Watts in the City

Parables in Paint St. Paul’s Cathedral

Victorian Visionary Guildhall Art Gallery

Victorian Artists in Photographs

The Forbes Galleries, New York, USA

MagazineWATTS

Issue 4 Autumn 2008 £1

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telephone +44 (0) 20 7352 4444 Facsimile + 44 (0) 20 73522235 email flavia@flaviaormond.com

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Watts ad (1):Layout 2 22/9/08 17:37 Page 1

G. F. WATTSVictorian Visionary

Mark Bills and Barbara Bryant

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE WATTS GALLERY COLLECTION

This beautifully illustrated book, which includes historic photographs and archival materials, encompasses the entire 70-year career of George Frederic Watts. Essays by leading scholars examine the artist’soutput, life, reception and legacy.

Accompanies an exhibition at the Guildhall Art Gallery, London.

300pp. 220 colour illustrations £40.00

Yale University Press www.yalebooks.co.uk

Watts Gallery Magazine October New:Layout 1 23/9/08 09:01 Page 1

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59.pen

ciland

pink

washon

pape

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mm(242/₅x1

8¹/₂inches).

FlaviaOrmond Fine ArtsOLD MASTER & MODERN DRAWINGS

3NethertonGrove, London sw109tq by appoiNtmeNt oNLy

telephone +44 (0) 20 7352 4444 Facsimile + 44 (0) 20 73522235 email flavia@flaviaormond.com

www.flaviaormond.com

Watts ad (1):Layout 2 22/9/08 17:37 Page 1

G. F. WATTSVictorian Visionary

Mark Bills and Barbara Bryant

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE WATTS GALLERY COLLECTION

This beautifully illustrated book, which includes historic photographs and archival materials, encompasses the entire 70-year career of George Frederic Watts. Essays by leading scholars examine the artist’soutput, life, reception and legacy.

Accompanies an exhibition at the Guildhall Art Gallery, London.

300pp. 220 colour illustrations £40.00

Yale University Press www.yalebooks.co.uk

Watts Gallery Magazine October New:Layout 1 23/9/08 09:01 Page 1

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Gallery NewsThank You

Watts Gallery is deeply grateful to all its benefactors and major donors:

Esmée Fairbairn FoundationThe Deborah Loeb Brice FoundationGarfield Weston FoundationJohn Ellerman FoundationWolfson FoundationGuildford Borough CouncilThe George John and Sheilah Livanos Charitable TrustRichard Ormond CBEProfessor Rob Dickins CBEChristopher ForbesPeter Harrison FoundationThe Robert Gavron Charitable TrustAn Anonymous DonorDavid PikeThe Pilgrim TrustThe Isabel Goldsmith Patino FoundationThe Art FundFoundation for Sport and the ArtsJ Paul Getty Jnr Charitable TrustRothschild FoundationThe Linbury TrustFinnis Scott Foundation The Ingram TrustEnglish HeritageThe Foyle FoundationBillmeir Charitable TrustThe Michael Marks Charitable TrustMan Group plc Charitable TrustHamish Dewar LtdThe Derek Hill Foundation KPMG FoundationThe Geoffrey and Carole Lawson Charitable TrustFidelity UK FoundationThe Fenton Arts Trust

Watts Magazine Issue 4 Watts Gallery, Down LaneCompton, GU3 1DQ01483 810235info@wattsgallery.org.ukwww.wattsgallery.org.ukCover - G. F. Watts, Time, Death and Judgement St. Paul’s Catherdral

Watts Gallery Information Point

The new Watts Gallery Information Point is housed in part of the old potteries building on the Watts Gallery estate and can be seen as you enter the gate from Down Lane. It will provide updates on the restoration project, an opportunity to watch the new film on G. F. Watts, a select display of Compton Pottery and range of books and gifts. Opening hours:Tuesday - Friday 11am-3pm, Saturday 11am - 5pm, Sunday and Bank Hols 1-5pm. Closed Monday 22 December - 2 January for Christmas.

New Film on G. F. Watts

Watts Gallery has commisioned, with the assistance of the Heritage Lottery Fund, a new film on the life and work of G. F. Watts. It is presented by Dr. Tristram Hunt who is an expert in Victorian history and an increasingly familiar face on television history documentaries. The film features interviews with amongst others, the sculptor Antony Gormley, plawright Patrick Marber and the Director of the National Portrait Gallery, Sandy Nairne. See page 22.

Friends Update

The drive to increase the number of Friends of Watts Gallery has reached another landmark, now reaching more than 700. There has been a big increase in the number of Family friends, who get priority booking for the Family Art Workshops as well as people who have joined the Friends for life. An anonymous donor who is match funding every new Friend for the next three years means that a £20 single membership becomes worth £55 to the Gallery with Gift Aid. Friends get free entry to G. F. Watts: Victorian Visionary at Guildhall Art Gallery from 11 November - 26 April 2009 and will be the first people to visit the newly restored Gallery.

New Watts Gallery Website

Watts Gallery’s new website has been launched giving access to the Watts Gallery Collection database. There will be a host of other features including blogs from the Director and Curator. www.wattsgallery.org.uk

Editor - Andrew Churchillmarketing@wattsgallery.org.uk

Advertising - Kim Jenner, Jane Grylls 0207 300 5751

Copyright - All images and text © Watts Gallery, unless otherwise stated.

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From the Heart of the Village to the International StagePerdita Hunt, Director

It is such a relief to be able to talk about ‘when’ we start the restoration of Watts Gallery rather than ‘if ’. In the recent summer storms, yet more water came in through different holes in the roof as a reminder of why the Hope Project is so urgent and necessary. We are so delighted to have received the green light from the Heritage Lottery Fund and we could not have secured the grant of £4.3m without the generosity, faith and commitment of our benefactors, donors, Friends and volunteers.

The Free Family Open Day held in July (pictured above) was another resounding success. It was particularly gratifying to have so many young families enjoying the day with all the workshops fully booked and big groups of children eagerly listening to stories told by Val Biro, the children’s author and illustrator who also brought along his car, Gumdrop. Watts Gallery has really succeeded in getting the backing of the local community as events like this go to prove and we are so grateful for all the support we are offered.

This has been a journey of some four years, and we are at the end of the beginning! Our efforts must now turn to ensuring that the team working on the restoration of the Gallery undertakes the work with the care and sensitivity so necessary to ensure that you feel that we have not lost all the character which is so special about Watts Gallery and which makes it unique. There will

be changes but I hope, in time, you will see them as improvements. We must also ensure that we keep the Watts flame alive as we restore the centre for Watts. I am delighted that we will be able to see many of you at G. F. Watts: Victorian Visionary at Guildhall Art Gallery, and Parables in Paint at St Paul’s Cathedral. I hope too that many of you will drop in to see us at the Watts Gallery Information Point in the Old Potteries building on the Watts Gallery Estate. For those who feel like treating themselves to a trip to New York, do join us for the private view of Victorian Artist in Photographs – Selections from The Rob Dickins Collection at The Forbes Galleries in New York on Thursday 6 November. We see the next two years as offering a ‘Gallery without walls’ programme and we are determined to maintain the interest and momentum that you have helped us to build in the last few years.

It is with some fear and trepidation that we embark upon this next stage of our journey, but with support and encouragement of so many of you I can only hope that we will save one of the most beautiful small galleries in Europe in a way which will satisfy, surprise and comfort all of you who care so much about Watts Gallery, its collection and its vision. Thank you for your support and please join us as often as you can over the next few months. We need you and your Friends more than ever!

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Collection NewsMark Bills, CuratorIt is a very exciting time for the collections which are moving from the haven of Watts Gallery, back for exhibition in the metropolis or into storage so that restoration can finally begin. To be able to do this has meant a great deal of conservation work which is ongoing. Hamish Dewar has generously conserved a large number of works which look fresher and closer to what Watts had intended for them whilst their frames have been similarly revitalized by Ben Pearce who has also made and fitted three new frames for After the Deluge, Evolution and Can These Bones Live? The remaining drawings for the Guildhall and St Paul’s exhibition are being mounted and framed. The Achilles Frieze, is being moved to the conservation centre, Liverpool, during closure, to be conserved.

Unfortunately Watts Gallery was unsuccessful in acquiring Watts’s portrait of Edith Villiers. There was an enormous amount of support for the purchase which was bought for over three-times the top of the estimate. In contrast, the Crown Estate is lending on long-term loan, G. F. Watts’s Carlton House Terrace fresco of Apollo and Diana. We have also just acquired a rare album of photographs by Frederick Hollyer of G. F. Watts’s paintings. In some cases these are the only photographs we have of the works, in others they show an earlier stage of a painting’s development. It is an essential volume for the archive and study centre.

Remembering John GeorgePerdita Hunt, Director

On my first day as Director at Watts Gallery, as the size of the task in hand started to become clear to me, a friendly face popped their head round the door to say hello. It was John George. I had not seen him for fifteen years. The first thing he said was that the Arts and Crafts Movement in Surrey would provide full support to the Gallery in its attempt to rescue the building and if necessary there would be some money. He also offered his own help. John has been a man of his word. One afternoon the then Curator Richard Jefferies rushed in with a Sotheby’s catalogue announcing the sale of Watts’s love letters. “We have to buy these” were his words. I could see immediately that this struck a chord with John. He looked into the middle distance and said “I will give you the money”. He did and together with other generous donations to reach a higher price than the estimate, we secured the letters for the archive.

