National Museums Liverpool Blog - Monday, August 15, 2011

Which country do you think is the most stylish? France? Italy? Japan? We reckon that Spain should be giving the rest of the world some pointers after seeing this fashionable crew of students who recently came to visit our Finishing Touch exhibition!

The group visits Liverpool and the surrounding area every year and they decided to really get in the spirit of the exhibition by trying on the hats that are in the exhibition's resource area. We think they look fab!

They were staying in the region for a month as part of an English language program and cultural experience and told our Curator of Decorative Arts, Alyson Pollard, that they thoroughly enjoyed their visit and are looking forward to coming back again soon.

This silver porringer was presented to Percy R Agnew for services rendered as a special constable at the Liverpool branch of the Bank of England, Castle Street during the 1911 Liverpool General Transport Strike.

Despite the massive police presence in the city, they were under such pressure that many men acted as special constables, 40 of whom were from the Bank’s Liverpool branch. Due to the mass rallies of Liverpool people who came out in support of the strike, reinforcements had to be sent from other parts of the country.

After the riots, these 40 special constables were presented with these bowls (and 3 porters received match boxes).

Percy was son of Frederick Agnew, who was a Bank of England Agent and also founder of the Liverpool Society of the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

You can see the porringer on display in 'Voice of the workforce', in The People’s Republic gallery at the Museum of Liverpool, where we explore 200 years of protest and the continuing fight for workers’ rights and social justice.

The 1911 riots are also explored in the Art in Revolution exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery, which runs until 25 September 2011.

A Centennial Commemoration 'Liverpool's Bloody Tuesday' organised by the North West TUC will take place on Monday 15 August. For more details see the North West TUC website.

A lycra-clad cyclist came into the Maritime Archives & Library last week wanting to know where someone arriving in Liverpool from New York in 1885 would have landed.  We pointed him in the direction of the Princes Landing Stage and the Pier Head. The reason for his interest was that he was about to start cycling around the world, attempting to follow the route of Thomas Stevens' 1884-1887 journey that made him the first man to cycle around the world. 

According to my quick internet research Stevens arrived in Liverpool on the Inman Line's City of Chicago, which is the ship in this photograph.  We wish his intrepid follower well, you can follow his attempt on his blog at anordinarypursuit.blogspot.com.

Ah flares. Make mine high-waisted in a dark blue denim please, with sailor-style buttons! (I still can't quite say goodbye to my skinny jeans though.) Our upcoming exhibition at the Walker, 'Feather cuts and flares', will also be embracing 70s fashion by showing costume including bohemian pieces and shimmering glam rock platforms.

The clothes are ready to go on show but Dave Moffat, our Assistant Curator of Decorative Art, is on the look out for images to be used in the exhibition.

He’s looking for images showing fashion in a classic 1970s style - flares, massive collars, tank-tops in brown and orange, platforms and also some of the more subtle trends like the Laura Ashley 'country look' and the bohemian look.

They need to be; clear shots (not someone standing in the distance please!) your own personal photographs and copyright free.

If you are interested in getting involved, please scan and email your pictures to:  david.moffat@liverpoolmuseums.org.uk

An explosion of fun, colour and music hits Liverpool for the Pride festival tomorrow. Quite fittingly, a vibrant piece of the city's history is now on display in The People's Republic gallery at the Museum of Liverpool, overlooking the Pride Festival's Summer of Love events at the Pier Head.

This Rainbow Flag represents a very important first in Liverpool. It was flown above Liverpool Town Hall for the first time for the International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO) on 17 May 2009. IDAHO marks the day in 1990 when the World Health Organisation took homosexuality off its list of mental illnesses. The flag is just one of the many objects that curators seek out to ensure contemporary issues and events in the city are represented for the future. You can see more photos of the flag on Flickr.

With so much happening at the Pride Festival on Saturday, the following day has been declared Chillout Sunday, to give you all a chance to recover. Sudley House is serving brunch and has a Chillout Sunday tour of the Costume Drama exhibition at 3pm - perfect for all you partied out divas.

Or why not pop into the Merseyside Maritime Museum to find out about gay life on the ocean wave in the Hello Sailor! display.

At this time of year, I am always envious of my colleagues working in schools because of the long summer holidays they enjoy. However, in reality I realise that throughout the year teachers invest a lot of additional time planning lessons and working out creative ways to help children enjoy learning.

At the Walker Art Gallery this month we have an exhibition of work by 16 schools. It is well worth a look if you are a teacher looking for new ideas to use in the classroom, or if you are curious to see artworks from the next generation of ‘Picassos’ and ‘Monets’.  

Each class has taken inspiration from a pre-determined picture in the Walker’s collection. The 'Take One Picture' scheme is part of an annual collaboration with Edge Hill University and the National Gallery, London. Through a placement at the gallery, teachers develop the skills to use a painting as a basis for a cross- curricular project. Later in the year, they return to the gallery with their class and do follow-up activities at school. We run an evening event where the teachers can share their learning and the work their classes have produced. Finally, a showcase of the work produced by the children goes on display in the gallery, for everyone to enjoy. This is a great opportunity for both the children and the trainee teachers – not many people get a chance to have work on display in a national gallery!

The amazing thing about the work that the children produce is just how different each classes approach can be. From a shared starting point, like this year’s choice of 'Springtime in Eskdale' by James McIntosh Patrick and Waterhouse's Echo & Narcissus, you get incredible variety of subject areas covered. Some use the art work to inspire creative writing, poetry or music while others focus on science and geography. A child being taught by a trainee teacher on this years’ scheme actually visited Eskdalemuir in Scotland to bring back photos for her class to use in the display, such was her enthusiasm!

