9 Mar 2012

Adrian Allinson, poster designer

1935


When the In Translation ladies chose the Colonial Progress Brings Home Prosperity poster set to display in the Gallery’s latest exhibition I was really pleased. It’s one of the most controversial sets, and so it seemed right – more honest – that the Gallery was not going to keep it behind the scenes.

But what to make of it? Well, you’ll have to visit the exhibition to see the artwork created in response to the posters.

Here though, I’d like to draw attention to the artist who designed them. His name was Adrian Paul Allinson (1890-1959), and he was able to pursue his artistic career freely, because his father had made the family’s fortune with his successful flour milling business. Adrian received his artistic training at the Slade School, sharing the school’s 1910 annual scholarship with Stanley Spencer. During World War One he spent time designing stage sets, after which his painting seemed to become flatter and more decorative. This made him an ideal poster designer, and in the 1920s he designed posters for the London Underground and British Rail, as well as for the Empire Marketing Board.

Adrian Allinson was known for his strong, sunny colours – and, apparently, for his precision of observation. This appraisal of his skills seems strange to us now, as we look at the alarming, threatening way that he portrayed the African people in this poster set. How can these portrayals be based on sound observation? It reminds me that although the posters themselves are bright and fresh still, their way of looking at people is very much a product of their time.

Manchester Art Gallery's entire collection of Empire Marketing Board posters can be seen on flickr.

Illustration: the first poster from the Colonial Progress set: East African Transport – Old Style, accession number 1935.714. On display in the exhibition In Translation: Women, Migration and Britishness, which runs until February 2013.

13 Feb 2012

Looking for a Valentine? Pygmalion may have the answer.

Pygmalion


This painting is a good one for Valentine's day because it's then that lots of people feel loneliest, don't they? Here's Pygmalion's solution to loneliness - perhaps one not to copy!

It’s a painting of a myth, of a dream turning into a reality. The subject of this painting is a Greek myth, told by the Roman poet Ovid in his Metamorphoses. Pygmalion was the King of Cyprus, who sculpted a statue of the sea-nymph Galatea out of ivory. In answer to his prayers, it was brought to life by Aphrodite, the goddess of love and when he kissed the lips of his statue he found that they were warm Here she holds a butterfly above Galatea's head, symbolising metamorphosis, or transformation. The story represents man’s search for ideal beauty.

Look at the way the life is spreading down the statue’s ivory body: pink nipples and grey toes. This is very true to Ovid’s original tale. Pygmalian had been caressing his statue and taking her to bed with him for some time before the goddess answered his prayer to give her life. It was only when pinkness and softness of flesh appeared that he realised his prayers were answered.

Also see Two’s Company, Three’s None by Marcus stone in Gallery 7, Adieu by Edmund Blair Leighton in Gallery 7, and The Lantern Maker’s Courtship by William Holman Hunt in Gallery 5.

The Gallery is a romantic place, easy to see why so many people propose here!

Hannah Williamson
Curator, Collections Access

Image

Pygmalion and Galate (1797) by Louis Gauffier - On display on the balcony in the gallery entrance hall.

10 Feb 2012

Ford Madox Brown exhibition goes to Ghent

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Following an incredibly successful run here at Manchester Art Gallery we have now packed up the Ford Madox Brown show and shipped it off to the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium, for its second showing. I go out next week to oversee the Manchester works being installed and I’m excited to see how the curators there are going to present them. Most of the same paintings and drawings that were on show here will be included, but there will be slightly less emphasis on Brown’s Manchester period at the end of his career. There will be additional works from MSK’s collection to put Brown in the context of his Belgian contemporaries from the period when he was training in the art academies of Ghent, Antwerp and Bruges.  

So, if you missed the show in Manchester, why not catch it in Ghent? It will be on from 25 February – 3 June 2012.