John had an early background in marketing with Beechams and de la Rue and, in 1959, he founded the Marketing Society, at a time when the discipline of marketing was fairly new. In the 1970s, following his interest in architecture, he became Managing Director of the London Building Centre and Building Centre Trust, the exhibition centre for architecture and building technology. For twenty years he was Consultant/Adviser to Barbour Index on architectural and construction design matters, and, in 2001 became a trustee of the British Architectural Library, where he was involved in organizing its move from the RIBA to the Victoria & Albert Museum. A particular debt is owed to him for his support for CRASH, the Construction and Property Industries charity for the homeless, which he helped to establish in 1991.

In October 1995 John and a small group of people interested in the inheritance of the Arts and Crafts Movement in Surrey, initiated a Society bearing that name. John George became its Chairman, and remained so until his death. John became a member of the Collections Committee of the Watts Gallery Trust and was a champion for developing Compton as a centre for exploring Victorian art, social history and craft. He instigated the annual Watts Symposium

and helped the Gallery establish strategic partnerships with the Courtauld Institute and the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham. The Archive Study Room in the restored Watts Gallery, will be named after him.

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The Rob Dickins Collection, Courtauld and Holman HuntDr. Desna Greenhow

The Rob Dickins Collection of Victorian photographs has already stimulated a number of requests from researchers and galleries, wanting to know if there are images of various iconic figures of the Victorian world. The Gallery is lending a series of photographs of William Holman Hunt and his family to the Manchester City Art Gallery, which is holding a large exhibition on the painter this autumn.

In The Rob Dickins Collection there are not only photographs of Holman Hunt himself by Barraud, Walery, and Elliott and Fry, but several of his beloved son Cyril as a child and in his teens, and of his second wife Edith, the faithful lover who had to wait for many years before at last he agreed to marry her. There is also a family album, including the photograph above of Edith and William in their house in Sonning, with a portrait of G. F. Watts on the wall behind them.

Watts was a great admirer of Holman Hunt and his paintings and Hunt was a great admirer of Watts. When the Royal Academy humiliated Hunt and Burne-Jones by refusing them membership, Watts supported them strongly, and regarded them, as he wrote in a letter to Burne-Jones as ‘the men the future will delight to honour’.

While the Gallery is closed for refurbishment, the collection will be held at the Witt Library in the Courtauld Institute in London, where it can be consulted, and it will also be catalogued in the Watts archive, so there will be plenty of opportunity to search for images of the artists, writers, politicians, and the great and good of the Victorian world who may be of particular interest to you. The complete collection will be viewable on line by Christmas this year.

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Watts Symposium and the Watts Lecture 2009Leading international scholars in support of Watts

Watts Symposium 200926 February 2009, Guildhall Art Gallery, London27 February 2009, St. Paul’s Cathedral, London

The third annual symposium on G. F. Watts will be held over two days in London at the venues exhibiting the touring exhibitions Victorian Visionary and Parables in Paint. The subject matter for the event will look at many aspects of Watts’s art and the context for their creation serving both as an introduction to G. F. Watts and contributing to original Watts scholarship. On the Friday when the event moves to St Paul’s Cathedral the discussions will deal with the spiritual dimension of Watts’s work. There will be a wide range of speakers presenting new research on the subject and include Professor Sir Christopher Frayling and leading international Victorian art scholars.

Speakers confirmed to date include:Dr Caroline Arscott Senior Lecturer in Nineteenth-Century British Art, Courtauld Institute of ArtMark Bills Curator, Watts GalleryJudith Bronkhurst Art Historian, Courtauld Institute, LondonBarbara Bryant Consultant Curator and Co-Author G. F. Watts Victorian Visionary (Guildhall 2008-2009) and Author of G. F. Watts: Portraits – Fame & Beauty in Victorian Society (NPG 2004-2005)James Dewar Administrator, Lincoln’s InnVeronica Franklin Gould Author of G. F. Watts: The Last Great Victorian (Yale, 2004) and Curator of The Vision of G. F. Watts (Watts Gallery, 2004) Professor Sir Christopher Frayling Vice-Provost and Rector, Royal College of Art, Chairman, Arts Council of EnglandLeonée Ormond Professor Emerita, King’s College, LondonJohn Price Historian, King’s College, LondonDavid Stewart Art Historian, UA HuntsvilleHilary Underwood Tutor in the History of Art, University of Surrey and Curatorial Advisor, Watts GalleryMartin Warner Treasurer, St Paul’s CathedralSee page 39 to book your place

The Annual Watts LectureWednesday 25 February 2009, 6.30pmCharterhouse, GodalmingSponsored by the Art Department, Charterhouse Egotism and Altruism: Watts and the Tate Alison Smith, Curator, Tate

G. F. Watts was the only artist to donate works to the Tate Gallery when it was established in 1897. At the time this was widely perceived to be an altruistic gesture in that his pictures were seen to offer moral and spiritual consolation as well as enhancing the reputation of the British school. However, from around the time of the Second World War many of the works included in the bequest disappeared into the gallery’s stores never to re-emerge, testimony to changes in value which made Watts’s gift appear redundant. This lecture looks at the Watts bequest in relation to other art legacies, and examines the problem it presented in terms of the conditions it imposed, the on-going relationship between the Tate and the Watts estate, as well as shifts in taste and reputation.

Alison Smith is a Curator at Tate and author of The Victorian Nude: Sexuality, Morality and Art, MUP 1996, contributed to Representations of G. F. Watts, Ashgate 2004, and co-wrote the catalogue for the hugely popular show Millais, at Tate Britain in 2007. See page 39 to book your place

British art on PaperAuction10 December 2008

EnquiriesHarriet DrummondDirector and Head of Departmenthdrummond@christies.com+44 (0)20 7389 2271

SIMEON SOLOMON (1840-1905)A Prelude to Bach (detail)signed with device and dated ‘1868’ (lower right)pencil, watercolour and bodycolour on paper laid on canvas17 x 25 in. (43.2 x 65 cm.)

£200,000-300,000

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British art on PaperAuction10 December 2008

EnquiriesHarriet DrummondDirector and Head of Departmenthdrummond@christies.com+44 (0)20 7389 2271

SIMEON SOLOMON (1840-1905)A Prelude to Bach (detail)signed with device and dated ‘1868’ (lower right)pencil, watercolour and bodycolour on paper laid on canvas17 x 25 in. (43.2 x 65 cm.)

£200,000-300,000

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Auction Preview at Watts Gallery, Touring Exhibitions from Watts Gallery and Watts in the City

Auction Preview

The Scott Collection21-22 October 2008Watts Gallery, Compton

Valerie Finnis and her husband, Sir David Scott, were avid collectors and during their lives they amassed an exceptional array of British pictures that incorporates Victorian and 20th-century British Art. These pictures are being sold at Sotheby’s on November 19 after a travelling exhibition that has seen the collection visit Hong Kong, Sydney, New York and Compton! Selected highlights will be shown at Watts Gallery for two days.Proceeds will go to the Finnis Scott Foundation who have generously supported the Watts Gallery Hope Project.

Touring Exhibitions

Victorian Artists in Photographs: G. F. Watts and his WorldSelections from The Rob Dickins Collection

The Forbes Galleries, Fifth Avenue, New York, USA7 November 2008 - 3 January 2009The Ruskin Library, Lancaster University4 April - 28 June 2009

This exhibition brings us a step closer to a distant age and offers us the opportunity to see the faces, homes and families of artists whose work is so popular. A chance to stand face to face with the eminent painters, poets and authors of the day including George Frederic Watts. A touring exhibition by Watts Gallery.

Watts in the City

G. F. Watts: Victorian VisionaryGuildhall Art Gallery, London 11 November 2008 - 26 April 2009Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate14 November 2009 - 21 March 2010

Retrospective of one of Britain’s greatest and most original artists. Drawn from the Watts Gallery collection, the exhibition features more than eighty paintings, drawings and sculptures. The works will be returning to London for public display for the first time in 100 years.

G. F. Watts: Parables in PaintSt Paul’s Cathedral, London 1 December 2008 - 30 July 2009Guildford House Gallery, Guildford15 August - 12 September 2009

Watts did not possess a conventional religious faith yet he retained a sense of the profound importance of spirituality. The exhibition explores the religious and spiritual dimension of his art and the way that this underpinned his sense of social responsibility.

Watts in the NaveSt Paul’s Cathedral, London1 December 2008 - April 2009

Time, Death and Judgement and Peace and Goodwill by G. F. Watts will return to the Nave of the great cathedral some 100 years since they were first hung there.

Visit www.wattsgallery.org.uk to find out more about the exhibition programme.

