Thomas Bock

Thomas Bock   Ikon gallery December 2017

 

Today in Birmingham’s ikon gallery saw the long in the curating first exhibition outside Australia dedicated to the work of Thomas Bock (c 1793 – 1855). As ikon director Jonathan Watkins and Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery director, Janet Carding say in their forward to the beautifully and insightfully illustrated catalogue ; ‘It comprises a selection of drawings, paintings and photographs that demonstrate not only the artist’s technical skill, but also sensitivity to a wide range of subject matter including portraits of Tasmanian Aborigines, his fellow criminals as well as free settlers in Hobart Town, nudes, landscapes and every day scenes, occasionally giving touching inside into his domestic life.

Bock was one of the most important artists working in Australia during the colonial years. Born in Birmingham, trained there as an engraver and miniature painter, in 1823 he was found guilty of ’administering concoctions for certain herbs …… with the intent to cause miscarriage’ and sentenced to transportation for fourteen years. He arrived in Hobart the following year where quickly he was pressed into service is a convict artist, engraving banknotes, illustrations for a local almanac and commercial stationery. An early commission was a number of portraits of captured bushrangers, before and after execution by hanging, including the notorious cannibal Alexander Pearce.

Alexander Pearce, serial murderer, executed and recorded by drawing

In a short space of time, Bock’s life was turned upside down. Once a respectable artisan in his early 20s, with a good address in a booming industrial town, he now found himself at the edge of the known world in the company of compatriots who were as desperate as they were depraved. There are no surviving diaries that document his personal journey, but Bock’s artistic output on arrival, through conditional absolute pardon and until his death – marked by an obituary but described him as artist of a very high order – is a rich seam of observation that was at once subtle and astonishing.

Most significant in this respect is a box series of portraits of Tasmanian Aborigines, commissioned by George Augustus Robinson during 1831-35, now in the British Museum. It is a master set, from which a number of copies were made. The drawing throughout is very fine and the likenesses probably very true, and having them at the heart of this exhibition will effectively convey the tragedies suffered by Indigenous people through the British colonisation of Australia. The sitters – including Trukanini (c1812-76) have a demeanour that conveys both pride and despair. For British audiences on the whole this work will be a revelation; for Aboriginal visitors to the exhibition in Hobart – who know the sad narrative only too well – it will be a rare and poignant opportunity to see firsthand such early pictures of their ancestors.

The exhibition and history reflects a literally amazing story of a Birmingham born trained artist and convicted criminal who sketched his passage from Woolwich in July 1823 to Tasmania in January 1824. The sketches begin with a family, and a view of the city, both probably his own. They follow the English, Cape Verde and South Africa coastlines as he reaches Hobart and is immediately put to work for the Bank of Van Dieman’s Land engraving notes.

The exhibition and the walking talk by Jane Stewart of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery and Tasmanian Artist, writer and historian Julie Gough took us through the works on the wall. Jane explained  the depth of history, skills and talents of Thomas Bock and concluded at a glazed box holding the portrait of a young Tasmanian woman ‘taken in’, from Flinders Island of incarceration, by a British serving family in Hobart to be ‘civilised’. The Franklins commissioned Bock to paint a portrait of Mithina (Mathinna) in the red dress. There is much history to this image which Jane and Julia shared with us, including the fact that the original painting was framed by an oval mount which removed Mathinna’s feet from view. On purpose we do not not know, but the portrait is now exhibited in a frame showing her whole body.

Director Watkins also introduced another glazed case by lifting the leather cover to reveal 3 daguerreotypes taken by Bock only three years after the process was invented in France. It is claimed that Thomas Bock was the first person to introduce the technique to Tasmania.  He passed on his photographic business to his step son Alfred who in turn introduced the Carte de Visite to Hobart. The exhibition does not include an image of Thomas Bock, and one is extremely hard to locate, perhaps. because of Bock’s very real criminal history in Britain. However the Australian Dictionary of Biography holds a photograph by Alfred, along with his Biography which I include here as I ‘missed’ seeing him alongside the images he created.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally Julia walked us round the gallery to furnish us with the historical context to Bock’s artworks. She was aided by, appropriately enough, a miniature projector with her slide show being projected on the wall spaces between the frames. Director Watkins showed a steady and stable hand to keep the beam straight and true. Much like the exhibition as a whole that delivers revelations about a little known, until now, Birmingham, British artist and his role in reflecting the Indigenous peoples of Tasamania.

