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Richard and Leonée Ormond THE PORTRAITS OF G. F. WATTSSally Varah A LIFELINE OF CREATIVITYMark BillsCARING FOR A NATIONAL COLLECTIONCatherine HilaryDEBORAH GOURLAY: LIQUID LIGHTAlexander CreswellWORKING IN WATTS’S GREAT STUDIOPerdita HuntTHE GIFT OF ISABEL GOLDSMITH PATIÑO

ISSUE NO 13 Autumn 2011/Winter 2012

£1

2 International Auctioneers and Valuers - bonhams.com/19thcentury

19th Century PaintingsAuction entries now invited

Auction19th Century PaintingsWednesday 25 January 2012London

Closing date for entries Friday 2 December

Sam Travers+44 (0) 20 7468 8232sam.travers@bonhams.com

Joseph Mallord William Turner, RA (British, 1775-1851)Kirkby Lonsdale Churchyard watercolour heightened with bodycolour and scratching out£200,000 - 300,000

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ISSUE NO 13

COVER George Frederic Watts, Portrait of Frederic Leighton, 1871 Leighton House Museum, The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea EDITORIAL Edited and designed by Andrew Churchill, Marketing Manager, Watts Gallery Position supported by Esmée Fairbairn Foundation Printed by Selsey Press Layout by Peper Design Advertising - 0207 300 5675

VISITOR INFORMATION Watts Gallery, Down Lane Compton, Surrey GU3 1DQ Tel +44 (0)1483 810 235 info@wattsgallery.org.uk www.wattsgallery.org.uk

OPENING TIMES Monday Closed Tuesday - Saturday 11am - 5pm Sunday / Bank Holidays 1pm - 5pm

SEASONAL CLOSURES Closed 24 December to 1 January Open 2 January.

EVENTS BOOKING LINETuesday - Saturday, 11-5pm 01483 813593shop@wattsgallery.org.uk

Isabel Goldsmith Patino Gallery, looking through to the Graham Robertson Gallery and the Weston Gallery, 2011. Photograph by Anne Purkiss

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Watts Gallery is deeply grateful to all its donors. These Benefactors have provided particularly generous support:

Heritage Lottery Fund

The Deborah Loeb Brice Foundation

The Isabel Goldsmith Patiño Foundation

Garfield Weston Foundation

The George John & Sheilah Livanos

Charitable Trust

Richard Ormond CBE

Esmée Fairbairn Foundation

Sir Siegmund Warburg’s Voluntary

Settlement

English Heritage

Christopher Forbes

J Paul Getty Jnr Charitable Trust

The Ingram Trust

The Foyle Foundation

Professor Rob Dickins CBE

The Linbury Trust

Art Fund

David Pike

Guildford Borough Council

The Robert Gavron Charitable Trust

Hamish Dewar Ltd

Surrey County Council

Peter Harrison Foundation

The John Ellerman Foundation

The Finnis Scott Foundation

The Restoration Fund

The Wolfson Foundation

The Mercers’ Company

KPMG Foundation

The Pilgrim Trust

Surrey Hills LEADER

The Monument Trust

Three Anonymous Donors

THANK YOU

RECORD NUMBER OF VISITORS

Watts Gallery has enjoyed an amazing number of visitors since we re-opened in June 2011. More than 25,000 people had enjoyed the Gallery by the end of October and we look forward to welcoming many more over the coming months to the Hall of Fame exhibition opening 7 February 2012 and Dickens and the Artists opening 19 June 2012..

GORMLEY SCULPTURE SELLS FOR £160,000

Previewed in the last issue of Watts Magazine was the donation of a major scupture by Antony Gormley (above) to the Limnerslease appeal. The auction raised £160,000 and we are very grateful to the artist for his valuable contribution. Gormley is also an artist patron of the appeal to save Limnerslease for the nation.

LATEST NEWS

GIFT OF ARTWORK FOR LIMNERSLEASE

The Deborah Loeb Brice Foundation kindly donated a print by the artist Mary Cassatt which has been sold for £68,000. We are very grateful for this generous support of the Limnerslease appeal.

NEW CHRISTMAS CARD NOW ON SALE

This year’s Christmas card, in aid of Watts Gallery, depicts three angels from the Watts Chapel. They are available in the shop and from our website.

FRIENDS TRIP TO WALES A GREAT SUCCESS

The sun shone on the group of Friends and Patrons who spent four days viewing the paintings and drawings of G.F. Watts. Eastnor Castle, which houses the painting of Virginia Pattle who was loved by Watts; Bodelwyddan Castle, home to Watts’s Hall of Fame; the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool and Port Sunlight were amongst venues on the itinerary. The final stop was the country house of Sir Andrew & Lady Duff Gordon, who kindly welcomed the group to lunch and a tour of their home and collection, which includes rarely seen Watts drawings and paintings. The Friends & Patrons greatly appreciated this hospitality.

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LAST CHANCE TO SEE: G.F. WATTS - PAINTING FOR THE NATION AND HOPE: WORLD ICON

Don’t miss the chance to see many of Watts’s most important allegorical paintings at Watts Gallery in two exhibitions ending soon.

Hope: World Icon celebrates Watts’s iconic painting Hope (below) and this version of the painting is the most important and not normally seen in public.

Watts gave many of his most important paintings to the nation, not least a large number to the National Gallery of British Art, now the Tate. Visit Watts Gallery before the 2 January 2012 (closed 24 December to 1 January) to see a recreation of the orginal ‘Watts Room’, a permanent feature at Tate until 1939.

LAST CHANCE, AND COMING UP

THE SEVENTH ANNUAL WATTS LECTURE: FIONA MACCARTHY EDWARD BURNE-JONES & G.F. WATTS

The seventh annual Watts Lecture will be given by acclaimed biographer Fiona MacCarthy. Edward Burne-Jones (above, Hollyer photograph of Watts’s portrait of the artist) was one of the great artists and designers of the Victorian period. A key artist in the later phase of Pre-Raphaelitism he was closely associated with William Morris. He was also a friend of G.F. Watts and this lecture will look at these important figures and their relationship.

