Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum

Sherlocked

2012-01-13T14:40:00.000Z

During series one of Sherlock, we published a Sherlock Special blogpost to highlight the fact that we have a painting by JMW Turner (1775 - 1851) of the Reichenbach Falls in the collection at Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum. The Reichenbach Falls also happens to be the scene of the famous meeting between Sherlock and his archenemy Moriarty.

The scene was first published in a short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Final Problem published in 1893. This was intended to be the last of the Sherlock Holmes stories however, pressure from fans brought Sherlock back, firslty in the prequel The Hound of the Baskervilles and then returning Holmes for good in The Adventure of the Empty House published in 1903.

Sherlock fans cannot fail to have noticed that the upcoming episode is titled 'The Reichenbach Fall'. You can see a preview here. We can't wait to find out how Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat will deal with the Reichenbach Falls story line. But more then that, we are very excited to know that the aforementioned Turner painting is likely to feature in the episode. We're not yet sure for how long, where, when, or even if it will certainly feature but we'll be keeping our eyes peeled! We hope you will be too.

JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER, R.A. (1775-1851)

The Great Falls of the Reichenbach, 1804

Accesion No.: P.98
watercolour on paper, 102.2 ´ 68.9 cm
inscribed: J M W Turner R A 1804

Entry from the Watercolour Catalogue:

The Great Falls of the Reichenbach was first shown at Turner’s own gallery held on the first floor of what was 64 Harley Street. Turner had conceived the idea of his own gallery due to uncertainty over the future of the Royal Academy in late 1803, with rumours abounding that Turner would not be showing at the the R.A. in 1804. Sir George Beaumont (who saw the Turner exhibition) complained of 'the strong skies and parts not corresponding with them'.

The Great Falls is a superb watercolour, made soon after Turner’s first visit to Switzerland in 1802, and is based on a sketch (Wilton no.361) now in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin. The view is taken from the valley of Hasli above Meiringen with Great Scheidegg beyond and shows Turner tackling a 'Sublime' subject with enormous confidence. Turner’s pride in the work is shown by the fact that it was again exhibited at the R.A. in 1815.

EJ/JM

Aiming for Arts Award

2011-12-14T11:15:00.000Z

Do You Fancy Medieval Manga? Think it can get you a qualification? Well, that’s what we’re aiming for! A group of young people are aiming to achieve their Bronze Arts Award by getting creative with Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum.

As part of a pilot scheme in partnership with Beauchamp Middle School and Albion Archaeology two groups of young people are developing their individual artistic skills in the arts to explore history. The Saturday Archaeology Workshop candidates visited the London Archaeological Archives and Research Centre and the Museum of London and according to Aidan’s review, it was “an amazing day.” Chris Dobson introduced them to the smelly arts of dyeing and weaving wool, just as the Saxons would have done.

Arts Award is about enjoying the arts and helping others to do so. After a workshop with local Comic Book artist Lee Smart, members of Medieval Manga group were challenged to recreate the Siege of Bedford Castle during the Museum & Gallery’s ‘Time Travel Big Draw’. Ben enjoyed painting scenes on the hoardings so much, that he came back another day to help other visitors to have a go.

Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum realises that lots of young people spend their free time creatively and we were keen to offer Arts Award qualifications to help support their aspirations and recognise their individual interests and achievements.

“Arts Award aspires to support any young person to enjoy the arts and develop creative leadership skills.”

Arts Award is managed by Trinity College London in association with Arts Council England.

Funded by Renaissance and managed by Norfolk Museums & Archaeology Service, this project forms part of the Effective Museums programme for the East of England. We hope this will be the first group of many to achieve their Bronze Arts Award and that we may possibly offer Silver Arts Award in the future.

The Big Time Travel Draw Panorama

2011-12-14T10:15:00.000Z

We were delighted when Chris Carroll sent in this amazing panorama of the Big Time Travel Draw mural on the Art Gallery & Museum hoardings. The hoardings will be up for another year so we're hoping there will be some more mural action in Spring.

Thank you Chris!

What's Going On?

2011-10-13T15:11:00.000+01:00

We have a new leaflet out with all of the latest news about the redevelopment project and upcoming events.You can flick through the leaflet online here.

Open publication - Free publishing - More art. museum

If you would like to receive regular email updates from us please subscribe to our e-newsletter here.

The Big Time-Travel Draw!

2011-10-06T09:19:00.000+01:00

October is Big Draw month! The Big Draw is the Campaign for Drawing’s flagship programme. It is the largest drawing festival in the world. This year there will be lots of ways for the people of Bedford to join in and get involved with The Big Draw.

At the Art Gallery & Museum we will be travelling back and forth through time for our Big Draw event, making some VERY big drawings on the hoardings surrounding the Art Gallery & Museum site. But we need lots of help from all of you! Drop in on the 25th, 26th and 27th October to draw scenes inspired by Bedford’s past.

Did you know that Bedford was once beneath a tropical sea? Or that during the Ice Age Mammoth's, Elephant's and Bison roamed around the town? Come and join us in making some giant drawings inspired by Bedford's past as well as imagining Bedford's future. Will Bedford be underwater once more?

Join us at any time on the 25th, 26th or 27th October between 10am - 12noon or 1pm - 3pm for some FREE Big Drawing fun.

There are lots more Big Draw activities going on in Bedford. Bedford Creative Arts have invited artist Jo Roberts to map the history of Bedford’s Midland Road throughout October. For The Big Draw she will be leading doodle walks with local residents and visitors who want to explore this part of Bedford in a new and informal way. Through walking and talking and looking and doodling participants will contribute to a new map of Midland Road. The Midland Road Doodle Walks will take place on the afternoons of 15th, 19th and 22nd October.

WeAreBedford have teamed up with a group of local illustrators who will be inviting people to draw ‘Monsters of Bedford’ in an empty shop at Castle Quay. Taking inspiration from the creatures that have existed in the area from prehistoric time to the present day you are invited to create your own monster drawings. The event is on Saturday 22nd October from 11am – 3pm and is a free drop-in.

The illustrators on hand throughout the day include Katy Dynes, Alasdair Bright, Rachel Lovatt, Marisa Straccia, Scarlett Tierney, Andrew Foster and David Litchfield. They are all available to demonstrate a wide range of drawing techniques from the use of pen and pencil to chalk and stitch. You can add your creations to the ‘Monster Map’ of Bedford which will be created on the walls of The Drawing Room at Castle Quay.
Cllr Doug McMurdo, portfolio holder for Leisure and Culture at Bedford Borough Council, said: “Throughout October, the nights will be drawing in – quite literally! This festival is bound to stir peoples’ creativity and will form superb social events too. There is so much that Bedford has to offer in terms of arts and culture and these events are further evidence of that.”

So, why not make a BIG impact this October, and join in!

Blogging about blogging...

2011-09-02T15:40:00.000+01:00

Our collections all safely packed away

The summer is coming to an end, the kids are heading back to school shortly, and we're taking a moment to look back on a very busy few months.

Back in the spring we only had one blog, this one, but now we have several all representing the different areas of work that are going on in our new offices and across Bedford Borough. We also had a museum building to pack-up: thankfully that's all now completed and the museum and art gallery buildings are in the safe hands of the builders and the collections are safely in store.

The last post introduced our new Out and About blog, where the Learing and Access team will keep you up to date with all their activities with a number of groups around the borough, starting with some fab 1940s glamour as Wooton teenagers became film makers.

Another side of the Learning and Access is the popular Saturday Archaeology Workshop. A look through their blog will make you wish you between 8 and 16 so you could take part too!

The Redevelopment blog will record what is happening to our buildings and keep you up to date with plans for the new museum and gallery. We hope to be able to share more with you shortly.

The curatorial team have been posting regularly on the News from the Stores blog. 'Object of the Week' is a fixture on Tuesdays, and we also aim to share something each week from the research that is going into the new displays.

Popular posts have included:

'Object of the week: Reliquary pendant found at Ampthill

The Etiquette of Visiting

'If you ask a certain kind of question when you work in a museum, you can find yourself on an interesting journey'

A Saxon window urn with a mysterious purpose

You'll also find posts on Electioneering, a rare Saxon window urn, trade cards, Norwegian Viking style chairs, Bedford fire service, De Morgan Tiles, Mourning jewellery, and much more...

If you're interested in the history of Bedford town the curatorial and eduction teams have been working with other organisiations on the The High Street Project, where you kind find pictures and reminiscences of shops from the High Streets past, and Hidden Bedford, where you can find out about the origins of the towns street names and other hidden aspects of Bedford.

We hope you enjoy all the posts, whether you're a chance visitor or a regular follower. Please feel free to give us any feedback on anything you've read across the blogs, either by email at bedford.museum@bedford.gov.uk, on the blog comments sections, or by twitter on @chagandbm.

Out and About - A new blog from our Learning & Access Team

2011-08-18T10:04:00.001+01:00

Hi everyone,

since the Art Gallery & Museum has been closed for redevelopment our Learning & Access team have been out and about, working in partnership with lots of different groups. You can keep up to date with all of their news over at Out & About. The first post involves some amazing 40's glamour courtesy of Sarah Dunn's Doo-Wop Dos.

Read all about it here

Building work starts

2011-08-09T12:41:00.000+01:00

Its been a busy few days at Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum. Builders have moved in and begun work at the site. We're really excited that this dramatic phase of the redevelopment has begun. We'll be keeping you all up to date with all of the news about the redevelopment here on the main blog - with some more in depth news over at our new Redevelopment Blog.

The beginning of the building work represents a big step towards realising the vision for a new Art Gallery & Museum. Dave Hodgson, Mayor of Bedford said “With the work now under way, we look forward to its completion and to the reopening of the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum for the whole community to enjoy.”

Work beginning at the site.

The building works are scheduled to last for 11 months, followed by 6 months’ refitting of the galleries.
Once the works have been finalised, the new galleries will display objects in the collection that have never before been on show, as well as returning some old favourites to pride of place. Among the new displays, nationally significant collections of work by the Victorian architect-designer William Burges and the 20th century designer-printmaker Edward Bawden will be housed in dedicated galleries. New exhibition space will also allow the hosting of touring exhibitions from national museums, as well as displays from the Art Gallery & Museum’s outstanding watercolour and print collections.

The Zodiac Settle by William Burges will be on display in the William Burges Gallery.

There will be lots more space to display the Edward Bawden Archive, including this illuminated manuscript 'A general guide to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Spring and Easter 1923'

This redevelopment has been made possible by £3.2 million funding from Bedford Borough Council, as well as a grant of £959,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund, £100,000 from the Trustees of the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, £500,000 from the Wixamtree Trust, £500,000 from The Bedford Charity, £350,000 from the Monument Trust, and £200,000 from Charles Wells Ltd, in addition to funding from a number of other sources.

Inauguration Day

2011-07-11T15:15:00.001+01:00

On this day, 11th July, 1888, some of Bedford's most iconic features were unveiled to the town. The Suspension Bridge, Bedford Park and Mill Meadows (or Duck Mill recreation ground) were all opened, and the foundation stones for the Fire Station were laid. The town's Mayor, Joshua Hawkins, accompanied the Marquess of Tavistock, along with Samuel Whitbread who laid one of the two foundation stones for the fire station, still visible on Mill Street, on what came to be known as Inauguration Day.

The suspension bridge was designed by John J. Webster and had been paid for by public subscriptions. The river had for centuries been a vital commercial highway with much of the goods coming in and out of the town that way. With the arrival of the railways the river could instead be a focus for leisure and recreation. The embankment was extended, Mill Meadows created as a public park, and the old slum cottages of Waterloo - opposite where the Embankment Hotel now stands - cleared and replaced by the Embankment Gardens. Russell Park followed 10 years later when the 11th Duke of Bedford gave the land as a park to the people of Bedford.

Slum cottages, Waterloo - now the far more presentable Embankment Gardens.

The hand-made iron gates by Messrs Bacchus and Ison, and their names engraved on the plaque on the entrance to Bedford park

Former Fire Station, Mill Street

Gothic details by John
Usher above a High
Street fast food outlet

Bedford Park, along with De Parys Avenue, was laid out on land that had been owned by St. John's Hospital, which still stands on St. John's Street. The park was proposed in 1879 and made a public space by an act of Parliament in 1881, ensuring the demolition of Bury Farm and a large house last occupied by a French noble, the Vicomte de Visme. The Bedford Park gates,which record the opening and complete the fine vista down De Parys, were hand made by Bacchus and Ison, their name visible at the bottom of the two plaques on the gate posts. The Duke of Bedford had given the gates to the Park and also had given the volunteer fire service a new steam fire-engine in 1887, and a new building to house it was commissioned. The fire station features the only public commemoration of Usher and Anthony Architects of which the principal architect John Usher designed such familiar Bedford buildings Holly Lodge, The Grove; Alexandra Cottages, Grove Place; Blunham Rectory; and Clapham Park. The striking gothic styled building on the High Street with coloured brick work, ogee windows and gun-dogs either side of a decorated gable is another Usher design, originally for H.Adkin, the gunsmith, now a Subway.

Your Paintings

2011-06-24T12:15:00.001+01:00

A fantastic new resource has just been launched on the BBC’s website called Your Paintings that aspires to give access to every single oil painting in public collections. Its' certainly made a great start with more than 63000 records online so far!

The project came from the Public Catalogue Foundation, who have been going round county by county recording all the paintings in the institutions in each area in order to produce a book on those collections. They came to Bedfordshire thankfully before we had packed away all our collections and the glossy volume Oil Paintings in Public Ownership – Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire & Northamptonshire came out earlier this year.

As well as all of the oil paintings in Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum, the county is represented by paintings from Bedford Borough Council, the John Bunyan Museum, Moot Hall, Wrest Park, and the University of Bedfordshire, as well as many others.

The Your Paintings website lets you browse through the paintings, search by Gallery or Collection, or search by artist - where each painter is beautifully represented by a painted portrait. Clicking on an artist can lead you on to a wealth of information that includes not only the usual biography and selection of works but also slideshows and links to BBC content on the iPlayer such as the programmes The Culture Show and Making Masterpieces.

An area we particularly like (and can't wait to explore fully!) is the Tagger feature. This allows users of the site to tag content in the pictures so that the subjects or details in the pictures can be searched on. This could be a simple as the keywords 'portrait' or 'landscape' or could get far more specific pointing out details like 'bonnet' or 'oak tree', or art historical genres such as 'Impressionism' or 'Vorticism'.

The possibilties are endless! The site gives you the opportunity to bring together pictures from all over the country in your personally constructed themes. And soon users will be able to create their very own guided tours too. Curators, Education departments, art enthusiasts and visitors alike will find this a valuable tool. Most importantly it should help to give the public a sense of ownership of their national and local collections, and get out and visit their museums and galleries. KP

On this day - the siege of Bedford Castle

2011-06-20T15:38:00.001+01:00

On the 20th June 1224 the siege of Bedford Castle began. Most people in Bedford are familiar with Castle mound and the story of the siege. However - dig a little deeper into the story and our knowledge usually becomes a little sketchy...

Who built the Castle? How long was it there for? Who beseiged it? Why?

Even after a little digging, I've found out lots about the Castle that I didn't already know.

