National Heritage Issue 87

museumnewsUnprecedented funding crisis 2V&A heads for Dundee 2Cutty Sark saved 3Heritage ‘economic power house’ 3

LOCAL FOCUS

Ulster Museum wins 5

INSIDENEWS

Dr Johnson’s House andThe Jewish Museum 18

NH DEBATE

Jewish Museum 6

2010 ART FUND PRIZE

Stuart Davies 9

2009 Art Fund winner facing closure

MUSEUM IN THE NEWSPeople’s History Museum, Manchester 7

MUSEUM OF THE YEAR REVISITEDThe Tower Museum, Derry, Londonderry 11

NH PROFILEStephen Snoddy 4

NATIONAL HERITAGE GUIDEA selective list of current and forthcoming museum and gallery exhibitions12

Wedgwood collection may be sold off to cover factory pensions

The 2009 Art Fund Museum of the Year, the Wedgwood Museum in Stoke-on-Trent, is facing closure and its matchless collections being sold off.

The future of the museum, which opened in a new building at Barlaston in Stoke-on-Trent only 18 months ago, depends on a ruling expected in October as to whether the Wedgwood Museum Trust is liable to meet the shortfall in the pension fund of its former parent company, the Wedgwood Group.

If it is, the priceless collection could be sold to the highest bidder.

The museum can trace itself directly back 250 years to Josiah Wedgewood, founder of the iconic ceramics company, who wrote to a friend in 1784: “I have often wish’d I had saved a single specimen of all the new articles I have made, & would now give twenty times the original value for such a collection. For ten

years past I have omitted doing this, because I did not begin it ten years sooner. I am now, from thinking and talking a little more upon this subject ... resolv’d to make a beginning”.

Although examples were collected from then it was not until 1906 that a museum collection was formed. Apart from pauses for the two world wars, the museum was open at the Wedgewood Etruria works until production moved to Barlaston and the special Long Gallery was opened in 1952. It was succeeded in 1975 by a visitor centre, which included museum galleries, and in the early 60s the collections were given to a new museum trust.

In September 1999 Wedgwood decided to refurbish their visitor attraction, closing the historical galleries, and the trust launched a fundraising campaign to build a new Wedgwood Museum with its extensive display area and major new research facilities. At an eventual cost of £10.5m, (with £5.86 million from the HLF and significant contributions from Wedgwood and other donors) it opened in October 2008 after nine years of planning and development.

Continued on page 3.

KIDS’ WINNER

The Herbert, Coventry 10

PAST PASSIONS

Greenwich Place and Shakespeare’s church 8

EVENTS

THE JOURNAL OF NATIONAL HERITAGE l SUMMER 2010 l ISSUE 87 l

MUSEUM NEWS

CHAIRMAN’S LETTER Museums facing biggest crisis

2 MUSEUM NEWS SUMMER 2010

Regional museums and galleries are facing their biggest financial crisis in decades with cuts in both national and local authority funding, as well as reductions in earning power, which could affect their curatorial standards.

An Art Fund survey has shown that before the latest cuts, three-quarters of museums said lack of funding was a barrier to collecting, with local authority museums in particular peril. 20% of museums and galleries fear curatorial skill is under threat, said the survey.

“The loss of curatorial knowledge from museums is deeply troubling”, said Stephen Deuchar, director of the Arts Fund. “We must do all we can to preserve these skills now for the benefit of future generations of museums goers.”

But museums are already closing, Urbis in Manchester, built in 2002 as a museum of popular culture, closed in February in anticipation of a disastrous drop in income, and its building is scheduled to become a national football museum. Others that depend wholly or partly on local authority subsidy, which has been diminishing in recent years, are expected to be reduced more sharply.

Leicester, Worthing and Kingston are among many local authorities looking to save money by changing or cutting opening times of local museum services, with Leicester’s Jewry Wall Museum, Worthing Museum and Art Gallery, and Kingston Museum all facing at least partial closure.

In Sheffield, museums have suffered a

cut of 5% and most staff have opted for pay cuts rather than the alternative, redundancy.

The New Art Gallery in Walsall, celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, has been co-funded by Arts Council England and Walsall Council but will receive cuts of 5% from ACE and of 7.5% from Walsall next year, having already lost 0.5% from ACE and 6% from the local authority in the current financial year. “It is pretty disastrous” said its director, Stephen Snoddy. “We have built our turnover up to £2.2m and it will go back to £1.6m at best, the position we were in 2002-03” (see the NH Profile, page 4). 5% cut will mean pressure on staff and public operations.

Some museums and galleries which had changed opening hours to give seven days’ a week admission, are expected to reinstate one day a week closure and closure on Bank Holiday Mondays to save on staff costs, but lose out on public spend in shops, cafes and restaurants.

Renaissance, the regional museums’ improvement scheme run by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, has received a 2.4% cut in the current financial year and is likely to be trimmed by a further 5% a year between 2011 and 2014. “We recognise that even at this level there will be some tough decisions” said Roy Clare, the chief executive of MLA, on announcing the in-year cuts, “but we believe these reductions can be achieved without reducing public services, and we will take a robust stance on seeing this achieved wherever possible”.

Must it all get worse?

V & A still heading for DundeeThe Victoria & Albert Museum is still planning to have its first base outside London as part of a new waterside development for Dundee, despite funding uncertainties.

The £47m development is scheduled to open towards the end of 2014.

The V&A at Dundee will be a focal point for the regeneration scheme in a link with the University of Dundee and the Jordanstone College of Art & Design to bring exhibitions and curatorial expertise in art and design to the

city. Dundee was chosen because of its rich textile heritage and reputation for art and design.

Scotland’s culture minister, Fiona Hyslop, said she believed the project would help protect Dundee against the recession as it went ahead with regeneration. “At a time of recession, sometimes it’s important to be bold” she said.

However, a note of caution has been added to the planning because of uncertainties of the Scottish Government’s funding over the next three years, and the effects to the V&A’s as yet unspecified cut in revenue grant.

Moving on: Michael Houlihan (pictured), director general of the National Museums of Wales for the last seven years, has moved on. He is the new chief executive of Te Papa Tongarewa, the Museum of New Zealand, and his successor is David Anderson, director of education at the V&A.

The nation’s financial crisis is, as the article on this page reports, inevitably going to make life more difficult for

our museums and galleries – things, as the Museums Journal recently put it, can only get worse, especially for our regional and smaller museums. The coalition government’s cuts, so far totalling some £2 billion, include £73 million for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, and while the Secretary of State, Jeremy Hunt, has said that culture will not be singled out as a soft target it is inevitable that museums and galleries will have to suffer reductions in current spending plans, with the probability of more to come next year.

In his article “The Gathering Gloom” on page 9 of this issue Stuart Davies, the President of the Museums Association, refers to the fact that museums are easy targets, but that they should not lie down and accept their role as victims. In this connection it is worth recalling some of the key facts brought out in the report, published earlier this year by the Heritage Lottery Fund, that heritage tourism, in which museums and galleries play a major part, is currently this country’s fifth biggest industry, worth more than £20 billion and supporting 195,000 jobs. Visitor numbers to heritage sites, both from within the UK and from overseas, increased last year while the economy as a whole was shrinking. Clearly we should be careful not to throw out this flourishing body with some of the more extravagant essences in the national bath-water.

For National Heritage our particular concern must be the threat to the small and medium-sized museums, many dependent on local authority funding, whose interests have always been a priority. There is growing anecdotal evidence of the critical condition that many of these institutions are in, but we need to substantiate this, which is one of the reasons we set up our Heritage Watch scheme a couple of years ago. This is dependent on our members and others providing information about what is happening to their local museums and galleries. If you are concerned about what is happening to institutions in your area please alert us by contacting our Administration Centre at Rye Road, Hawkhurst, Kent TN18 5DW, telephone 01580 752 052, e-mail [email protected].

James Bishop

Heritage is the UK’s fifth biggest industry

MUSEUM NEWS SUMMER 2010 3

Stonehenge plan may be scrapped as government cancels £10m grant

MUSEUM NEWS

Proposals for a £25m visitor centre for Stonehenge may be shelved after the Department for Culture, Media, the Olympics and Sport cancelled a £10m grant promised by the previous government. The scheme would move visitor facilities a mile and half away from the site to better protect the remains and divert the nearby A344 road. “Stonehenge is a project of global significance”, said an English Heritage spokesman. “Transforming the monument’s setting and the visitor experience is vital to Britain’s reputation, and to our tourism industry”.

A report by the Heritage Lottery Fund shows that heritage tourism is worth £20.5 billion to the UK economy, supporting 195,000 jobs. It makes a bigger contribution to our gross domestic product than advertising, car manufacturing or the film industry.

“We now have the figures to prove that heritage packs a substantial economic punch” said Dame Jenny Abramsky, chairman of HLF. “Our museums, historic sites and landscapes are proving to be an immense and essential attraction, bringing in new visitors and boosting local economies.”

Other key points in the report, Investing success:

Cutty Sark saved Cutty Sark, the 1869 tea clipper ravaged by fire in May 2007 in its Greenwich dry dock while it was already under restoration, is to be fully restored for the 2012 Olympics, thanks to a government grant of £3m. The total cost, originally put at £25m before the fire, has risen

Among the items that could be lost are precious “first day” vases, dating from June 1769, when Wedgwood moved his ceramics works to a new factory he called Etruria in Staffordshire.

“This museum is extraordinary for so many reasons, and we were all but unanimous in our decision” said Lord Puttnam last year as he presented, as chairman of the judges, the £100,000 prize to the museum’s director, Gaye

Continued from page 1 Blake Roberts. “The Wedgwood Museum brilliantly highlights the marriage of art, design, manufacturing and commerce; a marriage that resonates more today than at possibly any time in the intervening years. In every respect it fully meets our criteria of what a 21st century museum should aspire to be.”

But the Wedgwood Trust went into administration in April because of a complex law devised to protect the pensions of 7,000

Heritage and the UK tourism economy show that: * Of the annual £12.4m spent on heritage-

based tourism, 60% comes from UK residents on day trips and UK holidays;

* The direct GDP contribution of heritage tourism, the wages and profits earned by tourism businesses, such as hotels, restaurants and shops, as well as heritage attractions themselves, is estimated at £7.4 billion a year. Once economic multiplier impacts are added, such as the income earned by suppliers to tourism businesses. The total GDP contribution of heritage is £26.6 billion a year;

* Tourism has the potential to be one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy

over the next decade, and the appeal of heritage will be vital to that growth.

