Showing posts with label Art Deco. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Art Deco. Show all posts

Tuesday, 15 June 2021

Jean Gerbino Micro Mosaic Ceramic Vase-Piece of the Week

 Jean Gerbino (1876 -1966) set up his pottery at Vallauris, in the South of France. 

Gerbino was born into a Sicilian pottery family, he started learning his craft at an early age. He left for Vallauris, France, where he worked as a potter under Clément Massier.



 In 1919, after a spell in Algiers then in Uzès, near Nîmes, then he returned to Vallauris. Where he was to stay.


The vase on the left is 12cm high.

He was heavily influenced by Japanese Nerikomi pottery known as Neriage. The work he produced involves laminating different coloured clays to produce blends of colour that seem to swirl yet was uniform. 

When you then cut across the grain, of the blended clay, you get beautiful repeated patterns. 

The making of a stick of rock come to mind.

The detail is amazing.

Jean Gerbino devoted 15 years of his life to developing this unique process, a combination of mosaic and Neriage.

 In 1931, it won him the Paris Concours Lépine prize. Many other awards followed.


The vase below is 9cm high.


His work is unique in Europe to my mind and is as timeless as the Venetian masters of glass who weaved their millefiori rods into beautiful artistic creations.

 It must have taken a great amount of time to produce his work.

 Firstly in the concept of getting all the different clay to merge in the kiln and then in the designs, which have an art deco inspiration though post war and are of their time.

The colours reflect the light in his part of the world and echo the provincial colours of the pottery creations that made Vallauris a draw for ceramicists.



I have four vases ranging from 9cm to 12 cm in height.

I am amazed by them.



Friday, 29 January 2021

Art Deco Statue-Piece of the Week

Marcel Bouraine (1886-1948) is a well known name in the style we know now as Art Deco. The term Art Deco is an abreviation first seen in the 1960's taken from the name of L'Expostion Art Decoratif et Industrial Moderne in 1925. In Paris. This is the now accepted date when this new modern style was brought to the world in any sufficient quantity as to make a substantial difference. I have had some really strong bronze studies by this artist.

He also had a pseudonym. I have also had several Art Deco statues signed Derenne mainly in spelter some have had slate bases other had had marble.

This is Marcel Bouraine.

I have built several collection both for myself and for my several of my clients over the years and they always seem to include a sculpture by Bouraine.

He was working mainly in France.


Here I have a Disc dancer signed Derenne.....I have misplaced the discs that go onto both hands unfortunately. Though it is not taking away the movement in the piece. Made of green patinated spelter on a Belgium slate base. I sold this piece over ten years ago and have recently acquired it back. She is 20 inches high almost dancing off the base.

Born in Pontoise France largely self taught. He was taken prisoner during the Fiirst World War and sent to Switzerland. He was active until 1935 exhibiting at The Paris Salons. He designed for Argy-Rosseau who was a magician in Pate-sur-Verre. 

He preferred a classical theme. his Art Deco sculpture of Amazon with shield and spear has become a regular on the auction market.

 He may have also used the pseudonym Briand as there is a definitive connection between the two. 

Bouraine studied with Pierre Le Faguays and Max Le Verrier at The Ecole Des Beaux Arts in Geneva. Max Le Verrier would later cast many of his sculptures for him.




Wednesday, 9 January 2019

Keller and Guerin Luneville Vase-Piece of the Week.


  I have had this beautiful pretty little vase for over a decade.Many have tried to prise it away from me but up to now I have not given in to the lure of....money. I keep thinking where am I going to find another one.
It is decorated so simply with floral decoration applied in enamel over a earthenware base. It looks like the flowers are swaying in the wind.
Its only 17cm high, and as a potter I can tell that the thrower has just patted the rim down creating a ever so delicately placed dimple around the neck of the piece where it becomes more rotund, that just gives it a little something extra.
Now even after all this time and without too much research I have to admit I don't know who the exact decorator is. I would love to think its a Ernest Bussiere piece but it could be Louis Majorelle or Lachenal. What I do know is its a little gem.
Signed K G Luneville that is the mark for Keller and Guerin.