Who Built the Castle? When? Why?
The earliest Castle was built by Ralf de Tallebosc soon after the Norman Conquest in 1066. A large part of the existing Saxon town was flattened to make way for the castle, which in its earliest days would have been made of wood. The Castle was built because the incoming Normans needed a place to overlook the newly conquered town, to defend themselves from the town (if need be), to defend themselves and the town from other attackers and they needed a stronghold from where they could retreat into the coutryside.

Gradually the castle was rebuilt in stone, so that by 1130 it had a “strong and unshakeable keep”. By this time it was in the hands of the de Beauchamp family, who held the Barony of Bedford.

Under siege

The castle actually suffered several attacks before the great siege of 1224. The first of these was around 1137, when it was captured by King Stephen. During a siege in 1153 Prince Henry, soon to be King Henry II arrived in Bedford, delivered heavy plundering and left the castle in flames. St Paul's Church suffered some damage although we don't know how extensive this was. There was another siege in 1215, when King John sent Faukes de Breaute to capture it, following a minor rebellion that arose when the King refused to abide by the terms of the Magna Carta.

The Villian - Faukes de Breaute
King John gave Faukes de Breaute the castle and barony to thank him for his efforts. Faukes set about fortifying the castle and it is said that he pulled down St Paul’s Church to use the stone. Through the early 1220s, from his impregnable base, Faukes gained a reputation as an oppressive landlord and was eventually fined £3,000 by the King’s justices based at Dunstable.

Angry at the fine, Faukes sent his brother William to capture the three justices (although two escaped) and take them to the castle. The King (Henry III by this time) was furious and ordered Faukes to release the captured judge – when he refused the King ordered an attack on the castle.

Faukes had left the defence of the castle to his brother William so was safely out of the way when the attack came.

The final siege

Matthew Paris, a monk at St Albans Abbey, chronicled the Siege of Bedford some years later. The chronicles say that the siege lasted for 8 weeks, during which time the walls of the castle were bombarded daily with large lumps of stone flung from siege engines. Miners were used to dig underneath the castle walls and it was this that eventually led its destruction: on the 14th August the final walls collapsed when the tunnels were lit on fire, and the Keep was taken.

There my have been over 2500 men involved in the siege, coming from as far away as Cumberland in the north and Dorset in the south. Around 200 of them were killed. Most of the men inside the castle were hanged, although it is said that 3 were spared to serve as Knights Templar in the Holy Land.

The fall of the castle would have been a severe loss to the town as it would have been the town's biggest employer and the focus of town life. In the years since the siege the castle mound has had several uses. From the late 14th Century the ruins were used as a rubbish dump and in the 18th Century the top of the mound was used as a bowling green.

If you fancy finding out more about the siege why not go along to The Siege ,

The Bedford High Street History Project

2011-05-11T12:04:00.000+01:00

Hello all,

I've been working on some interesting projects recently, trying to find ways to get our collections out and about whilst our building is closed for redevelopment. A museum of course, is much more then a building, so we should be able to find plenty of ways for people to engage with collections, heritage and museumy things during the redevelopment.

The first of these is The Bedford High Street History Project -

Bedford High Street History Project was inspired by a BBC One series broadcast in the Autumn of 2010, Turn Back Time - The High Street. This showed how shops changed radically between the Victorian era and the 1970's. The programme makers also invited members of the public to investigate and record the history of shopping in their own locality. So with a great deal of help from Margaret Badley, a group of researchers* was set up to investigate the history of Bedford High Street.

This has been a great opportunity to pull together the reams of information about shops in our High Street which was scattered between Bedford Library, Bedfordshire and Luton Archives and Records Service (BLARS), Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum and the Historic Environment Record (HER). All of these are open to the public for further research apart from the Art Gallery & Museum which is closed for redevelopment until late 2012.
The results of all of this research can be seen in an exhibition at Bedford Central Library, which runs from 16th - 28th May 2011.

You can also access some oral history interviews, photographs and view some artefacts from the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum Collections on a dedicated blog we have put together. If you happen to be walking along the High Street, have a look out for our QR Code posters. These should be up in Goldings, Harrison & Simmonds, The Skills Bank, Allders Opticians and Debenhams. So far there are only five stops on our QR Code tour, but we hope to add a few more in time..

If you would like to know more about what QR Codes are and how they work - have a look here.

*Stuart Antrobus, Terry Darlow, David Fowler, Sally Heard, Hilary McDonald, Cathy Moorhouse, Elizabeth Mortimer, Jennifer Salter and Barry Stephenson.

Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum Group Pool

2011-05-03T09:21:00.001+01:00

Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum Group Pool, a group on Flickr.

We've been enjoying the photographs of street party celebrations in our Flickr Group Pool. If you have some great shots from street parties in Bedford, why not add them here?

Royal Wedding Fever

2011-04-28T15:08:00.002+01:00

Royal Wedding anticipation and excitement is at feverpitch with only 1 day left to go (although some folks in the office a just glad to get an extra day off!) To celebrate the forthcoming nuptials of William and Kate we've been having a look through our collections for images of Royal Weddings past. We found this lovely edition of the Radio Times in our Reminiscence boxes. It celebrates the 1947 wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh.

And this lovely commemorative copy of the Radio Times celebrating the 1981 wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer. As well as this amazing commemorative brick! There were only 100 of these made, so we are lucky to have one. I wonder if there will be any William and Kate bricks? We were looking for pictures of Royal Wedding themed streetparties and celebrations, however we have found very little of this in our collections. I did find this lovely pic of a 1977 Silver Jubilee Celebration on Wendover Drive on Bedford Central Library's website.

Are you there? Do you remember parties like these? I remember going to a street party on Kingsley Road, Bedford to celebrate Sarah Ferguson and Prince Andrew's wedding in 1986. It would be amazing to see any photographs of that party! So, if any of you have photographs of street parties celebrating Royal Weddings of the past we would love to see them! We would also love to see photographs of your celebrations for the coming weekend, alongside bunting, flags and marvelous memorabilia! You can send photos to our new Flickr Group Pool.

Get posting! And have a lovely long weekend!

Change is afoot.

2011-03-28T16:34:00.000+01:00

This week we're going to be moving out of our offices, and into some temporary offices. It feels like a really big change, and for most of us it is the first really tangible step towards the redevelopment of the Art Gallery & Museum. Change is most definately afoot. The removal people arrive tomorrow.

Main office at Cecil Higgins Art Gallery

Boxes everywhere.

Staionery cupboard, now empty.

We're surrounded by boxes and empty shelves. And everytime you realise you need a calculator or a paperclip you find they have all been packed already. Luckily the kettle is still available! I'm sure anyone who has moved house recently will know this feeling.
There is a lot of sadness as we leave these old buildings behind. But we are also very excited about the progress we're making, and the fact that building work will be starting soon. I'll be sure to keep you all abrest of developments as the project continues! In the meantime, I've been struck by the volume of odds and ends left in the buildings. Museum folk are possibly not the best at throwing things away. Moving office has been a much needed, and possibly overdue prompt to clear out some of the clutter that has gathered over the years.

A giant key left on empty shelves.

A ladder and a fan ignore each other.

Lots of odd things

Watering can

Watering can with table lamp and giant vinyl clock!

There will be many more big changes to come, and we look forward to them with optimism, excitement and gusto.

Castle Quay Weekender Saturday 19th March – Sunday 20th March

2011-03-18T12:40:00.000Z

Posters for Castle Q

We are all very excited here about the Castle Quay Weekender happening this weekend in Bedford’s cultural quarter. An entirely volunteer run festival, it is taking over the empty shops that surround the gallery and museum and filling them with art, music and poetry and hopefully lots of people.

We have loved watching the Castle Quay come to life over the last few weeks. With the Theatre of Widdershins filling Castle Lane display cases with puppets, the colourful ‘We are Bedford’ logos everywhere, stripy deckchairs, art installations, sound stages and three new pop up galleries, Castle Quay is looking its best ever.

Castle Quay HQ

All our neighbours in the Castle Quay are involved; our favourite place to get a hot chocolate Pensieri has a Jazz singer, Lady K’s Burlesque Boutique is holding life drawing sessions, the Swan Hotel is exhibiting photos from The Bedford Camera Club and The John Bunyan Museum are offering free guided tours of the Bunyan Meeting site. At Bedford Gallery we will be showing a film by artist Jane Edden on Saturday and on Sunday we are hosting John Hegley’s Animal Alphaboat in the morning and Gardener’s Question Time in the afternoon followed by Curators’ Question Time with the Art Gallery and Museum Curatorial team. However this is just a fraction of what is happening over the weekend. For more information have a look at the We Are Bedford website.

So, please come and visit and get involved, there is so much to see and do and such a great feeling of community spirit that you are bound to have a brilliant time.

Castle Quay HQ

Theatre of Widdershins puppet

Gallery 2 taking shape

Picture a Museum Day

2011-03-15T15:55:00.000Z

On Thursday 17th March we are taking part in ‘Picture a Museum Day and we would love it if you did too.

The idea is, that this Thursday museum staff around the world will give you a sneak peek into what goes on behind-the-scenes in their museums by taking photos and posting them on Flickr and Twitter.

The Curatorial staff here are going be posting photos on twitter throughout the day, producing a photo diary of what they are up to.

We would really like it if our visitors got involved too, so if you have a camera or even a camera phone come down to Bedford Gallery and take photographs then share your pictures through the hashtag #museumpics on twitter or in the Flickr group #museumpics.

If you cant make it to the gallery you can follow the event on line by following the hashtag #museumpics on twitter, or if you want to see the goings on here you can follow @chagandbm , @tjperrett or @partridgeo

Around the Horn

2011-03-03T11:58:00.001Z

One of the outcomes of the packing project we’re all working on is that it gives us an opportunity to ‘tidy up’ documentation relating to parts of the collection in a way that wouldn’t be possible under normal circumstances. Every now and then, this helps throw new light on old objects and reminds us all just how wonderful the collections housed here really are.

We’ve recently packed a group of objects from Tierra del Fuego, collected by Ernest Augustus Holmested in the 1870s. These include several shell necklaces, harpoon points, eel and fish spears, and a limpet gouge (a tool used to prise limpets off rocks). There’s even a worked bone from a rhea (a large flightless bird), with an old and rather imaginative label that claims it to be a ‘drinking tube made from a human bone’.

Some of the objects from the Holmested collection

A limpet gouge, used to prise limpet shells from rocks

The phrase 'every object tells a story' is used often these days, but in the case of the Holmested collection, we can also say that every object has a journey. And what a journey it's been! After all, it's hard to imagine many places more remote or further afield than this archipelago (which includes Cape Horn) at the very Southern tip of the South American continent. The process of documenting these objects for the packing and doing research for our new displays has helped us to understand how they made their way across the 8,500 miles of ocean separating Bedford from a place once described as being at 'the uttermost end of the earth'

View Larger Map

We've found that some of the objects were originally collected by Robert Whaits, a British missonary who arrived at Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego in 1875, from the native Yaghan people he encountered there. During the 1880's Whaits journeyed from Ushuaia to Keppel Island in the Falklands, where a station had been set up by the South American Missionary Society. Here, Whaits worked with Yaghan people who had been brought to the island from Tierra de Fuego, teaching them metalworking, farming and sheep rearing skills.

Yaghan people of Tierra del Fuego, photographed in the 1890s

It was around this time Whaits met Ernest Holmested, who had travelled to the Falklands via Argentina in 1868. Holmested had founded what became a very successful sheep-rearing business and it seems likely that he met Whaits at Keppel Island, acquiring a number of objects from him.

A South American Missionary Society station in Tierra del Fuego, photographed in the 1890s

We've suspected for some time that Holmested donated items to other museums, and following a bit of digging, we've discovered that he gave around 20 items to the British Museum. You can view them here.

Ernest, meanwhile, settled in Bedford in the 1890's and the remainder of his collection eventually went to The Bedford Modern School Museum (which formed the core of the current museum's collections) following his son's death in 1958.

Our existing relationship with the British Museum has been strengthened recently by their choice of Bedford Gallery as one of only four UK venues for the Toulouse-Lautrec Exhibition. We're currently talking to them about future collaborations and it's interesting to think that there might even be the opportunity one day to borrow their Holmested objects for a display here in Bedford, reuniting the two halves of Ernest's collection. After all, its a much shorter journey than the one the objects embarked on 130 years ago.

by Tom Perrett
Find Tom on Twitter @tjperrett

The mystery of the empty box...

2011-02-22T10:02:00.001Z

A little while ago, Gemma blogged about the magic of old labels on objects. This got me thinking about another of the pleasures (and problems!) of the packing project we’re currently working on: empty boxes.

Empty boxes from the Glassby collection

It might be a bit of a truism that curators need to be good detectives, but there are few better examples than the empty box.

For instance, at the moment staff here are working in the Archaeology Store packing up the Glassby collection* of ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern amulets, scarabs, ushabtis (funerary figurines that were placed in tombs) and other assorted treasures.
In amongst these wonderful objects are a number of empty boxes labelled with exotic descriptions like ‘Amulet of Ptah Soker, an Egyptian God’ and ‘Figure of a Hippopotamus’.
There’s an inevitable sinking feeling that comes with finding these, as the realisation dawns that the hard work of tracking down the missing objects is about to begin. Thankfully, the answer usually turns out to be quite simple – here, some have been given new boxes while others were removed years ago so they could be put on display.
Modern collections management systems, with their ability to track the locations of objects, help no end, but ultimately they rely on the data we put in them. A curator still needs good instincts, patience and the ability to follow clues to solve the mystery of the empty box.

Egyptian amulet found by Flinders Petrie

The box above stands out in particular for me because of its reference to the famous archaeologist Flinders Petrie and it’s inevitable that the labels on some empty boxes are more intriguing (at first glance at least) than others. The best case I’ve heard was an ex-colleague who found a box that claimed to contain ‘glass negatives showing the Holy Grail’. Now, it might only have been photographs of the Holy Grail, but that would have been exciting enough, right? If only the box hadn’t been empty.
*William J.J. Glassby came to Bedford in 1912 to take up the position of land agent for the Polhill family at Howbury Hall in Renhold. Well known as a ‘seeker of curios’, he kept his collection at the Costin Street Mission Hall, where it was ‘always a source of great interest to visitors’.

Tom Perrett @tjperrett

We have saved the Settle!

2011-02-16T10:32:00.000Z

Hello everyone,

we are very pleased to be able to announce that we have been successful in our attempt to acquire the beautiful zodiac settle, designed by Gothic Revival genius, William Burges.

Now, we have done several posts about this before with lots of background information about Burges, and about the settle. You can read our previous post here.

We are very pleased that the Daily Telegraph covered the story. You can read their coverage here. The settle is currently with our conservator. Sadly, it won't be on public exhibition until we reopen in 2012. However, it will form a central part of our new William Burges Gallery within the new Art Gallery & Museum, where it will be on display from 2012 onwards.

Most of all we would like to thank you all for your help and support in our campaign to save the settle. In particular we would like to thank our funders, the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the Art Fund and the Trustees of the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery who all made it possible for the settle to find a permanent home (and settle down) here in Bedford.

*Big Hugs*

Roses are red, violets are blue, today we present more Bawden for you

2011-02-14T10:51:00.000Z

One of our favourite Bawden designs is a Valentines leaflet for Fortnum and Mason from 1956. Although the gifts advertised are a bit dated (not many women now receive a mink boutonniere from their beloveds or pearl handsewn hogskin gloves, both a very reasonable 5 guineas) the design and the poem are still charming.

