FRIENDS OF March 2019 ART GALLERIES Newsletter & MUSEUMS Charity no. 1108562 Company limited by guarantee no. 5373709

Budget cuts continue Café news A huge amount of work by the Bradford For years now if you had asked Museums & Galleries staff, and some FoBAGaM members what they most wanted it would have been, second on- tough choices, has gone into preparing ly to world peace, the re-opening of the for a budget saving of £260,000 in 2019- café at Cartwright Hall. CH director Hel- 20, with further savings needed in 2020- en Thornton has always told us that a 21. All four of our museums will remain gallery or museum of national stature open but public access for 12 months a needs a permanent facility, a point that year and 5-6 days per week is now un- has been underlined by the success of sustainable. Exactly what the opening the volunteer run pop-up café that has hours of each site will be is not yet supported various CH events. There is also now the great success of the im- known. It is intended that buildings will pressive new café at the Cliffe Castle be used to generate income. An example conservatories. It does seem as if of this is the Industrial Museum’s Victo- Helen's vision and planning has paid rian Christmas Market which received off. Bradford Council has accepted more than 21,000 visitors, and made a the business case for re-opening the profit. About 7,000 people attended a café. The considerable capital invest- Christmas event at Cliffe Castle. The ment has also been agreed and it is planned to have the café in operation popular Bagpuss Exhibition, held in con- by the summer. junction with the V&A, broke even. There has to be an admission charge for na- Naturally Cartwright Hall is looking for tional events of this type but everyone sponsorship and FoBAGaM are the obvi- ous source. In view of the importance involved is aware what a precious re- of the project the trustees have guar- source the city’s own collections are. anteed a £5,000 donation. Individual members can also contribute to a dedi- cated ‘café fund’ via the CH collecting box, or by sending us a cheque with the word ‘café’ written on the back. In the past donations like this were given by members but on that occasion no building ever took place. This time things should be very different. We hope to see you all there on the open- ing day for a cup of something!

Queen Victoria’s Coronation : ET Parris

This newsletter is online at fobagam.wordpress.com which also has a blog For newsletter enquiries ring Molly Kenyon: 01274 593585 For general enquiries email Derek Barker: [email protected] The Bradford Open The Bradford Open Exhibition at Cartwright Hall enables artists over 16, and who study, live or work in the Bradford area, to display their work in a prestigious gal- lery space. FoBAGaM funds the prize awards for the creators of what are judged to be the three best works: this year's judges included artist John Loker, and Car- oline Douglas the Director of the Contemporary Arts Society. We gather that not less than 12 of our members were able to help at the judging process and appar- ently they really enjoyed themselves. Thanks everyone. At the opening event at- tendees were entertained by the musical talents of the Peace Artistes: the gallery had a real buzz. The overall winner was Mahmud Manning. The Open Exhibition will be available in the gallery until Sunday 5 May, and it is not to be missed. We are really glad to be a able to take a role in fostering so much local talent.

Money Matters and Membership FoBAGaM acquires its income by means of subscriptions and donations. 'Donations' to FoBAGaM consist of collecting box receipts, gift aid, and true one- off donations which are always very welcome. The Treasurer has informed the trustees that receipts in 2018 were about £4,000. The grants FoBAGaM had made to museums and galleries in the last year totalled £7,600. FoBAGaM has reserves and so could provide more grants than are covered by income for some years, but not of course for ever. It is highly desirable that we increase our in- come, but the Chair and trustees are determined not to raise subscriptions. In these financially difficult times the last thing they wish to do is place any obstacle in the way of museum use and enjoyment. The only solution to this conundrum is to attract more members. Can we ask existing members to think about their friends and families to see if they could do a little promotion on our behalf? Mak- ing cash grants is not the only FoBAGaM function of course: we also organise a series of trips to places of cultural and artistic interest, and hold Friends’ Exclu- sive events. The principle function of these are to allow members and staff to meet each other, in a relaxed atmosphere, to discuss some aspect of museum and gallery life.

