Wednesday 29 September 2010

Arthur Dooley-Remember Him and Save His Studio.

The highlight of 2008, in Liverpool as European Capital of Culture, for me was not a pseudo Klimt expo or a giant spider, but an exhibition staged in the Liverpool Academy. This did not advertise Vienna; it bowed its head with a retrospective of one of Liverpool’s characters, by people who knew him. Someone who dripped passion, a self taught man, who proclaimed himself as an Irish Liverpudlian and was proud of his tough working class background. He made the sculpture Four Lads Who Shook The World in Mathew Street. He was, Arthur Dooley, and how I admire him.
I had sold several pieces of his work and I thought some of it was bad. But one was an amazing bronze Bull on a marble base AD75, that I never was able to part with. Sometimes it’s not about money. This was a journey into the thinking mans mind. An antagonist who took on the establishment and proved he was cleverer than them. For which he was revered, and shunned.
Born in Liverpool in 1929, Dooley worked as a welder on the Ark Royal.
He was working, tirelessly, around Liverpool, right up until his death in 1994. He was a boxer and once came to blows in the Everyman with Arthur Ballard an art teacher who had taught Stewart Sutcliffe.
He created numerous religious figures in polished bronze using unorthodox techniques and unusual interpretations. The Black Christ on Princes Avenue being one, that went down like a lead balloon.
He buttonholed Hesseltine after the Toxteth Riots and pleaded with him “Don’t let them knock down the Albert Dock”.
His first sculpture was made in an army prison in Egypt where he served a sentence for going AWOL. Conflicting reports, one saying he tried to join the PLO.
Upon his unceremonious return from the army, he joined a drawing class at the Whitechapel gallery in London.
He was then employed as a janitor. His job included clearing up after the sculptors and setting up materials, then he began to make his own work...using scraps of metal left over.
His lead cast piece of a crucified Jesus received a good response around the college. From these humble beginnings, in 1962 he exhibited at St Martins Gallery, a stones throw from the college where he had worked. Cast a bronze bull for London weekend’s south bank building. He met the great art critic Greenberg and made several appearances on the "Tonight" programme. I saw an interview he made with Bill Shankly. He dubbed the new Cathedral Paddy’s Wigwam. He was featured on This is Your Life.
When Henry Moore, overworked turned down the Stations of the Cross at the Benedictine Community of Ampleforth Monastery Dooley took up the commission.
Later he would say the shipyard was really my art school.

Deeply concerned about social problems of his day. He was a member of the communist party. He was always an outspoken and immensely religious letting the materials he worked with speak. His workshop in Seel Street is intact. It needs preserving.

Arthur Called this sculpture THE TOWN PLANNER and I have to say it has a resemblence to the current planning officer the Riechmarshal Nigel Lee, who has done more damage than the Luftwaffe.


This is his studio almost intact at 34-36 Seel Street he was a active member of the Liverpool Academy. He campaigned to have the right for Liverpool artists to show their wares outside the Bluecoat. He is slowly being recognised as an important man active in town planning not afraid to have his say.
Remember Him.

Friday 9 October 2009

Maritime Dining Rooms-A Disaster for Liverpools Culture.

I now have the biggest public display of Liverpool pottery in the city.My window contains more examples of our treasured and historic links with our historic 18th and 19th century potteries than the Liverpool Museums with nine pieces of Herculaneum pottery (1794-1840).http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herculaneum_PotteryPainstakingly researched for decades by members of the Northern Ceramics Society and other interested individuals. http://www.northernceramicsociety.org/This has caused outrage amongst cultured people who understand how the threads of Maritime past need to be kept alive and on view so the next generation can understand them.What an outrageous act of cultural barbarism by Liverpool's Museum Marauder, Dr David “Fuzzy Felt” Fleming to put our history into permanent storage, and we all know what that means, shoved away out of public view until we forget about it. Museums are supposed to uncover things not bury them again.http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.com/2009/06/herculaneum-pottery-held-by-liverpool.html And its all done with the Daily Museum the Oldham Echo as PR working for the museums smoothing it all away from the public.Last nights paper contains a full page on how wonderful it is to eat there. In the space that used to hold artifacts, treasured possessions, our past.What Dawn Collinson failed to mention is that in order to facilitate the cafe the collection of our Maritime History have been stuffed away.Despite years of painstaking research by the North West Ceramics Society and previous directors and curators with one swipe our past is consigned to be hidden away in boxes.Not a mention of that in the revue only how wonderful it all was.I advised David Bartlett and Mark Thomas, Alastair Machray at the Trinity "Smoking" Mirrors Group, and all I can about this Maritime Disaster as it unfolded.Are they worried, no, not in the slightest. All they are interested in doing is reporting on another restaurant being opened. Do they understand post Capital of Culture, no, not really. No wonder we are in such a bad state with our heritage being looked after by morons who cant understand anything other than the level of what is told them by people who don't care.


