WATTS Magazine Issue 6 Summer 2009 £1
Watts’s Great Studio Mark Bills Jeremy Paxman on Found Drowned Restoration The Latest Photographs
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private view 11 june exhibition 12 june - 17 july
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Tennyson Transformed Alfred Lord Tennyson and Visual Culture
Jim Cheshire, Colin Ford, John Lord, Leonee Ormond, Ben Stoker and Julia Thomas Tennyson Transformed explores how the life and work of the great Victorian Poet Laureate was interpreted by artists, illustrators, photographers and other creative practitioners.
lund humphries
Including Watts’ sculpture of Tennyson at Watts Gallery, a fascinating new book from Lund Humphries...
This book evaluates several strands of Tennyson’s influence on Victorian visual culture, and sheds new light on this crucial aspect of his influence. Including discussion of well-known paintings such as J.W. Waterhouse’s Lady of Shalott and other Pre-Raphaelite masterpieces, the book looks beyond the obvious to uncover the breadth of media used to express Tennysonian themes. Book illustration, photography, engraving and sculpture are examined alongside previously unpublished archival material, such as the proof woodcuts for the famous ‘Moxon Tennyson’ of 1857. Including essays by leading specialists in the field and followed by a catalogue of seminal objects and images, Tennyson Transformed is essential reading for both the specialist and the enthusiast. Literary scholars and art historians will find fascinating new connections between the art and literature of the nineteenth century.
The unveiling ceremony for Watts’ statue of Tennyson in Lincoln, 15 July 1905. Postcard. Tennyson Research Centre.
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Thank You - Watts Gallery is deeply grateful to all its benefactors and major donors:
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 Trust The George John and Sheilah Livanos Charitable Trust Man Group plc Charitable Trust The Michael Marks Charitable Trust The Mercers’ Company The Henry Moore Foundation Richard Ormond CBE The Pilgrim Trust David Pike Rothschild Foundation Wolfson Foundation
Gallery News
Watts Medal Joins Collection We are very pleased that a rare medal (right) by Theodore SpicerSimson (American sculptor and medalist, 1871-1959), bronze c1904, commemorating the life of Watts has been acquired for the collection.
Touring Exhibitions The exhibition programme during the restoration can be seen in full in the enclosed leaflet or on our website. Highlights include Watts in the Nave and G. F. Watts: Parables in Paint at St Paul’s Cathedral until 30 July. Parables in Paint then transfers to Guildford House Gallery from 15 August to 12 September 2009. You can see Victorian Artists in Photographs - Selections from The Rob Dickins Collection at The Ruskin Library, Lancaster University until 28 June. The Good Samaritan and ‘That’s A Bit Of Us’ is at Guildford Cathedral from 10 to 28 August. And finally Belgravia Gallery is showing The Big Issues from 27 to 29 April. See page 25 for more.
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Visionary Watts at The Lightbox A dozen paintings by G. F. Watts will be shown alongside works by Burne-Jones, Carriere, Millais and Rossetti as part of the exhibition Visionary Victorians: British and European painting 1850 – 1900: Pre-Raphaelites, G. F. Watts and The Symbolists at the Lightbox, Woking from 9 May to 5 July.
Businesses Open As Usual Throughout the restoration of Watts Gallery the businesses on the Estate are open as usual. K.D. Fine Art are open for framing, prints and paintings (01243 811344), the Teashop for homemade cakes, meals, teas and coffee (01483 811030) and Richard Booth Photography (01483 812007).
