National Museums Liverpool Blog - Thursday, April 02, 2009

 

King Henry in formidable form

I recently watched the film adaptation of Philippa Gregory’s 'The Other Boleyn Girl’ – I can’t say I enjoyed the mixing of fact with fiction, but it made me think about how much speculation, debate and gossip Henry VIII has drummed up in the 500 years since he became King. I am sure he would absolutely thrilled that his reputation is still thriving in the 21st century due to his larger-than-life character, ill-fated marriages and the major decisions he made that have shaped the history of the country (not to mention a million documentaries and dramatisations). Any publicity is good publicity, right?

 

Henry was declared king in April 1509 and just about everywhere up and down the country with a Henry connection is marking the occasion. I am desperate to get to Hampton Court for the Henry VIII: Heads and Hearts exhibition, as well as the Dressed to Kill at The Tower of London and Man & Monarch at the British Library. Infuriatingly I’m missing out on the Great Recreation of Tudor Life at Kentwell Hall this summer which will be focused on the Henrican year of 1535. (Look out for Kentwell on Channel 5's ‘I own Britain’s Best Home’).

In the meantime I am relishing the prospect of David Starkey’s new documentary, Henry VIII - Mind of a Tyrant which starts on Channel 4 this Monday 6^th April. The episodes are billed with the tantalising subtitles of Prince, Warrior, Lover and Tyrant. The Walker’s own spectacular Henry VIII portrait is to be featured on 20^th April with David doing a piece to camera from the gallery. You can brush up (pardon the pun) on our iconic painting on the website – there’s an in-depth write-up and podcast, as well as some fun online stuff for kids to do.

If you’re looking for family friendly activities with a hint of Henry then don’t miss the Walker’s ‘Terrible Tudors’ day on 18 April when there’ll be mask making, music and drawing activities. Sounds fun – though I say less of the Terrible - the Tudor dynasty will always be undeniably terrific in my eyes!

It is with great sadness that I pass on the sad news of the death last week of John Hope Franklin, one of the most important American historians of the 20th century and a great advocate of the International Slavery Museum. The museum was fortunate enough to have been visited by John Hope Franklin in 2007 and it was an honour personally to be able to interview this great man, one who more than most strove towards a word free from racism and discrimination. It speaks for itself when messages of condolence are sent from current President Obama as well as Bill Clinton (who awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honour, in 1995) and a host of other eminent historians and scholars. 

For those of you who are not familiar with his life and achievements visit the John Hope Franklin website and I urge you to read the classic 'From Slavery to Freedom', a million copy bestseller and a landmark book which made people realise that African American history is not only a part of American history but the two are inseparable and are one.

On behalf of the International Slavery Museum we send our deepest condolences to his family and remind those who have yet to visit the museum that John Hope Franklin can be seen on our Freedom and Enslavement Wall.

A visitor at the Freedom and Enslavement Wall. Photograph copyright of Zak

It seems that Eros, the Greek god of love, has been working his magic again, as Liverpool.com have just named Café Eros in the National Conservation Centre at the top of their list of five secret coffee bars. Of course, if caffeine and rather lovely statues are not your thing then you may be tempted by some of the cakes and other treats on offer - check out the Café Eros menu on the website.

If you are immune even to the charms of giant muffins and wickedly rich hot chocolate then another reason to visit soon is that there's less than two weeks left to catch the fantastic Recollections exhibition of photographs by Philip Jones Griffiths, which has been extended until Easter Monday.

Harriet volunteering on the Ben Johnson residency in 2008

Earlier this month the Volunteers team attended the Working with Youth Boards seminar day at the Manchester Museum.

Harriet, one of our young volunteers, kindly agreed to help present a paper at this event. Here's what she thought of the day:

"National Museums Liverpool volunteers section spent a day at the Working with Youth Boards event at Manchester Museum discussing and sharing best practice for youth volunteering. I was able to join them and contribute to a presentation about young volunteers at National Museums Liverpool by sharing a bit about my experience as a volunteer and member of Mersey v’s volunteer steering group.

The highlight of the day for me was hearing other young volunteers talk passionately about their work and vision for youth boards, youth volunteering, youth parliaments and opportunities within museums and galleries across the region. It was encouraging to see how much people got out of what they do and good to know that there's a platform for people to share the wealth of that. While we were there we also made sure we caught a glimpse of the slighty creepy but interesting Lindow man!"

 If you are aged 16-25 and would like to know more about youth volunteering please email the youth volunteer officer.

Ah what can you say to describe the amazing PJ Harvey? Rock star. Legend. Fan of Nick Cave. Player of Gibson Firebird guitars. The most glamorous person to come from Dorset...and now a lover of bouncy castles! Let me explain. 

PJ Harvey has been recording with her long-time collaborator John Parish and the first single from their forthcoming album will be out on 13 April. The video for this single, 'Black Hearted Love', has been made by British artists Jake and Dinos Chapman who we were pleased to have on the jury for the recent John Moores 25 Contemporary Painting Prize at the Walker Art Gallery.

