http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/non_fictionreviews/3555466/Urban-squalor-in-Victorian-London.html#
pic is dated 1899
Monday, February 28, 2011
Urban squalor in Victorian London
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/non_fictionreviews/3555466/Urban-squalor-in-Victorian-London.html#
pic is dated 1899
Victorian women criminals' records show harsh justice of 19th century
Victorian justice records which show how the harsh punishments were given to women criminals – such as five years in jail for stealing one rasher of bacon – have been published online for the first time.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8345046/Victorian-women-criminals-records-show-harsh-justice-of-19th-century.html
Sunday, February 27, 2011
The lost diary of Queen Victoria's final companion
Abdul Karim’s writings, hidden by his family until now, throw new light on a close and controversial relationship, says Ben Leach.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/theroyalfamily/8349760/The-lost-diary-of-Queen-Victorias-final-companion.html
'Her People' production design
Her People
Set at the turn of the beginning of the 20th century it tells the true story of a young girl growing up in the slums of Birmingham.
http://www.gio.guarino.com/show_pages/her_people.htm
The Victorian B&B: What the butler saw
Drawing on his years of service in aristocratic households, a former manservant has brought a touch of Victorian splendour to his carefully restored B&B.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/interiorsandshopping/8340308/The-Victorian-BandB-What-the-butler-saw.html#
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Edward Atkinson Hornel - Autumn 1904
During the later part of his career Hornel made a speciality of pictures of young girls in a landscape, or beside a pool of water or the sea. This was a subject he had invented and he painted it repeatedly. As with 'Autumn', the oddity of all these pictures is that the children seem embedded in leaves or undergrowth. The colours and shapes overwhelm the subject. The lack of reality implies that everything, the children and the swans, is a symbol of some general idea, perhaps about innocence, although this is not specified. The paintings were popular, probably on account of their sentimentality. Hornel made a great deal of money and eventually bequeathed his large house in Kirkcudbright as a Library and Art Gallery for the town.
http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=6716&searchid=23367
http://www.exploreart.co.uk/artistic_styles_details.asp?ArtistID=37&ArtisticStyleID=3
http://www.artnet.com/artists/edward%20atkinson-hornel/
Edward H. Niemann - Across the river valley
fl. 1863 - 1867
signed niemann l.r.
oil on canvas
20 x 29 3/4"
Joshua Anderson Hague - Returning Home on the Coastal Path
1850 - 1916
signed Anderson Hague
oil on canvas
20 x 36"
Edmund Gustavus Muller - Figures resting on the bank of a river in a mountainous landscape
fl. 1836 - 1871
oil on canvas
22.5 x 42.4"
signned E.G. Muller l.l.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Robert John Hammond - 'Blackstone Rock', Bewdley, On the Severn, Worcestershire
signed R J Hammond l.l.
oil on canvas
16 x 24"
Alfred Augustus Glendening - An Angler in a boat, near Shepperton on the Thames
oil on canvas
12 x 22"
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Bishopsgate Institute, Designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, to Unveil £7 Million Refurbishment
LONDON.- A remarkable architectural gem that sits between the City of London and Spitalfields will be unveiled in June this year, restored to its former glory. Built in 1895, Bishopsgate Institute was designed by Charles Harrison Townsend who went on to design the Whitechapel Gallery and the Horniman Museum. The Institute’s extensive refurbishment includes the complete restoration of the grade II* listed building’s spaces including the Great Hall and the building’s façade, and the creation of a new cafe. This follows on from the refurbishment of the Institute’s library, completed in 2010.
An independent body, Bishopsgate Institute has been providing welcoming and inspiring spaces for people with a thirst for knowledge since 1895. Through its library, historic collections, courses and cultural events, it enriches, entertains and stimulates independent thought.
The Institute has planned a week of events starting on Monday 27th June to mark the completion of the two-year renovation project which will culminate in an Open Day of around 20 events on Saturday 2nd July. Talks by writers such as Iain Sinclair and Dan Cruickshank will be complemented by free lunchtime taster sessions in wine tasting, film studies, sketching, rock’n’roll dancing and other courses that the Institute offers year round. There will be concerts and outdoor events in nearby Bishops Square and tours of the building and its library will be offered daily.
Throughout the summer and curated in collaboration with writer and broadcaster Robert Elms, London in Peril is a series of talks and discussions examining the past, present and future threats to the city. From revolution to terrorism, gentrification to expansion, crime to protest, London in Peril will look at the impact of all these issues and more. A series of literary talks about London books such as May Day, Absolute Beginners and The Child of the Jago will run alongside the debates.
History of Bishopsgate Institute
Since first opening its doors on New Year's Day 1895, Bishopsgate Institute has been a centre for culture and learning. The original aims of the Institute were to provide a public library, public hall and meeting rooms for people living and working in the City of London. The Great Hall in particular was 'erected for the benefit of the public to promote lectures, exhibitions and otherwise the advancement literature, science and the fine arts'.
Bishopsgate Institute was built using funds from charitable endowments made to the parish of St Botolph without Bishopsgate. These had been collected by the parish for over 500 years, but a scheme agreed by the Charity Commissioners in 1891, enabled these to be drawn together into one endowment. Reverend William Rogers (1819-1896), Rector of St Botolph's and a notable educational reformer and supporter of free libraries was instrumental in setting up the Institute and ensuring that the original charitable aims were met.
