My Grandfather’s Tree by Max Lamb

Monckton Walk Farm in the Yorkshire Wolds is run by Max Lamb’s grandfather, Dr. Robert Andrew Dunning. Next to his farm grew a female ash tree. The age of the tree began to show and as its largest limb died and started to rot it became necessary to fell the great ash. Max Lamb wanted his Grandfather’s tree to survive beyond its rooted life, to offer the ash and afterlife and celebrate the nature of the material. Lamb wanted the tree to remain integral to the wood and to maintain the story told by its 187 annual growth rings -its age, the climactic conditions in which it grew, the years of heavy rainfall or drought, and its geographical orientation. Whether as a stool, table, chair or log, today My Grandfather’s Tree survives as an ash tree but with a new function and the start of a new history. And where she once stood, a second generation of young ash trees are fast emerging from her roots.

My Grandfather’s Tree, Monckton Walk Farm (1822 – 2009)
Max Lamb
Selection of photographic prints from the series
210 x 297mm
Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Fumi, London

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