National Museums Liverpool Blog - Friday, February 26, 2010

Grandmas are great aren’t they? They make killer roast dinners, they are a mine of information and can surprise you with their knowledge of blogs and Twitter at the age of 88. Well maybe that’s just my Grandma. But the other great thing is that she is also a great lover of accessories and is generous enough to have passed on some of her well-kept gems to me!

Beaded evening bag: not suitable for clubbing.

This beautiful evening bag is starting to fray a little as it is so old and delicate but its beading is totally exquisite. I’m not sure when it dates from, but it’s certainly not one for swinging around on the dance-floor on a Saturday night.

So as she is a lover of shoes, boots, hats and bags, I thought it was definitely time I took her to see ‘A Sweet Life’ at Sudley House. This exhibition finishes on Sunday 7 March so if you haven’t been along to see these amazing dresses, coats and accessories owned by Emily Tinne, then you’d better hurry!

My Grandma is only one year older than Emily Tinne’s daughter Alexine and Emily was married to a doctor, as was my Grandma. So there were many aspects of the exhibition that she could relate to in the family photos and stories about family life.

I discovered that my Grandma’s aunty was an apprentice ‘tailoress’ at Cripps’, one of the shops featured in the exhibition. This was one of the places Liverpool that Emily Tinne used to buy her clothes from. She remembered Madame Val Smith's hat shop and also told me how Bold Street really was “the place to be” when she used to go there.

Although there is a lot of debate about the ethics of using fur today, it was abundant in the fashions of the 1920’s and 1930’s. The fur coats on display in ‘A Sweet Life’ are certainly very dramatic! They made my Grandma remember her white rabbit fur coat, which she still has at home. It was given to her when she was a child in the 1920’s for a special occasion – a party at a doctor’s house.

Not only did we have a great afternoon, but I also found out a little bit more about some of my family history! If you have a Grandma, why not take her along? I bet she’ll have a great time.

This week we're looking at a recent aquisition to the World Museum for our 150th anniversary blog series. Here is our Head of Ethnology and Curator of Asia Collections, Emma Martin, to tell us more...

A beautiful example of Tibetan art.

One of World Museum's first purchases during it's 150th anniversary is quite an unusual one. World Museum has for many years had a fantastic collection from Tibet, which you can see in the Asia section of the World Cultures gallery.

Most of the objects are 100-200 years old, but in the past month National Museums Liverpool has received funding from Friends of National Museums Liverpool and The Art Fund to buy a group of contemporary Tibetan artworks. This group of 12 artworks is the first to be collected by a museum in the UK and is an interesting new area of collecting for Liverpool.

It's a really exciting development as we are recognised across the world as having one of the great collections of Tibetan art. Displaying this artwork will give visitors a chance to see a completely different kind of Tibetan art that deals with global issues of cultural identity and the changing society. 
 
The piece you can see here is by a woman artist called Dedron who lives and works in Lhasa. Using traditional paint pigments, she has created a beautiful painting of a injured antelope. Although the antelope is being watch by the vulture and the whole scene looks pretty ominous, Dedron sees it as a sign of rebirth and the beginning of new life and new ideas. As you can see this powerful painting is surrounded by a carved frame in the shape of the Buddha's head, a sign that the Buddha continues to surround and protect the Tibetan landscape.
 
We hope to have the group of artworks on display in World Museum in a couple of months time, so come along and have a closer look at this beautiful and unique collection.

The winner of February's caption competition is Dorothy Bowkett for her caption:

"Alfred Nobel's first tiff with his wife was when he blew up the dining-room walls."

'Our first tiff' by Robert Walker Macbeth

Very clever - it is obvious that Dorothy had been thinking carefully about the painting!

Congratulations and thanks to everyone else for their entries. You can read all the captions submitted in the original post.

You may remember that last year the Australian government apologised for its role in Britain's child migration programme. Today the UK government has also made an official apology to former child migrants from Britain. You can watch a video of Prime Minister Gordon Brown making the apology on the BBC News website.

More than 100,000 British children from poor and disadvantaged backgrounds were sent to live in Canada, Australia and other Commonwealth countries from the late 19th century onwards. Some were orphans but many were separated from their families and sent halfway across the world. It was believed that they would have a better life working in the clean expanses of the British Empire, where they were a source of much-needed labour.  

While some did find happiness with new families, for others it was a disastrous move. They were made to work long hard hours on farms. Some were abused. Many ended up in institutions. Some were told their parents had died, only to discover years later that this wasn't the case. The repercussions are still being felt. Many former child migrants and their families are still coming to terms with their dislocation. Their lives were obviously shattered by their experiences.