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A GREAT BRITISH COLLECTIONThe pictures collected by Sir David and Lady Scott

Sold to benefit the Finnis Scott Foundation

AUCTION IN LONDON 19 NOVEMBER 2008 I ENQUIRIES +44 (0)20 7293 5497 I SOTHEBYS.COM

EXHIBITIONS

SELECTED WORKS

Watts GalleryCompton, Surrey

21–22 OCTOBER 2008

THE ENTIRE COLLECTION

Mansfield TraquairEdinburgh

27–29 OCTOBER 2008

Sotheby’s London14–18 NOVEMBER 2008

Sophie AndersonNo Walk Today

ESTIMATE £600,000 – 800,000

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Come and experience grand portraits, fascinating London subjects and important Victorian paintings, plus the remains of Roman London's Amphitheatre, all in the heart of the historic City of London. From 11 November to 26 April 2009 our special exhibition is

G F Watts: Victorian Visionary,

with free admission for the Friends of Watts Gallery and Friends of Guildhall Art Gallery.

Mon-Sat 10 - 5 (last admission 4.30)Sun: 12 - 4 (last admission 3.45)Adults £2.50Concs. £1.00Children freeAdmission is free after 3.30 and all day Friday020 7332 3700guildhall.artgallery@cityoflondon.gov.ukwww. guildhall-art-gallery.org.uk

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Watts in the CityMark Bills, Curator

“I love art, and am only desirous that power should be used to place art in England on a level with her best achievements in other directions.” G. F. Watts

Throughout the winter and the following spring, the City of London will be celebrating, through exhibitions and events, the life and works of George Frederic Watts. The retrospective exhibition, G. F. Watts Victorian Visionary opens at the Guildhall Art Gallery on 11th November and gives the opportunity for a new audience to view the extraordinary range of this astonishing artist. On 1st December, St Paul’s opens an exhibition in its crypt, G. F. Watts: Parables in Paint, which explores the spirituality of his art alongside the re-installation of two of Watts’s great paintings in the Cathedral’s nave. Watts in London also highlights those parts of London where the art of Watts can be seen, perhaps most originally and movingly, in the monument that is Postman’s Park. (continues over)

Come and experience grand portraits, fascinating London subjects and important Victorian paintings, plus the remains of Roman London's Amphitheatre, all in the heart of the historic City of London. From 11 November to 26 April 2009 our special exhibition is

G F Watts: Victorian Visionary,

with free admission for the Friends of Watts Gallery and Friends of Guildhall Art Gallery.

Mon-Sat 10 - 5 (last admission 4.30)Sun: 12 - 4 (last admission 3.45)Adults £2.50Concs. £1.00Children freeAdmission is free after 3.30 and all day Friday020 7332 3700guildhall.artgallery@cityoflondon.gov.ukwww. guildhall-art-gallery.org.uk

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G. F. Watts, Under the Dry Arch, 1849-50

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Watts was a Londoner and he knew only too well the importance of the metropolis as a centre of the British art world. He was born in London’s Queen Street on 23rd February 1817 and died 87 years at Little Holland House, Kensington.

As a subject for his pictures, London only features in three paintings which were a response to being disturbed by the increasing poverty in the city: Found Drowned, Under a Dry Arch and The Seamstress. The first two, uniquely for Watts, show the topography of the city, the first an arch of Waterloo Bridge looking towards the south bank and the Hungerford suspension bridge and the second an arch of Blackfriars Bridge looking towards St Paul’s.

Yet if the outline of the metropolis was not to be a prolonged inspiration for Watts, decorating its great public buildings and making art more widely accessible there was to become an enduring passion. ‘I can testify after the experience of some years,” he wrote, “to the humanizing and even encouraging effects works of art can have upon those whose lives are a round of dulnesses [sic], lacking the ordinary enjoyment known to the more fortunate.” Bringing art to all was a mission for Watts and is also expressed in his founding of galleries, his own in London and Compton and

supporting those national institutions, the Tate and National Portrait Gallery, but also the philanthropic schemes of building art galleries in the poorest parts of the city in the South London Gallery and Whitechapel Art Gallery.

One of Watts’s most extraordinary monuments is near to St Paul’s, Postman’s Park, St Botolph’s, dedicated to ‘heroism in every-day life’. “The national prosperity of a Nation,” Watts wrote “is not an abiding possession, the deeds of its people are.” In 1887 he wrote to The Times proposing a project to mark Queen Victoria’s Jubilee of that year. Some thirteen years later it was unveiled to the public. Consisting of a wooden cloister it holds fifty-three memorial tablets commemorating sixty-one men, women and children who gave their lives attempting to save another. These simple yet moving accounts reflect the words “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13).”

Decorative schemes at the Houses of Parliament and Lincoln’s Inn still testify to Watts’s skill as a fresco artist. In churches particularly, Watts as a deeply spiritual artist, found his voice. He created an extraordinary mosaic of his painting, Time, Death and Judgement to surround a water fountain at St

Postman’s Park, London Photograph by Anne Purkiss

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Jude’s Whitechapel and his fresco for St James the Less, Pimlico, is now a mosaic after paint began to deteriorate.

Watts’s association with St Paul’s lasted nearly half a century and included his involvement in the decorative scheme and the gift of paintings for display in the nave of the Cathedral. His scheme for the apse was never realized but instead Watts designed four compositions for mosaic spandrels representing the four evangelists. St Matthew was completed in 1866, St John in1889, whilst St Luke and St Mark were adapted and not fully completed until the 1890s. Watts’s presence in the nave and in the mosaics near to them make it particular fitting that an exhibition presented concurrently in the Cathedral’s crypt explores Watts’s spirituality.

Watts shared with Canon Henry Scott Holland (1847-1918) a deep empathy for the poor for which the Cathedral was a refuge in the late nineteenth century. Two of the paintings Time, Death and Judgement and Peace and Goodwill from St Paul’s collection, that are re-hung in the nave, arose from this association. Scott Holland, asked G. F. Watts to donate a work of art to St Paul’s Cathedral. Watts and Holland shared similar views

on social reform and the artist’s retrospective of the New Gallery in 1897 fired the clergyman’s desire “to see two great works of his in St. Paul’s.” Watts gifted Time, Death and Judgment to the Cathedral by 1899. To the ‘dear old man’, the Canon wrote, ‘our heartfelt thanks, in the name of all the tramps in the nave. . . [the painting] is perfectly splendid, glowing, beautiful. It quite peoples the church. I have been revelling all day in the glory of it’. It was not until 1908 that Holland’s ambition of having two paintings by Watts in the centre of the cathedral was completed. Mary Watts gave Peace and Goodwill to St Paul’s in 1907.

London was where Watts spent most of his working life, where he met influential acquaintances and produced the majority of art. Watts in the City is an opportunity to explore that connection and the extraordinary art that remains.

With thanks to Barbara Bryant for her information on the Cathedral paintings. A Watts in the City leaflet is enclosed containing full details of the programme as well as maps of the locations of some of Watts’s most important London sites. Alternatively you can visit our website. www.wattsgallery.org.uk

The Nave of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Photograph by Graham Lacdao

16 G. F. Watts, Progress, 1888-1904 (detail)

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G. F. Watts: Victorian VisionaryMark Bills, Curator

“I cannot claim more for my pictures than they are thoughts, attempts to embody visionary ideas.” G. F. Watts

The description of G F Watts as a visionary artist is at once both entirely apt and yet slightly paradoxical. We might expect a visionary to be of an earlier age, the era of the Romantic and William Blake, rather than the age of Queen Victoria. Watts was different, for although being a giant of his age, familiar to all and respected by most, he was also a great individual who was constantly exploring images and ideas in a wholly different way from his contemporaries. The forthcoming exhibition at the Guildhall Art Gallery bears the title Victorian Visionary and explores the development of the artist from his early work, before Victoria ascended to the throne, to his final works three years after the Queen had died. The cover quite aptly shows the visionary image of Endymion, described by a contemporary critic as having ‘a certain Blake-like mystery and intensity’.

The exhibition has at its heart a simple premise: to explore the art of G F Watts through the collection at Watts Gallery. Its exploration of over sixty of the most significant paintings that we hold will be exhibited in chronological order to be able to consider how Watts’s art developed over time and the contemporary influences that acted upon it. The selection has not been without its problems and the decision to include or not to include certain paintings has been difficult and there will no doubt be some who feel that an important or favourite work has been excluded. It has been a question of balance in representing Watts’s entire output as well as illustrating some of his greatest visual ideas from a specific and very idiosyncratic collection. In particular the problem of not having certain masterpieces from the Tate or elsewhere means that this is not an exhaustive retrospective. This being said, we could not leave out Hope, that most astonishing work, and we are extremely grateful to the owner for lending to the exhibition. A Munch exhibition would have to have its Scream. A chronological display of Watts also presents the difficulty of which order to place the work with an artist who worked on paintings over such a long periods and produced several different versions of his most significant at different points during his career.

above G. F. Watts, Sunset on the Alps, 1888 right G. F. Watts, Endymion, 1903

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What has been clear is what a very special collection we have at Watts Gallery. Not only does it have many of the artist’s most intriguing experiments, but some of the greatest masterpieces that Watts refused to part with. The other significant factor that is revealed is what a significant artist Watts is and how his place in the history of nineteenth-century art needs to be consistently re-asserted. This exhibition is an important landmark in taking such a large body of important Watts work to London, which has a very important historical precedent.