Architecture
Pevsner wrote of Charles Harrison Townsend that his designs of the 1890s ‘are without question the most remarkable example of a reckless repudiation of tradition among English architects of the time’. Similar in spirit to the experimental buildings of the Art Nouveau, they were certainly noticed and admired by Continental contemporaries. Townsend had won a limited competition for the building because of his skill as a planner, as the site was particularly awkward. Long and thin, it stretched eastwards from bustling Bishopsgate into Spitalfields, then one of the most deprived and depraved parts of the capital, where the Jack the Ripper murders had recently taken place. Yet Townsend contrived three entrances, a library and several meeting rooms connected by a long corridor, together with a surprisingly large Great Hall, ‘to promote lectures, exhibitions and otherwise the advancement of literature, science and the fine arts’.
Townsend’s designs for the front of the buildings led Pevsner to call the Institute ‘one of the most original buildings of its date in London’. The style, as with so much work of the 1890s, is essentially free Tudor and may have been inspired by the frontispiece of 16th-century Brereton Hall in his native Cheshire. Progressive as he may have been, he never forgot the necessity for integral ornament to symbolise and humanise. Much of the external terracotta is moulded into a dense tangle of leaves and branches illustrating the Tree of Life. But what is evident above all, particularly with the giant entrance arch resting on pairs of small squat columns, is Townsend’s deep interest in romanesque art.
The Great Hall is an excellent early example of the Arts and Crafts movement, with a unique glass lantern ceiling and an impressive sense of space created through the placing of large cross-beams. The refurbishment will return the glass lantern to its former glory - the lantern had been obscured by acoustic tiles since the 1960’s. Air cooling, a new lighting system, new flexible seating and a new state-of-the-art acoustic sound system will all be installed. Historically BBC Radio 3 used the Great Hall for recordings, and the composer Sir Edward Elgar conducted a concert in the space in 1927. Sir Ernest Shackleton used the Great Hall in 1910 for a lecture following his famous Arctic exploration and Sir Paul McCartney performed in the Great Hall in 1997.
The Bishopsgate Institute Library opened as part of the main Institute building and is home to some of the best collections in the world dedicated to the history of London and the labour, co-operative, freethought and humanist movements. Notably, the library does not require membership and is open to all.
Key collections held in Bishopsgate Institute Library archive include The London Collection, The British Humanist Association Collection and The Co-operative Collection. It also holds number of archives from unique sources such as James Ince and Sons Umbrellas Ltd, the National Miners support network and the Committee for Freedom in Mozambique, Angola and Guine.
As well as providing a rich resource for academics and members of the public interested in national and local history, the library also welcomes writers such as Iain Sinclair and Dan Cruickshank who have used the London Collection for their research. The new learning room provides a dedicated area for schools and the community to explore the Institute’s vast collections in a welcoming environment.
http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=45184
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Walker Art Gallery Acquires Important Watercolour: "Goodbye on the Mersey" by James Tissot
LIVERPOOL.- The Walker Art Gallery has acquired a striking watercolour study of 19th century emigration by the French artist, James Tissot with help from the Art Fund, the UK’s national fundraising charity for works of art.
Goodbye on the Mersey is a detailed observation of a middle class family saying goodbye to relatives bound for America on an imposing transatlantic liner. It was bought at auction with help from a 100% grant from the Art Fund, totalling at £58,850.
In the foreground on the left two women dressed in exquisitely pleated grey coats point out their relatives to an elderly lady. On the right an older gentleman and a little girl wave enthusiastically at the ship.
The grey light suggests that the time of day is sunrise, when large ships left the port to catch the tide. The vantage point is the deck of a tender or ferry, behind the central figures, making the viewer feel close to the action. From this unusual composition the 1880 Liverpool skyline is also captured beyond the powerful looking liner.
Curator of British art, Dr Laura MacCulloch said: “This is a very significant addition to the Walker Art Gallery’s world-class collection. We are grateful to the Art Fund for enabling us to bring the painting to a public collection.
“Tissot is an important artist from the Victorian period. He specialised in scenes of high society and modern life. His work reveals not only the social habits of the Victorian upper and middle classes but also underlying themes of romance and morals. We hope this particular work will be especially popular with our local audience who will appreciate this snapshot of Liverpool’s history.”
Stephen Deuchar, director of the Art Fund, said: “This compelling study is full of life and movement – Tissot has really captured the sense of a fleeting moment in time, and the emotions caught up in a significant departure. His arresting composition beautifully evokes the majesty of Liverpool’s industrial landscape. We’re really pleased that it will now go on public display, so people can admire this vivid scene from Liverpool’s past.”
The watercolour gives us some insight into Tissot’s working methods. Close inspection of the work reveals it sits on a grid of white chalk lines with corresponding red chalk numbers for reproducing the work on a larger scale in oil.
Tissot used this grid method to produce not only preparatory studies but also replicas of his most popular paintings which brought him great commercial success.
There are two known oil versions of the painting, one of which is in the Andrew Lloyd Webber collection.
Goodbye on the Mersey joins another painting by the artist in the Walker Art Gallery’s collection. Commissioned by Chapple Gill, a senior partner in a Liverpool firm of cotton brokers, Portrait of Mrs Catherine Smith Gill and two of her children is a tender image of Gill’s family in their house, Lower Lee in Woolton, Liverpool.
The painting was also purchased for the gallery with the assistance of the Art Fund in 1979 and has become a firm favourite with the gallery’s family audience and school visits. It also features in an interactive virtual gallery: http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/talkingheads
A Visit to the Yacht by Tissot is on long-term loan at the Lady Lever Art Gallery.
http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=45183
