Eliza Acton ‘The Real Mrs Beeton’

Elizabeth “Eliza” Acton (17 April 1799 – 13 February 1859) was an English cook and poet, who produced one of the country’s first cookbooks aimed at the domestic reader, rather than professional cooks or chefs: Modern Cookery for Private Families. This introduced the now-universal practice of listing ingredients and giving suggested cooking times with each recipe. It included the first recipe for Brussels sprouts. Isabella Beeton’s bestselling Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management (1861) was closely modelled on it. Delia Smith is quoted as calling Acton “the best writer of recipes in the English language”. Modern Cookery long survived her, remaining in print until 1914.

Life

Acton was born in Battle, Sussex in 1799, the eldest of the five children of Elizabeth Mercer and John Acton, a brewer. The family returned to Suffolk shortly after her birth, and Eliza was raised there. When she was seventeen, she co-founded a girls’ school with a Miss Nicholson in Claydon, near Ipswich. This remained open for four years, until Eliza Acton left due to poor health. She spent some time in France after this.

After returning to England, her first collection of Poems was published in 1826, mostly on the theme of unrequited love. The book was moderately successful, and was reprinted a few weeks after its first issue. She subsequently wrote some standalone, longer poems, including “The Chronicles of Castel Framlingham”, which was printed in the Sudbury Chronicle in 1838, and “The Voice of the North”, which was written in 1842 on the occasion of Queen Victoria’s first visit to Scotland.

Acton’s best-known work Modern Cookery for Private Families was first published in 1845. It was the result of several years of research, undertaken at the prompting of Longman, who had published her Poems. Many of the recipes came from her friends. Modern Cookery quickly became a very popular work, appearing in several editions and remaining a standard cookery book throughout the rest of the century. The book was immensely influential, establishing the format for modern cookbook writing, by listing the exact ingredients required for each recipe, the time needed, and potential problems that might arise. This was a novel departure from previous cookbooks, which were less precise.

Shortly after the publication of Modern Cookery, Acton relocated to Hampstead, London, where she worked on her next and final book, The English Bread Book (1857). Alongside recipes, this contained a scholarly history of bread-making, which included Acton’s strong opinions on some contemporary baking practices. This work was significantly less successful than Modern Cookery, and was only reprinted in 1990.

Acton, who suffered from poor health for much of her life, died in 1859, at the age of 59. She was buried in Hampstead.

Works

•                Poems (London: Longmans, 1826)

•                “The Chronicles of Castel Framlingham” (poem, was in the movie Sudbury Chronicle, 1838)

•                “The Voice of the North” (commemorative poem about the first visit of Queen Victoria to Scotland in 1842)

•                Modern Cookery for Private Families (London: Longmans, 1845)

The English Bread Book (1857)

 

176 Years Of Bourne & Shepherd

Bourne & Shepherd was an Indian photographic studio and one of the oldest established photographic businesses in the world.  Established in 1863, at its peak, it was the most successful commercial firm in 19th-and early 20th-century India, with agencies all over India, and outlets in London and Paris, and also ran a mail order service. A devastating fire in 1991 destroyed much of the studio’s photographic archive and resulted in a severe financial loss to the firm. The long-term impact of the fire, legal difficulties with the Indian government, which owned the studio building, and the increasing dominance of digital technology, finally forced the studio’s closure in June 2016. At its closure, the studio had operated continuously for 176 years.

Though some sources consider its inception to be 1862, when noted British photographers, Charles Shepherd established a photographic studio, with Arthur Robertson, called ‘Shepherd & Robertson’ in Agra, which later moved to Shimla and eventually became the part of ‘Howard, Bourne & Shepherd’, set up by Samuel Bourne, Charles Shepherd, along with William Howard, first established in Shimla around 1863, Howard’s studio in Kolkata dates back to 1840, where it is still operational today, at Esplanade Row, in Esplanade, Kolkata (Calcutta) under the same name. Today some of their earlier work is preserved at Cambridge University Library, the National Portrait Gallery, London, the National Geographic Society’s Image Collection and the Smithsonian Institution.

Samuel Bourne came to India in 1863, and set up a partnership with an established Calcutta photographer, William Howard, and they set up a new studio ‘Howard & Bourne’ at Shimla. William Howard had set up the Calcutta studio in 1840. Meanwhile, Charles Shepherd, had already established a photographic studio, with Arthur Robertson, called ‘Shepherd & Robertson’ in Agra in 1862, and subsequently he too moved to Shimla in 1864. At some point Robertson left the business and Charles Shepherd, joined Bourne company to form ‘Howard, Bourne & Shepherd’. In 1863, he made first of three major Himalayan photographic expeditions, followed by another one 1866, prior to which he took an expedition to Kashmir in 1864, in fact all photographic histories of that era carry his works. He was known to travel heavy, as he moved with a large retinue of 42 coolies carried his cameras, darkroom tent and chests of chemicals and glass plates, he was to become one of India’s greatest photographers of that era. Charles on the other hand became known as a master printer, he stayed back in Shimla and managed the commercial distribution and printing aspects of the business. Through the 1860s, Bourne’s work was exhibited in public exhibition in Europe and was also part of the Paris Universal Exposition in 1867. He also wrote several despatches for ‘The British Journal of Photography between’ 1863–1870, and the company became an avid provider of the Indian landscape views to the common visitors to the country and also to Britishers back home, and not just survived but the thrived in an era of fierce competition between commercial photographers.

In 1866 after the departure of Howard, the company became ‘Bourne & Shepherd’. In 1867 Bourne returned to England briefly to get married and came back to run the new branch in Calcutta, soon it became the company premier photographic studios in India, at their peak their work was widely retailed throughout the subcontinent by agents and in Britain through wholesale distributors, and were patronised by the upper echelons of the British Raj as well as Indian royalty, so much so that at one point no official engagement, investiture or local durbar was considered complete without being first captured Bourne & Shepherd photographers.

In 1870, the year when Bourne went back to England, Bourne and Shepherd were operating from Shimla and Calcutta. Soon he started cotton-doubling business at Nottingham, and founded the Britannia Cotton Mills, and also become a local magistrate. He sold off his shares in studios, and left commercial photography all together; he also left behind his archive of some 2,200 glass plate negatives with the studio, which were constantly re-printed and sold, over the following 140 years, until their eventual destruction, in a fire at Bourne & Shepherd’s present studio in Calcutta, on 6 February 1991.After Bourne’s departure, new photographic work was undertaken by Colin Murray from 1840 to 84, following which in the 1870s Charles Shepherd continued to photograph and at least sixteen Europeans are listed as assistants.

Later the Bombay branch was opened in about 1876, operated by Charles Shepherd until his own departure from India around 1879, the branch continued operations till about 1902. In 1880, they even brought their services to as far as Lahore for a month, where they advertised in a local newspaper, in fact newspaper advertising has been a primary reason of the success of many photographers of that era. Soon their work was widely retailed throughout the subcontinent by agents and in Britain through wholesale distributors.Between 1870 and 1911 the firm sent photographers to Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Burma, Nepal and Singapore, had also become Art Publishers, with titles like ‘Photographs of Architecture of Gujarat and Rajputana’ (1904–05), and were now employing Indian photographers as well.