The video is pretty cool I think, spooky yet graceful is what I'd say. Here's what the Chapman brothers said about it: "We decided 'Black Hearted Love' deserved something haunting and enigmatic - yet brazen and colourful. Hence, a collision between an ominous forest and a garish bouncy castle seemed entirely appropriate..." (Quote from NME.com)

Have a look and see what you think...

Prince Rupert. Image courtesy Liverpool Daily Post and Echo.

I’ve always admired the style of Prince Rupert, probably the most famous cavalier of the English Civil War. He lived in an age when a man had to be able to fight and when not using his sword could elegantly trip a dainty measure (dance) with a lady.

However, Liverpool gave Rupert a massive challenge when he marched his Royalist army to the heavily-defended town expecting a walkover. The sea has always provided a means of escape from danger and this was true in this famous siege.

In the war Royalist cavaliers were led by King Charles I and the Parliamentarian roundheads by Oliver Cromwell. Dashing Prince Rupert was Charles’ nephew and besieged Liverpool held for Parliament by the town’s governor John Moore, member of a powerful local merchant family. Moore was also a vice-admiral and commanded a small fleet of six ships which inflicted substantial damage on the Royalist fleet in the Irish Sea.

Rupert camped at Everton, which was then a small village on the hill outside Liverpool. When the siege started, he haughtily dismissed Liverpool as “a mere crow’s nest which a parcel of boys might take”. However, it was a month before Rupert took Liverpool after a constant cannon bombardment and the loss of more than 1,500 of his own troops.

Moore concluded that the town was no longer defensible. He and his men escaped by sea in ships that had been moored in the Pool, the creek which gave Liverpool its name. Moore’s action was taken without consulting the local civic leaders and the town was left defenceless. Many citizens fought on and Rupert’s men had to take Liverpool street-by-street. No mercy was shown and about 400 people – many unarmed – were slaughtered. The troops were then allowed to ransack the town. Liverpool was recaptured by Parliament a few months later in November 1644 after it was cut off by land and sea. Moore became governor again.

There is a fascinating display of Civil War armour and weapons in the Magical History Tour exhibition at Merseyside Maritime Museum.

A breast plate carries a small dent indicating that it was proof against pistol shots. A mortuary sword was a common type of cavalry broad sword. It is believed to get its name from the basket hilt resembling a human rib-cage.

Part of a timber beam is believed to have come from the cottage on Everton Brow which served as Prince Rupert’s headquarters.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Eleanor Beyer, an art historian from the British Museum's conservation and science department has been visiting the National Conservation Centre and working with Nicky Lewis in the paper conservation department. Here's a review that she has very kindly written about her impressions of our facilities.

Nicky Lewis at work in the paper conservation studio

"I was excited to be given a tour of the National Conservation Centre by conservation mount cutter Nicky Lewis as it is fascinating to learn more about what takes place behind the scenes. I was looking forward to hearing about the day to day dramas which unfold in the conservation world, for example, how millions of tiny pieces of ceramic might be carefully pieced together to reconstruct a smashed museum object.

Though I did not see this aspect, I did learn more about how National Museums Liverpool's collections are preserved and cleaned for presentation to the public. The centre deals with an extremely varied collection from ceramics, paintings, prints and drawings, sculptures and other objects, very much like the British Museum's collections and conservation sections.

The mounting studio has up to the minute equipment which will be used in the coming months, for instance to supply mounts for the new displays at Liverpool's docks. In the painting studio, several paintings were being cleaned and conserved, for example the 'Virgin and Child in a landscape' by Luca Signorelli (or his nephew) where large parts were now exposed revealing original painting, and some later additions which are still be cleaned away.

The new centre with its airy light well equipped spaces provides an excellent facility for taking care of the collections, and even better you can get an idea of the work which goes on by visiting the Reveal gallery."

Black achievers plaque unveiling

Hello there

Well before anyone sends me an accusatory email I will admit I am not the world's best blogger! Strange really considering I constantly annoy my colleagues by saying "That would be a great blog picture" or "I can blog this and that" etc.  So I am back and hopefully once again people will read my blog to support my rather bold claim that this is one of the most visited parts of the National Museums Liverpool website. I can hear the laughter coming from the web team office! 

Ok, so what has happened since I was last in cyberspace? Well one very successful event at the museum was the US Black History Month event on 17 February called From Lincoln to Obama: a look at the progress of civil rights. As well as a number of noted speakers such as Simon Woolley from Operation Black Vote and Wally Brown, the ex principle of Liverpool Community College, three new Black Achievers plaques were unveiled. Most notable was President Obama, a very popular choice and someone who rightly deserves his position on the wall. Equally deserving though are the two achievers flanking him - the Civil Rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer  and Dr Mae Jemison, the first African American woman in space. 

