There are some great venues for 2016 from a Scottish World Heritage Site to a Cornish Garden.
2015 was a very good year with an average of six million people watching the show.
I had a great time as part of the Roadshow team in 2015.
2016 looks like being a very exciting year but we rely on the wonderful people who take the time to bring their treasured possessions along.
Not forgetting the things that may not appear to have any value, that they may have found in a skip or that may have been in the loft for decades.
We are there to help people understand the items they bring along and hear the stories that are contained within,
If you can get the chance to pop along to one of the beautiful historic venues you will be assured a great day out.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4BFprksgSjpvxsdCTwDFQlJ/roadshows-in-2016
Thursday 7 January 2016
Monday 28 September 2015
PILKINGTON AND ALPHONSE MUCHA: THE 1900 PARIS EXHIBITION
Pilkington exhibited at
the 1900 Paris Exhibition.
This was probably the most influential
event in its development of artistic products.
William Burton took a
small party of artists to show off products that include floor tiles,
wall decorations, fireplaces with hearths both with low relief,
raised outline and printed form.
Designs by Walter
Crane, Frederick Shields, Lewis F. Day, C.F.A. Voysey, F.A. Steele
and John Chambers made up the valuable cargo that crossed the
channel.
Wall mosaics were also shown as was pottery with glazes by
William and Joseph Burton.
Its stand proudly
proclaimed;
PILKINGTONS Tile and
Pottery Co. Clifton Junction MANCHESTER.
The floors of the stand
were tiled and the quatrafoiled columns that held up shallow Norman
Arches were adorned with architectural exterior tiles. These were
holding aloft corbels that were decorated with the Pilkingtons emblem
proudly emblazoned in lustre, below a ceramic cornice.
The Senses, a series of
panels by Walter Crane which were painted in slips by John chambers
and were set, framed within architectural ceramic Ionic pilasters,
and with its ceramic apron and cornice was a work of art within
itself.
This enabled them not
only to show their work but to compare themselves to competitors, and
to get themselves acquainted with developments and trends in other
parts of Europe.
The main development
that came from this journey south into Europe was that they acquired
the right of use for designs by Alphonse Mucha.
The Paris office of
Pilkingtons revealed that they had the use of 20 designs a year but
it is not clear just how many of Mucha's designs were in fact used.
At the 1901 Glasgow Exhibition four panels entitled Les Fleurs were shown.
A set of these also
decorated the hall way of the Pilkington factory, they must have been
highly prized until the 1940's when the factory was redesigned.
In Liverpool a massive tile panel was conceived by Pilkingtons own artists made up of five large murals depicting pottery through the ages and photographic evidence remains at the factory and at the Walker Art gallery where it was installed. During World War II the building was badly damaged, though the tiles themselves remained intact they were destroyed when the remains of the building were demolished, no doubt to make way for a cafe.
Pilkingtons tiles were
on the ill fated Titanic.
Thursday 16 July 2015
Rossetti painted maidens with eyes like pools.
He was inspired by
drugs and alcohol and he was mortified by criticism like a schoolboy
would be.
He would let himself
down badly by exhuming his wife corpse to retrieve a book of poetry
that he had buried with her because he was so overcome with grief.
And then he was not.
His three main muse
that he painted were from different backgrounds, one was a prostitute
another a wife and the other a wife of one of his best friends, his
forbidden love, Jane.
His father was a
political radical who had to leave his home town because of his views
and the failed uprising of his town in 1820.
He was born in London
and took up the modern practice of the time, of being enticed into
the past.
The past of Arthurian
legends and great Knights doing great deeds by saving damsels in
distress.
But he was the son of
an exile and his father wanted to return to Italy to rejoin the
revolution. He became frustrated.
He rebelled at the
Royal academy lacking the patience to study and he joined, along with
William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais The Pre Raphaelites and
they played out their Arthurian ideals. He was named after the doomed
poet Dante.
With the formation of
the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood the rules were simple.
To produce work, through a code of honour spelt out in their manifesto.
