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The local museum is an institution to cherish... when was the last time you visited yours? It could well be when you were dragged there by an over enthusiastic history teacher when you were in Year 5. If that's the case it's definitely time to go back. That's because museums are a frequently overlooked source of visual delight and inspiration. The best are also packed with more strangeness than you can wave a stick at and that's got to be a good enough reason to visit!
Museums, like shops, are subject to all kinds of design fashions and fads - play areas for the under threes, interactive exhibits, etc. - but many untouched gems still survive with their Victorian mahogany display cases and hand written exhibit labels intact and a pleasant 'musty' smell in the air.
Lecturer Tony Peart (33) loves to seek out these forgotten gems up and down the country.
Last week he ticked off quite a few...
- High Wycombe (mostly chairs - but that's good because he likes chairs)
- Amersham (one room in a tiny house)
- Saffron Walden (unsurprisingly big on the saffron trade and pargeting)
- Banbury (in a new building but with spectacular views of a canal junction)
- Oxford (Ashmolean, Museum of Natural History, Pitt Rivers)
The Pitt Rivers is a truly remarkable place. It lurks in an atmospheric, semi-twilight state as an annexe to the Museum of Natural History and unlike most museums is not arranged by culture, geography or date. It's simply arranged by subject (e.g. superstition, the face, the human figure etc.) This leads to some outstanding and surprising visual juxtapositions.
What follows are just a few of the snaps he took, but hopefully they will whet your appetite to seek out the gems hidden in your own local museum.
We'd also like to see and hear about your museum and its contents (the stranger the better) so please drop us a line at:
grillust at cumbria dot ac dot uk
and we'll post them here.
The Pitt Rivers
African Masks
African fetish figure
Japanese Noh mask
Michael Jackson?
Jack White and Meg
Mervyn Peake (1911-1968) is perhaps now better known as the author of the Gormenghast Trilogy, a superb work of Gothic fantasy. In celebration of Peake's centenary, the books are currently being broadcast on Sundays as the Classic Serial on Radio 4.
They were also memorably adapted for BBC TV in 2000 and are archived for your delectation on YouTube:
When not writing, Peake spent his working life as an illustrator becoming arguably the greatest pen & ink artist of his generation. The titles he illustrated include many of the classics including: Treasure Island; The Rime of the Ancient Mariner; Alice in Wonderland and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
As part of the centenary celebrations, Tullie House (Carlisle's museum and art gallery) is hosting the exhibition Lines of Flight Mervyn Peake, the Illustrated Work.
The exhibition features 182 original works and has free entry.
It runs from 23rd July - 18th September. It's certainly a must for all illustration students and well worth returning to Uni early to catch before it ends.
Be sure to take your sketchbooks with you!
Steerpike (from the Gormenghast Trilogy)
Long John Silver (have a good hard look at that cross hatching!)
Mervyn Peake
Ahhh! Can you smell that?
That's right, it's a plethora of new books being readied for the library shelf.
Big books, small books, good books, naughty books (no naughty books). Books on design, books on illustration, books on type, books on posters, books on books; all full to the gunnels with the best mind altering, visual wonderments from around the world, ready to be pumped right down your eye holes.
We, the lucky ones, took a sneak peek t'other day and can report it's all good and also, that some of the books smell simply super duper - as demonstrated below by course leader and book whif aficionado, Simon Davies (33)
Here's a few pics to whet your eye-ppetite (sorry).
Thanks to librarian supreme Claire, for the heads up. Stay tuned for Claire's book related input on this very blog soon.
CLICK HERE FOR NEW BOOKS SO FAR DELIVERED