Slide Show

The exhibition is on until March next year and there are a range of talks this week culminating in a symposium on Friday 15th:

Menzies Centre for Australian Studies & Ikon

Thomas Bock Symposium Convicts, Race, and Art

This one-day symposium is a collaboration between King’s College London and Ikon.

Bock was one of the most important artists working in Australia during the colonial years. He trained as an engraver and miniature painter in Birmingham before, in 1823, being found guilty of “administering concoctions of certain herbs … with the intent to cause miscarriage”, for which his sentence was transportation for fourteen years. Bock arrived in Hobart Town, Van Diemen’s Land (present-day Tasmania, Australia) the following year, where he was quickly pressed into service as a convict artist, engraving bank notes, illustrations for a local almanac, cheques, commercial stationery and so on. An early commission was a number of portraits of captured bushrangers, before and after execution by hanging, including the notorious cannibal Alexander Pearce. Bock’s portraits of Aboriginal Tasmanians are some of the most important in Australian art, including that featured here of Mathinna, daughter of Towterer and his wife Wongerneep of the Lowreenne people.

Experts will contextualise Bock’s life and work, while engaging in debates about ‘art in a time of colony’, the representation of Australia’s Indigenous peoples, and the politics and experience of transportation from the Midlands to colonial Australia.

 

 

 

Programme

10:00-10:30 Registration, Anatomy Museum, Level 6, Kings Building

10:30-1045 Welcome by Dr Ian Henderson, Director MCAS

10:45-12:30 Industrial Birmingham to Colonial Van Diemens Land

 

Dr Malcolm Dick, University of Birmingham

Thomas Bocks Birmingham: Industry and Culture in the city of a thousand trades

Professor Judith A. Allen, Indiana University Bloomington

Thomas Bocks conviction: Men, and the rise and fall of the new capital crime of abortion, 1803-37

Dr David Meredith, University of Oxford

On the transportation system and Van Diemens Land

 

12:30-13:30 Lunch

13:30-15:00 Convicts, Art, and Knowledge

 

Professor Clare Anderson, University of Leicester

Convicts and Penal Colonies in 19th-Century Science and Collecting: A Global Perspective

Professor Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll, University of Birmingham

Thomas Bock and Edmund Clark: Savagery and Redemption in Ikon’s criminal portraiture, colonial and contemporary

Dr Ian Henderson, Menzies Centre King’s College London

Green Arcades Project: Art and Sociability in Nineteenth-Century Hobart Town

 

15:00-15:30 Afternoon Tea

15:30-17:00 Bock and the Tasmanians

 

Jane Stewart, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery

On Bock and the history of art in Tasmania

Dr Gaye Sculthorpe, British Museum

Thomas Bock and the mystery of Trukanini’s necklace

Dr Julie Gough, Artist

The race of representation: What the works by Bock and his colonial contemporaries offer on the circumstances of Tasmanian Aboriginal people

17:30-19:30 Reception for Ikons Thomas Bock Exhibition

18:00 Jonathan Watkins, Director, Ikon Gallery on the exhibition

 

Image: Thomas Thomas Bock Mithina (Mathinna) (1842) Watercolour Presented by J H Clark 1951, AG290

Courtesy Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery

 

 

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Printmakers Council City and Mini Print

The Printmakers Council was formed in 1965 a group of artists including Julian Trevelyan, Michael Rothenstein, Anthony Gross, Stanley Jones and Agatha Sorel who saw the need for a society that would promote new developments within printmaking. Since then it has consistently promoted the place of printmaking in the visual arts. More about the history of the Printmakers Council here

In 2017 the Council invited artist printmakers to submit works for the Print City and Mini Print  exhibitions which opened on November at the Morley Gallery in Lambeth London.  The exhibits showed the breadth of UK printmaking including silkscreen, etching, linocut,  lithography, solar and plastic engraving. I submitted a mini print  (19×19) of an inkjet print on pastel paper – Welsh Bowl with Mermaids Purse, Sheep’s Wool and Rabbits Tail.  The Mini Prints are a portfolio that will be held by the V&A Print Collection. I met Michael Pritchard from Staffordshire who had his digital prints in the city exhibition that sat alongside plastic engravings by Louise Hayward and Guy Butters Underground Surveillance that hung in on of the windows which are included in the slide how of iPhone pictures from the opening night.