If you are a teacher and would like to find out more about our galleries and museums, or how you can use our collections as a springboard for creative learning, please call us on 0151 478 4788. You can also visit the Education pages of the website, where you can browse a database of free learning sessions and resources.

'Take One Picture' is on display at the Walker Art Gallery from 3 August until 22 September.

There’s nothing better than snuggling down to watch a film. Normally I do it on a rainy Sunday, with just a cup of tea and a bar of chocolate for company. However I am excited to hear that this Friday 5 August from 1 – 3.30pm Sense and Sensibility starring Emma Thompson will be screened at Sudley House.

Sense and Sensibility was Jane Austen’s first novel and was published 200 years ago this year. The screening of the 1995 adaptation, directed by Ang Lee, will celebrate this anniversary but also the current exhibition at Sudley House, Costume Drama: Fashion from 1790 – 1850.

The exhibition displays examples of fashionable dress from Jane Austen’s era. What better way to watch a screen adaptation of a Jane Austen novel than to be in the company of dresses from her time!

There will be screenings of the film for the duration of the exhibition, so if you can't come on Friday it will screened on, Sunday 13 November 2011 and Friday 2 March 2012 from 1- 3.30pm.

There will also be screenings with subtitles on Sunday 25 September 2011, Friday 13 January 2012 and Friday 20 April 2012 from 1-3.30pm.

Hello

Well there have been plenty of things happening here at the museum since my last blog post. We have launched three very successful and eclectic exhibitions: Living Apart: photographs of apartheid by Ian Berry; '42' Women of Sierra Leone, a series of photographs of Sierra Leonean women, highlighting the alarming fact that life expectancy for them is only 42 and Toxteth 1981, a community exhibition developed in collaboration with the Merseyside Black History Month Group to mark the 30th anniversary in July 2011 of the 1981 riots in Toxteth, Liverpool. The latter involved members of the Liverpool Black community who lived in Toxteth during the disturbances loaning photographic material for the exhibition. The images gave them a voice which I believe is very important if museums are to be truly seen as a resource by the local community in particular.

The power of images was further highlighted on a recent trip to London where I visited one of the most disturbing and thought provoking exhibitions I had seen in quite a while called Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America at Rivington Place gallery. The room itself was small with whitewashed walls and I was the only person in there for nearly an hour. It was quiet, solemn, disturbing and it made me angry. Angry that such horrific acts of violence were made into macabre souvenir postcards, which showed people laughing and smiling at the horrific suffering of the victims. Tragically children as young as 4 were taken along to witness such barbarous acts.  

I was familiar with several of the images as we have them on display in the racism and discrimination section of our Legacy gallery. That said, we do not have the postcards, and in some ways seeing them in their original form made it even more chilling. Even after five years at the International Slavery Museum I am not desensitized from the human suffering which is on display. I believe to do so would be to lose part of one’s own humanity.

James Allen - the collector and custodian of the objects - noted:

"I believe the photographer was more than a perceptive spectator at lynchings. The photographic act played as significant a role in the ritual as torture or souvenir grabbing... Even dead, the victims were without sanctuary."

Finally, we have now completed our new ramp leading to the Dock Traffic Office.  By early next year we hope to have a public offer of some kind which will allow people to see what a fantastic building it is and get an idea our plans for the state-of-the-art education and research centre we will be developing in the space. Watch out for further announcements.

Bye for now.

This beautiful silk kimono is featured in our 'Art in Revolution: Liverpool 1911' exhibition, because one of the paintings on show depicts a lady called Dorothy Reilly wearing it. Dorothy Reilly was the wife of Charles Reilly, who held the Roscoe Chair of Architecture at Liverpool's University from 1904. Albert Lipczinski completed the painting during 1911-1913 so we can assume that the kimono is also from around the same time.

You can’t quite appreciate how amazing the detail is on it from these images but the glory is in the embroidery along the back, which includes birds, trees and even a turtle!

Even today there is a trend among high fashion labels such as Issa for kimono-style pieces, as well as on the high street. Nicole Richie also has many long kimono tops and dresses in her celeb-friendly 'Winter Kate' collection.
 
So we know that this style of clothing was popular as 'leisure wear' in Britain around the beginning of the 20th century. But why? Our Curator of British Art, Laura McCulloch told me; 

‘Japan opened up to the West in 1854 after 200 years of self imposed isolation from the rest of the world. As a result, Japanese items including prints, sculptures, lacquer ware and kimonos flooded onto the market in Europe, mainly through shops such as Liberty's in London. As now, the craze for Japanese things was in full swing by the early 1900s.

Also, the kimono has long sleeves which means that it was made to be worn by an unmarried woman as married women would wear clothes with shorter sleeves.’

We know that the kimono was passed down within the Reilly family and was occasionally worn by other women in the family. I often get beautiful hand-me-downs from my Gran, such as this lovely beaded evening bag, so I can definitely relate to this! It’s such a treat to receive a beautiful and timeless piece of clothing or accessory from another generation that you can treasure.

The nation's Mums have spoken - World Museum is officially one of their favourite free places to take their little ones! The museum was nominated on the popular Netmums website and Mums have been voting on which places they liked best from the nominations.

We were delighted to receive a special certificate with a lovely gold star for our 'Netmums favourite 2011' award, which acknowledges what a great place the museum is for families to visit.