National Museums Liverpool Blog - Tuesday, January 23, 2007

The frond under UV light

A couple of month ago I told you about a monster of a 50 year old palm frond we had just acquired. Plans are to put the frond on display at World Museum Liverpool but first it needed some TLC in the form of treatment at the National Conservation Centre. This primarily involved removing the enhancing layer of acrylic paint to expose the original fossil (it's much paler).

This image shows the frond under UV light before work began. The purple areas are the acrylic overpainting and retouches. Images of the conservation work in progress and the finished article can be found on our Flickr page.

Update 23.01.07: apologies, that should have read 50 MILLION year old palm frond.

An emigrant's trunk from the last century.
Image courtesy of Liverpool Daily Post & Echo

When I, Stephen Guy, was a child growing up in West Derby, Liverpool, in the 1950s our neighbour had an old wooden seaman’s chest stored outside.

It was slowly rotting away but when you lifted the creaking lid another world was revealed. Inside the top was a colourful painting of a ship with billowing sails racing across an azure sea. This battered object had the power to conjure up images of distant ports and a lost way of life.

 Fifteen men on a dead man's chest
 Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
 Drink and the devil had done for the rest
 Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum …

Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Treasure Island, wrote these famous lines in 1881. They capture perfectly images of ancient sea chests brimming with golden doubloons and other loot.

Merseyside Maritime Museum has a number of chests and trunks on display. Sea chests were usually made from wood then tarred or painted to keep water out.  A seaman’s chest dating from about 1880 was used by seafarer Ted Garland to carry his personal belongings while at sea.

Ditty boxes were used by mariners to keep valuable items along with letters and photographs. One on display dates from the 1930s.

There is a stylish passenger trunk owned by Gertrude Walker and her daughters Doris and Winifred, members of a wealthy family who frequently travelled on passenger liners. Gertrude first went to Chile, South America, in 1911. During the next 50 years she and her daughters crossed the Atlantic many times. The trunk, donated by Mrs JV Bucknall of Heswall, is displayed with some of the clothing and accessories it once contained – a fascinating time capsule from a bygone age.

Another is a passenger’s state room black oval bag with a Cunard White Star label still in place. The bag was used by Mrs Hadwin, a third class passenger on the Athenia sailing to Montreal on 23 July 1923.

An emigrants’ trunk from 100 years ago (shown) contains some of the simple belongings carried by people seeking a new life abroad – photographs, books, crockery and a wall plaque bearing the fitting Biblical quotation, 'My God shall supply all your need'.

A new Maritime Tale appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo.

The special exhibition galleries at the Walker are having a bit of a makeover thanks to our upcoming exhibition Doves and Dreams. 

For me the highlight of the exhibition - devoted to the work of artist-couple Frances MacDonald and J. Herbert McNair - is definitely the spectacular Turin room. Long before the bed had even entered Tracey Emin’s head, MacDonald and MacNair created the Ladies Writing Room, an ambitious art installation for the 1902 International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Art in Turin. As you can see below the room is being carefully reconstructed for Doves and Dreams and contains many of the original artefacts, including glass, furniture, watercolours and graphics - these two were truly multi-talented.

Photographs of the highly stylised interior of the couples own Liverpool home are also on display. So if like me you’re addicted to Relocation, Relocation and like nothing better than a Wednesday evening in with Phil and Kirstie checking out other peoples houses, come and sneak a look at some true avant-garde splendour. The exhibition opens this Saturday, 27 January.

It would be wrong to highlight eighties photos of Liverpool on Flickr without pointing everyone to Nancy023's superb collection. Now based in Seattle, most of these photographs were taken during a year spent in Liverpool over twenty years ago.

Milk Bar, New Brighton

Commutation Row, Philip G Mayer

Philip G Mayer's flickr photostream contains some great early 1980s photographs of Liverpool, including this one of Wellington column outside the Walker with the row of buildings that were demolished to make way for Commutation Plaza.

Philip has also set up the Old Liverpool pool, inviting anyone with a Flickr account to post their photos to it. The pool includes this great set of postcards that he dates to around 1906 -  I love the Prince's Avenue and Bold Street ones. The postcards are all based on original photographs. There's also a very stylish artist's impression of the interior of the Mersey Tunnel and a set of photos of the last night of Woolton Cinema.

While David Beckham is making a splash in the US with his LA Galaxy ‘soccer’ antics, World Museum Liverpool has itself been subject to a bit of an American invasion.

