Leeds Arts Calendar Leeds Art Collections Fund
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Leeds Arts Calendar Leeds Art Collections Fund This is an appeal to all who are interested in the Arts. The Leeds Art Collections Fund is the source of regular funds for buying works of art for the Leeds collection. We want more subscribing members to give one and a half guineas or upwards each year. Why not identify yourself with the Art Gallery and Temple Newsam; receive your Arts Calendar free each quarter; receive invitations to all functions, private views and organised visits to places of interest, by writing for an application form to the Hon Treasurer, E. M. Arnold Esq., Butterley .Ctree/, Leerls 10 7 he Libraries and Arls Sub-Committee 4rt Gallery and Temtste ~erosam House The Lord Mayor Alderman F. H. O'Donnell, J.t>. Alderman Mrs M. I'earce, J.p. Alderman H. S. Vick, J.p. Alderman J. T. V. Watson, Lt..a. Councillor Mrs G. Bray Councillor P. Crotty, LL.B. Councillor F. W. Hall Councillor E. Kavanagh Councillor S. Lee Councillor Mrs L. Lyons Councillor Mrs A. Malcolm Councillor A. S. Pedley, D.F.C. Co-opted Members Lady Martin Prof Quentin Bell, M.A. Mr W. T. Oliver, M.A. Mr Eric Taylor, R.E., A.R.O.A. Director Mr Robert S. Rowe, M.A., F.M.A. The Leeds Art Collection Fund President Vice-President The Rt Hon the Earl of Harewood, LL.D. Trustees Sir Herbert Read, D.s.o., M.c. Mr W. Gilchrist Mr C. S. Reddihough Commi ttee Mrs E. Arnold Prof Quentin Bell Mr George Black Mr W. T. Oliver Hon Mrs Peake Mr Eric Taylor No. 57 1965 Hon ?reasurer Mr Martin Arnold Hon Secretary Contents Mr Robert S. Rowe Hon Social Secretary Editorial page 2 Mrs S. Gilchrist Hon Membership Secretary Modern Sculpture Mr D. Mason Jones at Leeds All communications to be addressed to the Hon Secretary Arts at Temple JVetosam House, Leeds. Calendar Subscriptions for the Arts Calendar should be sent to The Hon. Treasurer. c/o E.J.Arnold tk Son Ltd. A Chandelier for Butterley Street, Leeds 10 Temple Newsam 15 3/- per issue (postage 5d.) 13/- per annum, post free Single copies from the Art Gallery and Henri Hayden- Temple Newsam House The Factory 24 Editorial Alderman Arthur Adamson, who died after a short illness on July 9th, will be very much missed on the L.A.C.F. com- mittee. He was chairman of the Art Gallery and Temple Newsam House sub- committee almost continuously for twenty years and, as such, was the city's represen- tative on the L.A.C.F. committee. He was not only a well known figure in his native Leeds, but a familiar character, too, at Museums Association conferences for nearly a quarter of a century. The Alder- man took an active part in the setting up of the Museum and Art Gallery Service for Yorkshire and was its first chairman. At seventy-seven the energy he put into those activities in which he was interested seemed undiminished; he was in fact the sort of person to whom retirement from voluntary work would have seemed in- conceivable and it is to be hoped that his daughters may find comfort in the thought that he would have preferred to die in harness. Members of the Fund would like to send their sincere sympathy to all his family. The City Art Gallery was very honoured this year to be offered the first of a series of exhibitions sponsored by the Paul Mellon Foundation for British Art. The idea is to arrange exhibitions each year devoted to the work of an English painter who, for one reason or another, is insufficiently known, show it first at Aldeburgh during the festival of Music and Arts and then, in augmented form, at one other provincial collection, but also makes sense of the centre. The subject of this year's exhibition ground floor by closing the main vista was Francis Wheatley who is represented from the vestibule with a certain splendour. in Leeds by a fine oil and a water-colour June and July have been hectic, if it was good to see our pictures in the com- highly exciting months at Temple New- pany of their brothers and cousins and sam for the Harewood sales at Christie's indeed they proved to be very well en- signalled the climax of the struggle to save dowed members of the family. All thanks for Yorkshire what we could of the treas- should go to the Mellon Foundation not ures being disposed of. only for an excellent catalogue w hich will A brave attempt was made to buy one remain a work of reference, but for the of the silver tureens made by William opportunity of seeing Wheatley in the Grundy in 1754 which was displayed at round. Temple Newsam in the English Domestic Good use has been made already of the Silver exhibition of 