National Museums Liverpool Blog - Monday, June 27, 2011

Are you an adult on a part-time art course or a member of a community art group? We are inviting you to put your creative talents to the test and create a piece of artwork inspired by the collections at Sudley House, World Museum and the Lady Lever Art Gallery.

Perhaps you could take inspiration from the internationally renowned Pre-Raphaelite collection at the Lady Lever Art Gallery, or the only art collection of a Victorian merchant in its original domestic setting at Sudley House, or maybe from objects in World Museum’s World Cultures gallery.

A panel of curators, educators and artists will judge. Winning artists and groups will see their work hung in an exhibition at World Museum and receive prizes. The closing date is 1 August 2011, and winners will be announced by the end of September.

For further information, to book a session, or to download your entry form, please go to: www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/inspiredby or contact Kenn Taylor on 0151 478 4977.

Are you a blogger who would love to be one of the first to see inside the Museum of Liverpool? Then we have a great opportunity for you.

We are having a celebratory breakfast preview of the Museum of Liverpool at 8.30-10am on 19 July and we want bloggers to get involved. To apply, simply send us a link to your blog using this contact form and tell us why you think your readers would love to hear about the new Museum of Liverpool. We have 10 pairs of tickets to give away and will pick out the most relevant bloggers.

Your blog could be about music, museums, sports, family life, fashion, cars, shopping – anything and everything with a link to Liverpool and its history. We’re open to ideas.

Don’t worry if you’re not a blogger as there are other ways you can apply for a Golden Ticket. See the Golden Tickets page on the website for all the details.

Good luck everyone!

Since last year, the International Slavery Museum has been encouraging visitors to support Anti-Slavery International's campaign for domestic workers' rights to be recognised. The exhibition Home Alone: end domestic slavery highlights how domestic workers (people who work in, or for, other people’s households) can be vulnerable to exploitation and slavery. Domestic workers around the world lack legal rights to protect them against abuse; a basic right that most of us take for granted.

Last week the campaign had a historic break through. Following increased pressure from Anti-Slavery International and their partners, the International Labour Organisation has agreed to adopt a new Convention for Domestic Work. This new regulation will improve the protection of domestic workers from exploitation. It will recognise their rights as employees.

This is really fantastic news and shows the impact that campaigning for human rights can have. Home Alone: end domestic slavery is the first exhibition to be held in the Campaign Zone gallery at the International Slavery Museum and is open until 4 September 2011. The Campaign Zone gallery encourages visitors to take action against modern-day forms of slavery and oppression.

There’s less than a week to go before Art in Revolution: Liverpool 1911 opens on Friday 24 June at the Walker Art Gallery, and behind the scenes people are working tirelessly to get the exhibition ready.

I popped over for a sneak peak and although it isn’t finished it already looks great. Only two weeks ago it was an empty gallery but now it's filling up with beautiful paintings, drawings and even textiles.

By the time it’s open to the public there will be work by van Gogh, Matisse, Gauguin and Signac on display, and I’m sure it will look incredible.

To see how the installation of the exhibition has progressed view our pictures on Flickr.

This week six new paintings have gone on display in Merseyside Maritime Museum's Art and the Sea gallery, highlighting the transformation of Liverpool's waterfront between 1680 and 1957. Curator of maritime history Ian Murphy chose this painting by John Stobart as a highlight of the display, and explains why here:

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This new display gives visitors a chance to see some of the incredible paintings in the collection that show 300 years of the Mersey as the bustling highway for one of the world’s great ports. The changing views of the waterfront give an historic context for this year’s events, as the Liver Building celebrates its centenary and the Museum of Liverpool opens.

‘Aureol in the Mersey’ shows the now familiar buildings of the Pier Head in 1957 as a backdrop to the Elder Dempster company’s largest ship. Aureol was launched on 28 March 1951 and sailed between Liverpool and Nigeria until 1972.

I like this painting as it shows a period of Liverpool’s shipping that many visitors will still remember first hand. The great days of the transatlantic liners were in the past, but Liverpool was still a busy port and we know that many people who come to the museum still remember seeing these ships at the old landing stage.

The other paintings on display are:

• 'Liverpool in 1680', artist unknown. The earliest known painting of Liverpool showing the town in the final days of the Pool, prior to the construction of the first dock. The castle ruins are still prominent as is the original tower of St Nicholas’ church.

• 'Frigate and Sloop in the Mersey', by John Jenkinson. A view of two warships in the Mersey, probably painted around 1812. The dome of St Paul’s church and the spire of St Georges are visible – both now long gone.

• 'Baboo Overset in Canning Graving Dock', artist unknown. The recently built Customs House is prominent in a view of an incident in February 1841, when the Baboo capsized in the Canning Graving Dock opposite what is now the Maritime Museum.

• 'Liverpool from Wallasey Pool about 1851', William JJC Bond. A beautiful panoramic view across the river to the line of domes and spires that made up the Victorian waterfront.