In 1728 Jacques Chambrette established the first earthenware factory in Lorraine, in Lunéville besides the river Meuse, not far from Vezouse.
He formulated a new type of earthenware called "terre de Lorraine" in 1748 based on the study of English potteries.
He had great economic and artistic success.
The factory was awarded the status of Manufacture Royale de Fayence by the Ducs of Lorraine in 1749.
The Lunéville manufacture was ti rival the expanding English and German ceramics centres and Chambrette managed to successfully export his wares to Italy, Germany, Poland, Switzerland and even The Netherlands.
In 1786 Sébastien Keller bought Luneville from the Chambrette family following the bankruptcy of the pottery manufacturer in 1785. For the next 137 years, the Keller family controlled the company. In 1832, Sébastien Keller's son aligned with his brother-in-law Guérin to give birth to the mark K&G (or KG) from the names Keller and Guérin and during the following century, Lunéville was the seat of "Keller and Guérin" (Société KG).
Between 1700 and 1800 several faience manufacturers installed their companies in a tight network in Lorraine. The factories produced everyday utilitarian and decorative objects.
Since silver dinner services were prohibited by the king (who used the taxing of such objects to finance his wars), faience manufacturers were able to sell wares more easily.
The artisans were inspired by their surroundings; Subjects were decorated with naturalistic styles, faience was decorated with flowers, insects, real and fictitious animals and exotic figures. They produced faience dogs, which were placed in the halls of houses ( the French have an expression "to stare at each other like faience dogs").
Later on Chinese decorations, introduced by Jesuits who brought back examples from their often dangerous missions. Jacques Chambrette, who suffered from the high taxes that were imposed on him in the ducal region that was controlled on behalf of the King of France, coveted the episcopal area, which was connected to France, but where the influences of Louis XIV were much less smothering.
In 1758, Jacques Chambrette started a second faience factory in Saint-Clément, which lies in the Diocese of the Bishop of Metz. In the 19th century the originally German family Keller, soon allied with Guérin. This gave new life to the factory by industrialising it.
This was an era in which Lunéville and its surroundings provided very skillful workers.
The area around the faience factory, under patronage of Sainte Anne, developed.
In 1900, there were around 1,100 employees. The factory's products had a worldwide reputation and participated successfully in various fields of art and industrial exhibitions.
During the design period we know as Art Nouveau Keller and Guirin employed some of the most gifted designers Louis Majorelle and Ernest Bussiere were to create some of the finest designs. Lachenal would add to the design base of the company.
In 1922 Édouard Fenal, originally from Pexonne and Badonviller, bought the factories of Lunéville and Saint-Clément, so employment was guaranteed in Lunéville and Saint-Clément.
New designers were brought in to cater for the new wealth that was around and the new style that we now know as art deco rushed in with its geometric lines.
Mougin Brothers would help to bring the whole area into a new style.
The Second World War marked a recession.
The name Geo Conde is often seen on wares.
St Clement produced huge quantities of crackle glazed animaliar following the French tradition of sculpting the animal form that went back centuries.
The production of these in ceramic made them more affordable. Some of these animals were of varying quality some having slightly strange colour combinations of deep reds and blues that are highly collectible today.
In 1979 a new group was further developed by buying out the Sarreguemines ceramics complex. Édouard's son, Gilbert, was in charge of the group which also comprises Salins, Vitry-le-François and Digoin.
The Lunéville production stops in 1981.
Only the factory of Saint-Clément is still operational by1999.

In the renovated buildings nowadays small and medium sized companies are still working.

Sunday, 4 November 2018

Parlons Francais by Paul Iribe-Piece of the Week.


I bought this, what I could call, historic document some 20 years ago, possibly 1998, on a street market in the town of Orleans France.
 Those were exciting times, Britain had only just joined the economic union and customs were opened up so France was a storeroom full of Art Deco that I could use to generate stock with a more classic line than some of what could be called more average British design.
I was over in France at least once a month. 
We had to eat out all the time and of course you have to have a glass of wine with your meal while there. Y'know perks of the job. We roughed it a bit but it was enjoyable. there were hardly any tourists then. Before the cheap no frill airlines invaded.
Somehow or other this book has stayed with me all this time. 
I recall the morning I bought it well.
 I had slept in the van the night before, on the front seat,  with Colin the window rattler who snored his head off in the back of the van. I woke up more tired than when I went to sleep.
The early bird catches the worm, and all that.
It was also the day that I found an original Hispana Suiza car mascot in good condition.
That I sold to a local motor museum in Mouldsworth. 
I wish I still had that too, its very rare and the more they have been reproduced the more valuable the original has become. James still has it too. When he closed the museum down he showed me it.
He knew he had something rare he kept it for his own collection.

