National Museums Liverpool Blog - Friday, September 29, 2006

Proud mum, sorry, aquarist Rachel gets ready for the release

Actually, there's two of them. The aquarium at World Museum Liverpool had a couple of new arrivals this afternoon; six-month old False Clownfish or Anemonefish (the same species featured in Finding Nemo). Both were hatched in the aquarium in March this year, and today were released into the main tank. Up to this point they have spent their short lives in a behind-the-scenes nursery tank, where their parents will stay in the hope we hear the splish splosh of more tiny fins. Cute huh?

The new arrivals check out their new space

It's really gin in there

This morning museum staff have taken part in what is hoped to be the World's Biggest Coffee Morning. 

The event, which was held in the basement of World Museum Liverpool, was part of a countrywide fundraiser in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support. The money raised will help fund more Macmillan nurses and other health professionals, as well as provide more practical, emotional and financial help for people with cancer and their families.

You can find out more or make a donation through the Macmillan website. They've also created a Make Me Coffee game, which aims to rid us of that age old office argument, 'whose turn is it to make a brew?'

The nameplate from an SS Titanic lifeboat

As Sam mentioned last week, you have this weekend to visit the Titanic and Lusitania displays in the Floating Palaces gallery at the Merseyside Maritime Museum before it temporarily closes for an overhaul on 1 October.

The devil's in the detail. Ben works on St John's Beacon

Another sneak preview, this one from the Walker. You might have seen that Ben Johnson has been commissioned to create a panorama of Liverpool; a highly detailed, painted cityscape. This 8ft by 16ft 'Portrait of Liverpool' will be made up of thousands of separate miniatures of buildings, roads and monuments, all showing the tiniest detail. This latest progress picture (above) shows Ben working on St John's Beacon/Radio City tower in the city centre. The image below, which was taken in July this year, shows how all the separate entities fit together.

The finished piece will be on display in the Walker for much of 2008 before moving to the Museum of Liverpool on a permanent basis.

The greyed sections show the as yet unpainted buildings.

Excellent news. The Heritage Lottery Fund have agreed to fund the International Slavery Museum to the tune of £1.5m. Apparently the regional committee was very happy with the progress made and commended the project. Next stop will be the actual opening of the display galleries on 23 August next year, to coincide with Slavery Remembrance Day.

This preview graphic shows part of the gallery that will look at life in Africa, before the slaves were taken across the Atlantic to the Americas. The house you can see is a domestic Igbo house of the time.

An impression of the forthcoming gallery.

'Anne Wortley, Later Lady Morton' (the portrait behind the rope above) is a new loan to the Walker Art Gallery from Tate Britain. It is a temporary replacement for our portrait of 'Henry VIII' loaned to the Tate’s Holbein in England exhibition, 28 September 2006 – 7 January 2007. It has been hung in Room One of the Walker alongside Jean Clouet's 'Princess Marguerite of Angouleme' and 'Queen Elizabeth I - The Pelican Portrait', attributed to Nicholas Hilliard.

The panel text that accompanies the painting states:

It portrays Anne Wortley, daughter of Sir Richard Wortley of Yorkshire, in formal dress as worn at the court of James I. It is a typical Jacobean portrait. It aims not to create a convincing idea of space, which is rather awkwardly reproduced in this portrait, but to focus in almost hypnotic detail on the elaborate costume, ruff, head-dress, jewellery and other accessories. For this reason such portraits are sometimes referred to nowadays as ‘curtains & carpets’ paintings. The different qualities of the brushwork on this portrait suggest that it was perhaps painted by several artists from one workshop, each specialising in a different area, and some trained in the Netherlands.

View an enlarged image of the painting on the Tate Collection's website.

Wenda Parkinson, Vogue 1951

Sunday 24 September is your last chance to see the Norman Parkinson exhibition at the Lady Lever Art Gallery. 'Portraits In Fashion' has received some excellent reviews (including this one) and is well worth a visit.

