FLAG NEWSLETTER

Chairman's thoughts - August 2024

We are already well past the middle of the year and in these tumultuous times we look forward to receiving information about our forthcoming programme. It will see us back at Dormer Conference Centre from which we had to move some twelve months ago, since when we have been frequenting other church halls. When we initially selected Dormer for our meetings, it was not only because of its amenities but also because it was not too far from our raison d'e`tre at Leamington Art Gallery, when we used to meet in the Annexe at the Royal Pump Rooms. Over time, this proved too limiting for our ever-increasing membership. I hope we shall be able to settle at Dormer for the foreseeable future after our somewhat nomadic interlude.

I always think it is useful to put oneself in the position of the first-time visitor to Leamington and what the experience must be like to discover the extensive green parks which run through the middle of the town and in the centre of which are the Royal Pump Rooms; then comes the discovery that they house the Art Gallery and Museum and what a surprise it must be to find that such an extensive collection is to be found in our comparatively modest town. It is good to know that the collections are valued by most people and that FLAG now plays so great a part in conserving and promoting them. The Gallery will be celebrating its centenary in 2028, when FLAG will be 61 years old and in October this year 25 years in the Royal Pump Rooms will be celebrated with an exhibition 25 Years / 25 Objects / 25 Artists which will feature a few examples of objects acquired with the help of FLAG over 25 years. This should be most interesting and good publicity for us.

I would like to express a big 'thank you' to those members who have negotiated the new venue arrangements and planned the forthcoming programme. We are indeed fortunate in having such a hard-working and innovative committee, and such supportive members.

GRAHAM E. COOPER Chairman

Winter Programme

Here are the dates for our winter talks - details to be sent by email:

Tuesday 15th October at 7.30pm
Tuesday 19th November at 7.30pm
Tuesday 17th December at 7.30pm

2025

Wednesday 15th January at 2.30pm
Wednesday 19th February at 2.30pm
Tuesday 18th March at 7.30pm
Tuesday 15th April at 7.00pm - AGM

We will be back at the Dormer Centre, Dormer Place from October but, please note, the afternoon talks will be on Wednesdays as Tuesday afternoon wasn't available.

Another date for your diary is Friday 13th September when there will be a special Friday Focus especially for FLAG members. The curator of the recent Main Gallery rehang, Kellie Sabin, will be telling us about this display and the reasons for her choices. Details to come!

Storage of the Fan Collection

Members may not know that FLAG provides annual funding of £100 for materials used by the Arts Society volunteers who work on the ongoing project to store the collections in the AG&M safely and improve access to them. The idea was proposed by a past Chair of FLAG, Diana Adams, and we have only missed a few years, due to Covid, since 2005.

In addition to this annual amount, in 2024 we are providing extra funding of £220 for a special project to provide long term storage for the 25 fans in the AG&M collection.

Most of the fans are Georgian or Victorian and are made of ivory or wood with delicate paper and silk. Currently they are stored folded up so every time they are looked at and opened, damage and wear is caused - especially as creases in fabric create a point of weakness.

The ideal way to store the fans is flat in their open position which avoids additional stress to the fabric and allows them to be admired with minimal handling. FLAG funding will provide custom sloped support created from acid-free card and new boxes to accommodate them in the open position.

Your membership and support for FLAG enables us to fund these projects. We look forward to seeing the fans safely stored for the future.

A day in Nottinghamshire - Wollaton Hall

Wollaton, built in the 1580s for Sir Francis Willoughby, is a prodigy house, huge and highly ornamented. It was designed by Robert Smythson, and the exterior has many niches containing busts of kings, queens, philosophers and classical characters (few of them easy to identify). Inside, there have been several 'modernisations' and a major fire in 1801. Fortunately, the massive three-storey great hall is unchanged, with enormous hammer-beams (which it appears are purely decorative).

It was bought by Nottingham Council in 1925 and now houses its Natural History Museum within the house (a vast collection stuffed animals including a giraffe, birds and insects) and in the stable block, Nottingham's Industrial Museum. It has substantial parkland and still has a herd of deer.

Hidden History Tour - Cherry Rosewall

I decided to take the 'Hidden History' tour to see parts of the house not open to other visitors. It proved to be a fascinating tour but certainly not one for anyone who finds stairs challenging!

We began by ascending a stone spiral staircase of 67 steps to the impressive Prospect Room with its magnificent views over the parkland and surrounding countryside. We were able to step onto the roof for even better views and a closer look at some of the architecture. We could even see Nottingham Castle, our next destination. Apparently, the gentlemen used to enjoy watching the deer hunts in the park from the Prospect Room windows - sadly in Tudor times the ladies never got to see the views as their beautiful dresses were too wide to get up the narrow stairs!

