Nold, B.A.; Hon
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'<,~ t~ (';~k w(~.:~~ IIL". THE LEEDS ART COLLECTIONS FUND President The Rt. Hon. the Earl of Halifax; Vice-President The Rt. Hon. the Earl of Harewood, LL.D.; Trustees C. S. Reddihough, George Black, F.R.c.s.,W. T. Oliver, M.A.; Committee Mrs. Sheila Bidgood, D. B. Feather, F.R.c.s., Mrs. Sara Gilchrist, A. Haigh, J. M. McCloy, Councillor Dr. J. R. Sherwin, Mrs. S. M. C. Tomlinson; Hon. Treasurer Martin Arnold, B.A.; Hon. Secretary Robert Rowe; Hon. Membership Secretary W. B. Black- burn; Hon. Social Secretary Mrs. M. A. Goldie. The Leeds Art Collections Fund is one of the oldest supporting bodies for the visual arts in Great Britain, a source of regular funds for buying works of art for the Leeds collections. Why not identify yourself with the Art Gallery, Temple Newsam House and Lotherton Hall, receive your Arts Calendar free, receive invitations to all functions, private views and organised visits to places of interest. The minimum subscription is g3 00 individual and g5 00 for husband and wife. Enquiries and application forms from the Hon. Secretary at Temple Newsam House, Leeds LS15 OAE. The Arts Calendar may be obtained for a subscription ofgl per annum, including postage (2 issues); single copies may be purchased at the Art Gallery, Temple Newsam House and Lotherton Hall, 50p each. Note: starting with the first issue published in 1947, the entire Leeds Arts Calendar is now available on microfilm. Write for information or send orders direct to Xerox University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106, U.S.A. LEISURE SERVICES COMMITTEE The Lord Mayor; Chairman Councillor Dr. J. R. Sherwin; Deputy Chairman Councillor Mrs. E. G. Clark, Councillor S. Arran, Councillor B. P. Atha, Councillor E. Atkinson, Councillor N. M. Brown, Councillor Mrs. M. E. Frame, Councillor S. Hood, Councillor Mrs. C. Myers, Councillor Mrs. E. A. Nash, Councillor B. Nelson, Councillor A. S. Pedley, n.v.c., Councillor S. Symmonds, Councillor C. A. Thompson, J.p. STAFF Director of Art Galleries Robert Rowe, c.tt.E., st.A., F.M.x.; Principal Keeper (Temple y(etvsam) Christopher Gilbert, M.A., F.st.A.; Keeper (Art Gallery) Miranda Strickland-Constable, B.A., A.M.A.; Keeper (Lotherton Ha'll) Peter Walton, B.A., A.M.A.; Keeper (Decorative Art Studies) Terry F. Friedman, B.A., pH.D.; Senior Assistant Keepers Alexander Robertson, M.A., A.M.A., Anthony Wells-Cole, M.A., A.M.A.; Trainee Assistant Keeper James Lomax, B.A.; Conservation Supervisors Michael Sheppard, Ron Turner; Technical Assistant John Berry, tt.A.; junior Technical Assistant Post vacant; Secretary Barbara Thompson; Administration Jean English; Clerical Assistants Jean Gannon, Irene Johnson. Cover: Vened avec moi, c1930, pencil and collage, by Edward Burra (1905—1976). Detail of this important English surrealist drawing, purchased in 1976, which is discussed in this issue of the Calendar. LEEDS ARTS CALENDAR No. &o zg77 Editorial Charles Ginner, Camden Town and Neo-Realism Alexander Robertson Furniture by Marsh and Jones of Leeds 1864—1872 Christopher Hutchinson Edward Burra, an eccentric, talented, delicate creature Sarah Grigths 18 An Early Eighteenth Century Bill from the Goldsmith Anthony Nelme Eljse Prins 26 The Gasroigne Almshouses, Aberford, Yorkshire, 1844, by Fowler Jones. Built by the Miss Gascoignes of Parlington Park in memory of their father, Richard Oliver Gascoigne, this impressive Collegiate Gothic complex was purchased in 1975 by Leeds City Council and is in the process of conversion into a conservation centre for paintings, drawings, sculp- ture, textiles and the decorative arts. Editorial Almost from the day it was opened the Art links with London where facilities are better but Gallery has had the Sword of Damocles hanging geographically restricted. Benefit would come to over it. It has been thought not big enough, craftsmen wherever they lived for there is a vast impressive enough or merely in the way of some potential public up here. It should be loudly grandiose building project which might conde- proclaimed that decorative arts of a very high scend to incorporate an art gallery within its standard are available today and their aesthetic prodigious mass. The chequered history of the qualities are widely appreciated not only by the present structure and the lack of respect cognoscenti. Worth emphasis here is the fact accorded it may be due to the fact that it has that carefully chosen objects are bought, and never looked quite finished. Its front, with a artists commissioned to produce work, for the glass lantern-light appearing to ooze through a permanent collections at Lotherton Hall —just as gap in the parapet, could never be called a painting and sculpture of our own day is bought 'facade'. When it was discovered that the floors for