• 'View of Liverpool', John W Carmichael. The baths at George’s Dock and the Albert Dock warehouses are visible in this painting that conveys the bustling dockside activity along the Mersey in 1873.

This week photographic artist Marta Soul captured a couple embracing in the sculpture gallery at the Walker Art Gallery.

The Spanish photographer used two models to stage the photograph for a body of work she is creating for an exhibition in LA at the Kopeikin Gallery.

Soul has staged a series of romantic interludes starring the same woman stealing a kiss with different men in various lush settings – the Walker Art Gallery on this occasion. This series of work is called Idilios which means love affair or romance in Spanish.

It’s not often you see a man in a dinner suit walking around the sculpture gallery but for the purposes of this photo both models had their finery on. Ironically it drew quite a crowd and visitors were taking pictures of the photographer taking her photographs.

Marta Soul said: “All the settings for my collection of recent photographs are based on experiencing vivid emotions, so the sculpture gallery at the Walker Art Gallery is ideal for my work.”

 

A beautiful and striking sculpture of a huge dandelion by Liverpool-born artist Paul Morrison has gone on display at the Walker Art Gallery.

The sculpture Topocline is painted entirely black and is positioned on the first floor of the Walker Art Gallery, as if it has grown out from beneath the wooden floorboards. Made of aluminium and galvanised steel it stands at nearly 3 metres high (9ft approx) and weighs 500kg (over 78 stone).

The sculpture is typical of the out-of-scale plant forms found in Morrison’s work. He is best known for his monochromatic botanical landscapes that are both familiar and foreign. Familiar because his subjects such as trees and flora are immediately recognisable, and foreign because he can cause a simple dandelion to become threatening due to its size and lack of colour.

Topocline has been gifted by Eric and Jean Cass through the Contemporary Art Society and will be an important addition to the contemporary art collection at the Walker Art Gallery. Curator of British art, Dr. Laura MacCulloch stands next to the towering sculpture

 

I’ve just given a tour of the Ancient Egypt gallery at World Museum for a group of 30 Egyptology enthusiasts from the University of the Third Age. They were impressed with our display of animal mummies but were shocked to hear of a grizzly tale involving cat mummies being scattered over the fields of Liverpool. On 10th February 1890 an estimated 180,000 mummified cats, weighing 19.5 tons, were sold at auction at the docks in Liverpool. Almost all were crushed and spread on fields like manure but a few were saved and remain in World Museum. They were discovered the previous year at Speos Artemidos in Middle Egypt, when a farmer fell through a hole into a catacomb completely filled with cat mummies.

 

As a sign of devotion to the cat goddess Bastet ancient Egyptians would dedicate cat mummies as votives in temples. This became a wide-spread practice during the 1st Millennium BC and by providing cats with decent burials pilgrims were seeking the favour of Bastet through piety. Such was Bastet’s popularity that we now know of over twenty cat cemeteries for her cult in Egypt. Cat donations from these mass burials are now in museum collections but most were destroyed in the 19th century for use as fertilizer in Egypt and places like Liverpool.  

Where has the sun gone?! Everytime I get my sunglasses out, it seems to get colder and start to rain!

Luckily it is Knitting in Public Day on Saturday (11 June), so I'm hoping that some of the World Museum staff taking part might make me something nice and warm! If you'd like to join them for a bit of furious needle action, then pop in from 2.30pm - there's more information in our 'what's on' listings.

It also turns out we have some interesting knitted accessories in our costume collections. The stockings in this photo are made from undyed knitted silk and were made sometime between 1775-1800.

At that time, if men were going to be the height of fashion they had to have good legs, including nicely shaped calves. If you didn't have attractive legs you could have a pair of stockings made, padded with lambswool. These gave even the skinniest legs muscles in all the right places. It was a bit like wearing a padded bra today!

Not many pairs of these sorts of stockings have survived to today. In fact, this is probably the only surviving pair in a British museum, making them pretty special.

Would knitted stockings shrink in the rain? I wouldn't like to find out...

Update 13/06/2011: Have a look at some photos of our Knitting in Public event on Flickr. There are also some photos of Anglo Saxon weaving demonstrations from last week

Next year to mark the 100th anniversary of RMS Titanic’s sinking, Merseyside Maritime Museum will host a special exhibition exploring the ship through the lives of the Liverpool people at the heart of her tragic story. Titanic and Liverpool: the untold story will open in March 2012.

The exhibition will feature a lot of previously unseen material from our archives. Curator of maritime history Ian Murphy would also like to hear from you if you have any local stories about the Titanic to add;

"Liverpool people and businesses helped to shape the fortune and fate of Titanic. Does someone in your family have a Liverpool link to the world’s most famous ocean liner? Merseyside Maritime Museum would like to hear from anyone with more information on some of the local people who played a part in Titanic’s story. Please send us your Titanic story using this contact form."