The largely unknown story of Britain's child migrants will finally be told in a new exhibition 'On their own: Britain's child migrants' currently being prepared by National Museums Liverpool and the Australian National Maritime Museum. Opening in Sydney in November 2010, the exhibition comes to Merseyside Maritime Museum in summer 2011 before being toured to other museums around the country. It will focus primarily on the 1860s to 1960s and the children who travelled to Canada and Australia. Along with Glasgow, London and Southampton, Liverpool was one of the main embarkation ports for children so it's fitting that the exhibition's UK tour will open here.

We'll be launching the exhibition website later this year and will be looking for the reminiscences of people affected by the programme. If you were involved we'd be keen to hear from you.

Rachel Mulhearn, the director of Merseyside Maritime Museum, said;

"The exhibition 'On their own: Britain's child migrants' will present a really important history about child welfare, emigration and Britain's empire-building. While this history is well known in Canada and Australia, within the UK it isn't. This touring exhibition aims to correct this through telling the personal stories of those involved."

Our press office volunteer, Gabriella Day has written another fantastic blog for us, this time about The Liverpool Map!

The creation of the iconic two metre high glass map of Liverpool is well and truly on its way. And to mark the construction of this unique and inspirational piece of art, set to be on show in the Museum of Liverpool in Spring 2011, there is a ‘work-in-progress’ display currently being shown in the Daily Post and Echo building on Old Hall Street until this Friday, 26 February.

You can visit the Liverpool Map display at the Daily Post building on Old Hall Street until this Friday, 26 February 2010.

But don’t be fooled by the use of the term map, because this is soooo much more!  Not only does it outline the literal geographic boundaries of Liverpool, this ingenious depiction also looks at Liverpool’s historical and cultural development and the impact the city has had on the world.  Better still, the decision regarding what should be included has been made by the people of Liverpool, more precisely the ardent readers of the Liverpool Daily Post.

The beauty of this work does not finish there, there is yet another exciting twist (in my humble opinion anyway); the technique that is being used to create it. The various aspects of Liverpool’s life have been mapped out on separate sheets of glass, that are then artfully fused together to create six, two metre high panels.  This means that as the light hits the glass at different angels throughout the day, visitors can explore the work from varying positions, revealing different aspects of Liverpool’s history. Its future position in front of the 80ft window in the People’s City gallery of the new Museum of Liverpool makes it all the more fitting. 

Sample sections of the glass panels are currently featured at the Daily Post, along with a sneak preview of what the finished article will look like.  There is also a description of the creative process and prints of the photographs set to be used in the final sculpture.  And as a cheeky added extra there is also an interesting rolling slideshow of pictures of the famous faces and places to be contained in the Liverpool map played alongside the 800 line ‘Liverpool saga’ poem, created by the talented people of Merseyside, to celebrate Liverpool’s 800th birthday.

For further information on the Liverpool Map progress display please visit the special blog on the Daily Post's website.

Copyright Stephen King

Even without its famous cheeky statue, the store has dominated Renshaw Street as long as anyone can remember, as this photograph from the Stewart Bale collection shows. Several generations of local people have shopped and worked there.

The news of the closure adds extra poignancy to the stories told in the next exhibition to open at the National Conservation Centre, Lewis's fifth floor: a department story. The exhibition features recent pictures by local photographer Stephen King of the faded glamour of a whole floor of Lewis's which has not been open to the public since the 1980s.

The photographs show the original features and decor of the hair salon, cafeteria and restaurants which were the epitome of style in the 1950s. There is also a series of portraits of current and ex-employees, with their reminiscences of life at Lewis's during that era.

Also included in the exhibition is an artist documentary filmed and produced by Jacqueline Passmore. The film examines the impact of Lewis's heyday through interviews with staff from the fifth floor.

The exhibition opens to the public on Friday and runs until 30 August 2010, ultimately outliving the department store that inspired it.

'Ariadne' by Samuel Walters. Image courtesy of the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo.

To me, a marine painting has to combine at least three key elements for success – skilful portrayal of the ship, a fine setting and great atmosphere.

The sea must be realistic- whether rough, choppy or calm - and the wind or breeze should almost come out of the canvas. I think this depiction of the Ariadne fits all these criteria – but most of all in its setting, the Menai Straits.

This is where I spent many childhood holidays near Beaumaris, a charming historic place I return to regularly.

Schooners are the elegant ladies of the sea, said to have first been built by the Dutch around 1600, and reaching their zenith in the late 19th century when they were most popular in the United States.

Legend says that the first ship to be called a schooner was launched in Massachusetts in 1713. A spectator declared: “How she scoons!” – scoon is a Scots word meaning to skim over water and the name stuck.

