Beautiful Bronzes

Wallace Collection, London UK
Beautiful Renaissance and Baroque bronzes once graced every mantlepiece. Brian Sewell from the Evening Standard explains how we have the chance to rediscover a great forgotten art by visiting the Beauty and Power; Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the collection of Peter Marino which is currently at the Wallace Collection until July 25, daily 10am-5pm, admission free.

Evening Standard

William De Morgan tile exhibition

Above: A 6in William De Morgan animal subject tile, priced at £1800 in Haslam & Whiteway's exhibition of the Catleugh collection.

Kensington, London UK
Kensington Church Street decorative arts dealer Haslam and Whiteway have landed the bulk of the William De Morgan tile collection of the late Jon Catleugh, expert and author of the seminal book, William De Morgan Tiles.

Haslam and Whiteway have over 300 of his DeMorgan tiles, from single examples to larger panels, and are devoting an exhibition to them at their gallery from June 9 - 30 2010. It will be accompanied by a 98-page catalogue.

iida 2010 green heart awards

iida 2010 design awards are looking for green hearted designers who are aware of the environment. The goal of the project is to 'open up possibilities for sustainable life through design'.

The three categories are; green design for humans - life style design which helps to realise ways to consider the environment in daily life such as home appliances, furniture and stationary. Green design for the city - innovative and effective public design which suggests the possibility of an eco-friendly city through architecture, interior design and public areas. Green design for communication - design taking lead in social communication for the diffusion of green design and green life stsyle such as posters, advertisement and networking. Winners will get to display their designs at the Incheon International Design Fair, an opportunity to present their work to companies based in incheon and $10,000.

designboom

The Hawkins Zoomorphic Collection at Harris Lindsay

Above: Rare diorama of a squirrel boxing match. English circa 1870

London, UK
Harris Lindsay of 67 Jermyn Street, London will be hosting the Hawkins Zoomorphic Collection, an 'Exhibition of the Rare and Exotic'. The collection as formed over a period of more than forty years by two generations of one family. John Hawkins began to collect zoomorphic objects on his arrival in Australia in 1968 and his daughter, Emma continued with the opening of her iconic shop in Westbourne Grove in 1990. Nearly every zoomorphic object of importance that has appeared on the market over this period has been purchased by the family and is now to be displayed for sale from 2 June - 26 June 2010, 10am - 6pm.


Above: Rare pair of hippopotamus teeth. Silver mounted in the form of candelsticks, Sheffield, 1911.

Harris Linsay

Masco sponsors 'Lions of Bath'

Above: Artist Jacqui Harrison with lion “Frank”, set to be part of this summer’s “Lions of Bath” project. [pict. Devon 24]

Bath UK
Jacqui Harrison is one of 100 artists who have been commissioned to decorate a life-size lion sculpture for the 'Lions of Bath' project. The fiberglass lions are each sponsored by a local business, Ms Harrison's lion affectionately named 'Frank' is sponsored by Masco. The lions will go on display around the city from the end of May until mid-September, when they will be auctioned off for charity.

Devon

Tantalising Tomlin at Ecobuild

London - ECOBUILD was bereft of any sign of reclaimed building material at Earl's Court this week, but Masco's Steve Tomlin gave a rabble-rousing twenty minute rant in support of all things reclaimed at one of the trade seminars on Tuesday.

Aside from the more normal 'reclaim and reuse, don't recycle and destroy' message, Steve mentioned the work he was doing for a major UK retailer on sustainable building practices to encourage future reuse when building newbuild stores.

"I can't divulge too much," he said, "but they have now started barcoding every item in their newbuilds, including things like the steel frame members, with its specification and provenance, using microchips." Being contractually sworn to secrecy, it was unclear exactly what this depth of chain of custody was designed to achieve. A member of the audience asked whether this was forward planning for reuse by the store owner, or whether it was intended that this information would make it easier to dismantle and resell the components to a third party in thirty years time. The answer was noncommittal, we suspect for commercial reasons, which was intriguing and tantalising to some present.

Exhibition Louis XIV, the man and king

Chateau de Versailles, Versailles France

The Palace of Versailles is displaying a major exhibition dedicated Louis XIV until 7 February 2010. It is the first major exhibition devoted to the king's personality and personal tastes. Louis XIV saw himself as a king who was the protector of the arts and a collector, and the richness of his image arguably has no precedent in history. The exhibition consists of over 300 Paintings, sculptures, objets d’art and furniture from around the world that have never been together in the same place before.