£25m lottery boost for heritageThanks to an increase in lottery ticket sales the Heritage Lottery Fund will have an extra £25m a year to distribute in grants from now until 2018. The increase will more than reverse the £161m taken from the fund to help pay for the 2012 Olympics, and will be welcome news at a time when the heritage community is braced for spending cuts in the next year. The increases take the Heritage Lottery Fund’s annual budget to £205m.

Wedgwood collection threatened retired Wedgwood factory workers, which could mean it is liable for the Wedgwood Group’s £134m pension shortfall. The museum, meanwhile, has remained open.

The trust’s chairman, George Stonier, said: “The museum’s trustees and their advisors are working hard to find a solution to this extremely unfortunate situation. The trustees are extremely grateful for the continued support of the museum’s staff and its many friends, and remain optimistic that the collections will continue to be available to the public in our museum.”

to £46m, with £25m being pledged by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Conservation is expected to be finished next year, with the ship opening in time for celebrations for Greenwich being dubbed a Royal Borough in 2012, which also marks the 60th anniversary of the Queen’s reign.


MUSEUM PROFILE

Stephen Snoddy - Director, Walsall New Art Gallery

Backs against Walsall

The local authority adventure taken on by Walsall Council seemed bold 20 years ago; today, in the funding climate affecting both national and local grants, it would be seen as downright reckless.

The funding squeeze facing museums and galleries like the New Art Gallery, Walsall, leaves its finances - partly national, partly local - in a perilous balance and its director, Stephen Snoddy, calling the situation “pretty disastrous”.

It is ten years since the New Art Gallery (NAG) opened in Walsall’s town centre at a cost of £16m, and its mixture of national support through the Arts Council and local authority ownership has made for a complicated funding regime which has at times raised crises for Snoddy. His £2.2m a year turnover is likely to be cut to £1.6m, its position eight years ago.

In that time the NAG has become not only an important centre for contemporary art for the West Midlands but also for Britain and Europe. There have been major solo shows for Gordon Cheung, Vidya Gastaldon, Christopher Le Brun, Conrad Shawcross, Hew Locke, Neal Rock, Gavin Turk and Joanna Vasconcelos.

Peter Jenkinson had nursed the plan for over a decade in a gloomy local public library to get the important Garman Ryan Collection of art, essentially the work of Jacob Epstein, into a proper, purpose-built gallery, and he did it. He left a year after the opening, and for two years it was run from a civic office, to the growing exasperation of the Arts Council. Meanwhile the permanent staff, and in particular the head of exhibitions, Deborah Robinson, continued to devise attractive shows.

A change of mind at Walsall Council recognised the importance of a professional

head for the gallery, however, and the Ulster-born Snoddy was appointed in 2005.

He had a long track record: exhibitions head at the Arnolfini, Bristol; the same at the Cornerhouse, Manchester; director of Southampton Art Gallery; director of the brand new Milton Keynes Gallery.

From the success of MKG he was called in to sort out the problems of the Baltic, the £46m gallery made from an old four mill on the Gateshead side of the Tyne. He made organisational, structural and policy changes, established some financial stability and refreshed the programme. Then, when his commitment to the gallery was doubted because he wouldn’t move house to Gateshead, he resigned.

He and his wife have three sons, one of whom is severely autistic and requires special educational care which is funded by the local authority. Snoddy won’t compromise that and never agreed to move his family. His home is still in South Manchester.

None of that has diminished the energy with which he has revived the New Art Gallery. He has seen through reviewing policy, restructuring, and carving an acquisitions budget out of his constricted income. He has established links with other institutions in the region, like the Ikon and Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, a consortium which won and £1m Art Fund international award in 2007 to acquire new work. The NAG itself has been helped by the Contemporary Art Society to acquire work by the likes of Martin Creed, Hew Locke and Gavin Turk.

In 2006 the NAG acquired the Epstein Archive giving a new facet to Garman Ryan. He has reopened the art library at the gallery.

“The Garman Ryan Collection is the core, fundamental reason why we’re here, it was 365 works given to the people of Walsall, it gives regular visitors something they can hold on to, and enables us to do our contemporary programme so that they can discover things that are new to them” Snoddy says.

“And on top of that, the gallery is socially more alive, so that we’re here for the people of Walsall more than ever.”

Snoddy has pursued audience development with music and film nights, weekend workshops and artists’ evenings, and opened studios for an artistic programme for local artists, at least five years after their art school graduation, to have three month residencies.

Visitor figures have yo-yoed with the changing fortunes of the gallery. There were 186,000 visitors in the NAG’s first year, and this gradually reduced at a rate of 15,000 a year to 2006 when it hit a low of 108,000. Since then it has risen steadily by 29% in 2007, 27% in 2008 and more modestly by 5.3% last year to break 200,000 for the first time.

But the NAG and Snoddy face their biggest challenge with cuts both to the Arts Council and local authorities. There are likely to be fewer visitors, reducing earned income, as well as cuts from ACE – 0.5% this year but likely to be at least 5% next year and the following three - and Walsall, 6% already this year, at least 7.5% next year.

“We keep going, we won’t compromise” Snoddy promises. “A lot of organisations aren’t going to be able to deliver as they have been, and while grants and income go the costs of utilities go up and up. It’s going to be extremely difficult.”

ART FUND PRIZE WINNER


Ulster hits the £100,000 Art Fund jackpot

Ashmolean, Blist’s Hill and Herbert beaten by rejuvenated Belfast museum

The Ulster Museum, the centrepiece of National Museums Northern Ireland, has won the 2010 Art Fund Prize for the museum of the year.

The Belfast museum beat The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, Blists Hill at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum, and the Herbert in Coventry (see page 10) to win the award.

The judges, chaired by BBC presenter Kirsty Young, were Kathy Gee, museums and heritage adviser; A C Grayling, professor of philosophy at Birkbeck College, London; Steve Jones, professor of genetics at University College London; Sally Osman, former director of communications, at the BBC; Lars Tharp, director of the Foundling Museum; and the artist Jonathan Yeo.

“We were moved and invigorated by our visit to the Ulster Museum” said Kirsty Young. “Here is a museum that shows how much can be achieved, and one that is building a lasting legacy. We were impressed by the interactive learning spaces on each level that are filled with objects which visitors are encouraged to touch and explore, and by how the museum’s commitment to reaching all parts of its community is reflected in the number and diversity of its visitors. The transformed Ulster Museum is an emblem of the confidence and cultural rejuvenation of Northern Ireland.”

And Stephen Deuchar, director of the

sponsor, the Art Fund, added: “Ulster Museum is a brilliant example of a museum that is passionate about its public. The redevelopment is stunning, capturing its visitors’ minds and hearts with exceptional creative flair.”

The museum re-opened last October after a three year refurbishment costing £17.5m. It was first founded in 1821 and opened 12 years later in a purpose-built neo-classical building in the Botanic Gardens as the Belfast Municipal Museum and Art Gallery. In many ways it reflects the traditional, general museum popular with the Victorians, with five sections devoted to antiquities, geology, botany, arts and local history, but in recent years has been building up its contemporary art holdings.

It became the Ulster Museum with national recognition by Act of Parliament in 1962, with an extension opened in 1964.

In 1998 the museum merged with Ulster Folk and Transport Museum and the Ulster-American Museum to form the National Museums and Galleries of Northern Ireland.

But in 2006 it closed for its refurbishment, reopening three years later with a new 23-metre high entrance atrium with glass and steel walkways leading into a series of galleries visible at once at different levels, dominated by a Window on Our World giant display tower, scaling four levels and housing the most iconic objects from across the museum’s collections.

The Window on Our World includes the Chambers Car and Edmontosaurus dinosaur - the most complete real dinosaur fossil on display in Ireland – as well as smaller objects such as a Viking brooch, gold coins from the Armada treasures; exotic butterflies and bugs from the nature collection.

Using new technology, the display tower also projects 360 degree audio images onto the four walls of the gallery.

A new restaurant has been created with a terrace leading out into Botanic Gardens, integrating the museum and the gardens.

There are three new interactive learning zones and a new high-level gallery for the display of glass, ceramics, silver and jewellery.

One of the museum’s most famous objects is the 7th century BC Egyptian mummy, Takabuti, newly conserved and brought back on show, as the centrepiece of a new display exploring life and death in ancient Egypt.

For the first time, The Art Fund Prize website hosted a poll asking the public to vote for their favourite nominated museum or gallery, and it received 73,000 votes and over 40,000 comments. In May, the Ulster Museum was also chosen as the best permanent exhibition at the annual UK Museums and Heritage Awards.

“This is the first time in Northern Ireland’s history that a prestigious cultural prize of this nature has been awarded to an institution in the region” said Tim Cooke, director of National Museums Northern Ireland. “This prize will encourage us as we endeavour to play a meaningful role at the heart of our changing society.”

“Rejuvenating the Ulster Museum in Belfast has been a deeply rewarding and purposeful experience coinciding with a remarkable period of change in Northern Ireland’s history. The public appetite for the new space and for engagement with our collections has been huge – as evidenced by the record visitor numbers and the massive level of support for the public vote element of The Art Fund Prize.“

LOCAL FOCUS

Out of place, but in timeThe Jewish Museum has reopened in Camden aftera £10m remake


As a local museum, the Jewish Museum which has just reopened after a £10m recasting, is a little out of place. Camden is not in the East End of London from where much of the recounted history comes.

But it is a very pronounced community museum which talks not just to its own members; the conversation is with the rest of a curious world as well, as Alan Yentob, the BBC’s creative director, who opened it with Nigella Lawson, said: “It’s not just for religious people, not just for Jews, it’s for all people interested in their history and in their shared past”.

The museum sits behind a genteel Georgian terrace façade where space has been tripled, the museum having acquired an old piano factory behind.

It has enabled them to do more justice to their collections, and those of the London Museum of Jewish Life with which the Jewish Museum amalgamated in 1995.

It is a story, as Nigella Lawson said, of a people maintaining its distinctiveness but also being deeply interwoven in the society around; a lesson, Yentob added, that is relevant to all immigrant issues, currently to the French government’s confrontation with its Muslims of the wearing of the burka. “It’s a debate that has to happen” he said.

There are four distinct sections, beginning with a multimedia array of a range of contemporary Jewish people and a brief account of them, from a marathon-running great-grandmother who was born in India, to a fourth generation smoked salmon manufacturer, to a taxi driver,

to an ex-army engineer commended for her bravery during the 2005 London bombing.

Then, being shown in public for the first time, there is a mikveh, a ritual bath dating from about 1270, found in London and the oldest object in the museum. Many of the objects on show now haven’t been on display before.

The Living Faith gallery gives a pragmatic and respectful introduction to Judaism, with a representation of a synagogue, a description of the life rituals of Jewish life, from birth through bar mitzvah, marriage – and divorce – and death. Four rabbis from four different schools of the faith give dissertations on their beliefs, and there are precious Torah scrolls, including a travelling silver scroll made by George III’s silversmith, Frederick Kandler.