In 1911, they were the official photographers of the Delhi Durbar held to commemorate the coronation of King George V and Queen Mary as Emperor and Empress of India, where they were given the title, ‘Kaiser-e-Hind’ which they still use as part of their official letterhead. During World Wars the studio thrived on the contracts for photographing Indian, British and American services personnel.

In the following years, the studio changed hands several times, so much so the sequence of owners has been all but lost, however the last European owner, Arthur Musselwhite who took over the studio in the 1930s, later after a major business slump following the independence, and exodus of European community and the end of princely states, he held an auction in 1955, in which it was bought over by its present owners, and today the building itself is a heritage property.

Gallery

Lord Dufferin, in the regalia of the Viceroy of India, Photo by Bourne & Shepherd, Calcutta.

son of H.H. Chunnasee Rajoonath Pant, by Bourne and Shepherd, late 1860s, the Archaeological Survey of India Collections.

Tomb of Muhammad Ghaus at Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, taken by Bourne and Shepherd ca 1883, from the Archaeological Survey of India Collections.

Khusro Bagh, Allahabad, 1870s.

Parsi Marriage, Bourne & Shepherd, Bombay.

Rudyard Kipling, Bourne & Shepherd, c. 1892

Works

Album of early photographs of India, by Charles Shepherd, Samuel Bourne, James Robertson. Published by s.n.

An Album of Photographs of Indian Architecture, Views and People, by Robertson & Shepherd S. Bourne. Published by s.n.

Photographic Views in India, by Bourne & Shepherd. Published by [s.l.], 1866.

Photographic Views of Jumnootri, Mussoorie, Hurdwar, Roorkee, Nynee Tal and Bheem Tal, by Bourne & Shepherd. Published by Bourne & Shepherd., 1867.

A Permanent Record of India: Pictures of Viceroys, Moghul Emperors, Delhi Durbars, Temples, Mosques, Architectures, Types, All Indian Industries, Himalayan Scenes, Views from the Khybar Pass to the Andaman Islands : from 1840 to the Present Day, by Bourne & Shepherd. Published by Bourne & Shepherd.

India and Burma, by Bourne & Shepherd. Published by [s.l.], 1870.

Photographic Views in India, by Bourne and Shepherd, Simla, Calcutta, & Bombay. by Bourne and Shepherd. Published by Bourne & Shepherd.

Photographic Views in India, by Bourne & Shepherd, Calcutta and Simla, by Bourne & Shepherd, Published by Thomas S. Smith, City Press, 1878.

Photographic Views in India, by Bourne & Shepherd, Published by Howard Ricketts Limited.

St Ives School : Wilhelmina Barnes-Graham.

Island Sheds, St Ives No. 1 1940 Wilhelmina Barns-Graham 1912-2004 Presented by the artist 1999 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/T07546

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham CBE (8 June 1912 – 26 January 2004) was one of the foremost British abstract artists, a member of the influential Penwith Society of Arts, and The St Ives School.

Life

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, known as Willie, was born in St Andrews, Fife, on 8 June 1912. As a child she showed very early signs of creative ability. Determining while at school that she wanted to be an artist, she set her sights on Edinburgh College of Art where, after some dispute with her father, she enrolled in 1931, and after periods of illness, from which she graduated with her diploma in 1937.

At the suggestion of the College’s Principal Hubert Wellington, she moved to St Ives, Cornwall, in 1940, near to where a group of Hampstead-based modernists had settled, at Carbis Bay, to escape the war.This was a pivotal moment in her life. Early on she met Borlase Smart, Alfred Wallis and Bernard Leach, as well as the painter Ben Nicholson and the sculptors Barbara Hepworth and Naum Gabo. Barns-Graham became a member of the Newlyn Society of Artists and the St Ives Society of Artists but was to leave the latter when, in 1949, the St Ives art community suffered an acrimonious split, and she became a founder member of a breakaway group of abstract artists, the Penwith Society of Arts. She was also one of the initial exhibitors of the significant Crypt Group. In the same year she married the young author and aspiring poet (later noted architect) David Lewis (the marriage was annulled in 1960).

She travelled regularly over the next 20 years to Switzerland, Italy, Paris, and Spain. With the exception of a short teaching term at Leeds School of Art (1956–1957) and three years in London (1960–1963), she lived and worked in St Ives. From 1960, on inheriting a house outside St Andrews from her aunt Mary Niesh (who had been a support to her throughout her art college years), she split her time between summers in Cornwall and winters in Scotland.

Post-war, when St Ives had ceased to be a pivotal centre of modernism, her work and importance as an artist was sidelined, in part by an art-historical consensus that she had been only as a minor member of the St Ives school. In old age, however, she received belated recognition, receiving honorary doctorates from the University of St Andrews in 1992 and later from the universities of Plymouth, Exeter and Falmouth . In 1999 she was elected an honorary member of the Royal Scottish Academy and the Royal Scottish Watercolourists. She was awarded a CBE in 2001, the same year that saw the publication of the first major monograph on her life and work, written by Lynne Green — W.Barns-Graham : A Studio Life (Lund Humphries). This publication was followed in 2007 by The Prints of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham : a complete catalogue by Ann Gunn (also a Lund Humphries publication). Her work is found in all major public collections within the UK.

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham died in St Andrews on 26 January 2004. She bequeathed her entire estate to The Barns-Graham Charitable Trust, which she had established in 1987. The aims of the trust are to foster and protect her reputation, to advance the knowledge of her life and work, to create an archive of key works of art and papers, and, in a cause close to her heart, to support and inspire art and art history students through offering grants and bursaries to those in selected art college and universities. Information about the trust and its activities is to be found at http://www.barns-grahamtrust.org.uk

Art

Through the course of her life Wilhelmina Barns-Graham’s work generally lay on the divide between abstract and representational, typically drawing on inspirations from landscape. From 1940, when she arrived in Cornwall, her pictures are exploratory and even tentative as she began to develop her own method and visual language. The influence of St Ives then starts to arise, to take hold as local shapes and colours appear in the images – the Cornish rocks, landscape and buildings. Perhaps the most significant innovation at this time derived from the ideas of Naum Gabo, who was interested in the principle of stereometry – defining forms in terms of space rather than mass. Barns-Graham’s series of glacier pictures that started in 1949, inspired by her walks on the Grindelwald Glacier in Switzerland, reflect the idea of looking at things in a total view, not only from the outside but from all points, including inside. In 1952 her studies of local forms became more planar and two dimensional, but from the mid-1950s she had developed a more expressionist and free form attitude following journeys to Spain.