As people have rightly pointed out there are thousands upon thousands of people who are achievers and who deserve a place on the Black Achievers Wall but we are receptive to any ideas so send your nominations in. As an insight to how the International Slavery Museum team often works our logic on this occasion was the connection between the three of them. The pioneering work Fannie Lou Hamer carried out on voting rights and the fact that Dr Jemison literally reached for the stars. This echoed Obama's words at a recent rally where he said "The road ahead will be long, our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term, but America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there". Sentiments that people believed in and as a result voted in their millions.

I have also given several presentations recently. The first was at the Exhibiting Slavery:  Problematics & Possibilities conference at the Horniman Museum in London in early March. The conference looked at the legacies of the 2007 commemorations and the unprecedented interest in, and exploration of, the meaning of slavery in our contemporary moment. My paper focused on the issues involved in developing future strategies and programming for the museum such as a contemporary collecting policy and contemporary slavery educational resources whilst not ignoring transatlantic slavery and keeping repeat visitors, new audiences and interested parties alike, informed, interested and engaged.  

The audience of museum professionals, interested members of the public and some leading academics in the field were pretty receptive to my ideas. That said, the majority were from London institutions and it is not unusual for people to assume that London is indeed the centre of all major and significant advances in the cultural sector. This is not the case and although I do not get defensive I truly believe people need to be told in no uncertain terms that there is quite a bit going on up North! One example was when a member of the audience who I had never met before but who claimed that the International Slavery Museum would fudge the big issues; and would not dare to look at issues which central government might find uncomfortable. Neither I or members of the team are mavericks, we do not aim to simply shock or be controversial but equally we have strong values and a sense of purpose. I explained this to them and to be fair they acknowledged that their earlier statement was in fact unfounded on this occasion.

The other presentation took place at the University of Manchester to a group if students on the Manchester Leadership Programme on the subject of leadership and culture. Basically, how I deal with various challenges within the cultural sector. The vast majority of the hundred plus students had not visited the International Slavery Museum or indeed had much understanding of the subject. I also had the feeling that they expected a museum professional to turn up with cobwebs hanging off them! They might have been pleasantly surprised then (or shocked) when someone stood in front of them who spoke with a Yorkshire accent and announced that he would pick on someone to ask a question if they were too shy to do so!

Not sure I will blog again until the end of April as I am on leave for a few weeks. I am going to Japan, and even though it is not a work trip as such I am sure I will not be able to resist popping into a few museums. I'll update you on my return.  

Sayonara for now.

In these grim economic times and rainy days, we could do worse than remind ourselves that there is usually a light at the end of the tunnel! Forty years ago this week, John Lennon and Yoko Ono set about bringing a message of peace to the world from their bed in the Amsterdam Hilton hotel. They vowed to stay in bed for a whole week (24 - 31 March, 1969) in what they called a "bed-in for peace". It certainly drew alot of media attention to their message of peace and in particular their stance against the war in Vietnam, which can only be a good thing.  While this might not be everyone's idea of a great honeymoon, I can't think of a better place to stage a peace protest than a nice comfy bed. I took part in an anti-war demo in Manchester once and by heck it was freezing!

Feel the love

This wasn't their last bed-in though. A few months later on 26 May 1969, John and Yoko checked into Montreal's Queen Elizabeth Hotel to start their next peace protest, to continue the momentum of the first one. For another week the couple, along with Ono's five-year-old daughter Kyoko, entertained guests including U.S. black civil rights advocate Dick Gregory, Quebec separatist Jacques Larue-Langlois and American cartoonist Al Capp. It was at the end of this bed-in that a historic and spontaneous performance of 'Give Peace a Chance' was recorded.

Here at the museums, we're very proud to hold a piece of this moment in history. In our collections we have an 'All You Need is Love' beadspread that was handmade by the local Montreal Hare Krishna Chapter and given to John and Yoko for the protest. 

Currently you can see the bedspread from the Montreal bed-in for peace in The Beat Goes On exhibition at World Museum Liverpool. Peace out.

Stephen Shakeshaft with just a few of his photographs

Today anyone passing through our Design offices might have thought they'd taken a wrong turn and ended up in the news room of the Echo, with picture editor Stephen Shakeshaft sifting though a selection of photographs to pick the perfect ones to illustrate a story.

We haven't started our own newspaper up though - Stephen was working on the selection process for an exhibition of his photographs which will open in the National Conservation Centre in September.

Many people will remember Stephen's earlier exhibitions, which took a candid behind-the-scenes look at the famous faces from the worlds of football (Soccer Shots at the former Museum of Liverpool Life) and celebrity (Shooting Stars, also at the Conservation Centre). 

His next exhibition will cover a broader and arguably more fascinating subject - the people of Liverpool itself. Stephen has been photographing the city's residents for the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo since the 1960s, so it could be the understatement of the century to say that he's a bit spoilt for choice in terms of material for this exhibition. As before his pictures will be accompanied by his fascinating anecdotes about the characters behind the pictures, giving an insight into the news and people that have helped shape the city over the last few decades.

Stephen has promised to keep the blog posted about progress and maybe even give a preview of some of the great stories behind some of his favourite pictures in the run up to the exhibition.