Above: Apollo tended by the nymphs, Francois Girardon and Thomas Regnaudin 1667-1675. [photo: Palace of Versailles website]


Above: Armour of Louis XIV, Giovanni Battista and Francesco da Garbagnate. [photo: Palace of Versailles website]


Palace of Versailles

PDF of the exhibition

Photo's of North Russian Architecture

Above: Richard Davies will be publishing a book on wooden Russian church later this year [copyright Richard Davies].

Independent Photographers Gallery, Battle UK
Richard Davies has a keen interest in architecture and has been photographing wooden churches in the Russian North since 2002. His interest was initially sparked by the Russian artist, stage designer and illustrator Ivan Bilibin who traveled to the Vologda Province in the North of Russia in 1902 to photograph the wooden churches. Mr Davies was interested to see how these churches had withstood the ravages of Commmunism.

"Many churches do still exist and recently work has started on the restoration of a few but most are in a perilous state and will not survive for many more years," said Mr Davies. Since February 2006 he has travelled with the writer Matilda Moreton. As a Russian speaker her interviews with local people, historians and other experts has given them a deeper understanding of the churches place in the community together with insights into the lives of the people they have met. Together they have put on an exhibition at the Schusev State Museum of Architecture in Moscow, which was greatly received and it is hoped that it would attract the attention of those who could ensure the survival of these extraordinary buildings.

A selection Mr Davies photographs are currently being exhibited at the Independent Photographers Gallery in Battle, East Sussex until January 16th 2010.


Above: photo. copyright Richard Davies


Above: photo. copyright Richard Davies


Above: photo. copyright Richard Davies

Richard Davies

The Independent Photographers Gallery

Victorian and Albert Museum opens it's new galleries

The Renaissance City Courtyard at the V&A

Victorian & Albert Museum, London UK

The V&A's new Medieval & Renaissance galleries open this December, designed by architects MUMA. The 10 new galleries will showcase its amazing Medieval and Renaissance collections. The £30m new additions fill a whole wing of the museum and contain more than 1800 treasures from AD300 to 1600. The collections chronicle how European art and design changed from the fall of the Roman Empire to the end of the Renaissance era.

The V&A boasts the greatest collection of Italian Renaissance sculpture outside Italy, including pieces by Donatello and Giambologna. The highlights of the new galleries include; Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks, Santa Chiara Chapel: the only example of Florentine Renaissance church architecture outside Italy, Choir screen from the Cathedral of St John at 's-Hertogenbosch (1610–13), the Netherlands, The elaborate Gloucester Candlestick (1104-15), The Symmachi Panel: one of the finest surviving ivories from the Late Antique period in Rome.

The V&A is creating innovative new displays which place objects within their original social and cultural context. In a review for the Daily Telegraph, Richard Dorment describes the exhibition: "The 10 contiguous galleries occupying two floors of that vast building on the Cromwell Road feel like a museum within a museum, where every effort is made to give a feel for a church interior or Renaissance study without turning the galleries into a succession of stage sets."

Mark Jones, Director of the V&A, said: ‘For the first time, these new galleries present the V&A’s medieval and Renaissance treasures as continuous displays telling the story of European art and design from the year 300 to 1600. We hope that the new displays, featuring some of the most beautiful and historic objects from our collections, will inspire all our visitors.’


Above: V&A Curator Kirstin Kennedy

Guardian

Recession fuels attendance of artist sites and historic homes

In the UK and the US, visitor numbers to National Trust properties and artist homes have seen a sharp rise. “There is definitely something in the air, with growing numbers seeking out the simple pleasures offered by the National Trust,” says Fiona Reynolds, director general of the UK-based National Trust. Total visitors received in May were 1.98m, an eight per cent increase from the same month last year. Overall, attendance has climbed 24 per cent so far versus 2008.

In the UK, children’s book author and illustrator Beatrix Potter’s home Hill Top in the Lake District wins hands down for highest visitor numbers for any artist or writer’s property. Last year, her home attracted 106,576 visitors compared with 64,584 the previous year (boosted by the 2007 film “Miss Potter”). A UK National Trust spokesperson reports other such homes attracting steep interest, including John Lennon’s childhood home, Mendips in Liverpool, T.E. Lawrence’s home, Clouds Hill in Dorset, and William Morris’s Red House in Surrey.