In the early 1960s, reflecting the turmoil in her personal life, Barns-Graham adopted a severe geometrical form of abstraction as a way of taking a fresh approach to her painting. Combined with a very intuitive sense of colour and design, the work often has more vitality than is immediately apparent. Squares tumble and circles flow across voids. Colour and movement come together and it is at this point in her work that St Ives perhaps exerts the least influence; rather, this approach more likely reflects an interest in the work of Josef Albers who was exciting UK artists at this time, in embracing new possibilities offered by the optical effects of a more formulaic abstraction.

Nonetheless there is evidence to suggest that many images did stem from observations of the world around her. This is seen in a series of ice paintings in the late 1970s and then in a body of work that explores the hidden energies of sea and wind, composed of multiple wave-like lines drawn in the manner of Paul Klee. The Expanding Form paintings of 1980 are the culmination of many ideas from the previous fifteen years – the poetic movement in these works revealing a more relaxed view.

From the late 1980s and right up until her death, Barns-Graham’s paintings became more and more free; an expression of life and free flowing brushwork not seen since the late 1950s. Working mainly on paper (there are relatively few canvases from this period) the images evolved to become, initially, highly complex, rich in colour and energy, and then, simultaneously, bolder and simpler, reflecting her enjoyment of life and living. “in my paintings I want to express the joy and importance of colour, texture, energy and vibrancy, with an awareness of space and construction. A celebration of life — taking risks so creating the unexpected.” (Barns-Graham, October 2001) This outlook is perfectly expressed in the extraordinary collection of screen prints that she made with Graal Press, Edinburgh, between 1999 and 2003.

Farrow & Ball : Such Sophisticated Colours And Creators Of Elephants Breath Amongst Others …

Farrow & Ball are an English manufacturer of paints, and wallpapers largely based upon historic colour palettes and archives. Their colour names, such as Elephant’s Breath, have become talking points in themselves.

History

The company was started by John Farrow and Richard Maurice Ball in the 1930s in Wimborne Minster, Dorset. They have worked with the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty of the UK, in formulating near to exact matches for the restoration of historic building interiors and exteriors. Today they maintain an updated colour card of 132 colours. Farrow & Ball also produce wallpaper patterns made using traditional block, trough and roller methods and made using Farrow & Ball paint.

Showrooms and stockists

The company has 52 showrooms across the UK, US, Canada & Europe as well as a global network of stockists carrying both paint and wallpaper.

Books

Farrow & Ball has produced three books; Paint and Colour in Decoration, The Art of Colour and Living With Colour

OPENING

Paint pioneers John Farrow and Richard Ball founded the company in 1946. They met while working at a local clay pit and later went on to build their first factory in Dorset.

IMPORTANT CONTRACTS

In the 1950s Farrow & Ball won some important commercial contracts which included supplying the paint for Ford Motor Cars in Dagenham and Liverpool, Raleigh bicycles and even the THE FIRE AND THE END OF AN ERA

As the 60s came to an end John and Richard were less and less involved with the business, and eventually sold the company to Bakers which was run by Norman Chappell (of Chappell Green fame!). Following a fire that destroyed the original factory, they moved to their current site near Wimborne where they’ve resided ever since.

NATIONAL TRUST

In the early 1990s Historical Decorator Tom Helme and Corporate Financier Martin Ephson took over the running of the company. They began to branch out by developing a range of National Trust paints, working closely with historical buildings, and helping to restore them with colours sympathetic to their eras.

A DECADE OF FIRSTS

The 1990s was a decade in which they achieved some major milestones and successes

1992 – They appointed our first independent stockist, Paint & Paper, who they still work with today.

1995 – They started to make artisanal wallpapers, ensuring that they followed in their founder’s footsteps by using traditional block and trough printing methods.

1996 – The first flagship showroom opened on the Fulham Road in Chelsea.

1999 – Saw the opening of the first overseas showroom in Toronto, quickly followed by Paris and New York.

1999 – They launched their website http://www.farrow-ball.com and stepped into the digital world.

ECO FRIENDLY

In January 2010 they made the bold decision to move our entire range of paints away from oil based to water based finishes with low or minimal VOC content. This was a forward thinking move, affirming their ongoing commitment towards helping the environment we live in, and once again putting them ahead of the competition.

EMBRACING THE DIGITAL WORLD

Embracing the digital world, they launched their Facebook, page in 2010, which was quickly followed by their Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube. accounts. In May 2014 they also launched their online interiors magazine, The Chromologist – a place for people to be inspired by colour. Across all of their digital platforms they have over 300,000 online fans as well as over 500,000 visitors to their website every month.

COLOUR CONSULTANCY GOES GLOBAL

In 2012 their in-home Colour Consultancy service went global! This bespoke service gives their customers the chance to meet one of their trained Colour Consultants in the comfort of their own home. The Colour Consultant will build a colour scheme based on the overall look the client is trying to achieve, as well as taking into account light and architectural features.

Hidden London : The Tate Modern Art Gallery …

Tate Modern is a modern art gallery located in London. It is Britain’s national gallery of international modern art and forms part of the Tate group (together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool, Tate St Ives and Tate Online). It is based in the former Bankside Power Station, in the Bankside area of the London Borough of Southwark. Tate holds the national collection of British art from 1900 to the present day and international modern and contemporary art.

History

The galleries are housed in the former Bankside Power Station, which was originally designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, the architect of Battersea Power Station, and built in two stages between 1947 and 1963. The power station closed in 1981. In 1992 The Tate Gallery at the British National Art Museum proposed a competition to build a new building for modern art. The purpose for the new building would help with the ever-expanding collection on modern and contemporary art. In 1995 it was announced that Herzog & de Meuron had won the competition with their simple design. The architects decided to reinvent the current building instead of demolishing it. The Tate modern is an example of adaptive reuse, the process of finding new life in old buildings. The building itself still resembles the 20th century factory in style from the outside and that is reflected on the inside by the taupe walls, steel girders and concrete floors. The façade of the building is made out of 4.2 million bricks that are separated by groups of thin vertical windows that help create a dramatic light inside. The history of the site as well as information about the conversion was the basis for a 2008 documentary Architects Herzog and de Meuron: Alchemy of Building & Tate Modern. This challenging conversion work was carried by Carillion. The southern third of the building was retained by the French power company EDF Energy as an electrical substation (in 2006, the company released half of this holding).

The galleries

The collections in Tate Modern consist of works of international modern and contemporary art dating from 1900 until today

Tate Modern currently has seven floors, originally numbered 1 to 7 they were then renumbered 0 to 6 in 2012. Levels 0 to 4 contain gallery space.

Collection exhibitions

The main collection displays consist of 4 wings each taking up approximately half a complete floor of the main building. Each wing has a named theme or subject. Within each wing there are some rooms that change periodically showing different works in keeping with the overall theme or subject of the wing.