To have genuine ideas to express, to study nature, and to sympathise with what was heartfelt serious and direct in past art and produce good art and sculpture.
To produce work, through a code of honour spelt out in their manifesto.
To have genuine ideas to express, to study nature, and to sympathise with what was heartfelt serious and direct in past art and produce good art and sculpture.
Before Raphael art is
self expressing they proclaimed and they wanted to return to simple
art. Flemish art would also inspire them and the fresco painters of
the medieval past showed them the way to the future. Rossetti would
cross Van Eyk with Botticelli in 'Behold the Handmaiden of the Lord'.
The paint was thinly applied and full of symbolic meaning with its
claustrophobic set up.
His ideals of women
would take him on his own journey, but his critics did not care for
the Pre Raphaelites flatness and Rossetti hated them and gave up this
style.
Not surprising when you
see 'The Childhood of the Virgin' by Rossetti, it is rife for
ridicule because it is so average.
Charles Dickens mocked
with the idea for a Pre-Gallileo society. Rossetti was paralysed by
this sort of critique. The ongoing forces of progress would not stop
and all around him the Brotherhood turned away to a purple idealism
of romantic Teutonic knights emblazoned with colourful tunics that
they reconstructed.
Yet they said they were
Pre-Raphael.
Libby Siddel would
define the look and Dante found Beatrice in her.
She worked in a hat shop and modelled for another, for the famous depiction of Ophelia, which was detrimental to her health.
She worked in a hat shop and modelled for another, for the famous depiction of Ophelia, which was detrimental to her health.
Rossetti wanted her for
himself and while Gothic grew up all around him they withdrew into
their own style.
His intimate drawings
were like sonnets and his moralising scenes like 'Blackfriars Bridge'
were contradictory .
“I am thoroughly
indisposed to innumerate anyone's condition by means of pictures”.
Fanny Coalforth entered
his life while out walking she flicked peanuts at him and she agreed
to model for him. His work became erotic and sex became to sell.
“The mouth that had
been kissed loses not its freshness as it renews itself as does the
moon” he wrote on the back of 'Bocca Baciata' a picture he painted
based around an old Italian tale of promiscuity.
He looked to the
Renaissance for inspiration and he fed Lizzie with Opium and then
married her in 1860. Their daughter was stillborn this haunted him
for the rest of his life. He would hear ghostly footsteps from the
depths of his soul. Noises from outside the door, footsteps of his
daughter.
Lizzie was destroyed by
the tragedy and she never recovered from an overdose of Laudanum.
She never woke up.
She never woke up.
In the coffin Rossetti
placed the manuscript of his poems and he moved from Blackfriars to
Chelsea. He suffered from Insomnia.
He put together a menagerie with rabbits peacocks and wombats, and other unusual creatures. They regularly escaped. He continued to paint. Fanny became housekeeper model. Her loose hair infatuated him, her hair symbolised looseness and to the Victorians his work sold.
He put together a menagerie with rabbits peacocks and wombats, and other unusual creatures. They regularly escaped. He continued to paint. Fanny became housekeeper model. Her loose hair infatuated him, her hair symbolised looseness and to the Victorians his work sold.
He painted 'Beata
Beatrix' showing Lizzies movement from earth to heaven as Beatrice
which he ladened with drug induced images that he was not comfortable
with.
He painted other
versions for his private patrons.
John Ruskin said the
work was as course as the prostitutes who modelled for them.
Rossetti then began to
write poetry and he wrestled with the fact that he had buried his
poems and he then took the disgraceful turn when hired people to dig
up Lizzies body and the dirty deed was badly done. He scraped his
dirty little bunch of poems clean of putrefaction and put in
disinfectant for weeks to quench the stench.
In my opinion it was sick and unforgivable act, to do this unsettling and disrespectful thing to someone he had loved.
In my opinion it was sick and unforgivable act, to do this unsettling and disrespectful thing to someone he had loved.
He was then selfishly,
as usual, spurned on and was now inspired by Jane Morris.
I have to question how
genuine were his loves and how much was just plain inspiration to
give himself fame and immortality.