The public exhibition of this collection first occurred in London when Watts had a gallery extension designed by George Aitchison in 1881 built on to his studio home at Little Holland House. It was advertised as, “the picture gallery at Little Holland House,” where the public are admitted on Saturdays and Sundays, from two till six – a privilege largely taken advantage of by all sorts and conditions of people.” The collection moved to Surrey in 1903 and it was only two years later in 1905 just after the death of G. F. Watts in July 1904, that it returned briefly to London as a memorial exhibition which also toured to Newcastle, Edinburgh, Manchester and Dublin. The collection was able to tour because Watts Gallery was extending its galleries which were completed for its return for re-display in 1906. In 2008 Watts Gallery finds itself in the same position, it is closing its doors for building works and the collection will once more become a touring exhibition, due to return for the re-opening of Watts Gallery in 2010.

In 1905, when the collection toured, Watts’s reputation was at its height and was seen by record numbers of people. Since then the reputation of the artist has fluctuated, diminishing after the First World War and becoming almost forgotten in the 1940s. In his lifetime Watts had numerous retrospectives, five in the 1880s, the New Gallery in 1896 and Leighton House in 1903. After his death the touring Memorial exhibition of 1905 quickly followed, but it was not until 1954 that the Tate held a retrospective. In 1974 G. F. Watts: A Nineteenth-Century Phenomenon opened at the entirely appropriate venue of the Whitechapel Art Gallery. Since then Watts has appeared alongside Rossetti and Burne-Jones in a symbolist exhibition at the Tate in 1997 and in a portrait exhibition at the

National Portrait Gallery in 2004. Watts Gallery held a retrospective of the artist in 2004, but it has been thirty-four years since a London gallery has shown a retrospective of the artist. It will be very interesting to discover how a new audience will respond to the artist’s work.

The Hope project has presented Watts Gallery with a unique opportunity to reveal its magnificent collection in the metropolis once more and this is significant for a number of reasons. The exhibition and its accompanying catalogue will publish for the first time, much new scholarship on Watts and Watts Gallery. Some paintings have never been written about before and all the new information will provide the foundation of the future development of the collection after re-opening. The exhibition also gives us the opportunity of hanging the collection in chronological order with a well-lit eye-level hang so that we can see how the art of Watts develops and have a greater understanding about the collection we house at Watts Gallery. All the conservation work that has taken place for the exhibition on the paintings and their frames, the sculpture and the drawings have happened for the exhibition and it is my firm belief they will be brought new life in a different context. As Watts wrote: “The greatest art, whether plastic or graphic, will be devoted to the expression of those ideas and emotions that excite enthusiasm and inspire devotion.”

The most important motive for the exhibition is to introduce a new generation to the importance of Watts as an artist. His pioneering spirit should be received well and much of his approach, the way he expresses abstract ideas visually, is arguably more current than it was in the artist’s own lifetime. Visionary artists are by their nature individual and an approach that set them apart from their contemporaries. They also have a fascination and importance that make them appeal to each new generation. G. F. Watts is more than just a representative of the Victorian age, he is an international artist whose dynamic art spans time.

G. F. Watts: Victorian Visionary is at Guildhall Art Gallery, London from 11 November to 26 April 2009.

Friends of Watts Gallery will gain free entry to the exhibition on presentation of their membership card.

The accompanying book by Mark Bills and Barbara Bryant is published by Yale University Press. 300 pages, 250 illustrations. pb £20, hb £40.

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top left G. F. Watts, Alexander Constantine Ionides and His Wife Euterpe, with Their Children Constan-tine, Alexander, Aglaia and Alecco, c.1841-1842top right G. F. Watts, Self Portrait in Old Age, 1903-1904above G. F. Watts, Ophelia, 1875-1880 right G. F. Watts, Sower of the Systems, 1902

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left G. F. Watts, The Denunciation of Cain, 1871-1872top G. F. Watts, Peace and Goodwill, 1887above G. F. Watts, Finished Compositional Design for the Spandrel of St. John for St. Paul’s Cathedral, (detail)

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G. F. Watts: Parables in PaintHilary Underwood, Curator of the Exhibition

Watts’s interest in religious painting is clear even to the casual visitor to Watts Gallery. Biblical subjects such as the Eve paintings and The Good Samaritan dominate the walls of the galleries. But we are now so distant from the Victorian religious past that it is harder to discern where Watts stands in the religious life of his time.

A good starting point is to examine what he chose to paint, and by implication what he avoided representing. Watts was deeply affected by his Christian upbringing. Even his landscapes can be filled with moral meanings and religious symbolism. The Two Paths, a late work inspired by a frightening dream, echoes Jesus’ words about the broad path leading to destruction and the strait gate and narrow way leading to eternal life. However Watts’s choice of biblical subjects is surprisingly restricted. From the Old Testament Watts chiefly selects stories from the book of Genesis, particularly the archetypal narratives from the earliest chapters; Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah. As in the Denunciation of Cain these stories are dominated by sin and its punishment. From the New Testament, Watts illustrates Christ’s parables such as The Good Samaritan and The Prodigal Son. Conspicuously, except for commissioned mural designs, he hardly represents Jesus unlike his contemporaries the Pre-Raphaelites. Possibly the best known Victorian religious painting is William Holman Hunt’s Light of the World showing Jesus as a personal saviour, knocking on the overgrown door which stands for the sinner’s soul.

Watts’s distinctive choice of subjects relates to his early experience of religion. Watts was raised in the Church of England within the early nineteenth-century Evangelical movement. This emphasised the moral conduct and social responsibility which imbues his work. Within this puritanical Christian tradition the representation of God or Jesus was idolatrous. Watts was lucky that his artistic vocation was encouraged in this environment. Watts’s childhood religious experience emphasised a vengeful, death-dealing God. For a sensitive boy who had lost two younger brothers and his mother by the age of nine, this must have been profoundly traumatic. It suggests deep rooted sources

for his artistic preoccupation with sin and death. Only in his later life, partly through the influence of his wife Mary Watts, does Watts explore a more benign spiritual presence, in such paintings as The All Pervading, and Love Steering the Boat of Humanity. His childhood experience also detached him from straightforward religious belief. He retained a deep sense of spirituality, which deepened in his last years but paradoxically for one of Victorian England’s most revered religious artists he had no personal dogmatic faith.

It is a great privilege, but it is also fitting that the first exhibition exploring Watts’s religious art can take place at St. Paul’s Cathedral. Watts had a more than forty-year relationship with the institution. The exhibition covers this, including drawings and sketches for his mosaic designs there which have never before been displayed.

Watts first seems to have regarded St. Paul’s in a critical light. The silhouette of St. Paul’s appears in the background of Under a Dry Arch (1850, Watts Gallery), its grandeur in pointed contrast to the degradation and despair of the down-and-out woman in the foreground. But in the mid-nineteenth century, St. Paul’s was entering a period of spiritual renewal. In the service of this vision, a campaign to beautify the building began. Watts already had considerable experience of mural decoration. In 1863 he was invited to submit designs to decorate the apse. Watts’s large finished drawing of the Transfiguration for this scheme is one of the rare occasions when the artist depicted Jesus. This scheme was unrealised. However Watts designed mosaics of the four gospel writers or Evangelists for the four eastern spandrels under the dome. St. Matthew was made in 1866, St. John in 1889 and St. Mark and St. Luke in 1891. For the last two, Watts’s sketches were realised by W. E .F. Britten, to the detriment of their original grandeur. However St. John is Watts’s own, shown in the powerful finished drawing. St. John is the most mystical of the Evangelists and Watts shows him looking up to heaven for inspiration.

G. F. Watts: Parables in Paint is at St. Paul’s Cathedral from 1 December 2008 - 30 July 2009.

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London Landmarks by G. F. WattsThe Hall of Fame, Postman’s Park and Physical EnergySandy Nairne, Patrick Marber and Antony Gormley

Sandy Nairne,Director of the National Portrait Gallery, London

“I think that Watts would have been very well aware that, starting the National Portrait Gallery and looking back through history and bringing together those men and women contributing to British history and culture would have been important, but I think he was very aware as he began to think about what became his ‘Hall of Fame’ that there was another whole idea here that would be about contemporary Victorians; those of his own age that he admired, who he thought were also the contributors to British history and culture.

Watts had a very clear idea that he cared about the well known names, those that were known for their contribution to society and change but he also cared passionately about those who were unknown and of course the project at Postman’s Park which commemorates in the ceramic plaques the heroic deeds of so called ‘ordinary people’ I always think is the complement to these painted portraits in the Hall of Fame and I think it is actually both sides of the same coin in terms of Watts’s thinking. That he wasn’t just about heroism, it was about the notion of achievement, what could be achieved, what could be done so much better, and why we should care about it.”

In a new film about G. F. Watts, Sandy Nairne, Director of the National Portrait Gallery and Patrick Marber, the playwright whose work Closer features a memorial initiated by Watts, both talk about the artist’s keen sense of the importance of acknowledging greatness both in the ‘ordinary’ and in the ‘famous’. The sculptor Antony Gormley is also interviewed. In the following extracts they explain why they believe Watts was important.

The full film, narrated by the historian Dr. Tristram Hunt, can be seen at the Watts Gallery Information Point in Compton throughout the restoration period.

below G. F. Watts, John Stuart Mill, 1873A version of that given by G. F. Watts to the National Portrait Gallery and on show in the Hall of Fame at NPG.

