Ships At Anchor by Richard Parkes Bonington-One Of My Favourite Things.

This is one of my most favourite pictures.
Yes I know I love modernism and 20^th century art, but in a round about way this is the forerunner to those modernist pictures that we are all, now, so familiar with.
To my eye this may be a 19^th century work but it is as fresh, and bright, as if it had been painted last year.
Why?
Because most of being an artist is not just about being able to paint.
It is about being able to see.
You cant have one without the other.
I recall how after studying of an evening with life drawing for over a year, and then one day, as if by magic.
 I could see where I was going wrong.
(I threw all my previous work away).
Now, that to me is more important than seeing where one is going right.
Put into context I could suddenly see the shadows.
No not the light that is easy to see, but the shadows where light does not fall.
This is a very important time for an aspiring artist, and only studious practice will enable this talent to be captured on paper, or canvas.
Richard Parkes Bonington sees it all, in this small but beautiful oil painting, arguably the best in Liverpool Museums collection.
Then he adds a little bit of extra colour, which as if a magician, by slight of hand, he turns your gaze in a direction that he wants it to go, with a little dab of red here and there.
A lot can be said against modern art and its excuses for talent.
 But I still do not want to linger in the 19^th century for too long.
 A sheep on a hillside will mostly convey, well a sheep on a hillside to me.
Though as long as masterpieces like this are around I may cancal my taxi back to the 20^th Century, till a later hour.
I first discovered it at the now, ruined Sudley Art Gallery in Mossley Hill Liverpool. http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/sudley-house-why-have-liverpool-museums.html
It was, at that time, hung next to a Turner and I was at that age wondering what all the fuss about Turner was. (I went to see the film Mr Turner a few weeks ago. Didn't it go on a bit.)
I know what how all the theory about Turner has been played out.
Usually written by people who couldn't emulsion a wall I may add.
But where is all the fuss about Boningtons work.
Some of his work is a trifle sentimental, but its what he may have achieved that this, one of my favorite things, portrays.
Yes a ship at anchor on a becalmed sea, the sort of whimsical painting we all know.
But this to me has always touched me deeper than that. The way the light falls on the water and the way the composition is laid out is by the hands of a budding master. A painter who is completely self motivated to discover his own personal journey through light and shade.
Who knows where he would end up, would he challenge Turner or be thought more highly than John Constable, a national treasure. Or would he fizzle out to nothing. Over 200 years later we are still talking about the brush master and the small taste of what talent he had to offer in his short existence. And his impressionistic style.


Richard Parkes Bonington was born 1802 in Nottingham.
His father was the governor of Nottingham Jail who had strong political views and when he was arrested for riotous and disorderly conduct he had to step down.
He set up a ladies school that did not succeed later he set up a lace-making business. Nottingham of course was the countries lace making capital.
The factory was smashed up by Luddites who saw the coming of the industrial revolution as a risk to the way of life and saw the machines as a direct threat to their livelihoods.
Bonington senior seemed to have more in common with French views of life.
 France had gone through its own Revolution and the family headed there.
Richard Parkes Bonington began drawing at the age of six. At the age of sixteen he was painting Bologne Harbour in a way that does not show his young age and seems more from the hand of a mature artist than a teenager.

He took lessons.Thomas Gerten was an influence, I was recently shown an image of his water colour of Lindisfarne Priory. This was not a common occurrance that an artist of that date would use, a water colour, as a way to show off his skill, as a finished work and not a sketch that would be later used as a study for a oil painting.
In 1819 the Bonington family moved to Paris where Richard studied with Jaque Loiuse De Bead . He had taught Grull and his teaching was in the classical form.
Richard was off, here there and everywhere, it seems that every time he had a chance he painted.
He painted Churches in Normandy and then he would work them up in watercolour.

Bonnington made a brief return to England where its understood he saw work by Turner and returned to France in 1818. He seemed restless after this visit and he recorded that he was arguing with his tutors.
Around the same time Delacrioux.........who had also seen works by Turner was painting in a romantic style. Jerico............who painted The Raft Of The Medusa had seen The Fields Of Waterloo with Gods light bathing the soldiers on the field of battle some of who had perished.
This was turning a painting into a beacon of emotion.

In 1824 Boningtons painting Fishermen Near Bologne was exhibited at the Paris Salons.
Next to this work was a painting by John Constable entitled The Haywain.
Both won Gold medals along with another British artist, Anthony Van Dyck Copley Fielding. You could only be an artist with that name!!

One of my favorite things in the whole wide, is Richard Parkes Boningtons “Ships At Anchor” a small oil once owned by George Holt and now owned by Liverpool Museums, and on display at Sudley House.
Now a former shadow of itself. It seems the more money NML spend, the worse job they do under the leadership of its current director, this once hidden gem is now a pale shadow of its former self.
 http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/sudley-house-why-have-liverpool-museums.html


It is known that Bonington and Turners lives were in paralell and Richard went to Venice at 24 years of age where he seems to come under the spell of Canalettos work.
His studies of The Rialto Bridge are not by a simple hand but an accomplished and steady application of art.
He paints The Ducal palace with its religious procession but my opinion He that this period he loses his freedom and freshness and although he gains confidence of brush.
 Though I would need to study his art a bit more before making any definite decision on this.



He literally meets Eugene Delacroix in a gallery and they become friends.
You can see the influence of both artists on each other.



In 1828 he gets sunstroke from working outside too often. John Lang, his quack physician sends him to Britain to get some air as this would be better for him than the south Of France.
He was not aware that he had tuberculosis and its  in Britain that he died at the age of 26 leaving behind a legacy of amazing work and a real sense of what could he have achieved if life had not dealt him such a cruel hand.
His influences are not always reported but for several decades later we would see the fashion of French painters depicting simple peasant folk with the same degree of skill as great leaders and hero's.