Previous collection exhibitions

When the gallery opened in 2000, the collections were not displayed in chronological order but were rather arranged thematically into four broad groups each allocated a wing on levels 3 and 5 (now levels 2 and 4):

• ‘History/Memory/Society’
• ‘Nude/Action/Body’
• ‘Landscape/Matter/Environment’
• ‘Still Life/Object/Real Life’

This was ostensibly because a chronological survey of the story of modern art along the lines of the Museum of Modern Art in New York would expose the large gaps in the collections, the result of the Tate’s conservative acquisitions policy for the first half of the 20th century.

The first rehang at Tate Modern opened in May 2006. It eschewed the thematic groupings in favour of focusing on pivotal moments of twentieth-century art. It also introduced spaces for shorter exhibitions in between the wings. The layout was:

Material Gestures (now closed)

This focuses on abstraction, expressionism and abstract expressionism, featuring work by Claude Monet, Anish Kapoor, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, Henri Matisse and Tacita Dean.

Poetry and Dream

This features a large central room dedicated to Surrealism while the surrounding rooms feature works by artists influenced by Surrealism and its methods.

Energy and Process

This focuses on Arte Povera, with work by artists such as Alighiero Boetti, Jannis Kounellis, Kasimir Malevich, Ana Mendieta, Mario Merz and Jenny Holzer.

States of Flux (now closed)

This focuses on Cubism, Futurism, Vorticism and Pop Art,containing work by artists such as Pablo Picasso, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and the photographer Eugène Atget,

Current collection exhibitions

As of mid-2012, a third rehang is in progress. The current arrangement is:

Poetry and Dream

As above.

Structure and Clarity

Focussing on abstract art, replacing States of Flux

Transformed Visions

Focusing on Abstract Impressionism and related fields after the Second World War, replacing Material Gestures

Energy and Process

As above.

Setting the Scene

A smaller section, located between wings, covering installations with theatrical or fictional themes.

It has not been announced whether the current rehang will eventually replace all four of the sections introduced in the first rehang.

Temporary exhibitions

The Turbine Hall

The Turbine Hall, which once housed the electricity generators of the old power station, is five storeys tall with 3,400 square metres of floorspace. It is used to display large specially-commissioned works by contemporary artists, between October and March each year. This series was planned to last the gallery’s first five years, but the popularity of the series has led to its extension until at least 2012.

The artists who have exhibited commissioned work in the turbine hall as part of the Unilever series are:

Date	Artist	Work(s)
May 2000 – November 2000	Louise Bourgeois	I Do, I Undo, I Redo
June 2001 – March 2002	Juan Muñoz	Double Bind
October 2002 – April 2003	Anish Kapoor	Marsyas
October 2003 – March 2004	Olafur Eliasson	The Weather Project
October 2004 – May 2005	Bruce Nauman	Raw Materials
October 2005 – May 2006	Rachel Whiteread	EMBANKMENT
October 2006 – April 2007	Carsten Höller	Test Site
October 2007 – April 2008	Doris Salcedo	Shibboleth
October 2008 – April 2009	Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster	TH.2058
October 2009 – April 2010	Miroslaw Balka	How It Is
October 2010 – April 2011	Ai Weiwei	Sunflower Seeds
October 2011 – March 2012	Tacita Dean	Film
July 2012 – October 2012	Tino Sehgal	These associations

Until 2012, the series was named after its corporate sponsor, Unilever. Between 2000 and 2012, Unilever had provided £4.4m sponsorship in total including a renewal deal of £2.2m for a period of five years agreed in 2008.

When the series is not running, the Turbine Hall is used for occasional events and exhibitions. Most recently it has been used to display Damien Hirst’s For The Love Of God and a sell out show by Kraftwerk in February 2013 which famously crashed the ticket hotline and website causing a backlash from the band’s fans.

In 2013, Tate Modern signed a sponsorship deal worth around £5 million with Hyundai to cover a ten-year program of commissions, then considered the largest amount of money ever provided to an individual gallery or museum in the United Kingdom. The first commission for the Hyundai series is Mexican artist, Abraham Cruzvillegas.

Major temporary exhibitions

Two wings of the main building are used to stage the major temporary exhibitions for which an entry fee is charged. These exhibitions normally run for three or four months. When they were located on a single floor, the two exhibition areas could be combined to host a single exhibition. This was done for the Gilbert and George retrospective due to the size and number of the works. Currently the two wings used are on levels 2 and 3. It is not known if this arrangement is permanent. Each major exhibition has a dedicated mini-shop selling books and merchandise relevant to the exhibition. A 2014 show of Henri Matisse provided Tate Modern with London’s best-attended charging exhibition, and with a record 562,622 visitors overall, helped by a nearly five-month-long run.

The Tanks

The Tanks, located on level 0, are three large underground oil tanks, connecting spaces and side rooms originally used by the power station and refurbished for use by the gallery. One tank is used to display installation and video art specially commissioned for the space while smaller areas are used to show installation and video art from the collection.

Project Space

The Project Space (formerly known as the Level 2 Gallery) is a smaller gallery located on the north side of the building on level 1 which houses exhibitions of contemporary art in collaboration with other international art organisations. Its exhibitions typically run for 2–3 months and then travel to the collaborating institution for display there.

Other areas

Small exhibition spaces can be created between the wings on levels 2 to 4. These have been used to display recent acquisitions and other temporary displays from the collection. Works are also sometimes shown in the restaurants and members’ room. Other locations that have been used in the past include the mezzanine on Level 1 and the north facing exterior of the building.

Other facilities

In addition to exhibition space there are a number of other facilities:

• A large performance space in one of the tanks on level 0 used to show a changing programme of performance works for which there is sometimes an entrance charge.
• The Starr Auditorium and a seminar room on level 1 which are used to show films and host events for which there is usually an entrance charge.
• The Clore Education Centre, Clore Information Room and McAulay Studios on level 0 which are facilities for use by visiting educational institutions.
• One large and several small shops selling books, prints and merchandise.
• A cafe, an espresso bar, a restaurant and bar and a members’ room.
• Tate Modern community garden, co-managed with Bankside Open Spaces Trust

Extension project

Tate Modern has attracted more visitors than originally expected and plans to expand it have been in preparation since 2004. These plans are focused on the south west of the building and will provide 5,000m² of new display space, almost doubling the amount of display space.

This project was initially costed at £215 million Of the money raised, 50 million pounds is coming from the U.K. government; 7 million pounds from the London Development Agency; 6 million pounds from philanthropist John Studzinski; and donations from, among others, the Sultanate of Oman and Elisabeth Murdoch.

As of 2 June 2013, international shipping and property magnate Eyal Ofer pledged £10m to the extension project, making it to 85% of the required funds. Eyal Ofer, chairman of London-based Zodiac Maritime Agencies, said the donation made through his family foundation would enable “an iconic institution to enhance the experience and accessibility of contemporary art”.The Tate director, Nicholas Serota, praised the donation saying it would help to make Tate Modern a “truly twenty-first-century museum”.