For more information: http://www.mskgent.be/nl

Preparing Work to travel

Work is one of the most famous paintings in our collection and is often requested for loan to other exhibitions. Not only is it going to Ghent this year as part of the Ford Madox Brown show, it will be going to Tate Britain in the autumn for their major Pre-Raphaelite show. To preserve the fragile slip frame (the flat gold arched inner frame with inscription) our conservation team have prepared a replica slip frame for when the painting travels and is on loan. They have also prepared stretcher inserts for the back of the painting to keep the picture stable.

It was great to be able to watch the conservators at work on this before we packed the painting for Ghent. It made me realise what a complex object Work is and how many years of moving and handling it can take its toll. When it returns from its travels this year our frames conservator is considering the option of making a replica of the main outer frame for display so that the original can be preserved from further wear and tear.

For more information about the Tate’s Pre-Raphaelite exhibition:
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/preraphaelites/default.shtm

Rebecca Milner
Curator: Collections Access

Images
1 & 2. Packing up Ford Madox Brown exhibition to go to Ghent
3. Taking Work out of its frame
4. The new slip frame is installed into the outer frame of Work
5. The conservator fits stretcher inserts to the back of Work
6. Work is packed into its crate

 

 

 

 

7 Feb 2012

Crocheted glass by Catherine Carr

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There is a new Showcase display of crocheted glass by Catherine Carr on display in the second floor gallery of Craft & Design.

Catherine graduated from  Manchester Metropolitan University's 3-D Design BA (Hons) in summer 2010.  Since then she has established a craft cooperative studio and shop in Glossop and made exquisite crocheted glass, based on her grandmother's crochet patterns.

Her work is a lovely combination of traditional techniques and innovative use of materials, and is attracting a lot of interest from the craft and design press already.  

Please pop in and have a look at the display because my point and shoot  photo's really don't do the work justice - they really sparkle.

You can find out more and see examples of her work at Catherine Carr's website.

Janet Boston, curator: collections access

12 Jan 2012

Ford Madox Brown's Manchester Murals

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On Sunday 15 January, Julian Treuherz, Guest Curator of our current show Ford Madox Brown: Pre-Raphaelite Pioneer, will be giving a talk about Brown’s Manchester Murals. The 12 murals still survive and can be seen in their original location in the Great Hall in Manchester’s magnificent Town Hall. It took Brown nearly 15 years to complete them and they were his last great achievement before he died in 1893. 

For 6 of the 15 years it took to complete the commission, Brown lived in Manchester, including on Daisy Bank Road, Victoria Park. During this time he met and mingled with many illustrious Mancunians. In terms of Brown’s flagging career, one of the most important of these acquaintances was the famous Brewer, Henry Boddington. Boddington acquired over 30 of Brown’s paintings and housed these in his picture gallery at Pownall Hall, Wilmslow (now a private school). 

It is thanks to Boddington and Brown’s other Manchester supporters such as Charles Rowley (frame maker) and C P Scott (editor of The Manchester Guardian), that Manchester Art Gallery now has such a significant collection of Brown’s paintings. Amongst the 44 works by Brown owned by the Gallery are 3 of his designs for the Manchester murals. My favourite is John Kay, inventor of the Fly Shuttle, AD 1753 which shows the inventor Kay being bundled into a sheet by his family in order to escape the machine breakers coming in at the window. Henry Boddington’s wife and children modelled for Mrs Kay and her children – perhaps a good way to keep on the right side of your patron, immortalising his family on the walls of the Town Hall!

Rebecca Milner
Curator: Collections Access

Book tickets
** The event is now sold out **

Tickets cost £10 and booking is essential.
The Manchester Town Hall murals are open to the public especially to coincide with Ford Madox Brown: Pre-Raphaelite Pioneer. Public access will be available from 10am – 5pm on the following Sundays in January:
15 January, 22 January, 29 January
There is no admission charge to visit the Great Hall.