The French Impressionists would unknowingly or unwillingly be influenced by British Art. Boningtons legacy was great.
He at least that he helped to influence the seed change in France that changed the world.

He died so young and like James Dean, or Marilyn Monroe, we always wonder just what their talent could have achieved. 

See it hanging in the hall at Sudley Art Gallery.

India Buildings-Holts Arcade. Is This The Best Christmas Decorations In The City?

At the time of updating November 2022 The building with its beautiful arcade, enjoyed by many, is closed to the public and is solely for use by the HMRC

All the HMRC staff had been told not to come into work due to a massive leak. Which will have done great damage to the structure. This is what happens when greedy people who are only interested in money are in charge.

All the care and attention that was given to the building. The Architect of this historic structure Herbert Rowse will be definitely turning in his grave. What a complete and utter mess.

INDIA BUILDINGS HAS BEEN BUTCHERED BY LEGAL AND GENERAL (THE DEVELOPMENT ARM OF THE FAMOUS INSURERS).

THEY PURCHASED THE BUILDING FOR AROUND £120,000,000 FROM MARWEES LTD. A BRITISH VIRGIN ISLAND OFFSHORE BASED COMPANY WHO PURCHASED IT FOR £17,000,000. MAKING A MASSIVE PROFIT.......THAT THE TAXPAYER WILL ULTIMATELY PAY FOR! 

As soon as they purchased the building MARWEES set about evicting all the tenants in a disgraceful act of greed. 

People who had run businesses there were evicted as if they were dirt. Read More Here.

MARWEES  employed a pair of Henchmen. Father and son duo Brian and Mark Rabanowitz of Shelborn Asset Management.

They subsequently slid around, behaving like gangsters, ruining the lives of many of the tenants.......for the HMRC. Read More Here

Update November 2022 And its now closed to the public

Well most people who walk through the magnificent Holts Arcade seem to think so.
You can see their faces light up.
Its tough times out there but the landlords Green Property have kept the Xmas spirit alive with the wonderful festive decorations, through the recession and we can thank them for that.
The Capricio Singers  http://www.capriccio.org.uk/ will be visiting, only for half an hour this year unfortunately.
That will be on the 18th December.
Where they will no doubt fill the barrel vaulted arcade right up to the ornate painted ceiling with lovely Xmas music.
Look forward to seeing them.

Japanese Ikebana Bamboo Basket-Piece of the Week.

We tend to think of baskets as dreary objects that we put things in, well people did in the 60's anyhow.

Baskets were always carried to the shops by old spinsters who would buy strange things from another age. They would put flowers and jam jars in them and there were even stretchy covers to pull over the edges, some even had hinged flaps that opened from the centre outwards.

They tended to be the same mass manufactured type that became common place in the shopping centres that sprung up through the 70's.

I first became aware of the beauty of the basket weave of the Japanese by an antique dealer who became a friend who, lived in Chicago. I would often meet him in France.

While staying with me here in Liverpool we visited the Bluecoat Bookshop, which was then in the Bluecoat on School Lane, where he found a small amount of books on the subject, he bought the lot.

You see I love it when I am enlightened by someone who knows more about a particular subject than I do. With there being so many shows on the TV these days, that are full of so called experts, it is easy to think that we all can just switch it on and know about everything. But its not like that in real life, we can only have a small amount of knowledge in reality on antiques in general and then specialise off on a specific genre. I would like to see more so called experts who say, “I don't know much about that” or “You have opened up a subject that I did not know anything about and therefore my life is richer for it”. An admission, is nothing to be ashamed of, you cant know everything, its impossible, its not wrong to own up to it, its right.

Steve had been collecting baskets for a while and although new to me, when I glanced through the books he had purchased, I was taken by the beauty of some of the simple baskets, that turned them, in my mind, into works of art. In this country basket making, though skilled, is thought of as a handicraft practised in the country by people who will never make it pay.

Japan has a steep mountainous environment and a lot of goods were transported by people. Some baskets were made to shape into certain parts of the body. They could be strapped to the waist carried on the back, and even strapped or carried on the head. So baskets will require a different shape and a different weave.

This makes the versatility of bamboo as a ideal choice of material.

Its lightweight and its strength give it such a versatility. And of course its beauty.

The baskets were made for flowers and also utilitarian objects such as sieves and strainers.

Its quick growth means that the material bamboo, is readily available and available for use within a few years of planting.

The Japanese culture would, in my opinion take the art of making a simple object into a piece of beauty, this would run into all the elements of their existence.

So when the likes of William Morris was proclaiming everything around you should be of functionality and of beauty. (He was rich enough to say that)

The Japanese had been doing this for a long time.

The chained country of Japan or SAKOKU were the orders of the edicts of 1633-1639, in that it was laid down that no foreigner could enter the country, or no Japanese could leave. This remained in effect until 1853 when Black Ships of Commodore Mathew Perry forcibly opened Japan.

In 1864 the Americans were preoccupied with killing themselves in the American Civil War and trade was relinquished to Great Britain who by this time controlled 90% of Japanese trade with the western world.

http://www.shikokuhenrotrail.com/japanhistory/edohistory.html

When the Japanese trade borders were forcibly opened in the1860's after what we now know as gunboat diplomacy on the part of the western powers.

In 1865 nine foreign warships into Osake Harbour and demande that the Baufu pay, by the end of 1866, for the Choshu attackson their warships in the Shimonoseki Straights.

This was only one incident of many that kept the tension on the Japanese. The west wanted their goods ideas and history and they would not stop until they had it.

It now made it easy to trade and the explosion of art in Great Britain was to be influenced forever by the mastery of design, and the customs that the Japanese had become to take over them, as their existence.

