This morning we were off, first to the Southampton City Gallery and then on to the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum.  We had an appointment at Southampton with the Curator, Tim Craven.  Tim met us and gave us a tour of the Gallery and the special exhibition of the “London Group” that he had arranged.  Interestingly one of the artist in the London Group was Walter Sickert who lived in Camden Town.  Just by chance we took a photo yesterday of the Blue Plaque on the house where he lived and worked.  Talk about karma.

Anyway, Tim not only told us about some of the paintings but also told us stories about some of the artists.  After our tour Sue just had to ask him: “you really love your job, don’t you?”  His enthusiasm was just so obvious and appealing.  Our visit was well worth the trip.  And I actually really like the painting on our list that was at the gallery: “Head of J.Y.M. No. 1” by Frank Auerbach.  The title refers to his model Juliet Yardley Mills, who he worked with for over 40 years. 

Then it was a short train ride to Bournemouth for the next gallery.  Bournemouth is a holiday spot on the southeast coast.  There are loads of hotels and time shares.  The Russell-Cotes Gallery is quite a place.  It was the house of Sir Merton Russell-Cotes who gave the house to his wife in 1901.  It is right on the coast.  We found our first painting pretty quickly because it was part of a special exhibition of paintings by Evelyn de Morgan.  Our painting, “Phosporus and Hesperus”.  The painting was on loan from the De Morgan Foundation that closed on June 28^th of this year.  I had contacted the foundation earlier in the year and they had told me that the painting would be in this exhibition.  From what I’ve read this is a small foundation that doesn’t have the money required to have its own building to exhibit its art work.  They are struggling to even have a secure place to conserve and store the art work.  So we were lucky to catch our painting before it went into permanent storage.  There are so many rooms off of rooms in this house, and all of the rooms are full of paintings and collectable objects that I gave up and scouted out the Curator to ask him where the second painting was located.  With his direction we found it.  This painting. “Norwegian Fishing Village” by Laurits Bernard Holtz was located inside of a cabinet instead of being hung on the wall, so we must have just walked by it.  The house just has too much stuff for someone like me who feels compelled to read all of the labels.  And that is another problem, not all the items are labeled.  Some rooms have cards with descriptions of some of the objects, but not all.  Is my grouchy old man showing too much?  Tomorrow, depending on the weather we may do more plaques or a cemetery.

Aug 21 2014 London