Annual Report 2017-2018 Contents 2 3 Director’s Report 13 Acquisitions 21 Works of art lent to public exhibitions 24 Long-term loans outside Government 30 Advisory Committee members 31 GAC staff Cover Image: Visitors to An Eyeful of Wry taking their free jokes by artist Peter Liversidge. © University of Hull / Photo: Anna Bean Director’s Report 3 Peter Liversidge’s commisioned work for An Eyeful of Wry at Hull University Library. © University of Hull / Photo: Anna Bean Once more, the Government Art Collection (GAC) An Eyeful of Wry illustrated a healthy note of parody. Gags, slapstick, has experienced an eventful year and achieved The major highlight of our public projects this year clowns and comics were referenced in Twenty Six an exciting range of projects. We were delighted was An Eyeful of Wry, a GAC-curated exhibition (Drawing and Falling Things), six videos by Wood to present An Eyeful of Wry, an exhibition of that opened in October at the Brynmor Jones and Harrison, whose deadpan gestures added to works from the Collection as part of UK City of Library Gallery, University of Hull, during the final the overall sense of farce. 4’ 33” (Prepared Pianola Culture 2017. We continued to select and install season of the UK City of Culture programme. for Roger Bannister), Mel Brimfield’s gaudy funfair new displays for government buildings in the UK pianola took visitors on a giddying musical ride and at several diplomatic posts around the world. The exhibition originated from an idea first around an Olympic athletics track. Across each site, art from the GAC revitalises explored as a special display for visitors to the the cultural context against which ministerial GAC’s premises in London. It was born out of the A new work specially commissioned by the negotiation and business activity happens, and realisation that works in the eclectic and diverse GAC for An Eyeful of Wry was Proposals also contributes to cultural diplomacy by making collection often relate to each other in unexpected for the Government Art Collection by Peter links between people, places and history. ways. Employing wit and a sense of the absurd, Liversidge. A multi-part work, this consisted 31 works of art offered a sharp insight into how of sixty typewritten ‘proposals’ produced in We welcomed significant new acquisitions artists have explored comedy from the historical the artist’s eponymous style, varying from the in the Collection and continued to work in to contemporary period. 18th and 19th century impossible to the ridiculous, that were displayed partnership with artists, museums and galleries, political prints satirised figures and parties of all in the exhibition and published in book form; a audiences, funders and higher education persuasions, including William Heath’s The Election new video work featuring the British comedian, institutions on a broad sweep of projects. From Ball (c.1828) with its overblown gestures and air of Phill Jupitus; and Joke Stack, a selection of loaning a major painting by Paul Nash to the obsequiousness, and the Pitts versus the Foxes in screenprinted posters that were available for exhibition, Still Life at the National Gallery, to James Gillray’s 1799 Two Pairs of Portraits. Text- visitors to take away during the exhibition, for opening an exhibition in Hull, the GAC has based works by modern and contemporary artists which Liversidge collaborated with foundation reached new audiences this year. including Ian Hamilton Finlay and David Shrigley students from Hull College of Art and Design. 4 Some of the 16 first and second year Hull University student volunteers who were trained as public invigilators for the duration of the exhibition An Eyeful of Wry © University of Hull / Photo: Anna Bean The exterior of the HMA Residence, Karachi © Crown Copyright 5 The exhibition was supported by a lively public Britain Campaign in 2014, and the first portrait in and buildings. This year we installed new works programmed delivered in collaboration with the the set, taken in black-and-white, was unveiled in La Paz, Caracas, Vientiane, New Delhi, Vienna U n i ve r s i t y of Hu l l – 16 fi r st a n d s e c o n d ye a r stu d e nt on 20 April 2014 to mark Her Majesty’s 88th and Mumbai, among other cities. volunteers were trained as public invigilators for birthday. Bailey’s photographs are displayed the duration of the exhibition; and 1000 art trails around the world, supporting the work of the In May, we made the first ever inspection visit for children and families were produced by Hull- GREAT Britain campaign. to the UK’s diplomatic missions in Pakistan, based Heritage Learning, and distributed to 560 to Islamabad and Karachi. A significant new schools and community organisations, across Lancaster House display of modern to contemporary works, all Hull, Yorkshire and the Humber region. We curated a new display tracing the dating from 1947, was installed in December development of classical architecture in Britain in Islamabad