Good Progress and Fascinating Finds Perdita Hunt, Director We are now well in to hard hat territory on the Watts Gallery Hope Restoration Project. A mighty crane has helped to install scaffolding across the whole Gallery building and we hopefully are on schedule to meet our bat licence! ‘Stripping out’ the Gallery has been both fascinating and scary. We have discovered some perfect wall paper which has lain hidden behind the stud walls dating from the 1930’s, we have unveiled Wilfrid Blunt’s monumental bath, but we have also found that the wooden parquet floor tiles have wood worm! Our contractors Barwick Construction and our architects Zombory Moldovan-Moore working closely with Purcell Miller Tritton are making good progress. The roof tiles are thrown from man to man during their removal. Photograph by Anne Purkiss
All this work on site has been accompanied by the continuation of our Watts in the City Programme and our Gallery without Walls programme. The exhibition at the Guildhall Art Gallery has attracted over 8,000 people and has been cited as one of the best exhibitions staged there. The St Paul’s exhibition is attracting as many as 250 people each day and Parables in Paint at St Paul’s continues until July. On Tuesday 3 June we shall be celebrating Postman’s Park in a daylong festival of lectures, unveilings, performances, a Victorian tea party and education workshops. We are delighted that Sandy Nairne, Director of the National Portrait Gallery will unveil a new plaque.
restored Gallery. In addition Friends have a feast of entertainment including a visit to the Isle of Wight to see Tennyson’s home in September. With your help we must reach our target of 2010 Friends by 2010 and with each new subscriber our generous angel provides £60 per head. This is surely too good to miss. I urge you to recruit your Friends, family and contacts in this worthy and exciting cause. The Information Point & Shop on the Estate remains open throughout the restoration and is manned by our loyal volunteers, without whom it would not be possible to have such a space. We are grateful to them and are always happy to welcome new volunteers.
In our Gallery without Walls programme we are offering family workshops in the Loseley Fields Children’s Centre and we are taking forward our community arts project in Park Barn, Guildford and our Big Issues Project with young offenders, women prisoners and the homeless. There will be an exhibition from this project at Belgravia Gallery in London in late April.
There has been a great deal of discussion about the future of the Tea Shop. We are most grateful to the Porters, the current tenants, for the support they have given Watts Gallery over many years. I would like to assure everyone that the plan is to continue providing a Tea Shop on the Watts Gallery Estate. If anyone has We cannot conceive of a restored vibrant Watts Gallery any views they wish to share or thoughts about the future I would be delighted to hear from them. without the support of Friends of Watts Gallery. As we lead up to the reopening and navigate our way through the historic decisions we are having to take on My thanks to all of you for being such constant supporters, for honouring your pledges and for being the detail of the refurbishment, we need the support there when the going is getting tougher by the minute. of Friends to cover our running costs and to be ready as an army of support to be the first to enter the new 5
The exterior of Watts Gallery from the front lawn. The roof tiles are presently being removed for the roof to be fully repaired. 6
Watts Gallery - A Restoration Update Photographs by Anne Purkiss/Words by Mark Bills RIGHT A whole section of the red textured fabric was revealed after the 1938 dividing wall was removed. This wall-covering was produced by Tynecastle, a branch of the Morton and Co. furniture and named The “Venetian” Design. T1. Its intricate floral design provided an ideal backdrop for the paintings of G F Watts and was painted in the rich crimson favoured by Watts so that it would have, in the artist’s own words, “the general effect on entering the room… of a grand strain of music.” It is the intention to have this restored and put back onto the gallery walls. BELOW Two temporary stud walls were added by the Curator Rowland Alston in 1938 ending the open galleries that had been there since the gallery was built in 1903. With their removal it is wonderful once more to feel the whole breadth of the gallery and see it the way Mary Watts did, up until her death in 1938.
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ABOVE The Sunken Gallery was added in 1925 as an additional gallery to address the problem of paintings by Watts that were in storage and unable to be hung. This will become the place in which visitors are introduced to G F and Mary Watts and the history of their extraordinary legacy in Compton. RIGHT In the Main Gallery the parquet floor has been temporarily removed. The picture slot is just visible on the left hand side of the back wall.
Follow the Restoration at Watts Gallery’s Website There are a number of ways you can follow the restoration of Watts Gallery over the coming year at www.wattsgallery.org.uk. There are monthly updates posted on YouTube which can be watched on the Watts Broadcasting page of our site. You will also see the photographs taken by the Director and Curator in their blogs, where they give their views on the project.