Images
Unfinished cartoon/design for John Kay, Inventor of the fly shuttle, AD 1753, 1888, tempera on panel. ©Manchester City Art Galleries
Design for Crabtree watching the transit of Venus, AD 1639, 1881, 1888, tempera on panel.  ©Manchester City Art Galleries
Design for The Establishment of the Flemish weavers in Manchester, AD 1362, 1881, 1888, tempera on panel. ©Manchester City Art Galleries
 

31 Oct 2011

‘A girl as loves me’: Ford Madox Brown’s model, muse and wife Emma Hill

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Pre-Raphaelite artists were often intimately involved with their models and Ford Madox Brown was no exception. In December 1848 he met Emma Hill, a bricklayer’s daughter, who was working as a model. They quickly fell in love, had a daughter and married in 1853. Unlike the dark and red haired women that Rossetti, Hunt and Millais fell for, Emma was fair. William Michael Rossetti (later Brown and Emma’s son-in-law) described her looks: ‘pink complexion, regular features and a fine abundance of beautiful yellow hair, the tint of harvest corn’.  

Model, muse and wife, Emma was the woman that Brown most frequently turned to for the principal female characters in his work. She appears in Brown’s art as literary heroines, historical queens and escorts, but most memorably as the modern woman aboard an emigrants’ ship, lost in thought, perhaps hopeful yet reticent about the future alongside her brooding, disappointed husband. Emma posed outside in the winter to enable Brown to capture the effect of a cold, dull winter’s day on her face, and the wind catching the ribbons of her bonnet. It took him 4 weeks to paint the ribbons alone! I’m not sure how Emma felt about this, but she seems to have agreed to some gruelling sittings in all sorts of weathers to help Brown fulfil his ‘truth to nature’ approach.

The other famous painting by Brown where Emma appears is Manchester Art Gallery’s Work. In the exhibition we have included a beautiful pencil study of Emma for the lady with the parasol, which comes from the Walker Art Gallery’s collection in Liverpool.  

Angela Thirlwell who has contributed to the Ford Madox Brown exhibition catalogue will be revealing more about Emma and 3 other women in Brown’s life at a talk - Ford Madox Brown: Life, Love, Art - on 19th November. Angela’s research helps us gain a broader understanding of Brown’s art as well as the complex role women played within the Pre-Raphaelite movement.

Visit Manchester Art Gallery's website for more information about Angela’s talk or buy tickets online here.

Rebecca Milner
Curator: Collections Access

Images:
1. Detail of Emma from The Last of England, 1852-55, ©Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery
2. Emma Hill (Study for ‘King Lear’), 1848, ©Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery
3. Work, 1852-63, ©Manchester City Art Galleries

20 Oct 2011

A Manchester Street, 1941, by John Bold

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A Manchester Street (image 1) was purchased by the gallery in 2008, and since that time we have been on the lookout for an opportunity to display it. The Manchester Gallery seemed the obvious place, but it wasn’t until last week that space became available.

The artist, John Bold (1895 - 1979), was born in the Moss Side area of Manchester. He attended the Manchester School of Art, becoming proficient at figure drawing - we have a chalk drawing of a charismatic ‘Italian head’ by him in the gallery’s collection. But what’s weird is that in his landscape work, for which he was best known, he almost entirely eliminates figures. His paintings have a bleak poetry about them that fascinates me.

I am not the only one drawn to Bold’s work. Mr Allcroft, the previous owner of A Manchester Street, purchased the painting directly from the artist in 1977, captivated by its simplicity. It evoked his own wartime childhood, spent in Gorton, Manchester. When the sirens sounded during the bombing raids over Manchester, he and his Mum would have to rush out to a shelter. He said, ‘My Dad thought we were sitting ducks with heavy industry all round us.’

Tom Allcroft was only five years old in 1941, but he remembers it vividly (image 2). He helped with the war effort by patrolling the street – not having a toy sword, he armed himself with his toy saw, and his toy gun. He hopes that when others see this picture of Manchester lit up by incendiary bombs they will reflect on what it must have been like during the early war years, and agree with Winston Churchill that ‘it is better to jaw, jaw than war, war’.