This colourful printed folio of designs, I was surprised to find, was by Paul Iribe.
 The idea for the publication had been suggested by Maurice Constantin-Weyer and printed in Paris.
Knowing some of the work of Paul Iribe who was an all round designer of furniture fashion and art, it went against the grain of his work. I was confused initially.
It was angry and and had a real punch to it.
Then I thought, well wouldn't you be angry.
 It was published in 1934 and the first hundred copies were kept for the artist. Now, I say its called Parlons Francais which is ironic because I did not speak very good French myself and missed the point initially. That it is called Parlon Francais and not Parle Francais.
Yes here it seems, Paul Iribe is speaking for the French in his mind.
1934 was a mere 15 years after the treaty of Versailles which was signed in 1919 the year after the cessation of the conflict of the First World War that saw so many of his compatriots die.
I have not done any research about whether the artist was there in the trenches, but he was definitely there in spirit.
 The language of the art with its captions is vitriolic and holds no punches.
 It is hard to imagine now today, with the vile comments on social media becoming commonplace, but here in 1934 this is about as strong as you could get.
And from a man who designed ladies clothes, who was in fact at one time the partner of Coco Chanel. 
It opens up another side to the man who designed the famous Nautilus Chair, examples of which are on view at The Waldorf, New York.
 Many other examples of his designs make small fortunes when they appear in the, usually, upper class salerooms.
So this was a man with sensitive desires to furnish the stately modernist Ocean Liners that traversed across the Atlantic.
That were sponsored by the State, The Republic of France.
And yet here he was in 1934, counting the cost of the First World war and it looks to me, projecting the death that was about to befall his country in 1939, some five years after its publication when the Nazis invaded.
This is a man who was not scared to upset the establishment.
I don't understand all the Parle or recognise a lot of the named and shamed but I know enough to see that he was fuming with rage.
 Rage at the people who were trusting the Nazi regime when they were about to cross the borders, once again, and this time make it all the way to Paris.
I am not looking any further into the history of the war time occupation, of France. 
I don't have the time in my head this week as the 100 year anniversary of the end of hostilities comes about this next week. It is a sad time to reflect.
I will be too busy remembering those fallen and some of those that fought, I knew.
 My Grandfather was there. Last year I remembered Passchendaele and those I did not know.
 I have spoken to many who have now sadly passed. But I will not forget them. Forthey sacrificed themselves so we could be free. And speak freely.
While wars still rage I will take a short time to think about those who warn of the dangers ahead. 
Paul Iribe was one of those.
 I respect the memory of what he did and sometime I will find my way into looking into the interesting, brave predictive, strong character that was Paul Iribe.
He unlike so many others these days was also bold enough to put his name to his words and sign this copy right above the French tricolour on the frontispiece.
I feel proud to have a link back to this man who told the truth and was not afraid. Parlon Francais.

It appears to me to be a historical document. Lest we forget. At our peril.

Thursday, 12 March 2015

The Mersey Tunnel-Art Deco Architecture In Liverpool.

The Mersey Tunnel Entrance’s

One of the world’s most ambitious engineering undertakings of the time.

The Mersey tunnels connecting Birkenhead and Wirral with Liverpool.


Opened by King George V on 18th July 1934.




Extensive piling was required in the main vicinity of the entrance of the Liverpool side.
In 1715 gates were built across the mouth of the Pool at Canning Place to give Liverpool its first dock.
 Liverpool had been tidal up to the point of the entrance of the tunnel at that date.
The total cost was 7,750,000 pounds. The Ministry of Transport contributed 2,500,000.
In 1922 a report was put forward to table a motion for the appointment of a committee of six to enquire on a scheme to improve transport facilities
A bridge or a tunnel would be considered.
A bridge was to cost 10,550,000 pounds. This would add superficially and in the event of war would prove a vulnerable target.

The Port of Liverpool would then be inaccessible.

The tunnel was considered the best option. Winston Churchill, then at the Treasury, offered a change of heart and the 2,500,000 was finally agreed as capital for the project and permission was given to charge tolls for a period of no longer than 20 years.