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27 June – 13 September 2009
J. W. Waterhouse The Modern Pre-Raphaelite
Tickets 0844 209 1919 www.royalacademy.org.uk John William Waterhouse, Miranda (detail), 1875 Oil on canvas, 76 x 101.5 cm. Collection of Robert and Ann Wiggins, USA
Watts 105X155.2.indd 1
03/04/2009 15:33
FA R R I N G F O R D HOME OF LORD TENNYSON
Set in 33 acres of park land, adjoining approximately 500 acres of National Trust downland and breathtakingly beautiful coastline, Farringford offers the perfect relaxing retreat for holidays and breaks throughout the year.
TENNYSON’S BICENTENARY EVENTS
The Poet and the Place - 3 nights from £285pp
1st - 4th May; a weekend of poetry and music.
Walking in Tennyson’s Footsteps - 3 nights from £285pp 30th June – 1st July; a three day poetry event to include a workshop and a reading from the current Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion.
Tennyson’s Bicentenary - £22.00 per ticket
On the 6th of August there will be an anniversary tea and lectures by two renowned Tennyson scholars. Profits to be donated 50% to Watts Gallery Hope Appeal
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Farringford Hotel Freshwater Bay PO40 9PE Tel: 01983 752500 contact@farringford.co.uk www.farringford.co.uk
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Celebrating The Life of Watts’s Great Friend 200 Years of Alfred Lord Tennyson Farringford, Alfred Lord Tennyson’s home on the Isle of Wight has started this year’s celebrations by completing the major phase of their refurbishment plan, a plan they hope will return the house to the glorious days of Tennyson’s ownership. This initial phase will give them a backdrop against which this year’s festivities will take place. From 30 March the house will be opening its doors to guests, offering a range of accommodation from rooms in the historic house to the freedom of self-catering in the grounds. Farringford remains instantly recognisable as Tennyson’s home: ‘Where, far from noise and smoke of town, / I watch the twilight falling brown / All round a careless-ordered garden / Close to the ridge of a noble down.’ Grade I listed for its literary associations and a hotel since the late 1940s, it’s easy to see, when visiting Farringford today, why the Poet Laureate fell in love with the house and its grounds. Its imposing vista and breath-taking scenery would inspire the humblest man to take pen in hand. The surrounding area, which was once owned by Tennyson, is now mostly part of the National Trust’s ‘Tennyson Downs’. There are 33 acres of the original land that still remain part of the house, including a bridge that Tennyson built to escape the ‘cockneys’ (his name for tourists), and the ‘wilderness’, a small wooded area that leads onto Tennyson Down. This year’s events are appropriately based on a ‘Celebration of Inspiration’ from Tennyson inspired events to contemporary arts, music and poetry. There are also a number of special events being held over the summer including The Poet and the Place, a weekend of music, poetry and history of Farringford during the May Bank Holiday (1–4 May) and an opportunity to Walk in Tennyson’s Footsteps with Andrew Motion (30 June–2 July). On Thursday 6 August there will be an afternoon tea and lectures by the world renowned Tennyson experts Professors Leonée Ormond (Watts Gallery Trustee) and Marion Shaw. Half of the profits from this event will be donated to Watts Gallery’s Hope Appeal. Visit their website for more details, www.farringford.com, or call 01983 752500.
Visit Farringf with the ord Frien of Watt ds s Gallery
Friends of Watts Gallery Trip to Farringford The Friends of Watts Gallery are visiting Farringford Tuesday 8 September to Thursday 10 September. To celebrate the bicentenary of the birth of Watts’s great friend, the group will stay at Farringford. They will visit Dimbola Lodge, the home of the pioneering photographer Julia Margaret Cameron and hear talks by Victorian specialists Martin Beisly, Prof. Leonée Ormond and Elizabeth Hutchings. See the enclosed events leaflet to book a place or visit www.wattsgallery.org.uk to see more of the itinerary.
