William Shipley Group for RSA History

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Comment by Susan A. Bennett on March 13, 2011 at 12:44

Preface

By the end of the nineteenth century, there were many more museums in Britain than there had been at the beginning of the century. The proliferation of museums has been described as a ‘museum movement’.  Such a description would imply a sense of common purpose and evangelistic zeal, and, perhaps, some kind of shared organisation.  Since these elements cannot be clearly discerned, the word ‘movement’ is too strong.  But there were two streams of tendency.  One was the propensity of the English cultivated classes to set up local learned societies (often called ‘Literary and Philosophical Societies’ – ‘Lit-and-Phils’, for short), many of which established museums.  The second was the introduction of progressive legislation in many fields, including the allocation of public money to museums.  These tendencies (the second riding to some extent on the first) led to the proliferation of museums, and they are discussed in the first two parts of this paper.  To a small extent, there were also activists and propagandists for museums, notably the Society of Arts: its contribution, especially campaigns in the late 1860s and the ’70s, is discussed in the third part of the paper.

 

from on The Development of Museums in Victorian Britain and the Contribution of the Society of Arts by Anthony Burton, 2010.  Copies available at a cost of £5.00

Comment by Susan A. Bennett on March 2, 2011 at 8:38

A reminder that the next meeting of the William Shipley Group will be on 23 March 2011 at 12.30pm.  Dr Nicholas Cambridge will talk on Sanitation, water supply, competitive examinations and physical training: Edwin Chadwick and the Society of Arts.  This talk is open to all and, thanks to the generosity of The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, will take place in their lecture theatre at 183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE.

Comment by Susan A. Bennett on February 15, 2011 at 16:38

 Jonathan Black and Brenda Martin, Dora Gordine, Sculptor, Artist, Designer (London: Philip Wilson in association with Kingston University, 2007)  272pp. illus.,  £30

 

This is the first detailed study of the life and art of the Latvian born sculptor, Dora Gordine (The Hon Mrs Richard Hare 1906-1991) whose friendship with Oswald Milne (1881-1968), architect and RSA activist resulted in her election as FRSA in 1957.  The Society was at this time interested in encouraging and architectural sculpture and in bringing sculptors and business patrons together.  It suggested Gordine as one of the three artists who might tackle a large low relief commission for Esso Petroleum for their new refinery at Milford Haven.  Gordine won a commission to create a giant bronze low relief panel for the Power Administration Block at Milford Haven.  It showed a characteristically muscular worker helmeted and holding aloft a giant pipe or cable.  The work was unveiled by the Society’s President, HRH Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh, in November 1960.   Further Royal recognition occurred in 1963 when her bronze group ‘Mother and Child’, designed for the Royal Marsden Hospital, was unveiled by HM The Queen.

 

Widowed in 1966 she continued to live at Dorich House, the extraordinary modernist studio residence on the edge of Richmond Park which her late husband had built for her in 1936 and which was given the name ‘Dorich’, as an acronym of their respective first names: Dora and Richard.  Four years before her own death in 1991, she opened the house to the public and it is now administered as a Museum by Kingston University, where visitors can see a comprehensive exhibition of her own work combined with Richard Hare’s wonderful collection of Imperial Russian furniture and objets d’art.

 

Dora Gordine’s bust of Oswald Milne, one of the RSA’s treasures, was lent to Dorich House in 2004 when, through the courtesy of Kingston University, the House gave hospitality to the inaugural meeting of the William Shipley Group for RSA History.  Members of the Group and all RSA Fellows are urged to visit Dorich House and to use this beautifully illustrated book as preparatory reading.                                                                                        DGCAllan

 

Comment by Rob Baker on February 8, 2011 at 11:06

I'm afraid the records here don't tell us whether the John Wyndham in question is the noted writer - although I understand that was his pen name, so possibly not. Wyndham's own personal archives are at Liverpool University Special Collections and Archives, incidentally.