With new research and fresh historical perspective, MacCarthy’s new book The Last Pre-Raphaelite (‘a magnificent and deeply felt biography’. The Guardian), tells the extraordinary and dramatic

story of Edward Burne-Jones as an artist, a key figure in Victorian society and a peculiarly captivating man.

A well known broadcaster and critic, Fiona MacCarthy established herself as one of the leading writers of biography with her widely acclaimed book Eric Gill. Her biography of William Morris won the WolfsonHistory Prize and the Writers’ Guild Non-Fiction Award.

Previous Watts Lectures have been given by Tristram Hunt MP, Sandy Nairne, A.N. Wilson, Alison Smith, Sir Andrew Motion and Dr. Nicholas Penny.

Wednesday 22 February 2012Hall, Charterhouse, Godalming, GU7 2DX6.30-7.45pm£8 (£7 for Friends)To book call 01483 813593, Tuesday to Saturday, 11-5pm or visit our website at www.wattsgallery.org.uk

DICKENS 2012

Turn to the last page of this magazine for a preview of the summer’s most exciting exhibition, Dickens and the Artists.

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Waggon Yard, Farnham, Surrey, GU9 7PS

t: 01252 713208

e: gallery@newashgate.org.uk

Find us online

www.newashgate.org.uk

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Open Tues-Sat 10-5

Carolyn Genders Emma Dunbar

NEWASHGATE GALLERY AD WATTS MAG WINTER2011.indd 1 08/11/2011 12:24:41

Untitled-1 1 8/11/11 12:56:35

NB. Pictures may be collected on day of purchase

For information prior to exhibition phoneJohn Robertson on 07860 571799

You will be able to view the picturesshortly before the exhibition opens

on the Edenbridge websiteunder John Robertson Fine Paintings

DAVID NAPPAN EXHIBITION OF RECENT WORK

IN OILS AND PASTELPaintings from Morocco, Tivoli,

Rome and Southern France

OPEN FROMSAT 23RD DECEMBER

UNTIL CHRISTMAS EVE

AT

EDENBRIDGEGALLERIES

TH

E

1 The Square, Church Street,Edenbridge, Kent TN8 5BD

www.edenbridgegalleries.comT: 01732 864163 /865988" Doorway in Marrakesh"

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CARING FOR A NATIONAL COLLECTIONMark Bills, Curator of Watts Gallery

At the heart of the Watts Gallery is a collection of paintings, drawings and sculpture left by the artist George Frederic Watts. What we have in this nationally significant body of works is an artist’s personal collection; the studies, the experiments and the masterpieces to which he was so attached. It is a collection that had two separate galleries created for it, the artist’s gallery at Little Holland House and to the Watts Picture Gallery built in 1903. Because the Watts Gallery was built specifically to house this collection, the Gallery is particularly special and very different from most other galleries. Through the restoration the development of the building aimed not only to restore the original context and create new spaces for the display of the collection, but sought to create the right conditions for its care.

Now that quite literally and metaphorically the dust has settled, we were assessed for Accreditation to see how well the gallery is able to achieve its aims as a public gallery in managing the collection in its care and in presenting it to the public. The Museum Accreditation Scheme sets nationally agreed standards for all museums in the UK and its award proves that Watts Gallery measures up, meeting the guidelines on how it is run, how it looks after its collections and the services it provides its visitors. It is a recognition of the key role that museums and galleries play in caring for the UK’s cultural heritage. As a result Watts Gallery

The Weston Gallery looking towards the Livanos Gallery, 2011. Photograph by Anne Purkiss

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has just been officially fully ‘Accredited’ by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA). Sir Andrew Motion, Chair of MLA, said: “Being awarded Accreditation is an impressive achievement. It recognises the high standard and service that Watts Gallery provides and acknowledges the hard work of its volunteers and staff.”

Visitors to Watts Gallery can see the results of some of the work that has been done on the collection since we closed our doors in 2008. A large percentage of the painting collection has been conserved and it is thanks to generous donors such as Hamish Dewar and David Pike and all those who have adopted works that this has been achieved. Although works whose conservation was very urgent and those that were chosen for display were an immediate priority, we have now started to conserve other works in the collection. We have a picture store full of paintings, frescoes and other works we hope to show in the future which are part of our third phase of conservation.

Continued research into the Watts collection is something very important to Watts Gallery as it underpins both its developments and the exhibitions and events that visitors can enjoy. In collaboration with the University of Surrey we have created a PhD studentship

The Richard Jefferies Gallery, 2011. Photograph by Anne Purkiss

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that will create new research and work on the Mary Watts archive. Lucy Hawkins, previously a student of Sussex University, will be the first of these collaborations. New research also allows us to develop more publications, making public what we have discovered on the Wattses. The series, ‘Studies in the Art of G.F. Watts,’ when a writer is commissioned to look at an aspect of Watts’s work, adds each year to our understanding and enjoyment of Watts. Catalogues such as the Dickens and the Artists will add to research on the subject and it is aimed, as it is with all our exhibitions, in showing that scholarship underpins all our work at the same time as providing events which are popular.

There is a steady stream of acquisitions which adds to the collection and study centre and includes Compton pots and letters by G.F. Watts. Occasionally there are paintings by Watts which come up for auction and we try to acquire for those parts of the collection where we could really benefit form good examples. I am most grateful to all those individuals who have given works to the collection and pledged money towards acquisitions. For a gallery to remain dynamic it must continue to collect and grow. It is difficult to know what works will be offered for sale in the future, but we must be ready to take the opportunities when they arise.