Transformed, at Farringford and at the Royal Academy Three exhibitions this summer will explore the links between Tennyson and the artists of the day. Tennyson Transformed at The Collection, Lincoln, includes works by a wide range of artists and Tennyson at Farringford includes portraits by G. F. Watts and photographs by Julia Margaret Cameron to illuminate Tennyson’s life alongside documents from his collection. A rarely seen portrait of the poet laureate highlights the famous rapport between Watts and Tennyson. J. W. Waterhouse at the Royal Academy of Arts will also include a number of paintings inspired by Tennyson. Tennyson Transformed The Collection, Lincoln, 6 June - 31 August 2009 Tennyson at Farringford Freshwater, Isle of Wight 5 August - 9 September 2009 J. W. Waterhouse Royal Academy of Arts, London 27 June - 13 September 2009 11
Main Contractor for the Watts Gallery Hope Project
Typical contracts by RJ Barwick: Complete refurbishment of a fine country house (private client) and left, the restoration of Augustin Pugin’s home (The Landmark Trust).
RJ Barwick is a long established building company, now managed by the seventh generation. Our traditional values and exceptional experience of restoration and refurbishment works enable us to confidently undertake the most challenging heritage contracts, to the highest quality.
We are proud to be working at Watts Gallery. Please e-mail Richard Barwick on heritage@rjbarwick.co.uk if you would like further information on our services.
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Plaque for Postman’s Park to be Unveiled 3 June 2009 Myra McDonnell, Ceramicist
The Watts’s Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice is made from two distinct types of tile panels. Mary Watts asked William de Morgan, to produce the first panels. These are handmade from a Turkish/Isnik influenced frit ware body. The surface undulating slightly and the alkali glaze characteristically crazed. The oxide colours react and have a depth of tone. The lettering is painted onto the raw un-fired glaze freehand and the subsequent gaps filled with attractive squiggles. The borders are likewise freehand, similar yet individual.
In the information panel I shall try to reconcile this dichotomy. The tiles are handmade, slightly undulating, but in stoneware with a smooth glaze for its hardwearing properties. The letters, squiggles and borders will be all freehand and the charm hopefully retained. The return to the deeper oxide tones with the addition of centralising the layout will make the wording clear and readable.
The later Doulton panels, though hand painted are a result of an industrial approach. Flat dust pressed tiles with a felspatic smooth opaque glaze the colouring carbonates give softer colours. The lettering sophisticated, stencilled beforehand along with the squiggles and borders. Though charmingly designed there is little individuality of the painter. However though Mary Watts disapproved of the mass produced industrial feel, to our modern eyes they are still delightfully hand painted.
Myra McDonell, has been commissioned to create a panel to provide background to Watts’s Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice. The new panel is to be unveiled by Sandy Nairne, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, on 3 June 2009 at 1.30pm. It is part of a day’s celebration of the memorial, from 12-4pm, which will include, theatrical performances, short talks, workshops and Victorian teas. Please see www.wattsgallery.org.uk or the enclosed events leaflet.
I hope Mary Watts will not be too displeased.
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Found Drowned Jeremy Paxman, BBC Presenter and Writer
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In his series for the BBC, Jeremy Paxman looked at the Victorians through the paintings of the age. To accompany the series Paxman has written a book in which he explores the subject in more detail. The following extract considers one of Watts’s most important paintings.
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G. F. Watts, Found Drowned, 1849-50 Adopted for conservation by Mr David Pike
On a bitter London night in 1844, a 40-year-old woman leapt from a bridge over the Regent’s Canal into the water below. Remarkably, she survived – but the 18-month-old child she was cradling in her arms drowned. Rescued from the water, the woman was arrested and charged with murder and attempted suicide. Her name was Mary Furley, and within weeks she had become a household name. The incident was first reported in The Times, which recorded daily dispatches from her court case. Furley, the court heard, had discharged herself from the workhouse where she and her illegitimate child had been mistreated, and had tried to make a living by sewing shirts. When this failed, she had chosen suicide rather than return to the workhouse. Furley’s execution was set for 6 May 1844, at eight o’clock in the morning. Charles Dickens had attended her trial at the Old Bailey, and wrote a story condemning a system that punished the victims of poverty rather than tackling its causes. The poet Thomas Hood also took up her cause in his poem The Bridge of Sighs, which imagines what would have happened had she not been recovered from the water: One more unfortunate weary of breath, rashly importune, gone to her death … take her up tenderly, life her with care … loving, not loathing. Touch her not scornfully, think of her mournfully, gently and humanly; not of the stains of her, all that remains of her now is pure womanly.