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City Print full house
close inspection
Welsh Bowl Inkjet print- ejt
mini prints
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4 mini prints
plastic engravings
kipling estate LH
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Committee Convo
Rebuilding the Built
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underground surveillance Guy Butters
Morley Gallery
Imperial war museum gate house
Imperial War Museum Frontage
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The gallery is nearby The Imperial War Museum which was particularly dramatic that night with a bright moon low in the sky.
Imperial War Museum Moonlight Gate House

Bahrain Artists in Birmingham @ulafaa

The rise of Maliha @ecstaybash

I dropped by the IPS ( International Production Space in Birmingham School of Art)  that flowed from pieces from Bahrain Artists presented by the Bahrain based Ulafaa Initiative in the foyer.  It is a rewarding show with insights into how young artists are making their voices seen and heard locally and internationally.  I asked the curator Tamadher AlFahal about the show’s origins and she invited me to the talk she was presenting (as part of her PHD) that evening and an open invite to a further panel discussion about the cultural production of the Arab Gulf that is happening on the 19th @ 5pm in the IPS :’AS NOTED/UNNOTICED’ a part of “I AM KHALEEJI”; a series of events and happenings that offers prelude to the contemporary art scene of the Arab Gulf.

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From the discussions  it is clear the art scene “within the Arab Gulf (or GCC) has been through a state of flux. Typically exposed to Western audiences, and the greater art world, as a strongly diluted stereotypical image of the Middle East. The Arab Gulf’s distinctive art identity remains undervalued.

This project addresses the misconceptions of the contemporary art scene in the Gulf, it offers an alternative view that is diverse, unique and vernacular in attempt to understand its complexity and dynamics.  Specifically focusing on shedding light on the Gulf art scene as a distinctive voice within the Middle East. “

Issues of identity, religion, gender are clear in the work on show, but the range of video, photography, graphic and printed artworks are strong in their own right.  There are plays with sign posts (literally) and the two photographic/print based pieces – The rise of Maliha @ecstasybash and My Ghutra is Me @stefanistan deal directly with issues of personal image and identity in clever, creative and insightful ways.  ‘Maliha : a Name meaning having beauty, kindness and strength’ and ‘Ghutra’ the traditional male headress and as one of the subjects told the artist : ‘the eyes are the window on the soul, but first tell me how you wear your ghutra and I will tell you who you are……’ Both pieces are portrait based although the whole portrait is not shown in either works. 

@ecstasybash’ instagram bio is understated : “Photographer , Slightly Artistic, mildly photographic”.  Her website also provides further insight into the inspirations for The rise of Maliha.

The show is also referred to By the Book @ulafaa

 

 

moon stories

moon stories, inkjet print #2/5 2017
Museum Enabler Steve S enjoys the print drawing of him reading moon stories
Museum Enabler Steve S and Jonnie Turpie shake on it

 

Museum of the Moon

Museum of the Moon is a new touring artwork by UK artist Luke Jerram.

Measuring seven metres in diameter, the moon features 120dpi detailed NASA imagery of the lunar surface. At an approximate scale of 1:500,000, each centimetre of the internally lit spherical sculpture represents 5km of the moon’s surface.

Moon Story, Drawing and social media.

The original drawing was begun when the artist visited the Museum of the Moon exhibition and spotted a ‘moonlight’ in the corner in the dark expanse housing Luke Jerram’s massive moon. On a closer view the moonlight was a table lamp beamed on a book being read by Steve to an entranced family. The illuminated reader and family provided a strong composition to base a drawing on. The artist took iPhone pictures, transferred them to an iPad, into adobe procreate and using an apple pencil the drawing was created through a number of states. An early version was posted. on Instagram channel where  Museum Manager Jessica spotted it, showed it to Steve who was surprised and impressed. Jess used Instagram to contact the Artist to let him know Steve would like a copy if possible.

Once the drawing was finished proofs were made on a high quality Cannon inkjet printer on to a range of papers before an edition of 5 were printed on 300 gsm aquarelle off white paper. Two months on from the Saturday encounter in the Museum of the Moon the 2nd print of the edition was presented to Steve who along with Jessica enjoyed seeing the mounted fine print. Of course it quickly appeared on the @thinktankmuseum feed.