Friends Exclusives 2019 Every year four Friends’ Exclusive events are organised in the four galleries and museums we support. Although the dates are not yet fixed the last meeting will be at Cartwright Hall on 21 September. The first meeting will be at Cliffe Castle in late April or early May. As you may know and Museums & Galler- ies now have the same manager, Maggie Pedley. In view of this new integrated service it seems appropriate to move part of the FE event to Library. Fur- ther events are planned for Bolling Hall and Bradford Industrial Museum. The fi- nal FE event of the year will again be combined with our AGM, an arrangement The transport gallery: Bradford Industrial which proved highly successful last year. Museum The Butterfield Window This magnificent restored window at , Keighley was officially unveiled on Sunday 3 March by the deputy Lord Mayor. This marks an end of the Butterfield Stained Glass Window project. If you don’t know this window it is on the main staircase at Cliffe Castle, and is now literally breath-taking. The project was a very major piece of work involving not only the painted glass itself, set in lead cames, but the stonework tracery which had begun to leak in wet weather. Heather Millard explained that on his death Frederick Butterfield requested that some of the glass panels be destroyed and this process included many of the portraits of friends and family which were once in- cluded in the window. No photograph of the glass in its original state exists and the restorers felt it best to leave faces blank rather than ‘invent’ features. Despite this the glass artists involved, Jonathan & Ruth Cooke Ltd, were able to recreate decorative glass pan- els to replace those that were missing, as well as con- serving the surviving Victorian glass. The window now glows like a jewel box, although it is still missing the gilding that was part of the original design. The bulk of the funding came from the but we are very glad that FoBAGaM was able to provide a sponsorship grant. Other sponsors were: the Swire Trust, the Friends of Cliffe Castle, and Sir Charles and Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith.

Trips 2019 All members should have been sent written information about the trips planned for 2019. These are: Tuesday 16 April: Beningborough Hall & Brockfield Hall Information: [email protected] Tuesday 7 May: Bradford Textile Archive & St George's Hall: now fully booked Information: [email protected] Tuesday 11 June: Fountains Abbey, Studley Royal & Markenfield Hall Information: [email protected] Weekend Trip 11-13 October: Dundee, and Scotland's V&A More details of this last event are to follow. In addition the trips group have pro- posed a Christmas visit to Burton Agnes Hall, East Yorkshire, on Wednesday 20 No- vember, about which more information will be available in the autumn. The group is interested to know if there would be sufficient demand for a trip to Kensington Palace in July or August 2019, with participating members making their own travel arrangements. The city has a link to the Palace’s current exhibition since it has loaned a large painting, Victoria: a Royal Childhood, the work of ET Parris (see page 1). FoBAGaM was able to provide a grant to re-frame this work.

Keeping in Touch I am sorry to return to this subject but it is still hard to keep members who are not on-line fully up to date with FoBAGaM activities. We do our best with copies of the Newsletter but the expense of postage and the time taken for dedicated volunteers to address and fill envelopes are difficulties. So if you acquire or change an email address please notify the Membership Secretary or email us on: [email protected] We do our best to keep our website up to date with all our activities. If you don’t own a computer there should be no problems in accessing this at your local library. The address is: https://fobagam.wordpress.com/

New Keighley support group There has been a fusion of the Friends of Cliffe Castle and the group supporting Cliffe Castle Park to form a new organisation: The Cliffe Castle Support Group. Elaine Cooper is their Chair, Sue Skinner – Treasurer and Jane Gibbon – Secre- tary. Members of our trustees hope to meet with members of the CCSG in the near future. We are sure that relations will be very friendly, and there will no doubt be those in the Keighley area who will wish to be members of both organi- sations. Full information is on their website:

http://www.cliffecastlepark.org.uk/

Get Well Soon Molly If, having read this newsletter, you feel that it has lacked the hand of a master then you are correct. Molly Kenyon has edited this publication for many years and absolutely nobody knows more about the history and activities of FoBAGaM than she does. Sadly health considerations have necessitated the Secretary stepping in for this issue, and he is the first to admit that he is no kind of substitute. Hopefully our regular editor will soon be fighting fit: meanwhile, thanks for everything Molly.

FoBAGaM aims to ‘encourage public interest in art, culture , technology and science as promoted through museums and galleries in the care of Bradford MDC.’ We make grants, sponsor lectures, provide volunteer guides for ex- hibitions, assist with openings or mailings, and regularly meet mem- bers of staff. Cultural trips and Friends’ Exclusive Events are held throughout the year. New members are always welcome! If you have seen us in action and could make a contribution please email, or write to, the membership secretary.