My Valentine delights to tease me

Although he often tries to please me;

I’ve always found him quite unruly

Yet cannot help but love him truly

Were inconsolable apart…

What can I give to touch his heart?

My Valentine’s become a fixture,

She’s such a nice amusing mixture;

Though I’m her slave she’s not capricious;

Always looks and smells delicious;

I sometimes think the angels tend her…

St. Valentine – what can I send her?

What are you going to be doing whilst the museum is closed?

2011-02-10T09:55:00.001Z

Hello all,

When ever we tell people that the museum is closed until the end of 2012, they frequently ask 'Wow! What are you going to be doing in all that time?' The answer, of course, is that we are going to be very busy getting ready for reopening. We're going to be keeping you up to date with everything going on here, and we would really like your comments, feedback and ideas to make sure that our new Art Gallery & Museum is the place for everyone to be in 2012.

Here is Tom Perrett, Head of Collections and Exhibitions talking about our plans for the next 18 months.

If you would like to hear more from Tom, and keep with all the redevelopment news, why not follow him on Twitter @tjperrett

The beautiful things...

2011-02-09T10:32:00.000Z

Dear readers,

As you know, we have been packing the museum collections and preparing to move them offsite so that redevelopment work can begin in earnest. One of the most rewarding aspects of this is that we get to see (and handle!) some of the remarkable objects in the museum stores. This morning I spent some time looking at the various remarkable urns and other pieces of assorted pottery in the archaeology collections. These things have been found locally (with some exceptions, of course, where would we be without exceptions?). I was especially drawn to the labelling on these objects. It is interesting to me that archaeologists put labels directly on objects.

Felmersham Churchyard: 4 feet deep

Coming from a Fine Art background, writing directly on an artefact seems fairly odd, and these artefacts have not only been written on, they have fragments of text cut out and stuck to them, and stenciling in two different colours. The reason for this labelling, is that for the archaeologist, the most important thing about the artefact is not what it looks like, but the information associated with it. What I like about it is the level of craftsmanship on these labels, they are a record of all the hands the artefact has been through, since it re-emerged into the world.

The text on this urn reads 'contained the remains possibly from a cowheard,
as the terminal of an ox goad was found with the cremation'

I think another reason that these labels struck me, was that they are so direct. As a digital and social web enthusiast, I seem to spend a lot of time linking things to things in the great big World-Wide Web. The cut and paste approach taken here seems very refreshing, and you can't say it doesn't work. That said, our Keeper of Archaeology, Liz Pieksma informs me that the remains in this urn are most likely 'not from a cowheard'.

A lot of the finds have the initials and names of the collector emblazened on them - Tom Perrett, Head of Collections and Exhibitions said 'to me this reflects the competition there was between antiquarian collectors to get their hands on the 'best bits'.'

( a fine specimen ampulla 1st Century) from the Elliot Collection

Some of the finds that I saw in the archaeology store had barnacles on them. Surely these weren't found in Kempston, Felmersham or Biggleswade? Indeed they were not. They were found off the coast of Kent, at the site of a famous shipwreck, Pudding Pan Rock! The pieces in our collection are very similar to others in The British Museum collection, where I found this description of how they were found.

'Fishermen often dragged up Roman bowls, plates and cups in their nets when they fished near Pudding Pan Rock. Sometimes the fishermen’s families cooked and ate from the bowls, but often they sold them to antiquaries. Gustavus Brander (1720-87), a Trustee of the British Museum, once served dessert to fellow antiquaries from dishes found at Pudding Pan Rock.

There was much speculation about this pottery's origins in the 1770s and 1780s. In 1773 John Pownall went with a local fisherman to 'fish' for pottery and other artefacts in what was probably the first marine archaeological investigation to take place in Britain'

Roman pottery from Pudding Pan Rock

I love how beautiful the textures and shapes of all these objects are. There are quite a few more photos on Flickr. Have a browse and let know what you think of all these things. I especially like how the little handled jars have their papers tucked under their arms, I think it gives them a lot of personality!

High Kicks & Low Life: Lithography explained.....

2011-01-19T15:38:00.001Z

To many people the idea of an original print can seem like a contradiction, with the connotation that, somewhere, there must be an ‘original’ work of art from which a reproduction has been made.

As we are currently hosting the British Museum’s touring exhibition of graphic works by Toulouse-Lautrec, I thought it would be a good idea to post about what we mean by the term ‘artist’s original print’ and to explain the process Lautrec used to create many of his most enduring images: stone lithography.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) Marcelle Lender, en buste, 1895. Colour crayon lithograph

When making an original print, an artist will first choose the medium they want to work in. This could be lithography, etching, woodcut, or any one of a number of other methods, depending on the desired effect.

Marks are then made directly onto the printing surface and an impression is taken. The important thing here is that the resulting print is an original work of art – not a copy of an already existing image – which will be printed in an edition size chosen by the artist or a publisher.

Lithography is a very expressive form of printmaking. Artists can use materials that are very close to those they might choose for other mediums, which has made it popular as a technique since its invention at the end of the 18th century.

The original method, as discovered by Alois Senefelder, uses limestone blocks that are ground down to make a smooth, flat surface and relies on the interaction of two incompatible surfaces: grease and water. Marks are made directly onto the surface of the stone using grease-based substances, such as special lithographic crayons. With chemical treatment, the areas that have been marked will accept printing ink while the undrawn areas, dampened with water, remain free of ink. Finally, the image is transferred to paper by passing the stone through a printing press.

Example of a stone prepared for a lithographic print.

This Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons image is from the user Chris 73 and is freely available at Wikipedia

Lautrec’s first lithograph was Moulin Rouge – La Goulue, which used four separate stones for the four main colours. He quickly mastered the technique and began to experiment with a range of techniques, including spatter, where paint is sprayed onto the surface of the stone by running a knife along the edge of a brush.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) Moulin Rouge –La Goulue, 1890. Colour brush and spatter lithograph © The Trustees of the British Museum
From this early use of stone, other lithographic techniques have developed, including grained zinc plates and light-sensitive translucent film. For a glimpse of this magical printing technique being carried out today, you can’t do much better than this film showing Paula Rego at work with our friends at the Curwen Studio.

High Kicks & Low Life: our curators putting up the Toulouse-Lautrec Exhibition

2011-01-10T14:59:00.001Z

In an anticipation of the exhibition opening on 15th January, here are a few pics of Tom, Kristian and Liz putting up the High Kicks & Low Life: Toulouse-Lautrec Prints exhibition. And speaking of highs and lows we would love to hear what you're highs and lows are from the exhibition. Favourite print? Least favourite? Or perhaps something about the experience that you particularly enjoyed or disliked. You can let us know here, by commenting on the blog, or Tweet us or comment on our Facebook page. We would love to hear from you.

Online Gallery in the Independent Online

2011-01-05T09:58:00.000Z

There is a lovely article and online gallery about our upcoming 'High Kicks & Low Life: Toulouse-Lautrec Prints' in the Independent Online.

Out and About

2010-12-20T16:02:00.000Z

Since the museum closed for redevelopment in October 2010, our education team haven’t been able to have schools come and spend the day at the museum. However, this hasn’t stopped them keeping busy. They have taken their programme on the road, visiting schools within a 1 hour radius, bringing artefacts, costume and lots of fun along with them. Here is some of the feedback we’ve received from children and teachers.

You can find out more about our education team, and the services they offer at http://www.museumeducation.bedford.gov.uk/formal2.htm

What's On - new leaflet out soon.

2010-12-07T12:42:00.000Z

With less then 2 weeks left of our popular R100 & R101: Airships at Cardington Exhibition, it's high time we let you know what's coming up in the new year. Here is a preview of our new leaflet, which will be out soon.

Open publication - Free publishing - More museum

High Kicks & Low Life: Toulouse-Lautrec prints - A British Museum Tour is our final exhibition before the gallery closes for a major redvelopment project. Read more about the redevelopment here. The exhibition runs from 15th January - 10th April 2011.

Bedford Gallery will be closed from 19th December - 15th January whilst we changeover the exhibition. The curatorial staff will all be working hard over the Christmas holidays installing the works from the British Museum alongside some pieces from the Cecil Higgins Collection by contemporaries of Toulouse-Lautrec. We'll be sure to keep you updated with our progress and we hope that you're as excited as we are about the imminent arrival of so many Toulouse-Lautrec prints here in Bedford.

Update: We need your help to save the Burges Settle for the Nation

2010-12-01T09:51:00.000Z

We need your help to save the Burges Settle for the Nation!

We have secured £400,000 from the NHMF, £150,000 from the Art Fund and £100,000 from The Trustees of the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery. We are nearly there but we still need to raise £100,000 from other sources.

Every penny counts!

If you would like to donate to the Burges Settle Campaign, please make cheques payable to The Trustees of the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery and send them to
Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum, Castle Lane, Bedford, MK40 3XD

You can Gift Aid your donation. Simply email gemma.hutton@bedford.gov.uk to request a Gift Aid form.

The export bar on the settle only lasts until 20th December. Please do help us to acquire this wonderful, unique artwork for Bedford.

Open publication - Free publishing - More heritage

Great films, inspired by our collections and made by young people from Bedford Foyer

2010-11-11T10:54:00.001Z

Over 2010 the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum has been working with Bedford Foyer, Elizabeth Thomas and Orphan Pixel Company on an exciting Foyer film project funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The 3 films shown here were devised by residents of Bedford Foyer who were involved throughout the whole process, from editing and sound to acting in front of the camera! The films are aimed at getting young people interested in history and their heritage by telling a gripping personal story about the past. Each script was inspired by an object chosen from the museum’s collections by the young people involved.

The photographs show the young people during the process of making the films.
Richard Fuller, MP for Bedford, has described the films as demonstrating “a remarkable combination of simplicity of execution, clarity and precision of dialogue and first class acting.”

Below are some of the objects that inspired the project.

Viking Sword - Iron sword blade from 10-11th centuries, found at Russell Park, Bedford

Crossbow bolt - good quality iron bolt from the 14th century, found in Bedfordshire.The bolt would have fitted on to a wooden shaft and been fired from a large crossbow. It was strong enough to pierce armour.

This project is part of our Audience Development Project. This is a four-year project which aims to engage a wide range of communities and groups in Bedford Borough with the Museum and Gallery collections and their own heritage through creative activities, events, consultation and involvement in new exhibitions. The project has been funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, Bedford Borough Council, The Bedford Charity (The Harpur Trust) and Lousada Plc.

We aim to raise £800,000 to save a unique zodiac settle designed by William Burges for the nation - with your help!

2010-11-05T12:12:00.000Z

A unique zodiac settle designed by William Burges is currently subject to a temporary export bar put in place by Culture Minister Ed Vaizey, following a recommendation from the Reviewing Committee on the Sale of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest. The export bar expires on 20 December 2010.

Following the decision, Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum has been identified as the most appropriate UK institution to mount a fundraising campaign to raise the £800,000 necessary to acquire the settle and save it for the nation.

The settle (1869-70) is an ornate seat or bench that combines the form of an Italian Renaissance day-bed with a castellated canopy inspired by the English Gothic. It is made from painted, stencilled and gilded wood, decorated with rock crystal and slips of vellum. The central panel, painted by Burges’ collaborator Henry Stacey Marks, features the sun on a throne, surrounded by the dancing signs of the zodiac, while other panels show the Planets as musicians and female figures.

Designed by Burges for his own use, the settle was firstly in his rooms on Buckingham Street off the Strand in London, and later moved to Tower House, the gothic residence Burges built for himself in Holland Park. Tower House has been described as one of the most important architect’s houses of the 19th century. Burges left hundreds of drawings of Tower House showing his plans for the interior design schemes. These show that the zodiac settle was placed in the Drawing Room, decorated on the theme of love, from which Burges intended to completely remove chairs. Unlike other pieces of his painted furniture, such as cabinets and bookcases, the settle was an experiment in form and design that was never repeated in any of his later furniture commissions.

If we were succesful in acquiring the settle, it would be the perfect addition to the collection of work by Burges already held here. The collection includes the Sleeping Beauty Bed, the Narcissus Washstand and a dressing table, all from Burges’ own bedroom, as well as a pair of cabinet doors, a wardrobe and a zodiac-themed bookcase. The collection also includes a tulip vase, a decorative silver decanter, a set of knives and forks, an enamelled silver bracelet, and a set of 30 zodiac-themed tiles. The settle would form a central piece of the new Gothic Revival Gallery proposed in our redevelopment plans.

You can support or campaign to save the settle for the nation by sharing this online booklet on your website, facebook or blog page.

Open publication - Free publishing - More heritage

Just follow this link http://issuu.com/cecilhigginsandbedfordmuseum/docs/booklet and then copy and paste the embed code into your page.

You can also add our twibbon to your Twitter, Facebook or Blog.

If you would like to pledge your financial support, contact us on 01234 211222 or at gemma.hutton@bedford.gov.uk

Extra Film Event Planned

2010-11-02T14:35:00.000Z

Thank you to all those who attended the one-off screening of British Pathe newsreel on Sunday 31st October at Bedford Gallery. Record visitor numbers were reached!

Happily another film event has been scheduled. On Wednesday 24th November at 1pm we will be showing 'R100’s construction at Howden with commentary from its designer Barnes Wallis'

Not only that, Peter Rix, Chairman of the Barnes Wallis Memorial Trust will be here to give an introduction to the film, and to answer your questions afterwards.

A Boost for Bedford

2010-10-20T17:03:00.000+01:00

Open publication - Free publishing - More edward bawden

There is a lovely article in this weeks Country Life Magazine about the upcoming auction at Bloomsbury Auction House. The unique sale will raise funds for the Edward Bawden Gallery which will be fitted with purpose-built secure drawers and cabinets allowing improved access to this remarkable resource. The Edward Bawden Gallery is part of the planned redevelopment of the Art Gallery & Museum.

In order to raise funds for equipping the gallery, Bawden's Executor Peyton Skipwith in conjunction with Bloomsbury Auctions, has organised a sale of drawings, watercolours, prints and illustrated books, including donated works by Bawden and his friends such as Eric Ravilious, Douglas Percy Bliss and Charles Mahoney - as well as many younger admirers including David Gentleman, Peter Blake, Bernard Dunstan and Michael Foreman. Most of the pieces offered are fresh to the market. The sale will be held at Bloomsbury Auctions in central London on Thursday 28th October 2010.

See details of works to be auctioned at http://www.bloomsburyauctions.com/news

Bedford Museum closes for major redevelopment

2010-10-18T09:48:00.000+01:00

On Sunday evening Bedford Museum closed it's doors to the public for the last time in it's current layout. Now the big job of packing the precious collections commences so that it can all be moved out and the builders can get started. Bedford Gallery will still be open as usual but will have to close it's doors after the British Museum's touring Toulouse Lautrec exhibition has finished there in April.

We'll continue to blog and tweet about all the work that's going on behind the scenes - and believe me, a closed museum is still a very busy place to work! The curatorial team are already busy with the plans, as Tom Perret, Head of Collections and Exhibitons tweeted last week - "Starting the hard work of detailed design for the redevelopment of @chagandbm - difficult but very exciting" @tjperrett

The refurbished Art Gallery & Museum will be very much worth the wait and will open as one institution (which staff wise it has been since 2004) in late 2012-early 2013.