Thinktank

 

Thresholds – its historic Virtual Reality

 

On leaving the School of Art in Birmingham’s historic city centre I noticed a plaque to my right that had escaped my notice on the many occasions I have descended the stairs down to Margaret street.  The municipal history of the building is there for all to see in the ornate gold stone carved type : “This Building was erected by the Corporation of Birmingham for use as a School of Art, upon land given for that purpose by Grecoe Collmore Esq with funds contributed by Miss Louisea Anne Ryland and MESSers Richard and George Tangyea 1884.”

As I ruminated on the age of municipal and philanthropic  value of the Arts to Birmingham, I crossed to the Waterhall gallery, a part of an equally cultured contribution to Birmingham’s proud city centre – The Museum and Art Gallery.

Sitting on the steps was Pete James the curator of Matt Collingshaw’s Thresholds.  Pete is a mine off knowledge and information on the unique role Birmingham and its scientists and artisans played in the invention of photography. Thresholds captures the amazing moment Fox Talbot made his first Photogenic Drawings in King Edwards School. He and Matt have recreated the space he displayed his first pictures:

The jester and the cat, by Henry Fox Talbot
Fox Talbot’s original motivation

 

The vr box in the Waterhall Gallery

Behind the large  wooden box in the gallery is a white space with a few empty white cases and tables. A number of people walk around the space with an electronic backpack and headset seemingly seeing and touching invisible objects.  I was kitted up with the gear by the gallery assistants and encouraged to venture into the space. I was immediately ensconced in a 1830’s room with wooden ceilings, paintings, candle chandeliers and Talbot’s first photogenic drawings. Astonishing in their lifelike quality as one moved around them. Even more surprising was the ability to see a cloudy white version of your hand hovering above a picture, which when you turn your hand towards you, appears in front of you to inspect more closely. This is virtual reality.  What would Talbot have thought about this when he first showed his photogenic drawings to amazed friends, students, teachers and scientists? How image making has developed in 200 years, from Birmingham New Street’s School.  The school was demolished in the mid 1800’s and rebuilt as King Edwards opposite another gallery the Barber Institute.

Speaking to Pete I enquired when the term photography was applied to describe this process of capturing images with light. He clarified my question by saying Fox Talbot and Herschel used the word photography to describe the process whereas Talbot used the Photogenic drawing description to describe the objects of the process.  There is much more information in the exhibition, including Stereo images of the original room, the King Edwards building and a film by Ravi Deepres and Michael Clifford on the Camera Obscura.

Pete James captures pictures with smart phone camera

The show is only on for a couple more days in Birmingham before it begins its journey from the birthplace of photography to its next venue Laycock Abbey.

Go see it if you can.  If you can’t, here’s a good illustrative film :

Suitably embarrassing snap

http://www.birminghammuseums.org.uk/bmag/whats-on/mat-collishaw-thresholds

NPG BP Portrait award 2017

Had whistle stop tour round the BP Portrait Awards 2017 at the National Portrait Gallery.

Many great works including the Tavel Show winner. New and old techniques inc egg tempera for EMMA by Antony Williams. Daniel Coves picture was a departure for him as he usually paints the back of his subjects. However for this show he painted Blind Portrait facing forward. I have captured visitors backs as they look at the arresting/moving blind portrait.

Brian Sayers portrait met his needs to capture “the type of features he likes to portray” . This something we tend to forget.  i.e. A portrait is also a reflection of the artist’s desire as well as the character of the sitter.

vereeniging nightwatching

Vereenining nightwatching

View from 2nd floor apartment in Jordan district as night falls. Drawn with Apple iPad, Pencil and procreate app.

Living in apartments opposite apartments it is always enticing to watch what is ‘going on’ opposite and who is passing by in the street below.

 

Very different from a ground floor garden flat in Birmingham England.

Printed Portraits Opening Evening

Opening charity night was introduced by Dr Ellen Mcadam the Director of the Museum and Art Gallery and the High Sheriff of the West Midlands 2017 John Hudson OBE DL.

Before the speeches there was much networking and chatting to do.  The star of the show was Lara Ratnaraja’s Mother who had been excited about the event since Lara invited her as her +1. At every turn she was posing with another guest.

