitrines. Their arrangements echo the composition of Daniel Bomberg's 16th-century edition of the Talmud – a central text of Judaism – printed in Venice and notable for holding the Aramaic and Hebrew texts and commentary on a single page.

Also included is sukkah (2019), a piece originally created for the Canton Scuola synagogue in the Jewish Ghetto in Venice. Sukkot, known as Tabernacles, is the festival that commemorates the forty years during which the Jewish people were wandering in the desert. The work is comprised of nine towers which appear to float above the table, each containing tall white porcelain vessels and leaning pieces of gilded steel that catch the light. de Waal’s porcelain library of exile is being represented in the Waddesdon show by an oak title panel made in 2021 when library of exile was on display at the British Museum.

New work from 2022 includes we live here, forever taking leave, I, door into the dark, the night-office, just (for RNR) and Muzot. This is a new body of work made in response to Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duino Elegies.

Edmund de Waal says: “Much of what I make and what I write centres on belonging, loss and exile, the stories of how families move and what they bring with them. So, it is wonderful for me to be back at Waddesdon after ten years to show these two major works that have travelled across Europe and are now on their way to their new home in the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem. Waddesdon has a particular resonance as a place of reflection on what collections mean and so I am honoured to be able to show new work that I have made over the last year, that particular poems, music and places matter to me. I have called this exhibition we live here, forever taking leave, a particularly resonant line from Rilke. I’m so happy to be in these beautiful rooms high up in Waddesdon.”

Lord Rothschild says: “It is an enormous pleasure to be working again with Edmund de Waal, ten years on from his original collaboration with us. These powerfully thoughtful installations explore the interconnected relationships between faith, both Jewish and Christian, history, displacement, learning and archives which seem more deeply relevant than ever at this moment, and are of course also woven into Waddesdon’s own fabric and existence. We are also delighted to be marking the creation of the National Library of Israel, a project which the Rothschild family have been so instrumental in bringing about through their Yad Hanadiv foundation in Jerusalem.”

Edmund de Waal is an internationally acclaimed artist and writer, best known for his large-scale installations of porcelain vessels, often created in response to collections and archives or the history of a particular place. His interventions have been made for diverse spaces and museums worldwide, including The British Museum, London; The Frick Collection, New York; Ateneo Veneto, Venice; Schindler House, Los Angeles; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna and V&A Museum, London. De Waal is also renowned for his bestselling family memoir, The Hare with Amber Eyes (2010), and The White Road (2015). His new book, Letters to Camondo, a series of haunting letters written during lockdown was published in April 2021. He was awarded the Windham-Campbell Prize for non-fiction by Yale University in 2015. In 2021 he was awarded a CBE for his services to art. b.1964 Nottingham. He lives and works in London.