Unseen Works by Major British Artists to be Sold at Fund Raising Auction

2010-10-08T14:42:00.001+01:00

Richard Bawden 'A Splash in the Pant'.

During the last decade of his life, Edward Bawden CBE (1903-1989) carefully put together an archive of some three thousand items which he donated to the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford. Now Bawden's friend and Executor Peyton Skipwith has instigated and curated a unique sale to be held at Bloomsbury Auctions in central London (28th October 2010), to raise funds for equipping the Edward Bawden Gallery in the new redevelopment of the Art Gallery and Museum.

The sale offers a unique opportunity to buy wonderful, quintessentially English pieces, most of which have never been on the market before. The items offered include drawings, watercolours, prints and illustrated books by Bawden, his associates and friends such as Eric Ravilious, Douglas Percy Bliss and Charles Mahoney - as well as many younger admirers from Peter Blake and David Gentleman to Bernard Dunstan and Michael Foreman. The sale will be held at Bloomsbury Auctions, 24 Maddox Street, London W1S 1PP on Thursday 28th October 2010. A taster exhibition, showing a sample of the works will be held in Bedford Museum from 12th-17th October.

‘As Bawden’s Executor I felt that helping the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery to raise the funds was probably one of the last concrete acts that I could do for his memory,’ says Peyton Skipwith. ‘By approaching many artists and dealers who admire his work and enrolling the help of Bloomsbury Auctions, we have been able to assemble the sixty works to be offered at auction. These range from original pieces by Bawden himself, including his initial design for the Bunyan Tapestry (est. £2500-3500), commissioned by the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery in the early 1970s, to works specially created for the sale.’ The former curator of the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Lady Halina Graham, has very kindly donated 'Campions and Columbine’ by Bawden, who had given and inscribed the lithograph to her.

Amongst the many highlights are drawings by Charles Mahoney and a wood-engraving by Eric Ravilious (est. £300-400), both contemporaries of Bawden’s at the Royal College of Art in the early 1920s, as well as an illustrated letter from Bawden to another fellow-student, Douglas Percy Bliss, written in Florence in 1926 while on a travelling scholarship (est. £300-400). Ronald Maddox and Chris Brown (pictured left) have both given images of Bawden’s home, Brick House, Great Bardfield, Essex (est. £100-150 and £80-120 respectively), while Bawden’s son, Richard, has donated a lino-cut entitled A Splash in the Pant, recalling an amusing incident when the local policeman surprised Bawden and his wife and the Raviliouses, bathing naked in the River Pant that ran close to the bottom of their garden(est. £350-500). Another highlight to whet the appetite, is Tourist Attraction (est. £2000-2500) a tiny gem of a collage(pictured right) by one of Bawden’s star students Peter Blake, who remarked of this work,‘It’s more than a print but less than a watercolour.'

Book illustrators and print-makers have also responded generously and thoughtfully to the request for work. Angie Lewin has donated a lithograph depicting Eric Ravilious’s 1953 Coronation Mug (est. £350-500) and Michael Foreman, Helen Oxenbury and John Burningham (each estimated £80-120) have given copies of their books specially embellished with extra drawings on the title page, making them unique collectors’ pieces. Former students of Bawden’s have been more than happy to contribute to this fund-raising auction for the Bawden Gallery; David Gentleman has given a beautiful Suffolk watercolour landscape (est. £2000-2500) and Chris Brown a range of lino-cuts, including E is for Edward which incorporates a delightful image of Bawden himself (est. £150-200).

Edward Bawden was an award winning painter, printmaker, draughtsman and graphic designer. His unique vision of the world spanned over 60 years, during which he produced some of the most influential designs of the 20th century. The sale at Bloomsbury Auctions is a tribute by the art world - artists, dealers and auctioneers - to the memory of one of Britain’s much-loved artists, and to the perpetuating of his memory; it will ensure that the Edward Bawden Gallery will provide a fitting and lasting home for a major body of work by one of Britain’s most original artists.

For further information and illustrations please contact:

Vanessa Clewes Salmon Tel: 020 8458 3288 email: vanessa.wildwood@gmail.com

or Richard Caton Tel: 020 7495 9494 Ext 207 email: rcaton@bloomsburyauctions.com

Bloomsbury Auctions 24 Maddox Street London W1S 1PP Tel: 0207 495 9494

Picture of the Week No.35

2010-10-04T16:51:00.000+01:00

Over the weekend I caught a fascinating programme on the BBC iPlayer called 'Churches: How to Read Them'. As someone whose university days featured several illuminating and entertaining architecture walks where we were prompted to name various features of buildings, or to try and work out the various ages of different parts of churches, this took me back and gave me a big of hit of those Gothic and Early English styles, which I have come to admire. They remind me also of William Burges, who was such a imaginative yet scholarly applier of 11th and 12th century Gothic details in his Revivalist designs, and who our own VP has been studying for future displays here at the Cecil Higgins.

For Picture of the Week this week I've selected two detailed views of eclesiastical architecture that show different periods of church design. The first, by John Sell Cotman depicts a Romanesque archway in Norwich Cathedral, which was built between 1096-c.1140, when Bishop Herbertwanted to move the centre of religious power in East Anglia from Thetford to Norwich. The subject of James Holland's study is the Edward the Confessor Chapel at Westminster Abbey. The Abbey has been substantially altered since Edward the Confessor started the current building (although not the first abbey on the site) in 1065, with Henry III rebuilding much including the Chapel to the Confessor in the "French Style" - later named Gothic in the Reanissance. The iconic Great West Towers we built betwee1722 and 1745 by Nicholas Hawksmoor in an early example of a Gothic Revival design. KP

JOHN SELL COTMAN (1782-1842)

The Interior of the Nave, Norwich Cathedral, c.1807

watercolour and black lead on paper, 33.1 x 22.1 cm
Acession No. P.695

This is one of a series of about ten drawings Cotman made of the interior of Norwich Cathedral.

Painted c.1807, this shows the pillars on the northern side immediately west of the organ screen, seen from the centre of the nave. The tomb is that of Sir James Hobart, now almost hidden by pews.

The 1982-3 catalogue (see below) comments: ‘Nothing shows more clearly Cotman’s artistic power at this time than the way this rather ungainly corner of the Cathedral became the vehicle for one of the most poetic interior pieces he ever did’.EJ

PROVENANCE: Acquired from the artist by Rev. James Bulwer, then by descent; Walker’s Galleries Ltd.; 1926 bought by Sydney Kitson; Elisabeth and Alice Barbara Kitson, given to Gallery, May 1973.

EXHIBITIONS: John Sell Cotman (The Bulwer Collection), London, Walker’s Galleries Ltd., 1926, no.8; Oxford, Oxford Art Club, 1928, catalogue not traced; Twee Eeuwem Engelse Kunst, Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, 1936, no.181; Watercolour Drawings by J.R.Cozens and J.S.Cotman, Manchester, Whitworth Art Gallery, 1937, no.32; The English Tradition: an exhibition of watercolours from two private collections, Bedford, Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, 1972, no.18; John Sell Cotman, London, V&A, Manchester, Whitworth Art Gallery and Bristol, Bristol City Art Gallery, 1982-3, no.62

REFERENCES: S. Kitson, The Life of John Sell Cotman, 1937, p.107, pl.43; M. Pidgley, John Sell Cotman’s Patrons and The Romantic Subject Pictures in the 1820s and 1830s, 1975, p.79, no.252; L. Herrmann, Nineteenth Century British Painting, 2000, p.51. fig.36.

JAMES HOLLAND (1799-1870)

Edward the Confessor’s Chapel, Westminster Abbey, 1834

pencil and watercolour on paper, 26.3 x 17.5 cm, inscribed: J.Holland 1834
Accession No.P.349
This drawing was formerly thought to depict Canterbury Cathedral.

This is a watercolour sketch for either the oil painting Part of St.Edward’s Chapel with the tombs of Edward III and his Queen Phillippa, exhibited at the Society of British Artists in 1835, or for another version, also an oil, exhibited at the British Institution in 1835 entitled St.Edward’s Chapel, Westminster Abbey.

Rebuilt by Edward the Confessor c.1050-65, Westminster Abbey is the earliest example of the Norman Style in England. The Confessor’s shrine was commissioned by Henry III before he began the new abbey in 1241.EJ/CB

PROVENANCE: W.G. Walford; P&D Colnaghi Ltd, from whom purchased by Gallery, July 1960.

EXHIBITIONS: James Holland Bi-Centennial Exhibition, Stoke-on-Trent, The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, 1999, no cat.

Alan Davie at 90

2010-09-28T09:42:00.001+01:00

Today (Tuesday 28th September 2010) is the 90th birthday of one of Britain's most esteemed artists. Alan Davie first made an impact with his unique brand of abstract painting in the late 1940s and the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery first acquired one of his works in 1959 - and not without controversy, but more on that later. A further work was purchased in the 1970s, but after the release of the 2004 Cecil Higgins Art Gallery Print Catalogue, Davie donated a major collection of his print and gouache works to the gallery.

Over the next few days you'll be able to view all of the works in our collection by Davie, get an insight into his print making process, and read the fascinating debate provoked by the Gallery's 1959 purchase of 'First Movement in Pink'.

UPDATE: Alan Davie Collection now viewable here

First we'll start with a biography of the artist.

Broad Horizons: Alan Davie (1920- )

Alan Davie's experience of the Second World War was unusual. Having left his home town of Grangemouth, Scotland, a year earlier to take an entrance scholarship to study at the Edinburgh College of art, he had been sent to join the Royal Artillery in the middle of the English countryside. Instead of discovering, as many did, the harsh realities of war, Davie discovered nature, drew his fellow gunner-men, and planted a garden. His eyes were opened to a new way of life - one where the quality of ones existence was of the utmost importance.

Davie turned his back on painting to be a jazz musician after the war, as this seemed a better way to achieve what he wanted from life. Again, it was travel that opened his eyes to new possibilities. In 1948 he finally took up a traveling scholarship awarded at Edinburgh and went with his wife, Bili, who he had married in 1946, to Venice. The city was then hosting the first Biennale since the war. The great art collector Peggy Guggenheim had been given use of a tent originally allocated to Greece, then in civil war. Seeing the Surrealist works of Max Ernst and Joan Miro, and the early mythological paintings of the American artists Pollock, Rothko, Gorky and Matta had a profound effect on Davie: these pictures, steeped in Jungian theory of the universal unconscious, and with mythological names and references, showed Davie new possibilities in the purpose of painting. He re-started work immediately and was instantly well received when within a short space of time he held an exhibition in Venice. By the the time he returned to England, he had already established a reputation as an artist.

Throughout the next few years hes painting was accompanied by work as a goldsmith, silversmith and jeweller. He was inspired by American, Celtic and Syrian goldwork. In 1959 this new direction led him to become a jewellery tutor at Central School of Arts and Crafts in London.

Although never a household name, he has always enjoyed a high level of respect from other artists. From 1951 to 1974 the Davie family spent summer in Cornwall and Davie knew most of the second generation St. Ives group: Patrick Heron, Terry Frost, Bryan Winter, Peter Lanyon, and Paul Feile. Davie met Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell and others in New York in 1956. By 1959, Davie had held solo shows in New York (1956) and at the Whitechapel in London (1958), been bought by the Museum of Modern Art and the Tate, and heralded by The Times as ‘an artist who bids to be recognized as the most remarkable British painter to have emerged in recent years’ (6th March, 1958).

During the 1960s and '70s Davie explored his new found passion for gliding, completing over 2000 hours of flying. He found 'a sort of mysterious realm away from everyday reality, one very close to natural forces', as he put it, that was analogous to painting.

Alan Davie at work in his studio in the 1950s (left) and his studio in the late 1990s. Photos: copyright of the artist.

Davie is fascinated by the art of other cultures. He sees within them a less materialistic life and a greater emphasis on spirituality. His art making process is not a practice that involves the production of art-objects for public appraisal or consumer demand, but one that seeks to unify the artist with a more spiritual existence.

As his art has developed, Davie has evolved how he uses improvisation within his work. Like Miro’s use of automatic drawing as a design for a painting, Davie’s later works are often more likely to be based on an intuitive sketch than constructed through the painting process directly on the canvas. In a 1993 interview with Art Review magazine he said of this process:

You can’t deny consciousness completely. You must have rules. Without a system you can perhaps achieve a beautiful chaos which is itself exciting up to a point, but it’s not until we impose restrictions on ourselves that important things begin to happen.[1 (Art Review, May 1993, (vol. XLV) p4.)

The images that Davie use are part of a wider ranging interest in the ‘other’ and the exotic. From his Zen Buddhism, through his Jazz playing and his gliding, Davie seeks experiences and ways of being that are intuitive and in some way ‘freer’.

Art is an intimate meditation process involving some kind of communion with the gods, it’s got nothing to do with communing with the public, as if it was some kind of show business. Art can exist without the public. I’m not interested in what anybody else thinks. I’m in it entirely for myself, and if someone else is on the same wavelength all well and good; if not, then forget it. But art should give people a kind of uplift, an understanding of the mystery of life itself. It should take people out of their mere selves into another realm. What one should get from art is a kind of inspiration and revelation. You should be taken out of yourself and lifted of the ground.”(ibid. p4.)

Davie continues to work in his home in Hertfordshire.

You can view a number of his works by Alan Davie across his career on the Tate website.

Picture of the Week No.34 & New Acquisition

2010-09-24T12:48:00.002+01:00

I am cheating a bit this week and combining picture of the week with a blog about a new acquisition, but in my defence it’s been a busy airship filled week. This morning I have had a bit of a break from the dirigibles and have accessioned our newest acquisition, a watercolour by Stanley Roy Badmin (1906-1989). Its subject is the Willington Stable built in the 1530’s by Sir John Gostwick, which along with its companion dovecote, is the only building owned by the National Trust in Bedfordshire.

Badmin’s career was similar to Edward Bawden’s, both blurred the lines of fine and commercial art, by exhibiting watercolours as well as illustrating books and producing posters and adverts for companies such as London Transport and Shell. ‘The Old Stable’ is a lovely example of the kind of topographically precise work Badmin produced as part of the ‘Recording Britain Scheme’. Intended to boost national morale, the scheme was set up by Sir Kenneth Clark as an extension of the Official War Artist Scheme, to celebrate the home front’s natural beauty and architectural heritage.

You can find out more about the Recording Britain Scheme and see more of Badmin’s work on the V&A Website.

If you would like to visit the Willington Stable and Dovecote be quick as it looks like this Sunday is the last opening of the year.

VP

HERITAGE LOTTERY FUND AWARD £959,000 TO ART GALLERY & MUSEUM PROJECT

2010-09-20T10:05:00.000+01:00

Bedford Borough Council’s flagship arts and heritage facilities Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum has secured an award of £959,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) towards the planned redevelopment of the facilities, specifically for improvements to buildings and the fit-out of new exhibition spaces. The award will signal the start of the work at the Art Gallery & Museum following confirmation of the Council’s £3.6m investment earlier this year.

Mayor of Bedford Borough, Dave Hodgson, said:

“This is great news for the Borough. The injection of nearly a million pounds, added to the Council’s £3.6 million investment and other generous contributions means that we will be able to start work to turn the exciting plans into a reality. We want to make Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum the place to go for residents to enjoy art and culture, meet friends and bring visitors to the Borough.”