They still charge today and the project flawed from the start has never paid its way.
Herbert Rowse was appointed architect to the Joint Tunnel committee in 1931.
 His former teacher Sir Charles Rielly complained that he had been set a thankless task and not being involved from the outset his work was compromised.

The Haymarket entrance had been sited wrong in his opinion, slightly to one side of the axis with St George’s Hall. 
Rowse had been set the task of decorating a hole in the ground.






“The engineer too often thinks he can call in a Architect to cover up his mistakes to add pretty things to hide them”.
Said the Liverpool Review in August 1934. I have to agree how much more symmetrical the whole area would look today if a proper process had been undertaken.
Rowse showed again that the style needed was an Art Deco style, which fitted in perfectly with interpretations of speed and function. 
This style also shows its American masculinity, which Rowse was also familiar with. Walter Gropius praised the functional dado of black glass and stainless steel, which ran through the tunnel for its simplicity. 
The Pegasus ornamentation sum up “a mood” of the time.

It looks almost like an Egyptian scarab design.
 Rowse would go Egyptian with The Georges Dock Ventilation.
The lights look as if Edgar Brandt had designed them in France.

The Birkenhead Entrance still retains its Pylon but the Pylon from the Liverpool side is said to be buried in a Council Yard.


 Wayne Colquhoun c2015



Tuesday, 3 March 2015

Lorenzl Bronze Figurine-Piece of the Week

 Lorenzl is a name that anyone familiar with Art Deco will instantly recognise.
 I used to think they were twee, but I am warming a bit to the better ones.
So what makes the better ones stand out.
Well its all about movement.
Often Lorenzl as sculptor tries too hard, but its an easy fix to be seduced by a beautiful dancing lady wanting to jump off the base.
I say that not meaning them in a sexy way because I don't believe that is the way they were intended, but more an emancipation of women some decades after the Suffragette movement had fought and won the vote.
 Most of my figurines that I have sold over the years, and there have been many of them, are actually bought by women, or at least they have the decision as they will be the ones who normally have to be  around them and not be upset or intimidated by the female form. This piece is often called Arabesque. No, I don't know why either. Maybe its her costume styling? She is certainly a bit slim for a belly dancer. See More Here
So what can you expect to pay for a Lorenzl in to days market? They have shot up in price the smaller ones seemed to be £250 forever and then as if overnight they went to £750 and beyond. a large version (68cm) of this sculpture recently made £8750 at a Christies South Kensington sale. But you need to look at around a thousand pounds to own a similar one to this beauty. But be careful there are art deco fakes out there.
 http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2003/jan/11/art.artsfeatures



Friday, 13 February 2015

Alexander Archipenko-Master of Modernism?

Alexander Archipenko's work at first glance and to fresh eyes of the 21st century seems cliched and old hat.
This is because, like many artists such as Mondrian and numerous others that we thought of as modern, it has been copied over and over again by plagiarists.
So why does his name stand the test of time and be linked with some of the greats?
And where from where did his inspiration occur, was it original?
But in asking this question, we must remember that in the age it was made, there was a seed change that reflected a modernity, before the word had been invented.
Nobody was aware what would last at the time.
And this environment was fighting with the old.
Put in context of the Glasgow school with its entrallic and linear forms of new art or Art Nouveau, it is as if from another planet.
The Vienna Secessionists were moving the art nouveau of old and making the link to the Bauhaus.
Early in the century there were several experimentalists such as Picasso and Braque who were adopting new styles and these along with other modernists fed into each other and inspired all those who came around them.
Paris was the hub of the impressionists, but almost nothing could have seen this coming if you look at art from a decade earlier.
Much has been written about how they all may have tried to capture the primitive art of tribal masks and oceanic totem, with or without knowing what they were doing.
Picasso collage of 1912 “Still Life With Chair Caning” is tipped in, as the first time collage on paper was used.
The multi layered use of collage may have inspired Archipenko. Will we ever know?
Alexander Archipenko was born in Kiev in 1887. He died in 1964.
He studied in Kiev Art School from 1902 to 1905 but in 1906 he went to Moscow.
Archipenko left for Paris in 1908 where he visited the great museums.
He studied for a year in the Ecole Des Beaux Arts in Paris where he started exhibiting, but his first one man Exhibition which was held in Hagen in 1910.
He also exhibited in Berlin and several other German cities.
Archipenko's work, it is said was a form of constructivism based on cubist forms and the parring down and streamlining of shape and form. His sculpto painting shows us a understanding of the inner phsyce. So it has been said.
Archipenko's grandfather was a Icon painter.
By inspiration he used a brilliance of colour, in his work. Deep reds, orange and gold which are dominant colours of the Novgorod School from where his inner inspiration probably came. His interpretation of these ancient forms into the secular makes his work seem even more provocative.
But also this shows us that it is those who believe, in image and who absorb the image of an icon, whether it be religious or secular are possibly accepting something similar in reflection.