The Tanks

The first phase of the expansion involved the conversion of three large, circular, underground oil tanks originally used by the power station into accessible display spaces and facilities areas. These opened on 18 July 2012 and are used to show live performance art and installations. Tate describes them as “the world’s first museum galleries permanently dedicated to live art”.

The western block

The new western block will occupy the space no longer required by EDF Energy for their electrical substation. The original block has been demolished and a new building will be built with large gallery spaces and access routes between the main building and the new tower on level 1 (ground level) and level 4. The new galleries on level 4 will have natural top lighting. A bridge will be built across the turbine hall on level 4 to complete the upper access route.

The tower

An eleven storey tower, 65 metres high, is being built above the oil tanks. The new building is scheduled to open in 2016.

The design, again by Herzog & de Meuron, has been controversial. It was originally designed as a glass stepped pyramid, but this was amended to incorporate a sloping façade in brick latticework (to match the original power-station building) despite planning consent to the original design had been previously granted by the supervising authority.

The tower will provide 22,492 square metres of additional gross internal area for display and exhibition spaces, performance spaces, education facilities, offices, catering and retail facilities as well as a car parking and a new external public space.

The Chimney

The chimney is one of the most recognizable monuments on The South bank. It is directly across the river from Saint Paul’s Cathedral. The chimney stands at 325 ft, made completely out of brick except for The Swiss Light added on top by the architects Herzog and De Meuron.

Access and environs

The closest station is Blackfriars via its new south entrance. Other nearby stations include Southwark, as well as St Paul’s and Mansion House north of the river which can be reached via the Millennium Bridge. The lampposts between Southwark tube station and Tate Modern are painted orange to show pedestrian visitors the route.

There is also a riverboat pier just outside the gallery called Bankside Pier, with connections to the Docklands and Greenwich via regular passenger boat services (commuter service) and the Tate to Tate service, which connects Tate Modern with Tate Britain.

To the west of Tate Modern lie the sleek stone and glass Ludgate House, the former headquarters of Express Newspapers and Sampson House, a massive late Brutalist office building.

Hidden London : The Honourable Society Of The Middle Temple ….

The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray’s Inn and Lincoln’s Inn. It is located in the wider Temple area of London, near the Royal Courts of Justice, and within the City of London.

History

In the 13th century, the Inns of Court originated as hostels and schools for student lawyers. The Middle Temple is the western part of “The Temple”, the headquarters of the Knights Templar until they were dissolved in 1312; the Temple Church still stands as a “peculiar” (extra-diocesan) church of the Inner and Middle Temples.

The Inns stopped being responsible for legal education in 1852, although they continue to provide training in areas such as advocacy and ethics for students, pupil barristers and newly qualified barristers. Most of the Inn is occupied by barristers’ offices, known as chambers. One of the Middle Temple’s main functions now is to provide education and support for new members to the profession. This is done through advocacy training, the provision of scholarships (over £1 million in 2011), subsidised accommodation both in the Temple and in Clapham, and by providing events where junior members may meet senior colleagues for help and advice.

The Inn

Middle Temple Hall is at the heart of the Inn, and the Inn’s student members are required to attend a minimum of 12 qualifying sessions there. Qualifying sessions, formerly known as “dinners”, combine collegiate and educational elements and will usually combine a dinner or reception with lectures, debates, mooting, or musical performances.

Middle Temple Hall is also a popular venue for banqueting, weddings, receptions and parties. In recent years, it has become a much-used film location—the cobbled streets, historic buildings and gas lighting give it a unique atmosphere. William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night received its first recorded performance here, at the feast Candlemas in 1602.

Middle Temple Library possesses Emery Molyneux’s terrestrial and celestial globes, which are of particular historical cartographical value.

Liberty

Middle Temple (and the neighbouring Inner Temple) is also one of the few remaining liberties, an old name for a geographic division. It is an independent extra-parochial area, historically not governed by the City of London Corporation (and is today regarded as a local council for most purposes) and equally outside the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Bishop of London. The Middle Temple’s functions as a local council are set out in the Temples Order 1971.

It geographically falls within the boundaries and liberties of the City, but can be thought of as an independent enclave.

Some of the Inn’s buildings (those along Essex Street, Devereux Court and the Queen Elizabeth Building near the Embankment) lie just outside the liberty of the Middle Temple and the City’s boundary, and are actually situated in the City of Westminster. Quadrant House (7–15 Fleet Street) was acquired by the Middle Temple in 1999 and after five years of conversion is now a barristers’ chambers. This lies outside the liberty (though immediately adjacent to it) but is within the City of London.

People : Frank Bramley , Newlyn School Artist, Known For Paintings Of Interiors …

Frank Bramley RA (6 May 1857 – 9 Aug 1915) was an English post-impressionist genre painter of the Newlyn School.

Personal life

Bramley was born in Sibsey, near Boston, in Lincolnshire to Charles Bramley from Fiskerton also in Lincolnshire.

From 1873 to 1878 Bramley studied at the Lincoln School of Art. He then studied from 1879 to 1882 at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, where Charles Verlat was his instructor. He lived in Venice from 1882 to 1884 and then moved to Newlyn, Cornwall.

Bramley married fellow artist Katherine Graham, daughter of John Graham from Huntingstile, Grasmere, Westmoreland, in 1891.The couple lived at Orchard Cottage, which at the time was called Belle Vue Cottage, from 1893 to 1897. In 1895 they moved to Droitwich in the West Midlands.They lived at Bellue Vue House in 1889 and by 1900 had settled at Grasmere in the Lake District.

Bramley died in Chalford Hill, Gloucestershire in August 1915.

Career

Having returned to England from Venice in or after 1884, Bramley established himself in the Newlyn School artist colony on Rue des Beaux Arts in Newlyn. Along with Walter Langley and Stanhope Forbes, he was considered to be one of the “leading figures” of the Newlyn School.

In contrast to other members of the Newlyn school, Bramley specialised in interiors and worked on combining natural and artificial light in his paintings, such as A Hopeless Dawn.

During his time in Newlyn, Bramley was a particular exponent of the ‘square brush technique’, using the flat of a square brush to lay the paint on the canvas in a jigsaw pattern of brush strokes, giving a particular vibrancy to the paint surface. In the early 1890s, his palette became brighter and his handling of the paint looser and more impastoed, while his subject matter narrowed to portraits and rural genre paintings.

An example of Bramley’s use of the square brush technique is his painting Domino!.

His A Hopeless Dawn (1888) is held by the Tate Gallery, London after having been purchased for the nation by the Chantrey Bequest and is one of Bramley’s most favored works. Praised by the Royal Academy, Penlee House also appreciate this Bramley work: “The painting’s strong emotional and narrative content, together with its aesthetic appeal and tonal harmony, make this one of the most admired Newlyn School works to this day.”

Bramley was one of the founders of the New English Art Club, but left the organization after having received condemning comments from Walter Sickert.

In 1894 Bramley became an Associate of the Royal Academy (ARA) and in 1911 he became a Royal Academician (RA). He was also a gold medal winner at the Paris Salon.