James Buchanan said
there was no soul in the verse, only body. Ugly bodies of writhing
foaming impure art it was said.
The critics said it was
impure art from the well springs of impure life. They were right.
He was labelled an
adulterer and a libertine and his self worth was hit.
In the poem 'Lost Day'
he tried to sum up his paranoia and the lost souls of his mind, and
he overdosed on Laudanum.
William Morris turned a
blind eye to the help Jane gave him.
Was he mad, would we
call him a smack head today.
He was nursed back to
health by Janie Morris and William left the country after they took a
joint lease on Kelmscott manor.
Jane was not daft, she
knew what her image meant to her and she posed as 'Prosperine' for
prosperity, the supermodel of her day.
She swanned around in
long velvet gowns and conjured up this sense of style that would
endure through the art of the many Rossetti'an Femme Fatale.
The 19th
century was a time of repressed sexuality that he was able to key
into using muse to paint with titles such as 'Helen of Troy' or any
other historic deity he chose that he could fit his stunning beauties
into.
By now his art had
nothing to do with Raphael, it was Bohemian London in Style a
reinvention of the past for a modern age that now looks so old
fashioned to us in the 21st century.
Jane's children
strangely called him Uncle Dante and he moved away from Kelmscott and
into depression.
He tried to invigorate his art with dancers and brighter callers but a darkness had entered his work, it was where his head was at and he wanted to continue in this vein.
He tried to invigorate his art with dancers and brighter callers but a darkness had entered his work, it was where his head was at and he wanted to continue in this vein.
His many patrons, many
of whom were based in the Merseyside area where not happy with this
lack of cheerful work.
He lived for love and
at 53 he died in a quagmire of addiction.
He left behind a legacy
of nostalgia and dead end one directional work that went one way down
his own street. Some remarkable work.
But he did not provide
us with this look into the fields which is where the impressionists
took us. He had no desire to get his hands dirty, even for his filthy
desecrated poems. But he gives us a glimpse into his own uneasy
struggles and desires that were his dream like sequences.
He was too romantic by
far he must have studied Byron and myths.
Picasso said he was
influenced by Rossetti (and Cezanne!) and the Pre-Raphs.
It was like Gabriel
Dante Rossetti was painting his own epitaph for us all to see.
But was it quite warts
and all or a carefully selected section of his head played out with
style and audacity?
I keep on seeing his
work around the museums of Liverpool. There was a major exhibition of
his work in 2004, maybe? It seems so long ago now.
The Death of Beatrice was said by Paul McCartney to be his favourite painting when he exhibited there. (Or when he paid for the privilege by donation). This exhibtion was around the time of Linda's illness.
The Death of Beatrice was said by Paul McCartney to be his favourite painting when he exhibited there. (Or when he paid for the privilege by donation). This exhibtion was around the time of Linda's illness.
Most of his high paying
patrons were in Merseyside and because Lord Leverhume was an active collector
of his work the Lady lever art Gallery, named after his wife, houses
many works.
No matter how exotic and sexy his paintings were.
I will never forgive
him for exhuming the body of his wife even though most of the critics seem to have done so
.
.
Thursday 25 June 2015
Bronze Caryatid Pillasters 9ft High-Piece of the Week
The feet are clawed and they may be a depiction of Minerva the goddess but I will have to do a bit more research on that
They are 9 feet high and in the right place would make more than a statement. I think they may be eastern European.
Not sure how they got to the North West of England.There are not many things that I can buy that would Grace the beautiful Travertine marble arcade of India Buildings but these actually outdo the architecture. The term Caryatid relates to a column or a pillar carrying the support on its head and was used in ancient Greece.
Friday 19 June 2015
Antiques Roadshow Valuation Dates and Venues 2015.
Antiques Roadshow will be at the following venues for the rest of the season please see link below for more details. http://www.bbc.co.uk/showsandtours/beonashow/antiques
Why not take that treasured heirloom along or even that old piece that has been laying unloved underneath the stairs for years.
Whats your story?
You may not have one but why not let an expert help you understand the item and get it appraised.