So how did this object of such innocuous piece become to be there at the back of an antique shop, languishing lonely and forgotten and described as a Chinese basket, luckily for me.

I couldn't leave it behind.

It needed me, or someone who could see the skill and craftsmanship by which it was made.

And recognise the intrinsic value contained within, what after all is a vessel that carried not only flowers, but tradition.

But, more than all that, it has an essence about it, that makes you want to hold it. Like a piece of furniture you want to stroke it.

The bamboo has a patina making it look like it was smoked, and the way the highlights of where it has been touched, for probably a hundred years just shines through.

It was probably made quickly, with a slight of hand. Though that slight would have taken decades to get right.

You do have to be so careful our far eastern friends have also become of forgery, but this is dead right.

Its mine now and its taken me on a little journey that has heightened my understanding a little more of ancient cultures and their influences, and on the British who then showed the world the Arts and Crafts movement.

Christopher Dresser would visit Japan and take design notes collecting samples for Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Despite the writing of Violet de Luc, the French John Ruskin, It was the Japanese who would educate the western world even Van Gough would physically touch a woodblock print, of the Hokasai wave.

The Wave was used to adorn the music for Claude Debussey's LA MER in 1905.

Both artists would have respective disciplines of style over realism and would focus on brilliant colour and energy. One with touch and grace of a brush, the other the keys of a piano.

We owe a lot to the everyday symbolic rituals of a nation that, 150 years ago, and not unlike China, was a secret to the world.

That they turned an everyday object into a glory.

See more baskets here  http://www.jcollector.com/Japanese-Baskets-s/2.htm

Mintons Secessionist Art Nouveau Vase-Piece of the Week.

Sometimes a design or a colour scheme on a piece of pottery just works. We have all had that feeling where you can't put your finger on it, but it reminds you of something.

Whether it appeals to your subconscious mind, your primeval or just that they remind you of a flower you once held.

Designers and decorators are usually picked for their ability to recognise these signals to the senses, before they pass them on to us.

I grabbed at a small vase as it came out of a dealers box, just as he was putting it on his stall. I had to have it. “I have just got it from a house clearance I did this week” he told me.

“Its mine” I parted with my cash.

The first thing one thinks is how close the tube lined design is to another by Archibald Knox, even though there is no evidence of him designing for Mintons, and this is, obviously a Mintons vase from a mile away.

Leon Solon (1852-1957) who joined the company in 1895, aged 23, probably will have designed this pattern..

The shape no is 3543, most secessionist pieces are in the 3000's. The pattern is no 46.

In 1905 Solon left the company and John Wadsworth took over and many of Solons work continued though Wadsworth brought in new colour schemes.

This is a slip cast vase that is tube lined. I love the way the glaze drips or slumps into one another creating a further pallet.

Leons father Louis Solon had worked for Sevres and the colour of this vase is almost a Sevres blue.

I have seen it decorated in red, which does not work as well.

The difference between a good Mintons Secessionist (the term derived from the continental) and a average one can be quite close, and sometimes there are pieces that don't work, but this works, on all levels

. Marked on the base with its pattern number and its incised shape. I am struggling to part with it, for..... money.

Mintons, the name Minton, without the 's' was changed in 1873.

In 1870 when the art pottery studio was opened in South Kensington it was directed by W.S Coleman.

It was not rebuilt when destroyed by fire in 1875.

I always think as Mintons secessionist as an entirely different company, a style of its age, but still with the old quality. 

Its designers absorbed all the Art Nouveau influences around it, and in doing so led a unique and exiting trail that is most attractive and highly collectable today. 

Still a little under-ated. This vase though small some 7 inches high should be worth £180. 

If its not then its cheap. I love this vase. 

http://www.classicartdeco.co.uk/ceramics.php

Rochard Tern Art Deco Sculpture-Piece Of The Week.

 Irenee Rochard was a French sculptor working during the Art Deco Inter War period.
This is a Tern cresting a wave or maybe to be more precise a Storm Petrel
 The Storm Petrel is a beautiful and is one of the smallest sea birds.
The Guadalupe Storm Petrel is thought to have gone extinct.
It spends most of the year on the wing and only comes inland to breed.

It is signed Rochard and there is always a presumption that it is by Irenee but there were several French animaliers who went under the name of  Rochard.
Irenee as her name suggests was a lady.
Born 1906 in Villefranche sur Saone.
 She was a member of the Artists Society from 1938 where she won a bronze medal in 1941.
She died in the 1980's but most her work seems to have been carried out during the Inter War years.
It was not common for a lady to be a sculptor (see Lejan ) during the first half of the 20th century.

Thankfully that has now changed but it makes it more remarkable that a lady was producing such masculine sculptures.
She did a lot of strong masculine Panthers and her work is mostly Art Deco in style.
Her sculpture is generally is cast in Bronze and Spelter and has varying degrees of quality ranging from magnificent to average.
This sculpture was described a s a seagull when I bought it.
But when you look at it more closely it is unfair to describe it that way.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
 This comes apart in two sections the bird itself sits on a spigot on the top of the wave which makes it easier to carry. It is 61cm high and has a gilded finish no big scratches or damage.
I have sold quite a few of what I call Tern sculptures, but I always leave the seagulls behind.
There are quite a lot by lesser sculptors that look like they have flown into a brick wall and are a bit "gammy" for want of a better word. its best to pay a little it more for the right one. In bronze it would be over a thousand pounds.
The good thing about this piece is that it cuts a good silhouette against a window or on a cabinet, for not too much money really.
 Expect to pay about £450, for a nice one, and don't buy a squawker.

Antiques Trade Gazette-Do They Really Want Debate. A Letter To The Editor.