The house was built by Sir Francis Willoughby to show off his wealth rather than to live in, and to house Queen Elizabeth I should she choose to visit. Sadly, she never did, although the future Charles I did in 1604, then the 4-year-old son of James I, so probably not overly impressed. The Willoughby family did live in the house from the late 17th century and remained at the hall until the late 1800s.

Next, we descended to investigate the servants' quarters and Tudor kitchens where all the food was prepared and stored when the family and guests were in residence. We saw where the servants slept on mattresses on the floor (and later on truckle beds), and the various bells used to summon them to different rooms, each bell with its own distinctive ring as the poor illiterate servants could not read the labels.

We saw the bread ovens, hotplates and huge fireplaces as well as an Elizabethan serving hatch where food and drink was passed to the serving wenches for taking upstairs to the hall.

We then went down more stone stairs to view the extensive tunnels dug out of the rock underneath the house. We saw the wine cellar and walked along very atmospheric damp and dimly lit passages and saw the artesian well supplying fresh water to the house as well as a stone tank reservoir collecting rainwater. (This is also called the Admiral's Bath after a later member of the Willoughby family, who went down there for his baths, after which they collected water for cooking in the kitchens!) Altogether an interesting and unusual tour.

Cherry Rosewall

Nottingham Castle

From Wollaton Hall, we went on to Nottingham Castle, a ducal mansion built in the 1670s on the site of a castle which was begun by the Normans in 1068. That castle fell into decline and was demolished after the Civil War except for its walls and very solid gatehouse. Set on a commanding promontory above the city of Nottingham, it was chosen by William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle as the site for his ducal mansion in the 1670s. Completed by his son, it was then burnt by rioters in 1831 and not renovated until the 1870s. It's now owned by Nottingham City Council and houses an art gallery and museum.

Along with fine art and collections of Venetian glass and Wedgwood ceramics, the castle has a number of alabaster carvings made in the area in the 15th century. The one on the left illustrates the curious tale of St Eloy, a 7th-century French bishop venerated by farriers. Here he is shoeing a donkey said to be possessed by the devil, and in order to reach its hoof, removed its leg, put on a new shoe, and placed it back on its body.

Nottingham was already famed for lace-making in the middle ages, and one of the first places to use machines to speed this very laborious process.

A day in Worcestershire - Bewdley and Hartlebury Castle

Our second summer trip of 2024 was to the market town of Bewdley on the River Severn, which has a rich Georgian heritage. It had suffered severe river flooding earlier in the year, and although when we visited the river was in its proper place, it was in heavy rain. A few of the shops and cafes along the riverside were closed, but luckily all-day breakfasts and lunches were available indoors.

The highlight of Bewdley for us was its Museum, in the historic butchers' 'shambles'. The Museum opened in 1972 and was established by Stephen Quale who wanted to share the exciting heritage of the town and show what an important part it played in the history of the region. There were exhibitions and displays of local crafts and ancient artefacts. It seems that once they had imported anything they lacked by way of the Severn, they were self sufficient and could make everything, with great skill - all very impressive. We loved the sensory garden with its herbs, water feature and air-raid shelter from WWII. I was very impressed by the modern pewter jewellery being made and for sale now. The Museum's Garden Kitchen Cafe, which had covered seating, provided welcome protection from the rain, so we treated ourselves to both morning coffee and their excellent lunch menu.

Hartlebury Castle

Our next stop, Hartlebury, was given by Henry III to his Chancellor, Godfrey Giffard, Bishop of Worcester in 1268, along with the right to fortify it. It was loyal to Charles I throughout the Civil War (until May 1646 when Roundhead forces captured it without firing a single shot). It then became a prison for royalist supporters, and as it was too expensive to demolish, it was sold. With the Restoration, it was handed back to the bishops, but in an uninhabitable state. Rebuilding continued until the late 18th century and it remained the home of the bishops of Worcester until the 21st century.

In 1782 Bishop Richard Hurd had a particularly fine collection of books, preserved in a beautiful library, on their original shelves. The collections of other 18th century book collectors are also preserved here, including Alexander Pope. We were given a well-informed talk by volunteers, with plentiful illustrations from the library's books. The Worcestershire County Museum is housed in the north wing, which has several interesting collections.