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Antony GormleySculptor

“I had known Physical Energy as that big equestrian statue in the middle of Hyde Park but I hadn’t realised who had made it and it was actually seeing the plaster at Compton that got me to realise how these different experiences of his work fitted together. Here was a man who had decided certain things were true and that he had to make an art out of that truth and he didn’t really care about a lot of the things that were either fashionable in his time or what the financial outcome of following that path would be.

This is an evocation of a general principle about movement and, in a way, the potential of mass to become energy that is almost prophetic and in its resistance to the classical tradition of the equestrian monument which is always named, always has the historical narrative attached. He has liberated it in the same way that Duchamp-Villon was later to liberate the horse from the specificity of illustration and in that he is a pioneer.”

Patrick MarberPlaywright

“I first discovered Postman’s Park quite by chance in 1996. I had just moved in to the area, at the time I was writing my play Closer, and I was led to the memorial, and read it and was charmed by it. I had never heard of G. F. Watts before, I read up on him a little and was completely charmed by the whole enterprise of this memorial and very moved that it hadn’t been completed in his lifetime, that there are still empty spaces there for someone to put a plaque up. As a writer I was completely enamoured by the unsentimental language of the plaques and the strangeness of the language, that it just spelt out the facts of what had occurred.

I actually used the memorial in the original production of the play Closer at the National Theatre, it was opened in May 1997. The last scene of the play is set at Postman’s Park...the main way it is used is that one of the characters in my play steals her identity from Alice Ayres which is one of the names on the plaques.

I return to Postman’s Park every two or three months and I regard it as a little spiritual oasis in the heart of London.”

above Plaque in Postman’s Park, Photograph by Anna Purkissright G. F. Watts, Physical Energy, Photograph by Pattie Boyd

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Architect’s view of the Sculpture Gallery

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Restoring Watts GalleryAdam Zombory-Moldovan, Architect

Much has been said and written about the magical atmosphere, tranquility and gentle ambience of Watts Gallery. In responding to the significance of the Gallery as the home for its collection of G. F. Watts’s and Mary Seton Watts’s work and creating a place to display and preserve the collection, a key aspiration of our design and conservation work is to preserve and enhance Watts Gallery as a place of reflection, study and contemplative absorption in the Wattses world to reinforce the wonderful, intimate bond between the art and the Gallery.

Watts Gallery was first opened on April 1st 1904, three months before the death of the artist. Commissioned by G. F. Watts and his wife, Mary, it was intended to provide a permanent home for their large collection of Watts’s work. Open to the public through a turnstile, with free entry on certain days, the establishment of the Gallery enshrined their vision of ‘Art for All’.

The first half of the place’s last 104 years saw progressive, major extensions and changes to the Gallery as well as various experimental alterations to try to cure its problematic day-lighting conditions. The neglect and decay the buildings have suffered over the latter half of its life have imbued it with its dishevelled, ‘lost world’ patina that delights all who visit. No building can survive neglect for long, and in particular the Gallery is now unable to provide a safe home for its display collection without some essential, substantial improvements. Importantly the context for our design is one of a Gallery much altered and developed over its relatively short life.

The Gallery was first extended soon after opening, in 1905, and c.1925 with other incremental extensions over time. The enlarged gallery was also able to house some of Watts’s larger sculptures including the two monumental plaster models, Physical Energy and the statue of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The buildings were also home to Mary’s Compton Potters’ Guild apprentice potters whose digs were in the present Curator’s house and who used what later became the Lower Gallery as their recreation room.

The atmosphere at the Gallery is inimitable, a much loved survivor from a gentler, rural age, outside the orbit of the brisk world of the urban gallery circuit. The eccentricities of the building, its flaws, aged fabric and landscape add to its special character which the scheme aims to preserve, while changing to meet the current and future needs of the Gallery.

The architect of the first phase of works was Christopher Hatton Turnor (1873-1940). Although he had never qualified as an architect, it appears he studied with Lutyens for a short time. The style of the Gallery and former potters’ hostel refers to long, low, gabled Arts and Crafts houses that proliferated in Surrey from the 1890s, yet it was innovatively built in the beloved material of the 20th Century, mass concrete, dressed in rough-cast, course-textured render. Interestingly, innovative construction materials were also used later in the Sunken Gallery - early imported plasterboard from the USA - and asbestos wall panels.

The 1904 building comprised a ‘C’-shaped gallery with two open entrance loggias connecting the potter apprentices’ hostel at the eastern end and their recreation room and further dormitories at the western end of the Gallery, both of two storeys. The ‘C’-shaped gallery was never a total success; 150 paintings were crammed onto the walls, with frames touching. Watts himself complained to a friend that “everything must be crowded here. I am sick of the whole thing.” The Main Gallery was also designed by Turnor and opened in 1906 to provide more space, particularly for some of Watts’s larger paintings. The potters’ passage was also added to give an internal connection between the east and west wings while keeping the apprentices out of public gaze in the galleries.

At the same time the Sculpture Studio was constructed to contain Watts’s two monumental sculptures. The huge, timber studio doors in the north elevation came from Watts’s London studio at Little Holland House in Kensington, and a short section of railway track allowed Physical Energy to be winched outside; our design will reinstate this wonderful idiosyncracy.

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The interior of the Gallery has also been subject to a number of changes over the years. Many of the alterations have attempted to improve the quality of natural light in the galleries. The original Gallery had semicircular blinds fitted in the dormer windows facing onto the original courtyard garden (now the Sunken Gallery), however the galleries suffered from both glare and a deficit of useful light at certain times of the day, and overheating through direct sun in the summer.

In the late 1930s the curator, Rowland Alston, instigated alterations aimed at improving the natural day-lighting in the upper Galleries. At his recommendation, in the late 1940s, the old lantern over the main Gallery was removed and lower, iron-framed skylights lights put in. The partition walls at either end of the Long Gallery, breaking up the ‘C’-shaped layout, were installed in an attempt to reduce glare and timber louvres were fitted under the Sunken Gallery roof-lights. A photograph of the Main Gallery, taken in the 1940s, shows the trusses in the Main Gallery clad in painted cardboard to block direct views of the sky-light. The experiment seems to have gone some way to reducing glare but to the terrible detriment of the space, as it had the effect of substantially lowering the loftiness of the ceiling.

Our design work addresses many of the Gallery’s most pressing and long-term problems. The Gallery requires upgrading of the environmental conditions in which the work is displayed, including better-controlled day-lighting, artificial lighting, temperature and humidity

levels to provide the conditions required for the long-term preservation of the building, the work and its viewing. The buildings require extensive repairs to the fabric, such as the repair of roofs, gutters and wall finishes, much of which is in poor condition and the building suffers from dampness.

The existing layout of the galleries allows only limited curatorial flexibility for the display and little space for events or special exhibitions. There is a need for exhibition space which meets current museum standards for access, security and temporary loans in order that the Gallery can build on the current resurgence of interest, with focused special interest exhibitions. Space is also needed for safe display of the hidden collection of Watts’s drawings and works on paper as well as Watts Gallery’s Victorian archives. The Gallery is not at present accessible for wheelchair users and the improvements will at last give access to all the galleries.

The growing success of Watts Gallery has brought increased visitor numbers over recent years and thoughtfully planned additional car parking, together with work to the gardens and landscape, will develop the special setting of the Gallery buildings. We aim to reinforce the landscape link to the Watts’s house, Limnerslease, across the other side of Down Lane, and to Mary Watts’s extraordinary cemetery chapel.

left A photograph from the 1940sshows attempts to control light right Designs for the new lantern roof light as originally installed in 1906

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The Gallery’s gardens and setting will be revived, replanted and a walking route through new planting schemes will give visitors a glimpse of Physical Energy through tall, glass studio doors revealing the Sculpture Gallery’s extraordinary display on visitors’ arrival.

The proposed internal alterations seek to improve their functioning while respecting the original fabric and character of the listed building. Where alterations are required, extensive research has been carried out into historic precedent and appropriate technology and contemporary but sympathetic solutions have been designed. The alterations are not intended to be a pastiche of the original and will be appropriate, yet distinct from the historic fabric. Alterations will use a similar palette of materials to those found in the Gallery, and will be simply detailed in the craftsman-like manner of the Arts and Crafts original.

The buildings will be cautiously restored, preserving the patina of their history, while making them weather-tight and stable. Much will be done to improve care of the collection by sensitively introducing environmental control - temperature and humidity - as well as providing new, safe art storage spaces. The joy of the Gallery’s daily and seasonally changing quality of natural light will be preserved, while thoughtful changes to sky-lights and windows will at last give better control over the strength and direction of daylight. This, together with the addition of a discrete, artificial lighting scheme, will mean that for the first time ever the collection will be seen under appropriate

light - Watts himself always spoke of how his work was best viewed in daylight. Close control of lighting will also allow his works on paper to be displayed safely for the first time.

