ACMS Events - 2020
The following visits and events were held during 2020
VISITS AND EVENTS
Beyond the Brotherhood: the Pre-Raphaelite Legacy
Tuesday, 21 January 2020 11a.m start
Story of Perseus
For January, rather than a lecture, we have a visit to Southampton. Our friend Anne Anderson is currently curating an exhibition at the Southampton City Art Gallery entitled “Beyond the Brotherhood: The Pre-Raphaelite Legacy” and we have arranged for her to give a Society tour of the exhibition. The Art Gallery has a good collection of Pre- Raphaelite works and has drawn extensively from other galleries and collections to create this exhibition. Tracing the Pre-Raphaelite thread from its inception into the 21st Century, the exhibition follows the movement’s influence on artistic developments including Realism, Aestheticism, Symbolism and Art Nouveau. Displaying stunning imagery from across the decades, it will demonstrate that Pre-Raphaelitism lives on in contemporary fantasy, book illustration and film, as well as inspiring artists today. The exhibition apart, the Baring Room exhibits a complete series of works by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones on the Story of Perseus, comprising ten cartoons in gouache for a series of large oil paintings commissioned in 1875 for the London home of the British statesman and arts patron, Arthur Balfour.
We shall meet for coffee at 11.00am in the café of the adjacent SeaCity Museum – the Art Gallery does not have catering facilities – and then move across to the Gallery for an 11.30 tour of the exhibition. We shall then return to the SeaCity café for a light lunch – sandwich or baked potato and a tea or coffee, before going on our way; either to look around the Gallery further, or to explore the SeaCity Museum (although there is an entrance charge there). Travel independently to Southampton. Public parking is available nearby.
A visit to The Wilson, formerly Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum
with exhibition viewing: Ernest Gimson: Observation, Imagination and Making
Tuesday, 18th February, 2020. 11.30am – 5.00pm
Glove and handkerchief box
The Wilson, formerly known as Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum, holds one of the finest collections of Arts and Crafts Movement material in the country. The Cotswolds became the main rural centre for the Arts and Crafts. Cheltenham’s internationally recognised collection showcases fine craftsmanship and design rooted in the Cotswolds from the 1860s to the present day. The Society last visited in 2010.
2019 marks the centenary of the death of Ernest Gimson:’The greatest of the English artist-craftsmen’. Gimson was one of the key designers of the Arts and Crafts Movement. He lived and worked in Sapperton, a village not far from Cheltenham, for most of his life. The curated in-house exhibition explores Gimson’s creative process as a designer, focusing in turn on his architecture, furniture, textiles, metalwork and plaster. The Wilson holds Gimson’s extensive archive of sketchbooks, designs, photographs and letters and the exhibition will explore the journey of Gimson’s ideas from sketch to finished product with items from the collection and with rarely seen private loans.
We will have a lecture by Kirsty Hartsiotis, Curator Decorative Arts and Designated Collections, about the Museum’s collection from the Arts and Crafts period. This will be followed by a tour of the exhibition with the opportunity to view both this and the Arts and Crafts Gallery with its display of furniture and objects by leading designers and makers: William Morris, C.F.A. Voysey, Charles Robert Ashbee, Michael Cardew and Gordon Russell amongst many others. Members have the option of staying the night of 18th February at The Cheltenham Town House. The cancellation policy is one week’s notice for the whole booking. We will review the booking at this stage, if very adverse weather is forecast. Those staying at the hotel may park there in the morning. It is fifteen minutes’ walk to The Wilson. We plan to organise a group dinner at a restaurant, to be paid locally.
FURTHER EVENTS WERE CURTAILED OWING TO THE COVID PANDEMIC
Annual General Meeting
held at Shamley Green on Thursday 3rd December 2020 at 3.30 p.m
The AGM was held during the Covid19 virus pandemic. With Government restrictions applying, normal arrangements for an AGM were prohibited. Legal advice had been sought, establishing that at least two members could meet in person to hold an AGM, one of whom must be an officer of the Society. This solution provided compliance with the requirements of the Society’s Constitution and ensured that good governance of the Society would be achieved.