Date | Venue |
---|---|
Sunday 21 June | Broughton Castle, near Banbury, Oxfordshire |
Thursday 25 June | Bowood House, Calne, Wiltshire |
Thursday 9 July | Bolsover Castle, near Chesterfield, Derbyshire |
Sunday 19 July | Walmer Castle, Deal, Kent |
Thursday 30 July | Balmoral Castle, near Ballater, Aberdeenshire |
Thursday 3 September | Trentham Gardens, near Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire |
Thursday 10 September | Lyme Park, near Stockport, Cheshire |
Sunday 20 September | Hanbury Hall, Droitwich, Worcestershire |
Wednesday 28 October | The Royal Hall, Harrogate, North Yorkshire |
Tuesday 9 June 2015
David Bomberg-Was He A Good Artist Or, Just There?
I am not quite certain
why I decided to find out more about the artist David Bomberg maybe I
was just a bit intrigued by one of his paintings or his life which
was different and eventful,
Or maybe I am annoyed that he shot his
toe off and escaped the war where many died.
Studying at the Slade
School of Art Bomberg (1890-1957) along with several other artists of note he
was part of the establishment from an early age even though he was from a poor background, he was destined to be noticed.
The end of World War
One, and a generation would try to overcome the scarring by trying to
build a new world.
David Bomberg would fight in that war and his
splintered life would never be the same.
He unlike some of his
fellow Slade pupils, would go largely un-noticed until his death.
He
was born in Birmingham but he was moved to St Marks Street London
along with his 11 siblings to a Jewish quarter.
His father Abraham
was a gambler who got annoyed at the slightest thing.
Bomberg was always
drawing and he become an apprentice lithographer.
He paid Walter
Sickert for lessons and he sat for John Singer Sargent the society
artist.
He then had stepped
into another world and Sargent helped him to aim for fame and
fortune. The Impressionists of the Continent was dismantling
tradition and in 1910 Roger Fry's Impressionist exhibition was
followed by another which featured Braque and Picasso.
Henry Tonks
became one of his tutors.
Bomberg was funded by the Jewish Education Aid
Society after an initial rejection his education began in 1911, at a new dawn of art. Modernity had arrived.
Tonks
who would say “I shall resign if this talk of cubism doesn't cease,
its killing me”.
Christopher Nevinson and Stanley Spenser
would study while Tonk's was teaching.
In 1912 'Island of Joy'
became abstract in form, a move away from his past influence.
'Vision of Ezekiel' of 1912 the year of his mothers death paid homage
to his Jewish roots.
This piece of modernism grabbed hold of the
revolution and he went geometric and avant-garde. His work was
jarring and aggressive and he disturbed the other students.
He was
ousted at 23 years old.
'In the Hold'. You would not know
this was a set of workers in the hold of a ship without being told.
A
vibrant kaleidoscope of colours violently reacting with his
surroundings its an explosion of chaos. No wonder he was thought a
misfit.
War broke out and the
likes of Wyndham Lewis would BLAST in a manifesto for the avant
garde. It was meant to be a clarion call to the nations Vorticist
tendencies. Blomberg would not joint the club he was a maverick of
one. These visionaries of desire would strip detail away and throw it
all up in the chaos of experimentation. Bomberg's expo in the Chenil
Gallery saw him proclaiming his ow manifesto.
I reject everything in
painting that is not pure form” he said.
He titled one painting 'Ju
Jitsu'. One work was hung in the street “The Mud-bath” inspired
by Brick lane baths it was framed with bunting, but this was an all
singing all dancing Union Jack. The three colours of red white and
blur was framed within a beige and unceremoniously split by a central
black column. It must have looked bizarre in the time of 1914 just as
war was declared between Austrian Hungary and Serbia after the
assassination of Franz Ferdinand.
He enlisted in The Royal Engineers and married Alice and then went to fight at The Somme. He got a lesson in double quick step to carnage. His snatched sketches show him studying the conflict but he also wrote poems, that sum up his thoughts in prose.
War is a leveller to
art, art is stripped back to raw emotion. To those who fought and
those who didn't, but also those that can convey the emotion of
death.