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LIMNERSLEASE: AN ARTIST’S LEGACYPerdita Hunt, Director of Watts Gallery

With the sold out guided tours on Heritage Open Days, the ten-day exhibition of work by Alexander Creswell attended by many people, and the wonderful sculpture on loan from William Pye enjoyed by many, Watts’s house and studio have become alive and partially available to the public in recent months.

With every visitor, we ask the question “Should Limnerslease, Watts’s house and studio, be saved for the nation?” The answer is without exception “Yes”. For so many reasons – it completes the Watts story, it is an opportunity to show Mary Watts’s work and to interpret the Watts Chapel, it provides space to meet the growing needs of the Art for All Learning programme, it offers a retreat for artists to draw from the past to develop their work in to the future and finally it realises our dream to establish Compton as a centre for exploring Victorian

art, social history and craft.The fact that both private owners of the house and the studio of Limnerslease wish to sell at the same time, makes this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Trustees of Watts Gallery feel duty bound to seize the moment, but they need help. We were absolutely delighted and honoured that HRH The Prince of Wales has agreed to become Royal Patron of the Limnerslease Appeal. Artist Antony Gormley is our esteemed Arts Patron and has made a most generous gift. While there have already been generous pledges from the Garfield Weston Foundation, the J Paul Getty Jnr Charitable Trust, the Peter Harrison Foundation, the George John and Sheilah Livanos Charitable Trust, the Deborah Loeb Brice Foundation, James and Clare Kirkman, Miklos and Sally Salamon, The De Laszlo Foundation, The Hazelhurst Trust and David Pike, there is still a

long way to go. Watts Gallery Trust needs £1m to complete the purchase of the house, a further £2m for the restoration and £1m for activities.

Where else in Britain can you find an artist’s legacy still in tact and still fulfilling its original purpose? There is only one other 19th-century artist’s studio; there is no other hamlet which has a house, a studio, a pottery, a chapel, a hostel and a Gallery with a collection of international interest. Can we afford to lose Limnerslease, back to the oblivion of private ownership and allow further loss of its heritage and original purpose. We have a shared responsibility to save this house and studio which complete the Watts story for future generations to enjoy in perpetuity?

Photographs by Anne Purkiss

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Each year Watts Gallery appoints an Artist in Residence chosen from the recent graduates at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham. The one-year residency aims to provide support, encouragement and opportunities for the continuation of their development. Deborah Gourlay has been Artist in Residence at Watts Gallery since September 2010 and has participated in workshops as part of the Art

LIQUID LIGHT: RECENT WORKS BY DEBORAH GOURLAY Catherine Hilary, Curatorial Fellow at Watts Gallery

for All Learning and Outreach programme.

Each artist’s residency concludes with a final exhibition showcasing the accumulation of work that they have built up over their time at Watts Gallery. Liquid Light will be a unique exhibition inspired by Watts Chapel and the recent building restoration at Watts Gallery. Deborah is fascinated by the way historic buildings maintain

a residue of human presence and the past. She believes that the emptiness and silence of decaying buildings draws on one’s memories and emotions.

In Liquid Light Deborah presents the architecture of Watts Gallery and Watts Chapel experimenting with a variety of techniques. Printmaking and drawing is central to her practice and the exhibition will include large, loose

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Left Deborah Gourlay, Vault of Heaven II, 2011Top Deborah Gourlay, Angels of Light and Dark, 2011

Above Deborah Gourlay, Liquid Light VIII, 2011

drawings in charcoal alongside a range of prints and photography. Deborah works spontaneously and continuously tries out new techniques, combining and layering different techniques, textures and patterns. Large charcoal drawings depict the sweeping contours of the Chapel whilst miniature prints focus our attention on specific details and textures that make up the building. Recently she has experimented with photography and glass and her light boxes are an exciting development in her work in which she juxtaposes translucent and opaque layers within a contained space, much like a theatre set.

The walls of the historic buildings that Deborah records seem saturated with by-gone people and the unfinished stories of forgotten lives; yet the shafts

of light and fleeting shadows evoke the elusiveness of time. Behind the ghostliness, there is a beauty and theatricality to Deborah’s presentation of historic buildings. Liquid Light invites us to experience the tangible spaces around us with our senses and invites us to remember nostalgically as if we were dreaming, or as if those spaces were part of a distant memory.

29 November 2011 - 8 January 2012Showcase Gallery

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A LIFELINE OF CREATIVITY:BIG ISSUES AT HMP SENDSallly Varah, Chair, The Michael Varah Memorial Fund

Left Peace and Goodwill by LouiseHMP Send

Top Monoprint by JullietHMP Bronzefield

Above Everyone Deserves a Chance by Amanda

HMP Bronzefield

With its Big Issues project, launched in 2008, Watts Gallery sets out to replicate the ideals of G.F. Watts and Mary Seton Watts and their zeal to provide Art for All. And nowhere are the synergies stronger than at HM Prison Send, near Woking in Surrey.

Fifteen women working together, all with a shared purpose: to explore and to advance their latent artistic talents. For many, the discovery that they can draw, or paint, or sculpt is a revelation in itself. Others are here to rekindle an old artistic flame. All concur that they have been thrown a lifeline of creativity, amidst a sea of anxiety and alienation.

Within the secure estate at Send, this group of 15 women are active, enthusiastic members of the Michael Varah Artist in Residence art workshops programme. Now into its fourth year, it is surely the flagship of the Watts Gallery Art for All outreach learning project, set up under the direction of the Watts Gallery Head of Learning, Helen Hienkens-Lewis.

Over the three+ years that the Michael Varah Memorial Fund (MVMF) has funded this post within Send, it has been exhilarating for our charity to observe the inspired tutelage of Artist in Residence, Sandy Curry. Led by her patience and passionate enthusiasm, the women artists have acquired new skills and new confidence. Their levels of self esteem, self motivation and the ability to collaborate with others have grown by leaps and bounds. In 2010 they re-named themselves ‘Sisters in Art’, demonstrating a sense of camaraderie and of shared purpose. The programme stands as a shining example of the value of art and personal creativity in supporting offenders’ self-development and self-discovery, as they move towards resettlement.