Cllr Doug McMurdo, Portfolio Holder for Arts and Leisure, at Bedford Borough Council, added:

“We are delighted with this announcement, and thank the Heritage Lottery Fund for this award, which will allow us to work and pull the facilities together. The art gallery and museum are already home to excellent exhibits - now we plan to display them in a high quality venue which will help make Bedford Town Centre an even more attractive place to visit.”

Robyn Llewellyn, Head of Heritage Lottery Fund, East of England, said:

“This exciting project will completely transform Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum, making the wonderful collections fully accessible to local communities and offering new opportunities for people to learn from and enjoy them. It will help draw together the cultural heritage of Bedford and tell the stories of communities across the town and local area. This redevelopment has the potential to reinvigorate this heritage site, making them a key heritage attraction in the heart of the town.”

The £6.6m Redevelopment Project will involve the complete redesign and redisplay of the galleries in Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum. The revitalised buildings, with new galleries, collection stores, spaces for learning activities and corporate hire, shop and café will be an excellent resource for local people and visitors to Bedford right in the heart of the cultural quarter at Castle Lane.

This major grant will enable the Borough Council to progress the project to the next stage, namely to work up detailed building and exhibition designs and place the work out to tender; tenders are then expected back in March 2011, followed by the works starting in May 2011. The works, including the design of new exhibition spaces and displays, are expected to take approximately 18 months with the facilities re-opening in late 2012 or early 2013. Meanwhile Bedford Museum will close on Sunday 17 October, following which all museum artefacts will be carefully packed away and stored off-site in readiness for the works.

Click here to download information about our redevelopment plans

Click here to fill in an online survey about our plans

Please click here to download Frequently Asked Questions regarding the redevelopment.

Picture of the Week No.33

2010-09-17T15:28:00.001+01:00

We have been so busy putting up the ‘R100 & R101 Airships at Cardington exhibition’ and admiring our new Paul Catherall prints that we have completely neglected our picture of the week duties! As an apology I offer up Edward Bawden’s ‘The Pagoda, Kew Gardens’ for your viewing pleasure. Bawden was fascinated with Kew Gardens, and like Brighton, he returned to it as a subject throughout his career. What you won’t be able to see from this image is the scale of the picture, it’s over a meter tall which caused Bawden’s assistant to be print it in a unique way…. by stomping on it with his feet. This however wasn’t the strangest way to produce linocuts, some of the sample wallpapers Bawden produced with John Aldrich in the 1930’s were printed by driving a Rolls Royce over the blocks. VP

EDWARD BAWDEN, C.B.E., R.A.

(1903-1989)
The Pagoda, Kew Gardens
1963

12 colour linocut, 115 x 66.7 cm
inscribed: The Pagoda, Kew 4/50 Edward Bawden
P.757
From his student days at the R.C.A., the landscaping, flora and architecture at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew had fascinated Bawden. He would spend many warm weekends at Kew making numerous sketches. Various aspects of the Gardens were to feature throughout is work from the 1920s, through the advertising material of the 1930s to the large linocuts of the 1960s.
CB
PROVENANCE: Bequeathed by the artist to the Gallery, given via The Fine Art Society, August 1990

R100 & R101 graphics!

2010-09-17T10:02:00.001+01:00

We are working hard installing the new exhibition 'R100 & R101 Airships at Cardington' and even though there is a still lot to do (and I mean a lot!) we thought we would give you a quick sneak peak. Yesterday vinyls of the exhibition artwork by Paul Catherall arrived and we are all very happy with them. One stretches the length of the far wall and makes a huge statement as you come in. We hope you will all like them too. VP

What's On leaflet

2010-09-09T13:45:00.000+01:00

Not only does the new leaflet contain all of the fantastic exhibitions, talks, family days and activities to keep the kids happy over half-term, it also looks fab with the new Paul Catherall artwork on the front cover. Pick one up in the museum and keep up to date with all that's happening at Chag&Bm (or frame it!).

Open publication - Free publishing - More bedford

Paul Catherall R100 & R101 Artwork

2010-09-09T10:17:00.001+01:00

If you've picked up our What's On leaflet in Bedford over the past few days, you may have been taken by the striking design on the cover.....

To celebrate the forthcoming R100 & R101: Airships at Cardington exhibition the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum have commissioned an exclusive artwork from renowned linocut printmaker and illustrator, Paul Catherall.

Paul Catherall has previously been commissioned by such high-profile names as Transport for London, British Airways and the Southbank Centre.

His strong, clear lines and bold colours have depicted such iconic buildings as the Eiffel Tower, St. Paul’s Cathedral, 30 St. Mary’s Axe (otherwise known as the ‘Gherkin’) by Foster + Partners, and Battersea Power Station. Now the sheds at Cardington join that illustrious list.

The work is entirely hand made throughout the drawing, carving, and editioning stages and the final design is printed with highest quality oil based inks on acid-free paper. The dimensions of the works are 76.4 x 56.4cm

The Art Gallery and Museum originally only asked for one design, but inspired by the iconic forms of the airships and the sheds the artist decided to increase the work he produced to three striking variations at no extra cost. The primary image that will feature on the poster for the exhibition depicts the sheds, R100, and R101 in shades of blue. The other two are in stark black and white with different numbers of airships on each, that evoke the paintings of dazzle ships by Edward Wadsworth, one of Catherall’s favourite artists. We love them all, and are thrilled with the outcome. The exhibition is in the process of being put together as we speak and we hope this is going to be a really popular exhibition.

A very limited run of the prints will be available to buy at £375 each, and the exhibition poster will also be available to buy. We are currently in the process of putting together a range of merchandise with the commissioned artwork.

All images copyright of the artist and Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum, 2010.

2010-09-01T09:45:00.003+01:00

ASK A CURATOR....

Wednesday 1st September
Our curators will be ready and waiting today to answer all your questions about museums and collections, or whatever you want to ask about!

You can ask the Art Gallery & Museum questions via Twitter on @chagandbm or on Facebook, or you can ask them in person at Bedford Gallery from 12-4pm. Head of Collections and Exhibitions, Tom Perrett is tweeting from Berlin so contact him via @tjperrett.Our keepers of Social History, Archaeology and Fine & Decorative Arts are all on hand too.

This event is part of the national 'Ask a curator' day. Visit http://www.askacurator.com/ for more information and follow the #askacurator hashtag to see the international conversation.

Picture of the Week No. 32

2010-08-26T12:10:00.003+01:00

We're all very excited about the imminent launch of our commissioned Paul Catherall artwork which we should be able to show you here next week. Designed for R100& R101: Airships in Cardington, 2nd October-19th December, the finished work will be on the poster and available to buy as a very limited edition linocut and as an exhibiton poster, as well as on a range of merchandise. One of Paul Catherall's artistic heroes is Edward Wadsworth, who is perhaps most famous for his paintings the First World War dazzle ships. Dazzle camouflage was intended not to hide the ship but confuse the outline of the ship un order to disguise its direction and distance in the eyes of a submarine periscope operator. The modern appearance of the ships evoked cubism and it is of little surprise that a Modernist artist such as Wadsworth supervised the camouflaging of many of the ships painted at Liverpool. This week, as I've been away for a few weeks, I'll show you two of the Wadsworths in the collection, and they arequite different pieces. The first is a pencil study of a Marseilles street in a stylised but realist manner. The second, a bold and cubist composition using repeated forms and motifs and a limited pallete of red, pink, black, white, and maroon. KP

EDWARD WADSWORTH, A.R.A. (1889-1949)
Street in Marseilles (also known as Hospice de la Charité, Marseilles), 1924

pencil on paper, 47.9 ´ 22.8 cm
inscribed: Edward Wadsworth 1924
Acession No. P.329

Marseilles and the nearby naval base at Toulon enjoyed a reputation in the early 1920s as a bohemian centre for artists and writers. Wadsworth was amongst the first English artists to go there, with others such as Edward BURRA, and Paul NASH following soon after.

It was during this period that he fell out with Wyndham LEWIS whose novel, The Apes of God, railed against 'champagne bohemia' and criticized many from Wadsworth’s circle of friends.
JM

PROVENANCE: The artist’s widow; Mayor Gallery, from whom purchased by Gallery, January 1960.
EXHIBITIONS: Edward Wadsworth Memorial Exhibition, London, Tate Gallery, 1951 as no. 75,76, or 77 (all three have the same date and virtually identical measurements); Edward Wadsworth, 1889-1949, Bradford, Cartwright Hall, 1989-1990, no.86 as Hospice de la Charité.
REFERENCES: J. Lewison (ed.), A Genius of Industrial England. Edward Wadsworth 1889-1949, 1990, p.47, no.86, repr. as Hospice de la Charité, Marseille.

'Composition, 1930', 1930

pencil and bodycolour on paper, 35.3 ´ 50.9 cm
inscribed: E WADSWORTH 1930
Acession No. P.327

Wadsworth was born at Cleckheaton in 1889, the son of Fred Wadsworth, a well known name in the worsted spinning industry of Yorkshire. He studied at the Knirr Art School, Munich, the Bradford School of Art and the Slade 1910-12. He befriended Wyndham LEWIS and exhibited in London with the Vorticists and various other independent groups.

His war service was as an intelligence officer in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve based at Mudros, on the Aegean isle of Lemnos. He was invalided home in 1917 and later engaged with dazzle camouflage at various English ports.

In the 1930s Wadsworth was a member with Ben NICHOLSON, Paul NASH and others of Unit 1 and was also commissioned to make two paintings for the liner Queen Mary.
EJ

PROVENANCE: Mrs Wadsworth the artist’s widow, from whom purchased by Gallery, January 1960.

Lunchtime Lecture

2010-08-18T15:45:00.005+01:00

I have just given the last in our series of lunchtime talks to accompany the Stanley Lewis exhibition on Augustus John, thank you to everyone who came; I hope you all enjoyed it. For those of you who missed it you can read it here.

The picture on the right is of Augustus's wife Ida Nettleship from the Cecil Higgins collection.

That’s it for art related talks until Toulouse-Lautrec in January but there are lots of fascinating R101 Airship talks coming up which we will keep you posted on.

Picture of the Week No.31

2010-08-18T12:29:00.003+01:00

KP is off on holiday for a couple of weeks so GH and I are going to take it in turns to choose a picture of the week. This week it’s my pick and as I don’t regularly do it I am having trouble choosing. I try not to play favourites with the collection but if you pushed me I would have to say Edward Bawden, Dora Carrington, John Piper or Paul Nash, hence there is usually a work by one of them in our exhibitions. However I am very fickle so in my ten years here I have changed my mind regularly. Last week I was waxing lyrical over a Samuel Palmer, and this week I have been looking at our Augustus’s Johns with renewed interest.

I tend to like a picture because it’s beautiful or how it makes me feel, but some of my favourites are my favourites because I am so familiar with them. Such as Dora Carrington’s ‘Lytton Stratchey’, which a copy of hung on my bedroom wall for about ten years and which is the first picture I visit when ever I go to the National Portrait Gallery, or Howard Hodgkin’s ‘After Degas’ because it reminds me of the Hayward exhibition my mum took me to in the nineties which made me think working in an art gallery would be great.

So my choice this week is Portrait of Mr Murray by Jankel Adler, for two reasons firstly it is a beautiful study, the lines on his eyes draw me in but secondly it reminds me of Kirkcudbright where I spent all my childhood holidays. Adler spent about six months in Kirkcudbright after he was invalided out of the army in 1941, like St Ives, Kirkcudbright was a popular place amongst artists including Jessie M King and E A Hornel who on being asked why Kirkcudbright attracted such talent said "Well, it's a fine old town and not too big, but big enough to keep you from vegetating." Kirkcudbright was certainly more than that, with unspoilt views, the sea only a moment away and the beautiful architecture, the small town was the perfect place for Adler to recuperate.
VP

JANKEL ADLER
(1895-1949)
Portrait of Mr. Murray
1942

ink on paper, 51 ´ 43.8 cm
inscribed: Adler
Portrait drawing of Mr.Murray of Kirkudbright by Jankel Adler 1942
P.374

Adler was born in Poland and studied art in Düsseldorf before being conscripted into the Russian army in the 1914-18 war. He went to Germany after the war where he lectured at the Akademie der Kunst, Düsseldorf, until his work was declared ‘degenerate’ by the Nazis. He moved to France where he worked with S. W. Hayter (1901-1988) at the Atelier 17. When he enlisted in the Polish Free Army during the Second World War, he was sent to Scotland (where he drew this portrait) before settling in London. His images have been described as being ‘expressive of a melancholy acceptance of fate’, of which the sitter here is a striking example.

Kircudbright is in Dumfriesshire but the local library has no trace of Mr Murray.
EJ/CB

Picture of the Week No.30 Sherlock Special

2010-08-11T16:43:00.004+01:00

All of us here at the Art Gallery and Museum have been enjoying the BBC's Sherlock and are very pleased to hear there'll be more episodes. The first series ended on a ciff hanger ending, but one of the most dramatic moments in the original books was Sherlock falling, apparently to his death from the Reichenbach Falls in the Swiss Alps. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wasn't the only person to be so creatively inspired; 90 years earlier JMW Turner had travelled there and produced one of his finest watercolours. In 1954 that epic painting was bought for the Cecil Higgins Collection. It remains one of the stand-out works in the collection and was recently in the Turner exhibiton that toured the US, finishing in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Sherlock Holmes, was brought back to life by Coyle Doyle in The Adventure of the Empty House after his dealy encounter with Moriaty by the great waterfall. How will the 21st version survive his similar situation? KP

JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER, R.A. (1775-1851)
The Great Falls of the Reichenbach, 1804

Entry from the Watercolour Catalogue:

Accesion No.: P.98
watercolour on paper, 102.2 ´ 68.9 cm
inscribed: J M W Turner R A 1804

Turner was born on 23 April 1775, the son of William Turner, a barber in Covent Garden. After the death of his sister, and 'in consequence of illness', he was moved to Brentford, living with his uncle, where he attended Brentford Free School as a day boy. His earliest known work is a copy of an engraving of Friar Bacon’s Study and Folly Bridge, Oxford (Oxford Almanack, 1780), made when he was twelve; it was at this time that he produced many sketches of churches, abbeys and city streets. A friend remembered Turner declaring that 'if he could begin life again, he would rather be an architect than a painter'.

Entering the R.A. Schools in 1789, his training is remembered by Edward Dayes who said 'The way he acquired his professional powers was by borrowing, where he could, a drawing or picture to copy from; or by making a sketch of any one in the Exhibition early in the morning, and finishing it at home. By such practices... the fine taste and colour his drawings possess are scarcely to be found in any other'.

The Great Falls of the Reichenbach was first shown at Turner’s own gallery held on the first floor of what was 64 Harley Street. Turner had conceived the idea of his own gallery due to uncertainty over the future of the Royal Academy in late 1803, with rumours abounding that Turner would not be showing at the the R.A. in 1804. Sir George Beaumont (who saw the Turner exhibition) complained of 'the strong skies and parts not corresponding with them'.