The history gallery should begin with the bringing of Jews to this country for the first time by William the Conqueror because they had already proved of use as businessmen in France, but instead the visitor is greeted by a panel with a few personal stories of Jewish immigrants to Britain: the tiny doll Edith Rothstein smuggled in her clothing when she joined the Kindertransport from Germany to England in 1938; the hazelnuts Simon Berman brought from Lithuania in the 1880s as a souvenir; the Washington Senators’ baseball Ned Temko brought with him in 1987.

The story of the Jews in Britain is by turns glorious and shameful. Edward I banned them from Britain in 1290 and they did not have their residency rights restored until 1656. But during the exclusion Jews had lived, worked and risen in English society, keeping their faith secretly. Elizabeth I had a Jewish physician, Rodrigo Lopez, who was eventually executed, though, as a suspected spy.

Jews continued to distinguish themselves in all walks, with Benjamin Disraeli becoming the first Jewish prime minister in the 1860s after having converted to Christianity – Lionel Rothschild was elected to Parliament four times before he could sit because he was unable to take a Christian oath until the protocol in this respect was changed.

Jewish life, particularly in the East End of London, was colourful and industrious. Two thirds of Jewish immigrants became tailors and new museum technology allows characters in a 19th century photograph to step out and talk

about their work; Jewish restaurants and food shops abounded – in a recreated Jewish kitchen you can lift the lid of a pan and smell the chicken soup aroma. A Yiddish theatre is recreated, and you can perform the strange scripts in a karaoke session; in 1927 Boris Barnett set up his photographic studio in Bethnal Green and was taking pictures of 30 wedding couples a day, while an orderly queue formed outside his shop.

But the holocaust is an unavoidable horror in the story of Jews in Britain, and the museum addresses it through the story of one man, Leon Greenman. Born in the East End, he married a Dutch woman and their son Barney was born in Holland in 1940. Although they were British citizens, the Nazis rounded them up and sent them to death camps. Barney and his mother were killed almost immediately; Leon, sent elsewhere, survived six camps and, repatriated to the UK, devoted the rest of his life to telling the story of the holocaust, conducting tours of concentration camps. He never married again and died aged 97 in 2008, shortly after completing a filmed interview for the museum. The interview plays in the gallery with the screen surrounded by personal belongings: Barney’s little shoes, repaired by his father with car tyres, a wooden truck Leon had made for his son, the child’s sailor suit, his mother’s wedding dress dyed black for more practical later use and Leon’s striped Auschwitz uniform.

‘Two thirds of Jewish immigrants became tailors’ (above); below, the display devoted to Leon Greenman

Power to the People (new!)Begun in Poplar, moved to Manchester, the People’s Museum has reopened in the city’s growing Springfields area

MUSEUM IN THE NEWS


Born in the 1960s out of the trade union movement and the Co-operative Society, the People’s History Museum was a small collection of memorabilia – faded banners, blurred black-and-white photographs of striking dockers being addressed, portraits of trade union leaders - which was moved out into the former Limehouse Town Hall in Poplar in 1975 after local government reorganisation. But the building was declared unsafe, and the museum closed in 1986 with the collections going into storage and little prospect of them seeing the light of day again.

However, enthusiasts were determined that it should, and the birthplace of Co-operative Movement, Manchester, where Marx’s partner Friedrich Engels chose to make his home, was seen as its natural place. With the help of the city council, it opened there in the Pump House, the only surviving hydraulic pumping station that used to supply the power to the warehouses of Manchester – and even raised the curtain nightly of the nearby Opera House.

It was given the grand title of the National Museum of Labour History, and philosophically that is what it still is (and is accredited as such by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council), but in tune with plans to expand its scope and public interest it was renamed the People’s History Museum in 2001.

It closed in 2007 for a massive facelift costing

£12.5m, and has now reopened with a modern extension among the office tower blocks and high-rise flats of modern Manchester.

It is a statement about both the past and the present, according to its director, Nick Mansfield, who says it is a reminder to the modern generation inhabiting the bars and up-market shops that their story began in humbler circumstances, with the mill workers and locomotive engineers of Ancoats and Gorton.

“We needed to prove we were not just something that appealed to old left-wingers” he said, “or that we were worthy or dull. What we finally demonstrated to the Heritage Lottery Fund (which provided £7.18m of the costs) that we had a new way of telling the story of how democracy was built”.

It is important, he believes, because young people in particular have little idea of how hard fought the battle was.

The museum now covers four floors, with the story of democracy’s fight unfolding from the proclamations of the Peterloo Massacre here in Manchester in 1819, to the general elections of the 1960s, 70s and 80s, with powerful objects, images and audio-visual displays. You will find Thomas Paine’s death mask, Keir Hardie’s pit lamp and the leather bag Ben Tillett carried during the 1889 Dock Strike.

There is an unmatched collection of 18th and 19th century political cartoons, the best beyond the British Museum, and an exhaustive archive of posters which

includes 1,500 political posters relating to the the Spanish Civil War and the Labour Party. And there are some 70,000 photographs.

It has become a magnet for other collections (sometimes a mixed blessing for curators) - whose homes have been lost or become inappropriate in some way. They come from as diverse origins as the Department of Work and Pensions, the Oddfellows Friendly Society and the Professional Footballers’ Association.

It will bring 80,000 visitors this year, plus 1,000 or more researchers to scour the archive, which may seem modest for a national museum but in terms of its subject matter it is remarkable. It also illustrates the new civic role the institution has taken on in this newly trendy part of the city south of the old shopping centre.

The development includes a café and conference rooms, and its textile conservation studio, which was set up 20 years to care for the museum’s extensive collection of exquisite marching banners. Visitors can watch conservators at work from a viewing area. It also has the National Banner Survey now, of the 2,370 banners held elsewhere.

“There hadn’t been a venue that people could use in the centre of Manchester until we came along, and we had all sorts from an exhibition of art by adopted children to local photography projects” Nick Mansfield said. “Now we have more room to properly display this sort of thing”.

Above: The display of trade union marching banners.

Shakespeare’s church

Greenwich’s ‘pleasant place’

It will always be known as “Shakespeare’s church”, but Holy Trinity in Stratford-upon-Avon was old when the Bard’s father first took him there at about the age of four. This summer the collegiate church celebrates its 800th anniversary.

Built on the site of a Saxon monastery on the banks of the River Avon, the present church dates from 1210 and the reign of King John, and it is Stratford’s oldest building.

Among the features that Shakespeare would still recognise is the 14th century knocker on the porch door, the 26 misericord seats in the chancel with their mixture of religious, secular and mythical carvings, and stained

A 16th century oaken figure from the Tudor palace’s buttery is put in place (above); left, a reconstruction of the chapel.


The extraordinary story of a small, barely 12-acre, site on the banks of the Thames is told in a new £6m heritage centre, which reveals many secrets recently uncovered.

Discover Greenwich has been the prime project of the Greenwich Foundation since it was created in 1998 as the historic buildings trust responsible for the Old Royal Naval College on the site of the Tudor palace site. It emphasises the architecture of Hawksmoor, Wren and Stuart. It traces the history of greater Greenwich and of the Greenwich Hospital and the Royal Naval College that replaced it in the largely Baroque complex.

But one of the most fascinating elements is the royal connections, stories which can partly be told now through objects recovered in the series of archaeological excavations of the once royal palace, including the chapel in which Henry VIII married Anne of Cleves.

Greenwich’s royal connections go back much further than the Tudors, however, and in 916 Alfred the Great’s daughter, Elstrudis, who was married to the Count of Flanders, gave the estate to the Abbey of St Peter’s in Ghent.

Discover Greenwich picks up the story in about 1400. The small fishing settlement reverted to royal ownership in 1414 and in 1427 was ceded to Henry V’s brother, Duke Humphrey of Gloucester. He built an impressive house, Bellacourt, but when he fell out with Queen Margaret of Anjou she took it over, renaming it the Palace of Pleasaunce.

It was Henry VII who developed it into a full scale royal residence, Placentia, “a pleasant place in which to live”. Henry VIII was born here, and by 1506 it was known as the Palace of Greenwich. His daughters Mary and Elizabeth were both

born here too, and his son Edward died here. The palace was a bustling community

throughout the 16th century, and objects found by archaeologists help tell the story. Particularly significant was the 2005 dig on a car park site where the chapel royal, begun by Henry VII in about 1500, stood. This was the household chapel, and although Henry’s fourth marriage happened in it, most royal solemnities took place in the nearby friary church.

The monarch’s apartments were linked to the chapel, however, and the royal family would have taken part in services from a partially secluded first floor “royal closet” at the west end of the chapel.

Enough detail was obtained in the dig for the chapel to be pictorially reconstructed, and – with incense wafting with the music of Thomas Tallis – the exhibition provides a first glimpse of the more humble worship of Tudor royal households.

PAST PASSIONS


NATIONAL HERITAGE DEBATE

The Gathering Gloom

We have had the speculation and now we have the reality.

In central government, the quick 3% cut immediately after the election was, as we expected, but a warm-up for the real thing. Now we have been told that 25% over the next three years will be the norm, but less favoured departments will have to take bigger hits in order to protect really important things like hospital beds and schools. No one expected any favours but the warmth of the Conservatives’ words before the election gave some to hope that they really had got the message and the arts and heritage was worth saving from the sharpest knives. Not to be, it seems. National museums are considering the potential effect of 30% cuts.

The situation is just as bad in local government but it is more difficult to gather evidence and see patterns. If the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council are gathering the data then we have yet to see results. But the stories, the unsubstantiated rumours and first hand knowledge all point to small and medium sized local authority museums – typically the county town or market town museum with fewer than ten staff (often fewer than five ) – being nearly all in a critical condition. It does not take much – one redundancy or an unfilled post – to almost overnight push them from a healthy asset for their community into a complete lame duck.

The talk is of austerity and sharing the pain that is – allegedly – New Labour’s financial legacy, the great deficit. At present, it is the public sector that seems to be the principal target for suffering and that is bound to hurt museums. Lest it be forgotten, remember that the public sector exists in a democratic market economy to accommodate those things we – that’s you and me – believe contribute

positively to society and the wellbeing of citizens but which cannot be provided for via market economics. If you dismantle the public sector then you are taking away those things we have earlier professed dear to our hearts.

