National Museums Liverpool Blog - Thursday, August 24, 2006

The popular exhibition George Stubbs: A Celebration, which was first seen at the Walker earlier this year, has now opened at the next stop in its tour, Tate Britain in London. Well worth a look if you're down in the capital over the weekend.

A few hundred miles north, the Hunterian Art Gallery in Glasgow is currently hosting Doves and Dreams, featuring the work of Frances MacDonald McNair and J Herbert McNair, half of the 'Glasgow Four' which also included Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret MacDonald Mackintosh. This exhibition will follow in the McNairs' footsteps and travel from Glasgow to Liverpool next year, opening at the Walker in January.

Beatles Russian nesting dolls in Sgt Pepper outfits

This weekend thousands of Beatles fans will make a pilgrimage to Liverpool for the International Beatles Week and Mathew Street Festival. Some may find their way to the Walker Art Gallery to see Stuart Sutcliffe's Hamburg Painting No 2.  

You might not know this but there are lots of other Beatles related objects in National Museums Liverpool's collections, which are not currently on display at any of our venues. So for the first time the highlights, including items from the collections of the Customs and Excise Museum and the Museum of Liverpool, have been brought together for an online Beatles exhibition.

To get yourself in the mood for the 'Fab Four' festivities this weekend you can also try our Beatles Games and find out which Beatle you are. In case you were wondering, I'm George.

Today I called into World Museum Liverpool to say goodbye to Dr Clem Fisher, curator of birds and mammals, before she travels to Australia as a key speaker in an international seminar to study the life and success of German explorer Ludwig Leichhardt. 

The Ludwig Leichhardt Rally commemorates and recreates Leichhardt’s pioneering expedition of 1844-45 from south-east Queensland to the north Australian coast – one of the most ambitious and dangerous exploratory trips ever undertaken in early Australia. For authenticity the delegates will sleep rough as they follow a trail of campsite locations recorded by Leichhardt as he led his eight men, 17 horses, 16 bullocks and a pack of dogs across the uncharted outback territory.

Clem is attending as the leading expert on John Gilbert, Leichhardt’s second-in-command, who was tragically speared to death by Aborigines in 1845 near the end of the journey. Gilbert, a noted naturalist from London, was on the expedition to study and collect Australian birds for his employer, the ornithologist and entrepreneur John Gould. Between them Gould and Gilbert were responsible for discovering a huge proportion of Australia’s birds and mammals. Gilbert is estimated to have collected the ‘type’ specimens (those which act as standards for the species) of at least 8% of all recent Australian birds and mammals.

Many of Gilbert’s specimens from the Leichhardt Expedition were acquired by the 13th Earl of Derby, who was a great naturalist and a close friend of John Gould. His collections formed the foundation of World Museum Liverpool when they were bequeathed in 1851.  

Clem has been researching the life of John Gilbert for almost 30 years and has travelled all over the world in pursuit of Gilbert and Gould’s type specimens in other museum collections. I hope that this expedition has a happier ending than Gilbert's and she returns safely to Liverpool afterwards.

If you are down at the Pier Head for the Mathew Street Festival this weekend, why not pop over to the dockside and visit the largest object in National Museums Liverpool's collections - the Edmund Gardner pilot cutter.

The ship is normally open to the public every summer. However, after it closes on 31 August 2006 some major construction works are due to start in the dockside area. The area will not be open again to the public until the work has finished, which is expected to take a few years. So this is your last chance to step onboard this piece of Liverpool history for quite some time. Don't miss the boat!

It was such a lovely evening that I couldn't resist snapping the sun setting over the Mersey as I left the Hello Sailor opening event at the Maritime Museum yesterday...

Sun setting over the Mersey, looking from the Albert Dock towards the Wirral

Then on my way to the ferry this morning I caught the sun rising over the city and as I had the camera with me still...

Sun rising over the Liverpool waterfront, as seen from the Wirral

And just to make everyone who was stuck in traffic this morning thoroughly jealous, here's a photo of my hectic morning commute into work (you can just see a little Mersey Ferry on its way across the river on the right!)

The Hello Sailor! exhibition was officially opened in style yesterday evening. Guests enjoyed the first performance of 'Nothing's queer once you have left that pier'. This solo show stars Dennis, a dining room steward by day, and flamboyant star of the crew's musical shows by night, who gives an entertaining account of life on a cruise liner in the 1960s.

Roleplayer Jay, who plays Dennis, was moved when a former seafarer told him that his performance perfectly captured the shows he remembered from the ships he worked on during the 1960s. He is pictured with Jo Stanley, co-curator of the exhibition and joint author of the book that inspired it. 

Visitors can see Jay's shows repeated on Saturday and Sunday, plus a Shirley Bassey tribute act on Monday afternoon, as part of a weekend of fabulous opening events. See the What's On pages for further details.

Today I encountered two very different sniffer dogs at the Customs and Excise Museum.

