The Liberty of Doubt by Ai Weiwei at Kettles Yard. Make of it all what you will. Some powerful stuff in show and Kettles Yard appears to have gone to war with Cheffins and their oriental department, spikey stuff.
It will take you no longer than 30 minutes unless you are deeply pretentious and it is much better than many of the deeply dubious shows they have been hoasting. It wasnt busy, though you have to book a ticket for the day, but not the time. Ive tried to be abstract about what I’ve shown so not to ruin it, but its not a retrospective and not full of work as the hype before buzzed on and the duration of the show. But you will walk away feeling that you’ve witnessed thoughtful activism.
Maharaja Duleep Singh, the last true ruler of the Sikh Empire, and then owned the Koh-i-Noor diamond, was exiled to Britain, having been removed from his kingdom by the British East India Company. He was the last of his line to have been born in India.
As a child his mother was regent of the Punjab and after the Anglo-Punjab war with the East India company claiming the territory for the British, Sir John Spencer Login was appointed his guardian and set to anglicising this ten year old child by schooling him with other officers children. When he was eleven the young Duleeep Singh was forced to sign over the Koh-i-Noor to the East India Company, who gave it as spoils of war, to Queen Victoria.
Duleep Singh arrived in England in late 1854 and was introduced to the British court. Queen Victoria showered affection upon the turbaned Maharaja, as did the Prince Consort. Duleep Singh was initially lodged at Claridge’s Hotel in London before the East India Company took over a house in Wimbledon and then eventually another house in Roehampton which became his home for three years. He was also invited by the Queen to stay with the Royal Family at Osborne, where she sketched him playing with her children and Prince Albert photographed him.
After being welcomed into society, the sixteen year old, Duleep Singh was given a pension of around two and a half million pounds a year. He was an educated man and was a member of the Photographic Society from 1855.
He had many homes in Britain. First being bought a house by the East India Company in Wimbledon and then Roehampton, then he was moved out of the way of London to Scotland: to Castle Menzies, then in 1860, Grandtully Castle as well as Auchlyne House, and in 1861 when he became Maharaja he acquired Elveden Hall, Suffolk, with it’s 17,000 acres.
The original Elveden Hall was a Georgian building which the Maharaja Duleep Singh had enlarged in 1863-1870 by his architect John Norton in an Italianate style for the exterior and Indian style for the interiors, to resemble the Mughal palaces that he had been accustomed to in his childhood. He also augmented the building with an aviary where exotic birds such as golden pheasant, Icelandic gyrfalcons, parrots, peafowl and buzzards were kept.
Now the area is known for being the Thetford Centre Parks resort, being built on part of the estates lands.
After seasons of poor farming in the 1870s, vast over spending and political tensions in government, the Maharajah left Elveden and England in 1886 for India. He was however arrested in Aden, Yemen and forced back to Britain on fear he would be a political menis.
After the Maharajah’s death in Paris in 1893, the estate was sold off and bought by members of the Guinness family. They too fell on hard times and had abandoned the expense of living in the hall, and were living elsewhere on the estate. Its entire contents, including elaborate items owned by the Maharajah, were auctioned at Christie’s in May 1984.
During the Second World War the house and grounds were used by the American Air Force. Above is the large ornamental lake (that has been filled in) next to the water tower.
Since then, the Guinness family have rented the hall out for filming. Movies shot there include: The Living Daylights (1987) Gulliver’s Travels (1996) The Moonstone (1997) Eyes Wide Shut (1999) Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) Stardust (2007) Dean Spanley (2008) All the Money in the World (2017)
Eyes Wide Shut Still, set in the Indian themed interior.
Born in Leytonstone, London he studied sculpture and art history at the South East Essex School of Art & Design. For over thirty years he divided his time between teaching in schools and colleges, working on art and design curriculum development and making sculpture, before retiring as a local education authority art adviser and inspector for art and design in 1997 to concentrate on making full time, when he had an exhibition at the Gordon Hepworth Fine Art (London and Exeter).
Gordon Hepworth exhibited a wide range of (mostly) Cornish based artists from Breon O’Casey, Clifford Fishwick, Peter Joyce and Graham Rich.
Geoff Bradford’s constructions in boxes are beautifully crafted – created using ‘objets trouve’ – they are made up of fragments of materials which have a beautifully eroded quality. They are small works which invite you to look into them closely and discover the echoes of memory and atmosphere which are trapped within.
Geoffrey has also exhibited with his wife Sarah. Though these days he has moved into photography.