to acknowledge Pakistan’s Selected UK displays from the 17th century to the 19th century. independence. Among the works featured are The General Election in June 2017 followed by Highlighted works include a selection of All over the Place on Orange by Terry Frost; the re-shuffle in January 2018, led to a number of architectural drawings of Somerset House by DFR302, a wall sculpture by Alice Channer; selections for ministerial offices. GAC works are William Chambers; a panorama of London from Gillian Wearing’s video, Dancing in Peckham; extensively displayed in government buildings, the rooftop of Albion Flour Mill by Robert Barker and Wolf Panel V by Shezad Dawood, a and this year, we installed 104 new displays in from 1792; and a series of 19th century prints striking acrylic on vintage textile work that was the UK alone. after drawings by Thomas Hosmer Shepherd presented by the artist as part of the Outset/ from Metropolitan Improvements; or London in Government Art Collection Fund. 10 Downing Street the Nineteenth Century. A complete set of four photographs of Her Majesty This year, we took the opportunity to introduce The Queen by David Bailey CBE remained on Selected International Displays new works and improve the display of existing display in the Ante Room of 10 Downing Street. Outside the UK, GAC displays support the works in the Ambassador’s Residence in Seoul, The portraits were commissioned for the GREAT broader diplomatic function of British embassies working in collaboration with the FCO. Right: Interior of the British Embassy, Tehran after the attack on the compound. © Crown Copyright 6 Far right: metamorphosen I, by Edmund de Waal on display in the British Embassy, Vienna © Crown Copyright In February, works of art damaged during the the opportunity to update the existing display, work in the Residence also resonates with De attack on the British Embassy Tehran compound bringing in nine new works. Welcoming visitors Waal’s close and long-held connections to the in 2011 were returned to the UK for conservation in the reception area is Mango by Sir Howard city, as famously recounted in his family memoir, treatment, in liaison with the FCO and the Iranian Hodgkin, a print which the artist presented to The Hare with Amber Eyes. Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Art works that had the GAC in March 2017, with a dedication to the not been in the UK for many decades, included Deputy High Commissioner. Acquisitions a 1862 portrait of Queen Victoria by George Acquisitions are approved by the Advisory Hayter specifically commissioned for the Tehran In July, we installed a number of new works at the Committee on the Government Art Collection Embassy, and an important portrait of Fath’Ali Ambassador’s Residence, Vienna. This included which meets three times a year. Many works Shah (1797-1834) by the Iranian artist Ahmad. metamorphosen I, a wall-based installation work of art acquired this year demonstrate a wide The works will be part of a new display at the by Edmund de Waal on loan to the Residence. range of new materials and media. Horizon by Residence when they return to Iran. After visiting a major exhibition that De Waal Thomson & Craighead is the first digital work had curated at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in the Collection. Presented as a narrative Key spaces frequently used for diplomatic in 2016, the British Ambassador Leigh Turner clock, it is comprised of images accessed in and public events in the High Commissioner’s asked him to consider lending a work to the real time from webcams located in each time Residence in New Delhi were also reviewed and Residence. Presenting black porcelain vessels zone of the world. a new display was installed there at the end of alongside objects made of steel, tin, aluminium February. This featured works by Gillian Ayres, and wood in a glass vitrine, metamorphosen I is Setting a contemporary scene against the Adrian Berg and Susan Collins. described by De Waal as a work that represents backdrop of a forceful historical event, Lubaina ‘moments of pause or recollections of loss’. Its Himid’s 2016 painting, Le Rodeur: The Pulley, With the appointment of a new Deputy High title references Richard Strauss’ musical score sets personal experience within a broader, Commissioner in Mumbai, and the growing that was composed the day after the destruction shared cultural and political history. Another importance of that diplomatic post, we took of the Vienna Opera House in 1945. Placing this striking work acquired for the Collection is New Acquisition: Lubaina Himid’s 2016 painting, Le Rodeur: The Pulley © Lubaina Himid 7 8 Sinta Tantra’s Tuca Tuca-Spring Time in Rome, Another new partnership is with Bloomberg a composition of irregular geometric shapes, New Contemporaries, a leading organization which she made during her residency as the that supports emerging artists from British art Bridget Riley Fellow at the British School at schools.