National Museums Liverpool Blog - Thursday, November 16, 2006

Today is the 99th anniversary of the liner Mauretania's maiden voyage from Liverpool. On 16 November 1907 she sailed from Liverpool for New York, arriving safely on 22 November.

Above is a picture of the Mauretania (II) from the Stewart Bale archive. You can find out more in the Revelation database at National Conservation Centre's Reveal gallery or online.

On Merseyside Maritime Museum's collection pages you can also view the Mauretania in a painting by Burnett Poole. She is depicted in dazzle paint - a camouflage technique used by the Royal Navy during the First World War.

Of course the Mauretania’s sister ship was not so lucky. The Lusitania was torpedoed by a U-boat during the conflict with the loss of 1,198 lives including 291 women and 94 children. You can find out more about the Titanic and Lusitania in our collections highlights feature.

Update 5/12/06: An eagle-eyed blog reader spotted that this particular picture is actually of Mauretania (II) and not the Mauretania as originally stated. Sorry about that!

The interior of Princes Road Synagogue

A piece on this morning's Today programme on Radio 4 highlighted the endangered status of a number of England's architecturally-important inner city synagogues, and coincided with the publication of an English Heritage guidebook entitled 'Jewish Heritage in England: An Architectural Guide' by Dr Sharman Kadish.

Diminishing congregations and population migration away from the inner cities are putting a number of these historical buildings at risk of being repurposed or redeveloped, and English Heritage is calling on the UK Government to help. These calls follow the launch in May of its 'Inspired!' campaign, which put the cost of repairing all of England's listed places of worship at £925 million over the next five years.

Amongst those buildings most at risk is the Princes Road Synagogue in Liverpool, built in 1874 by William and George Audsley. This Grade II listed building is cited as one the finest examples of Moorish Revival synagogue architecture in Europe, with its highly ornate interior decked out in gold and marble. You can find out more about the life and works of the Audsley brothers by visiting the 'The Audsleys, Masters of Victorian Design' pages which accompanied a 2003 exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery.

If you missed it you can listen again to Today on the BBC website (the piece starts 1hr 22mins into the programme, RealPlayer required). You can find out more about the guidebook at Jewish Heritage UK.

After all the excitement of an evening out with Yoko Ono and Loyd Grossman at the official launch of plans for the Museum of Liverpool, we didn't have the heart to put our Liver Bird back into storage again. So the sculpture has gone on display in the National Conservation Centre as part of the Museum of Liverpool 'on the road' project.

'On the road' is a scheme which displays some of the iconic objects from the Museum of Liverpool's fantastic collections in unexpected locations around Liverpool City Cente.

The Liver Bird is the third item to go on the road and more are planned, so keep an eye on the 'On the road' webpages for updates.

Yoko Ono and Loyd Grossman arriving at Liverpool Town Hall. Image: Dave Evans

Last night saw the official launch of plans for the Museum of Liverpool (Sam mentioned it yesterday when she saw the Liver Bird being manoeuvred into place). This special event at Liverpool Town Hall was attended by a whole host of special guests (not me, obviously) among whom was Yoko Ono, pictured here arriving with our chairman, Loyd Grossman.

You can read more about the launch on the Liverpool Echo website.

It can't be much of a life being a museum exhibit. True, you do get lots of people from all over the world coming to visit you during the day, but then you're stuck in your glass case all evening and never get to go to any parties.

One lucky exhibit has been granted a night out on the town this evening though as the guest of honour at a special event. This stone Liver Bird, which used to be on display at the former Museum of Liverpool Life, was moved to Liverpool's Town Hall this morning. This evening it will greet guests to the launch event announcing the plans for the new Museum of Liverpool.

The Liver Bird is shown being wheeled into the Town Hall. You can see a slideshow with more pictures of our technical services staff installing it on our flickr page.

This evening's event is for invited guests only. If you don't have a ticket but would like to see the Liver Bird, it will be going on display to the public later this week as part of the Museum of Liverpool 'on the road' project, so keep an eye on the website for details.

Last week Ann Bukantas gave a gallery talk at the Walker Art Gallery looking at her experience of the judging process for John Moores 24. Ann was one of five jurors for the competition, alongside artists Sir Peter Blake, Jason Brooks and Tracey Emin and Director of Visual Arts at the British Council Andrea Rose.

Our recording of the talk is now available online (mp3/transcript/links).

The talk provided interesting answers to many questions including 'What do the jurors do if they recognise a particular artist's work?' and 'How is the final decision on the first prizewinner reached?'.

Also at the Walker Art Gallery for the announcement of the John Moores 24 Visitors' Choice award were Ian and Minako from Art in Liverpool.

They were taking the opportunity to view a slideshow of images from their Digital Show online exhibition which are available to view in the Walker until the end of the Liverpool Biennial (26 November 2006).