A new, ‘Showcase’ gallery, replacing the Potters’ derelict wash-house, will link the upper and lower gallery levels and help provide accessibility to all of the eight gallery rooms, giving visitors full access to the re-hang of the Watts’s work in the newly inter-connected gallery rooms. The currently unsuccessful Sunken and Lower galleries, never properly designed for display, will be reworked to provide atmospheric settings for the collection and for temporary exhibits and to give visitors an introduction to the collection and its story. The original Gallery interiors will be restored and historical research has been done to inform new colour schemes for the galleries providing a range of suitable settings for the permanent collection and for loans. The 1904 Galleries still largely preserve their patterned, fabric ‘Tynecastle’ wall coverings which will be restored to their original colouring of red, painted over a layer of yellow. The now gaudy, gold ceilings of the galleries will be replaced with gilding treatment to closely match the original silvery gilt lacquered surfaces to bring warm, reflected light into those galleries. The lacklustre beige colour schemes will be reworked to provide appropriate warmth and colour to give Watts’s work the background and settings in which the artist himself, who was so passionate about the use of colour and texture, would have delighted.

above John Ruskin and William Holman Hunt at Brantwood, Ruskin’s house. Their last meeting. Frederick Hollyer, 1894far left Charles Dickens, Charles Watkins, 1858left Ellen Terry as Juliet, at The Lyceum, Window & Grove, 1882

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Watts in New York Mark Bills, Curator

In his lifetime Watts was almost as renowned in America as he was in Britain and can claim to be the first living artist to have a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in 1884, just fourteen years after its founding. A version of his painting, Love and Life, was exhibited at this exhibition and later traveled to the World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893 and was given by Watts to the people of America, where it was accepted by an Act of Congress in 1894. Despite its removal by the W.C.T.U. (Women’s Christian Temperance Union), headed by the Superintendent of Purity in Literature and Art, Mrs Emily D. Martin, President Roosevelt moved the painting back to the White House in 1902 and the public wrote in praise of a painting that gave vision to the idea of ‘love inspiring the fainting human soul’. Today, US Presidential Candidate Barack Obama, is inspired by one of Watts’s most iconic images, Hope and his autobiography Audacity of Hope is drawn from a sermon by Reverend Jeremiah Wright who discusses the great painting.

It is quite fitting, therefore, that the exhibition Victorian Artists in Photographs: The World of G F Watts is to travel across the Atlantic to be shown at the Forbes Galleries, New York, to a country that showed so much enthusiasm for the artist. The owner of the Gallery, Christopher Forbes, a trustee of Watts Gallery, is himself a passionate advocate of Victorian art and an inspired collector.

The exhibition is a selection of highlights drawn from the extraordinary collection of over 4,000 historic photographs of the Dickins collection, generously donated by Watts Gallery trustee Professor Rob Dickins, CBE. The extent and value of this rich archive has yet to be fully researched and its importance is still in the process of being discovered. The selection on exhibition displays both its breadth and interest and includes two stunning photographs of the great American artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), where his style and character have been delightfully captured. In contrast one of the most moving images is by Frederick Hollyer of

The Victorians in N.Y. Prof. Rob Dickins CBEAmerica in the latter half of the 19th Century embraced both the work and the public appearances of many great British public figures from the worlds of Art and Literature. Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland, William Holman Hunt’s Light Of The World, actress Ellen Terry, the poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson and the reading tours of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins were all celebrated by an enthusiastic population.

There has also always been a strong link especially with New York and such luminaries, and with this remarkable exhibition from Watts Gallery they are becoming a visual experience once more where names become faces in contemporary photographs of the period, most of them never seen before in the U.S.

It was in New York where photography first took hold in the United States with Samuel B. Morse (he of the world famous Morse Code) and his disciples Mathew Brady and Edward Anthony basing their work on techniques learned from Europe.

Brady (better known as ‘Brady of Broadway’) in particular started a business taking photographic portraits of the famous and so how appropriate that 150 years later the exhibition of Victorian Artists in Photographs encompassing this same pioneering period and pictures of celebrities should have its American opening in this same exciting city.

John Ruskin (1819-1900) and William Holman Hunt (1827-1910) meeting for the last time at Ruskin’s home at Brantwood in the Lake District. This remarkable snapshot of highlights underlies a new strand to the development of Watts Gallery as a centre for exploring Victorian art, social history and craft, of which Watts was such an important part.

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Ode to Watts GalleryDebby Brice, Watts Gallery Benefactor

I fell in love with G. F. Watts even before I reached the Gallery. The first glimpse I had of this extraordinary artists’s compound was the incredibly beautiful cemetery nestling on a nearby hill crisscrossed by paths and surrounded by beautiful trees. It is definitely a place where anyone of any creed and culture would feel near their god and at peace. The cemetery chapel is a remarkable art nouveau building created by the artist’s wife Mary Seton Watts and now listed Grade I. Mary Watts designed the building and helped build it along with the villagers of Compton who also, under Mary’s tutelage, created the Chapel’s amazing interior. Mary and her apprenticed potters turned this brick Chapel into a perfect Arts and Craft building that is totally different from anything else I’ve ever seen.

Starting from this perspective the loveliness and quirkiness of the actual Gallery came as no surprise. When I first saw it was wonderfully higgledy-piggledy, rather run down, and just the sort of place in which one would love to live in. It turns out that it wasn’t built just as a Gallery at all, but also as a place to house Mary’s apprentice potters. I believe it is the only purpose-built art gallery dedicated to one professional artist’s collection.

I was welcomed by the new Director, Perdita Hunt, and the then curator Richard Jefferies and was drawn into the magical world of George Frederic Watts. I was completely enchanted from the start. The gallery has enormous charm despite the fact that it was falling apart at the seams. There was no heating, and was

therefore extremely damp. There were also buckets everywhere to catch the drips from the collapsing roof and the walls were covered with droplets of water. It didn’t seem to matter as this was so clearly the vision of one man and his devoted wife. I had never been particularly interested in Victorian Art before this, but Watts’s work is mesmerising. We had sandwiches in the middle of the freezing main room, but then on our tour Richard Jefferies was so wonderfully entertaining about every aspect of Watts and the Gallery, having lived there most of his life, and Perdita Hunt was so clearly passionate about the place, that their love and excitement made it impossible not to fall under their spell and that of Mr. Watts.

I had had no idea that G. F. Watts had been considered by some to be the greatest painter of the Victorian age, but after spending the afternoon walking around the Gallery I was definitely persuaded of its truth. I now realise that the Tate and the National Portrait Gallery are stuffed full of Watts and that he gave one of his greatest works, Love and Life to the American people after having been the first living artist to have a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The Gallery has successfully raised enough money to start the renovation so that Watts’s work can be preserved there for future generations to enjoy. I reiterate that they have made a ‘start’ and much more is needed to make sure that all of you have the chance to fall in love as well!

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A Milestone in Collection Care and Access for All Julia Dudkiewicz, Assistant Curator

In 2006 Watts Gallery embarked on the ambitious task of recording and photographing its extensive collections for the benefit of all. The cataloguing project has now been completed with every object entered into a specialist collection management database. The catalogued collections are now available as an online resource featuring over 2500 diverse objects, all accessible through the Gallery website.

The benefits of the cataloguing project are manifold. Firstly, comprehensive museum documentation is a requirement for achieving Accreditation, a recognized professional standard for museums for which Watts Gallery is applying in the spring 2009. Accreditation will, in turn, facilitate inter-museum loans for temporary exhibitions and insurance arrangements. Secondly, an online catalogue of the Watts Gallery collection has already proven an invaluable research resource for preparing recent exhibitions and displays, as well as a collections management tool for planning all aspects of the restoration project from conservation and off-site storage arrangements to movement control for exhibition loans. Finally, the database serves as a virtual gallery showcasing the entire collection, including un-exhibited artworks in storage, accompanied with descriptions that offer free access to Watts’s vision for the enjoyment of all, very much in keeping with the artist’s ethos of ‘art for all’.

Throughout the course of the 20th-Century, due to numerous bequests and donations (particularly from Mary Seton Watts and Lilian Chapman) as well as new acquisitions, the Watts Gallery collection has expanded significantly since 1904 when it only included 109 core works, primarily finished oil paintings and a few sketches, all by G. F. Watts, donated by the artist from his London studio in Kensington.

The database includes 250 original oil paintings alongside over 400 photographic reproductions of Watts’s lesser known or untraced paintings by Frederick Hollyer and other Victorian photographers. The Gallery’s unique set of over 100 commercial colour prints by Emery Walker is testimony to the enormous

popularity and circulation of G. F. Watts’s works as reproductions. The catalogue also presents some 800 drawings, 200 sculptures, 200 pieces of pottery, as well as prints, watercolours and ephemera. The nature and scope of the Watts Gallery collection make it a fascinating resource for the study of Watts’s working methods and techniques.

Watts worked in a wide range of media including oil paint on canvas and panel, pencil, silverpoint, chalk and charcoal on diverse paper varieties of different colours and textures, and this diversity is well represented within our collection, and recorded on the database. The cataloguing project has revealed some exciting finds including G. F. Watts’s skull cap, an intact piece of the original Watts Gallery wall covering as well as many unique drawings ranging from highly accomplished copies after other artists produced when Watts was just ten, to numerous compositional studies for some of the artist’s famous allegorical pictures, including an early study for Hope sketched on the reverse of a visiting card of a Miss Hope. Another highlight of our drawings collection is a detailed sanguine head study for Love and Life.