Exhibitions

• 1884 – 1912: Royal Academy
• 1890: Domino, Dowdeswell Exhibition

Works

Selected paintings include:

• A Venetian Market Girl,
• Primrose Day,
• Everyone His Own Tale,
• Domino,
• Eyes and No Eyes,
• A Hopeless Dawn,

People : Octavia Hill , Social Reformer, Friend Of Ruskin And Co Founder Of The National Trust …… What A Woman !

Octavia Hill (3 December 1838 – 13 August 1912) was an English social reformer, whose main concern was the welfare of the inhabitants of cities, especially London, in the second half of the nineteenth century. Born into a family with a strong commitment to alleviating poverty, she herself grew up in straitened circumstances owing to the financial failure of her father. With no formal schooling, she worked from the age of 14 for the welfare of working people.

Hill was a moving force behind the development of social housing, and her early friendship with John Ruskin enabled her to put her theories into practice with the aid of his initial investment. She believed in self-reliance, and made it a key part of her housing system that she and her assistants knew their tenants personally and encouraged them to better themselves. She was opposed to municipal provision of housing, believing it to be bureaucratic and impersonal.

Another of Hill’s concerns was the availability of open spaces for poor people. She campaigned against development on existing suburban woodlands, and helped to save London’s Hampstead Heath and Parliament Hill Fields from being built on. She was one of the three founders of the National Trust, set up to preserve places of historic interest or natural beauty for the enjoyment of the British public. She was a founder member of the Charity Organisation Society (now the charity Family Action) which organised charitable grants and pioneered a home-visiting service that formed the basis for modern social work. She was a member of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws in 1905.

Hill’s legacy includes the large holdings of the modern National Trust, several housing projects still run on her lines, a tradition of training for housing managers, and the museum established by the Octavia Hill Society at her birthplace.

Biography

Early years

Octavia Hill was the daughter of James Hill, corn merchant and banker, and his third wife, Caroline Southwood Smith. He had been widowed twice, and had six children (five daughters and a son) from his previous marriages. He had been impressed by the writings on education of Caroline Southwood Smith, the daughter of Dr Thomas Southwood Smith, a pioneer of sanitary reform. He had engaged Caroline as a governess for his children in 1832, and they were married in 1835, three years before Octavia was born in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, her father’s eighth daughter and ninth child. The family’s comfortably prosperous life was disrupted by James Hill’s financial problems and his mental collapse. In 1840 he was declared bankrupt. Caroline Hill’s father gave the family financial support, and took on some of Hill’s paternal role. Southwood Smith was a health and welfare reformer concerned with a range of social issues including child labour in mines and the housing of the urban poor. Caroline Hill held similar views on social reform, and her interest in progressive education, influenced by Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, and Southwood Smith’s daily experience in his work at the London Hospital in the East End inspired Octavia Hill’s concern for the poorest in early Victorian London. She received no formal schooling: her mother educated the family at home.

The family settled in a small cottage in Finchley, now a north London suburb, but then a village. Octavia Hill was impressed and moved by Henry Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor, a book that portrayed the daily lives of slum dwellers. She was also strongly influenced by the theologian, Anglican priest and social reformer F. D. Maurice, who was a family friend. She began her work on behalf of London’s poor by helping to make toys for Ragged school children, and serving as secretary of the women’s classes at the Working Men’s College in Bloomsbury in central London.

A co-operative guild providing employment for “distressed gentlewomen” accepted Hill for training in glass-painting when she was 13. When the work of the guild was expanded to provide work in toy-making for Ragged school children, she was invited, at the age of 14, to take charge of the workroom. The following year she began working in her spare time from the guild as a copyist for John Ruskin in Dulwich Art Gallery and the National Gallery. She was deeply aware of the dreadful living conditions of the children in her charge at the guild. Her views on encouraging self-reliance led to her association with the Charity Organisation Society (COS), described by Hill’s biographer Gillian Darley as “a contentious body which deplored dependence fostered by kindly but unrigorous philanthropy … support to the poor had to be carefully targeted and efficiently supervised. Later in life, however, she began to think the COS line … was over-harsh.”

Hill was short, like all her family, and indifferent to fashion. Her friend Henrietta Barnett wrote: “She was small in stature with long body and short legs. She did not dress, she only wore clothes, which were often unnecessarily unbecoming; she had soft and abundant hair and regular features, but the beauty of her face lay in brown and very luminous eyes, which quite unconsciously she lifted upwards as she spoke on any matter for which she cared. Her mouth was large and mobile, but not improved by laughter. Indeed, Miss Octavia was nicest when she was made passionate by her earnestness.” Barnett also spoke of Hill’s streak of ruthlessness. Gertrude Bell called Hill despotic. Later in Hill’s life, the Bishop of London, Frederick Temple, encountered her at a meeting of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and wrote, “She spoke for half an hour … I never had such a beating in all my life.”

Housing for the poor

Parliament and many concerned reformers had been attempting to improve the housing of the working classes since the early 1830s. When Hill began her work, the model dwelling movement had been in existence for twenty years, royal and select committees had sat to examine the problems of urban well-being, and the first of many tranches of legislation aimed at improving working class housing had been passed. From Hill’s point of view these had all failed the poorest members of the working class, the unskilled labourers. She found that their landlords routinely ignored their obligations towards their tenants, and that the tenants were too ignorant and oppressed to better themselves. She tried to find new homes for her charges, but there was a severe shortage of available property, and Hill decided that her only solution was to become a landlord herself. John Ruskin, who was interested in the co-operative guild, knew Hill from her work as his copyist and was impressed by her. As an aesthete and a humanitarian he was affronted by the brutal ugliness of the slums. In 1865, having inherited a substantial sum of money from his father, he acquired for £750 the leases of three cottages of six rooms each in Paradise Place, Marylebone.

Ruskin placed these houses, which were “in a dreadful state of dirt and neglect”, under Hill’s management. He told her that investors might be attracted to such schemes if a five per cent annual return could be secured. In 1866 Ruskin acquired the freehold of five more houses for Hill to manage in Freshwater Place, Marylebone. The Times recorded, “The houses faced a bit of desolate ground occupied by dilapidated cowsheds and manure heaps. The needful repairs and cleaning were carried out, the waste land was turned into a playground where Mr. Ruskin had some trees planted.”

After being improved the properties were let to those on intermittent and low incomes. A return of five per cent on capital was obtained as promised to Ruskin; any excess over the five per cent was reinvested within the properties for the benefit of the tenants. Rent arrears were not tolerated, and bad debts were minimal. As Hill said, “Extreme punctuality, and diligence in collecting rents, and a strict determination that they shall be paid regularly, have accomplished this.” In consequence of her prudent management, Hill was able to attract new backers, and by 1874 she had 15 housing schemes with around 3,000 tenants.