Sir,

How to become an art adviser (issue 2163 back page) read more like an advertisement for various self appointed art associations to my taste, than a informed and deliberate attempt to make a debate thereof.
There needs a full and frank assessment as to the varying degree of professional advice in the art market, that is without doubt. But this was not it.
In France auctioneers and valuers and advisers are regulated by law, here “anyone with a suit a business card or a well heeled handbag” can put themselves forward as an expert and set up an auction house.
This is where the real conflict lies, surely it is now time, that the art and auction market, which is now mostly online, that all auctioneers and advisers need to be regulated, and have to prove themselves.
A quick survey of estimates can be so hilarious, how can they be so wrong.
The quality advisers will have nothing to fear with another certificate to calm their clients nerves.
But will ATG pronounce the idea in light of the success of the saleroom.com.
The art market is full of ponzi schemes, we all know this but what the said article seems to pour scorn over is the un-calibrated power of professional hard working dealers, the ones who know all the tricks of the unregulated trade and will lead the client through the pitfalls of the art consultancy market in its present form. That don't get praise because they are just working hard. 
Though I concede the writer tried to mention this unregulated consultancy market but then went on to say he was invited into a private club closed to all but a lucky few.
Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder.
Theorhetical Qualifications cannot buy experience in my opinion.

Please could we have a little less condescending articles based around how great someone with varying degrees of professional paid for education is.
Or how jolly wonderful the old school tie brigade who have run the trade for decades are.  
And could we have more about the passion of the trade and its collective experiences.
I think its time for regulation.
And a serious look into the auction market and how it can help auctioneers clients rather than themselves.
There is such a high level of knowledge in the antique trade so what would most reputable auctioneers have to worry about.
Now that's a real debate.

http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/should-uk-auctioneers-be-regulated.html

Liverpool Everyman Wins The 2014 Stirling Prize.

But did they really have to knock it down?
Well there you go. The Liverpool Everyman wins an award.
 Beating The Shard to scoop The 2014 Stirling Prize.
So did I get it wrong when I said in 2013 that it should have been retained?
http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/the-liverpool-everymansuch-tragedy-why.html  

I cant get my head around the way that the building was deemed unfit for human habitation and had to be demolished.

I considered that the walls were sweating with the history of the place, that has yet to be fully identified. Liverpool is a town, that knocked the Cavern Club down.........and then called itself Beatles City.

The building will now be favored by the public as it is now in the full glare of national publicity and the spotlight is on Liverpool for being modern and progressive in Architecture and design. Well at least we are not winning The Carbuncle Cup award for bad Architecture in the World Heritage Site.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/liverpool-wins-carbuncle-cup.html

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/museum-of-liverpool-runner-up-in-2011.html


Could I be switching my opinion on this building after it won the Stirling Prize, well I have never been in it so I will have to now go and have a look and see.

Read more from The Guardian on the link below.

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/oct/16/stirling-prize-riba-everyman-theatre-haworth-tompkins

The judges citation read;
‘The new Everyman in Liverpool is truly for every man, woman and child. It cleverly resolves so many of the issues architects face every day. Its context - the handsome street that links the two cathedrals – is brilliantly complemented by the building’s scale, transparency, materials and quirky sense of humour, notably where the solar shading is transformed into a parade of Liverpudlians.

‘The ambience of the theatre is hugely welcoming with three elegant and accessible public foyers for bars, lounges and café/bistro. Clever use of materials with interlocking spaces and brilliant lighting make this an instantly enjoyable new public space for the city.

‘It is exceptionally sustainable; not only did the construction re-use 90% of the material from the old theatre, but all spaces are naturally ventilated including the auditorium with its 440 seats. Clever, out of sight concrete labyrinths supply and expel air whilst maintaining total acoustic isolation. It is one of the first naturally ventilated auditoria in the UK.

‘The generosity of its public spaces, which, on a tight site, are unexpected and delightful, are used throughout the day and night. As Howarth Tompkins’ first completely new theatre, it is a culmination of their many explorations into the theatre of the 21st century.

‘It is ground-breaking as a truly public building, which was at the heart of the client’s philosophy and ethos. In summary, an extraordinary contribution to both theatre and the city, achieved through clever team working – client, architect, consultants and contractor – where the new truly celebrates the past.’

Arthur Dooley's Last Studio Ransacked To Make Way For Flats. Its a Disgrace. Exclusive.

How long can Liverpool keep on losing links with its past and its history.

Arthur Dooley was a sculptor that I believe could not have come from anywhere other than here in my home town of Liverpool.

I fought to try and save herbert Tyson Smith's sculpture studio at the Bluecoat, predicting it would become a cheap and nasty gift shop. Guess what has happened.

There next to the garden was an evocative and inspiring glimpse of a man who helped form modern Liverpool. http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/herbert-tyson-smith-bronze-piece-of-week.html

He sculpted many of the reliefs on buildings such as Martins Bank Building with its slave iconocraphy and a lot of monuments around the town.

http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/should-herbert-tyson-smith-sculpture.html

His stone carving that was on display at the Old Post office has been restored and is on show in the Met Quarter which now stands on the site. It may be slightly tucked away from the main drag but none the less with a little seaching you can easily find it. Herbert Tyson smith may have been accepted by the establishment and Liverpools merchant classes. Arthur Dooley never was although most of his work was for the clergy who also had a rennaisance in fortune after the second world war, where they were rebuilding and modernising building some godawful structures along the way.

Now another chance goes begging.

It was Arthur Dooley, I am led to believe who coined the phrase Paddy's Wigwam the Metropolitan cathedral of Christ The King, that is now becoming part of the accepted landscape, mainly by people who dont recall that it was Jerry built and leaked like a collander and needed extensive repairs within years.

