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MagazineWATTS

Issue 7 Winter 2009/10 £1

Watts & Darwin Mark Bills The Watts Lecture Andrew Motion Ellen Terry & Watts David F CheshireWatts & Beethoven John Cox

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Christmas Arts&Crafts ShowOver 2 weekends in November

chalk hill contemporary art(

artscrafts&

chalk hill

November 6/7/8

November

13/14/15&Showing the work of leading artists and designer-makers from London and beyond. Different makers each weekend

OPENING TIMES AND FURTHER DETAILS:www.chalkhill.co.uk 23 Chantry View RoadGuildford, GU1 3XWT: 01483 440638

Untitled-3 1 14/9/09 11:34:18119 HIGH STREET | GODALMING | SURREY | GU7 1AQ

T 01483 239813 M 07900 887021 E teresa@drellagallery.co.uk W www.drellagallery.co.uk

EXHIBITIONS | WORKSHOPS | CONSULTANCY

EVENING DRAWING COURSE - TUESDAYS IN NOVEMBERCONTACT THE GALLERY FOR MORE DETAILS

One year on... Drella Gallery in Godalming presents an exciting programme of shows, throughout the year, from both emerging and estabilshed artists.

Drella_Issue7.indd 1 14/9/09 17:05:55

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drella gallery

119 HIGH STREET | GODALMING | SURREY | GU7 1AQT 01483 239813 M 07900 887021 E teresa@drellagallery.co.uk W www.drellagallery.co.uk

EXHIBITIONS | WORKSHOPS | CONSULTANCY

EVENING DRAWING COURSE - TUESDAYS IN NOVEMBERCONTACT THE GALLERY FOR MORE DETAILS

One year on... Drella Gallery in Godalming presents an exciting programme of shows, throughout the year, from both emerging and estabilshed artists.

Drella_Issue7.indd 1 14/9/09 17:05:55

The Art Fund

An Anonymous Donor

Billmeir Charitable Trust

The Deborah Loeb Brice Foundation

Hamish Dewar Ltd

Professor Rob Dickins CBE

John Ellerman Foundation

English Heritage

Esmée Fairbairn Foundation

The Fenton Arts Trust

Fidelity UK Foundation

Finnis Scott Foundation

Christopher Forbes

Foundation for Sport and the Arts

The Foyle Foundation

Garfield Weston Foundation

The Robert Gavron Charitable Trust

J Paul Getty Jnr Charitable Trust

The Isabel Goldsmith Patino Foundation

Guildford Borough Council

Peter Harrison Foundation

The Derek Hill Foundation

The Ingram Trust

KPMG Foundation

The Geoffrey and Carole Lawson Charitable Trust

The Linbury TrustThe George John and Sheilah Livanos Charitable TrustMan Group plc Charitable TrustThe Michael Marks Charitable TrustThe Mercers’ CompanyThe Henry Moore FoundationRichard Ormond CBEThe Pilgrim TrustDavid PikeRothschild FoundationWolfson Foundation

Thank You

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The Big Issues at the Royal Society of Arts

The opening night of the latest showing of The Big Issues, a community art project from Watts Gallery, was a great success with a number of works selling. The exhibiton showcased the work of women prisoners from HMP Send and people involved with Street Level Arts, a group based in Guildford, for homeless people with mental health problems and reformed drug users, and the work of young offenders through the Surrey Youth Justice Service. We were honoured that Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone DL JP, Gerry Archer CBE LVO, Trustee of KMPG Foundation and RSA and Jane Weeks, Chair of the SE England Committee, Heritage Lottery Fund all spoke at the event. We are grateful to KPMG Foundation, The Michael Varah Memorial Fund the Royal Society of Arts and the Peter Harrison Foundation.

Patrons Visit the Collection of David Pike

Patrons recently enjoyed a tour led by Rupert Maas of David Pike’s wonderful collection of 19th-century watercolours, followed by a delicious tea. Forthcoming Patrons Scheme events include a curator-

led breakfast tour of the new Turner exhibition at Tate Britain on Monday, 12 October and a Patrons’ supper at The Great Studio, Limnerslease on 3 November.