Hill’s system was based on closely managing not only the buildings but the tenants; she insisted, “you cannot deal with the people and their houses separately.” She maintained close personal contact with all her tenants, and was strongly opposed to impersonal bureaucratic organisations and to governmental intervention in housing. In her view, “municipal socialism and subsidized housing” led to indiscriminate demolition, re-housing schemes, and the destruction of communities.

Housing management

At the heart of the Octavia Hill system was the weekly visit to collect rent. From the outset, Hill conceived this as a job for women only. She and her assistants, including Emma Cons combined the weekly rent collection with checking every detail of the premises and getting to know the tenants personally, acting as early social workers. At first Hill believed, “Voluntary workers are a necessity. They are better than paid workers, and can be had in sufficient numbers.” Later, she found it expedient to maintain a paid workforce. Her system required a large staff. Rent was collected on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. Rent accounts were balanced in the afternoons and arrangements were made with contractors for repairs. On Thursdays and Fridays arrears were pursued, contractors’ invoices paid, new tenancy lettings and tenants’ moves organised.

If any of Hill’s assistants had spare time, whether during normal working hours or in frequent voluntary after-hours working, it was used to promote tenants’ associations and after-work and children’s after-school clubs and societies. In 1859, Hill created the Southwark detachment of the Army Cadet Force, its first independent unit, which gave training along military lines for local boys. Hill considered that such an organisation would be more like the “real thing” than such existing outfits as the Church Lads’ Brigade and therefore more attractive to young men “who had passed the age of make-believe”. She invited a serving officer of the Derbyshire Regiment to set up the company, and such was its popularity that its numbers had to be capped at 160 cadets.

Hill’s principles were summed up in an article of 1869: “Where a man persistently refuses to exert himself, external help is worse than useless.” She was an outspoken critic of the principles of “outdoor relief” or the Speenhamland system of poor relief as operated by various Poor Law Boards. Because these systems did not encourage recipients to work, she regarded them as “a profligate use of public funds.” Under her methods, personal responsibility was encouraged. She insisted on dealing with arrears promptly; she appointed reliable caretakers; she took up of references on prospective tenants, and visited them in their homes; she paid careful attention to allocations and the placing of tenants, with regard to size of families and the size and location of the accommodation to be offered; and she made no rules that could not be properly enforced.

An American admirer described her as “ruling over a little kingdom of three thousand loving subjects with an iron scepter twined with roses.” Although Hill drove her associates hard, she drove herself harder. In 1877, she collapsed and had to take a break of several months from her work. Darley ascribes a number of contributory causes: “chronic overwork, a lack of delegation, the death of her close friend Jane Senior, the failure of a brief engagement” as well as an attack on her by John Ruskin. The Hill family found a companion for her, Harriot Yorke (1843–1930). Yorke took on a great amount of the everyday work that had caused Hill’s collapse. She remained her companion until Hill’s death. A further palliative was the building of a cottage, at Crockham Hill near Sevenoaks in Kent, where they could take breaks from their work in London.

Open spaces

Among Hill’s concerns was that her tenants, and all urban workers, should have access to open spaces. She believed in “the life-enhancing virtues of pure earth, clean air and blue sky.” In 1883, she wrote:

There is perhaps no need of the poor of London which more prominently forces itself on the notice of anyone working among them than that of space. … How can it best be given? And what is it precisely which should be given? I think we want four things. Places to sit in, places to play in, places to stroll in, and places to spend a day in. The preservation of Wimbledon and Epping shows that the need is increasingly recognised. But a visit to Wimbledon, Epping, or Windsor means for the workman not only the cost of the journey but the loss of a whole day’s wages; we want, besides, places where the long summer evenings or the Saturday afternoon may be enjoyed without effort or expense.

She campaigned hard against building on existing suburban woodlands, and helped to save Hampstead Heath and Parliament Hill Fields from development. She was the first to use the term “Green Belt” for the protected rural areas surrounding London. Three hills in Kent (Mariners Hill, Toys Hill and Ide Hill) which she helped to protect from development form part of the belt.

In 1876 Hill became the treasurer of the Kyrle Society, founded in that year by her eldest sister, Miranda, as a “Society for the Diffusion of Beauty”. Under the slogan “Bring Beauty Home to the Poor” it aimed to bring art, books, music and open spaces into the lives of the urban poor. For a short period it flourished and expanded, and although it declined after a few years, it was a template for the National Trust, 20 years later.

Before that, however, Hill was engaged in a campaign in 1883 to stop the construction of railways from the quarries in the fells overlooking Buttermere, in the English Lake District, with damaging effect on the unspoilt scenery. The campaign was led by Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley, who secured the support of Ruskin, Hill, and Sir Robert Hunter, solicitor to the Commons Preservation Society. From 1875 onwards, Hunter had been Hill’s legal adviser on the protection of open spaces in London. Both he and Rawnsley, building on an idea put forward by Ruskin, conceived of a trust that could buy and preserve places of natural beauty and historic interest for the nation.

On 16 November 1893, Hill, Hunter and Rawnsley met in the offices of the Commons Preservation Society and agreed to launch such a trust. Hill suggested that it should be called “The Commons and Gardens Trust”, but the three agreed to adopt Hunter’s suggested title, the “National Trust”. Under its full formal title, the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty was inaugurated the following year. The trust was concerned primarily with protecting open spaces and endangered buildings of historic interest; its first property was Alfriston Clergy House and its first nature reserve was Wicken Fen.

Later years

The number of homes managed by Hill continued to grow. Although Ruskin had turned against her in a bout of mental instability, she found a new supporter, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who handed over to her the management of their housing estates in several poor areas of south London. By the end of the nineteenth century, Hill’s women workers were no longer unpaid volunteers but trained professionals. Hill’s influence spread beyond the properties under her own control. Her ideas were taken up and copied, with her enthusiastic support, in continental Europe and the United States of America. Beatrice Webb said that she “first became aware of the meaning of the poverty of the poor,” while staying with her sister, who was a rent collector for Octavia Hill in the East End. Queen Victoria’s daughter, Princess Alice of Hesse-Darmstadt, was taken incognito on a tour of some of Hill’s properties, and she translated Hill’s Homes of the London Poor into German. Among those whom Hill trained was her assistant and secretary, Maud Jeffery, who was later engaged by the Commissioners of Crown Lands to run new housing estates in London on Octavia Hill’s lines. Even some local authorities, despite Hill’s distrust, followed her model: some of the earliest examples of municipal council housing, at Kensington and Camberwell, were run on her lines, with the acquisition of working class houses, and their gradual improvement, without evictions or demolitions.

Despite her opposition to interference by national or local government in the provision of housing, Hill had to cope with the newly created London County Council and the involvement of the council and other local authorities in providing housing for the poor. In 1884 a royal commission on the housing of the working classes was set up, but the prime minister, W.E. Gladstone, and his ministerial colleagues vetoed a proposal to include Hill among the members of the commission. The municipal authorities quickly surpassed her in the number of properties under their management. A.S. Wohl notes that in the 1880s Hill had about £70,000 worth of property under her management, and at the end of her career she was managing the dwellings of “perhaps three or four thousand people at the most.” The London County Council, by contrast, had a budget of £1,500,000 for its programme of rehousing London’s poor in 1901–02.