1959. Unfortunately, re-designed lower Sam Wilson gallery and, the price realized in the sale was above our as well as the great Henry Moore, the limit, so that was the end of that. Close on three new pieces of sculpture discussed in this disappointment came the possibility, John Bradshaw's article in this issue have incredible as it seemed when first mooted, found their homes there —for the time of acquiring the great desk —or library being at any rate. The upper Sam Wilson table as it should more properly be called. galleries are practically finished as this It all started with the magnificent offer editorial is being written and they should by a group of Leeds business men, who prove a most appropriate and we hope incidentally were most anxious to remain —attractive setting for the Wilson pictures. anonymous, to subscribe $,20,000 towards The Brangwyns ~ ill at last be seen in their its purchase. Things moved quickly after full ripeness too. The Lord Mayor has this, but at the time of writing the deal very kindly agreed to re-open these and is not complete, and the full story, which the refurbished Queen's Room on 23rd we hope will have a happy ending, must September. The latter does much credit wait for a further issue. Perhaps it would to Mr. Denis Mason Jones, who believed be legitimate at this stage in proceedings, that the best qualities of the room should however, to add the rider that if the library be exploited rather than ignored by super- table does land safely at Temple Newsam imposing, on the existing structure, a not only will one of the most significant modern conception of an art gallery which masterpieces of English furniture be saved might well prove less interesting. The for the country, but it will find a per- result is a rich baroque effect which not manent home in one of Yorkshire's great only provides a complimentary back- houses barely ten miles from that for ground for the late Italian pictures in the which it was made. Modern Sculpture at Leeds Since the last account of the sculpture sixties; moreover the new shapes and at Leeds was published in Calendar No. 40, objects which he produced led to a in the summer of 1958, a number of development away from the nature- valuable acquisitions have helped to make derived shapes of the older generation, the modern collection one of the most notably Moore and Hepworth, to the extensive in England, outside London. This creation of what Sir Herbert Read cate- is right and proper, seeing that Leeds has gorises as 'plastic symbols of the artist' produced or fostered a good proportion of inner sense of numinosity and mystery'. those sculptors, from Henry Moore on- Another landmark was the opening, in wards, who have been responsible for the autumn 1962, of the new sculpture emergence of British sculpture as one of the gallery with its dramatic and flexible most important artistic developments of lighting system which enables each piece the post-war years. This was brought individually to have the maximum varia- home to the city, later in that same year tion of lighting contrast in order to 1958, when the exhibition of modern emphasise the qualities of modelling, sculpture in and outside the Art Gallery texture and colour. A new work which drew so much attention and interest. It appeared to advantage in this setting became clear that these artists needed a because of its dramatic silhouette was F. E. better representation in the permanent McWilliam's bronze Resistance II, bought collection and it was the Art Collections with Corporation Funds from the John Fund which found the money to buy from Moores exhibition, held at the Walker Art that exhibition Barbara Hepworth's beau- Gallery, Liverpool, 1962, where it had tiful carving, Configuration (Phira), two been awarded second prize in the sculp- small but humanistic works by Ralph ture section. The new gallery was also Brown, his Zragic Group and Running Girl used, soon after its opening, for the with Wheel, and Leslie Thornton's Gladia- exhibition of sculpture and drawings by tors, constructed of welded metal rods. All Austin Wright who was Gregory Fellow these artists were of Yorkshire birth and from 1961 to 1964 and who has lived and had studied at the Leeds College of Art. taught for some time in Yorkshire. Cor- The other important Leeds contribution poration Funds were again used for the to post-war sculpture has been by way of purchase of his Moon, another work in the University's Gregory Fellowships which aluminium and one which might have have brought more influential sculptors been designed for a setting where the to work in the city.