Two of our roleplayers, dressed as the larger-than-life characters Smugglebuster the customs officer and Sniffer the dog, were greeting visitors to the museum.

Outside I met the real deal - customs officer Claire Dewhirst with her sniffer dog, who were at the museum today doing demonstrations for the public.

If you missed today's demonstrations then you have another chance to see a real sniffer dog at the museum next Thursday.

Smugglebuster and Sniffer will also be back at the museum soon. For full details of all the events and activities taking place over the next few weeks have a look at the What's On listings.

This morning the press got to preview the exhibition Hello Sailor! Gay life on the ocean wave, which opens to the public tomorrow. Dr Jo Stanley, co-author of the book Hello Sailor! that inspired the exhibition, and some of the seafarers that she interviewed during her research, also got to see the finished exhibition for the first time, and were thrilled with how it looked.

Jo is pictured above inspecting some rather bling glittery shoes in the recreated steward's cabin with Robert (on the left), whose reminiscences feature in the exhibition and Jay (in the middle), one of the museum's roleplayers. Jay is wearing a ship's steward uniform, but will be transformed into a glamorous performer for the exhibition opening this evening.

Learning officer Karen Charnock gave me a sneak preview of the silver dress that he will be wearing to perform a cabaret show, like the crew shows that gay seafarers used to perform during their time off on ships.

This morning I got to see the catchily named Canning River Entrance Swing Bridge in action, swinging aside to let a boat pass from the Mersey into the Canning Half Tide Dock (which is the one outside the front door of the Maritime Museum). Here it is:

The footbridge rotates to the left to let boats into the dock

Crowds and a pigeon watch the boat sail into the dock

Yesterday was Slavery Remembrance Day. A series of events culminated in a ritual libation on the banks of the river Mersey. These images give you an idea of what happened on the day.

You can listen to an interview with Tony Tibbles, keeper of the Merseyside Maritime Museum, on the Vatican Radio website. He talks about the background to the day and the museum's involvement in the celebrations.

There's more on the Slavery Remembrance pages on our main site.

Update (11.10.06) Bev Mitchell, community coordinator at the Mersey Basin Campaign, attended the event and blogged it here.

Chief Angus Chukuemeka leads the libation ceremony with other community leaders. He called on ancestors to bless the event and then paid homage to the ancestors.

The libation was held on the banks of the Mersey in front of a large crowd.

The River Niger Orchestra enter the marquee for an afternoon of celebration.

The orchestra was one of several performances in a day of acting, poetry, music and crafts.

Keeper of Art Galleries at National Museums Liverpool, Julian Treuherz, gave a lecture at the Lady Lever Art Gallery this afternoon on 'Bubbles', by Sir John Everett Millais.

The lecture is now available as an audio download from our site (mp3/transcript/links).

The 30 minute talk covers the long term loan of 'Bubbles' to the Lady Lever from Unilever, memento mori, fancy portraits, Sir Joshua Reynolds, the Maurits house at The Hague, competition between Pears Soap and Sunlight Soap, the Graphic magazine and the theme of death in Millais's paintings. 

Fossil horsetail fragments found in the siltstones. These are the most abundant plant fossils.

If you think that garden restoration projects are daunting, spare a thought for the geologists who are attempting to reinterpret a lost world. Imagine trying to recreate your garden from the contents of your compost bin after it hasn't been emptied for years. That's the nature of the task geologists face when trying to picture a long vanished world.

Staff from the Earth Sciences section at World Museum Liverpool are currently involved in long term field work investigating the Triassic flora of Merseyside. The aim is to find out what type of plants grew locally 242 million years ago so that we can get a better picture of that past environment.

Exposure of Triassic siltstones containing plant remains

The region is famous for the fossilised footprints of the dinosaurs' ancestors (you can see some at the museum). However, we can also learn about the environment from the fragmentary remains of plants - we currently known very little about their distribution or diversity.  We aim to learn as much as we can about the Triassic plant communities and the role they played in supporting the population of plant eating reptiles (Rhynchosaurs) and meat eaters (Chirotherium).

Over the coming months staff from the team will be reporting back on what they find and we'll post the results here. In the meantime if you want to find out more contact either Alan Bowden or Wendy Simkiss.

At the Maritime Museum a new exhibition, Hello Sailor! Gay life on the ocean wave, is currently being installed, ready to open on Friday. The exhibition includes a recreation of a sailor's cabin from the 1960s-70s, complete with evocative props from the era such as the pineapple ice bucket that curator Charlotte Stead is holding in this photo. My grandparents had one of them - but then I suppose everybody's grandparents did at the time! Who would have thought that one would end up in a museum display?

The exhibition is looking 'fantabulosa' so far (as gay sailors would say in polari) so I can't wait to see the finished thing on Friday.

'Minerva', Auguste Rodin

Our temporary display of six Rodin sculptures from the Walker Art Gallery's permanent collection ends on Bank Holiday Monday, 28 August 2006.