“There is a suggestion of redemption in the position of her outstretched arms, echoing Christ on the cross.”
pawn token). Or it might be a necklace with a locket – containing, perhaps, an image of her dead child? There is a suggestion of redemption in the position of her outstretched arms, echoing Christ on the cross. The implication is that she is no longer a moral reprobate, but someone worthy of redemption – the victim of a system that permits male seducers to go unpunished, while women are cast out of society. Found Drowned shows a woman who has been washed up by the tide – like a bit of debris. Similar works helped to force a change in public opinion – and a change in the law. Six years earlier, days after the date for her execution had been set, Mary Furley received a reprieve, her sentence was commuted to a seven-year transportation. It was harsh, but it was better than death.
An excerpt from The Victorians – Britain Through the Paintings of the Age. Published by BBC Books and In Found Drowned (1849-1850), a title taken from a gloomy daily column in The Times, which published lists available to buy from www.wattsgallery.org.uk. of women, mostly prostitutes, found drowned in the Thames, G. F. Watts also changed parts of the story, showing Mary dead but omitting the child. And he substituted the Regent’s Canal with Waterloo Bridge, a site notoriously associated with the suicides of fallen women. In one limp hand she holds a token (possibly a 16
Yvonne Arnaud Art 2009 The Mill Studio, Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Millbrook, Guildford, GU1 3UX
Guildford Arts present the 14th Annual Exhibition
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This page Hope G. F. Watts (private collection) Inset A Jordanian stamp depicting Hope Opposite A button badge promoting Obama
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An Artist’s Rural Retreat: Watts and Limnerslease Mark Bills, Curator During his lifetime Watts worked in many studios and in houses with rooms that were adapted for studio use. Of these he had two purpose-built, where he commissioned an architect to create the space that were to his own specifications, at Little Holland House and Limnerslease, providing the perfect environment for painting and sculpting in both town and country. Both had painting studios, both had sculpture studios and whilst Physical Energy was created in London, his great Tennyson statue was created in Compton. Little Holland House provided a spring and summer residence whilst Limnerslease became the autumn and winter retreat. Today, although it is sad to note that Little Holland House was levelled by post-war developers, it is wonderful that Watts’s house and studio at Limnerslease survive. The great studio in which Watts painted such masterpieces as The Court of Death, whose size dominated its surroundings, is currently being rented by Watts Gallery during the restoration. It is timely therefore to reflect a little upon the history of the building and how it came to be here. In the 1880s after their marriage, George and Mary Watts resided at Little Holland House, G F Watts’s enormous London house, studio and gallery at 6 Melbury Road. So why, with such a complex in the heart of London’s artistic community, did they build such a grand house in Compton, Surrey and afterwards a pottery, chapel and art gallery? The answer is really that it happened in stages, the idea of a country cottage retreat grew into the ambitious project that included a whole area of Compton. Their reasons for wanting a retreat are various and have been speculated upon by a number of writers. Mary herself writes that it was a question of finding “winter quarters” and that because of Watts’s sensitive nature and susceptibility to illness they sought to try the “climate in Surrey”. Ronald Chapman, the son of Lilian, the Wattses’ adopted daughter, who knew Limnerslease intimately, speculated that “Mary longed for a place of her own”. The weather conditions also pointed to a reason for a winter retreat, for “all the foggy months” of London could make painting difficult and certainly caused illness to many in the metropolis.