But we have to take our medicine. The great deficit must be reduced. That’s just obvious, isn’t it? And we have to take our share. Except at the moment no one seems to be able to adequately explain why we have to go down this route, and focusing on the public sector only smacks of Old Etonians exercising old prejudices. Where is the evidence that in either central or local government the decisions are strategic and implications carefully assessed? Knee-jerk reactions and discrimination against the unfamiliar or unimportant (as perceived by politicians) are much more likely to be the order of the day.

Museums are easy targets. But that does not mean that we should just lie down and accept that we are victims. We must not be victims. Now more than ever we have to evaluate what we have done and maintain the campaigning for recognition of our worth.

It will be tough but essential if we are to recover when springtime returns to the nation’s past. Renaissance and the Heritage Lottery Fund have shown what museums can be and can do if reasonably well resourced. Reviews and evaluations may also reveal which museums invested their Renaissance money wisely, with more than one eye on long- term change and sustainability, and which focused on short-term wins only. Hopefully that will be taken into account and lessons learned before the next Renaissance allocation.

Stuart Davies is President of the Museums Association

glass windows in the east and west ends. He would also have been aware of the

mutilations to carvings on tombs which were attacked during the Reformation 25 years before his birth, and he would be familiar with a remarkable survival of this times, the face of Christ inside a canopy in he chancel, and perhaps the stone altar slab which was found beneath the floor in the 19th century and has now been reinstated.

But it is not Shakespeare’s church by accident of date and geography. He was baptised here, married off his daughters, buried his son and his father and was himself buried here on April 25, 1616.

And a new book published to mark the anniversary, Shakespeare’s church: A parish for the world edited by Val Horsler reveals that his association with the church was even closer. It was his first and most lasting literary inspiration, hearing the Bible read in English rather than Latin.

Shakespeare’s father, a glover, was a substantial figure in Stratford society, serving as High Bailiff, or mayor, when William was small, and later as an alderman. As a civic dignitary he would have been involved in the granting of licences allowing travelling players to perform in the town, and would have had a place of honour at any performances, possibly with his small son standing between his knees.

In fact, Holy Trinity Church was also a source of income for the playwright. He bought a share of the church tithes, which gave him an annuity, the title “lay rector” and probably the right to be buried inside the church where his effigy has looked over the altar rail since shortly after his death in 1616.

KIDS’ WINNER

Coventry’s Herbert is the most family friendly


The Herbert Art Gallery and Museum in Coventry has been chosen as the Guardian’s Family Friendly Museum of 2010. The Herbert was also short listed for this year’s Art Fund Museum of the Year Award, won by the Ulster Museum (see page 5).

Run by the Kids in Museums charity, the competition rewards museums that offer the best family friendly environments, events, collection displays, accessibility and fun for children of all ages and their carers to enjoy and engage with culture.

"In a particularly tough year, with more very high quality nominations than ever before for the Family-Friendly Award, the Herbert was picked out as making that extra special effort for families” said Dea Birkett, director of Kids in Museums. “Their work with very young children is particularly impressive. They demonstrated that they listened to young voices, who said they found the galleries ‘amazing’, ‘fabulous’ and ‘a great time’”.

The Herbert is named after a local industrialist, Sir Alfred Herbert, who in 1938 donated £100,000 to the city of Coventry to pay for the construction of the art gallery and museum. By the time the Second World War began, however, only the basement had been completed, work was stopped, and with post-war Coventry in ruins it was not continued, with the basement simply converted to a temporary art gallery.

In 1952 new plans were drawn up with Sir Alfred giving a further £100,000, and, in 1960, his widow eventually opened it.

By 2000, however, the institution was in serious need of upgrading, and after a £20 million transformation and extension of the art gallery and museum in Jordan Well, Coventry, it reopened in October 2008.

The Herbert now has an impressive new courtyard entrance which overlooks Coventry Cathedral and University Square, a studio for performances and events, and the History Centre for the city’s archives and local history collections and learning spaces.

But it also wanted to change its appeal to the public, and introduced free events, exhibitions, learning resources, on-line activities and facilitator-led activities, and now welcomes over 200,000 visitors a year, including thousands of children in family groups.

The permanent galleries were designed so that interactive and hands-on displays mean that families can touch, play and learn about the objects on display. The Elements Gallery was devised to encourage engagement through a multi-sensory experience.

“This award goes some way towards paying off the huge investment made by the city council and other key stakeholders when we completed our redevelopment 18 months ago” said the Herbert’s chief executive, Ludo Keston. “Part of the remit for the re-development was to create a warm and engaging environment for every visitor, including children and their families, to enjoy. We've seen the visitor figures grow exponentially over the past year because of our total commitment to making the museum family-friendly and ensuring families are aware of our offer through new communications methods."

The charity uses its annual Kids in Museums Manifesto of the top 20 ways to make museums more family friendly, drawn up from the input of visitors, and the Herbert scored top marks. “From the family friendly welcome to the wave goodbye, the museum beat off mighty national institutions and grand stately homes to win Britain’s biggest museum award” Dea Birkett said. The prize is 500 Mammoth Activity Sheets, illustrated by Quentin Blake and designed and donated by Foldedsheet.com.

Family judge Claire Jowett, who visited undercover with her two children Molly, nine, and Ruby, five, said: “We loved it. We immediately felt welcome. When you go in there’s a very open space – not like in other museums, where there’s a desk in the middle and you have to walk around it to get in. We ran straight into a workshop on designing an outfit. The vibe was so good; families were joking together. One of the ladies running it pointed out the fashion exhibition on the first floor; I thought it was very good she made a link to the galleries. We saw no signs saying, ‘Do this, do that’, no dictating the way we should do things. It was like the museum respected us. They gave suggestions and let us decide where to go or what to do.”

The shortlist for the award was: Beningbrough Hall & Gardens, York; Great North Museum, Newcastle Upon Tyne; Herbert Museum & Art Gallery, Coventry; Highland Folk Museum, Newtownmore; Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent; St Nicholas Priory, Exeter.


The Tower Museum Derry, Londonderry

In each issue we look at winners of National Heritage’s Museum of the Year Award and what has happened to them since.

When it opened in 1992, Derry~Londonderry’s museum told the story of a city with a troubled and splintered past and an uncertain future, but it told it in a bold way and a way which had the tourism operators of Northern Ireland uneasy. “They didn’t want us to mention the Troubles at all” said Brian Lacey, then director of the city’s heritage and museum service. “We made it plain we had no intention of not addressing them” he said, “After all, they started here and you could say they ended here too”.

Today the situation is very different. The Good Friday Peace Agreement happened in 1998, the year in which the Saville Inquiry was commissioned to look into the events of Bloody Sunday in the Bogside in 1972, when 13 Catholic civil rights demonstrators were shot dead by paratroopers, and it reported in June this year absolving the demonstrators.

Derry~Londonderry is the registered name, though Derry City Council as it is anomalously called, has applied to have the shorter name officially adopted, and there is a much more pragmatic and hopeful view

of the future, exemplified by its winning the title of the first UK City of Culture in 2013, beating Birmingham, Norwich & Sheffield.

The Tower Museum that won the 1994 Museum of the Year title was one of a new generation of museums prepared to address some of communities’ most tender sensitivities in order to give a true picture of their histories.

Derry~Londonderry takes its name from the Gaelic for olive grove, and as an important port in its day was a strategic city when, in 1613, James I threw up fortified walls around it to keep Protestants in and Catholics out. The walls were paid for by the guilds of London, and in acknowledgement Derry became Londonderry. In 1689 the Catholic James II blockaded the city in what is known as the Siege of Derry, broken by the apprentice boys’ bravura action. More recently, the divide was made more grievous by civil rights abuses which served to inflame nationalist feelings to a frenzy, and bitter fighting ensued.

The museum gave the narrative honestly – twice, from the two points of view, reproducing the kerbstones painted red, white and blue in the Loyalist quarter of Fountain and the green, gold and white of the Nationalist Bogside.

The Story of Derry exhibition has been refurbished, brought up to date, and opened

in 2006 with the museum itself being relaunched 2007, with a new permanent exhibition based on the archaeological discovery of a wrecked Armada ship, La Trindad Valencera, found in 1971.

The ship’s remains had been found by divers of the City of Derry Sub-Aqua Club on the coast of Donegal, just north of Derry which was the county’s ancient capital, though now a part of the Republic. Since the discovery and the subsequent archaeological investigation – recorded for BBC Chronical television programme – it had always been the intention for recovered objects to come to the museum, but transnational problems were a bar until they were resolved by the Irish government selling the objects to the Ulster Museum (the national museum for the province) for a peppercorn price, with the sole condition that they be displayed in the Tower Museum.

La Trinidad Valencera was one of the largest ships in the Armada fleet at 1,100 tons, and was part of the rearguard which at the end of the battle struck off north to escape around the north of the British Isles. She got in a storm and was leaking badly, she anchored in Kinnagoe Bay where, two days, later she split in two and sank. Most of the crew were ashore, but were killed by an Anglo-Irish force.

In 1971 Derry’s divers found the ship’s guns, fittings, structural timbers, rigging and cordage, and Trinidad Valencera’s story is told over five floors in graphic panels, audio-visual presentations, computer touch screens and showcases with the original objects.

MUSEUM OF THE YEAR REVISITED 1994


ABERDEEN ART GALLERY Schoolhill, Aberdeen AB10 1FQTel: 01224 523700www.aagm.co.uk Tues-Sat 10-5, Sun 2-5. Admission free. Roger Fenton & Julia Margaret Cameron: Early British Photographs from the Royal Collection (until 21 Aug 2010)By focusing on two of the most significant practitioners in the history of photography, this touring exhibition demonstrates the important patronage of Prince Albert & Queen Victoria at an early stage of the medium.

ABERYSTWYTH ARTS CENTREAberystwyth University, Penglais Campus, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion SY23 3DE Tel: 01970 622882www.aberystwythartscentre.co.ukMon-Sat 9.30-8, Sun 12-5.30. Admission free.Bitten & Pressed (17 July-4 Sept 2010)An exploration of the diversity of contemporary printmaking, featuring traditional techniques as well the latest technological advances. Examples from the UK, France & Germany highlight the extensive means of expression open to the modern printmaker. Many works are for sale.

BOWES MUSEUMNewgate, Barnard Castle, Co Durham DL12 8NPTel: 01833 690606www.thebowesmuseum.org.ukDaily 10-5. Admission £8, concessions £7, children free.British Sporting Art (until 10 Oct 2010)From horseracing & hunting to boxing & football, paintings on view include works by George Stubbs, Alfred Munnings & George Morland.

