Category: History of Art

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Bartholomew Fair Watercolour by Charles Green R.I. (1840 – 1898)

Saint Bartholomew Fair, watercolour, Charles Green, circa 1870

Whilst researching for volume two of the George Wombwell biography, I discovered a November 1949 article in the popular newsapaper The Sphere concerning Charles Green’s depiction of Bartholomew Fair in central London. It referred to its place in a collection under the aegis of The National Gallery of British Sports and Pastimes, which had been founded by Walter Hutchinson (1887 – 1950) during 1949. It consisted of over 3600 paintings, prints and other works, which belonged to Hutchinson and adorned his house in London: Hutchinson House. Formerly known as Derby House, Stratford Place, the house was originally built for Edward Stratford, the Second Earl of Aldborough in 1776 – 1777. The current occupants are the Orient Club which have maintained residence since 1962.

There is a catalogue of items from the collection.

National Gallery of British Sports & Pastimes (LONDON) – The First 600 Selected Pictures. National Gallery of British Sports and Pastimes … List of sports and pastimes, etc. (London, c.1950)

Following Hutchinson’s death, and the breakup of the Sports and Pastimes Gallery, all works were offered up for auction. The current whereabouts of Green’s painting is not known and there is no record of its existence in the Courtauld’s Witt Archives (as of summer 2017). The Sphere article is quite sparce, but describes a busy scene, full of incidents after the manner of Frith. The entertinments include Wombwell’s Menagerie (rear left), swings, roundabouts and all the fun of the fair. In the background is the entrance to Bartholomew’s Hospital. It is probably the most representative of all views of Bartholomew Fair, although it must have been painted after 1855, the closing date of the fair.

Green was a well known illustrator for the works of Charles Dickens and other examples of his work can be found in collections such as those of the Victoria and Albert museum in central London.

This painting was excluded from the biography due to insumountable, multiple copyright issues, and is published here for the purposes of non-commercial research or private study, reference, criticism or review or news reporting, of not more than one item (article or page) from any one issue of a newspaper of periodical. Copyright issues should not be allowed to interfere with the discovery of hitherto unknown artworks from being researched and presented for public display.

Any information concering the current location of the watercolour would be gratefully received.

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The Political Protest Photograph as an Artwork

Cover of Camerwork Volume 8

Political photographs in museums and national art galleries are rare beasts. At least they were for many years prior to an exhibition of photographs depicting life in Britain: Who We Are: Photographing Britain at Tate Britain, London during 2007. On the tenth anniversary, which is more coincidental than pre-arranged, I publish an essay, first written in 2014 as part of my MA in History of Photography. It cultivates the notion that rather than being a rarity, th protest photograph performs a function hitherto not recognised by curators and academics alike. Namely, that the protest photograph is not just a worthy artform for wider recognition by the major galleries and museums, but also one that functions in the same way as the History painting. Examples of history painting include such masterpices as Théodore Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa (1819), Oil on Canvas, that hangs majestically in its own salon in the Musée du Louvre, in Paris. The History painting, as any self respecting art historian knows, is the pinnacle of art, from which all other forms of visual art hang their credentials. To not do so would be considered suicidal!

Given the current political environment, and the constant references to the 1970s, the essay has been reworked for publication and many thanks to my former tutor Dr Patricia de Bello, from Birkbeck School of Art History, London, for the suggestions made to improve the essay’s worth. She has no doubt forgotten that she ever gave me any advise, but what stuck in my mind for the last 4 years, was that the essay would eventually be worthy of publication. I am of course, too old to revisit academia and the pitfalls of journal publication, so I have added it here on my blog for all those readers willing to take time to read it.

Go HERE for the article

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Art Installation: The Rising Tide

On the south bank of the Thames in central London, Jason deCaires Taylor has created this sculpture. Accessible at low tide, but submersion at high tide is also as spectacular. Here’s some photo I took at the weekend:

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What’s Up? From Welling Riots to Scoping!

