National Museums Liverpool Blog - Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Our photo competition pool 'Liverpool's Chinatown: Through the lens' has had over 100 photos submitted so far and I'm really excited by the variety and imagination shown in people's photos of the Chinatown area and Chinese culture.

In this first weekly blog highlight from the competition entries I've chosen this view of Nelson Street by Ian Hughes (ihughes22). It's a bustling and eye-catching image, the colours of the flags and the dragon looming powerfully over the massed crowds adding to the sense of drama and excitement of the occasion - especially since the dragon almost looks like he's staring straight out at us!

Chinese New Year 2010 © Ian Hughes

The photographer had to choose a specific vantage point back from the crowd and shoot quickly because of the movement of the dragon, but I think the result is a great composition which really captured the energy of the occasion. The photo is displayed at a smaller size for this blog post - it looks even better in a large size.

To celebrate our photography exhibition China: Through the Lens of John Thomson 1868-72 at the Merseyside Maritime Museum we want you to submit your photos of Liverpool's Chinatown to our Flickr pool - our favourite photo submitted by 24 May will win a banquet for two at Yuet Ben, with two runners-up winning exhibition catalogues. Find out more on the competition page.

For this week's blog to celebrate World Museum's 150th anniversary, Curator of Botany Geraldine Reid is here to tell us how the massive 'Plantastic!' exhibition has been going.

Giant inflatable flower outside World Museum

However, because of the weather the botany team has not been able to sit back and relax! Every morning and night we need to venture out to put on and take off the frost blanket on the living plants outside the museum, which are arranged to spell out: Plantastic. Our dashing about seems to be keeping our early morning visitors suitably entertained. They've been watching as we run up and down with the billowing frost blanket, which takes off in the wind or is sometimes frozen so solid we can’t bend it to pack it away! But it's worth it if we can keep our Plantastic! flower bed safe from the cold weather that we’ve been experiencing.

The giant inflatable flowers are also a resounding success. They really lift your spirits when you spot them growing out of the balconies as you walk across St Johns Gardens. The children really seem to love them.

I've also enjoyed looking down and seeing people interacting with the plants in the atrium as they are milling around. It's so important for people to get up close with plants to see the amazing shapes and forms they exhibit.

The main exhibit itself has been an incredible draw. Poor Colly Flower (our story teller) was losing her voice she had so many excited children visiting her in her shed in half-term week for stories on plants. She was looking a bit like a wilted leek at the end of the week!

The giant colourful interactive displays in Plantastic! are brilliant fun even for grown-ups. I really enjoyed crawling through the tunnel and playing in the musical forest. If you haven't been to see the exhibition yet then come along, it's great for plant lovers of all ages!

Last week, I was lucky enough to attend the opening of our new Lewis’s Fifth Floor exhibition at the National Conservation Centre.

People attending the opening of Lewis's Fifth Floor: A Department Story watch a film about the floor by Jacqueline Passmore

Having received the sad news earlier in the week that Liverpool’s oldest department store would be closing in June for redevelopment, it made the evening even more poignant knowing that one of the city’s icons would soon be gone forever.

Chatting to my mum and auntie the other day about the exhibition, confirmed how fond scousers are of the store and the memories it holds for them. Having worked in the children’s department of Lewis’s, my mum proudly recounted her own stories of the shop and the grandeur of the fifth floor as it once was, remembering the hair salon, Red Rose restaurant, and the fabulous tiled murals that have been out of public view since the early 80s.

Similarly, at the opening of the exhibition, I spoke to a number of people of all ages who had either worked or shopped at Lewis’s, and had many tales to tell; many inspired by the fifth floor which Stephen King’s exhibition focuses on. Sadly, with the closure of Lewis’s, and George Henry Lees having relocated to the big John Lewis in Liverpool One, I’m not sure our nostalgia for department store shopping in Liverpool will ever be the same again.

Tomorrow, Thursday 4 March, there will be a free informal talk taking place at the National Conservation at 12pm, with Arnold Lewis of the Jewish Historical Society. No need to book, just drop in and spend some time recounting your own Lewis’s memories, as Arnold tells you all you need to know about Liverpool’s oldest department store.

You can also upload your own memories online.