Gallery News

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Exhibition NewsThe final stop of the touring exhibition G. F. Watts: Victorian

Visionary is at Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate from 14 November 2009 until 21 March 2010. It includes more than eighty paintings, drawings and sculptures. The Good Samaritan by Watts is at Guildford Cathedral from 3 September. The Rob Dickins Collection of Victorian photographs continues to be called on for exhibition. The highlights have been shown at Guildford House Gallery, and parts of the collection have been included in two further exhibitions, Tennyson at Farringford on the Isle of Wight and The Artist’s Studio (until 13 December) at Compton Verney. This year’s artist in residence Nathalie Roset will be exhibiting the results of her residency at the Lewis Elton Gallery, University of Surrey from 1- 17 December.

Gallery Awarded Provisional AccreditationWatts Gallery has been awarded Provisional Accreditation by

the Museums Libraries and Archives Council (MLA). This is an important national benchmark for standards in museums and galleries and recognises the work that has been done at Watts Gallery. We will be applying for Full Accreditation when we re-open. The MLA noted they ‘would like to congratulate the museum staff on this achievement.’

Garden Visit and New Friends’ Visits 2010A small group of Friends had an enchanting afternoon in

the world of Gertrude Jekyll. They started at the Church of St John the Baptist, Busbridge, to view the Jekyll family grave, the beautiful East and West windows designed by Burne-Jones and made by Morris & Co and the Lutyens’ screen. This was followed by tours of two beautiful private gardens, both originally designed by Gertrude Jekyll. We are indebted to the owners for kindly opening their gardens to us. In June there will be an all day visit to the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum, Bournemouth. Full details will be in the next Watts Magazine. Following the very successful visit in 2009, the Friends will return later in 2010 to the National Portrait Gallery for a tour and talk on the photographic displays.

Friends Update and Gift AidThe support of the Friends of Watts Gallery is even more vital

during the restoration than ever before. We are very grateful to all of you who have kept up your membership during this time. Please remember to Gift Aid your subsciption if you can and inform us if your status changes.

Introducing Catherine Hilary, Curatorial Fellow

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Catherine Hilary as the Curatorial Fellow at Watts Gallery. In-keeping with the spirit of the Wattses’ encouragement of apprenticeships, the position is for upto two years and is a starting position for a post-graduate student. Catherine joins us from University College, London.

New Magazine Design Watts Magazine has benefited

from the voluntary work of designer Paul Chandler. Our thanks to him. Call 07768 120 733.

Peter MonkmanCongratulations to Peter

Monkman, winner of the 2009 BP Portrait Award for his painting Changeling 2. Monkman exhibited at Watts Gallery in 2008, showing a wide range of his work including Changeling (below) an earlier portrait of his daughter.

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The Director’s Restoration UpdatePerdita Hunt

Watts Gallery Trustees regret to announce that given the pressures of the current economic climate R J Barwick, the building contractor chosen for the Hope Project to restore the Gallery, has gone into administration.

The Watts Gallery site has been sealed and there is increased security on site to protect the Gallery. The Tea Shop, KD Fine Art, Compton Natural Health Centre and RB Phusion are still open for business on the Watts Gallery estate.

The Hope Project will continue and Watts Gallery Trustees will ensure that restoration work will be resumed as soon possible, when legal implications have been resolved. We are already in the process of securing a new contractor. The good news is that the work that has been undertaken to date has been of a very high standard. The Heritage Lottery Fund has been informed and is providing their support and guidance.

We are grateful to all our donors and all those who have invested in the future of the Gallery. The restored Watts Gallery will still re-open in 2010 and we thank you in particular for your support and understanding.

Working on the lantern roof light, something that many of us have not seen in our lifetime, but which replicates the original design.