Nicole Alexander

Art Gallery News

We had a dramatic start to 2024 with a number of serious flood alerts that led to staff having to clear the gallery twice during the middle of the night and the walls of the gallery being bare for several days in each case. The incidents have led us to review our flood response procedure as we are aware that, while this winter was particularly wet, environmental changes mean we are now dealing with more alerts than ever before and this is likely to increase rather than decrease as the years go by.

Exhibitions and displays

In January work began on our OPEN 2024 exhibition, which opened in February and ran until May. This year 185 works were submitted, from which 122 were shortlisted by our panel. The extraordinarily difficult decisions were made by: Kialy Tihngang, multi disciplinary Glasgow-based visual artist who received a number of awards for her work in 2023; Michael A. Michael, Professorial Research Fellow in the School of Culture and Creative Arts at the University of Glasgow; and Rebecca Earle, writer and Professor of History at the University of Warwick. The judges had a very tough time whittling down the selection to a final 50 works, which reflects the incredibly strong pool of talent we have in this area. The selection also demonstrates the diversity of media now being used by artists - from photography, printmaking, sculpture and painting to digital work.

We were also excited to launch the wonderful Queertopia display and 'zine at the OPEN 2024 private view. Freelance queer illustrator and ‘zine maker Jason Kattenhorn worked with Proud Youth Leamington and used our collections to explore the evolution of language and safe spaces within and outside the queer community. This display includes artwork from the zine alongside museum items and a film created by Willowmann Productions, which celebrates LGBTQ+ stories from the local community. This project was overseen by Art Officer Connor Elliman and funded by Museum Development West Midlands with Art Fund Support, and FLAG. The display will remain in place until October and will be highlighted during Leamington's Pride Festival on 17th August, when Jason will be leading a zine making workshop and copies of the Queertopia zine will be distributed to festival goers.

Through April the rehang of the art gallery was overseen by art curator Kellie Sabin. The new display includes recent acquisitions and less well-known pieces alongside key artworks. It shines a light on the breadth and variety of art represented within the gallery's permanent collection. The gallery incorporates a spotlight exhibition by Kialy Tihngang, who received the France Brodeur Young Artist Award in 2023. Tihngang is a multi-disciplinary visual artist working in sculpture, video, textiles, animation and photomontage and whose work focuses on colonial European misrepresentation of West African cultural practices.

In May, history curator Lily Crowther led the installation of the current exhibition, Leamington Spa and the Black Atlantic (25th May - 14th September). This explores the varied links between Leamington and the Caribbean, North America and West Africa in the 19th century, from the transatlantic slave trade to the American Civil War, and the collectors behind the museum's African collections. It was developed in collaboration with a community panel of local Black historians. The accompanying book looks at the wider links between British local history and the Black Atlantic in the 18th-20th centuries.

Our autumn exhibition will celebrate the fact Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum has been based in the Royal Pump Rooms for 25 years. Opening on 4th October and on until 12th January, 25 Years / 25 Objects / 25 Artists will showcase items acquired for the collection over the last 25 years, including acquisitions made possible by FLAG funding. There will also be a display by OPEN 2024 winner Mark Elsmore and a pop-up shop where we will sell the work of 25 locally based artists.

Collections

With FLAG's support we are in the process of framing two large artworks - Thistledown by Amy Sharrocks and Joe Tilson's print, Apollo Pythian. We are also arranging conservation of Laura Cookes' Madonna della Seggiola after Raphael, which has been supported through FLAG's Adopt an Artwork scheme. The painting will be on display again as part of our next summer exhibition which will focus on women artists in the collection. The Arts Society will begin work on updating the storage of our fan collection in October.

In the past six months we have acquired a significant number of artworks, including a painting by Terry Frost, and two prints by photographer Sunil Gupta through the Contemporary Art Society, which will be shown in his forthcoming exhibition. We also have a number of newly acquired works on display in the main gallery - Callum Innes' painting (donated from the CAS), Simon Lewty's early oil painting and Tim Pomeroy, The Little Crown, sculpture (donated by the family of Iain R. Smith in memory of him and his wife).

We are in the process of re-submitting our application to the Art Fund to acquire the Piper painting of Wolfhamcote Church (which is supported with a pledge from FLAG) and conducting research into the portrait of Henry Wise of Warwick Priory, c.1753 by Gainsborough prior to a second application to Art Fund to be submitted later in the year.

We have been given a small group of 19th-century ceramics and glass from Poland, kept as heirlooms by an aristocratic family whose estate was requisitioned by the Polish government in the early 20th century. The donor, Janina Woods, came to Leamington from Poland in the 1970s and was given the pieces by a friend who also moved here. Two brass plaques from the steam engines from the Campion Terrace waterworks, 'The Wackrill' and 'The Harding', have also been donated by a local donor, whose father who worked there until the 80s and rescued them after the engines were decommissioned.