One hundred years ago, Mary Seton Watts knew that anyone, given the right opportunities, could produce things of beauty – and she fervently believed that everyone should have a craft within which they could express themselves creatively. And so, of course, she trained the villagers of Compton – predominantly the women – in terracotta clay modelling, and motivated her apprentices at the Compton Potters’ Arts Guild.

At all those levels, the HMP Send Artist in Residence programme is a living and breathing apotheosis of Mary Watts’s ideals and energies. It has become so embedded within the prison’s redevelopment programme for offenders that there is a constant demand for places. Because Send has many long-term offenders, a nucleus of women – recruited at the start – continues to provide invaluable continuity and peer support.

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Whether you talk to those serving a first-time sentence, repeat offenders or lifers, these women all articulate the feelings of isolation and depression they experienced, the claustrophobia of long, empty hours in cells, before they enrolled on the Artist in Residence programme and found new purpose. As the Artist in Residence herself observes: “It is inspiring to see how art and the human spirit can motivate a sense of self worth and a passion towards a new life.”

Our charity supports and initiates projects that build a safer society by rehabilitating prisoners both before and after release. The fact that initially we agreed to fund this Artist in Residence post for one year, but then rolled our funding into a second, third and now a fourth year, speaks volumes for the positive outcomes we have witnessed at Send.

To add value to our core funding, we actively promote this partnership with Watts Gallery outside the prison walls. Identifying additional ways to promote the programme allows us to show the women that we believe their creativity deserves the widest possible showcase. Designing our charity Christmas cards – for the past three years – is just one way their talents are recognised around the globe.

In March, we briefed the group to create designs for the 2011 MVMF cards. The theme we gave – Peace and Goodwill, inspired by the G.F. Watts painting – elicited widely varying interpretations; the selected designs are now available in the Watts Gallery Shop. The women have also taken on a new marketing challenge this year: to sell these cards in HMP Send. The commission they earn from our charity will pay for extra art materials and enable more ‘Sisters in Art’ to therapeutically explore difficult feelings and to discover what Mary Watts knew: just how good it feels to express yourself creatively.

The Big Give for Big Issues

Watts Gallery will participate in The Big Give campaign this Christmas to raise money for its Big Issues Project and learning programmes. Sponsors and supporters are joining together to double donations made to Watts Gallery from 5-10 December. £50 donation could become £100 and even more with Gift Aid. The aim is to raise £40,000 to help fund the Big Issues Project, reaching out via art workshops to disadvantaged young people, women and male prisoners, adults with mental health issues, reformed drug users and the homeless.

The Big Give will also fund the Art for All Learning programme, which serves hundreds of visiting school children, life long learners, families, young people and community groups. If you can help, please consider doing so in December. Donate online at 10am until 12noon on 5-10 December by logging on to http://new.thebiggive.org.uk/project/wattsgallery

‘We are very pleased to contribute again to the work of the Learning Studio at Watts Gallery. We are most grateful our donation can go so much further through the Big Give Campaign’ Matthew and Helen Bowcock.

What your donation can buy:£10 - a bag of clay£20 - a canvas£50 - a set of drawing materials£100 - a half-day artist-led workshop for 15 people£200 - a full-day of artist-led workshops for a class of 30£500 - sponsors a young person through a Bronze art award programme (equivalent to a GCSE)£1,000 - employs a Pottery Apprentice for one month

Ryan, out of education, earned a Bronze Award:‘Ryan’s self esteem was raised as he worked with new materials. He gained confidence by working effectively alongside staff and other young people, even planning and presenting his own art workshop. Ryan has not re-offended and is now working full time.’ Leanne Grindal, Surrey Youth Justice Service

George Frederic Watts (1817-1904)Peace and Goodwill

On loanfrom St Paul’s Cathedral, London

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There is a select number of artists who are not only instantly recognisable in their work, but also mould our view of certain scenes of the world around us. If we are on a street of Victorian buildings in late autumn at dusk or when the moon is full, we immediately see in front of us a scene that Atkinson Grimshaw’s paintings so wonderfully evoke. Such views are imbued with an atmosphere and emotion that Grimshaw so elegantly captures in paint, the mystery of lighted house windows counterpointed with the street bathed in an ethereal light. Despite this, Grimshaw was for many years a neglected artist, his art forgotten with a vast body of eminent Victorians for much of the twentieth century. Even in his lifetime Grimshaw was somewhat a provisional figure, with no obituary in the Times, and popular mainly in the north of England. His rediscovery in the 1960s has put Grimshaw back into the public

Mark Bills, Curator of Watts Gallery

BATHED IN AN ETHEREAL LIGHT: ATKINSON GRIMSHAW AT THE GUILDHALL

eye, a wider public than he had achieved in his own lifetime, and this made him one of the most admired figures in Victorian art.