I have not read his war
poetry but it is well documented how he talks about fattened maggots
feeding on the lost. His monochrome sketches done in the boredom
before the bomb, he shot himself in the foot. He was withdrawn from
the front. He escaped the death that many had, but he gained the
title of a coward who would leave his fellows to fight for him.
'Sappers at Work' was
commissioned by the Canadian War Memorials fund, that made up for the
rejection of his poetry by all the publishers. His breakdown seems to
show through the brushstrokes. He uses Caravaggio's Martyrdom of St
Peter as a metaphor to the 'Death of Peter by Crucifixion' and uses
the memorial to show the strife the sappers had in carrying out their
deadly death dig below ground, tunnelling away below they laid their
deathly mines and blew all to kingdom come.
In 1923 he went to
Jerusalem in Palestine where a tenth of the population were Jewish.
He was still traumatised and he painted 'Rooftops' in geometric form.
These quiet pictures gave way to depictions of Zionist pioneer camps.
And just like those world war crater scars the quarrymen build their
new developments in the sunshine. In Bomberg's mind.
He was shocked by the
Armenian Genocide and he painted the inside of the church that he was
smuggled into.
He paints shapes in
quick succession and when the earthquake struck chaos ensued, the
painting he was doing in a house was shattered moments after he left.
These pictures were
never accepted by the art establishment.
His work is housed in
the Borough Road Gallery and it houses Sarah Rose's collection.
In 1928 back in London
he met Lillian Holt again and they wed. He went to Spain to follow
the footsteps of El Greco. His work becomes fast and huddled in the
way he paint landscape in contrast to his Palestine pictures. Does he
finally leave his shell shock behind. In Ronda children were born and
so was a new style where the past and the present was
indistinguishable. He paints a bridge over and over again, maybe a
metaphor. He was not to know the deaths that would come from civil
war on that bridge, people would be tossed over to their death.
He returned to London.
And his self portraits continue.
His double headed portrait of 1937
seems to echo in Francis Bacon. He has two faces are his own
reflective past showing his awkwardness and his unsettled thoughts.
He would not paint much longer, and London would be under siege.
'Evening in the City of London' is an energetic and quickly
charcoaled study from the top of St Brides across from St Paul
Cathedral the symbol of the defiance of the blitz. He would not give
in.
Bomberg started a art
class after the war where he taught two nights a week. His Borough
Group were fed his philosophy for the spirit in the man. Miles
Richmond would be part of this group but it fell apart soon after its
formation in 1947.
In 1965 a set up.
These burning acid canvas would give way to images of St Paul's.
Metzger recently said about Bomberg who taught him “he was poetic
and prophetic if nothing he had charisma”.
Bomberg was sacked from
his teaching position in 1953 and went to teach in Spain. It never
worked out. He always wanted to paint with an economy of means. While
the Vorticists held retrospectives his health faltered. Distance does
not exist he said as he closed his eyes. He was taken back to London
where he died. The arts council held a survey of his career bringing
together 72 works. His last self portrait is a tragedy of doom laden
rejection. Holding his brushes he did not look in the mirror.
He told his students
that great paintings could change the world.
Friday 29 May 2015
Vienna Bronze Lizard-Piece of the Week.
This bronze reptile is so lifelike I could swear it just went to bite me.
The bronze is mounted on a real shell, that only adds to the realism of the piece.
It is not signed, but it has to be by the famous Bergman foundry it is so realistic. Though there were many other foundries that employed similar skill in and around Vienna Bergman is the most well known for cold painted bronzes.
It looks like it is going to launch itself off that shell anytime.
Bergman always tunes his cold painted bronzes to perfection. This is more than likely late 19th century.
Though this piece is not cold painted but has a light patination this mirrors the scaly cold blooded skin of a lizard to perfection.
The modelling and the way the bronze is mounted just heightens the anticipation in the lizard, its claws are in fact balancing the whole sculpture along with the tail.
Very cleverly done and a joy to see the skill of manufacture being put to an effect of realism.
See More Here
See More Here
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