Read the 24 Hour Museum review and this North West Enquirer piece.

Carrying on the Museum of Liverpool subject, part of the new museum will look at the figures who have helped shape Liverpool. One of the people who will probably feature is Josephine Butler who, in case you don't know, was a social reformer and political campaigner who worked against slavery and child prostitution, for women’s rights and for higher education for women. 

The Women's Library in London has just opened an exhibition on prostitution which features Jospheine Butler, and this Guardian article tells you more about this remarkable and relatively unsung woman.

Lion railway locomotive

A new feature on the Museum of Liverpool website is the Land transport collection top ten, with a variety of vehicles from across the ages. Most of this popular collection is currently either in storage or on loan to other museums. However, it is hoped that we will be able to put some on display in the new Museum of Liverpool when that opens in 2010.

In the meantime you can see the AER motorcycle in the Reveal display at the National Conservation Centre (look up when you go in) and the famous Lion railway locomotive at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester.

If you look really closely you can see 'King of the world' Leo and Kate (just kidding)

It's all go at the Merseyside Maritime Museum. The Floating Palaces gallery, which looks at the golden age of travel on liners including poignant reminders of the Titanic and Lusitania disasters, is due to close soon and be replaced by a much bigger better gallery on the first floor of the museum.

The new gallery will explore the story of the sinking of the Empress of Ireland as well as the Titanic and Lusitania, highlighting new research and Liverpool connections. New material on display will include recent acquisitions such as a medal awarded to Able Seaman Leslie Morton, who rescued many of the survivors from the Lusitania. These will be shown alongside existing highlights from the collection, such as the huge model of the Olympic/Titanic.

In order for the changes to take place the Floating Palaces gallery will close on 1 October 2006, so you've got just over a week to go if you want to have a last look around. The new gallery is expected to open later in the year, we'll keep you posted when the date is confirmed.

Sunday's Observer included a feature on 'The best-kept arts secrets in Britain'.

DJ Rob Da Bank nominated 'Another Place' ('amazing to look at and you don't pay to get in'), whilst 'the second most intelligent man in Britain', Stephen Bayley, chose the Walker Art Gallery's 'Christ Discovered in the Temple' by Simone Martini.

'Not exactly a secret, but certainly a surprise, is Simone Martini's Christ Discovered in the Temple in Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery. I knew this exquisite little picture as a child, long before I ever visited Siena. Martini was one of that magnificent city's greatest painters, working at the fascinating moment when Gothic simplicity became Renaissance sophistication. There's the effulgence of tooled gold, the lapis, the vermilion, but there's also subtle psychology: a superb object and a brilliant image.

Marvellous how this gorgeous southern picture found its way, through proud merchants and shippers, to the gloom of 19th-century Merseyside. It hangs now in Lancashire as a strange and haunting refugee from faraway Tuscany, a sudden jolt of Renaissance beauty enjoyed to the distant noise of buses.'

A moment of peace in a hectic weekend

I feel I should apologise for the lack of new blog entries over the last couple of days. This is partly because, after weeks of feverish activity preparing for the Biennial opening weekend, we've now been unchained from our keyboards and allowed out to enjoy the Biennial in all its glory.

And what a weekend it has been. I've walked around so much I'm sure my legs must be at least an inch shorter and I've still only scratched the surface of what's on offer. Over the last few days I've heard Tracey Emin go meow (have a listen on the podcast of the John Moores 24 opening speeches), stroked the paw of a caged lion and seen more art than I could shake a very large stick at. 

I spent Friday afternoon exploring the Greenland Street galleries, including the Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2006 in the Coach Shed. If you go there on a sunny day then head up to the roof of the adjacent Blade Factory building, the light shining through the enclosure there is stunning, these photos really don't do it justice. Then after being dazzled by the light I found a very dark room downstairs with rather beautiful 'silent music'. I could have stayed there all day quite happily.