Mary Seton Watts’s creative output is also preserved at Watts Gallery as the only public museum in the world with a display of 200 pieces of Compton Pottery, ranging from well-known terracotta garden pots to more quirky small coloured pieces, including unusual designs such as a jewellery set of Zodiac sign pendants, Tennyson’s Bust bookends or a Lighthouse lamp stand. The database gives visitors the opportunity to discover the collection for themselves.

Search the collection at www.wattsgallery.org.ukWatts Gallery would like to thank Adlib Museum and Archive Information Systems for their support and sponsorship of the cataloguing project and the dedicated team who have contributed to creating this lasting resource, in particular Gillian Hardy, David and Barbara Knight, Hilary and Denis Calvert, and Melanie Shearer.

left G. F. Watts, Study for Love and Life

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Creative Writing on Watts Students from Finton House School, Wandsworth, London

The Chapel

It was a cold misty morning and as I walked to the Watts grave yard I could see my breath in the air. The gravel crunched under my feet, I heard the birds sing as they hid from me in the trees. The wooden gate was old and crooked. The rusty handle creaked as I pulled it open. The noise of the gate made me want to turn around. I realised I was all alone.

The grass was long and pieces of moss hung from the sides of the cross. The curls and lines in the stone made me think of a snakes body slithering in the soil. It made me feel sad the no one was caring for this person. Where was his family?

I sat on the grass sketching for half an hour making sure I drew every little detail, when I noticed buttercups were growing in the long grass. They lit up in the sun and made me feel nature was looking after the stone.

by Holly

Hope

Wind in your hairHope in your soulWater on your toesCloth on your eyes tied in bowsOne string one note one lovely songThere on a sphere gently curled up where she belongsOne pale finger pluckily listening to her hearts desireOne small star of hope glimmers in the darkest nightIt glimmers with lots of mightIn the darkness of the night.

by Ebrina

In the Spring of 2008 a year 5 class from Finton House School in Wandsworth visited Watts Gallery and the Watts Chapel. They produced drawings, paintings and creative writing inspired by their visit. Here we re-produce some of their inspiring work.

Finton House is an independent, co-educational preparatory school, for children aged 4-11. They aim to equip every child with a lifelong enthusiasm for learning and see the Arts as providing an important stimulus in achieving this aim. There is a strong emphasis on creativity which is visible throughout the curriculum.

Painting by Skye

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Why did you drown?

Why did you drown?How do you feel?You look very sad,And awkwardly still.

Why did you drown?Your dress looks heavy!Your face is so paleAs if resting – what is your story?

Why did you drown?Did you jump to your death, from the bridge high above?Were you there on your own?Or with your true love?

Why did you drown?What is that, which you clasp?A locket?With the love you saw last?

Why did you drown?Did you have a baby?OR is it still lyingDown there, with you the drowned lady?

Why did you drown?Were you not wed?Did they say you were rude?Is that what sent you to your watery bed?

Why did you drown?Did you sacrifice your self for others like you?Did you suffer like Jesus on the cross?With your arms out stretched? Under the star of hope, is this true?

by Celeste

The Irish Famine

In the Victorian era, three people were found Who looked very sad, with some tears all around.

The baby was dead, and the mother looked pale, The father was angry, and there was the male

Who sat on their left, with his head on his handsWho was itching to go to some nice foreign lands.

Their crops had all failed, and they just couldn’t waitFor some food to eat, when it is almost too late

The chance of survival is not lots and lots.Based on a painting by George Frederic Watts.

by Henry

Found Drowned by Celeste (jpg. 18)-

With the closing of the Gallery for restoration, the schools programme will be continuing as part of ‘A Gallery Without Walls Learning Programme’. Schools will still be able to come to Compton and book a visit to the Watts Chapel and see the Watts Gallery site.

In conjunction with this we will be offering schools a new programme of outreach sessions, see the Gallery’s website for more information. If you are a teacher and would like to join the Teacher E-bulletin mailing list, please email learning@wattsgallery.org.uk with your name and school details.

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An Arts & Crafts Enclave in SurreyThe Story of Abbotswood Revealed

Have you ever wondered about the link between the marvellous Arts and Crafts houses such as Goddards by Lutyens, Blackwell by Baillie Scott, or Norney Grange by Voysey and the long rows of Jacobethan dwellings we see at the entrances to our towns? A new book, entitled ‘A History of Abbotswood, Guildford’s Most Unusual Estate’, by Michael Drakeford discovers this evolution at the home of the Arts and Crafts Movement, the South East, and in particular Surrey’s county town of Guildford.

The beginning of the story is well documented. It was started in the mid-nineteenth century by William Morris and his friends to move away from the Victorian mass produced properties and create buildings and materials that reflected the craftsmanship that was, they believed, in danger of being relegated to a very few properties, if not just to the history books.

After 1918 there was a dearth of house building and only when kick started by a government concerned about the lack of properties being built, did a revival come in the early 1920s. By that time the wealth required for grand Arts and Crafts houses had disappeared through increased taxes, and reduced economic circumstances. Added to this was the loss of many men on the battle fields of Europe, and with them their skills. In better earlier times architects at all levels had much admired the skills of the Arts and

Crafts masters such as those mentioned above. Partly working in their shadows they too had created great houses. This book follows the fascinating story of one such architect, Claude Burlingham.

The book was prompted by the threat to demolish one of Burlingham’s houses in Abbotswood, an estate in Guildford. Local residents objected, and through a lot of hard work, persuaded English Heritage to give it a listing. The house, Woodways (seen above) was noted as an outstanding example of the Arts and Crafts style. The threat was lifted and the house restored. Investigations revealed that, unusually, virtually all the houses on the estate built between the time the land was purchased from Lord Onslow in 1909 until 1925, were designed by Burlingham. This new book leads the reader through the tale, examining each house on the estate, drawing out the significant design feature that indicate an Arts and Crafts Style house, and provides an insight into the lives of the people who lived there from the very beginning. In 324 pages, with 400 mostly colour illustrations it is a valuable source of information and interest. One not to be missed.

Signed copies of ‘A History of Abbotswood, Guildford’s Most Unusual Estate’ by Michael Drakeford, £25, can be bought from Watts Gallery. 01483 810235 www.wattsgallery.org.uk

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Big Draw Workshops at Guildford Cathedral28, 29 and 30 October 200810am-12 noonSmall admission charge, payable on the day. No advance booking.

The Cathedral will be open for people of all ages to come and have a go at drawing. This will be a collaborative piece of work, organised by a Sandy Curry, the Watts Gallery Fenton Arts Trust Artist in Residence 2006-7, and the finished work will be on display in the cathedral at the end of the event. No experience necessary! There will also be worksheets and colouring sheets available for children of all ages and tours round the cathedral. Some

refreshments will be provided or the Cathedral Refectory can provide lunch. Please come and make a day of it!

For more information please contact Catherine Warrington, on 01483 547880. Organised by Guildford Cathedral, in conjunction with Watts Gallery

Family Art Workshops £5 per child, accompanying adults free. Children need to be accompanied at all times when at the workshop. For ages 5-10.Priority booking for family friends until the end of October.

A Gallery Without WallsWatts Gallery Events During Restoration

During the restoration of Watts Gallery from October 2008 to late 2010, the Watts Gallery Learning Programme A Gallery Without Walls, will be taking place in local venues across the community. This will include a wide range of family and adult learning events.

You can book online, via post or at the Information Point during opening hours (Tue-Fr 11-3pm, Sat 11-5pm, Sun 1-5pm). For telephone enquiries please call 01483 813591.

Create a Christmas AngelSaturday 13 December 2008 10.30 – 12 noon and 1.30 – 3pmLoseley Fields Children’s Centre

Inspired by the angels on the ceiling of the Watts Chapel, you will be able to make a Christmas Angel using wire and tissue paper. Your angel sculpture could be used as a table decoration or put on to your Christmas tree.

You may wish to visit the Chapel before you come to the workshop if you haven’t been there before!

Creative Fun with ClayMonday 16 February 200910.30 – 12 noon and 1.30 – 3pmLoseley Fields Children’s Centre

Inspired by the Compton Pottery Nursery Rhyme Plaques, we will make a clay plaque illustrating your favourite nursery rhyme or story. Then learn how to make a simple pot, which you could also decorate with a story theme. The plaque and the pot will be made in air-drying clay, which you can paint at home.

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Friends’ Visits Watts in the City: St. James the Less; St. Paul’s Cathedral and G. F. Watts: Parables in Paint Mon 8 December 20089.30am-6pm (approx.)£30 per person Two tickets per Friend and all tickets are non-refundable.

In the last Friends’ Visit of 2008 Friends will have the opportunity to see the Watts mosaic The Doom at St. James the Less, Pimlico, and view this exquisite church, completed in 1861, where the interior is a profusion of gilding, brick, tile and marble.

We will then take a tour of St. Paul’s Cathedral which will include Watts’s paintings in the Nave, Time, Death and Judgement and Peace and Goodwill as well as his spandrel designs.

Finally we will view the exhibition G. F. Watts: Parables in Paint in the crypt of St. Paul’s. Comprising religious paintings from the Watts

Gallery Collection, the exhibition will cast new light on some familiar and some less familiar works. As always Mark Bills, Curator of Watts Gallery, will accompany the visit to answer questions.