Like his contemporaries such as Brancusi, who preceded him to Paris and Jacques Lipchitz who left Lithuania to study in Paris, but returned to Russia for Military service in 1912, he entered adventurous paths that had opened up for budding artists with the desire and dedication to succeed.
He replaced form with hollows and concave materials in these sculpto paintings that it was said he invented in the early twenties worked by incorporating and using metal and glass.
His use of cut conical shapes made the concavity that he desired.
This also worked in convex and his use of perspective was sometimes made simply with painted lines.
In 1914 he travelled to Nice where he saw out the war.
During this time his work was entrusted in storage to his friend Ferdinand Leger who was conscipted.
Though with his absence and lack of care for them, moisture entered the shed in Paris and his paper mache constructions were ruined.
In a separate storage some of his work that had been exhibited in America at the Royal Armoury show in New York were destroyed by long range German bombardment.
He was often ridiculed in France, as were quite a lot of the adventurists who we now see as pioneers of modern art.
Though when hostilities ceased he sent a lot of this accumulation of work to Germany and Switzerland.
He opened a school in Paris and taught others how to interpret his use of the experimental.
In the 1920's his work in Germany was thought akin to that of Picasso's, and his work entered numerous museum and gallery collections such as Essen, Mannheim, Frankfurt and Berlin.
His execution of a series of brilliantly coloured lithographs were produced by the Ernst Wasmuth publishing house.
In 1921 he closed down the Paris Atelier and moved to Berlin marryng a German sculptor Angelica Bruno-Schmitz.
In the same year Kandinsky arrived to the new 'hub' from Moscow and Chagall from Paris.
His work was amassed by collectors such as G. Falk from Geneva inculding polychromed plasters and terracotta sculptures along with work in Bronze.
Another misfortune destroyed a lot more of his work the “Entartete Kunst” exhibition of 1936 opened by Hitler and Goebbels that triggered a vast confiscation of works deemed degenerate. Thousands of works of art during this period were destroyed and lucrative works made auctions. Not many of Archopenko's work found its way onto the market and was lost.
He had moved to America in 1923 with his wife and on the voyage on the S.S Mongolia, with them were trunks laden with his work.
A lot of this work would be acquired by the Gugginheim Museum in 1956.
A second fortunate act was kind to his work when his patrons Mr and Mrs Goeritz who had bought a huge amount of his work, when new, sent it to Tel Aviv then in Palestine and thus it escaped the ravages of World war II. So did Archipenko, as there is no doubt what fate he would have met if he was still living in Germany when the Nazis came to power.
In 1955 and upto the death of Goeritz it was held in almost obscurity in vaults awaiting the family to gift most of the collection to Tel Aviv museum and in 1971 it finally opened with these works going on display.
In 1970 a retrospective of Archipenko's work was organised by Alfred Barr Jr and was held in the Museum of Modern Art. This cemented his role in modern sculpture.

I feel you have to look at the works in a different place inside your mind and take out all those works which have subliminally copied his, to see if it has any worth.
Yes I know art, like music is a culmination of what has gone before it and Archipenko himself absorbed much around him either by stealth or by default, but we still need to ask questions.
It is obvious that he believed in himself and needed to make a name for himself, either during his lifetime or at a later date.
So is he one of the most important artists of the first half of the twentieth century?
Or only one of the pieces in giant jigsaw?

That we are only still piecing together and will not understand the full picture for some time but in the meantime the Tel Aviv museum continues to display his work from the period 1910 to 1921 having over 30 pieces. So he is assured the continued attention, and maybe its fitting. 







This month February 2015 sees a pair of his paintings go on sale in New York.
 Portrait of a Woman with an estimate of $75,000 to $90,000, and Nude Torso,with a $75,000 to $225,000.
I myself look at these in image form in the catalogue and think, well its all in the name. And that name is Archipenko, and someone or some institution will probably pay the money.
Maybe the Tel Aviv institution may add them to their collection.