It is a great delight to be able to let Friends know of the exhibition Atkinson Grimshaw, Painter of Moonlight being shown at the Guildhall Art Gallery until 15 January 2012. It is the first retrospective of the artist in 30 years and is part of a series of exhibitions of Victorian artists that have come from the Watts Gallery, Guildhall Art Gallery and Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate. This exhibition, curated by Jane Sellars, comes from Harrogate and is a real joy in showing all varying aspects of his career, the familiar as well as many pictures that will be new to visitors. I cannot recommend it enough and personally it was a great pleasure to be able to contribute to the catalogue and spend some time thinking about Grimshaw in London, both his time there and the paintings that it inspired. Richard Dorment in his review of the exhibition for The Daily Telegraph called it a first-rate retrospective and wrote of the painter’s elegiac works: ‘Grimshaw’s visual pyrotechnics invariably provoke strong emotional responses in the viewer. In his pictures, light throws a veil of mystery over everyday things… No other Victorian painter, least of all a Pre-Raphaelite one, so successfully stirred up these deep seated feelings of collective sadness.’

topJohn Atkinson Grimshaw, Reflections on the

Thames, Westminster, 1880, Leeds Museums and Galleries, Bridgeman Art Library

aboveJohn Atkinson Grimshaw, Detail from Princes Dock,

Hull, 1887. Ferens Art Gallery, Hull Museums

Guildhall Art Gallery, , LondonUntil 15 January 2012

www.guildhallartgallery.cityoflondon.gov.uk

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leftGeorge Frederic Watts (1817-1904)

A Dedication: to all those who love the beautiful and mourn over the senseless and cruel

destruction of bird life and beautyabove

George Frederic Watts (1817-1904)Wounded Heron

Both Watts Gallery Collection

A DEDICATION: TO BEAUTY AND INNOCENCECatherine Hilary, Curatorial Fellow at Watts Gallery

G.F. Watts’s painting A Dedication: to all those who love the beautiful and mourn over the senseless and cruel destruction of bird life and beauty is Watts’s protest against the fashion of women wearing bird feathers on their clothes and hats. Throughout his life Watts felt compassion toward the weak and vulnerable and was infuriated that vanity lay at the heart of this particular cruelty.

An angel, whose own wings expand to the edge of the painting, looms over a cold, stone altar on which lies a heap of exotic and colourful bird feathers. The angel holds her head in her hands and weeps for the loss of the little lives. Behind her a red sun sets in the distance, symbolic of the end of the day, or the end of life. The painting is symmetrical in its layout and the figure of the angel is echoed by the satyr-like image on the altar below. This spritely figure cocks his head and his hands in an awkward manner evoking slyness. He lurks malevolently below, unseen by the angel.

In the 1880’s the public were shocked when The Times and others revealed details of the millinery trade outlining the great number of tropical birds that were being sold cheaply in the markets in London. A number of Britain’s own birds, such as the great crested glebe and the egret, were under threat of extinction.

This exhibition will consider Watts’s own emotional association with birds and the campaigns and protests that were taking place from the mid-nineteenth century onward which led to the emergence of the RSPB in 1904. It will look at the motif of the bird and bird wings in other paintings by Watts such as The Wounded Heron and The Minotaur. The exhibition will explore the approach Watts used to paint A Dedication, its strong symmetry and the parallels that can be drawn with European symbolist works of the time.

10 January - 18 March 2012Showcase GallerySponsored by HK Associates, A Development and Cultural Planning Consultancy.

HK Associates, Roger and Heather Kerswell have Adopted the painting A Dedication. For more information on the Adoption scheme to support the collection, please contact Fundraising Manager, Stephanie Dennison on 01483 813 581 or fundraising@wattsgallery.org.uk

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The breadth of G.F. Watts’s art is as wide as the period within which he worked. In order that a viewer could get a ‘comprehensive idea of the magnitude of the work the artist produced’ a contemporary critic noted, one had to travel to three galleries. These were and are Tate Britain (originally the National Gallery of British Art), the National Portrait Gallery and Watts Gallery, Compton. In re-opening to the public, visitors have been able to see Watts collection in the newly restored Watts Gallery alongside masterpieces from the Tate. From February next year they will be able to see portraits from the National Portrait Gallery and all the magnitude of Watts’s art can also be seen in Compton.

The National Portrait Gallery collection of portraits is special in that it consists, on the whole, of works given by Watts to form a ‘national collection’ of portraits which became known as the Hall of Fame. In this series Watts painted the great personalities of his age whom he chose to immortalise on canvas, depicting within their faces their lifetime achievements. ‘The portraits he painted of his famous contemporaries,’ the curators Richard and Leonee Ormond write, that were ‘retained in his own collection, later designated as the Hall of Fame, formed in his mind an indissoluble whole with the allegorical and symbolical works he planned to leave to the nation. They marked out the twin traits of his art, the human and the transcendental.’ The exhibition will include many of Watts’s greatest paintings. Visitors will be able to see portraits of artists that include Millais and Leighton and the portraits of writers such as Swinburne, Tennyson and Meredith. There will also be the opportunity to see his great portrait of Cardinal Manning which looks back to the Renaissance images of popes by Raphael and Titian and forward to Francis Bacon. This is an exhibition not only about Watts, but about great portraiture and the achievements of the Victorian age.

EXHIBITION PREVIEW: G.F. WATTS: THE HALL OF FAMEMark Bills, Curator of Watts Gallery

George Frederic WattsWilliam Morris

oil on canvas, 1870 © National Portrait Gallery, London

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From his earliest years as a professional artist in the 1840s, George Frederic Watts was torn between his desire to paint grand poetic subjects of his own choosing and the necessity of earning a living through portraiture. In truth, the see-saw between these two aspects of his art was never resolved. However unwillingly, he remained a portraitist all his life, and talk of giving portraiture up was never a realistic option. Even later in life, when he was earning a sufficient income from his subject painting, he continued to accept portrait commissions. The portraits he painted of his famous contemporaries and retained in his own collection, later designated as the Hall of Fame, formed in his mind an indissoluble whole with the allegorical and symbolical works he planned to leave to the nation. They marked out the twin traits of his art, the human and the transcendental.

Never content with the humdrum, the idea of creating a gallery of his famous contemporaries is said to have occurred to Watts while he was sketching the head of the statesman Lord John Russell in 1851. He had been commissioned to make a drawing of the statesman, and then or soon afterwards he painted an informal oil sketch of Russell which he kept. A few years earlier he had painted Anthony Panizzi, the Librarian of the British Museum, as a commission from Lord Holland.