“There’s a recalibration of consumer spending from buying a bigger house or jazzy designer handbag to now focusing on cultural experiences instead,” says Ms MacLear. She has found that visitors characterise the Glass House as “inspiring”. Artists Julian Schnabel, Jasper Johns, Cindy Sherman and Frank Stella have all visited within the past year.

Meanwhile in the UK, the National Trust membership has hit a growth spurt at double the rates of the previous year. So far in 2009, 10,000 new members have been added.


Above: Beatrix wrote many of her famous children's stories in this little 17th century stone house. Characters such as Tom Kitten, Samuel Whiskers and Jemima Puddleduck were all created here, and the books contain many pictures based on the house and garden.[pict. visitcumbria.com]

Art History Newspaper

Garden and Cosmos

Garden and Cosmos: The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur

Garden and Cosmos: The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur is a rare opportunity to view a unique type of Indian royal court painting ranging in date from the 17th-19th centuries.

The exhibition features a loan from India and consists of 54 paintings from the royal collection at the Mehrangarh Museum Trust in Jodhpur, which was set up by the current maharaja, Gaj Singh II, in 1972. Remarkably, none of these paintings has ever previously been seen in Europe.

Garden and Cosmos will explore the two distinct styles of painting which flourished over the period represented in the exhibition – on the one hand the ornate style depicting the temporal pleasures of courtly life and the verdant forests where scenes from the epics took place (‘Garden’) and, on the other, the metaphysical paintings concerned with philosophical speculation and the origin of the universe (‘Cosmos’).

The British Museum Room 35, 28 May – 11 Oct 2009, (recently extended due to demand) Admission charge


Above: Death of Vali; Rama and Lakshmana Wait Out the Monsoon. From the Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas (1532-1623). Jodhpur, c. 1775. Copyright Mehrangarh Museum Trust


Above: Maharaja Bakhat Singh at the Jharokha Window of the Bakhat Singh Mahal. Attributed here to “Artist 2”. Nagaur, 1737. Copyright Mehrangarh Museum Trust

Exhibition

Autumn exhibition

Pimlico, London UK
November 5th - 15th 2008

Three BADA members with adjoining galleries on Pimlico Road are jointly holding autumn exhibitions. Side by Side is what they call their new venture and, from November 5 to 15, they offer three very different shows. Specialist Nicholas Gifford-Mead presents 'The Grate Exhibition', a celebration of the artistry that went into fire grates and other fire furniture of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Next door, Julian Simon Fine Art puts on 'A Private Eye', a show of naive and primitive paintings from the mid-20th century.

Anthony Outred's exhibition 'Knock Knock' displays antique brass door furniture and it demonstrates the variety, rich colour and fine chasing such metalwork can bring to architectural decoration.

Nicholas Gifford-Mead

Julian Simon Fine Art


Anthony Outred

London Design Festival

Above: 'Captivate Lula Dot' by Lucy Norman who is part of [RE]Design, she tries to promote reuse and resource awareness by involving its owner in the collection and creativity of waste, as the user can select different bottle tops and change the lighting colour and pattern.


Above: [RE]Design chair and table made from covered electrical wire.


Above: Part of the 100% Sustainable section at % Design showing a model of sustainable resources to try to promote debate.


Above: Walter Raes wearable & design art


Above: A collection of well designed and sustainable pieces from The Greenhaus

London Design Festival, Across London UK

London Design festival saw many exciting things happening across the city including 100% Design at Earls Court (18 - 21 September 2008) and Tent London in Brick Lane (18 - 21 September 2008).

100% Design has more than 450 exhibitors showcasing their latest ranges. Lighten Up, launched at this year's 100% Design London, its an innovative sustainable lighting exhibition from [re]design. It looks beyond the bulb to explore what lighter lighting could mean, from energy and material use to make greener living aspirational and achievable. [re]design is a social enterprise that propagates sustainable actions through design, and promotes products that are genuinely good, attractive and sustainable innovative designs. Also, at the show was Stephen Johnson who exhibited at this years Salvo fair his work incorporates ornamental kitsch pieces from the home.

Within the show there is a specialist section called 100% Sustainable that looks at Models of Sustainable Design. The team have created a miniaturised world presented as a ‘00 scale’ model that asks questions of the viewer and deliberately sets us scenarios, which raise discussion and debate that can be discussed in the many workshops in the lecture theater.