Liverpool Centurions AFC is our local community American Football Club – and they’ve been down to LoveSport to give us a bit of taster.

Jon Askew and Andrew Morris show their tender sides

On their website, Centurions' chairman and fullback Jon Askew (pictured right) explains that, “Visitors to the display will get the chance try out at Flag Football, which is a great introduction to the sport”.

Apparently flag football is a non-contact version of the game - which is handy if you don’t fancy getting knocked over by this pair of bruisers. Joking aside, I am assured that the Centurions are a charming bunch of fellows who love their sport and want to spread the word about the game.

They’ll be back at World Museum Liverpool for another taster session on 24th January from 10am until 2pm. 

In the meantime, I am relishing the start of the rugby league season. Centurions of another variety, Leigh, are visiting Knowsley Road on Friday night for a friendly opener against the Saints. The match is also Sean Long’s testimonial and sees old team favourite’s Chris Joynt, Tommy Martyn and Paul Newlove back in the fold for the occasion. Can’t wait!

Patrick Caulfield's 'Still Life: Autumn Fashion' is one of the most popular pieces in the Walker's 20th century collection and is currently on display in Room 13 at the gallery.

The excellent Patrick Caulfield collection display at Tate Liverpool (not one of our venues) finishes early next month (4 February 2007), images of all fifty two works are available on the Tate website.

To mark the end of the display, Marco Livingstone will be giving a talk in the display space next Wednesday (full details). In 1981 Marco Livingstone selected works for the Walker Art Gallery's Patrick Caulfield retrospective.

We take it for granted sometimes that everyone understands which venues we represent at National Museums Liverpool, but personal experience suggests it can be confusing. It's even more confusing when we occasionally highlight events and exhibitions at other Liverpool museums and galleries on this blog.

I'm creating this post so that when I mention a Merseyside gallery or museum, I can include a link to this explanation.

We are - Walker Art Gallery, World Museum Liverpool, Museum of Liverpool, Merseyside Maritime Museum, International Slavery Museum, Sudley House, Lady Lever Art Gallery, HM Customs & Excise National Museum and National Conservation Centre.

We're not (but we like) - Tate Liverpool, FACT, the Beatles Story, Open Eye Gallery, University of Liverpool Art Gallery, Greenland Street, View Two Gallery, Almiro Gallery, 52 Roscoe Street, Williamson Art Gallery and Museum, Birkenhead Priory, Wirral Museum, Renew Rooms, Alima Centre gallery, National Wildflower Centre, 59 Rodney Street, British Lawnmower Museum, Western Approaches, Spaceport, Bluecoat Arts Centre, Atkinson Art Gallery, Blue Planet Aquarium, South Bohemia Art Gallery, Ellesmere Port Boat Museum, World of Glass, EggSpace, Mendips, The Artfinder's Gallery, Arena, Dot-art Gallery, Cornerstone Gallery, Cube Noir, Museum Man, Liverpool Academy of Arts, The Royal Standard, Williamson Tunnels.

Hope I've not left too many off the list (and we'll look at Prescot Museum another day..).

A subterranean Liverpool landmark celebrates its 50th anniversary today. Since 1957 generations of clubbers have trailed down the stairs for a night out at the Cavern. I myself spent many happy hours on its dancefloor as a student (as well as several not so happy hours in the seemingly neverending queue for the ladies).

The Cavern is of course most famous as the venue to see a certain local band at the start of their career in the 1960s. The  Beatles played at the Cavern on at least 292 occasions, their first recorded appearance being 9 February 1961, and their final one on 3 August 1963.

Among recent additions to the collections of the Museum of Liverpool is the Cavern membership card from 1964 pictured above, which belonged to John Marsh of Huyton. You can't see this card on display yet, but fans can enjoy a lot of the museum's other Beatles memorabilia in our Beatles online exhibition, or just have fun with the Beatles games.

A mystery that has intrigued many local historians is the exact location of the original Cavern club, which was filled in when the venue closed in 1973. The reincarnated Cavern was rebuilt using the original bricks in a different part of Mathew Street in the 1980s. I'm not sure how helpful this is, but another membership card from the museum's collection has these directions inside. Frustratingly, I don't think the map is drawn to scale though.

Cavern Club membership card, 1962 Season, owned by member Peter Day of Wallasey, dated 18-2-62. In the Club Notes section Peter listed the bands he saw at the Cavern, complete with dates, including the Beatles, 20 June 1962. Kindly donated by Mr Peter Day.