BRISTOL CITY MUSEUM & ART GALLERYQueen’s Rd, Bristol BS8 1RLTel: 0117 922 3571www.bristol.gov.uk/museumsDaily 10-5. Admission freeArt from the New World (until 22 Aug 2010) Described as “big & brash”, this show of the new American art scene features 49 works by some of today’s urban & new

NAT

ION

AL H

ERIT

AGE

GU

IDE contemporary artists. Spanning the

artistic spectrum from pop surreal, through neo-figurative, to street, they include a 15-foot-tall “ice-cream cone” sculpture by street artist Buff Monster; Todd Schorr’s painting An Ape Allegory; & a large sculptural installation by Mike Stilkey that transforms a wall of 2,000 books into a 10-foot “canvas” for his work.

BRITISH MUSEUM Great Russell St, London WC1B 3DGTel: 020 7323 8000www.britishmuseum.orgDaily 10-5.30 (Thurs, Fri until 8.30). Admission to museum free. Masterpieces from the Uffizi Gallery: Italian Renaissance Drawings (until 25 July 2010)Works by Leonardo, Fra Angelico, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Carpaccio & their contemporaries reveal how, through their increased use of preparatory drawings, 15th-century Italian artists began to experiment with movement, perspective & naturalistic forms. Admission £12 (seniors £6 on Mon, 12-4 only), students & children £10, under-16s free; family (2+3 under-18s) £25. Booking on 020 7323 8181, or via website.South Africa Landscape (until 10 Oct 2010)In conjunction with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, & marking the 50th anniversary of independence for 17 African nations, the museum’s West Lawn is transformed into a walk-through landscape of tumbled rocks, scree & sand. It is planted with a colourful range of South African flowers, including agapanthus, osteospermum, pelargonium & spiky-looking quiver trees.

CHELTENHAM ART GALLERY & MUSEUMClarence St, Cheltenham, Glos GL50 3JTTel: 01242 237431 www.cheltenhamartgallery.org.uk Daily 10-5 (first Thurs of month 11-5; third Thurs 10-8). Admission free. Looking in Wonderland: Sir John Tenniel’s illustrations to the Alice books (3 July-15 Aug 2010)A touring exhibition of 42 woodblock prints–about half the total–of Tenniel’s best-loved illustrations from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland & Alice Through the Looking-Glass. They include images of the Caterpillar, Mad Hatter & White Rabbit. DITCHLING MUSEUMChurch Lane, Ditchling, E Sussex BN6 8TB Tel: 01273 844744www.ditchling-museum.comTues-Sat & bank-holiday Mons 10.30-5, Sun 2-5. Admission £3.50, concessions £2, students £1, children free.A View from Ditchling: Looking at Sussex (until 14 Nov 2010) A show demonstrating the influence of the Sussex landscape on artists

who have lived in Ditchling. It includes works by David Jones & Frank Brangwyn, some childhood drawings by Eric Gill of views from his Brighton home, & Charles Knight’s Ditchling Beacon, which captures the majesty of the Sussex Downs.

DISCOVERY MUSEUM Blandford Sq, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 4JATel: 0191 232 6789www.twmuseums.org.uk/discoveryMon-Sat 10-5, Sun 2-5. Admission free.Building Bridges (until 30 Jan 2011)A celebration of the bridges of the Tyne, from the first known road-crossing (in around AD122) to a temporary bamboo bridge built in 2008. Photographs show the construction of the Tyne Bridge (opened 1928) & the design & construction of the ingenious Swing Bridge (1876). DRAÍOCHT CENTRE FOR THE ARTSThe Blanchardstown Centre, Dublin 15 Tel +353 (0) 1 885 2622 www.draiocht.ieMon-Sat 10-6. Admission free.Michael McSwiney: The Great Auk & Other Stories (until 28 Aug 2010)McSwiney’s mood-orientated paintings use strong atmospheric effects to portray an unnerving picture of nature as a world of abandoned, often threatening panoramas of land & sea.

DULWICH PICTURE GALLERY Gallery Rd, London SE21 7ADTel: 020 8693 5254www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.ukTues-Fri 10-5, Sat, Sun & bank holiday Mons 11-5. Admission £4, seniors £3, concessions & children free. The Wyeths: Three Generations of American Art (until 22 Aug 2010)Landscapes by NC Wyeth (1882-1945), one of America’s finest illustrators; realist paintings by his son Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009); & colourful modern works by. Andrew’s son, Jamie Wyeth (b. 1946).Salvator Rosa (1615-73): Bandits, Wilderness & Magic (15 Sept-28 Nov 2010)Radical & anti-clerical, Rosa created emotionally-charged windswept landscapes & invented novel allegorical pictures–often with macabre & horrific subjects.

ESTORICK COLLECTION 39A Canonbury Sq, London N1 2AN Tel: 020 7704 9522www.estorickcollection.comWed-Sat 11-6 (Thurs until 8), Sun 12-5. Admission £5, concessions £3.50, students & children under 16 free. Siren City: Photographs of Naples, by Johnnie Shand Kydd (until 12 Sept 2010)Evocative black-&-white

A selective list

of current &

forthcoming

museum

& gallery

exhibitions.From Bristol: Natalia Fabia Wet Tea Party

A major exhibition spanning 150 years of Preston’s history, looks at local personalities who helped create the modern world. Through portraits, loans, & key items from the Harris collection, it examines the influence of these people & the movements they launched, & looks at issues of the day such as employee rights, child labour, temperance & economic uncertainty.

HAYWARD GALLERY South Bank Centre, London SE1 8XX Tel: 08703 800 400www.southbankcentre.co.uk/visual-artsDaily 10-6 (Fri until 10). Admission £10, seniors £9, students & unemployed £6, children £4.50 (under-12s free outside school hours).Ernesto Neto: The Edges of the World (until 5 Sept 2010)Dramatic, immersive installations by a Brazilian artist fill the upper galleries & outdoor sculpture courts. Neto creates sensuous, site-specific works with an abstract, biomorphic quality that encourage visitors to engage with their surroundings. (One feature is a fully-functional swimming-pool; admission for swimmers is free, but must be pre-

everyone Tues 1-5.Humphrey Spender (1910-2005): A centenary celebration (until 25 Sept 2010)Designer, painter, printmaker & illustrator, Spender was best-known as a photographer–especially for his images of ordinary British life such as those he captured for Mass Observation & for Picture Post.Working the Land, Part II: Harry Becker (2 Oct-18 Dec 2010)Exploring East Anglia’s rural tradition, the exhibition features oils, drawings, lithographs & etchings by an artist whose subject-matter was firmly rooted in Suffolk country life.

GALLERY 27 & 2827 & 28 Cork St, London W1S 3NGTel: 07939 166 148 www.tribalperspectives.comDaily 11am-7pm. Admission free.Tribal Perspectives, 2010 (28 Sept-2 Oct 2010)Top-quality tribal art on sale from around the world includes rare textiles, artefacts & books exhibited by eight international dealers.

GEFFRYE MUSEUM 136 Kingsland Rd, London E2 8EATel: 020 7739 9893www.geffrye-museum.org.ukTues-Sat 10-5, Sun & bank -holiday Mons 12-5. Admission free.A Garden Within Doors (until 25 July 2010)A look at the enduring appeal of plants & flowers in the home, & the meanings & values associated with them. The museum’s period rooms have appropriate displays to show changing fashions & tastes.

GRAVES GALLERY Surrey St, Sheffield S1 1XZ Tel: 0114 278 2600www.museums-sheffield.org.ukMon-Fri 10-4, Sat 10-5. Admission free.Paul Nash & Fay Godwin (21 July-14 Nov 2010)A photographic exhibition spotlighting two artists who discovered a fascination with the British landscape. Godwin’s images

are from a selection published in collaboration with poet Ted Hughes in 1979 that evoked the remains of culture, legend, myth & industry in the Calder Valley. Nash turned a camera on themes similar to those of his paintings, vividly illustrating his painterly eye for shape, detail & symbolism.

GROSVENOR MUSEUM 27 Grosvenor St, Chester CH1 2DDTel: 01244 402033 www.grosvenormuseum.co.ukMon-Sat 10.30-5, Sun 1-4. Admission free. Mountains & Molehills: Habitats in Cheshire (until 30 Aug 2010)In homage to this International Year of Biodiversity, the exhibition shows Cheshire’s wide range of habitats: from hills, agricultural land, ancient forests, coast & estuary, to roadside verges & private gardens. Each has its own plants & animals, their biodiversity being underpinned by the differing soils & rocks beneath.

HARLEY GALLERY Welbeck, Worksop, Notts S80 3LW Tel: 01909 501700 www.harleygallery.co.uk Tues-Sun & bank-holiday Mons 10-5. Admission free.Dinner for a Duke: Decoding Food & Drink at Welbeck, 1690-1910 (until Mar 2012)Grand silver, porcelain & dining accessories show the great industry required in supplying distinguished guests (including William of Orange, in 1695) through the golden age of the English country house, until the outbreak of World War I.

HARRIS MUSEUM & ART GALLERY Market Sq, Preston, Lancs PR1 2PP Tel: 01772 258248 www.harrismuseum.org.uk Mon-Sat 10-5 (Tues 11-5). Closed 30 Aug. Admission free.Industrial Revolutionaries (until 6 Nov 2010)

photographs capture the humour, theatricality & seductiveness of Naples, as well as the city’s corruption, criminality & inherent paganism. FALMOUTH ART GALLERY Municipal Buildings, The Moor, Falmouth, Cornwall TR11 2RT Tel: 01326 313863www.falmouthartgallery.comMon-Sat 10-5. Admission free.RA RA (3 July-4 Sept 2010)Work from Cornish collections by leading Royal Academicians, past & present. Among highlights are John Singer Sargent’s portrait of Falmouth’s first Royal Academician, Charles Napier Hemy, & works by Edward Burne-Jones, Frank Brangwyn, George Frederick Watts, Henry Scott Tuke & John Hoyland. The Edge (11 Sep-6 Nov)Inspired by Harry Ousey’s series of paintings called ‘Edge Movement’, this exhibition shows “the edge” - the sea meeting the shore, woodland meeting fields, light meeting the blade of a knife - explored by other artists. Among those featured are Charles Napier Hemy, Kurt Jackson, Ian McKeever, Kenneth Newton & Robert Jones.

FERENS ART GALLERY Queen Victoria Sq, Kingston upon Hull HU1 3RA Tel: 01482 613902www.hullcc.gov.uk/museumsMon-Sat 10-5; Sun 1.30-4.30. Admission free.Manic Mechanics: Moving Sculpture (until 5 Sept 2010)Johnny White & Amanda Wray create large moving sculptures & installations from recycled materials. Their quirky, humorous artwork can be brought to life by visitors pedalling a bicycle or pressing a button.Ern Shaw (1891-1986): The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up (until 10 Oct 2010)A broad range of work from the 1920s to the 1980s by a prolific Hull-born artist. Shaw produced cartoons, caricatures & political drawings, illustrated books & designed games for children.