Tent London takes place in the Truman Brewery, a vast reclaimed industrial site in Brick Lane, showing art and architecture, vintage and contemporary design by emerging and established designers from around the world. The interesting stand of Walter Raes shows, "Wearable design art made from household and industrial cast-offs, retrieved from society's discarded and often everyday objects. I transform ironing boards into sheath-style dresses and mop heads into coats," said Walter Raes. Also showcasing at the event was The Greenhaus, who create beautiful, practical products for the home whilst still embracing the key principles of sustainability, including the re-use and recycling of materials and low energy footprint both from manufacture and usage.

Following on from the success of Circa's last year, Tent has a section dedicated to vintage design. It has high quality vintage pieces from a selection of dealers for both the public and trade to buy.


100% Design

Tent London

Walter Raes

[RE]Design

The Greenhaus

Heritage Skills exhibition

Above: "An example of work from an end of year degree show graduate This gives an example of what I shall hope to offer at the Cell Block, once the center is converted." said Debbie Robins of Skills Heritage in Portsmouth


Now and Then - an art exhibition of traditional skills with a contemporary twist. Boathouse 4, Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. PO1 3LJ, August 16th - 31st 10am-5.30pm including weekends

The idea and development of the project has been brought about by the acknowledged shortage of skilled practitioners within the building restoration industry, especially the South East. The skills are primarily concerned with building interiors and consist of;

Scagliola-not taught anywhere outside the industry
Gilding.Water, oil and verre eglomisé.
Mould making/decorative plasterwork
Architectural carving
Trompe l’oeil.paint effects/sable brush work
Wood graining/marbling/paper marquetry
Hand blocked wallpaper (To be reinstated)
Architectural/conservation/restoration lectures

Debbie Robins of skills heritage in Portsmouth said "The exhibition will have demonstrations by skilled practitioners and examples of work and is free. The whole thing is being run by volunteers who feel so passionate about the need to nurture and indeed save these fantastic skills."


Skills Heritage in Portsmouth

Beyond Limits

Sotheby's, 'Beyond limits' at Chatsworth House

Beyond Limits: A Selling Exhibition of Modern and Contemporary Sculpture Sotheby's returns to Chatsworth this summer with Beyond Limits, Sotheby's annual selling exhibition of modern and contemporary sculpture. Following the phenomenal success of last year's exhibition, Beyond Limits will once again showcase works from a variety of cutting edge contemporary artists, as well as works from established modern masters.

Sothebys 'Beyond Limits'

First flushing rim thunderbox WC for sale at Salvo Fair 2008

Above: Optimus patent thunderbox loo by Dent & Hellyer of Red Lion Square, London, c1870, the first toilet with a flushing rim, on sale at this year's Salvo Fair for £595 from Antique Baths of Ivybridge

Salvo Fair 2008, Fri 27 Jun - Sun 29 Jun, Knebworth, Hertfordshire UK - ANTIQUE Baths of Ivybridge will be bringing an original patent Optimus thunderbox to the Salvo Fair this year, the first loo with under-the-rim flushing. This WC, consisting of a valve closet surrounded by a fine Cuban mahogany enclosure, dates from 1870, when Dent & Hellyer invented and patented the first flushing rim bowls of their Optimus and Artisan models.

Before the Optimus the flush came from a spout placed under the lid which swirled the water around the conical bowl but did not always clean it. The flushing rim, seen as a vast improvement, was patented by Dent & Hellyer and made for them by Thomas Twyford of Stoke on Trent. Twyfords were potters and sanitaryware makers who rose to prominence after the cholera outbreaks of the 1840s and 1860s, the death of Prince Albert, and the near death of the Prince of Wales, the future Kind Edward VII, from water-borne cholera and typhus.

Thunderbox is the name given to the whole assembly, which was plumbed into the new-fangled mains water supply providing the flush, and the equally new-fangled sewers which got rid of the effuent. The thunderbox contained the Optimus' innards in an elegant mahogany enclosure. The D handle was lifted to open the water supply to flush the pan (seen on the right in the closed position in the photo above) either from the mains or from a concealed cistern. The thunderbox was the epitome of posh Victorian toiletry from 1870 up to the late 1880s when the all-in-one wash-out, and then syphonic flush, pottery toilet pans were introduced.