The Wattses’ close friends, Andrew and May Hitchens (formally May Prinsep) had a large grand house in Compton named Monkshatch where they visited for winter holidays. Watts had known May for many years and was great friends with her husband, who referred to Watts as that ‘beloved little man’. Holidays became longer winter stays where Watts took over Andrew’s favourite sitting room as his studio, for Signor had to paint. Mary recalled “The winter months as they passed found him so well that the idea of a winter home in the neighbourhooda cottage, perhaps, to which a studio could be added – was constantly in our minds. One lovely sunny morning Andrew came in from a walk, enthusiastic about a site for a house he had found, and a quarter of an hour later we were standing on a little sandy knoll, well wooded and possessed of some very fine trees… “Too delightful for accomplishment,” Signor thought; but Andrew saw no difficulty, if the land could be secured.” The land was owned by More Molyneux, owner of the Loseley estate, who finally agreed to sell to Hitchens on 24 March 1890. Hitchens “refused to allow Signor to make any outlay himself ”. Watts graciously assented and also allowed Hitchens to pay for the building of the house. A name was decided on very quickly and it was named before it was built. Mary explained that “Limner,” was “to keep the remembrance that it was built for an artist, and the word “lease,” as having a double meaning, for we played with the old English word “to leasen,” which meant to glean, our hope being that there were golden years to be gleaned in this new home.” Mary’s punning about them leasing it from the Hitchens remained relevant throughout the 1890s until the sale of red chalk drawings exhibited in Old Bond Street Galleries through Sir William Agnew “enabled Signor to purchase the new house from Andrew” who “was still the ground landlord, but he permitted Signor to make it freehold by another purchase in 1899.” Hitchens had “asked Mr Ernest George (the distinguished architect, later Sir Ernest George 1839-1922) to make the building plans,” and there were many discussions, hopes and disappointments, including a ‘lost’ staircase which had enraged Watts.
The house was not completed until Summer 1891 19
Previous page Watts at work on Tennyson outside the Barn Studio. Photograph by George Andrews. Left Limnerslease today. Photograph by Anne Purkiss. Right The studio at Limnerslease. The Court of Death and The Good Samaritan can be seen among other works. Illustrated London News, July 23 1893.
and the census for that year saw the Wattses residing at Monkshatch. On Wednesday 17 June 1891 Mary records in her diary that the first breaking of bread took place at Limnerslease. Its completion greatly pleased Watts and Mary notes that “his enjoyment was like the enjoyment of a child”. It was a most wonderful location and an antidote to the artist’s bouts of depression, Mary frequently recording in her diaries that Watts found peace here. On 1 August 1892 she notes “Signor says “How I do enjoy this life,” and on 2 September 1893 “We must do something to deserve it”. Such thoughts may account in part for the developments in the village that were organised by Mary where Limnerslease was the nerve centre of operations. It was here that she held pottery classes, where the first kiln was built and where they oversaw the building and development of the Watts Gallery. The house has many aspects to it included the living room with a ceiling and niche designed by Mary. The great studio itself is in many senses where the heart of an artist’s house is centred and Limnerslease is no exception. Many visitors made a pilgrimage here to meet Signor and to see the high gallery where he worked and he was dubbed by Meredith and Spielmann as the ‘Titian of Limnerslease’. So what did it feel like to enter the studio? They would have seen Watts surrounded with the paintings that he was working on, and the photographs that survive show several on easels and others stacked around the walls. In terms of studio furniture there are sculptural models that he painted from including the figures of Ilyssos and Dionysus from the Parthenon frieze that were always on the mantelpiece of his fireplace. The Watts Gallery
is fortunate to own many of these pieces of sculpture and furniture. A skylight and great window let in the natural light that Watts worked from. It was here that he painted many of his late masterpieces. In the later years of his life it was not with just painting that Watts was involved, major sculptural projects were very much part of his art. For this reason he had barns extended and renovated for this purpose which became known as the ‘barn studios.’ Following the example of Little Holland House a short railway track was built to take sculpture from inside the studio so he could work on it outside. It was finally completed on 13 December 1898 when Mary noted in her diary that “The Barn Studio begins to be used… when I went up at sunset a great pair of white legs shone out against the dark background of the barn timbers…” These were the legs of the plaster (gesso grosso) model for the great bronze of Tennyson. The architect of Watts Gallery, Christopher Hatton Turnor recalled that “I was fortunate in getting a striking photo of Signor at work on the Tennyson statue” [see illustration on page 18] For all this history Limnerslease is a very special place, as Ronald Chapman observed, it has “that mysterious indefinable air of culture and high living which Watts gave to every house he lived in.” With the loss of Little Holland House, Limnerslease is all the more precious, it is the heart of the Wattses complex in Compton and if Signor’s spirit resides anywhere it is here! Mark Bills will give a talk on Limnerslease on Wednesday 6 May, 7pm. See the enclosed leaflet.