Wednesday 12 August 2009

Minton Floor goes on show at St Georges Hall



ONE of Liverpool’s hidden treasures is on display to the public for the next two weeks after the huge success of a previous viewing.
The Minton Tile mosaic masterpiece, at St George’s Hall, is normally hidden beneath wooden flooring.
But yesterday the covering was temporarily removed to allow the Great Hall’s ornate tiles to be revealed in all their glory.
It is the second time this year the floor tiles have gone on public display, after the success of a previous viewing in February. They are usually only revealed once a year.
The floor consists of 30,000 hand crafted tiles, many depicting the world famous Liver Bird along with Neptune, sea nymphs, dolphins and tridents. More than 15,000 people visited the hall when they were unveiled earlier this year. Cllr Tina Gould, who has special responsibility for the Hall and was recently appointed as a trustee, said: “When we last unveiled the floor, the response was huge.
“It makes sense to open it up to the public once again and give anyone who missed it another chance to see this amazing display of craftsmanship. The Hall and its Minton tiles really are one of Britain’s finest Victorian wonders.”
The tiles were first revealed in April 2007 after the completion of a 10-year, £23m restoration of the Grade I-listed Hall.
More than 167,000 people visited St George’s Hall last year, making it one of the city’s top six heritage attractions.The ornate floor was first laid in 1852, at a cost of £3,000. It was designed by Alfred Stevens, the 34-year-old son of a Blandford house decorator.
The mosaic was originally covered in the 1860s to provide a more hardwearing surface for dancing.
The tiles will be on display until August 23, and can be viewed from 11am with the last admission at 4.30pm every day.
There is an admission charge of £1 for adults, with free entry for children. At 2pm each day, there will be a talk on the history of St George’s Hall by experts in the Reid Room, admission by donation.
There are also evening tours available, with admission limited to 25 people. The tours take place every day from 5pm (except Sunday) and cost £5 per head. To book an evening tour call (0151) 225 6909.
Entrance to the venue is from the Heritage Centre on St John’s Lane.

Monday 10 August 2009

A Sign of the Times

Largest antiques wholesaler in the US closes

July saw the final sale to liquidate the enormous inventory that constituted Merritt’s Antiques.
The Douglassville business had been in operation since 1938 and was an established fixture in the Pennsylvania antiques marketplace and well known to European dealers as the largest antiques wholesaler in the United States.
Marty Merritt, 63, went on his first antiques-buying tour to Europe with his mother Mary in 1963, when he was 17. At the peak of trading he would visit the docks in Philadelphia several times a week to pick up containers and recalls passing through Checkpoint Charlie on early buying trips to East Germany.
The sagging economy, the age of the owners and the decline of antiques wholesaling led to the decision to liquidate a massive stock at auction. The Merritt Clock Shop, the largest clock parts business in the US, remains open.

Sotheby’s revenues halved

Second quarter results for Sotheby’s in 2009 show operating revenues down almost half to $167.3m on the first three months of the year thanks largely to the decline in auction totals.
Increased commission rates have helped soften the blow, as has a reduction in losses brought about by guarantees and a 30 per cent fall-off in costs. The result is a net profit of $12.2m, compared to $95.3m for the first quarter.
Looking at the whole of the first six months of 2009, operating revenues fell by just over a half on the second half of 2008 to $221.7m. Meanwhile, the $82.9m profit for the last six months of last year turned into a $22.3m loss from January to June 2009.
Sellers also appear to have adjusted to losing the cushion of guarantees and to curbing their expectations when it comes to reserves and sale prices.
It is hard to tell when the market will pick up again.

Monday 3 August 2009

St Georges Hall Antique Fair is not Fair with the Trade.


It would be nice to promote a local antique fair in such a monumental building as St Georges Hall in Liverpool. I had been there on the opening event in 2008 declaring on the local radio how good it was for Liverpool in the overhyped European Capital of Culture year. The event spilled over into the wings of the main hall. Not any more.
It looks like the fair is on its slippery slope to oblivion or so the word on the stalls say. The stallholders have been told the organisers are getting messed around by the city council. Hmmm.
It looks likely to me that this antique fair now has a limited lifespan.
Why do the organisers of antique fairs not understand that the long established custom of assisting the trade with free entrance (with a card)in to a fair is something that loses them money. It helps generate trade for the stallholders early in the morning making it easy for them to re-book.
£2.50 for the trade entrance what is the point? Several trade that I know, who spend, walked away from the overzealous organisers of this, what is now a poor excuse for a antique fair, rather than pay. We dont like being held to ransom by the trade I was told by the organiser. Bye Bye.