One think is certain, that his name will continue to be around for a long time.

But Modern Master......well I am not sure too about that.






Wednesday, 5 March 2014

La Piscine Roubaix-One Of My Favourite Things

You get around a bit and see things and then you think you have seen it all and cant have your socks blown off that easily, and then you come across a little gem like La Piscine.
I had been meaning to go for a decade and it always seemed a little out of the way and in a part of the world that you would not normally go to, unless you were in Brugges and its not far a detour to get there. Its an old industrial town that the world seems to have forgotten about, it seems to be a bit smog stained still from its past. Though it has a bit of your usual French style architecture a lot of it seems heavy and a little overworked. It seems a little like, well I wouldn't say Bradford, oops I just did, but I didn’t mean it. 
What I meant to say is that at one time it was a proud place with Civic pride and then the industry moved out and it fell down the pecking order. What all places with this past history is trying to do, is re-invent itself. Bilbao tried it and won. Liverpool copied the idea and failed with the museum of Liverpool that destroyed some of the cities most cherished views.
Roubaix has got a more difficult job. 
There are no cheap flights there is no tourist industry here and, why would you want to go there?
Well they have quietly created a gem a palace of pride in what appears at first drive, a barren wilderness.
And it is wonderful. After the approach that you take to get there and take in the underwhelming façade of La Piscine, what is after all a swimming baths, you get inside and it has everything.
We only had less than two hours but I wish I had a full day. 
I wish I would have been able to eat in the restaurant with its art Deco wrought iron balustrade that was lit with the sunlight that flooded in to the structure, through modernist style sky lights.
Now I have seen a few bits in my time. Sometimes being at a quality antique fair, I have been able to see thousands of items of beauty. You can sometimes see better, stuff, than what’s in most museums, especially if you discount how curators are like pack animals and follow the leader, and buy things that other curators or art journals say are needed.
There are curators who go out on a limb, but rather a lot of them fail, and they cant be allowed to fail because, curators are clever.....aren’t they?
Well this curator who put all this stuff together was clever. It is one surprise after another. Maybe its because the theme is Art Deco and French, but maybe its because they are just bloody good at their job, and have sewn together some magnificent things that are class, and not too pretentious, but have an unassuming sense of style, of what the period that I love has to offer.
We get the term Art Deco as a reworking of the 1925 Exposition Art Decoratif et Industrial in Paris. 
Someone or other, who may have been Bevis Hillier coined it.

This museum is both entertaining and absorbing.
 I sometimes like to think I know a bit but it was a tantalising, tingling of the senses that ensued that left me amazed. Combined with a sunny day, the sense of surprise that left me hunting for more. I was so disapointed when I had to leave, as I was on a work trip and needed to be somewhere else.
I will have to go back. I need to go back.
 Not just for some of the most amazing sculpture in a beautifully polychrome tiled swimming baths interior that was designed to be reflective and I don't mean looking back reflective I mean jewel like.
What it must have been like with water inside and beautiful French ladies in stylish bathing caps inside and around the pool, in its heyday I can only imagine, and I did.
Here it contains works of art by the likes of Paul Jouve, and the sculptor PomPom and my favourite, Rembrandt Bugatti ( the son of the furniture designer and brother of the car maker). These mix with lesser names that make you question what art means. There is a Jan Martel.
Can art, by a artist you have never had pumped up by a writer, be as good as a work by somebody you have never heard of. I know it can. You cant sell a dud to me.
The ceramics section was encompassing, not huge. 
There were ceramic works designed by the amazing French furniture designer Emile Jaques Rhulman for Sevres. 
Along with works by a ceramicist whose work I bought new a couple of years back in Lille, called Amina Roos.
There's the proof that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
There are Picasso ceramics and a huge 8ft high pot that defies the art of firing.
Bit it is the way it all melts together that is the beauty of this place.
 I believe they were going to knock it down one at one time. It is my pleasurethat the did not.
From an age when swimming baths were palaces designed to be an experience just like cinemas and theatres were.
There were so many ceramics on show I have to go back.
 I used a whole memory stick photographing nearly every piece, but I need to go back and have lunch and take my time.
The whole area that houses the paintings would be worth a trip in itself but the experience of the whole is remarkable.
There are temporary exhibitions that are made to be contemporary and to attract people and give the whole experience a contemporary quality.
Who so ever is running this show has class and is not afraid to challenge.
Unlike the people running my local museums they understand that a museum experience should not be designed to resemble a penny arcade with flashing lights, or a creche were people can dump the noisy kids on to people who are studious in their approach to art and may be a little bit more serious than the “I don't know much about art but I know what I like brigade”
If you ever are within a hundred miles of this place, La Piscine in Roubaix Belgium, make sure you detour.
I guarantee you.
 It will be worth it.