Extracts from the book The Hall of Fame by Richard and Leonée Ormond

THE HUMAN AND THE TRANSCENDENTALTHE PORTRAITS OF G.F. WATTS

Two versions were completed, one of which Watts kept, a practice he frequently repeated that would lay the foundations for The Hall of Fame. It is not unknown for painters to begin painting a sitter on more than one canvas, but the less satisfactory version is usually discarded early in the proceedings. Not so with Watts, who made a habit of completing two or even three versions of the same portrait, as if to assure himself against failure. With commissioned portraits it must be said that the artist’s patron invariably ended up with the best version, even when offered a choice.

Watts’s campaign to portray his great contemporaries began to gather steam in the early 1860s. The flamboyantly red-haired Duke of Argyll, a prominent statesman and intellectual, sat for his portrait around 1860, to be followed by the Earl of Shaftesbury, the great philanthropist of the age and by Lord Lyndhurst, the elderly former lord chancellor, grandson of the famous American portrait painter, John Singleton Copley (both 1862). These early portraits envisioned their subjects as figures of profound character shaped by experience. It was at this time that Watts began to think of himself as an artist with a national mission, painting works of an elevated character destined as a gift to his country. The Hall of Fame, already beginning to take shape, formed part of this project.

Watts’s early choice of sitters set the tone for his national pantheon of famous men and woman; statesmen, poets and philanthropists, to be followed by handful of thinkers, historians, artists, clerics and musicians. No scientist, surely an extraordinary omission in view of the artist’s keen interest in the subject. In 1861, he asked Mrs Cameron to help him obtain sittings from Faraday and Owen, and in later life he regretted that he had not painted Darwin. Novelists fell below his measure of greatness. One might have expected to find Dickens in the Hall of Fame, in view of Watts’s strongly developed social conscience but no approach was made. The only novelist he painted was George Meredith, significantly also a poet.

In his own portraits Watts strove to be both lifelike and noble in the manner of the old masters. Writing on Millais, the art critic J.E. Phythian contrasted his pursuit of fashionable styles with the timeless and unchanging character of Watts’s portraiture. This was certainly the impression that Watts wished to produce, but he was more receptive to outside influences than he cared to admit. Certainly Titian and the Venetians were a constant source of inspiration, both from an artistic and a technical point of view, as were the Greeks and the works of Michelangelo.

rightGeorge Frederic Watts Sir John Everett Millais

oil on canvas, 1871 © National Portrait Gallery, London

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Left A period postcard of LimnersleaseWatts Gallery Archive.

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One of the great churchmen of the period, Manning had abandoned Anglican orders and gone over to Rome in 1851, during that fevered time of doubt and dissension among the Anglo-Catholics. A charismatic preacher, an able administrator and the author of many influential books and tracts, Manning became archbishop of Westminster in 1868 and a cardinal in 1875. The revival and expansion of the Roman Catholic Church in Britain, much resented in Anglican circles, owed much to his vigorous leadership. He was active in Rome, exerting a powerful influence in the higher counsels of the Vatican. A man of unshakeable faith and strong opinions, austere in character and style of living, he was autocratic by nature, and impatient with those who disagreed with him.

Watts is unlikely to have approved of Manning’s rigid line on papal infallibility, or his conservative defence of Catholic principles, but he would have admired the Cardinal’s philanthropic activities, especially in defence of the poor and in support of the temperance campaign. The artist may have owed his introduction to Manning to Sir Charles Dilke, for Gladstone,

LeftGeorge Frederic Watts OM RA (1817-1904)

Cardinal Henry Edward Manning,1882, © National Portrait Gallery, London

Richard and Leonée Ormond, Authors of The Hall of Fame

another potential go-between, had fallen out with his old friend in a bitter war of words on the relation of church and state. A cryptic note from Manning to Watts, dated 31 October 1881, may signal his response to the artist’s request to paint him: ‘If Nature writes a legible hand and photographers do not tamper with the autograph I am afraid that I am not the mild old gentleman that you would have me believed to be’. Three letters from Manning to Watts confirm sittings at various dates in 1881 and 1882. The artist may have made use of photographs of Manning, which he is known to have done with other sitters. Mrs Watts records that ‘There was much interesting conversation between painter and sitter, the Cardinal one day replying to Mr Watts’ remark that this was perhaps too absorbing, lifted a warning finger as he left, saying “Yes, silence next time! Remember that is a Bull”’. The artist sent the portrait to the annual exhibition of the Grosvenor Gallery in the spring of 1882, and included it in several later exhibitions of his work.

Manning’s comment, ‘Tell Mr Watts that he has made me a tippler, and I am a teetotaller!’ was fair

comment, but Ruskin’s critique was blatantly unfair: ‘His portrait of you is coarsely painted and entirely common and valueless, with many gross errors of which the violent square of the bone of the nose is unpardonable’. Watts presents Manning as a grandee of the church, resplendent in crimson robes, enthroned in an antique chair of Italianate design. One is reminded of Renaissance images of popes, Julius II by Raphael and Paul IV by Titian. While the artist deployed the traditional iconography of ecclesiastical portraiture, it is the human and spiritual character of the Cardinal that is memorable: ‘The bony face has a gaunt, skull-like appearance, the features are sunken, the eyes red-rimmed, and the hands claw-like and emaciated; the colour scheme, a symphony of reds, serves to intensify the sense of mortality. The spirit alone remains unconquered, and Manning gazes out with compassionate, far-seeing eyes, an uncompromising and commanding figure’. Manning referred to himself as ‘a death’s head in a skull cap’.

‘A DEATH’S HEAD IN A SKULL CAP’ A PORTRAIT OF CARDINAL MANNING

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THE BIG IDEA:WORKING IN WATTS’S GREAT STUDIOAlexander Creswell, watercolour painter

LeftBasillica of Maxentius, Rome

Watercolour on paper 24” x 40”, 2011 Right

Alexander Creswell in Watts’s Great Studio.