Photograph by Anne Purkiss

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Looking back over the summer, I am so grateful to our donors, volunteers and supporters who have enabled us to tour the collection to introduce Watts to wider audiences. To have attracted so many people to the Guildhall Art Gallery and St Paul’s Cathedral demonstrates the appeal of Watts. The Gallery Without Walls programme has continued well and the building site has now been adorned with copies of felt designs made by George Abbot School in Burpham, inspired by the Watts Chapel. Our celebration of Postman’s Park in June was a historic event. Sandy Nairne, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, generously unveiled a permanent reminder of the instigator of this memorial to unsung heroes.

In July we held our first events in the grounds of Watts’s Great Studio, including the Friends’ Tea Party with Penelope Keith and a Fairy Fair for children. Everyone who visits us here exhorts us to pursue the next chapter of the Watts story by trying to secure this building for public enjoyment. We shall be making this effort and plan to submit our application to the Heritage Lottery Fund in December. In the meantime, we are drawing up our critical paths, commissioning publications, designing the display, fine tuning the restoration and equipping of the gallery. All so that we can welcome you all back into this national gem, one of Europe’s most beautiful small galleries, that you have all helped to save.

Penelope Keith CBE DL signs a tile for the roof of Watts GalleryAt the events in the grounds of Watts’s Great Studio we launched the sign-a-tile initiative to raise funds for the Gallery. For just £10 you can be a permanent fixture of the restored Gallery. Visit the Information Point & Shop or www.wattsgallery.org.uk to find out more.

Watts’s Fairy FairChildren enjoyed fairy crown and fairy wing workshops, face painting and fairy biscuit decorating at the first event of its kind held in the grounds of Watts’s Great Studio. The event mirrored similiar tea parties held for children by George and Mary Watts.

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Watts GalleryArtist In Residence

Sheila Wallis comes from Derry, N. Ireland where she lived until she was 16. Born at the height of the Troubles, her work is partly inspired by themes of internal and external conflicts and the vulnerability and exposure of the existential human condition. In her early life, this was a form which she was prohibited from exploring by the moral strictures of a Catholic upbringing, yet her builder father's abilities with his hands and his talent for creation is her earliest inspiration.

Self-portraiture was born out of pragmatism. Financially constrained, she began to use herself as subject. The work acquired another dimension when she discovered a freedom to present anything she wished without making an unwitting sitter uncomfortable. It is important to her that the paintings convey the vulnerability of exposure without being exploitative or cruel. Compassion, empathy, humanity and honesty are the qualities that are crucial to her, be it in her art or in her professional capacity as a support worker for adults with learning disabilities.

She is shortlisted for the 2009 Threadneedle Figurative Prize. The Times describes the prize as “fast becoming real art’s equivalent of the Turner Prize” and with a top prize of £25,000 it is also the most valuable.

The 2009-10 Artist in Residence at Watts Gallery has been announced as Sheila Wallis.

Nathalie Roset is coming to the conclusion of her residency and this culminates with an exhibition of her new work in December.

above - Self Portrait after EA 2009

Sheila Wallis

top right - Detail from the ‘Darkness into Light’ exhibition 2009

Natalie Roset

middle right - Nathalie Roset with a particpant on ‘That’s a Bit of Us!

bottom right - A pebble from ‘That’s A Bit of Us!’

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The Watts Gallery residency of Nathalie Roset’s has not only produced new work by herself, but also that of the community through the ‘That’s a Bit of Us!’ project in Park Barn and Westborough. Working with a wide variety of groups, ‘pebbles’ were made as part of a community art work. On her own work for her forthcoming exhibition she writes:

“I chose to look at the Watts Chapel and graveyard as its strong symbolism, colour and architectural decoration along with the contrast between inside and out appealed to me. The fact that it was designed by a woman (Mary Watts) using the local community to build it gave it particular resonance for me.

Many visitors spoke of the difficulty in taking everything in when they visited the chapel as it was so intertwining and overpowering – it was hard to absorb its full intent ... I selected certain elements and applied my own interpretation to them, the small flower detail in the chapel, the peacock represented both in and outside of the chapel and the decorated headstones in the graveyard – most using a botanical design.”

Nathalie Roset: Darkness into Light Lewis Elton Gallery, University of Surrey 1- 17 December 2009.