Arts Development

In July we hosted our third Ignite event in the Pump Rooms. We celebrated the achievements of Warwick District-based creative organisations and individuals with an artists' takeover of the whole building. We were treated to stunning performances by Motionhouse, Millennial Wizard, the current ensemble residents at Playbox Theatre, and enjoyed Pecha Kucha talks by Emily Quash of Playbox Theatre and Lucy Tomlins of Pangaea Sculptors' Centre. Chris Knight's film, The Fall, was shown in the Hammam and will shortly be available to watch at the Spa Centre. The evening was a wonderful way to come together and connect with those working in the creative industries in the district.

It has been an extraordinarily busy first half of the year and we will be catching up on work and enjoying some calmer time over the summer, before launching into a packed and varied programme of exhibitions, displays and events in the autumn.

Vicki Slade and Chloe Johnson, Collections & Engagement Managers

Learning & Engagement - an update from Giovanni Vinti

The past few weeks have seen a successful renewal and testing of our primary school programme of workshops. On 4th July, three Year 3 classes from St Margaret's C of E School came to the Royal Pump Rooms. The classes rotated around their own tour of Jephson Gardens, the Art Gallery and Museum spaces and a taught session about life in Victorian times. The sessions were attended by Rosemary, Nicole and Carolyn from FLAG. It was great having them there to lend a hand! The visit was very successful and the school asked me to pass on their thanks for the £200 donated by FLAG in memory of Graham White towards the visit.

In other news, the Friday Focus sessions have finished for the time being. Again, some incredibly interesting and diverse speakers all brought their subjects to life. The amount of hard work that goes into a half-hour talk is incredible and shows a love and passion for their chosen theme. I'd like to thank them all, together with members of FLAG who attend - it is much appreciated, as are the kind comments received.

As we head into August, we are experimenting with a summer programme of arts activities for children. They will be able to attend free regular Art Cart activities in the main Art Gallery on a Thursday afternoon and a series of booked art sessions for older children will be happening on a Friday morning.

Looking further ahead, we look forward to re-starting our Friday Focus sessions again in September with a special talk for FLAG members about the Art Gallery re-hang on 13th September. Dare I mention Christmas? On 30th November we will once again be hosting Father Christmas and any help that FLAG members can offer would be most appreciated. Once again, I thank you for your support in the work we are undertaking and will do my best to ensure that FLAG continues to play an important part in the life of your Art Gallery and Museum.

A wander down memory lane: Leamington Art Gallery 1987-99

I have recently been working on an article about the work of the Naval Camouflage team based in Leamington Art Gallery during the Second World War, causing me to reflect on my own time in that building from 1987 to 1999. I am delighted to reminisce about those years before the Art Gallery & Museum moved to its present home in the Royal Pump Rooms. I took up the post of Warwick District Council's Museums & Exhibitions Manager in 1987, moving to the area from York, where I had worked at the Yorkshire Museum and Jorvik Viking Centre. My aim was to be closer to the lady who became my wife, and I expected to spend a couple of years or so in my new post before I moved on (in fact I retired from the District Council 30 years later...). The AG&M was very different from the venerable splendour of the Yorkshire Museum or the crowd-pleasing attractions of the Viking Centre. Leamington Town Council had built the Art Gallery in 1928 as an extension to the library on Avenue Road, which since the 1860s had accumulated a small collection of museum and art items. The new Art Gallery had its own separate entrance with a local history gallery within the Library building and an art exhibition area laid out on a cruciform plan, with four small(ish) galleries meeting under a central glazed dome. Each gallery had a glazed roof, leaving the walls clear for exhibits. A cellar was used as a store and workshop. In 1939 it was requisitioned for use by the camouflage team, and returned to use as the municipal AG&M in 1945, with the addition in 1968 of a small extension at the rear. This usually showed paintings by the Victorian artist Thomas Baker, and was known as 'The Baker Wing'. In 1974, as part of local government reorganisation, the AG&M was transferred to the newly formed District Council. Now part of a larger authority, it also lost its office space, which had to be created by taking over the local history gallery.