Photograph by Nick WoodBelow right

Atlanta Millenium Gate, Maquette II’Watercolour on paper, 30” x 22”, 2011

© Alexander Creswell

The purpose of my time spent working in Watts’s Great Studio during 2011 has been to explore the idea of magnitude in painting. Watts painted some of his greatest works in this studio, a space built specifically to work on paintings whose magnitude had outgrown his London studio. Watts wasn’t afraid to tackle paintings whose size and intent were massive. The knowledge that he had carried out such work in this space gave me the idea that working in his shadow, so to speak, would enable me to think on a much bolder scale than before. The confines of my domestic working environment at home hadn’t prevented me from painting some very big watercolours in the past, but working in Watts’s studio would give me the opportunity to explore a grander intent in a larger space.

Magnitude was, for me, the word of the year.

I had various subjects in mind, so went back to Rome in the early summer, where there are several buildings I had painted before and now wanted to explore again - the Pantheon, the Arch of Constantine and the Basilica of Maxentius. All are monuments to magnitude and I looked at them afresh. Too often we are distracted by superficial questions when appraising a work of art or architecture. How big is it? How long does it take? How much does it cost? Art cannot be quantified by lifeless facts while its cultural value is missed. Magnitude is the impact of the idea rather than the scale of its execution. A large painting is not good simply because it is big, but perhaps the intent or inspiration

needs to be big in order for the work to be good.

I tend to measure impact by the experience of the building or place or event. It’s the experience which first grabs my attention and causes me to sketch. If the sketch is good it represents the experience rather than just the place - the light, the movement, the beauty, the sensory thrill of just being there. That’s the inspiration. A work of art must capture the experience not just the representation - the character not just the face.

Since Rome I’ve been painting large scale explorations of the interior of the Pantheon and the Basilica of Maxentius, the contained volume of light and air. These have been painted in Great Studio with increasing magnitude.

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I’ve worked on the Arch of Constantine with its detailed carved panels which tell the story-board of the emperor’s conquests in delightfully complex passages of light and shadow, cartoons in stone and light - all explored on a growing scale.

In contemplation of these ruins, we consider the future, the fragility of the present, and the futility of the past. In painting them I am contemplating magnitude as an element to inspire and uplift the human spirit, both in the subject and in the painting. Magnitude, like beauty, can’t be measured but it can be missed when it’s absent. And both have been missing for the last century. It is fitting, then, that the passing of that century has spawned another significant large watercolour in Great Studio,

whose subject is the Millennium Gate in Atlanta, USA. This new triumphal arch, British designed and recently completed, stands as an exhortation to the new century and as an admonishment to the shabby mediocrity of the last century which surrounds it. It is a notable building in an important city and the painting was commissioned by a remarkable young collector from California. His beliefs in the cultural responsibilities of the future and the importance of magnitude of spirit would have found great resonance in Watts’s time. Having painted this work in G.F. Watts’s Great Studio I hear that resonance. I am not sure that I could have succeeded elsewhere.

© Alexander Creswell November 2011

If you would like to hear about Alexander Creswell’s future exhibitions and events please submit your details online at www.alexandercreswell.com

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Geoffrey Watts is the great great nephew of G.F. Watts, a descendant of his step brother Thomas. Here he describes his affection for Watts Gallery and his desire to see it survive for another 100 years.

‘As far back as I can remember I have been aware of my family connection to George Frederic Watts, of which I have always been immensely proud. While all of my family had some artistic talents, mostly musical, the muse seems to have passed me by. My working career was spent in the pharmaceutical industry but with a keen interest in photography where the ability to draw was not required to produce an attractive picture.

I was born in Hornchurch, Essex in 1934 in a time when travel was not the simple thing that it is today for small children. Then came World War II, so it was not until the 1950s that I first visited Watts Gallery. It was the first time I saw a large number of GFW’s paintings in one place. As a child many of the houses that I visited had a reproduction of Hope on their walls but never larger that about 12 inches in size.

I was overwhelmed by the sheer number and variety of subjects on show. On my second visit a little while later I was more able to appreciate what was available. I made myself known to the then Curator, Wilfrid Blunt, and was taken into the storeroom

and shown the vast number of paintings that could not be shown. It gave me an indication of the prodigious output Watts produced bearing in mind his long standing poor health.

Over the following years I made a number of visits and was saddened by the way in which the Gallery was deteriorating. By now Richard Jefferies had taken over as curator and was struggling manfully to maintain a property containing so many treasures, which were so out of fashion that they attracted little or no funding. My visits to the Gallery were done in splendid isolation as visitor numbers plummeted.

But times have changed and with it fashions. GFW is now rightly seen for what he was, an important and talented artist who set trends that others followed. His importance as an artist has been amply demonstrated by the funding that has been acquired for the amazing restoration that has taken place over the past few years.

The Gallery now looks superb and the collection is shown to its absolute best. It would be easy for us to become complacent. We must never let the building deteriorate to same levels again. I ask those who now visit the Gallery and appreciate the beauty and importance of it to consider how we can together ensure its future.

A LASTINGLEGACYGeoffrey Watts, great great nephew of G.F. Watts

At the age of 77 I am acutely aware of my mortality. We in the 21st century can be reluctant to think about what will happen when we die. We clearly like to think that our family will be provided for, but, how about also making part of your estate a legacy to Watts Gallery? Please join me in making a legacy pledge to ensure future generations can enjoy the beauty and pleasure that we have had. George Frederic Watts started his legacy by making so many of his paintings available as a gift to the Nation, so let’s try to continue in this vein.’

If you are interested in confidentially discussing helping Watts Gallery through your Will or if you would like to make a Legacy pledge, please contact Stephanie Dennison, Fundraising Manager on 01483 813581.

leftGeoffrey Watts has a striking

resemblance to his Great Great Uncle, G.F. Watts.