The six bronze sculptures - 'Danaid', 'Death of Athens', 'Eve', 'Fleeting Love', 'Minerva', 'Sister and Brother' - were all bequeathed to the Walker in the 1920s by Liverpool wine merchant James Smith.

A recording of Curator of Continental Art Xanthe Brooke's May artwork of the month talk on 'Danaid' is also available online (mp3 file/transcript/links).

This week's ingredients list for the livestock in the Bug House in World Museum Liverpool:

Dung beetles feeding on dung

• 1 huge bucket full of Bramble
• 7 pots of fresh food plant
• 7 bags full of fresh grass
• 5 bags full of petals
• 5 dishes full of donkey dung
• 10 handfuls of fish flake
• 1/2 handful of honey nut loops
• 1/2 handful of rabbit pellets
• 1 handful of bran
• 2 handfuls of special Bug House recipe insect mix
• 3 handfuls of special Bug House recipe hermit crab food
• 1/2 cup of ambrosia bee food
• 6 oranges
• 6 apples
• 6 bananas
• 1 lettuce
• 2 boxes of crickets
• 1 box of flies
• 1/2 box of mealworms

As I look out of the window at the torrential rain, I can't help thinking that the organisers of Southport Flower Show may have had a premonition. Apparently this year's theme is water - and if this weather continues throughout the weekend, then water there certainly shall be!

Perhaps they were tipped off by celebrity astrologer Russell Grant, who officially launches the flower show's 'ladies day' tomorrow.  

Southport Flower Show has picked a water theme for 2006

Luckily there are masses of marquees and undercover areas as well as the show gardens, so there's no chance of it being a washout. 

National Museums Liverpool's smiley marketing officers will be bringing their own particular brand of sunshine to the event, by giving out information on all of our current happenings. 

Budding horticulturists (sorry - bad joke) can find out more about World Museum Liverpool's botanical collections on our website. 

• Southport Flower Show
• National Wildflower Centre

'Street Life: Liverpool in Fashion', featuring photography by Mark McNulty and Victoria Spofforth, ends at the National Conservation Centre this Sunday, 20 August, 2006.

Image copyright Mark McNulty

• Exhibition review at Art in Liverpool
• Exhibition review from Nerve Magazine
• Mark McNulty interview in Liverpool Echo
• Mark McNulty and Victoria Spofforth interviews in Liverpool Daily Post
• Mark McNulty website

Those trekking to Hinkley for this weekend's Discworld Convention will be interested in plans for a major retrospective of Josh Kirby's artwork at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, next year.

Josh Kirby studied at Liverpool Art School in the 1940s and is best known for designing the book covers for Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. The exhibition, planned for Summer 2007, will include around 150 works spanning his career. It will include original works, studies, sketches, magazines, film posters and book covers. I'm told it will encompass all sorts of weird worlds, marvellous maidens and fantastical, magical creatures - but it won't be restricted to just Discworld material, so watch this space. 

Kirby also designed the film poster for Return of the Jedi and one for Monty Python's Life of Brian (possibly inspired by Bruegel's Tower of Babel). Coincidentally, while looking for Kirby links on the Python's Daily Llama I stumbled upon the Silly Walks Generator. Not strictly connected of course - but far too silly to keep to myself. 

Staff at World Museum Liverpool's Clore Natural History Centre have been experimenting with their new macro lens and have sent over this image.

According to Mike Graham, Curatorial Manager of the Bug House, Planetarium, Aquarium and Clore Natural History Centre, 'We are looking at the reproductive organs of a Meadow Cranesbill, a wild flower which is a member of the Geranium family. The red stalk like rod in the centre is the carpel which consists of the stigma which receives the pollen and the style and ovary which contains the ovules. This is the female part and the black anthers on the stamens surrounding the stigma are where the pollen is produced. If you look closely you can see the pollen grains on the anthers. Bees cross pollinate the flowers when they are collecting nectar.'

• BBC Gardening Plantfinder - Meadow Cranesbill
• Natural History Museum Meadow Cranesbill seedpot greeting card
• Slideshow of photos tagged 'meadowcranesbill' on Flickr
• University of British Columbia Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research's Botany photo of the day blog

See works of art up close in the conservation studios

Have you ever wondered exactly what goes on behind the scenes at the National Conservation Centre? Do questions along the lines of "just how the blazes do you clean a priceless fragile antique or work of art without damaging it?" keep you awake at night? If so then clear your diary next Wednesday and head over to the open day.

Throughout the day on 16 August eight different departments at the centre will be inviting visitors behind the scenes for guided tours.

Please note that for safety and security reasons places are strictly limited on each tour and must be booked in advance.

If you can't make it on a tour then you can see information about the work of our conservation departments on the website. There's also a recently updated gallery of case studies of projects by conservation technologies and sculpture conservation.