Dooley was a character that did not hold back his punches, literally being a bit of a boxer himself he came to blows during one argument with ..........in The Everyman..........now demolished to make way for the New Everyman........isnt that a sexcist term these days, shouldnt it be called the Everyperson.

 I know he would have been fighting against its demolition if he was alive.

http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/arthur-dooley-bull-piece-of-week.html

He would also have put up a good fight to save Tyson-Smiths Studio.

Now his last studio in Seal street has been ransacked by cretinous property developers right next to the psuedo Liverpool Acadamy of arts that held a fantastic Dooley exhibtion in 2008.

The Acadamy of arts is a pale shadow of its original form that Dooley helped to recreate but none the less it had finance to stage a wonderful exhibition.

June Lornie who runs the present Acadamy has not been able to do anything to inform the public as to the impending disaster that has now unfolded I am informed regrettably, due to ill health.

So no one knew until it was too late.

Whether or not the Do Littles of this city would have cared anyway. 

Whether it would have interupted their Frapaccino lifestyle and they could have helped save it, is now hypathetical, or maybe just pathetical. 

A sad epitaph is now that no-one except the Dooley speculators care. Some of those speculators pretending to be interested in art that wouldn't know a decent sculpture if it fell on them. 

Dooley wasn't the best sculptor around.

 In fact he wasn't even a good sculptor, he got it wrong more times than he got it right. 

But he had something inside him that drove passion which is what we all are now familiar with. 

He fought for  things he believed in.

 Its not his fault that in Brain Drain Liverpool he didn't have a tradition of artistic training for the working class and he became a metalworker first and then used his experience to manufacture emotion by default. Dooleys son Paul told me that upon his fathers death in 1994 the phone never stopped ringing with people who wanted to buy his work, sensing a upward trend they now wanted to buy his art, when for decades he had struggled to pay the bills.

http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/arthur-dooley-centurion-piece-of-week.html

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.

I warned about this years ago. It is a sad day when one of Liverpool's ebulient characters studio is ransacked to turn it into …......flats.

http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/arthur-dooley-remember-him-and-save-his.html

Should The Herbert Tyson Smith Sculpture Yard Come Back To The Bluecoat School Lane Liverpool?

I went to a event at the Bluecoat as part of the national Heritage Open Days that happens annually in September.

It was a conversation with Brian Biggs and James McLaughlin who had worked with the great man, starting as an apprentice.

Sun 14 Sep

2 - 3pm Herbert Tyson Smith
The Bluecoat’s Artistic Director, Bryan Biggs, in conversation with James McLaughlin, who was apprenticed to Tyson Smith, the eminent Liverpool sculptor who had a studio at the Bluecoat and was involved in establishing the building an arts centre. (The talk takes place in what was his original studio, entrance in College Lane)

http://www.thebluecoat.org.uk/events/view/events/2304

James is deaf and dumb and his son Matt did a great job of putting his thoughts into words.

At one point he was explaining about how Herbert and Jeffrey, his brother would argue all the time and often come to blows. There is passion in that there sculpture.

I did not know he had a brother and hope I have got the interpretation correct, because it is as if he did not exist, Herbert taking all the plaudits for the work.
Possibly on purpose if they were that much at loggerheads.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Tyson_Smith

It seems easier to ask the reader to look down Wikipedia than me listing Tyson Smiths sterling work.

I let the small group who attended have their questions and then I first needed to make a comment and then a question to all.

I had fought a battle trying to get a separate listing within the Bluecoat general heritage listing and was not successful.
Herbert Tyson Smiths Sculpture Studio was left in a wonderful state of preservation.
Lots of his original work was on display moulds and tools etc. Any other city would have seen its potential. I accused the directors of the Bluecoat of being foolish I letting it go.

“We did not have the resourses” Brian Biggs said

“You had 14 million quid” I said

“Yes but that was for capital resourses”

“So you knock it down and get a shop in selling cheap Indonesian and Chinese rubbish instead”

He went on with a load of excuses leaving me in no doubt the reason why we lost another piece of Liverpool heritage that could have helped to promote our city to the millions of tourists who come here.
The people voted with their feet and the bargain bin shop is now closed and the place is empty.........a perfect opportunity. I said, which seemed to go down well, with all but Brian.

The page isn't long enough to list the excuses he gave even quoting to me the difficulties in getting some historical context back.
He started talking about the Edward Chambre Hardman archive, and the difficulties in getting that up and running.

This was a mistake as I told him in no uncertain terms that when I got involved in that quest I heard all the same negative stuff from a bunch of washed up trustees that had been there far too long.
They wanted to send the archive to Bradford!!!!!!

In the end we, campaigners created such a fuss that the trustees had to bow to public opinion and the national Trust stepped in.
I am so proud of the role I played as the Chairman of "The Friends of Chambre Hardman."
This sort of commitment may be required again.

It got me annoyed, what an opportunity missed.
You at the Bluecoat spend far too much time trying to make money on weddings.
I had proclaimed, there is a lot who agree.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/i-had-owner-of-business-in-bluecoat-in.html

The Bluecoat, the grand old lady of Liverpool seen the blitz, being rebuilt, used to be a wonderful artistic creative hub with a cafe and now has become a cafe with a exhibition room. I have not seen a decent expo for years there, now. What has happened to the place.
http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/james-mcneill-whistler-and-peacock-room.html

So they destroy the intact studio and then probably farm a grant off the arts council, or some of the public body to hold a talk, about Herbert Tyson Smith, remembering him in the place that Mr Biggs and co destroyed.
You couldn't make it up.