The Great Falls is a superb watercolour, made soon after Turner’s first visit to Switzerland in 1802, and is based on a sketch (Wilton no.361) now in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin. The view is taken from the valley of Hasli above Meiringen with Great Scheidegg beyond and shows Turner tackling a 'Sublime' subject with enormous confidence. Turner’s pride in the work is shown by the fact that it was again exhibited at the R.A. in 1815.
EJ/JM

PROVENANCE Bought from Turner by Walter Fawkes of Farnley Hall; Fawkes sale Christie’s 2 July 1937, no.37, bought in; Mrs F.M.C. Raymond; sale at Christie’s 13 October 1954 no.29; bought by Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd, from whom purchased by Gallery, December 1954.
EXHIBITIONS: Turner’s Gallery, 1804; London, Royal Academy, 1815, no.292; London, Grosvenor Place (Fawkes’ London House), 1819, no.2; Watercolours from Farnley Hall, Leeds, Music Hall, 1839, no.23; Old Masters of the British School, London, Royal Academy, 1886, no.34; Old Masters of the British School, London, Royal Academy, 1906, no.205; Exhibition of British Art, London, Royal Academy, 1934, no.708; 68th Annual Exhibition of Watercolours, London, Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd, 1941, no.36; L’Aquarelle Anglaise, Geneva, Zurich, 1955-56, no.117; The Romantic Movement, London, Tate Gallery, 1959, no.440; Primitives to Picasso, London, Royal Academy, 1962, no.380; Watercolours and Drawings from the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford, London, Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd, 1962, no. 61; Royal Academy Bi-centenary Exhibition, London, 1968 –9, no.203; La Peinture Romantique Anglaise et les Préraphaélites, Paris, Petit Palais, 1972, no.284; Turner, Paris, Le Grand Palais, 1984, no.100, William Wordsworth and the Age of Romanticism, Chicago, The Chicago Historical Society, 1988, no.292; The Great Age of British Watercolours 1750-1880, London, Royal Academy of Art and Washington, National Gallery of Art, 1993, no.284; Le Cattredali della Terra, Milan, Museo della Permanente, 2000, no.3; Turner The Great Watercolours, London, Royal Academy, 2000-1, no.18.
REFERENCES: Farnley Hall catalogue, 1850; F. Wedmore, Turner and Ruskin, 1900, vol.I, repr. facing p.100; C.F. Bell, The Exhibited Works of J.M.W. Turner, R.A., 1901, pp.51,170; Sir W. Armstrong, Turner, 1902, pp.130 & 272; A.J. Finberg, Turner’s Sketches and Drawings, 1910, p.39; ibid. Turner’s Watercolours at Farnley Hall, 1912, pp.1-2,21-2 pl.IX; A.J. Finberg, The Life of J.M.W. Turner R.A., 1939, pp.107, 219, 258, 466,477,479,503; A.P. Oppé, The Burlington Magazine, vol.78, April 1941, p.131; I. Williams, Early English Watercolours, 1952, pp.111,114; J. Gage, Turner: A Wonderful Range of Mind, 1987, p.42, fig.63; B. Dawson, Turner in the National Gallery of Ireland, 1988, pp.64-66; E. Shanes, Turner: The Masterworks, 1990, p.56, pl.57; D. Hill, Turner in the Alps, 1992, pp.119-125, repr. p.120. E. Shanes et al, Turner The Great Watercolours, 2000, p.86.

Final flight of the R101

2010-08-05T09:23:00.004+01:00

At the moment we're busy collating images and information on the airships R101 and R100, the development of the Imperial Airship programme, and the two vast sheds at Cardington, Bedfordshire, for the forthcoming exhibition on this fascinating subject. The exhibition is on from 2 October until 19 Decemeber 2010 in Bedford Gallery. I just came across this video which has been put together by Trevor Monk, on the final flight of R101 and thought it would be great to share it, especially for those unfamiliar with the tragic story of the largest airship ever built.

For lots more in-depth information on R101 and airships go to http://www.airshipsonline.com website of the Airship Heritage Trust. You can find them too on facebook at the R101 airship group http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/gr... and finally there is a 'We Love the Cardington Sheds' group on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/gr...

Collection Focus

2010-08-03T11:43:00.011+01:00

Dora Carrington (1893-1932)

In the past few years the gallery has been able to acquire a number of fine works by the artist Dora Carrington. Carrington grew up in Bedford, attending Bedford High School, before going to the Slade and becoming part of one of the most interesting art scenes in this country in the 20th century. The Cecil Higgins Collection, therefore, is an ideal place for her work to be, alongside many of her contempories.

This week we have unveiled our latest acquisiton, Carrington's 1911 study of Bedford Market, and it seemed the ideal moment to reflect on the collection that has grown since 2004. KP

Biography

Dora Carrington (1893-1932) was one of a group of young artists that included Paul Nash, Stanley Spencer, Mark Gertler and CRW Nevinson, who attended the Slade at the beginning of the 20th century. Referred to by their tutor as the Slade’s ‘last crisis of brilliance’, they emerged at a time of great change in the British art world, caused in part by Roger Fry’s Post Impressionism exhibition in 1910. Although Carrington admired the work of Cezanne and Matisse, unlike the majority of her contemporaries, she represented figures and landscapes as she saw them, refusing to respond to changing artistic movements. This decision led John Rothenstein to describe her as ‘the most neglected serious painter of her time’.

Carrington’s work is inherently autobiographical; she painted places where she lived and people she loved. The subject of her most famous portrait is the author Lytton Strachey, with whom she lived from 1917 until his death in 1932, followed two months later by her own suicide. Much is known about Carrington’s life as she was a prolific letter writer, corresponding with the artistic and literary greats of the time, including Gerald Brenan, Mark Gertler, Paul Nash, Rosamund Lehmann and fellow Bloomsbury group member Virginia Woolf. Carrington is also depicted in fiction; she is Mary Bracegirdle in Aldous Huxley’s ‘Crome Yellow’ and Minette Darrington in D H Lawrence’s ‘Women in Love’. VP

Bedford Market, 1911.

Pencil, ink, and watercolour on paper 43.1 x 67.5cm

Accession No.: P.1005

Bedford Market is a rare depiction of Carrington’s early life in Bedford. Although she made many drawings of her father and brothers, there is no known other work which takes as its subject the town of Bedford. The Carrington family moved to Bedford in 1903 when Dora was ten. At that time, a large part of the town’s population was made up of the families of retired soldiers or colonial administrators. Like many of these families, the Carrington’s chose Bedford because of the town’s good but inexpensive schools, in which Dora and her four siblings were educated, Dora attending Bedford High School for Girls until she entered the Slade School of Art in 1910.

Carrington drew Bedford Market on a rare trip home from the Slade a year after entering the school. She found the contrast between the freedoms of London and the Edwardian society of the small market town of Bedford unbearable. Her brother Noel wrote that, though Bedford was only fifty miles from London by train, it ‘might have been almost a thousand for all the cultural influence then exercised on it by the metropolis’.

In her first year at the Slade, the teaching emphasis would have been on draughtsmanship and Carrington produced two distinct styles of drawings; an academic one in which form and modelling were predominant, as seen in her life drawings, and the more linear style seen in Bedford Market and other works such as Cockney Picnic (c.1911). Both of these styles show her scrupulous attention for detail and eye for arrangement.

The view point of Bedford Market is from Bedford High Street looking onto St Paul’s Square, where the market is still held today. The names of Bedford traders on the market stalls and shops can be clearly seen, as can the gravestones from the Church in the far left corner. VP

PROVENANCE: Anthony d'Offay; Private Collection; Bonhams, from whom purchased by Gallery in 2010

EXHIBITIONS: London, Upper Grosvenor Galleries, Carrington, A Retrospective Exhibition, 6 November - 28 November 1970, London; Anthony d'Offay, Carrington and her Friends, 25 June - 26 July, 1980; London, The Barbican Art Galley, Carrington - The Exhibition, 21 September - 10 December 1995.

REFERENCES: Noel Carrington, Carrington, Paintings, Drawings and Decorations, Thames and Hudson, 1980, p.16 (ill. b&w); Gretchen Gerzina, Carrington, A Life of Dora Carrington 1893-1932, Pimlico, 1995, p19; Jane Hill, The Art of Dora Carrington, The Herbert Press, London, 1994 p.14 (ill. b&w)

Purchased with the assistance of The National Art Collections Fund and the V&A Purchase Grant Fund

Spanish Boy, c.1924.
Oil on canvas, 63.5 x 50.8cm.

Accession No.: P.993

Spanish Boy was probably painted in Yegen, Spain at the home of Gerald Brenan, with whom Carrington was having an affair. Brenan regularly held musical evenings and it was at one such night that Carrington wrote of witnessing a beautiful young man singing: ‘Then a young man with a face so beautiful that it is imprinted on my memory so that I could draw every feature…His hat was tilted back from his face and showed his rather bulging forehead with a shining highlight on it. He had a most amazing mouth a short upper lip with a slight curl... Suddenly the profile altered, the eyes glittered wildly the mouth opened, the forehead puckered. A strange wailing song came out and his whole body shook and the face became contorted with sadness and passion. It was a most moving song.’ VP

PROVENANCE: Purchased from the artists family Purchased with the assistance of The National Art Collections Fund and the V&A Purchase Grant Fund.

Mrs Box, 1919.

Oil on canvas, 91.4 x 76.2cm.

Accession No.: P.936

Carrington first met Mrs Box whilst on holiday with Lytton in Cornwall in September 1917, painting her as a traditional farmer’s wife in an old-fashioned bonnet. VP

PROVENANCE: Purchased from the artists family.

Purchased with the assistance of The Art Fund and the V&A Purchase Grant Fund

Teddy Carrington, c.1915.

Pencil on brown paper 44.6 x 30.3cm

Accession No.: P.1003

Carrington idolised her brother Edward, known as Teddy and his death at the Somme in 1916 greatly affected her. In 1923 she described him in a letter to Gerald Brenan as having ‘had very dark olive skin, almost black eyes and pitch black hair - as a little girl I always thought there was a mysterious secret attached to him and that he wasn’t really my Father’s son because we were all fair’. VP

PROVENANCE: Purchased from the artists family

Noel Carrington, c.1912.

Pencil on paper 31.5 x 39.9cm

Accession No.: P.1002

This work, produced when she was at the Slade, is an excellent example of the academic style of drawing that she had developed there. The sitter is her brother Noel whom she often persuaded to sit for her on visits home to Bedford. VP

Fragment of a letter to Margaret Burr, about 1910

Accesion No.: AM15

This fragment is all that remains of a letter to a friend of Carrington's named Margaret Burr, referred to here as Marmie, who had attended Bedford High School at the same time as Carrington. The illustration of a bee in the top left corner makes reference to Margaret’s nickname.

Carrington was an avid letter writer throughout her life, but very few letters survive from her time at the Slade. This letter was written whilst she was staying at Byng Place, London a respectable hostel for students and makes reference to a visit from her sister Lottie visiting her for tea. VP

Picture of the week No.29

2010-08-02T11:17:00.006+01:00

John Singer Sargent is famed for his glamourous society portraits, such as Madame 'X' at the Metroploitan Museum of Art, New York. The Royal Academy is currently showing another side to the artist withthe Sargent and the Sea exhibition and it is Sargent's later interest away from the figure that we look at for this week's Picture of the Week. 'A Venetian Canal' is a close up and more intimate scene than the 'vedutas' he claimed not be able to paint, a squoted in the catalogue entry below. Veduta is the Italian word for view and refers here to highly detailed landscape paintings or 'vedutas' that became popular in the 17th and 18th centuries. KP

JOHN SINGER SARGENT (1856-1925)
A Venetian Canal (date unknown)

Watercolour Catalogue Entry:
Accession number: P.412
watercolour and pencil on paper, 24.3 ´ 34.5 cm

It is not easy to date Sargent’s Venetian watercolours which, as here, are very freely painted with a loaded brush. It seems that he began painting them on his second visit to the city in 1880 and on many subsequent visits, which became part of his annual break from portrait painting from the late 1890s onwards. He described his choice of subjects there as 'I can paint objects, I can’t paint vedutas'.

Sargent was born in Florence of American parents; studying in Paris under Carolus-Duran (1837-1917), he remained in France until 1884 before coming to England where he became the most fashionable portrait painter since Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830).

Superficiality was always his enemy but occurred less in his landscapes to which he turned almost exclusively after 1910. Pissarro summed him up as 'an adroit performer'.
EJ

PROVENANCE: Mrs F. Ormond; by descent to her daughter Mrs Hugo Pitman (the artist’s niece); Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd, from whom purchased by Gallery, January 1962.
EXHIBITIONS: Watercolours and Drawings from The Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford, London, Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd, 1962, no.82.

What's on the blog?

2010-07-27T09:31:00.002+01:00

What's on the blog? Have a look at this 'wordle' and it'll give you a pretty good idea of the sort of things we talk about from week to week. Clicking on the image below will take you through to a much larger version.

Picture of the Week No.28

2010-07-26T09:59:00.005+01:00

Henri Gaudier-Brzeska was one of the most talented artist's working in London before the first world war and was part of the Vorticist circle that included Jacob Epstein, Percy Wyndham Lewis and Ezra Pound an was a founding member of the London Group of artists. Born in France, he eventually left for England in 1911 to with Sophie Brzeska, a Polish woman twenty years his senior whom he had met in a library and whose name he adopted, in order to become an artist. He never took any formal training but his work was of the highest quality.

Gaudier-Brzeska's sculpture was rough-hewn and distinct, originally taking inspiration from Rodin then from African carvings and other ethnic sculpture. His draughtsmanship was marked by his exquisite use of line and was informed by Chinese calligraphy that he had been exposed to by Ezra Pound. This week's picture is a good example of how much control over line he had, with a fine portrait of Mrs. Alfred Womack.

He joined the French Army and was killed in the trenches in June 1915. His achievement has been overshadowed by his colourful life, as featured in Ken Russell’s film Savage Messiah.KP

HENRI GAUDIER-BRZESKA (1891-1915)
Mrs. Alfred Wolmark, 1912

Entry from the Watercolour Catalogue:
pencil on paper, 34.5 ´ 24.4 cm
inscribed: Mrs Wolmark, Brzeska drawing 1912

Accession Number: P.178

The sitter was the wife of Alfred Wolmark (1877-1961), a painter, designer of pottery and stained glass who was a friend of the artist. He encouraged the young artist and often sat for him. Gaudier-Brzeska returned the complement.

This simplified, linear drawing is typical of Gaudier-Brzeska’s style. It dates from the same year as a painting of Mrs Wolmark exhibited at the Leicester Galleries in 1958.
EJ/CB

PROVENANCE: Wolmark Collection; Lord’s Art Gallery, from whom purchased by Gallery, December 1957.
EXHIBITIONS: Portrait Paintings and Drawings, Rye, Rye Art Gallery, 1967; The English Tradition: an exhibition of watercolours from two private collections, Bedford, Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, 1972, no.39.
REFERENCES: R. Cole, Gaudier-Brzeska: Artist and Myth, 1995, p.65.

Picture of the Week No.27

2010-07-22T14:35:00.004+01:00

Picture of the week has had a few weeks off recently while several of the small team here at the Art Gallery & Museum have a well deserved week or two off, but now it's back and we're looking this week at an artist represented in the collection by 3 prints, a watercolour and 4 drawings: Walter Richard Sickert. Sickert is a big favourite of mine since I was first introduced to his work by my late art history lecturer John Rimmer, who sadly passed away a couple weeks ago.