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King Edward’s school is a rEgistErEd charity, thE purposE of which is to providE high quality Education for both girls and boys. rEgistErEd charity no. 311997.

King Edward’s School celebrates its

13th Autumn Arts Festival with many exciting

events and exhibitions.

Highlights include:

Art Exhibition and Sculpture Trail in association with Surrey Sculpture Society

Open every day 10am-5pm (Sunday 27th September 2-5pm only)

Admission Free

27th September to 18th October 2009

The Autumn Arts Festival

Further details from:

Judith Mott, Festival Director

01428 686773Email: mottj@kesw.surrey.sch.ukInternet: www.kesw.surrey.sch.uk

King Edward’s school

SUCCESSFUL SINCE 1553

WITLEY, GODALMING, SURREY GU8 5SG

Nic Fiddian Green, internationally renowned sculptor, opens this year’s Festival

VivArtis Ad 148x105mm.indd 1 10/9/09 10:32:58

Time Well SpentRegistered charity no. 205846

Servants at Petworth ExhibitionWed 11 November - Sun 20 December

Come and browse this fascinating exhibitionlooking at the lives of the servants who livedand worked at Petworth House in the late 19th century.

There will also be guided tours of the historickitchens each open day at 11.30am and 2pm.

Please note: the property is closed on Mondaysand Tuesdays and the exhibition and tours willalso not be available on 14, 21, 27, 28, 29November or 5 December.

Normal grounds admission charge.

For more information visit: www.nationaltrust.org.uk/petworth or call 01798 342207

NTad Watts Mag _B 11/9/09

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Adopt A Watts DrawingStephanie DennisonAppeal Co-ordinator

The romantic story of the infamous Pattle sisters, described collectively in their day as ‘Pattledom’ and painted affectionately by Watts, so captured the interest of Jane Turner, a volunteer guide, that she decided to ‘adopt’ one. Jane had noticed that a Watts drawing of Virginia as a child had been withdrawn from display well before the Gallery had closed for renovation. The work had needed conserving, mounting and framing. Having always included the story of the Pattles in her tour, Jane adopted the work under the ‘Adopt A Watts’ scheme to be sure it is fit for display when the Gallery reopens.

‘Virginia was the daughter of Sophia Pattle, named after one of Sophia’s sisters, Virginia, with whom Watts fell in love but who went on to marry Lord Eastnor, later Earl Somers,’ recounts Jane. ‘I fell in love with the pastel of Virginia Dalrymple the moment I first saw it. The Gallery also has a beautiful portrait of her as an adult, in a green dress. But I was drawn to the portrait of young Virginia – its innocence, freshness and simplicity. I was also drawn to the romance of the whole story of the Pattles, their origins in France where I had lived and worked for many years, and in India where I was born and brought up, a third generation Anglo Indian’, she says.

‘By adopting this exquisite little portrait, I feel that in a small way I am part of the future of the Gallery and can share in the conservation of the collection so that generations ahead of us can enjoy the works of Watts.’

A ‘drawings salon’ giving Friends a rare chance to view a selection of Watts drawings will take place on Friday 9 October from 3-5pm at The Information Point on the Watts Gallery Estate. Everyone is welcome. Drawings Adoptions start at £300 and can be shared amongst small groups of friends, family or organizations. Donations can be spread over the adoption period of 5 years.

The collection can be viewed on the Gallery’s website at www.wattsgallery.org.uk

For more about the scheme, please contact Stephanie Dennison, Appeal Coordinator on 01483 810 235.

above - Jane Turner with her adopted drawing of Virginia Pattle

left - Interior of Watts’s Studio, 6 Melbury Rd, Holland Park (August 1904) 1904

Thomas Matthews Rooke

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The former poet-laureate Sir Andrew Motion will be giving the 2010 Watts Lecture in February. Here he recalls his early attachment to Watts and his first visit to the Gallery some 25 years ago.