Artist Nicholas Middleton was at the Walker Art Gallery this lunchtime to collect a £1000 cheque from Fine Art Curator Ann Bukantas as the winner of the Visitors' Choice award for John Moores 24 for his painting 'Scene From a Contemporary Novel'.

The monochrome photorealist painting was a runaway winner of the award, receiving 709 votes out of 5063 cast by visitors to the exhibition. Runners-up were Graham Crowley for 'Red Reflection' and Gary 'Dollman' Sollars for 'When I Grow Up I Want To Go In There'.

Comments on the voting cards included 'Simply the best!', 'It has been very cleverly painted', 'LOVE IT!', 'Who needs colour to bring things to life?', 'All that is good about photo-realist painting', 'The girl in the picture could well be myself … Very evocative'.

Nicholas Middleton came to the gallery last month to give a talk on his painting, an audio recording and transcript is available online.

Hat of woven shiny black straw with decorated crown, dating from about 1932-35. Part of the Tinne collection.

Today is 'Wear a Hat Day' , as part of a campaign by Age Concern Wirral to raise awareness of the need for the elderly to keep warm and well through the winter.

Despite years of looking, I've never found a hat that doesn't make me look completely daft. So instead of putting a hat on my head I'm getting in the spirit by putting one on the blog.

This rather fine hat was displayed at the Walker earlier this year as part of the popular exhibition A Passion for Fashion. The exhibition has now closed but you can still see some of the highlights on the website, including a few more lovely hats, part of an incredible collection of over 100 that were once owned by Mrs Tinne.

Actors and crew in County Sessions small court room

Several of our venues have recently provided sets for a new BBC1 period drama series to be aired in 2007. 'Lilies' is set after the First World War and tells the story of three Catholic sisters living in Liverpool.

County Sessions House, Canning Dock, the quaysides around the Merseyside Maritime Museum and an area of the Walker near The Death of Nelson will all be featuring.

This image shows the small room at County Sessions House doubling as a 1920's magistrates' court. The costumes came from a theatrical costumiers in Manchester and date from the original era. Our press officer, Stephen Guy, who spent 30 years in courts as a reporter and has studied 1920s classic crime cases, advised the production crew on court etiquette from the era, eg women had to wear hats in court.
More images from filming can be found on our Flickr page.

More about 'Lilies' and filming at Woolton Picture House can be found on the BBC website.

We'll let you know when the series is being shown in the new year (I love location spotting).

We've already brought you Paul O'Keeffe's artwork of the month talk on John Moores 24 first prizewinner 'Before Vermeer's Clouds'. Last week, the artist himself, Martin Greenland, visited the exhibition to give a talk on the painting (mp3/transcript/links).

Over 45 minutes Martin discusses recurring themes in his John Moores entries, the decision to show his work without a frame, visions of Heaven, the Lake District, Exeter and the colourful Islamic architecture of Samarkand.

When textile conservator Anne-Marie Hughes was still at school she saw a documentary that made a big impression on her. The programme featured a suitcase of clothing that had survived the sinking of the Titanic. She was fascinated to see how specialist conservators cleaned and preserved these delicate objects full of history.

She probably never imagined at the time that one day she would get to work on actual objects from the Titanic herself. However, Anne-Marie is currently preparing a number of items for a new display due to open in the Maritime Museum next year, including the Titanic lifejacket shown here.

Ian Silverberg from Silverberg Opticians was faced with a tough customer today. This fussy client only wears the finest vintage designer clothing and was looking for a fine pair of glasses to match. They don't even have bad eyesight - they really only want some spectacles as a fashion accessory.

The customer in question is actually one of the mannequins in the textile conservation studio that are being prepared for a new display of designer clothing in the Craft and Design gallery at the Walker. The display is due to open in December, watch this space (with or without your glasses) for more details nearer the time.

Simone Martini's Christ Discovered In The Temple can't fail to impress

I think that many people have experienced an ‘emperor’s new clothes’ moment when faced with certain elements of contemporary art. 

But even some of the world’s most renowned paintings fail to resonate with armchair critic, Peter Bennett from Wallasey. He compares Van Gogh to primary school work, calls Dali ‘bonkers’ and the Mona Lisa a ‘tired, frustrated woman’.

He is impressed, however, by the Walker Art Gallery’s marvellous Simone Martini painting, Christ Discovered In The Temple. It’s wonderful to know that even the harshest of critics can find something they love when they visit the Walker.  I guess some paintings just speak for themselves.

Cape Farewell, due to finish at National Conservation Centre on 26 November 2006, will now continue until 28 January 2007.

Related Cape Farewell displays at the Walker Art Gallery will still close on 26 November 2006.