FREUD MUSEUM 20 Maresfield Gardens, London NW3 5SXTel: 020 7435 2002www.freud.org.ukWed-Sun 12-5. Admission £6, seniors £4.50, concessions & children £3; under-12s free.Patients, Portraits & Psychiatrists (7 July-22 Aug 2010)A series of etchings by Gemma Anderson, made in a variety of secure asylums at the instigation of a forensic psychiatrist. The portraits depict doctors and inmates–though without identifying which is which.

GAINSBOROUGH’S HOUSE 46 Gainsborough St, Sudbury, Suffolk CO10 2EU Tel: 01787 372958 www.gainsborough.orgMon-Sat 10-5. Admission £4.50, seniors £3.60, students & children £2; family (2+3) £10. Free for

From Gainsborough’s House: Humphrey Spender, Boats


From Harley: Loofs water fountain

booked on 0844 847 9910.)The New Décor (until 5 Sept 2010)An international survey of 30 contemporary artists who have blurred the borders between interior decoration, sculpture & installation art, to reinvent furniture & lighting. Exhibits include a sci-fi-themed chandelier & a bed inspired by a Los Angeles freeway overpass.

CECIL HIGGINS ART GALLERY & BEDFORD MUSEUM Castle Lane, Bedford MK40 3XDTel: 01234 211222www.cecilhigginsartgallery.orgTues-Sat 11-5, Sun & bank-holiday Mons 2-5. Admission free.The Unknown Artist: Stanley Lewis & his Contemporaries (until 5 Sept 2010)The first major exhibition for an artist who died in 2009 at the age of 103. Lewis’s realist drawings & paintings, many inspired by his rural upbringing in Wales, are shown alongside works by friends & contemporaries William Rothenstein, Augustus John & Stanley Spencer.

HMS BELFASTMorgan’s Lane, Tooley St, London SE1 2JHTel: 020 7940 6300http://hmsbelfast.iwm.org.uk/Daily 10-6 (from 1 Nov, daily 10-5). Admission £12.95, seniors & students £10.40, children free.Launch! Shipbuilding Through the Ages (until 31 Dec 2010)A family-orientated exhibition on board this 1938 warship, using hands-on & interactive computerised displays to

demonstrate techniques of shipbuilding in Britain, from the age of sail to modern prefabrication methods, focusing on the science, engineering & social history involved.

HUNTERIAN ART GALLERYUniversity of Glasgow, 82 Hillhead St, Glasgow G12 8QQTel: 0141 330 5431 www.hunterian.gla.ac.ukMon-Sat 9.30-5. Admission freeBlue & Silver: Whistler & the Thames (8 Oct 2010-10 Jan 2011)Fascinated by cities & their rivers, Whistler used London, Venice, Paris & Amsterdam as subjects for some of his most significant works. This 75th-anniversary celebration of the Birnie Philip Gift (which founded the Gallery’s Whistler Collection, in 1935), draws on the Hunterian’s extensive holdings to show Whistler’s preoccupation with London’s river & its bridges at different times of day. IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM Lambeth Rd, London SE1 6HZTel: 020 7416 5320www.iwm.org.uk Daily 10-6. Admission to museum free. The Ministry of Food (until 3 Jan 2011)Marking the 70th anniversary of the introduction of food-rationing in Britain, this major exhibition examines how the public adapted to a world of shortages by growing their own food, eating seasonal fruit & vegetables, reducing imports, recycling, & eating healthily. A wartime greenhouse, a 1940s grocer’s shop, & a typical kitchen add atmosphere. Admission £4.95, concessions

£3.95, children £2.50; family (2+2) £13.

IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM NORTH The Quays, Trafford Wharf Rd, Manchester M17 1TZ Tel: 0161 836 4000 www.iwm.org.ukDaily 10-6 (from 1 Nov, 10-5). Admission free.All Aboard (until Apr 2011)A large-scale exhibition looks at life at sea in wartime, from World War I to the present. Visitors can try naval clothing, learn about animals that have sailed the oceans, discover the naval origins of many everyday words, & hear moving stories of bravery, adventure, suffering & survival.

JEWISH MUSEUM 129-131 Albert St, London NW1 7NBTel: 020 7284 7384www.jewishmuseum.org.ukSun-Wed 10-5, Thurs 10-9, Fri 10-2. Admission £7, concessions £6, children £3; family (2+4) £17.Illumination: Hebrew treasures from the Vatican & major British collections (until 10 Oct 2010)An exhibition of rare Hebrew manuscripts from the British Library & the libraries of the Vatican, the Bodleian & Lambeth Palace, casting new light on the study of sacred texts by all three Abrahamic faiths. The social & cultural interaction between Jews & non-Jews in both the Muslim & Christian worlds is mirrored in the blending of decorative patterns & writing styles.

KELVINGROVE ART GALLERY & MUSEUMArgyle St, Glasgow G3 8AGTel: 0141 276 9599www.glasgowmuseums.comMon-Thurs & Sat 10-5; Fri & Sun 11-5. Admission free.Pioneering Painters: The Glasgow Boys 1880-1900 (until 27 Sept 2010) For the first major exhibition devoted to this influential group of artists since 1968, this show comprises around 100 oil paintings & 50 works on paper by James Guthrie, EA Hornel, George Henry, Joseph Crawhall & Arthur Melville. Alongside pictures from Glasgow Museums’ collections are loans from public & private collections across the country. (A condensed version of the exhibition will tour to the Royal Academy, London; 30 Oct 2010-30 Jan 2011.) Admission £5, concessions £3, children free. Booking via website (booking fee), or by phone. KENT’S CAVERN 89/91 Ilsham Road, Torquay, Devon TQ1 2JF Tel: 01803 215136www.kents-cavern.co.uk Daily 9-5. Admission to exhibition free. Admission to prehistoric show cave £8.50, seniors & students £7.50, children £17; family (2+2) £29.Cutting Edge (until 31 Jan 2011)

Objects from the collection of Exeter’s Royal Albert Memorial Museum reveal the variety of raw materials used by early man to make hand-axes, scrapers & spearheads. Using today’s technology, scientists can not only date the stone but also determine its source, to see whether prehistoric stone-cutters used local rocks or traded materials over long distances.

KETTLE’S YARD Castle St, Cambridge CB3 0AQTel: 01223 748100www.kettlesyard.cam.ac.ukTues-Sun & bank-holiday Mons: gallery 11.30-5; house 2-4. Admission free.John Cage: Every Day is a Good Day (25 Sept-14 Nov 2010) This Hayward touring retrospective examines the visual art of the American composer & artist John Cage (1912-92). The principles of I Ching, the Chinese classic text that became Cage’s composition tool, governs these displays of his works on paper.

KILLERTON HOUSE Broadclyst, Exeter, Devon EX5 3LE Tel: 01392 881345www.nationaltrust.org.ukDaily 11-5. Admission £8.40 (includes house), children £4.20; family (2+2) £20.70. National Trust members free.Elegance–two hundred years of dressing to impress (until 31 Oct 2010)A selection of fashions for men & women, from Killerton’s collection, shows how people dressed for occasions from the 1770s to the 1970s. Supported by fashion-plates, photographs, magazines & luxury accessories, the exhibition explores ideas about clothing etiquette, & demonstrates changing tastes. Visitors can try on replica costumes.

LAING ART GALLERY New Bridge St, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8AGTel: 0191 232 7734www.twmuseums.org.uk/laingMon-Sat 10-5, Sun 2-5. Admission free.

Imperial War Museum: Abram Games, Use Spades Not Ships - Grow Your Own Food & Supply Your Own Cookhouse

NATIONAL HERITAGE GUIDE


From Jewish Museum: Mishneh Torah

Japanese Wave (until 5 Sep 2010)Highlights from the Laing’s collection of Japanese prints & artefacts include iconic images such as Hokusai’s Under the Wave, off Kanagawa. Among other prints that give an insight into life in 19th-century Japan are images of geisha, depictions of Kabuki theatre, & decorative items such as combs, mirrors & fans.

LEEDS ART GALLERYThe Headrow, Leeds LS1 3AATel: 0113 247 8256www.leeds.gov.uk/artgalleryMon-Sat 10-5 (Wed from 12), Sun 1-5. Admission free.Sean Scully: Works from the 1980s (until 8 Aug 2010)In the early 1980s Scully added an expressive element to his work by using multiple layers of paint to reintroduce colour, space & texture. The exhibition focuses on his paintings from this period, alongside works on paper from the artist’s own collection.

LONDON SILVER VAULTS 53-64 Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1QSTel: 020 7242 3844www.thesilvervaults.comMon-Fri 9-5.30, Sat 9-1. Closed 30 Aug. Admission free.Boxing Clever: A Case for the Collector (until 30 Sept 2010)A highlight of this selling exhibition is a silver-gilt cigar-box, said to have been a presentation gift to surviving officers from the Battle of Waterloo. Other boxes include a Queen Anne commemorative patch-box by Thomas Kedder; a Victorian silver nutmeg-holder with grater, by Hilliard & Thomason; & a pair of sterling silver table card-boxes by Berthold Müller.

MANCHESTER ART GALLERY Mosley St, Manchester M2 3JLTel: 0161 235 8888www.manchestergalleries.org Tues-Sun & bank-holiday Mons 10-5. Admission to gallery free. Heroes and Monsters (20 July-19 Sept 2010) Family-friendly exhibition around a specially-commissioned giant mural by Jim Medway featuring Ancient Greek heroes and mythic monsters inspired by the gallery’s historic paintings & sculptures. Visitors can create fuzzy-felt stories, act out mythical adventures or pick up an interactive Hero Quest map & embark on a journey of discovery around the gallery & back in time. A World Observed 1940-2010: Photographs by Dorothy Bohm (until 30 Aug 2010) First major retrospective of one of the doyennes of British photography, who graduated in 1942 from Manchester College of Technology. More than 200 images reveal an array of striking, yet humane photographs that document a rapidly-changing world. Portraits from the 1940s are displayed in a reconstruction of her Manchester studio, with a replica darkroom to demonstrate the almost-forgotten

technique of black-&-white photographic processing.