Titanic survivor's apron

The Lusitania was torpedoed and sank within minutes, meaning that only the strongest and fittest had a chance of survival.

The sinking of the Titanic on the other hand took 2 hours and 40 minutes. This made a huge difference in the survivor profiles, as in a less panic-stricken evacuation the women and children were given priority in the lifeboats.

The report shows that "women of all ages on the Titanic had a probability of survival 53 per cent higher than for men, compared with an 11 per cent higher chance of dying on the Lusitania".

The incredible story of one of the women to survive the Titanic, Laura Mabel Francatelli, is told in the Titanic, Lusitania and the forgotten Empress gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum, where her apron is on display. Laura was the personal maid and secretary to the famous couturier 'Lucillle', or Lady Lucy Duff Gordon, the wife of wealthy landowner Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon. Her survival supports the theory in the New Scientist article that first class passengers had a definite survival advantage in the sinking of the Titanic.

Web Editor Lisa Jones and actress Vikky Evans Hubbard in front of Augustus John's painting Two Jamaican Girls

We held a press call today for the brilliant Talking Heads section of the website where familiar faces from the Walker Art Gallery’s collection “come to life” and answer viewers’ questions.

Web editor Lisa Jones is pictured here interviewing our resident actress Vikky Evans-Hubbard (Vikky is actually a member of our Education and Communities team) in front of the Augustus John painting Two Jamaican Girls.

One part of my job is to work out how we use photographs to tell a story. So to totally deconstruct my own picture: the equipment Lisa actually uses is smaller and more sophisticated and the setting isn’t normally the gallery, which wouldn’t have the right acoustics. But the reality wouldn’t have made such a good picture for press and we wouldn't have got this sneaky peek of the Lowry next door. Both paintings will eventually be going on display in a newly refubished gallery dedicated to British art from 1880-1950 at the end of this year.

Botanical print of 'Narcissus jonquilla'

You can send Welsh wishes online using our selection of St David's Day e-cards, featuring items from the collections including the famous painting 'Salem' from the Lady Lever Art Gallery and some beautiful botanical prints from the Botany collection at World Museum.

Don't forget that Mother's Day and Easter are not far off now. You can find e-cards for both these occasions and more in the VIP zone on the website.

Captain Thomas Jones. Image courtesy of the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo.

This is an inspiring story when a ship came to the rescue just in time and saved a crew from almost certain death.

As the ship battled through mountainous seas something happened that all seafarers dread – the cargo shifted, threatening to capsize the vessel. The Italian cargo ship Monte Grappa had left Montreal for Venice loaded with grain in November 1922. At first everything went to routine for the crew of the new vessel.

Things turned sour when the southerly gale blew up in the mid-Atlantic sending the ship plunging and lurching. For two days she struggled onward until the shifting boards (portable bulkheads) gave way and the grain moved.

The ship immediately took a heavy list until her rail was under water. It seemed she was about to turn turtle and sink. Frantic efforts were made to right the vessel by filling the ballast tanks and pumping out the boilers – to no effect.

Crew members then worked feverishly to jettison the cargo but water cascaded into the stokeholds until the firemen were working up to their waists. Both port lifeboats were swept away and the starboard boats could not be lowered.

The Monte Grappa’s SOS call was picked up by the White Star liner Pittsburgh commanded by Captain Thomas Jones (pictured) who was 185 miles away. He immediately responded and raced through the storm to the stricken vessel.

A distress rocket flared and the Monte Grappa loomed into sight. Two boats were lowered by the Pittsburgh and fought their way through the churning waves to reach the sinking ship.

While passengers watched from the liner, every member of the Monte Grappa’s crew was brought to safety and their ship left to her fate.

This was just one incident in the long career of Captain Jones, whose cabin has been recreated in Merseyside Maritime Museum. Among the exhibits is a Liverpool Shipwreck and Humane Society medal awarded for his involvement in the Monte Grappa rescue.

Thomas Jones (1869 – 1957), from Cardigan in Wales, became a steamship master at the young age of 24. His distinguished career spanned the age of sail and steam. As well as the Pittsburgh, he captained the White Star liners Haverford and Canada.

Many of his personal items are on display including his dressing gown, chair and concertina – one of his numerous hobbies while on voyages.

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).
 

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.