I apologised to both James and Matt for my strong views on what was to be a pleasant Sunday afternoon in conversation and many of the people there, some of whom rescued works from the Bluecoat directors act of vandalism in 2008, when Liverpool was European Capital of Culture.
All including James and Matt said it would be a wonderful idea.
Well all, but poor old scorned, Brian Biggs who sat there with a face like a singed cat.

 http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/herbert-tyson-smith-bronze-piece-of-week.html

Some fresh blood needs to be brought in before they do anymore damage.

Bring back Herbert Tyson Smith to the Bluecoat.

Antiques Roadshow-What An Amazing Experience Filming In Lutyens Crypt.

I had been invited on to the show to talk about the etched glass door panels by Hector Whistler that were originally fitted in the doors in the foyer of The Liverpool Philharmonic Hall in Hope Street.

They were filming in Lutyens Crypt of the Catholic Cathedral.

Watch A Video Here

Fiona Bruce as usual, had a crowd around her, as she was filmed talking about the most amazing door to a tomb, the circular revolving door that is made of stone, the idea is everything, symbolic of the stone said to have closed the Tomb of Christ.
Lutyens took the idea and made it work.

The panels looked great up there on the stage where I recall playing clarinet on Terry Riley's “In C” with ApaT orchestra in almost the same place.

It was an early start and all the usual celeb antique appraisers were there.

Seasoned veteran and AR legend Eric Knowles came over to say Hello saying he couldn't do the filming of them because we know each other.

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mj2y

20^th century specialist Will Farmer was assigned the task of talking about them, jokingly I said to him stopping me may be a job once I get going.

As it happened it went along extremely professionally and I think it will come over really well.

I could have sold them ages ago but I have been waiting for the right buyer who will show them off

Yes I know, how the Philharmonic let them go is a mystery to me too.

It was such a pleasure to be part of such a amazing team of people right down to the volunteers who helped people arrive and made the day a pleasant experience. 

It was wonderful all the experts were down to earth and helpful.

I had no greasy palms or nerves, it was a great opportunity to talk about Liverpool's great history.

Being part of something that inspired me to become an antique dealer is fantastic and helping to promote a piece of heritage.

I hung around as long as I could absorbing the atmosphere from the set.

This is a programme that I have watched since a child the very beginnings of my journey must have been started as long ago by the amazing descriptions from Arthur Negus.

Read More Here

I hope they were happy with my appearance as it was a honour to have been allowed to be part of it.

 I loved it.  I hope I can do it again.

Update:28th February 2019......I joined The Antiques Roadshow Team very shortly after and am looking forward to a new season filming. Please click the link below for more information about the team and the show.
I am proud to be a BBC Antiques Roadshow specialist.

Dead Mans Penny-Edward Carter Preston.

Edward Carter Preston-The Unsung Craftsman

Mention the name.........and most people will have no knowledge of a man whose sculpture was commissioned on such a monumental scale. He entered a competition with 800 other submissions for which he received £250. The chosen design for the Death Penny, is called Pyramus

Maybe its because most of Carter Preston's work was for memorials and testaments to others, that his work has never been fully investigated.

Or it could be that his memento-mori's were of such heart rendering, that the public conception of death, and the glorious nature of conflict at the time, meant that they did not want to know the names of the people who recollected the memories of those glorious dead. There were so many grieving memories at a time when people wished to forget the horror of the carnage of World war I.

The perceived idea of art was to think of the classics as work passed down from an other age. To us.

Preferring to think that it was the work of an ancient age. Of Greek hero's, or Roman myths brought up to modern times. Death is all the same. But perhaps the classical style was why he, and many other unsung, hard working sculptors were so successful. People needed dignity, they had lost a lot.

That he gave, through his work, the dignity of death, to people, in treacherous times, and reinvented it on behalf of the top brass, the heavy establishment, those that cloaked the war, in glory, and gave reasons with which to justify the mass slaughter of a nations sons.

A justification.

The conflict that gave way to killing on a scale of mass production , that also gave us mass produced weapons of destruction, of a whole generations soul.

We wanted to mythologise the way those brave hero's went to the deaths.

Many without a wish to understand more than the basic of human instincts of self defence and proud nationhood, that would later be lost in a muddy field in a distant land.

What other cause can create the image of an old General saying “Your Country needs You”.

And they believed him. Maybe it would not happen today. The masses wouldn't let them get there. History would of course, in hindsight immortalise all those who who would not give way, and fight to the tyranny. That would defend their minds image of freedom.

These were the creation of the scarred generation that went on to create the horrors of World War II. But during the first World War they sang songs of freedom and home while being led to their deaths, on both sides, by the hands of Queen Victoria's privileged, but deadly offspring.

Who clung on to childish playground games, now played out with deadly consequences, for their subjects, that they sent over the top.

Gone were the lead soldiers, replaced by real flesh and blood, that tore.

Those in power counted a war in terms of how many more of the other side that you killed rather than the endgames. Those deadly games of starvation, and in the killing of civilians, many of who had had the fateful postman's knock themselves.

Just as many would die of broken hearts.

Could civilisation invent such a hatred for each other with a pretence of glory without even looking at the reasoning of why so much was wrong.

Or that the very Monarchs whose honour that they were upholding were the very cause of the disaster in the first place. They were the laughing assassins of war.

The faces that led the march. These tin pot dictators who had no concept of peasant life.

Just before the conflict began. The Tsar was seen to have gone out to a ball, the very night that hundreds of his subjects had been trampled in a stampede for images of him and the Tsarina....Did he really care about them?

So should they fight for him. For a time at least, they would. Before the Revolution.

Queen Victoria who gave birth to most of the ignorant spoilt fools, who were married off to congeal the Empires prowess. This small group of in-breeds spawned the generation of monarchs who sent us all of to war.

It really is a long way to Tipperary and most of them never would come back.

Paul Nash recorded the slaughter, with his, at times pretty emotionless depictions of bomb craters. And planes, that for me don't really show the true horrors of war.