Geoffrey has also exhibited at the Open Eye Gallery (Edinburgh), New Millennium Gallery (St Ives) amongst others and has had several solo shows including The Newport Museum and Art Gallery, the Lund Gallery (Yorkshire) and Brecon Museum and is currently represented by a number of galleries in the North East and Scotland. He was a regular finalist in The National Eisteddfod and a 1994 prize-winner at the Tabernacle (MOMA) in Wales.
Geoffrey as Overall Winner of the Woodhorn Museum OCEAN art prize in 2018.
The Midland Regional Group of Artists and Designers was founded by Evelyn Gibbs in 1943. Gibbs had studied at the Liverpool School of Art and at the Royal College of Art, before winning a Prix de Rome scholarship for engraving in 1929, with which she spent two years in Italy. Supporting herself by teaching at a school for handicapped children, she wrote a book (The Teaching of Art in Schools, 1937) on art teaching illustrated by her pupils, and then became a teacher-training lecturer at Goldsmiths College. When Goldsmiths was evacuated to Nottingham during World War II, Gibbs created the Midlands Group of Artists. After they had two exhibitions in a large empty building, they were able to move into a permanent gallery and a range of other activities supporting artists in the region.
The interest of Goldsmith’s pupils locally would provide students with commissions. One of these was for a mural in St Martin’s Church, Bilborough – This mural was completed and then covered over when the church was modernised in 1972, only to be discovered in 2009, cleaned in 2013 and funding provided for restoration soon after.
The first Chairman of the Midland Society was Hector McDonald Sutton, Principal of Mansfield School of Art and the main volume of members were from local art schools. The group became an affiliated member of the AIA in 1943 with the first exhibition with the AIA in Henry Barker’s department store. By the 1950s they were partly sponsored by the Arts Council of Britain and got money from their Festival of Britain scheme for local communities.
Cyril Mann setting up his exhibition at the Park Row Gallery of the Midland Group of Artists and Designers in Nottingham 1953.
It was arguably the most significant organisation involved in the presentation of new art in Nottingham and its East Midland environs until its demise in 1987… Not only did local professional artists exhibit at a variety of locations within the city but fortunate attendees saw the works of international artists. … During the Group’s heydey in the 1960’s (now) world famous artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Gerhard Richter, Paula Rego, Bridget Riley, Robert Mapplethorpe and the already renowned Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray were shown.
Artist Biographies – The Midland Group.
After 1987 the Group became broader with theatre involved and rebranded itself as The Midland Group.
Joseph Mallord William Turner – The Chain Pier, Brighton, 1824
The Royal Suspension Chain Pier was the first major pier built in Brighton, England. Built in 1823, it was destroyed during a storm in 1896.
Generally known as the Chain Pier, it was designed by Captain Samuel Brown rn and built in 1823. Brown had completed the Trinity Chain Pier in Edinburgh in 1821. The pier was primarily intended as a landing stage for packet boats to Dieppe, France, but it also featured a small number of attractions including a camera obscura. An esplanade with an entrance toll-booth controlled access to the pier which was roughly in line with the New Steine. Turner and Constable both made paintings of the pier, King William IV landed on it, and it was even the subject of a song.
The Chain Pier co-existed with the later West Pier, but a condition to build the Palace Pier was that the builders would dismantle the Chain Pier. They were saved this task by a storm which destroyed the already closed and decrepit pier on 4 December 1896.
John Constable – The Chain Pier, Brighton, 1824-1827
The remains of some of the pier’s oak piles could be seen at low tides around 2010, however, as of 2021, they are no longer visible. Masonry blocks can still be seen. The signal cannon of the pier is still intact, as are the entrance kiosks which are now used as small shops on the Palace Pier.
Clem Lambert – Brighton, 1896
Joseph Mallord William Turner – The Chain Pier, Brighton, 1828
In this post I thought I would look at something lesser known, the colour photographs of Angus McBean, from later in his life. Below is a wonderful example of him revisiting his past.
(Left) Angus McBean – Hermione Baddeley, 1938 (Right) Angus McBean – Mode pour Jean Patou, publié dans L’Officiel, 1983
In his later life McBean worked for magazines in the 70s and 80s making similar images but with a more commercial angle.
I think if some of these photos are a little mundane it might be because of the art directors of the magazines rather than McBean himself, but he uses the clothes to be promoted and still makes them interesting. The most constant link in them all is the back-curtain, giving the images a theatrical look, while the poses are pure Gainsborough.
Angus McBean – Titania et Bottom pour Balmain, publié dans Vogue, mars 1984.
These later works of McBeans in colour are only a few steps away of a gaudy and fabulous onslaught of David LaChapelle who takes low culture items and places them into hyperreal scenarios.
David LaChapelle – Rihanna, “Where Have You Been?,” 2007