Yachting enthusiasts adopted schooner designs and this painting is a prime example, on display in Merseyside Maritime Museum.

The schooner yacht Ariadne (pictured) was painted by top marine artist Samuel Walters (1811 – 1882). She is shown in the eastern end of the Straits with the Nanfrancon Pass and Bangor in the background.

Ariadne flies the blue ensign of the Royal Mersey Yacht Club, one of the oldest yacht clubs in the country founded in 1844.

She was built in 1861 by Harveys of Wivenhoe, Essex – a leading builder of the time. Ariadne was sold to George Petty, a wealthy Preston banker with Liverpool connections, in 1865 and was used in races in the Irish Sea, the Clyde and Cowes, Isle of Wight.

This fine painting shows the beautiful yacht with two masts under full sail with crew members and smartly-dressed gentlemen on the decks with breath-taking scenery behind.

Schooners were operated in the USA more than anywhere else with two-masters being the most common. They carried cargoes in many different stretches of water from oceans to inland waters such as the Great Lakes.

They were most popular in work that required speed and manoeuvrability – privateering, slaving, blockade-running and offshore fishing. Another role was as pilot boats in US ports and northern Europe.

A schooner does not have a set number of masts – they have between two and six. The only seven-masted schooner was the Thomas W Lawson built in 1902.  

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 p&p UK).

For this week's look back into the past 150 years of the World Museum, we're going back to 1959 with Gina Muskett, our Curator of Classical and European collections...

1959 was a very important year for Liverpool Museum, as it was then known. It received a very generous gift – almost 400 classical sculptures from Ince Blundell Hall, north of Liverpool. They were collected in the late 18th century and early part of the 19th century by Henry Blundell, a wealthy farmer and landowner. Even a large house like Ince Blundell hall didn’t have room for his collection, so two new buildings were erected to display the sculptures - the ‘Garden Temple’ and later the ‘Pantheon’. It’s amazing that the group of sculptures survived more or less complete, without being sold or split up.

You can see sculptures from the Ince Blundell collection in two main areas of World Museum - the new case in the atrium, and the Ancient World gallery on the third floor.

Zeus, king of the gods

Regular readers of the blog will already know that I’m very excited about seeing the ‘Ince Athena’ on display in the atrium. She has been joined by another Ince statue, the head and shoulders of Zeus, the king of the gods, shown with the ram horns of the Egyptian god Amun (‘Ammon’ in Greek). Doesn’t he look impressive? The other statue in the case, Narkissos, also arrived in the museum in the 1950s, but is from a different collection.

I hope that you find time during your visit to go to the Ancient World gallery on the third floor. There are four sculptures from the Ince Blundell collection in the new Ancient Greece section. You can’t miss three of them – very large statues of Zeus, Apollo (the god of music and the arts), and the hero Theseus – but see if you can spot the fourth! Here’s a clue – it’s Zeus again, this time on a sculpted panel.

The Ancient Rome section of the gallery has even more sculptures of various types, mostly from the Ince collection. My favourites are the head and shoulders sculptures of women – I love looking at their hairstyles, trying to imagine how much time it would have taken to do such complicated styles. Come to the gallery and see what you think!

Our volunteer Gabriella Day visited the Walker Art Gallery and wrote a blog the John Moores art prize:

 Previous John Moores winner Peter Doig and his piece Blotter

I would like to start with a disclaimer, I am new to this blogging malarkey, shocking I know given the social media crazed times in which we now live. 

However, this is an exciting opportunity given my current topic, the John Moores Prize!  I am relatively new to the glorious city of Liverpool and I must confess not particularly well versed on the John Moores Prize either. Despite these downfalls, I hope that my fresh, and relatively un-jaded outlook will bring a new perspective….well, we’ll soon find out.

I do love a good gallery and the Walker definitely falls into that category for me, especially the John Moores past prize winners exhibition.  I am a lover of more modern art, although a nice bit of Pre-Raphaelite eye candy doesn’t go a miss.

With regards to the triumphant winners of the John Moores prize I certainly have my favourites, most notably ‘Blotter’ by Peter Doig the 1993 winner and Slump/fear (orange/black) by Alexis Harding, the winner in 2004.  I am eager for September to arrive (without idly wishing my life away of course) to find out whether the newest arrival will become my latest favourite.

There is now less than a week left  for budding young talent and trusty old faithfuls to get their submissions in, and lets face it guys you’ve got to be in it to win it! The judging is completely anonymous (a fact I shamefully only found out the other day), so what have you got to lose.

For further information on how to submit work for the John Moores Contemporary Painting Prize 2010 please visit:

http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/johnmoores/