It will be necessary to take a packed lunch to eat at St James the Less; there will be facilities for tea and coffee. The day will involve a large amount of walking.

Visits for 2009Visits for 2009 will include a tour of a Gertrude Jekyll garden with cream tea in June. In September there will be a two-day stay at Farringford, Tennyson’s former home on the Isle of Wight. Anne VardonFriends Events Co-ordinator

Curator’s Talks Looking at G. F. Watts: Portraits of the Artist Wed 3 December 2008, 7pmCompton Village Hall£5, including a glass of wine

Whether in painting, sculpture or photography, images of G. F. Watts are remarkably revealing. From the early self-portrait at the age of 17 to the photograph on his deathbed, they strongly reflect his state of mind and influences at the time that they were created. This lecture by Mark Bills will consider

the life and art of Watts through his portraits and self-portraits.(Rescheduled from August)

Watts and MammonWed 4 February 2009, 7pmCompton Village Hall£5, including a glass of wine

For G. F. Watts one of the curses of his age was ‘Mammonism’. He believed this to be the unspiritual and unwholesome seeking of material wealth for its own sake, which he felt was a destructive force that stifled both the human spirit and the life of a nation. In many of his paintings such as Mammon, For He Had Great Possessions and Can These Bone Live? he dealt with this idea and its impact on the individual and society as a whole. Mark Bills will discuss the subject of Mammon in Watts’s art.

An Artist’s Rural Retreat:G. F. Watts and LimnersleaseWed 6 May, 7pmCompton Village Hall£5, including a glass of wine

A Gallery Without WallsWatts Gallery Events During Restoration

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George and Mary Watts first visited Compton in the 1880s to stay with their friends, the Hichens at Monkshatch. In 1890 they commisioned the architect Ernest George to build a home for them nearby that they named Limnerslease. Initially a winter retreat, Watts had a grand studio house, a barn studio and eventually the Watts Gallery just a stone’s throw away. The talk will explore the importance of Limnerslease to Watts.

Watts LectureEgotism and Altruism: Watts and the Tate Alison Smith, Curator, TateWed 25 February 2009, 6.30pmCharterhouse, Godalming£5Sponsored by the Art Department, Charterhouse

G. F. Watts was the only artist to donate works to the Tate Gallery when it was established in 1897. This lecture looks at the Watts bequest in relation to other art legacies, and examines the problem it presented in terms of the conditions it imposed, the on-going relationship between the Tate and the Watts estate, as well as shifts in taste and reputation.See page 8 for full details.

Price No. Cost

Family Workshops Christmas Angel £5 ___ ___Sat 13 December, 10.30 Christmas Angel £5 ___ ___Sat 13 December, 1.30

Fun with Clay £5 ___ ___Mon 16 February, 10.30am

Fun with Clay £5 ___ ___Mon 16 February, 1.30pm

Friends Visit £30 ___ ___Watts in the City Mon 8 December 2008

Curator’s TalksLooking at G. F. Watts £5 ___ ___Wed 3 December

Watts and Mammon £5 ___ ___Wed 4 February

Artist’s Retreat £5 ___ ___Wed 6 May

Book all three for just £12 ___ ___

Watts Lecture 2009Watts and the Tate £5 ___ ___Wed 25 February

Watts Symposium £75/£55 ___ ___26/27 February 2009 26 February only £40/£35 ___ ___

27 February only £40/£35 ___ ___

Adult Art ClassLife Drawing £35 ___ ___Sat 24 January

Total ___ ___

Please fill in your personal details and payment instructions over the page.

Booking Form2009 Watts SymposiumThur 26 February 2009 Guildhall Art Gallery, LondonFri 27 February 2009 St. Paul’s Cathedral£75 two days/£40 one dayConc. £55 two days/£35 one day(Concessions include students, senior citizens, unwaged and Friends of Watts Gallery; Guildhall Art Gallery; St Paul’s Cathedral.)

The 2009 Symposium will explore the life and work of G. F. Watts within the context of the Victorian age. The list of speakers includes Professor Sir Christopher Frayling.See page 8 for full details.

Adult Art ClassLife Drawing Sat 24 January 2009, 2.30 – 6pmCharterhouse, Godalming£35

Explore life drawing through the eyes of G. F. Watts, with Gez Evans, artist and former Director of Creative Arts at Frensham Heights School.

This life drawing day will look at the ways Watts used the human form to create his message and provide the opportunity to develop drawing and observational skills by working directly from a model.

Suitable for adults of all abilities and art students aged 16+.Tickets are limited. Easels, paper and charcoal will be provided.

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Title

Name

Address

Postcode

Telephone

Children’s Name/s and age

Visa Mastercard

Name of Card Holder

Credit Card Number

Valid From Exprires End

Issue Number CVN*

* last 3 digits of the number on the signature strip

Signature

Cheques payable to: Watts Gallery

Please send your booking form to: Events, Watts Gallery, Down Lane, Compton,Surrey GU3 1DQ

Booking Form An Artist’s Perspective on Watts Gallery Paul Catherall, Printmaker

Leading printmaker Paul Catherall has been commisioned to design a linocut of Watts Gallery, capturing it prior to restoration. Andrew Churchill talks to him.

Your prints have previously focussed on architectural landmarks in cities. How did you find working in a more rural setting?It was quite a change and a challenge - I’d got used to using straight lines most of the time from my usual choice of mid to late twentieth century architecture, particularly those from the brutalist genre! I really like the Englishness of the setting and it enabled me to incorporate colours inspired by painters like Paul and John Nash and Graham Sutherland. It also allowed for a more integration between natural and man made elements. The foliage at the Gallery seems to be part of the structure and I wanted to reflect that in the print.

You are in the exhibition The Art of the Poster - A Century of Design, in fact one of your prints is the cover of the catalogue I believe. Yes, the artwork of Primrose Hill image is displayed along with some preparatory sketches and a previous poster of St Paul’s and Blackfriars Bridge entitled ‘Spring - Four Seasons of London’s Famous Skyline’ has been chosen for the book published by Lund Humphries to coincide with the exhibition.

Many people will be familiar with your work on the numerous book jackets you have designed. ‘The Cloudspotter’s Guide’ was a runaway success wasn’t it?It became a really popular book which was a nice surprise to me and also to the publisher I think! It was designed and reproduced sympathetically, which is quite important when dealing with artwork that becomes the main focus of the cover - things like the right paper stock being used can make a big difference.

What was it about the Gallery building that first struck you?The first thing that struck was the geometric quality of the triangular windows along with the two front elevations. Though it seemed almost ‘country cottage’ like with

An Artist’s Perspective on Watts Gallery Paul Catherall, Printmaker

a very English feel enhanced by the front garden and foliage around the building I also saw the ‘tardis’ quality of the gallery that seems so much smaller on the outside than it actually is.

I wanted to retain the Englishness of the building and setting but also to give it stature and solidity with an almost pattern like representation of the Arts and Crafts features.

Do you approach ‘cultural’ buildings differently to say, bridges or financial buildings?Not at all. Every landmark has it’s own unique qualities and you respond to just that really. When sketching and photographing I usually get an idea of the elements I want to concentrate on - those that I feel are the essence of the

structure. Colours also come as a response to the building that just seem right. It’s hard to explain but certain buildings just seem to go with certain colours.

Watts Gallery by Paul CatherallLinocut. Signed edition of 95.28.5cm x 38cm (11.25in x 15in)£125. www.wattsgallery.org.uk 01483 810235

The Art of the Poster - A Century of Design, London Transport Museum, 16 Oct – 31 Mar 2009. www.ltmuseum.co.uk

www.paulcatherall.com

left Paul Catherall, The Cloudspotter’s Guide top Paul Catherall, Watts Galleryabove Paul Catherall, Poster for Transport for London

Christmas at Watts GalleryGifts for the Art Lover in your Family

This year’s Christmas card depicts Physical Energy by G. F. Watts in Kensington Gardens, painted by Terry McKivragan whose studio is in the old potteries building at Watts Gallery. Terry says “As you walk through the gardens, you see up ahead of you, strategically placed at the junction of five pathways, this dramatic sculpture. One cannot fail to be impressed by the contrast of this portrayal of such dynamic equestrian energy in such a tranquil setting.”

Pack of 10 cards, £5.95 To accompany the exhibition G. F. Watts: Victorian Visionary the book by Mark Bills and Barbara Bryant is published by Yale University Press. 300 pages, 250 illustrations.

pb £20, hb £40

Cast in best quality pewter and available in a matt or a highly polished finish, these paperweights of Physical Energy will look handsome on any desk, mantelpiece or windowsill.

£24.95

G. F. Watts: Parables in PaintReligious works from the Watts Gallery Collection

This 24 page catalogue for the exhibition at St. Paul’s Cathedral includes an essay by Hilary Underwood and is fully illustrated. £3.95

www.wattsgallery.org.uk Order on-line at

or visit the Watts Gallery Information Point and ShopTue-Fri 11-3pmSat 11-5pm, Sun 1-5pm

w. www.drellagallery.co.uke. teresa@drellagallery.co.ukt. 01483 239813m. 07900 887021

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Courses available for beginnersin drawing, painting and various crafts. New courses continuallyadded. A full programme of courses will be available on the website from 5 October 2008.

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