Comment by Susan A. Bennett on February 4, 2011 at 10:40

Don't know off hand, would need to check the records at the RSA - perhaps Rob can help.

Comment by Alison Jenner on February 4, 2011 at 1:25

How interesting! Thanks.  Is the lender of the Wilson picture, of the Dee, the writer John Wyndham, by any chance?

Comment by Susan A. Bennett on February 1, 2011 at 22:10

One of the exhibits in the 1760 exhibition was a view of the Society's 'Great Room' by Mercier in its earlier home in Denmark Court.  This is the only know view of the interior designed for the Society of Arts by William Chambers, and the painting is now sadly lost.   We hope that one day it will come to light again.

Comment by Magnemar on February 1, 2011 at 20:52

Fascinating post, Susan. Seems a shame we didn't commemorate the exhibition last year...

Comment by Susan A. Bennett on February 1, 2011 at 9:25

RELICS OF THE 1760 EXHIBITION

‘To mark the resumption on 3rd March [1960] of its annual Reception and Conversazione, which was honoured by the presence of H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh, the Society showed in its new exhibition room overlooking Adam Street a small, historic collection of pictures and objects of art which could be traced fairly certainly as having been included in the very first British exhibition of contemporary art, with which the Society was associated in 1760. The collection obviously stirred the historic sense of our Royal President and the several hundred Fellows assembled. Indeed, the passage of time seemed illusory in the almost palpable presence of Reynolds' sitters, who could be imagined joining the jostling crowds in the Society's Great Room in the Strand where their portraits were first publicly seen two centuries ago. Naturally the exhibition was a co-operative enterprise, and the evening's success was due as much to the enthusiasm and skilful hanging of Mr. William Johnstone, the Principal of the L.C.C. Central School, as to the preliminary researches of the Society's Curator-Librarian among the files of the Courtauld Institute and other sources. At the same time, it is plain that the way is open to an art historian to investigate at length the all too sketchy catalogue of 1760 in identifying and tracing all the 192 items now widely dispersed and sometimes perhaps lost, and reanimating some forgotten personalities of the time.

 

One half-forgotten personality, touchingly recalled on this occasion, was Richard Leveridge, a once celebrated vocalist, song-writer and composer, whose mobile countenance under an old Queen Anne wig was painted towards the end of his long life, and evidently in the late evening of the artist's, Thomas Frye, who died in the Exhibition's year, 1760. Frye's half-length portrait (from Warwick) was handled with something like Hogarthian liveliness, with touches of green and russet in the fluent modelling of the features, and breathing that compassion which an old artist feels for a kindred spirit in adversity whose powers have long since decayed.

 

The jewel of the exhibition, nevertheless, was the portrait which Reynolds—with no forethought for inquisitive posterity—tantalizingly entered in 1760 as A Lady, Three Quarters. Happily the Dark Lady can safely be identified with the Lady Elizabeth Keppel, daughter of the second Earl of Albemarle, and at the moment when Reynolds painted her with a rose at the breast of silvery lace dress, still some years away from her youthful marriage to the Marquess of Tavistock. The graceful solidity and repose of this portrait (now in Mr, Anthony de Rothschild's hands) bespeak a studiousness quite different from the temper of Gainsborough. Even so, if there is nothing approaching that feathery sensuousness of touch which can mysteriously link a Gainsborough with a shimmering Renoir, in spirit at least this Reynolds presentment looks forward a hundred years. Reynolds' characterization of General William Kingsley, on the other hand, betrays a less secure grasp of form, though the photographs exhibited (in the absence of the paintings) of the sumptuous full-length of the Duchess of Hamilton and Argyll, and a study of a Lieutenant of the Tower in a Van Dyck pose, indicated the splendour of the contributions of the Academy's first President to the first exhibition of his contemporaries.