Steve Ball from the Birmingham REP and Lara’s Mum
Star of the night with Debbie Kermode CEO MAC
With Kelly from the Arts Council
MRs Ratnaraja with Jonnie Turpie

Dr Mcadam gave a warm welcome to the Shrieval gathering and the growing positive relationship between the West Midlands Shrievalty and the the Museum Trust as they both have historic value to the city and  region. She was also vey happy to encourage the purchasing of prints from the show as all proceeds will go to supporting the Museum Trust.  John Hudson gave a very warm welcome to the assembled audience and a brief insight into the role of the shrievalty in England and in the West Midlands. He pointed out that he was surprised to meet someone as well turned out as himself in black and silver. He was of course referring to Phil Hawkins from Hodge Hill who has a portrait in the exhibition as a worthy winner of the Bromford Estate local heroes.

High dressers Phil Howkins and the High SheriffWM 2017

We concluded with an acknowledgment that there had been another historic event the previous week – the election of the first ever Metro Mayor for the West Midlands – Mr Andy Street CBE – and that Mayor Street had made the time to attend the opening and come see his portrait.  We all joined him and went through the curtains to Gallery 16.

private viewers
Mayor Andy Street by Haseena Lockhat
Anita Bhalla OBE DL in action with her portrait
Ninder has assessed the number of hits on linked, facebook and Twitter of the ‘portrait’ is over 30,000
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close up detail go Greg Lowson portrait by FaminaB
Leading with undersheriff Greg Lowson
Mayor Street, HJJ Evand Gordon admire Undersheriff Lowson’s Portrait with Jo Lowson

Haseena with her portrait

Pictures were being sold with all proceeds being donated to the Birmingham Museums Trust.


Jon Andrews and Lucan Grey
Lucan Grey MBE
Lara Ratnaraja
Lalitha and Lara Ratnaraja
enjoying the pictures
High Sheriff 2016 catches up with HHJ Evans Gordon
Dr Keith Bradshaw reads his nameplate
final girls catch up
10 left wall Portraits Featuring Vanley Burke

There waere not many opportunities for visitors to get back from the walls to see the portraits in their ordered lines, however groupings gathered around pictures to cast judgement -all very positive. To see the portraits click the gallery below or actually  go to Gallery 16 in Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

Printed Portraits Opening Day

May 10 th arrives and the 30 Printed Portraits will be revealed to all and those  who feature on the walls of the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

In the morning I was attending to final details including briefing the wonderful front of house team and remaking the nameplates with larger type and a Shrieval coat of arms. A gentleman came into the space and after a while focussing on the pictures I asked what he thought.  He had seen the exhibition advertised on the BMAG Whats on listings and had travelled in especially from Telford in Shropshire to see it.

We talked about the how he is semi retired and visits galleries near and far to get a sense of artists work close up. We discussed portraits, photography, art before taking a picture of each other. He asked if he could take my picture in front of the Portrait of Eileen Wright as it is his favourite because of the ‘glint in her eye at her age’, as well as the big buttons on the phone she used to take he 97th birthday call.


Mike had been to the TATE in Liverpool to see the Rossetti Monna Vanna portrait and had taken a celebratory picture. I pointed out that next door in Gallery 17 is a beautiful picture by Rossetti of Beatrix.  He thanked me and went to see it, quickly returning with glee and after one last tour of the portraits made his comment in the book.

As the normal viewing day came to a close  a group of women came into Gallery 16. They viewed the portraits with interest and consideration, sharing their views to each other about the portraits and the subjects. They enthusiastically reflected, and nominated their top three! Top of their favourites  was Eileen Wright.

discussing anita’s portrait
which is your favourite?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I heard later that evening at the private view that as they left the Museum they met Eileen’s daughter and husband on the gallery entrance doorsteps and eulogised about the portrait exhibition and in particular the one of the older lady making her birthday phone call.     Wonderful

Eileen Wright takes 97th Call

Twoasone print submitted to ONPAPER

My twosome, double up  4 colour silkscreen has been included on the ON PAPER artists submissions site.  

ON PAPER is a project to promote the art of printmaking and develop connections between printmakers around the world. It is based in Barcelona and run by an art association with Nuria Melero as a main organiser.

ON PAPER contest : 3rd ANNUAL ‘ON PAPER’ INTERNATIONAL PRINTMAKING AWARD 2017

The shortlisted artists for the On PAPER Award 2017 will be exhibited in The Chicago Printmaking Collaborative, Chicago USA, from July 8th – August 31st 2017.  More information here :

More about Twosome here :

 

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