Friday 31 July 2009

Collector’s family seeks home for Barnsley designs
13 July 2009
Antiques Trade Gazzette

The 40-piece collection, which covers more than 50 years of Edward Barnsley’s working life and designs, was originally created by a London architect and has been further expanded by his son.
The majority of the pieces were made or designed by Barnsley between the 1930s and the 1960s, with a few pieces designed or made by Peter Waals’ workshop in the 1930s.
The family are now seeking a new home for the collection on permanent loan.
“It is an unusual situation,” said Mr Weller. “The owner is very keen that the collection finds a home where people can appreciate the craftsmanship and supreme skill of those men who produced such wonderful furniture. It is a genuine opportunity for someone who may wish to open their house to the public to have on loan an exceptional collection of Arts and Crafts furniture.”
The collection includes the last pieces to be designed by Edward Barnsley himself before he died in 1987 aged 87: a desk and filing cabinet, together with a matching coffee table.
In 60 years, Barnsley’s workshop made approximately 7000 pieces of furniture, of which at least 1500 were individual designs. He received the CBE in 1945 for his contribution to quality of design and craftsmanship.
The Edward Barnsley Educational Trust was set up in 1980 and the Edward Barnsley Workshop at Froxfield flourishes under James Ryan today.
Contact: 01403 713587.

Tuesday 30 June 2009

Herculaneum Pottery held by Liverpool Museums to be put in Permenant Storage


Monday, 29 June 2009

David Fleming Srikes Again, will someone put him out of our misery.
MARITIME DISASTER.
This is no storm in a teacup. It is another peice of our culture at stake.
3000 members of The Northern Ceramics Society are up in arms at the proposals to put the collection of Liverpool Pottery, currently, in the Maritime Museum at the Albert Dock in permanent storage.
Yes ....permanent storage we all know what that means. Worse still it is to make way for…. a café, yes a café, this is another misguided attempt to rob us Liverpudlian's of our heritage and blame us for the slave trade by the Fuzzy Felt knob at NML Dr David Fleming.
http://www.northernceramicsociety.org/few people have said that I have been a bit hard on David "Fuzzy Felt" Fleming to which I am of the opinion that I have not been hard enough, he is a walking disaster a nightmare a public relations car crash. I forgot more about Liverepools Culture last week than he will ever know.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/search/label/David%20Fleming This man is single-handedly destroying my culture and turning Liverpool museums into something that resembles the "Wacky Warehouse" where kids run around all over the place with ice cream, screaming and shouting. The sort of place you don’t want to go to anymore. Sudley used to be great he ruined that. It is now called Sadly Art Gallery locally.I attended an excellent study day a decade ago about Liverpool pottery and this was linked in to the permanent exhibition in the Walker, which was the history of Liverpool Pottery.This was then moved out of the Walker and watered down to all those pots with ships on, and was sent to the Maritime Museum, that was bad enough but now to ditch this, is a absolute outrageous act of uneducated nonsense by someone who it has been said should not be running my museums because he is a dimwit. Yes a dimwit without education in the finer things in life, this little tin pot dictator understands is bums on seats.Cant someone put him out of our misery he is a carpet-bagging networker, a disaster wanting to make us all pay for the slave trade when it was nothing to do with me.The NCS were instrumental in bringing to the fore our heritage. Volunteers who have a passion for what they do, educated collectors, whose advise has been sought in building up the collections.Painstaking attention to detail, out on digs in all weathers, in their own time finding the original sites where kilns were, showing us our own heritage, our Georgian heritage, working with the museums under the previous director. And now the tin-pot Fleming does them in with a stroke of his pen, just like he did with the Friends of Liverpool Museums. How can you do this how can a stupid act of getting rid of something as important as our local pottery be replaced by chairs for a café. He hasn’t got a clue.The public bequeathed this whole collection and the public servants need to understand that they work for us not for themselves.“We can’t trust this guy” one elderly gentleman said talking about Fleming.A client of mine, a avid Liverpool collector said to me “He is a b*st*rd” such is the depth of ill feeling towards him.
Someone need to carry the coffe can for this, there is already five times the amount of Liverpool Pottery in storage as is on display at present.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herculaneum_Pottery Huge collections are on display in some of the top American museums and we wont have any.Along with Herculaneum whose factory was at Herculaneum Dock there was Gilbody, Pennington, Richard Chaffers and Co, Philip Christian and more. I want to know about this stuff it’s my history…. this nutter running my museums has to go he is a disaster.