And Quiet flows the Don by Stephen Todd
A new exhibition is opening this Friday! You are warmly invited to our opening Friday event and meet the artist Stephen Todd.
And Quiet flows the Don – or does it? There is more than one river Don…
Cupola Gallery is very happy to welcome back Sheffield based Stephen Todd for another solo show. Stephen is known for his paintings of the Humber, but this exhibition focuses on the river Don.
New solo exhibition: And Quiet flows the Don by Stephen Todd*
Opening evening Friday 1 May 7-9 pm – all welcome. Hospitality provided.
Dates: 2 May – 30 May
Opening times:Monday – Saturday 10-6pm. Closed bank holidays May 4 & May 25th
Venue: Cupola Gallery, 178a Middlewood Road Sheffield S6 1TD
Website: www.cupolagallery.com
Tel: 0114 2852665
Email: info@cupolagallery.com
* PLEASE NOTE: Stephen is raising money for Sheffield Samaritans. A percentage of sales will be going to support their work.
Stephen says: “Sheffield Samaritans is very important to me. It is part of the wider Samaritans family that offers a listening service 24/7 for anyone who is feeling overwhelmed, distressed, in a dark place, with thoughts about taking their own life (Freephone 116 123)”
The River Don rises in the Southern Pennines. Its waters flow through Sheffield and South Yorkshire to be consumed by the Humber Estuary and lost in the North Sea.
“This show has given me the opportunity to draw a direct path from my home city of Sheffield and the brooks and rivers so near to home, up to the Humber Estuary, a place where I have found much inspiration over the years.” Stephen Todd
Stephen has spent many hours walking and exploring, sketching and recording. Through this process paintings emerge. There will be around 35-40 framed paintings of the river as it wends its way through various places including, but not limited to, Windscar, Deepcar, Beeley Wood, Cornish Place, Ball Street Bridge, Neepsend, Lady’s Bridge, Burton Weir, Sanderson Weir (on the five weirs walk, Attercliffe), Consibrough, Spotbrough, Dutch River/Goole, Humber Bridge.
Sheffielders know the river Don, but there is more than one river Don.
The show title “And Quiet Flows the Don” knowingly references the classic novel by Mikhail Sholokhov set in the early 20th century; a time of conflict, revolution and overthrow by force. This Don flows into the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, through Cossack lands that include the Donbas. Again in 2026, sadly, this is a region of pain, abuse of force and conflict.
This is a very different history to contrast with “our” River Don, and yet strangely entwined. Sheffield twinned with Donetsk in 1956 when it was called Stalino. It lies on the river Donets, a tributary of the Don. Donetsk is a region with a shared industrial heritage through iron and steel and coal.
Stephen asks “Through all this a river drives its path. How can such a force be so quiet?”
“Without the river Don Sheffield’s industrial heritage would not have looked the same. Rivers were a driving force for power, transport and an essential industrial resource. The path of ‘our’ river Don not only traces our history but forged it. Stephen captures the Don as it makes its way and shows how it lies amongst our urban developments and out into rural areas as it heads towards the north sea. His expressive mixed media paintings, capture that energy of the power and flow of this body of water, which in the past has been as destructive as it has been essential in the development of the city of Sheffield.” Karen Sherwood, Director.