I first visited Watts Gallery, at Compton near Guildford, twenty-odd years ago. As a susceptible teenager, I’d stuck a postcard of his ‘Self-Portrait, aged 17’ on the wall of my room, impressed by the early confidence of his gift and the Romantic beauty of the image: tousle-haired, with a Keatsian mixture of intensity and relaxation. In my twenties I’d seen a handful of other portraits I liked, all of which suggested that Watts’s reputation (then at a low ebb) was less than it deserved to be. By my early thirties I’d heard about the Gallery’s studio collection. I went in the spirit of pilgrimage, not just of curiosity.

Nothing had prepared me for what I found. After I turned aside from the roar of the A3 into the sudden hush of the village, then into the deeper silence of the side-road leading to the gallery, the weight of the twentieth-century lightened. Big dripping hedges crowded the lane; light thickened into a veneer; well-to-do houses – including Watts’s own Limnerslease, built for him and his second wife Mary in 1890-91 – crouched behind the laurels. Then from the rumpled car-park a track led round an unpromising out-house onto a lawn – and there it was; an Arts & Crafts dream turned into a reality. Shaggy bushes concealing much of the façade. A row of pert little dormer windows. The entrance more like the opening of a bower than the way into a building. The Fifth Annual Watts Lecture Andrew Motion: The Cinder Path Wednesday 24 February 2010, 6.30pm Charterhouse, Godalming £10 To book tickets please use the enclosed form.

The Watts Lecture Andrew Motion

'I went in the spirit of pilgrimage, not just of curiosity'

Photograph by Johnny Ring

right - Self Portrait aged 17 1834

George Frederic Watts

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Watts, Darwin and EvolutionMark Bills Curator of Watts Gallery

Chaos 1873-75

George Frederic Watts

Two hundred years ago this year, two giants of the nineteenth century were born: Charles Darwin and Alfred Lord Tennyson. One had more obviously an impact upon the artistic and cultural landscape of the time, Tennyson’s poems inspiring a great number of artists, including Watts. The other had a profound effect upon thinking that affected science, religion and perceptions of the universe, a revolutionary theory that is still as influential as it was when it was first proposed 150 years ago. Its influence in the arts is perhaps less obvious, but was just as profound, and it was Watts’s deep regret that he never painted the great man. “The man of science,” Watts told Mary “should be better than any other, dwelling as he must in a kingdom of infinite wonder – larger than that of the poet or artist…”Yet although no portrait of Darwin by Watts exists, the influence of Darwin is evident in a number of Watts’s imaginative paintings. An exhibition, Endless Forms, at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (until 4th October 2009) brilliantly explores the influence of Darwin on the Arts

“The great law – Movement, Progress, Evolution… All is progression, revolution, evolution, and gravitation towards renewal.” G F Watts

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and includes two important paintings by Watts, Chaos and Evolution. Although many of Watts’s other works reflect the evolutionary theory that fascinated the artist, notably Progress, these two most explicitly explore this thinking.

Creation and evolution fascinated Watts, for whom “The law of creation” was “movement and conflict. Movement is life,” he wrote, “stagnation is death.” In his painting, Chaos, 1875-82, Watts looked towards Greek myth to express creation and the painting was to be his ‘introductory chapter’ in his great scheme that became known as The House of Life. In myth, Chaos (Xάος) was an elemental being at the beginning of time, a formless void made of the four elements: earth, air, fire and water. Watts’s painting depicts the move from ‘chaos to order,’ where the elements become separated and man evolves as independent beings. Creation is portrayed as a dynamic struggle, movement against stagnation. “I see creation,” Watts wrote “as a huge piece of machinery in which man is as much a part”.