MILLENNIUM GALLERY Arundel Gate, Sheffield S1 2PP Tel: 0114 278 2600www.museums-sheffield.org.ukMon-Sat 10-5, Sun 11-5. Admission to gallery freeWatercolour in Britain: Tradition & Beyond (until 5 Sept 2010)The exhibition illustrates the remarkable diversity of this quintessentially British art-form, showing how watercolour has been used by different cultures with their own ideas about art, expression & technique. It features rarely-seen paintings by JMW Turner, William Blake & Edward Burra, & watercolours by sculptors Henry Moore & Anish Kapoor, & by Surrealists Paul Nash & Graham Sutherland.

mima Centre Square, Middlesbrough TS1 2AZTel: 01642 726720www.visitmima.comTues-Sat 10-5 (Thurs until 7), Sun & bank-holiday Mons 12-4. Admission free.Bonnie Camplin: Railway Mania (16 July-14 Nov 2010)Through her drawings, films & video, Camplin delves into social history to give an insight into the present. Investigating the deeper meaning of science, technology & rational thought, she incorporates aesthetic & historical material relating to the industrial revolution & the birth of the railways.High Kicks & Low Life: Toulouse-Lautrec prints (3 Sept-21 Nov 2010)Through his prolific graphic output Toulouse-Lautrec combined the excitement of the cabaret & the unforgettable characters of the café-concert with the poignant, shadowy private lives of prostitutes & their clients. This British Museum touring exhibition presents a selection of works on these subjects.

MODERN ART OXFORD 30 Pembroke St, Oxford OX1 1BPTel: 01865 722733www.modernartoxford.org.ukTues-Wed 10-5, Thurs-Sat 10-10, Sun 12-5. Admission free. Howard Hodgkin: Time & Place (until 5 Sept 2010)More than 20 works spanning the last decade of Hodgkin’s career include paintings not previously seen by a broader public. They offer a fresh view of the artist’s work, revealing his continuing relevance as one of the most radical & compelling painters of our time.

MUSEUM OF ISLAND HISTORY Guildhall, High St, Newport, Isle of Wight PO30 1TYTel: 01983 823366www.iwight.com/museumsMon-Sat 10-5, Sun 10.30-3.30 (from 1 Nov, daily 10.30-3). Admission £2, concessions £1.20; family (2+2) £5.Rowlandson’s Tours of the Isle of Wight (until 27 Feb 2011)Purchased in 2002 from Longleat House, the museum’s collection of Thomas Rowlandson watercolours depict locations around the island, & were painted on tours made by the artist in the 1790s. Related objects on display are inspired by some of the subjects seen in the paintings. The exhibition is closed 13-17 September for the selection of works to be changed; ticket-holders for part I will be readmitted free for part II.

MUSEUM OF LONDON London Wall, London EC2Y 5HNTel: 020 7001 9844www.museumoflondon.org.ukDaily 10-6 (first Thurs of month until 9). Admission to museum free. Galleries of Modern London (opened 28 May 2010)The newly-reopened £20million galleries tell the story of London & its people from the Great Fire in 1666 to the present day. They focus on London as a world city, absorbing people, ideas & goods

from across the globe, & also on Londoners, who built the city & have in turn been shaped by it. Among 7,000 objects & displays are Selfridge’s Art Deco lifts, a reconstructed Georgian pleasure garden, the Lord Mayor’s State Coach, & an image of a 1990s Hackney street populated with squatters. MUSEUM OF LONDON DOCKLANDS No 1 Warehouse, West India Quay, Canary Wharf, London E14 4ALTel: 020 7001 9844www.museumindocklands.org.ukDaily 10-6. Admission freeHere Come The Girl Guides: 100 years of Guiding in London (until 31 Oct 2010)A celebration of London’s historic role in the UK’s largest voluntary organisation for girls & young women. Photographs, film, personal stories & Guide ephemera include a 1910 electrician’s badge & a 1930s limited-edition Kodak Girl Guide camera. The exhibition considers the influence of the movement on generations of women, & its relevance in today’s society.

NATIONAL GALLERY Trafalgar Sq, London WC2N 5DNTel: 020 7747 2885www.nationalgallery.org.ukDaily 10-6 (Fri until 9). Admission to gallery free. Close Examination: Fakes, Mistakes & Discoveries (30 June-12 Sept 2010)The stories behind more than 40 paintings in the Gallery’s collection, about which infrared imaging, X-rays, electron microscopy & mass spectrometry have provided insights into materials used, & into the way some works have been overpainted or otherwise transformed. Sainsbury Wing. Admission free.Frederick Cayley Robinson: Acts of Mercy (14 July-17 Oct 2010)Four large-scale allegorical works, commissioned in the 1930s to adorn the then new Middlesex Hospital, form two pairs. “Orphans” depicts

From Modern Art Oxford: Howard Hodgkin, Home Home on the Range


the refectory of an orphanage, with its wistful young residents; “Doctor” represents the traumatic effects of conflict on wounded soldiers & sailors. Sunley Room.Venice: Canaletto & his Rivals (13 Oct 2010-16 Jan 2011)Some 55 major loans from Europe & North America highlight the 18th-century Venetian “view” paintings by Canaletto, Carlevarijs, van Witell, Marieschi, Bellotto, Guardi & others that grew up to meet the demand from those making the British Grand Tour. Sainsbury Wing. Admission charge to be arranged.

NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY St Martin’s Place, London WC2H 0HE Tel: 020 7306 0055www.npg.org.ukDaily 10-6 (Thurs, Fri until 9). Admission to gallery free. Camille Silvy, Photographer of Modern Life, 1834-1910 (15 July-24 Oct 2010)First retrospective devoted to this pioneer of photographic mass production. More than 100 objects offer glimpses of 19th-century Paris & Victorian London, showing how Silvy helped instigate theatre, fashion, military & street photography & produced many portraits in the economically-priced, & collectable, carte de visite format. Admission £5, concessions £4.50, children £4.

NATIONAL WOOL MUSEUM Dre-Fach Felindre, near Newcastle Emlyn, Llandysul, Carmarthen SA44 5UP Tel: 01559 370929www.museumwales.ac.ukDaily 10-5 (1 Oct-31 Mar, Tues-Sat 10-5). Admission free.Warp & Weft 2 (4 Sept 2010–8 Jan 2011)The exhibition shows the work of weavers from Wales & England

who have moved their craft practice into the commercial arena by working with woollen mills. Visitors can track the development of a design in a woven fabric–including the choices of colours, yarn & finishing process–from hand-loom to finished product.

NEW ART GALLERY WALSALL Gallery Square, Walsall, W Midlands WS2 8LGTel: 01922 654400http://thenewartgallerywalsall.org.ukMon-Sat & bank-holiday Mons 10-5, Sun 11-4. Admission free.The House of Fairy Tales: A Portfolio made by Artists (until 16 Oct 2010)Twenty-three international artists–including Peter Blake, Ellen Cantor, Enrico David, Cornelia Parker, Paula Rego, Gavin Turk & Rachel Whiteread–have revisited familiar stories, & come up with fresh interpretations.Epstein’s Portraits Revealed (24 July-5 Sept 2010)The most versatile portrait sculptor of the 20th century, Jacob Epstein explored the genre throughout his working life, from his early pioneering work to intimate portrayals of his family. The exhibition shows the technical challenges involved in the creation of a three-dimensional representation of the human head, from sculpting in clay, through casting in plaster to the finished bronze.

NEW WALK MUSEUM & ART GALLERY 53 New Walk, Leicester LE1 7EATel: 0116 225 4900www.leicestermuseums.ac.ukMon-Sat 10-5, Sun 11-5. Admission free.Space Age: Exploration, Design & Popular Culture (until 10 Oct 2010)

This touring museum from the V&A Museum of Childhood looks at the continuing fascination with space, from literature & comics to film, design & toys.

POTTERIES MUSEUM & ART GALLERY Bethesda St, Hanley, near Stoke-on-Trent, Staffs ST1 3DWTel: 01782 232323www.stoke.gov.uk/museumsMon-Sat 10-5, Sun 2-5. Admission free.Emma Bridgewater: Spot On for 25 years (until 26 Sept 2010)A commemorative exhibition charting the development of some of today’s most popular domestic items. It draws on archive collection from the Bridgewater factory in Hanley, with rare samples, specials & one-offs, as well as pieces from the museum’s own collection. Though many well-known local factories have ceased production, Emma Bridgewater has gone from strength to strength to become one of the largest earthenware employers in the UK.

RIFLEMAKER79 Beak St, London W1F 9SUTel 020 7439 0000www.riflemaker.orgMon-Fri 10-6, Sat 11-6. Admission free.Josephine King: Life so far (13 Sept-30 Oct 2010)Self-portraits in coloured ink expressing the trauma caused by the artist’s own extreme bi-polar disorder. They feature King in a variety of starched & patterned clothing, in almost poster-like compositions.

ROYAL ACADEMY Piccadilly, London W1J 0BDTel: 020 7300 8000www.royalacademy.org.ukDaily 10-6 (Fri until 10). Admission charges vary.Sargent & the Sea (10 July-26 Sept 2010)Maritime works from early in John Singer Sargent’s career include paintings, drawings & watercolours of Normandy & Brittany coasts, & views of Capri, Morocco & various Mediterranean ports. Among works on display is Sargent’s major piece En Route Pour La Pêche, of fisherfolk at Cancale, shown alongside his plein-air oil studies for it. Admission £10, concessions £9, students £8, children £4 & £3.

Treasures from Budapest: European Masterpieces from Leonardo to Schiele (25 Sept-12 Dec 2010)More than 200 paintings, drawings & sculptures from one of the finest collections in Central Europe. Among highlights are Raphael’s Virgin & Child with St John the Baptist; the 16th-century St Andrew altarpiece, from Liptószentandras; rare Renaissance bronze sculptures; & more than 80 Old Master drawings. Admission £12, concessions £10, students £8, children £4 & £3.

RUSSELL-COTES ART GALLERY & MUSEUM Russell-Cotes Rd, East Cliff, Bournemouth BH1 3AATel: 01202 451858http://russell-cotes.bournemouth.gov.ukTues-Sun & bank-holiday Mons 10-5. Admission free.Views of Bournemouth (until 31 Oct 2010)Over the past 200 years Bournemouth has evolved from heathland to a bustling centre of tourism & business. This celebration of the town’s bicentenary year brings together historic objects, images & paintings from the museum’s varied collections & new works by members of Bournemouth Arts Club showing the resort from different perspectives.

SAINSBURY CENTRE FOR THE VISUAL ARTS University of East Anglia, Earlham Rd, Norwich NR4 7TJTel: 01603 593199www.scva.org.uk.Tues-Sun 10-5. Admission to permanent collection free. Surreal Friends (28 Sept-12 Dec 2010)A celebration, in conjunction with Pallant House Gallery, of the achievements of three leading women surrealists: Leonora Carrington, Spanish painter Remedios Varo, & Hungarian photographer Kati Horna. All three fled war-torn Europe & built new lives in Mexico City, where they found freedom to develop their art & formed close friendships, influencing each other personally & artistically.