The picture that first really grabbed me was the Tate's Minnie Cunningham at the Old Bedford with its glowing red and scumbled browns, and the music hall was a prominent theme for Sickert during the late 19th century. This week's picture is set in the same venue in Camden Town but features a diffenent act. Little Dot Hetherington at the Bedford Music Hall, c.1894 is a lithograph after a painting of the same name. The performer in her white dress, illuminated by the stage lights. points up to the gallery in reference to the title of the song she is singing -‘The Boy I Love Is Up In The Gallery, later made famous by another music hall artiste, Marie Lloyd.The seats at the bottom of the compostion and the heads of the audience place the viewer very much within the audience and makes the subject not just the performer on stage but also the whole event and experience of seeing these performances and of course the setting itself. There is also a version painted on a fan in the Fan Museum that can be viewed here. KP

Walter Richard SICKERT (1860-1942)
Little Dot Hetherington at the Bedford Music Hall, c.1894

Entry from the Print Catalogue:
Accession Number: P.559
lithograph, 28 × 26.2 cm (image)
inscribed: Sickert inv et lith in plate
To Max WS in ink
PROVENANCE: Max Beerbohm – see inscription; Christopher Mendez & Co, from whom purchased by Gallery, May 1967.
REFERENCES: R. Bromberg, Walter Sickert Prints, 2000, no.118, pp.100-1.
NOTES: Not editioned and few impressions printed.

The work shows Dot Hetherington singing ‘The Boy I Love Is Up In The Gallery at the Bedford Palace of Varieties, High Street, Camden Town, named after the Duke of Bedford, on whose estate the hall was built. The Bedford Music Hall was first opened in 1861 and re-built in 1899 following a fire. It was closed in 1959 and demolished in 1969. The lithograph was based on the oil painting of this subject in the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven (B.179.12.819). Sickert drew the design onto the lithographic stone and scratched out the highlights using a needle. This can be seen to best effect on the lower horizontal bar.

The artist gave this work to Sir Max Beerbohm (1872-1956), writer and caricaturist.
CB

2010-07-05T11:07:00.002+01:00

We've just discovered some fantastic pictures of Edward Bawden's house and studio taken shortly after he died in 1989. Follow this link: http://real-photographs.co.uk/?p=550

Edward Bawden donated over 3000 items to the Art Gallery & Museum and as part of our redevelopment plans we will have a dedicated Edward Bawden Gallery.

New Acquisition - Edward Bawden Manuscript

2010-06-29T11:37:00.010+01:00

Peyton Skipworth introduces the new acquistion to local Art Fund members and the Friends of the Art Gallery & Museum.

We've just made an exciting new addition to our Edward Bawden collection. We are pleased to announce the purchase of A General Guide to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Spring and Easter 1923, with the assistance of the Art Fund and the MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Fund. Bawden designed this beautiful illuminated manuscript as a young man and gave it to his close friend, the artist Eric Ravilious. It remained unpublished and was was designed as a mock-up guide book to Kew Gardens, a favourite haunt of the artist throughout his career. A pencil inscription indicates that this manuscript was the artist’s first book.

The book was purchased for £30,000 towards which the Art Fund and the MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Fund each gave £10,000..

Stephen Deuchar, Director of the Art Fund, said: "The vibrant, stylish illustrations and lettering in this work capture the sleek style of 1920s graphic design and exemplify Bawden’s flair for colour and composition. It is wonderful that this rare manuscript – the artist’s first book – has now been acquired for the Cecil Higgins Gallery and Bedford Museum, where it will be cherished within the wider Bawden collection for years to come."

The manuscript is on display in the Lower Gallery in Bedford Gallery from today, alongside a copy of Adam and Evelyn at Kew, or Revolt in the Gardens (1930)by Robert Herring, which Bawden illustrated in 1930 with designs based his earlier unpublished work.

Listen to Tom Perrett, curator of the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery and Bedford Museum, talking about this unique acquisition with the Art Fund’s Marina Bradbury.

To read more about the Art Fund click here.

Browse the manuscript below.

A General Guide to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Spring and Easter 1923 comprises 23 pages worked with watercolour, graphite, bodycolour, drawing ink, graphite and printed text collaged together on edge-gilt pages.

Consultation Evening

2010-06-22T09:18:00.003+01:00

We are having a consultation evening to give you the opportunity to discuss the new plans for the Art Gallery and Museum. Pop in to Bedford Gallery's Lower Gallery between 4pm and 7pm on Thursday 24th June to talk to our staff about any questions you may have on the redevelopment. You can also enjoy our exhibiton 'The Unknown Artist: Stanley Lewis and his Contemporaries' during your visit.

You can view the plans here.

Picture of the Week No.26

2010-06-21T09:30:00.004+01:00

This week I have selected a work by Richard Westall, the artist and illustrator best known for his portraits of the poet Byron. The picture shows three figures against a dramatic and foreboding sky, and though exact subject of this work has been questioned, the piece is the epitome of the late 18th century eclectic taste known as the Picturesque, of which the fanciful style Gothick is a part. Gothick, as opposed to the the more historically accurate Gothic or Gothic Revival, described a style that playfully took inspiration from medieval art and design and in architecture is most clearly defined in Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill, which used papier maché to create artificial fan vaulting. It was part of a mood that saw a great revival in interest in Shakespeare and Milton's works and many artists created pictures based on their writings.

RICHARD WESTALL, R.A. (1765-1836)
Macbeth and the Witches c.1797

pen and ink, with washes of grey and yellow, over black lead on paper, 21.6 ´ 15.6 cm
inscribed: Collector's mark of the Second Earl of Warwick (1746-1816)

P.236

The subject was a popular one with 18th-century artists, most notably Henri FUSELI. Westall was a prolific illustrator of Milton, Gray, Crabbe and Shakespeare. He also wrote some poems and instructed the future Queen Victoria in drawing.

Iolo Williams observes that much of Westall's work contains an element of the ludicrous, citing 'a rather over‑dramatised’ sleep-walking scene from Macbeth in the V&A (Dyce 912), of similar size to this drawing. His most successful watercolours are those which include a landscape element.
EJ/JM

PROVENANCE: The Second Earl of Warwick; Roland, Browse and Delbanco, from whom purchased by Gallery, 1958.

Stanley Lewis Video Clip

2010-06-14T13:08:00.007+01:00

A short film about the artist Stanley Lewis by Oldham College media students. Includes an interview with the artist's Daughter Jenny Heywood-Lewis.

Stanley Lewis - The Orchard House Years

Oldham College Media | MySpace Video

Picture of the Week No.25

2010-06-14T10:08:00.012+01:00

Now the Stanley Lewis exhibition is all up and running I'm starting to think about my free lunchtime lecture at Bedford Gallery on July 7th. 'An Extraordinary Outbreak of Talent - The Royal College of Art in the 1920s' will look at the talented individuals at the college alongside Lewis and the atmosphere in the English art scene that the RCA was part of, including, of course the dominance of the 'Slade ethos' and emphasis on drawing skills. The title of the lecture comes from Paul Nash's description of Edward Bawden and Eric Ravillious who, like Lewis, came to the RCA on provincial scholarships in the 1920s. Which gives me the perfect excuse to bring out Observers Post for this weeks picture of the week. The thing that really marks out Rav's beautiful watercolours is his effortless build up of colour and tone with thinly applied dryish brush strokes. The marks are clear and visible, objects and scenes are rendered in a crispness that fills the scene with light and air and well observed details.

For more details on the programme of free lectures which start on 23rd June with Head of Collections, Tom Perret's introduction to the exhibiton click here. KP

ERIC RAVILIOUS (1903-1942)

Observer’s Post c.1939-40

Accession number: P.223

watercolour and graphite on paper, 43.4 ´ 58.4 cm
inscribed: Eric Ravilious

Ravilious studied at the Design School of the R.C.A 1922-5, meeting Edward
BAWDEN; whilst there he came under the influence of Paul NASH. He was a watercolourist
mainly of topographical subjects, many of which lack figures, giving them a
haunted look. He also worked as an engraver and designer, from 1937 designing china for Wedgwood.
He and Bawden painted murals for the Refreshment Room, Morley College, London,
1928 (destroyed in an air-raid, 1940). Bawden credited Ravilious for his 'skill
in organising space and in creating in it figures to be sent dancing and
swinging in ballet movement across the walls'.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, he joined the Royal Observer Corps, but in February 1940 he became an Official War Artist attached to the Royal Marines.

Ravillious died on active service in September 1942 when he tragically disappeared on a mission over Iceland. EJ

PROVENANCE: Leicester Galleries; Miss Raymond; Redfern Gallery, from whom purchaed by Gallery, April 1958.

EXHIBITIONS: Contemporary British Artists, London, Leicester Galleries, 1941, no.3; Eric Ravilious, Sheffield, Graves Art Gallery, 1958, no.79.

The Independent features Stanley Lewis

2010-06-10T12:56:00.005+01:00

The Independent art section (or TheIndyArts to twitterers!) have featured Stanley Lewis and the exhibition which opens on Saturday in today's paper and now online at http://ind.pn/bp7m0T.

Take a look, they've put a fab sneak preview of the show on their In Pictures image player too. KP

Stanley Lewis Exhibition Pack

2010-06-10T11:18:00.004+01:00

We have put together an exhibition pack for visitors, students or teachers to download including all of the panel texts and label information, so feel free to browse through it now or come back after your visit.

Click here to download.

Twitter Peeps

2010-06-08T15:55:00.010+01:00

You can now find the curatorial team individually on Twitter alongside the usual feed from @chagbm

Tom Perrett, Head of Collections and Exhibitions is on @tjperrett
Victoria Partridge, Keeper of Fine and Decorative Arts is on @PartridgeO
Gemma Hutton, Sales and Marketing Officer is on @gemmahutton
Kristian Purcell, Curatorial Assistant is on @kristianpurcell

We all try and give a personal glimpse into the behind-the-scenes working of an art gallery and museum and we have an exciting time ahead with our redevelopment plans, as well as reflecting our different interests and roles.

Stanley Lewis in The Telegraph

2010-06-08T13:56:00.005+01:00

Interest in the story of Stanley Lewis, who's first major exhibition opens on Saturday (12 June) less than a year after his death at 103 years of age, has reached the national press, with The Telegraph featuring an article on the Welsh artist in today's art section. We're hoping this will start the ball rolling and have high hopes for this fascinating show, with Lewis's large mural works looking stunning in a modern gallery space for the first time.

To read the article click on the image, left, or on the long link below.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/artsales/7809355/Stanley-Lewis-the-artist-who-found-fame-at-101.html

Picture of the Week No.24

2010-06-07T15:52:00.007+01:00

Regular followeres of Picture of the week may have noticed a penchant for black and white in my selections, and with so many elegant wood cuts and atmospheric lithographs in the collection its easy to see why my eye is often led in this direction. The crisp pen lines of Walter Crane (1845-1915) have caught me this time in an intricate illustration for Edmund Spenser's (1552-99) Faerie Queen. The catalogue entry from our publication of Watercolours & Drawings follows below. I promise I'll let you have a bit of colour next week! KP

WALTER CRANE, R.W.S. (1845-1915)

Illustration to Spenser’s Faerie Queene c.1897

Pen and ink on paper, 24.3 ´ 19.5 cm
inscribed: with monogram

At last when they were passed out of sight
Yet she did not her spightfull speach for
beare
But after them did barke, & still backbite,
Though there were none her hateful words
iv.viii.xxxvj. to heare
P.165

Published in 1897, by George Allen, Walter Crane produced a series of black and white drawings to accompany the six volumes.

Edmund Spenser (?1552-1599) began his masterpiece, The Faerie Queene, in 1579; the first three books were published in 1590 and Books IV-VI in 1596. This drawing illustrates the lines from Book IV given above. Prince Arthur, the hero of the poem, is seeking the Faerie Queene with whom he has fallen in love in a vision. He comes upon Aemilia (lover of the Squire of Low Degree) and Amoret (loved by Scudamour); they are in a wretched state so he puts them up on his horse and takes them to a cottage nearby. This is owned by an old hag, Slander, who insults them and when they depart in the morning, pursues them with vile words - as she is seen doing here.

Crane was an engraver, designer, painter and, above all, an illustrator. His pre-eminence in this field, together with Randolph CALDECOTT and Kate Greenaway (1846-1901), owed much to the enterprise and artistic skill of Edmund Evans, who published much of their best work.

Many of Crane’s watercolour designs for book illustrations and several of his landscape studies are now in the V&A. EJ

PROVENANCE: Elkin Matthews Ltd; P&D Colnaghi, from whom purchased by Gallery, January 1958.
EXHIBITIONS: Knights, Chivalry, Romance, Legend, Newcastle upon Tyne, Laing Art Gallery 1995, no cat.
REFERENCES: E. Spenser with illustrations by W. Crane, The Faerie Queene, 1897, volume IV.

Picture of the week No.23

2010-05-26T09:21:00.006+01:00

We are now in the middle of installing the new exhibition The Unknown Artist - Stanley Lewis & his Contemporaries. You'll be able to see the finished results on Saturday 12th June and as well as all the previously unseen works by Lewis, it contains a selection of works from our own collection of his tutors and contemporaries such as Augustus John, Stanley Spencer and the head of the Royal College of Art when Lewis studied there, and the subject for this week's picture - William Rothenstein. As a young man Rothenstein trained at the Slade School of Art and then under Alphonse Legros in Paris, where he associated with Toulouse-Lautrec and Camille Pissarro. His paintings are notable for their romanticism and dramatic tension, none more so than The Doll's House, which featured his wife Alice and Augustus John in an enigmatic composition that echoes the tension and stillness of Henrik Ibsen's play, after which the painting was named. Throughout Rothenstein's career he was known for his portraits and completed English Portraits, a book of drawings and biographical sketches in 1898. The crisp study below was executed towards the end of a life and career devoted to the highest principles of drawing and his teaching at the RCA epitomised those principles. KP

Sir WILLIAM ROTHENSTEIN (1872-1945)
The Right Rev. Dom. Wilfrid Upson, O.S.B., Abbott of Prinknash, Glos, 1940
red chalk on paper, 54.3 ´ 38.9 cm
on reverse: portrait sketch of a man’s head in red chalk.
Accession no.: P.187

Drawn in 1940; the sitter was Abbott of Prinknash (pronounced ‘Prinnish’) Abbey in Gloucestershire and head of the Benedictines of Great Britain.

Rothenstein studied at the Slade School and in Paris where he made friends with Whistler and Edgar Degas (1834-1917). Back in England he became known for his portrait drawings chiefly of the famous. Head of the R.C.A., 1920-35 and a trustee of the Tate Gallery 1927-33. He was knighted in 1931 and a memorial exhibition was held at the Tate in 1950.

His correspondence and memoirs are a rich source of information on his times.
EJ

PROVENANCE: Sir John Rothenstein, from whom purchased by Gallery, April 1958.
EXHIBITIONS: Watercolours and Drawings from The Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford, London, Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd, 1962, no.81; Portrait Painting and Drawings, Rye, Rye Art Gallery, 1967, no cat.

Clocking In - What was your first job?

2010-05-24T16:56:00.005+01:00

We loved all of the anecdotes and memories about early years of work shared at the Clocking In exhibition. We have uploaded a few of our favourites. Thank you everyone for participating! If these tales of triumph and disapointment in the work place inspire you to share some memories, please do post comments.