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Charles DarwinThe Rob Dickins Collection

right - Evolution 1898-1904 George Frederic Watts

Evolution, 1898-1904, as its title suggests, is more explicitly Darwinian in its spirit, less of a heroic and titanic struggle than the brutal conflict of life portrayed through sibling rivalry. The title of the painting was not given until it was nearly finished, being known up to that point as Gaia (Γαiα, the Greek mother goddess personifying earth) or ‘The Earthmother and her Children’. This is important in how we read the central figure, for she is mother earth and the children are her offspring. Gaia is monumental and static looking into the far distance, aloof from the distraction of her squabbling children. She gave them life but now seems oblivious to their needs. The children are in conflict, some vying for her attention, most at each others throats. They are the active ones, fighting for life, as opposed to their mother who appears quite static in comparison. J E Phythian writing just after Watts’s death notes that the artist described the central figure as “the primeval mother of Conflict and Harmony, herself uncertain of the future of her offspring.”

Like many of Watts’s later paintings it grapples with the question of mankind’s future which he saw as being at a critical point. Should we look towards the future with hope or despair? Or as Watts often stated it, ‘dawn or conflagration?’ Evolution and progress were very positive ideas in Watts’s mind, but within this painting there is a ruthlessness which is less than positive. As Richard Dorment reflected in his review of Endless Forms: “No artist showed the pitilessness of nature more poignantly than G F Watts in his symbolist image Evolution, where mother earth simply has too many children to look after. As she turns away in despair, the infants struggle beneath her feet until, Watts implies, the strong will overcome the weak.” Phythian felt similarly, writing that “not even disarmament and universal arbitration would put an end to essential conflict. There is still, and it seems as if there will long be, strife and contention in the world. The evolution of man is not yet completed. His peace is war: the war of selfish competition.”

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Titans 1848-73 George Frederic Watts

Most writers on Watts neglected to even mention this painting for it is an uncomfortable image in many ways. Its forms are unresolved and awkward and its ideas are uncertain. Its colour is drab and the proliferation of Titian-like ‘putti’ which fight at their mother’s feet makes it a strange and unappealing image for many. Yet this is very much the nature of Watts’s painting; it is a genuine exploration of subject and form in which the result is often not easy. It has taken the year of Darwin to exhibit it once more, to have it conserved and to put it back into a Watts frame, removing it from semi-permanent storage. It will certainly be redisplayed when the Watts Gallery opens in 2010.

It succeeds in forcing us to consider evolutionary theory and the nature of creation and mankind. With such a painting it is better to end with the words of Watts himself: “Depend upon it, nature's system of evolution produces the best work… You may lose something at times, but so does nature."

“Depend upon it, nature's system of evolution produces the best work… You may lose something at times, but so does nature." G F Watts

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advert

Progress 1888-1904

George Frederic Watts

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Henrietta Rae at Little Holland House Mark BillsCurator of Watts Gallery

Interior of Watts’s Studio, 6 Melbury Rd, Holland Park (August 1904) 1904

Thomas Matthews Rooke

Henrietta Rae painting Lord Dufferin and Ava in Watts’s studio

Photographer unknown

right - Henrietta Rae (1859-1928) painting a portrait of Lord Dufferin and Ava in G. F. Watts’s studio

Photographer unknown. The Rob Dickins Collection

The Rob Dickins Collection, to coin a cliché, is ‘a gift that continues to give.’ It just persists in offering new research opportunities and insights in Victorian art and culture. One photograph in the collection which was featured in Victorian Artists in Photographs was of the artist Henrietta Rae (1859-1928) painting a portrait of Lord Dufferin and Ava. A woman artist at work on a portrait made it an obvious choice for selection for exhibition, but looking closer at the image I noticed that in the background was a very familiar painting, The Guelphs and the Ghibelines by G F Watts. It raised the question as to why such an enormous painting was in Rae’s studio before noticing that the shape and decoration of the room revealed it as the studio of Little Holland House.