I was at a local auction when a lithograph by Paul Nash of Hill 60 crater 11, made £23,000, for me it lacked the attachment, it just looks like a hole.

 It also lacked attachment for the pathetic Runcorn Auction Centre who valued it at £300. 

Nash was there, but it is shame, that his stylised depictions get all the credits, with retrospective exhibitions and epilogues, from the likes of Alastair Cook of the BBC, the next in the long line of peddlers of myths, they are the new establishment. The BBC.

So what we get from the establishment is an upgraded story from a new commentator who is too scared to go against the grain of the, said establishment, to say that the likes of Paul Nash is someone who couldn't really look, for fear because he was too scared himself.

That he did not record the true horrors, is true, because it is un-recordable.

I once found a Death Penny in a house that I was renovating when I was quite young. I did not know what it was then. But I kept it for a while until a military dealer spelt out the meaning to me. I recall admiring its detail but felt humbled, by its presence.

It was only worth about £30 at the time, there were a lot of them around.

It was not for a general or a Colonel, although there was no mention of rank, on the bronze plaques as there was no distinction to be made of the sacrifice of individuals.

They are frequently traded.

A few years later when I had learnt more about the facts that led to the deaths of so many across Europe. The same war would even bring in Americans, Canadians and Australians, it really was a World War.

And so what of the man whose initials E.Cr.P were cast into the bronze roundels that where sent to the next of kin.

The Death Penny is 5inches (120mm) across cast in bronze by the memorial factory of Acton road London. With its brave lion walking with Britannia holding a trident in the centre, as a depiction of the strong and noble British spirit. In her other hand she has a oak wreath just above the tablet that would bear the deceased name. Two dolphins swim around Britannia, symbolising Britain's sea power, and at the bottom a second lion is tearing apart the German eagle. The reverse is blank.

He didn't show the donkey symbolising those that drove the brave soldiers to death, for it would not have been right to pour scorn on all those that never returned from the fight for King and Country.

He just give it to them straight. As they would have wished, as they deserved .

He would have been proud to have been commissioned.

And he should be rewarded for it. For without the approach of dignified sculptors such as Edward Carter Preston, who knew their trade and did it well, we would not have been able to remember the many. And as bronze lasts it is now possible to look back into the individual stories behind the lives of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. The lives of the Lords and the labourer were to both be remembered equally.

They made that sacrifice hoping it would give us our freedom.

What price a Dead Mans Penny............Immortality.

Edward Carter-Preston was related to Herbert Tyson Smith.http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/herbert-tyson-smith-bronze-piece-of-week.html

I was one of the last people to see the culmination of the collection of her fathers work by Julia Carter Preston at her house in Canning Street here in Liverpool. The whole of hers and her fathers work and their memories too, went off to Hope University, to probably be lost for now.

We need an exhibition of his work a retrospective he was a very clever, and dignified man who does not get enough recognition, in my opinion.

http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/julia-carter-sgraffito-presto-plate.html

What Price? Art

A businessman recently sat in my shop asking, well, in roundabout way, why money does not seem to motivate me, maybe in the way it does him.

“There seems more to life to me, than money” I said “Art is important to me and the monetary value can become clouded or even secondary sometimes”

He pressed a bit further, his real reason though, was to find out how I tick, he had ideas about making money from me, by supplying funds, that we could share. This line of conversation was not insulting, far from it, it gave me the opportunity to explore my own thoughts and maybe understand his.

“By surrounding yourself with interests that mean something to you, there is a part of you that gets fulfilment and enlightenment, that slightly diminishes the need for cash” I said this knowing that money is very important and all things have a price. I also know that other things can not be bought.

“I deal in art and that allows me to enact other things, the job gives me a freedom, to explore, my music and study and in the studious times I also try to understand architecture. I am an artist and a potter from time to time, more keeping my hand in than creating, building up skills that may be of spherical use to me in the future” He did not look impressed, maybe he was not understanding, I thought, or does not care what I am saying because as I no longer understand his motivation to swerve people into his domain, so he may profit from their endeavours. He will not understand mine.

“Here is some of my artwork,” I said reaching over for some life drawings I had recently completed. I do these in about 10 minutes, I consider them a good staring point and show a level of understanding to go on I may use this one, of which I am proud as an oil study”

He looked at them without any observation and said quite flippantly, “Do you sell them Wayne”

“No not really”

“So how much would you sell that one for”, pushing further “How much is it worth?” He asked directly.

“Probably about a hundred an thirty”

“What for five minutes work” he asked cheekily

“Its not the time it is the level of experience, it takes a long time to get to that stage, do do the work at such a brisk pace, so its not the five minutes work, but the culmination of skills acquired and the emotion that you put into your work that counts.”

He looked and curled his lip up at one pencil sketch, that I know to be good.

“Didnt you just proclaim proudly that you own some Lowry sketches”

“Yes, he said, I payed”.... Here I interrupt him abruptly.

“So you value a Lowry sketch in several thousands, that's very interesting indeed, as think I could knock one of them out in, about.......... three minutes.”

He didn't reply.

Sometimes an encounter with such an unenlightened individual makes you think.

Think about who are those that know the cost of everything....and the value of nothing.

James McNeill Whistler and The Peacock Room-Liverpool Biennial 2014

I trundled over to the Bluecoat in School Lane on a bright sunny afternoon, to sit in a darkened room with the sole purpose of attending the talk by Magaret MacDonald of the Department of Art History of Glasgow. Part of the Liverpool Biennial which is strangely entitled.
A Needle Walks Into A Haystack.