SCIENCE MUSEUM Exhibition Rd, London SW7 2DDTel: 0870 870 4868


From Tate Britain: Gerald Scarfe, Rude Britannia

NATIONAL HERITAGE GUIDE

FromTopFoto: Peter Orlovsky & Allen Ginsberg by Harold Chapman

www.sciencemuseum.org.uk Daily 10-6. Admission to museum free. Who am I? (opened 26 June 2010)An upgrade of one of the Museum’s most popular galleries, this uses a mixture of displays & interactive exhibits to look at brain-science & genetics. Visitors can share their opinions on ethical issues in science, morph their faces, & experience a voice-box makeover.

TATE BRITAIN Millbank, London SW1P 4RGTel: 020 7887 8008www.tate.org.uk/britainDaily 10-5.50 (first Fri of month until 10). Admission to gallery free. Rude Britannia: British Comic Art (until 5 Sept 2010)This exploration of British comic art from the 1600s to the present day brings together paintings, sculptures, film and photography, as well as graphic art, comic books and saucy postcards by artists as diverse as William Hogarth and Donald McGill. Admission £10, concessions & children £8.50. Booking via website.

TATE MODERN Bankside, London SE1 9TGTel: 020 7887 8008www.tate.org.uk/modernDaily 10-6 (Fri, Sat until 10). Admission to gallery free. Paul Gauguin : Maker of Myth (30 Sept 2010-16 Jan 2011)Landscapes of Brittany & sumptuous portrayals of women in Tahiti fill this exhibition dedicated to the master French Post-Impressionist. Scenes of daily village life around Pont-Aven are seen alongside more exotic decorative works, such as the carved wooden door-panels around the artist’s hut in the Marquesas Islands. Admission £13.50, concessions & children £10. Booking via website.

TATE ST IVES Porthmeor Beach, St Ives, Cornwall TR26 1TGTel: 01736 796226www.tate.org.uk/stivesDaily 10-5.20. Admission £5.75, concessions £3.25, children free. Object: Gesture: Grid. St Ives & the International Avant-garde (until 26 Sept 2010)A new display explores some of the common characteristics of Modern Art & the shared visual language of artists working in Europe & America from the 1930s to the late 1970s. Highlights include works by Mark Rothko, Carl André, Willem de Kooning, Barbara Hepworth, Sol LeWitt, Piet Mondrian, Pablo Picasso, Sandra Blow, Jackson Pollock & Peter Lanyon.

TOPFOTO GALLERY House of Jaques, 1 Fircroft Way, Edenbridge, Kent TN8 6ELTelephone: 01732 863939Opening Hours: Mon-Fri 9.30-5, Sat 10-1, Sundays by appointment only. Admission Free.Harold Chapman - The Beat Hotel (4 Oct-16 Nov)

Kent-born photographer Chapman moved to Paris in 1956 & lived in a rundown Left-Bank establishment that became a legendary haunt of the Beat poets & artists. Over seven years, he documented the lives of fellow “Beat Hotel” residents, including William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, Gregory Corso & Ian Sommerville.

TOWNER Devonshire Park, College Rd, Eastbourne BN21 4JJ Tel: 01323 434670 www.townereastbourne.org.ukTues-Sun & bank-holiday Mons 10-6. Admission to gallery free.Familiar Visions: Eric & James Ravilious: Father & Son (3 July-5 Sept 2010)A major retrospective of Eric Ravilious, whose work is shown alongside that of his photographer son James, revealing the deep-seated love of the land inherent to both. Some of Ravilious’s best works–including Cuckmere Haven, & The Wilmington Giant–are seen in parallel with his son’s images of North Devon. Admission £5.50, concessions £4, children free.

TULLIE HOUSE MUSEUM & ART GALLERYCastle St, Carlisle, Cumbria CA3 8TP Tel: 01228 618718www.tulliehouse.co.ukMon-Sat 10-5, Sun 11-5 (from 1 Sept, Mon-Sat 10-5, Sun 12-5). Admission to art gallery free.The Truth About Faeries: From A Midsummer Night’s Dream to Lord of the Rings (10 July-12 Sept 2010)A new exhibition explores the prevailing interest in the world of fairies among story-tellers, artists, film-makers & illustrators. It features the book illustrations of Richard Doyle & Arthur Rackham, Dante Gabriel Rossetti & Edward Burne-Jones. Fairies appear in The Tempest; in classic fairy tales, & in Cecily Mary Barker’s Flower Fairies books. Their latest manifestations are in films such as The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth) & Lord of the Rings III.

UNIVERSITY GALLERY Northumbria University, Sandyford Rd, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8STTel: 0191 227 4424www.northumbria.ac.uk/universitygalleryMon-Thurs 10-5; Fri, Sat 10-4. Admission free.Face to Face: British Self-Portraits in the 20th century (until 20 Aug 2010)A collection of self-portraits, amassed by the late Ruth Borchard, dating from between 1921 & 1971. Artists who depict themselves here include Feliks Topolski, Euan Uglow, David Tindle, Carel Weight & Anne Redpatch.

VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM Cromwell Rd, London SW7 2RLTel: 020 7942 2000www.vam.ac.ukDaily 10-5.45 (some galleries open

Wed, & last Fri of month, until 10). Admission to museum free. Peter Rabbit: the tale of The Tale Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Peter Rabbit has sold 40 million copies worldwide. Drawing on the collections of the museum & of Potter’s publisher, the exhibition traces the story of Peter Rabbit from its beginnings as an illustrated letter in 1893 to its publication by Frederick Warne & Co in 1902, & beyond. The complete extant original illustrations from the book are shown in sequence alongside the text of the story.Raphael: Cartoons & Tapestries for the Sistine Chapel (8 Sept-17 Oct 2010)Coinciding with the visit to Britain of Pope Benedict XVI, four of Raphael’s tapestries for the Sistine Chapel will be shown for the first time alongside the full-size designs for them–the Raphael Cartoons–which have been on display at the V&A since 1865. Admission by timed ticket: free if booked in person at the V&A; £1 if booked online.

WADDESDON MANOR Waddesdon, nr Aylesbury, Bucks HP18 0JHTel: 01296 653226www.waddesdon.org.ukWed-Fri 12-4; Sat, Sun & bank holidays 11-4. Admission to grounds (includes gallery): Wed-Fri £5.50, children £2.75; family (2+2) £13.75. Sat, Sun £7, £3.50 & £17.50. Children under 5, & National Trust members, free.The Campana Brothers: Glass Chandelier Collection (until 31 Oct 2010)New work by Brazilian designers Humberto & Fernando Campana inaugurates Waddesdon’s contemporary art & design gallery, The Coach House. The brothers work with the Venini glass studio, on the Venetian island of Murano, to create lighting & vases. The highlight is a chandelier made from

multi-coloured, fragmented Venini glass, incorporating small glass animals & an assortment of found materials.

WOLVERHAMPTON ART GALLERY Lichfield St, Wolverhampton WV1 1DUTel: 01902 552055www.wolverhamptonart.org.ukMon-Sat 10-5. Closed 30 Aug. Admission free. Pop Protest: Art for an Anxious Age (until 30 Oct 2010)The exhibition compares two periods in recent history: 1965-75 & 2000-10. During both, Pop artists have acted as social commentators, demonstrating the impact of war & politics on society–from 1970s Vietnam to modern-day Iraq. The exhibition includes Gerald Laing’s War Paintings, Derek Boshier’s Pantomime War works, Jann Haworth’s Hollow Men piece, & works by Richard Hamilton, Colin Self, Joe Tilson, & James Rosenquist.

The details in this guide were correct at the time of going to press, but may be subject to change.

For a more comprehensive guide visit our website -www.nationalheritage.org.uk

Material for possible inclusion in the next listings (Dec 2010-April 2011) may be sent to [email protected]


From Tate St Ives: Sandra Blow, Vivace

DR JOHNSON’S HOUSE, 15 Sept at 6.15pm

To: Liz Moore National Heritage Administration Centre Rye Road, Hawkhurst, Kent TN18 5DW (01580 752 052) [email protected]

Name..............................................................................................................

Address ........................................................................................................

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......................................................................................................................... Tel number .................................................................................................

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!

A rare survival among domestic residences within the City of London, this was where Samuel Johnson lived and worked between 1748 and 1759, and where he compiled his famous dictionary. The house has now been restored to its original condition, with its panelled rooms, pine staircase, furniture of the period, prints and portraits. Its exhibitions describe Johnson’s life and career, and those of his associates. Built in 1700, the house became a hotel in the 19th century, later a print shop and later still a store – and even became a film star, featuring in the 1946 Sherlock Homes film Dressed to Kill. In 1911 it was bought by the politician and newspaper proprietor Cecil Harmsworth who restored it and opened it to the public. The house is now operated by a charitable trust.

JEWISH MUSEUM - AGM & TOUR 129-131 Albert Street, NW1 7NBThursday 18 November 2010 at 6.pm

The new museum is now open (see page 6) following a £10m development, larger and with more on show. On the ground floor is the recently discovered medieval ritual bath, a mikveh. Next, the Jewish history in Britain since their arrival after the Norman Conquest is told, including an evocation of a Jewish East End street and an interactive map of Jewish settlement around the United Kingdom. There are poignant stories of refugees, such as the 10,000 children who came, unaccompanied, on the Kindertransport in the 1930s, as well as Yiddisher theatre, the community of tailors that became an essential part of the culture, and some of the Jewish people who rose to leading positions in British society, such as Benjamin Disraeli. The Jewish faith in different manifestations is explained, from the magnificent 17th century Venetian synagogue ark to the humble domestic arrangements for Sabbath worship at home. It follows the Holocaust through the experiences of Leon Greenman whose wife and child were lost in the death camps.

JEWISH MUSEUM, 18 Nov at 6pm

To: Liz Moore National Heritage Administration Centre Rye Road, Hawkhurst, Kent TN18 5DW (01580 752 052) [email protected]

Name ...........................................................................................................

Address .......................................................................................................

.........................................................................................................................

........................................................................................................................ Tel number .................................................................................................

Email ............................................................................................................

!DR JOHNSON’S HOUSE 17 Gough Square, London EC4A 3DE Wednesday 15 September, 2010 at 6.15pm

Please send me ............. tickets at £12.50 each for the visit to Dr Johnson’s House on Wednesday 15 September at 6.15pm. I enclose remittance and stamped addressed envelope.

Please send me ……. tickets at £12.50 each for the visit to The Jewish Museum on Thursday 18 November at 6pm. I enclose remittance and stamped addressed envelope.

National Heritage Issue 87

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Transcript of National Heritage Issue 87