Watts had also painted Lord Dufferin and Ava, now in the National Portrait Gallery, and a quick search of their archive mentioned what was in the photograph. A letter from Dufferin and Ava to Watts dated 6th December 1901, contained the line, “I have been sitting to an old pupil of yours, Henrietta Rae. She was given the commission by the Ulster Yacht Club.” It did not mention Little Holland House however, but luckily Arthur Fish’s biography of Rae not only described how it had all happened but contained another photograph of the sitting. Fish writes: “Lord Dufferin wrote that he would be in London three days after his letter, and, if convenient to the artist, he would like the work commenced at once. As he could not well be asked to travel to Norwood for the purpose, hurried arrangements had to be made to secure a studio in London. In their difficulty Mr. Normand (Ernest Normand, 1857-1923, artist and husband of Rae) wrote to their old friend, Mr. G. F. Watts, to ask if he could let them have the temporary use of his studio at Little Holland House. Watts was then living at Guildford, and gave a ready acquiescence when he heard the purpose that prompted the request… in due course he [Dufferin and Ava] made his appearance at Little Holland House. He at once expressed his conviction that he knew the place… "Watts painted a portrait of me years ago." He sat in the same chair that he occupied when Watts painted his portrait…”

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Henrietta Rae at Little Holland House Mark BillsCurator of Watts Gallery

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Watts married for the first time in 1864, in a disastrous attempt to save a young girl from the perils of the stage. Ellen Terry went on to become the most celebrated actress of her day, but their relationship left behind some beautiful paintings. Here David F. Cheshire considers their marriage and the iconic painting ‘Choosing’.

George Frederic Watts married Ellen Terry on 20 February, 1864 at St. Barnabas’ Church, Kensington. He was nearly forty-seven and she was not yet seventeen. Tom Taylor announced the wedding plans at a Punch dinner on 17th February and one of the company, Henry Silver, noted in his diary:

“…apropos of old Watts marrying Miss Ellen Terry – who really loves him. She receives as a Valentine the ashes of her photographs burnt by an admirer…”

It is generally believed that the wedding was arranged by Tom Taylor and Mrs Thoby Prinsep in whose home, Little Holland House, Watts had been installed as ‘artistic genius in residence’. But even if they had a hand in the final arrangements, Watts had some very definite ideas of his own on Ellen as early as 1862, when Lady Constance Leslie received an unusual letter from him:

“Knowing how much you are interested in the Miss Terrys I am going to tell you a thing which will perhaps surprise you. I have determined to remove the youngest from the temptations and abominations of the Stage, give her an education and if she continues to have the affection she now feels for me, marry her. There is a great difference between her age and mine and I shall not think of putting any pressure upon her inclinations, but I think whatever the future brings, I can hardly regret taking the poor child out of her present life and fitting her for a better…”

Clearly the relationship was doomed from the start. For as W. Graham Robertson observed in a letter to his friend Kerrison Preston, written on 9 January, 1939: “If Watts thought he could mould that vital and radiant creature into what he wished her to be, he did not show much intelligence.”

Choosing: Watts and Ellen TerryDavid F CheshireAuthor

Ellen Terry as Juliet at The LyceumThe Rob Dickins Collection

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It is possible that Watts had originally envisaged a vaguely platonic Pygmalion/Galatea relationship though he knew that he might not succeed in wooing Ellen away from the stage, even after marriage. And there is a hint of this doubt in the title that he gave to his first formal painting of her: Choosing. The painting must have been completed shortly after the wedding for it was shown at that year’s Royal Academy exhibition.

W. Graham Robertson wrote to congratulate Kerrison Preston on his purchase of the portrait in 1934. “It is a picture with a special intimate quality … it actually holds the wistful soul of Ellen Terry and is, in a way, prophetic of her life; she spent nearly all her days trying to persuade herself that there was scent in camellias, while the perfume really came from the hidden violets near her heart.”

The marriage … lasted for less than a year.

This is an edited extract from David F. Cheshire’s book Portrait of Ellen Terry, available from Watts Gallery priced £14.95.