 

Together with the portraiture—which also included Richard Cosway's familiar portrait of William Shipley, the Society's Founder, besides a vital and substantial pastel study by Francis Cotes, and Roubiliac's terra-cotta model of Shakespeare done for the eloquent marble to Garrick's order—a few surviving landscapes had been traced and were on view. The large bosky 'landskip' with a very luminous distance by George Smith of Chichester actually won the Society's award of £50 in 1760 for the 'best original landscape'; a fair choice it would seem, for the com­petition of Richard Wilson and Alexander Cozens does not appear to have been strong on this occasion. One of Richard Wilson's versions of the River Dee, lent by Mr. John Wyndham, is distinguished by the roseate glow suffusing the wooded bank and figures on the right, though the rather disappointingly thin paint has cracked a little with time.

 

Most conspicuous of the interesting prints and drawings was William Newton's regular classical design for an Academy of Arts and Science, a collegiate arrangement surrounding a courtyard which, if carried into effect, might have found our Society in monastic proximity with the Royal Academy to-day. Other items, such as Mary Moser's water colour flower-piece, and the gilded casts of medals showing Thomas Pingo's concentration of symbolic essentials and rare refinement of relief, testify as much to the diversity as to the quality of those exhibits assembled in 1760. Nor were they then disregarded; for we read that though the room at the Society of Arts was open only for a fortnight, and closed in the afternoons to all but members, the Society sold 6,582 sixpenny catalogues—this charge only being levied to keep out a lawless and violent mob’.

Nevile Wallis

Comment by Susan A. Bennett on January 25, 2011 at 20:55

Obituary

Robin Day RDI (1915-2010)

Many people in the design world will now recall 2010 as the year when we bid farewell to both Robin and Lucienne Day –  known to many in the mid 20th century as ‘the Golden Couple’ of design. In their separate ways they are both amongst the ‘design greats’ of their time. 

 

My most vivid memories of Robin Day, who died recently aged 95, are of a man of quiet strength, charm and great humanity, a gentle humour and a determination that, through his designs, he would develop well-designed objects at affordable prices

 

For some years he chaired the RSA Student Design Awards Furniture Jury and always treated the students and their designs with great respect – even those who were not ultimately winners were sent away with kind words of encouragement.

 

Robin Day was perhaps best known for designing the famous ‘Polyprop’ chair for Hille in the early 1960s.  Polypropylene had only been invented in 1954 and the particular properties of this new thermoplastic seemed likely to achieve Robin’s wish to produce a low-cost chair for mass-production by the Hille team.  His stacking chair design became one of the most popular and versatile (the one-piece shell seat could be used in many different forms, from a straight-forward stacking chair, to bar stools and for use as multiple seating in theatres and auditoria) and in 2009 it was featured on a postage stamp showing great British designs.

 

An instant success, it was soon licensed to 50 firms world-wide to manufacture.  The measure of its success can be found in the production figures since its inception.  I have seen estimates which range from 14-50 million units. Whichever figure is correct I’d be surprised if any other single chair design has reached such heights.

 

Furniture was always one of his major interests and in his early years a plywood storage system won a prize from the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.  Later his seating graced the Royal Festival Hall, London, the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford, Nottingham Playhouse and the Barbican Centre auditoria as well as various stadia around the world.

 

However, Robin’s talents also let to interior design of aircraft, television sets, store interiors and graphics – notably for the John Lewis Partnership whilst he and his wife were Consultants to the group from the early 1960s until the 1980s.

 

I recall a fascinating retrospective exhibition of the work of both Lucienne and Robin Day at the Barbican in 2001 when some of his designs were brought back into production.

Robin Day had an enduring love of nature, pitting his wits against the landscape, frequently going on long-distance ski-ing trips – at one time spending 12 weeks covering 2,500kms of sub-Arctic wilderness.  Aged 76, at a time when many people have decided that their climbing days are over, Robin successfully tackled the 17,000 ft Mt Kenya. 

 

It is said of many people that they were a ‘legend in their lifetime’ but this was quite true of this essentially modest man.                                                                                    Helen R Auty

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