When I started at the AG&M it was made clear to me that the council was keen to improve the building's facilities. This became the main priority for the small team which, shortly after I took up the post, was strengthened by the appointment of Alison Plumridge, who some of you may recall. In spring 1989, during a temporary closure to the public, we took the collections from the basement store and put them in the galleries so we could sort through them. It was quite a mixture: as well as paintings, local history objects, fine pottery and glassware, there was also a selection of guns (including machine guns and rifles from the First World War), a mantrap, 'native' items acquired during the days of empire, some nice clocks, a human skull (lots of museums had them in those days, before the treatment of human remains became more respectful), and some bits of bronze which had been donated in 1928 as 'three pieces of horse armour'. Among the debris in the cellar was a wooden model of a ship's funnel; this soon disappeared, and it was not until some years later that I realised it was probably from a model ship used for naval camouflage research. After the collections had been inspected, they were packed and returned to the stores.

Meanwhile, design consultancy Haley Sharpe Associates redeveloped the exhibition galleries. This installed new picture hanging and lighting systems in the exhibition galleries, and refurbished the reception area. It also returned the office to its earlier use as a local history gallery, and partitioned off the 'Baker wing' to create an office and workshop. There then followed an 18-month programme to re-catalogue the whole collection, with Sue Palmer appointed to carry out the work. This showed that the collection was larger than expected - about 9,000 items rather than the estimated 6,500 to 7,000. It also revealed that the three pieces of 'horse armour' were from an extremely rare Celtic Iron Age shield boss, around 2,300 years old! Both Sue and I were thrilled to be involved in the discovery of such an important artefact, later loaned for display in the British Museum (it has since been returned).

The day-to-day job was the management of the service and its exhibitions and events programmes. This involved, among other things, dealing with artists, members of the public and FLAG itself. An early memory was bringing my wife and son Harry, then about four months old, to meet Norman Painting (aka Phil Archer from The Archers); the programme subsequently included a passing reference to visiting Leamington Art Gallery, to my pleasure. Harry also featured in a more embarrassing incident, when during an exhibition by the renowned sculptor John Bridgeman, he managed to knock a maquette off a display pedestal, causing the fragile plaster to crack. I duly reported the incident to John, explaining that a mother had brought her child to the AG&M and failed to control him properly (true, if a little economical with the details!). John just observed, with a twinkle in his eye, that 'everyone's an art critic'.

I also got to know members of FLAG. When I took up my post I discovered that FLAG committee meetings were held in the AG&M, which I used to attend to provide a short report, waiting while the committee carried out its deliberations so I could lock the building. The meetings often took quite a while - an 11 pm finish was not unknown - and it took me a while to realise that it was in my interests to persuade the committee to meet elsewhere. Many years later, I found a press cutting referring to Molly Carless, who was a leading light in FLAG when I started. In 1973, in advance of the AG&M's transfer from the Town Council to the District Council, its Secretary Miss Molly Webb (who became Molly Carless after her marriage), voiced the concern that as 'Many of the exhibits in the art gallery have been gifts and bequests from local residents', members 'are anxious that these should remain in Leamington.' As they do to this day.

My day-to-day contact with the AG&M on Avenue Road ended in the mid-1990s, when I transferred first to the Recreation & Amenities main offices in Regent Square House, and then to Marlborough House on Holly Walk. My responsibilities now included arts development (district-wide but firmly linked to the AG&M) and the planned transfer of the AG&M to the Pump Rooms. A move from Avenue Road to a more central location was part of the town development master plan of 1947, which proposed relocating the AG&M to a 'Cultural Centre' on Newbold Terrace. This never materialised, and it was not until the mid 1990s that the move to the Pump Rooms was finally adopted by the District Council. The project envisioned creating a new cultural and tourism attraction by relocating the AG&M and Library from Avenue Road, and the Tourist Information Centre from the Lodge at the entrance to Jephson Gardens, to sit alongside the refurbished Assembly Rooms and a new cafe. The building work began in late 1997, and it was my role to oversee the development of the AG&M facilities, and to co-ordinate with the other service partners, museum designers PLB Design, and artists working on art commissions in the building. This was a very exciting and challenging period for me - although a tale, perhaps, for another time.

Jeff Watkin

From the old art gallery and museum to the new, and this year we celebrate 25 years in our 'new' home.

2024 saw further changes, with the need to find a new home for the District Council's Reception desk and Housing services. To the regret of FLAG members, residents and visitors, we have lost the shop and with it, the view across the Pump Room Gardens.

FLAG is now on Facebook

Both the blog and Facebook pages have informa on about forthcoming trips and talks, news from the art gallery and up-and-coming art events locally.

The FLAG blog https://friendsofleamingtonartgallery.blogspot.com/
FLAG on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/friendsofleamingtonspaartgallery