A range of gifts based on ‘Choosing’ by G F Watts has been developed by the National Portrait Gallery and is available from Watts Gallery. www.wattsgallery.org.uk

“It is a picture with a special intimate quality … it actually holds the wistful soul of Ellen Terry”

W Graham RobertsonChoosing 1864 George Frederic Watts

National Portrait Gallery, London

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Skills4Learning: The Tree of Life ProjectEllen DoggettGeorge Abbot School student on work experience, July 2009

Watts Gallery and George Abbot School have been working in collaboration to produce felt panels inspired by the Watts Chapel. This project was funded by the MLA, who made it possible for George Abbot students to get creative. Some Year 7 students from George Abbot School were taken by a couple of their teachers to Watts Chapel, where they were shown around by Helen Hienkens-Lewis and learnt all about the history. Being instantly inspired by the beautiful chapel these students took a vast range of photographs and sketches. The next day the students were shown how to felt by an artist called Miranda Ashwood, who influenced them with her gorgeous felting pieces. Mixing the two influences of the chapel and the artists work, the girls managed to make some gorgeous felts, using the photos and the sketches made at the chapel as their main focus. These felts were later embellished, leaving the end product as beautiful pieces of art work. All the girls that participated in creating the felt panels thoroughly enjoyed the experience, one of the students commenting, “I think being in textiles and visiting Watts Chapel has inspired me to be more creative, we all had a great time making the felts too.”

To view these pieces properly George Abbot School put on an exhibition, celebrating the achievements of these students and showcasing their talent to the rest of the school. Everyone had a great time, talking about how these pieces may even look like GCSE work! The girls that participated were enormously proud of the felt panels that they created, and were glad that the project they worked so hard on ended in such a special way. The students were also glad to hear that pictures of their work have gone up outside Watts Gallery, so the public can view their work too. These bright and fun pieces really look fantastic and it is a credit to the students and everyone who worked with them, that they have been displayed in such public and special places

This project was supported by MLA through the DCMS and DCSF funded Strategic Commissioning Programme

“I enjoyed looking and walking around the Chapel and also making sketches.”

“I thought it was a great trip and would happily go back to Watts Chapel .”

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left - A detail of the interior of Watts Chapel symbolising day and night

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In Beethoven’s ‘Fidelio’, Leonora follows “the last star of love”, begs Hope not to let it fade from sight. The stars are unimaginably distant from her, only Hope can fuel the journey towards a light that could already at source be extinguished. The poetry of this image should not occlude its awareness of contemporary astronomical research. Leonora is searching for her falsely imprisoned husband who might already have been murdered, while her plan of action, the purpose of her very existence, depends on his being alive. The light of Hope creates a shadow, which is Despair, but for her Hope demands action; Despair would be inertia, of the kind predicated in Watts’s ‘ Hope’.

The Prisoners in ‘Fidelio’ come to Hope from a different position. They are by definition denied the possibility of action. Their only access to Hope is the political whim, or the end, of tyrannical power (Aung Sang Suu Kyi). Leonora parleys for them a brief interlude of humanity by having them allowed to exercise in the prison garden. In the sunlight the fragile flower of Hope blooms, soon, however, to be crushed underfoot.

Hope is accessible to all and is probably invoked more than any other abstraction in our pursuit of happiness. Its greatest friend and its chief enemy is Chance, to which all Hope is subject. This to me is the clue to understanding Watts’s famous picture, for his figure of Hope is invested with some of the key emblems of Chance in the persona of the goddess Fortuna. His Hope is not clear eyed and optimistic but blindfolded, just like her; not stable and grounded but on a ball, again, just like Fortuna. His Hope is not even standing, but seated, inert. Most striking of all, she is a musician with only one unbroken string, one single note. By such extreme imagery Watts utters a stern, ironic warning, that Hope alone is helpless. Only combined with a clear determination towards a goal, however improbable, can Hope play a part, if and when Chance permits. Action must the seize the moment. This is what happens in Beethoven’s ‘Fidelio’

Hope: Watts and BeethovenJohn CoxOpera Director

John Cox is recognised as one of the major opera directors. He was Director of Productions for Glyndebourne, Artistic Director of Scottish Opera and Production Director for the Royal Opera, Covent Garden. Earlier this year he directed Fidelio for Garsington Opera, including an image of Watts’s Hope in the programme.

top left - Hope George Frederic Watts, 1885-86, private collection

left - Aung Saan Suu Kyi, the Burmese pro-democracy leader, who embodies the spirit of Hope.

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