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Opposite The Isabel Goldsmith Patiño Gallery

AboveIsabel Goldsmith in her gallery prior to restoration

Left The Isabel Goldsmith Patiño Gallery after the restoration. The Gallery fittingly displays many of the most important works in the Gallery’s collection.

ISABEL GOLDSMITH-PATIÑO: WATTS GALLERY’S INSPIRATIONAL PATRONPerdita Hunt, Director of Watts Gallery

Philanthropist Ms Isabel Goldsmith-Patiño has provided a vital lifeline for the restoration of Watts Gallery. The generous donation from the Isabel Goldsmith Patino Foundation has restored the former Green Gallery of the Grade II* listed Arts & Crafts building which opened to the public on 18 June. The Gallery shows some of the masterpieces from the Watts Gallery collection. Ms. Isabel Goldsmith-Patiño provided the seed gift for the refurbishment of the main gallery of the Watts Gallery, and remains a Trustee of the Watts Gallery and the Hope Appeal. Beyond her support in funding Watts Gallery, Ms. Isabel Goldsmith-Patiño was a leading creative force behind the Gallery’s design, and execution. In addition, Ms Isabel Goldsmith-Patiño opened her home to patrons and potential donors to the Watts Gallery Hope Appeal sharing an insight in to her collection of 19th-century paintings.

Ms Isabel Goldsmith-Patiño has taken an innovative and highly commendable approach in ensuring that her pledge for funds secures the restored Watts Gallery in the long term. The association between Watts Gallery and Ms Isabel Goldsmith-Patiño dates from her first visit to Watts Gallery, accompanied by the picture dealer Julian Hartnoll in the 1980s to see the collection and take tea with Wilfrid Blunt, the then curator.

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Describing that visit Ms Isabel Goldsmith-Patiño said “it was a misty evening and the Gallery felt like a dream like building. Wilfrid Blunt welcomed us warmly, but the cold of the Gallery in the gathering gloom of the evening was unforgettable”.

In 2004 Ms Isabel Goldsmith-Patiño agreed to become the Patron of the Watts Gallery Hope Appeal. She undertook this role with dedication, hosting a launch party at Watts Gallery together with Pattie Boyd and Cherry Dickins. Over 80 celebrity guests were invited to visit the Gallery, then described as ‘the best kept secret’. Ms Isabel Goldsmith-Patiño has supported further occasions to raise funds for the Hope Appeal including attending the centenary celebration of the siting of Physical Energy held in the Pavilion at the Serpentine Gallery, and a dinner for benefactors held at the Guildhall Art Gallery during the Victorian Visionary exhibition.

In gratitude for her generosity, the restored Green Gallery is now the Isabel Goldsmith Patiño Gallery. Ms Isabel Goldsmith-Patiño donated the gallery in tribute to the memory of her mother, Isabel Patiño (1935-1954), who passed away too soon. On cutting the ribbon to the Gallery at a launch on Friday 17 June, Ms Isabel Goldsmith-Patiño said “In naming this Gallery, I wish to honour my Mother who died tragically in childbirth at the age of nineteen.”

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LeftHRH The Prince of Wales offers his thanks toIsabel Goldsmith-Patiño for her generosity to Watts Gallery.

Top LeftThe arches of the Isabel Goldsmith Patiño Gallery frame the pictures beyond in the Weston Gallery.

Top RightVisitors enjoy the Isabel Goldsmith Patiño Gallery.

Ms Isabel Goldsmith-Patiño comes from a long line of philanthropists with many past and current members of her family espousing charitable causes, particularly the protection of the natural environment.

Ms Isabel Goldsmith-Patino is extremely knowledgeable about 19th-century art as she owns a collection of considerable interest. She is still collecting. Ms Isabel Goldsmith-Patiño has founded a bespoke luxury hotel in Mexico and her hands-on experience of promoting the destination and the hotel shop and Gallery informs the excellent advice and ideas she provides to the Trustees and staff of Watts Gallery.

Commenting on her role as Patron and Trustee, Watts Gallery’s Chairman, Richard Ormond, said “Ms Isabel Goldsmith-Patiño has been an inspiration to the Watts Gallery Hope Restoration appeal. Her lead gift gave courage to others, and her close involvement in the development of the Isabel Goldsmith Patiño Gallery has resulted in a glorious experience for visitors. We thank Ms Isabel Goldsmith-Patiño from the bottom of our hearts as she has helped to ensure that Watts Gallery survives for another hundred years and, in memory of her Mother, has given pleasure as well as spiritual and intellectual refreshment to many thousands of visitors now and in the future”.

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There are a very few great figures whose names have come to define a historic period and Charles Dickens is one of them. We can speak equally of the Dickensian period as we can of the Shakespearean age. The writer was born in February 1812, just five years before G F Watts, and became one of the most significant cultural figures not only of Victorian Britain, but of the world. 2012 is the year in which to celebrate the bicentenary of his birth alongside many celebrations of the author’s contributions to cultural life. Watts Gallery is creating an exhibition that will look at Dickens and visual art in Victorian Britain, not only exploring his own strong views on art but looking at the way in which he influenced a new generation of artists. The exhibition will include paintings from the author’s own collection as well as works that reflect and illustrate the Dickensian world. An exhibition not to be missed by those interested in either Victorian art or the writings of Charles Dickens.

Dickens and the Artists, 19 June - 28 October 2012, Watts Gallery

COMING IN SUMMER 2012:DICKENS AND THE ARTISTSMark Bills, Curator of Watts Gallery

aboveGeorge Elgar Hicks (1824 - 1914), The General Post Office, One Minute to Six, 1860 © Museum of London, Purchased with the assistance of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, The Art Fund

and the V&A Purchase Grant Fund.

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