 http://www.roubaix-lapiscine.com/









Friday, 22 March 2013

St Christophers Church-Art Deco Architecture In Liverpool

St Christopher’s Church

Lorenzo drive

Norris Green

Built 1930-33

At first glance this brick built church sitting on the edge of a busy traffic roundabout in Norris Green looks a little lost. It is hardly surprising out of the tens of thousands of cars that pass every day none find it worth stopping.

On closer inspection however a pleasant surprise awaits.

It is Grade II* listing a higher ranking in listing terms than many buildings held in the highest architectural regard within the City Centre.

The Architect was Bernard A. Miller B.Arch., A.R.I.B.A who trained at the Liverpool School of Architecture.

He was renowned for his progressive church design. He also taught at Liverpool.

Originally part of a Liverpool Corporation housing scheme for Norris Green the Liverpool School was employed to bring new building methods and cost effective pricing.
From its outset it was to be part of the community and with the children of the Diocese raising a substantial part of its costs some £3,000. It is correct that it was and is known locally as The Children’s Church. The names of many of those children are buried beneath stones in the courtyard between the Church and Church hall.

The planning and detail reflects the input of this community spirit and a Parish hall and school are connected to the church by a beautiful cloister garden.
The Church follows the traditional cruciform plan but was said in various articles at its time of build to be highly original. I am not sure how much of this was down to cost or a new radical approach required in 1933.
The architect Robert Atkinson had successfully employed the use of a steel frame as early as 1924 at St Catherine’s in Acton who experimented along with a stock brick carcass.
Inside Millers original compliment was the use of parabolic arches of steel frame and fibrous plaster. These leap from eight feet above floor level intersected by parabolic windows. The steel ribs project, dividing nave and sanctuary into bays.

This form does not create a true parabola as the crown is curved and the sides faceted which aid the acoustics.

This creates a light of air and spaciousness even though the height from floor to crown is only 28ft. This is also to be noted as the width of the nave.

No provision is made for processions; this is thought to be in the Protestant ideal.
Outside the lovely cloisters have a Portland stone pulpit sculpted by Mr Bainbridge Copnall.
External elevations show windows are metal casements some stone dressings but predominantly the church is built of Reading brick.

Original colour scheme of the interior was of Oyster grey; red and deep blue with gilded stars this has been changed in the 1960s.

From the eye of a carpenter the attention to detail is subtle but evident in its simplicity. The use of laminated ply and stainless steel. The Altar is modelled in Keene’s cement and fibrous plaster, with a Hopton wood stone base. The centre panel of the Raredos was a violet blue. The Alter cross is of stainless steel with an emerald green mounting. This was a radical and entertaining colour palette for the time.


The side chapel is dramatically placed below the level of the main floor and was originally painted in violet blue.
Lighting in the chancel is concealed and clever lighting has also been employed to throw light on the ceilings. Some of the light fittings almost look industrial compared to the French influence on the iron railings but blend well with the simple plywood chairs and fittings throughout.

The font has been unkindly described as looking more ‘ice cream parlour’ than our father being decorated in copper and blue mirror, which is applied to a star shaped design.

I think this is a wonderful church, quite undiscovered for its architectural merits except by a few.

It had been suggested in the 70s that it would be easier to knock the church down and convert the church hall into a dual-purpose building.

The then 30’s Society now The “20th Century Society helped in its listing, and grants from English heritage helped to bring it up to a standard that should help sustain its place in highlighting a new and exiting era for architects. The inter-war years. Modernism with all its forms and hybrids touched us all in different ways. The fabric of the building now seems in a good condition and we have to thank the parishioners who without their effort a wonderful piece of our not too distant past would not have a new lease of life.