the Art Gallery. Part of the basements of the were unsafe it was as if the building had finally present building and the Library will be made lost all self confidence and decided to commit into a pub with access from a sunken piazza on suicide. But by this time attitudes had changed a the site of Centenary Street where also will be little and it was cautiously admitted to be nearly the entrance to the craft centre, reached directly a very good gallery and quite worthy of the best from the Art Gallery too. All the sculpture site in the city. It therefore seems now that its collection —in other words, the heavy brigade— life as well as its front is not finished. will go into the new structure where the floors The idea of building on an extension where can be made suitably strong comparatively Centenary Street now accommodates parked cheaply and easily. This will release the present cars sowed just the right seed for the climate of sculpture rooms for showing our pictures and the day. It quickly took root and has already temporary exhibitions. The outdoor sculpture produced blossom which promises plentiful and will be seen against the blank stone wall of the unique fruit in the foreseeable future. The pro- first floor, perfectly cast to play a background posed new unit will have a number of intriguing role. Members may recall that in 1966 there was features, not least its physical presence, designed a scheme for placing relief sculpture by one of to make the Art Gallery worthy of its splendid the Gregory Fellows along this wall; the plan art collections and also to create a bold centre- only came to naught when the powers that be piece abutting onto the Garden of Rest; it must decided that the Art Gallery was not worth also be a good neighbour to the highly regarded preserving. 1966 was a bitter year, as other, Central Library and Museum next door. A already detailed, proposals for greatly improving daunting brief for the architects, but of a type the building were dropped for the same reason. which has so often produced the goods in the It is comforting to think that some of the best of past, for there is nothing so stimulating to the these ideas, suitably modified of course, will be right man as a difficult assignment. resurrected in the new scheme. Basically the extension will consist of a ground Inside, the new sculpture gallery will be made floor sculpture gallery with an outdoor sculpture as spacious as the site will allow. The fine south garden on top of it and below, at semi-basement windows of the existing front will be preserved as level, an exhibition gallery and a craft centre. internal features through which one may look The latter is a very important element in the into the Print Room k Art Library; they will whole concept. There are excellent craftsmen therefore have an important practical function working in many parts of the country, but they of visually increasing the central space in a have few opportunities of showing and selling necessarily narrow area. Looking through from their work. It is high time that an outlet in a the other side at the sculpture should be an northern industrial city was set up having close exhilarating experience for those swotting away at their books or enjoying the intimate delights excess of anything that the Council has offered of the Early English watercolour school. The before under its Housing the Arts scheme for a horrible Venetian blinds which help to protect municipal gallery and this shows the importance readers and delicate drawings from the over- which the council attaches to it.'t is salutary to bearing light and the heat of the midday sun can recall that the Arts Council also subsidised the at last be scrapped. The News Room will abortive sculpture scheme of 1966 commented become an exhibition gallery connected by a on earlier and the Stable Court exhibition series of small areas to what are now the sculp- rooms at Temple Newsam in 1970. The Pilgrim ture galleries. At the other side of the building Trust, an independent foundation, has also the vestibule will be greatly improved by being greatly helped the Art Galleries over the years made all on one level with at last a suitably and has now made a substantial grant for the enticing entrance. The extension, which inci- new extension: Leeds is deeply grateful and has dentally will have air conditioning, represents become very fond of such loyal benefactors. We the first and major part of a rehabilitation are still prepared to stand cap in hand at the scheme for the entire Art Gallery and it will door of any other august, or not so august, body indeed, at one and the same time, improve the which would like to be associated in deed and whole by creating vital new space and allowing name with this splendid project; apologies for the redeployment of the permanent collection.