Picture of the Week No. 22

2010-05-17T12:00:00.004+01:00

The Munich born artist Franz Marc was a founder member of the important German Expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter. His use of bold coloursand the way he intertwines futurist inspired motifs with a love for animals and the natural world mark out his unique vision. He was due to be recalled from his conscripted service in the First World War as part of a list of 'notable artists' in service, but was killed by shrapnel from a shell before he could recieve the order. This striking woodcut, a medium so typical of the German Expresionists, has all the key components of Marc's work with the intense contrast of the black ink on thin Japan paper displaying his strong sense of form without the distractions of his obvious abilities as a colourist. KP

Franz MARC (1880-1916)
Tierlegende (Animal Legend), 1912

woodcut on thin Japan paper with wirelines, 19.8 × 24.1cm
inscribed: F, Marc and 10
Accession No.: P.777

PROVENANCE: Originally from the Heinrich Neuerburg (1880-1956) Collection and later Dr Walter Neuerburg (1912-86). Heinrich started collecting prints after 1945 on the advice of Hermann Schnitzler of the Schnütgen Museum; acquired for the Gallery by Garton and Co. from Christie’s, Lot 420, 2 December 1992.
REFERENCES: K. Lankheit, Franz Marc, Katalog der Werke, cat.no 831 III, 1978.
NOTES: From the first small edition hand-printed by Marc himself. There are later, unsigned editions that were published in 1912 and 1919.

CATALOGUE ENTRY: This is a rare contemporary impression, signed by Marc himself; his wife usually signed them. Marc was killed in action at Verdun in 1916 at the age of thirty-six. His output was relatively small, producing only forty-six prints, but the most important were the twenty-two he produced in 1912-14. Marc described how the technique of the woodcut helped to clarify his style during this period. Tierlegende is the largest and finest of these and is typical of the type of subjects chosen by Marc. The print was published in Der Sturm in September 1912 and later, posthumously, in Genius in 1919.

Marc initially studied philosophy and theology at Munich University, but following a bout of depression in 1907 he went on to explore pantheism. This, coupled with daily visits to Berlin Zoo, confirmed his interest in both the anatomy and spirituality of animals. Prior to joining Kandinsky and the spiritually-inspired group, der Blaue Reiter in Munich in 1910, Marc had spent a period in Paris where he came into close contact with the Cubists. CB

Picture of the Week No.21

2010-05-10T16:45:00.004+01:00

Preparational studies always have a particular appeal to me; they often show a greater freedom than the final works, and the overlaying of different ideas on a sheet as a design evolves creates echoes and motifs that create interest across the sheet. The work also stops when the essence has been found - or a new direction needed. I have selected two sheets of studies by Alfred Stevens for this weeks feature, and the red chalk drawing and pen studies complement each other well, showing different stages of the compositional process. KP

ALFRED STEVENS (1817-1875)
Studies for the decoration of Dorchester House, London, c.1855-6 (red chalk, squared in pencil on paper) P.321 & Compositional Studies, date unknown pen and ink on paper P.332

Born in Dorset, Stevens lived in Italy 1833-42, where he studied under Bertel Thorwaldsen (1770-1844) in Rome and made many red chalk drawings in the manner of Raphael, whose influence is clearly apparent in this study. His rare watercolours have an imaginative quality, which shows him to have much in common with the Pre-Raphaelite movement.

Chiefly known for his sculpture, his two greatest achievements were the Wellington monument in St Paul’s Cathedral and the decorative ensemble (P.321), c.1856, for the dining room at Dorchester House, London, the fireplace of which is now in the V&A.

It is not known whether these (P.332) vigorous sketches were ever developed by Stevens – or indeed precisely what they represent. Perhaps the two figures in the top study were the first idea for a sculpture or picture of Tarquin and Lucretia. If so, the right-hand lower figure is probably related and a study for Lucretia about to stab herself.
EJ

Johnny Hannah Artwork

2010-05-06T09:53:00.004+01:00

After the successful collaborations with St. Judes Gallery and Mark Hearld during the Edward Bawden exhibition we have asked Johnny Hannah to produce this fantastic design for our Clocking In exhibition. The poster is available to buy as an original signed screenprint from the gallery at £20.

New Events Page

2010-05-05T14:34:00.007+01:00

I have just created a new static page for events that you can find on the navigation bar at top or here. I'll keep it updated with everything thats going on and try and add when things are fully booked too. The long list of childrens activities will be on there shortly but in the meantime you can find them in the latest leaflet viewable below if you scroll down a few entries or click here.

Airship Heritage Trust

2010-05-04T16:44:00.003+01:00

For those fascinated by the R101 and R100 airships or the sheds at Cardington, the forthcoming exhibition at Bedford Gallery is something to really look forward to. We have been working closely with the Airship Heritage Trust to put this exhibiton together as well as to develope ideas for permanent displays in the refurbished museum & gallery. Read more about how the trust have been working with us here : http://www.airshipsonline.com/Museum/index.html

Picture of the Week No. 20

2010-05-04T11:30:00.007+01:00

Before I start on this week's picture, I've updated the exhibitions page with all the latest on shows in the new Bedford Gallery exhibition space and community gallery in the Museum, where there's a brand new display this week on the Star Rowing Club and work produced by young people and family groups who have been inspired by our collections and projects. All the details can be found if you follow the link above.

All bank holiday weekend I had the sensation that I should be walking along a craggy and windswept beach, instead I had to make do with the very landlocked but still lovely walks of central Bedfordshire. What I really had in mind was the sort of coastline depicted in Roderic O'Conor's 'Brittanny Coast' c.1893, a wonderfully evocative drawing in ink and wash, with a touch of chalk. Its spontaneity and cragginess fills the nostrils with cold and salty sea air. As usual, I have included the entry from the published catalogue of Watercolours & Drawings in the collection. Further information on all the published catalogues can be found here. KP

RODERIC O’CONOR(1860-1940)
Brittany Coast, c.1893

ink and wash and some chalk on paper, 30.8 × 47.5 cm
stamped: atelier O’CONOR
Accession No.: P.218

O’Conor was born at Milton in County Roscommon, Ireland, the second eldest in a family of six. The O’Conor family was of some note in this area of Ireland with a lineage that could be traced back several hundred years.

After initial study at the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin, he transferred to the Hibernian Academy of Art in 1881-82 (collecting four prizes for his work). Owing to the success of his studies his tutors recommended that he go to Europe to further his studies, initially at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts d'Anvers in Antwerp and then in Paris, under the portrait painter Carolus-Duran, (1837-1917).

O’Conor was certainly in Pont-Aven from 1892, although he was probably there earlier as his paintings exhibited at the Salon des Indépendents of that year had Breton titles. Initially painting elderly Breton peasants, O'Conor had by 1893 developed an interest in the Breton landscape as a subject, painting in a style noticeably influenced by Van Gogh. The end of 1893 was significant for O’Conor as, with the death of his father he inherited the family estate and achieved financial security through ground rents from his tenant farmers.

Returning to Paris, O’Conor lived in Montparnasse. The young Clive Bell described him and his circle as having 'played as influential a part in my life as any of my Cambridge contemporaries'. The meeting place for artists was the Chat Blanc restaurant, amongst whose occasional visitors were Aleister Crowley and Somerset Maugham, whom Crowley described as having 'suffered terribly under the lash of universal contempt…The man he most hated was Roderic O’Conor'. JM

PROVENANCE: Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Sale O’Conor, 7 February 1956; Roland, Browse and Delbanco, from whom purchased by Gallery, April 1958.
EXHIBITIONS: Roderic O’Conor, Pont-Aven, Musée de Pont-Aven, 1984, no.66; Roderic O’Connor, Belfast, Ulster Museum, Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland, Manchester, Whitworth Art Gallery, 1985-86, no.125.
REFERENCES: J. Benington, Roderic O’Conor: A Biography with a catalogue of his work, 1992, p.229, illus. no.337; A. Crookshank & the Knight of Glin, The Watercolours of Ireland, 1994, p.263, illus. no.371 as Côtes Bretagne.

What's On this summer at the Art Gallery & Museum

2010-04-29T11:06:00.006+01:00

Open publication - Free publishing - More summer

Our new what's on leaflet is out now.

Picture of the Week No.19

2010-04-27T09:43:00.006+01:00

For this week's picture I have turned to one of the key exponents of cubism - after the big two of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque: the artist known as Juan Gris, José Victoriano González-Pérez (23 March 1887–11 May 1927). He was born in Spain but moved to Paris in 1906 at a crucial moment in the development of Modern art. He became friends with Picasso and painted him in 1912, Fernand Léger, Amedeo Modigliani (who painted Gris in 1915) and Henri Matisse. His cubist works were individual and significant, and with a palette that owed more to Matisse than the monochrome of Braque and Picasso's analytical cubist works. Such was the respect given to him by his fellow Spaniard, teacher and rival, as Gertrude Stein noted, he was "the one person that Picasso would have willingly wiped off the map". Tragically, he didn't match Picasso for longevity and died at 40, and the work from the Cecil Higgins Collection comes from a period of convalescence from illness a few years earlier in 1921. The clarity of line in this more naturalistic lithograph shows the skill that Gris possessed - a real genius with line which underpinned his cubist compositions. When seen on its own, as in this study, Gris' elegant hand really shines through. KP

Juan GRIS (1887 - 1927)
Portrait of a boy, 1921

lithograph, 39.2 x 31cm (plate) 40.3 x 32.2cm (sheet)
inscribed: in plate Juan Gris 3.21/ in pencil Juan Gris 24/50

Accession No.: P.539
PROVENANCE: Grosvenor Gallery, from whom purchased by Gallery, October 1966.

During the period 1920-21 Gris made a number of 'naturalistic' drawings intermixed with his more widely known Cubist oeuvre. In 1920 he was thought to have contracted pneumonia, an ailment that forced him to convalesce, initially in Les Fourneaux and then by 1921 at Bandol-sur-mer on the Cote d'Azur.

In 1921 he made a number of portraits in pencil including the art dealer Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler and a self-portrait, and also some lithographic portraits including Marcelle the brunette, and Jean the Musician. The young boy was the eleven-year-old son of his butcher, who assisted Gris with his sketching and painting during the first quarter of 1921. The artist was described as being 'somewhat impatient' with the child. However, he was recorded as being upset when the boy's family moved away to the Cannes region in March. JMcG

World of Interiors Article

2010-04-20T10:14:00.011+01:00

The May issue of The World of Interiors has a fantastic six page spread on Stanley Lewis's work and home in advance of the forthcoming retrospective of this little-known artist's work at Bedford Gallery.

Interviewed shortly before his death last year at the age of 103, the article shows a fascinating glimpse of an artist who was friends with Dylan Thomas and Augustus John, and who was highly respected by his peers before he left the art scene behind to become principal of Carmathan School of Art. The photographs of Lewis' work crammed into his daughter's Yorkshire home will give you a real taste of the exhibiton to come that will also display work from the Cecil Higgins Collection by Lewis’ tutors and contemporaries, including William Rothenstein, Augustus John and Stanley Spencer. KP

The Unknown Artist: Stanley Lewis and his Contemporaries is on display at Bedford Gallery, Castle Lane Bedford, Saturday 12th June – Sunday 5th September 2010

Picture of the week No.18

2010-04-19T09:57:00.003+01:00

This week's selected picture is an intimate portrait by James McNeill Whistler, one of 5 small works by the artist in the gallery's collection. The drawing captures the sitter at rest in just a few quick lines and Whistler's subtle use of tonal shading renders the likeness with characteristic un-fussiness.

JAMES MCNEILL WHISTLER(1834-1903)
Head and Shoulders of Ronald Philip, c.1900‑1901

pencil on paper, 15.2 x 10 cm
inscribed: Butterfly monogram
inscribed on reverse in the hand of Harold Wright (Colnaghi's Print Director): Ronald Philip (Mrs Whistler's / brother) / by / Whistler / ex Collection of Miss R. Birnie Philip) / the artist's sister‑in‑law and executrix.
Accession no.: P.153

Ronald Murray Philip (1871-1940) was the son of the sculptor John Birnie Philip and Frances Black. He was the same age as Whistler’s son Charles Hanson and was treated by Whistler like a favourite nephew, being portrayed by him on a number of occasions.
JM

PROVENANCE: In Whistler's studio at his death in 1903 and bequeathed to his sister‑in‑law, Miss R. Birnie Philip; P&D Colnaghi Ltd, from whom purchased by Gallery, January 1958.
REFERENCES: M.F. Macdonald, James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, 1995, p.588-9, repr. p.589, no.1637.

Free Family Event: Earning a Crust - A Victorian Working Day

2010-04-14T09:41:00.002+01:00

On Saturday 17th April, from 11am – 4pm there will be a chance to discover how Victorian Bedfordian’s would have lived and worked. Earning a Crust: A Victorian Working Day is a free family day at Bedford Museum.

Come along to have a go at lace-making, rag-rug making and basket weaving. Martin Hazell (pictured) will be showing you how he makes traditional baskets from local Willow and Hazel collected at his smallholding in Gravenhurst.

There will be lots of other activities to try. How about writing with quill pen and ink? Or learning how Victorians washed clothes without electricity or washing machines? There will also be folk music provided by Graeme Meek who sings traditional songs inspired by Bedfordshire life.

The family day is part of ‘Clocking-in: an exhibition of the working day’ at Bedford Gallery. The exhibition is a chance to see the place you live, as you’ve never seen it before. It charts the history of Bedfordshire’s industries and how these industries have changed the lives of Bedfordshire’s residents. The exhibition includes amazing insights into our working day, highlighting what has remained the same but also, how our lives have changed.

‘There were still people in Bedford who believed in what they called gold water, which was the water they washed the gold in, having medicinal properties when they drank it or rubbed it in. His job was to go and retrieve the water that they had washed the gold objects in and hand it out gratuitously to the people of Bedford.’
Richard Stoodley (speaking about his father working at John Bull & Co from 1920 to 1970)

Redevelopment Latest

2010-04-08T15:53:00.002+01:00

£3m Bedford Borough Council grant gives Phase 2 project a major boost.

Fundraising is going very well with confirmation of funding from Bedford Borough Council, the Wixamtree Trust, Charles Wells Brewery and the Rotary Clubs of Bedford taking the project over £5m, well on the way to the £6.7m target. Fundraising is ongoing including major grants being considered in the next few months.

Following the refurbishment of Bedford Gallery (Phase 1) last year, Phase 2 will involve the complete redesign and redisplay of all galleries. For the first time, Bedford’s major collections will be united under one roof, to create an outstanding, combined facility. The revitalised buildings, with new galleries, collections stores, learning spaces, shop and café, will be an excellent resource for local people, and will bring a greater number of visitors to Bedford, contributing to the regeneration of the town centre right in the heart of the cultural quarter.

Architects, engineers and exhibition designers are currently busy preparing detailed plans for submission to the Heritage Lottery Fund and others. Subject to approvals and grants being awarded Bedford Museum is expected to close in the autumn, with building works starting in spring 2011.

You can help to support the redevelopment project by joining our Patrons’ Scheme. You can download the Patrons’ brochure here. For any other fundraising related issues please contact John Moore, Director at john.moore@bedford.gov.uk