There is a school of thought that trying to find art in the Liverpool Biennial may be like finding a needle in a haystack, but I don't subscribe to that, do I? 

http://www.thebluecoat.org.uk/blog/view/who-is-blogging/154

The talk was wonderfully illustrated by slides and I found it most informative. 

The speaker was well read and the talk was well worth attending.

I do think the link to Liverpool is very bizarre though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Abbott_McNeill_Whistler

I had been asked if I could provide some Chaise Lounge's or sofa's of the period of the expo so that people could sit down while viewing.

 They said the budget was zero so I declined, thinking why would I wish to have hundreds of people sitting on my couch, ruining it, that I would need to sell, when they at the Liverpool Biennial pay a fortune for some Johnny Foreigner to paint a Dazzle Ship in a Rasta design.

Frederick R Leyland was a Liverpool shipping magnate and the Peacock Room was erected in London?.........this link does not quite work for me.

It is as if they had an exhibition already done, and The Biennial was a bit strapped for cash so they somehow shoehorned it in.

Whistler spent a lot of time in Paris from 1858 having been thrown out of Westpoint and had various unsuccessful jobs, where he discovered the work of Valazquez. 

Whistler along with Henry Fantin Latour, it was said where on the Road to Holland, because they were followers of Rembrandt. http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/artists/james-abbott-mcneill-whistler

He moved to Greenwich before moving more upmarket to Chelsea. 

Liverpool Library holds a “Thames Set” of 1862 depicting his studies of the river and its characters.

Some of his paintings caused a bug fuss. 

The White Girl was called a Symphonie de Blanc by Paul Mantz and was exhibited alongside Manet in 1863.

White Girl No 2 was painted in 1864 and clearly shows the lady carrying a fan by Hiroshige showing a work known as The Banks of Sumida River.

La Princesse de la pays de la Porcelaine was bought by Leyland and was exhibited in a room designed by Thomas Jekyll.

This room was altered by Whistler and Leyland hit the roof when he saw it.

Whistler was a bad gun runner as the Civil War raged in his home of America. 

He returned to painting. The morning after the revolution Valparaiso was painted 1866.

Nocturne in Blue and Gold was produced and in 1872 he seemed to have a major breakthrough in his style.

He painted a portrait of Ms Leyland and a possible sketch of Speke Hall, Liverpool, though in reverse, as an etching is printed reverso. 

The speaker did not say how long he spent in Liverpool or at all if he actually visited.

He exhibited at The Grosvenor Gallery in 1877 and his work was criticised by Ruskin. Whistler sued.

He had commissioned the White House from Architect and designer E.W Godwin and then he went bankrupt and lost it along with his copper plates which were bought back for him.

He then got a commission to Venice.

He said he thought his work must not be of any quality as it sold in numbers.

At the RBA he hung a rather unusual Valarium, there is a sketch in the exhibition, and invited Monet and Stott of Oldham.

That did not go down too well and he was thrown out.

He sold his treasured painting “The Mother” shortly after he published The Art Of Making Enemies.

The ISSPG exhibition of 1898 showed his pictures hung in a line. He died 1903.
 I then viewed the exhibition in the main gallery of the Bluecoat. I thought it mostly of mostly inferior work by Whistler, minor sketches and etchings and a nice but strange painting that looks like a Harry Clarke.

I was  totally disappointed by the half hearted, but well intentioned recreation, of  The Peacock Room.

Or one wall of it. 




That looked, when viewed in detail, as if it was constructed of MDF and sprayed with a gold aerosol can....Oh hang on, it was. 

What was the point in that, and what was the links to Liverpool, I thought as i went out in the beautiful afternoon sun. 

All that was missing was the tea and cream scones and I could have really become an art tourist.


Read more here.
http://picturingamerica.neh.gov/downloads/pdfs/Resource_Guide_Chapters/PictAmer_Resource_Book_Chapter_11B.pdf

Liverpool's Affordable Art Fair-Costs Seven Quid To Get In.

Even Ken Dodd thinks its funny. Saturday saw the beginning of Liverpool Biennial. Which generally means the place is littered with immature and foolish excuses for works of art that have cost a fortune, that generally look like a kid has done them, and have no meaning whatsoever. http://www.biennial.com/

Take the Dazzle ship, please someone take the dazzle ship. 

What a waste of money. The city is closing nursing homes all over the place and they have let some ageing hippy called Carlos Cruz-Diez: turn the historic ship owned by Liverpool Museums, The Edmund Gardner, into a work of art (sic)......and he got paid for it.  http://www.biennial.com/collaborations/carlos-cruzdiez-dazzle-ship 

Dazzle painting was a system for camouflaging ships that was introduced in early 1917, at a time when German submarines were threatening to cut off Britain’s trade and supplies. The idea was not to “hide” the ships, but to paint them in such a way that their appearance was optically distorted, so that it was difficult for a submarine to calculate the course the ship was travelling on, and so know from what angle to attack. The “dazzle” was achieved by painting the ship in contrasting stripes and curves that broke up its shape. Characterised by garish colours and a sharp patchwork design of interlocking shapes, the spectacular ‘dazzle’ style was heavily indebted to Cubism.

But would they have used a Rasta design? That stands out like a sore thumb. Maybe not.

Liverpool museums staged what they called an affordable art fair saturday last It seemed well attended and once you got past the thousands of kids screaming in the foyer it was a pleasant enough experience.

 Though I am glad I had a free ticket or I would have felt aggrieved at the seven quid required to get in to a free museum.

Lets hope the takings go to re instating some of the damage that the current director Dr David "Fuzzy Felt" Fleming has recently done to our history.

http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/sudley-house-why-have-liverpool-museums.html

Maybe they could use the room that housed the so called affordable art fair to promote some of Liverpool's past glory. 

http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.co.uk/2009/06/herculaneum-pottery-held-by-liverpool.html