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A Unique Arts and Crafts Community Memorial Veronica Franklin Gould Limnerslease, the home of G. F. and Mary Watts in Compton, was used for community Arts and Crafts workshops to create the Watts Cemetery Chapel. In an excerpt from her book on the Chapel, now back in print, Veronica Franklin Gould considers how the villagers were involved in what is arguably the first community art project.
Mrs Watts hoped that by helping to create the chapel in the home of an eminent artist, surrounded by masterpieces of High Art, her clay modellers would be inspired to produce beautiful work, that they would acquire a special interest in their new burial ground and the mysterious building that was to be her husband’s gift to Compton.
Both G. F. Watts and Mary Watts were on the Council of the Home Arts, working hard to raise funds to train handicraft teachers. Inspired by John Ruskin, who stressed that people should be released from factory work, Mary Watts yearned to start her own Home Arts class, to help make men less like machines, using not only their hands, but their heads and hearts, her tangible contribution to improving the lives of those who were deprived of beauty.
The ideal Arts and Crafts project entailed public service rather than personal profit, an exchange of gifts. Appealing to Mrs Watts’s philanthropic and Socialist instincts, this was the philosophy that lay behind the Watts Chapel. ‘Giving money is something,’ she wrote,‘but giving ourselves is the one necessary gift.’
Although some people, not least Mary herself, feared the project might fail, villagers flocked to her first clay-modelling evening class at Limnerslease, on Thursday 14 November 1895, where under Mrs Anxious parishioners meeting in the Saxon tower of St Nicholas Church on 24 May 1888, had raised the Watts’s guidance they began to model strange Celtic question of a new burial ground for Compton, as the symbols in terracotta, acquiring the skill to create their old graveyard was almost full to capacity. The following own architectural heritage. A unique Arts and Crafts Easter, an offer of land from Loseley estate was community memorial was under way. accepted; and in March 1895, Compton Parish Council confirmed approval of the ‘Purchase of certain Grass Nestling in the hills shaded by pine trees, Limnerslease Land on Budburrow Hill for the purpose of a new cemetery, provided idyllic rural and artistic surroundings for an from Mr More-Molyneux.’ Arts and Crafts workshop, where art was understood to be a natural way of life and could therefore be Mary had taught clay modelling to shoeblacks in produced with joy. The billiard-room was transformed Whitechapel before her marriage to Watts. Now she into the clay-modelling studio. So keen were villagers could enrich the lives of her own young people in to be involved with the chapel decoration – sometimes Compton with the glories of art. Here was her golden more than 40 students aged from ten to sixty arrived to opportunity. Grasping it with Highland passion, she learn and help – that Mrs Watts had to run two evening wrote to the parish council offering on behalf of Mr classes and engage four full-time assistants. Watts to build a chapel on the new cemetery ground. By August 1895, Mrs Watts had completed her model Watts Chapel by Veronica Franklin Gould is priced of the chapel and had found a seam of gault clay in £5.95 and is available from www.wattsgallery.org.uk the grounds of Limnerslease. On 2 October, William or from the Watts Gallery Information Point & Shop. More-Molyneux sold three-quarters of an acre of land The Chapel is Parish property and is open to the to the Parish Council for £74 7s 0d, land which would public daily. It is locked up at night. It is still the village provide burial space for 120 years. cemetery chapel and is sometimes in use.