Hannah Williamson
Curator: Collections Access

Images
1 A Manchester Street, 1941, by John Bold © Manchester City Galleries
2 Tom Allcroft aged 5, on patrol. Note the ‘V’ for victory, daubed on the wall behind him. With thanks to Mr Tom Allcroft.

21 Sep 2011

Award winning new chair on display

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New on display in the 2nd floor Gallery of Craft & Design is Katie Walker's Ribbon Rocking Chair. Combining innovative design with traditional hand crafting, this chair has won awards from Channel 4's Grand Designs Product of the Year to the Wood Awards to the Guild Mark of the Worshipful Company of Furniture Makers.

Manchester Art Gallery is the only UK public collection to have this limited edition chair, with help from the generous support of The Art Fund and the MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Scheme.

For more information about Katie Walker's work please visit www.katiewalkerfurniture.com

1 Sep 2011

Preparing for Ford Madox Brown: Pre-Raphaelite Pioneer – exhibition installation starts

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This week the painters were in! On Tuesday Danny and his team started priming the walls in the exhibition spaces ready for the lovely Farrow & Ball colours that will provide the backdrop to Ford Madox Brown’s work. We’ve chosen Green Smoke, Picture Gallery Red and Brassica from F&B’s vast range of historic and contemporary colours. Green Smoke was apparently a popular colour in the second half of the 19th Century and we felt it reflected Brown’s interest in the more muted tones of the Aesthetic Movement later in his career.

It’s very exciting to see the space being prepared. Next week we’ll start hanging some of the works and it will really start to take shape. Another key development this week was the arrival of advanced copies of the exhibition catalogue. It looks great with all its colour illustrations of the works in the show.

I’m busy proofing exhibition text and finalising lots of other details. For the audio guide recording last week I asked Julian what work he would like to hang on his walls if he could. I won’t reveal what that is just yet, but it got me thinking about which one I’d like. For me it would have to be one of his small jewel like landscapes such as Carrying Corn.  This is beautiful and intense and came as a real surprise to me when I saw it as I hadn’t realised the extent of Brown’s interest in landscape. He went to the same spot 20 times to complete this painting and struggled with the changes in weather each time as he wanted to capture it as he’d first seen it on a sun-lit day. These struggles are not evident in the painting and the clarity of light and colour are what I love. Did Van Gogh ever see this I wonder?

Rebecca Milner, Curator: Collections Access

Images
The painters, Danny and his team get to work in the exhibition galleries, ©Manchester City Galleries
Ford Madox Brown, Carrying Corn, 1854, oil on panel, Tate, ©Tate, London 2010

 

 

21 Jul 2011

A new display by Rachel Goodyear

Rachel_goodyear_-_sliding_up


We have just put up a new display by Rachel Goodyear. We are showing four framed drawings and her first animation. Rachel makes drawings of macabre scenes featuring people and animals. She is inspired by different sources including folklore, mythology and personal experience. In one image we see emerging from a girl’s mouth a snake which turns into a frog at its head. In another image entitled Headache a man with vacant eyes has thorny sticks taped to his head. The work shows a strange connection between humans and nature – one which is mutually dependent, yet sinister. There is a fine line between humour and malevolence. In the animation Kissing in Tunnels her disturbing characters come alive, locked in an eternal loop of waiting, longing and resignation.

The artist is a young, highly successful Manchester-based artist who exhibits her work internationally and is represented by two galleries who sell her work to collectors worldwide. We are showing Rachel’s work in a section called Making It in The Manchester Gallery in which we highlight artists and makers based in the city whose careers are taking off.

Personally I am very excited to finally be showing Rachel’s work as I have admired it for a long time and followed her career with interest. This display will be on show for a year.

Natash Howes
Curator: Exhibitions

Image credit: Sliding up 2009, courtesy the artist and The International 3

 

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