Absolutely nothing really, it’s just I haven’t been on here in over a year! Time flies so fast, blink and I missed it! I’ve nearly finished an MA dissertation and that has kept me busy for the last three months, but there’s no excuse really, you can always find time to write something.

I’ve discovered Periscope and it has distracted me from my tasks of recent days. I’m wondering where it is all going. Is this the REAL death of photography, not the death I write about in academia. I don’t think so, I believe the lens is as powerful (pun intended) as it was in the days of Hine documentary photographs or the Farm Administration photographers in the 1930s USA. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say it is more powerful, more politically charged right now than at any time in the last 150 years of the photograph’s existence. It just needs manipulation that’s all. Rant over.

I should finish with a photograph I suspect.

 

  I’ve often wondered ‘who is this old soldier?’

This was the Welling riots of late 1993, when the ANL marched on the BNP, then headquartered in Welling, South London. The police, determined to prevent that happening, stopped them in their tracks about 500 metres from their target. It was never going to happen though, the police lines were so rigid and well defended. Several horse charges later and this is what happens in such chaos. All of a sudden from the midst of chaos came this old gent, resolute and determined to have his say. Holocaust survivor maybe? WWI veteran possibly, but I never saw him again that day to ask him his story. But, his story is every reasonably minded citizen’s story isn’t it? The evil of BNP may have left Welling shortly afterwards, but their doctrine never changed. A broken force in 2015 maybe, but another will emerge from the darkness one day to spout the same racist evil, be assured of that.

Do photos have an indexical reality still? Yes, of course they do, you just need to know how to say it, how to read it and how to broadcast it. Periscope has the hallmarks of a powerful tool for the future, let’s see how it pans out (pun intended again!) and let’s not ruin it this time with some art junkie trying to make money for nothing.

 

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New Page Added: Nazi Looted Art – recently added Dorotheum Auction Catalogues 1942 -43

Recent Digitized Dorotheum Art Sales between 1942 – 1943

The tracing of Nazi looted art should now be much easier with the onset of digital technology. Several institutions have collected together some of the data that has been made available over the last half century or so. Part of this data involves the digitisation of auction catalogues from places such as Austria both before and during the second world war.

This is how the Central Registry of Information on Looted Property 1933 – 1945 describes the project:

‘…As part of the international project “German Sales 1930-1945. Art Works, Art Markets, and Cultural Policy” auction catalogues from Germany, Switzerland and Austria published between 1930 and 1945 are being identified, which are an essential source of information on the German art market during the Third Reich and for provenance research. The project will enable museums worldwide to clarify doubtful provenances and families to identify the sales of their artworks, and will lead to a greater understanding of the dynamics of the art market during the Third Reich.

The three partners in the project are the Getty Research Institute, the Kunstbibliothek—Staatliche Museen zu Berlin,the Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg and the Forschungsstelle “Entartete Kunst” at the Universität Hamburg.

The Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg has already digitised a large number of catalogues, including some from the Netherlands and France, and some of these catalogues are annotated. For a list of auction houses whose catalogues are now available online, click here. To search by artist and work of art, click here.

The resulting integrated database of these auction records will eventually form part of the Getty Provenance Index®. For further information from the Getty, click here. For detailed information about the project, available on the portal arthistoricum,net, click here.

The following files were produced over a period of 15 months from photocopied source material. They are made available for research and they can be reproduced on other web sites without permission. The more data available on the internet without restriction should be encouraged.

Although one or two catalogues may be available elsewhere, I have added the four pdf files of art auctions from the Austrian auction house Dorotheum, which were commanded by the Third Reich to sell looted art over an extended period between 1933 and 1945.

Catalogues available (one with plates of some lots)

February 10th -12th 1942 click here to read

February 24th – 27th 1942 click here to read  (be patient, this is a large file with photographs)

March 10th – 12th 1942 click here to read

February 16th – 19th 1943 click here to read