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The Big Issues at Belgravia Gallery, London Helen Hienkens-Lewis, Head of Learning To celebrate the success of the Big Issues Workshops in 2008, Watts Gallery is grateful to Belgravia Gallery for hosting an exhibition of art work produced during this pilot programme. The Big Issues project was a natural evolution of Watts’s belief in Art for All. G. F. Watts and his second wife, Mary Seton Watts, believed passionately in the transformational impact of art and they supported the efforts of the famous social reformer Canon Samuel Barnett in the East End of London. As part of the Watts Gallery Art For All learning programme, the Big Issues project started in 2008, with a series of art workshops for women prisoners at HMP Send, young offenders in partnership with Surrey Youth Justice Service and Street Level Arts, an art group based in Guildford, which includes people with mental health problems, reformed drug users, rough sleepers and people living in temporary accommodation. Each workshop series started by introducing members to the work of G.F. Watts and Watts Gallery. Watts’s paintings often addressed issues such as homelessness, the exploitation of women and poverty and these themes were a good starting point for discussing art. The Street Level Arts group was particularly inspired by visiting the Watts Chapel, and its members were all keen to start making their own pottery pieces. For all the groups, several practical workshops allowed each individual to make art work using a variety of media of their choice, such as painting, drawing, pottery or photography, based on themes that inspired them with the support of an artist. The project was very well received by our partnership organisations with participants becoming calmer, young offenders re-entering education and we were encouraged to offer more workshops in the future. At HMP Send the women who took part still continue to make art in the cells and now meet for informal art mentoring sessions with Sandy Curry, The Fenton Arts Trust Artist in Residence at Watts Gallery 2006-07.
This led to developing an idea for an artist in residence scheme at the prison, the first for HMP Send. The Michael Varah Artist in Residence scheme will allow Watts Gallery to offer continuation of learning to the 2008 participants and other prisoners, in addition to Big Issues workshop programme in 2009. Started in 1986 by Anna Hunter, Belgravia Gallery is London’s showcase for work by truly outstanding artists and people of renown. It is located in the heart of the art district close to Piccadilly. Professional, welcoming and approachable, Belgravia Gallery is committed to raising funds for charities through the sale of fine art and photography. The Big Issues Belgravia Gallery, 45 Albermarle Street, London, 27-29 April 2009 With thanks to Belgravia Gallery, KPMG Foundation, The Fenton Arts Trust, Lloyds TSB Foundation for England and Wales and The Michael Varah Memorial Fund. Left - Individuality by Clare, 2008 Above - Hope by Jasmine, 2008
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The Values of the Past, Applied to the Future Lady Angela Nevill, Chairman, Great Studio Appeal
In his speech for the celebration of the anniversary of the siting of Watts’s Physical Energy in Kensington Gardens, the sculptor Antony Gormley said “I see in Watts a prescience of the evolution of art: he makes an art of conscience, of response, an art based on the supremacy of ideas. Watts was an extraordinarily brave man who was always acknowledging uncertainty and the presence of the unknown, the unseeable, the ineffable, the unconscionable, always pushing at the edge of what is representable. He was a Sartrian figure in the great energy with which he levied a life as he saw fit, without reward or decoration and, in his great insistence in art’s ability to originate, he is the precursor of modernity and a precursor of the new confidence in the relevance and power of visual arts in Britain. He is still a great inspiration.” I believe that Watts has a resonance with today’s generation. That is why I have supported Watts Gallery in its efforts to secure the future of the Gallery, by hosting the first Watts landscape exhibition at my Gallery in St James’s, and why I am now working with the team to explore the future of Watts’s Great Studio. Watts provides a unique point of entry in to understanding the 19th Century but also provides a model for learning, thinking and creating for future generations. We are exploring the idea of working with
the Florence Academy of Art in introducing master classes in traditional drawing and paintings skills to enhance the process of creating contemporary art; we would like to partner with the University of Surrey, the University of the Creative Arts and the Courtauld Institute in establishing study programmes which exploit, as well as its collection, the rich library and archives of Watts Gallery, which now include The Rob Dickins Collection – over 4,000 photographs of eminent Victorians, and the Christopher Wood Library and Archive. We also wish to foster G. F. Watts and Mary Watts’s passion for learning through art, by providing apprenticeships for curators and conservators. Finally we wish to continue the Wattses’ legacy of serving the local community. I have always believed that Compton could be a unique centre for learning and for exploring Victorian art, social history and craft. It would be wonderful if that opportunity became a reality. What is exciting is that our vision is not just about the past, but about taking the values of the past and applying them to the future.
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