Above: Nick Cowan of Antique Baths of Ivybridge in the cast iron bath open air pre-restoration yard

Above: Fabulous old hand carved 5ft 9ins Spanish marble bath from Barcelona. Price £3,750

Above: Japkap lead lined pine high-level cistern, restored and coated to comply with modern water regulations. Price £350 including antique brackets

Above: Old wooden stepped commode. Price £175

Salvo Fair
Antique Baths of Ivybridge

Salvo Fair news

Above: Sales were good despite clouds and light rain at Salvo 2007

SALVO 2008: Fri 27th June (Trade Day), Sat 28 and Sun 29 June, Knebworth, Hertfordshire UK

New! Reuse Design Enclave

This year’s Salvo Fair will incorporate a new Reuse Design enclave. There is a growing number of innovative people creating interesting one-off pieces. They may have items of stock that will not sell in their original form, or they are clever craftspeople and enjoy making new, exciting products using reclaimed items.

Guy Trench is one such person. His business, Antiques By Design, has been running for 5 years and is based in Maldon, Essex. He will be bringing to the fair a collection of his lights handcrafted from violins, rugby balls, fishing rods, cricket bats and mirrors created from decorative antique windows.

Every year Salvo Fair aims to exhibit big, sometimes huge, items of interest. Guy Trench is hoping to bring along a 6ft wooden elephant from Rajasthan, which he believes to be 50 - 70 years old. The hefty and decorative elephant would make a fantastic feature for a restaurant or shop, and will add to the variety and spice, of which you can be assured there always is, on offer at the Salvo Fair.

If you are interested in exhibiting in the Reuse Design marquee, please call Salvo on 01225 422300 or 020 8400 6222

Also, TW Gaze Auctionneers of Diss in Norfolk, will be sponsoring a Pimms marquee at the Salvo Fair. The tent will be open on Friday, the trade day, and Saturday and Sunday, the public days and will be a place to congregate for a chat, a meeting point, and somewhere to shelter from the unpredictable British summer weather! Carl Willows from Gaze will be at the fair, if you'd like to talk auctions, and he'll also be bringing 12 spades to help in our carbon offset adventure, more details to follow.

Salvo Fair 2008

Thomas Hope Regency Designer

V & A museum, London UK

Thomas Hope can be seen as a designer, collector and innovator he played an important role in the early nineteenth century design. Hope's household furniture and decorative style was the designers bible of the time. He was a collector on a grand scale and also an innovative designer of great genius who helped define what we understand as the Regency style. The scope of Hope's influence is shown through sculpture, painting, furniture, interior design, costume, metalwork and silver.

Thomas Hope was a visionary born in Amsterdam in 1979, Hope inherited his family tradition of collecting and also a vast fortune from his families banking wealth. For ten years between 1787 and 1797, Thomas Hope travelled widely through Europe and the Near East. His travels enriched his passion for collecting and taught him how to improve modern design of the time. Hope made numerous drawings during these extensive travels which he later used as the muse for many pieces of furniture and interior design in his two houses.

Hope's houses - Duchess Street in london and the Deepdene in Surrey played a unique role in the history of collecting, interior design and display. Hope's juxtaposition of styles included Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Indian elements, as well as his own version of French Empire style. Classical sculpture and vases were displayed alongside modern paintings and sculpture. The Thomas Hope exhibition at the V & A recreates the atmosphere of three of the key interiors - the Aurora Room, Egyptian Room and Third Vase Room.

In 1807, the year after his marriage, Hope bought the Deepdene near Dorking Surrey. Just as he had challenged conventional urban taste with his novel interiors at Duchess Street, he now rethought what a modern country house should look like. The Deepdene was a red brick Georgian mansion which he redeveloped with a loggia-topped Italianate tower on which to pivot the whole composition and added a wing shooting out at an angle of 45 degrees. There is little record of the interiors of the Deepdene but the exhibition has a few enchanting watercolors of the interior and exterior of Deepdene.

Hope's influence continued long after his death with thanks to his, Household Furniture and Interior Decoration book. Sadly Duchess Street was demolished in 1851 but many of its images remained in trade journals and books on interior design. Its contents were taken to the Deepdene and later in 1917 his collection was dispersed in a great sale at the Deepdene. The interest in Hope's design led to many pieces being bought by collectors and museums in Europe and the USA and consequently Hope's design reached a wider public. Hope's style influenced the Regency Revival of the 1920's and 30's, and Art Deco Design.