Hill was opposed to other reforms that came about in the early part of the twentieth century. She was against female suffrage on the grounds that “men and women help one another because they are different, have different gifts and different spheres”. She also believed that provision of social services and old-age pensions by the government did more harm than good, sapping people’s self-reliance.

Hill died from cancer on 13 August 1912 at her home in Marylebone, at the age of 73.

Legacy and memorials

When John Singer Sargent’s portrait of her was presented by her fellow-workers in 1898, Hill made a speech in which she said, “When I am gone, I hope my friends will not try to carry out any special system, or to follow blindly in the track which I have trodden. New circumstances require various efforts, and it is the spirit, not the dead form, that should be perpetuated. … We shall leave them a few houses, purified and improved, a few new and better ones built, a certain amount of thoughtful and loving management, a few open spaces…” But, she said, more important would be “the quick eye to see, the true soul to measure, the large hope to grasp the mighty issues of the new and better days to come – greater ideals, greater hope, and patience to realize both.”

The Horace Street Trust, founded by Hill, became a model for many subsequent housing associations and developed into the present trust that bears her name, Octavia Housing. Today it owns several of the homes, including Gable Cottages, designed by Elijah Hoole, who worked with Hill for many years. Hill’s determination to provide community space can still be seen in the shape of the Red Cross site in Southwark (1888), among others. The Octavia Hill Society website states that with a community hall, and soundly maintained attractive houses, Hill here anticipated the fundamental ingredients of town planning by some 15 years.

The Settlement Movement (creating integrated mixed communities of rich and poor) grew directly out of Hill’s work. Her colleagues Samuel and Henrietta Barnett, founded Toynbee Hall, the first university-sponsored settlement, which together with the Women’s University Settlement (later called the Blackfriars Settlement) continues to serve local communities. Overseas, Hill’s name is perpetuated in the Octavia Hill Association in Philadelphia, a small property company, founded to provide affordable housing to low and middle-income city residents.

Women who had trained under Hill formed the Association of Women Housing Workers in 1916. This later changed its name to the Society of Housing Managers in 1948. After merging with the Institute of Housing Managers in 1965, the society became the present day Chartered Institute of Housing in 1994. The CIH is a professional body for those working in the housing profession in the UK and overseas. The training that Hill gave to Charity Organisation Society volunteers contributed to the development of modern social work, and COS continued to be instrumental in developing social work as a profession during the twentieth century. COS is still in operation today as the charity Family Action.

In 1907, Parliament passed the first National Trust Act, enshrining the trust’s permanent purpose and giving it powers to protect property for the benefit of the nation. The trust now looks after a wide range of coast, countryside and historic buildings. According to the trust’s website, “Staff, volunteers and tenants are engaged daily in providing access to open spaces for people’s enjoyment, providing habitats for wildlife and in improving our environment – ‘for ever, for everyone’.”

Commemorations of Hill herself include a monument to her at a Surrey beauty spot, on the summit of a hill called Hydon Ball (now owned by the National Trust). Shortly after her death, the family erected a stone seat there, from which walkers can enjoy views over the Surrey countryside. The Octavia Hill Society was set up in 1992 “to promote awareness of the ideas and ideals of Octavia Hill, her family, fellow workers and their relevance in today’s society nationally and internationally”. Under the society’s auspices her birthplace at Wisbech has been turned into the Octavia Hill Birthplace Museum. In 1995, to mark the centenary of the National Trust, a new variety of rose, “Octavia Hill”, was named in her honour.

People : Claudio Bravo , Chilean Hyperrealist Painter, With Subjects From Packaging To Imelda Marcos ….

Claudio Bravo (November 8, 1936 – June 4, 2011) was a Chilean hyperrealist painter. He was greatly influenced by Renaissance and Baroque artists, as well as Surrealist painters such as Salvador Dalí. He lived and worked in Tangier, Morocco, beginning in 1972. Bravo also lived in Chile, New York and Spain. He was known mainly for his paintings of still lifes, portraits and packages, but he had also done drawings, lithographs, engraving and figural bronze sculptures. Bravo painted many prominent figures in society, including dictator Franco of Spain, President Ferdinand Marcos and First Lady Imelda Marcos of the Philippines and Malcolm Forbes.

Early Life and Education in Chile

Bravo was born in Valparaíso, Chile, to Tomás Bravo Santibáñez and Laura Camus Gómez. His father was a successful businessman who also owned a ranch, and his mother was a housewife. They had seven children: María Inés, Claudio Bravo, Patricia, Ana María, José Tomás, Hernán, and Ximena. One of his earliest childhood memories was being put on a horse at the age of three.

In 1945, he left the family ranch to join the Colegio San Ignacio (Santiago de Chile)|Colegio San Ignacio in Santiago, Chile, where he excelled in choir, literature and music. In order to raise his grades in math, physics or chemistry, he would give his teacher a portrait. The prefect, Father Dussuel, noticed his self-taught artistic ability and paid for him to study art in the studio of Miguel Venegas Cifuentes in Santiago. Eventually, Bravo’s father granted him permission to take the classes and took over the responsibility of paying for them. Bravo studied under Venegas from the age of 11 to 20 and it was the only formal art training he ever received.Bravo’s developing hyperrealist style was encouraged by Venegas who was known for being a strong supporter of the realist movement in Chile. Chile has a strong tie to European arts and did not experience a large modernist movement that other Latin American countries did.

In 1954, he had his first exhibition at “Salón 13” in Santiago at the age of 17. It consisted of mostly oil paintings with some red chalk drawings. The exhibit received good reviews and was considered a great success. All the works were sold, although they went to family and friends. He became very involved in the cultural scene of Santiago and was influenced by people such as Luis Oyarzun, a poet and philosopher. Bravo and Oyarzun hitchhiked together throughout Chile with Oyarzun acting as a teacher of philosophy, art, and life. Benjamín Subercaseaux was another friend who encouraged Bravo to expand his knowledge through reading. In 1955, he danced professionally with the Compañía de Ballet de Chile and worked for Teatro de Ensayo of the Universidad Católica de Chile and had his second exhibition at “Salón 13”.

Madrid, Spain

Portraiture

At 21, Bravo began doing portraits in Concepción, Chile, and quickly gained many commissions. He saved his earnings and bought a ticket aboard the Amerigo Vespucci to sail to Paris. The trip, however, was very stormy and Bravo got off at Barcelona and made his way to Madrid where he stayed. Bravo established himself in Madrid in the 1960s as a society portraitist, gaining recognition for his astounding ability to create verisimilitude. His ability to depict complex objects and shapes is reminiscent of Velázquez. There was even a dress designer, Balenciaga, whose dresses had a Renaissance quality to them. Bravo made women of nobility purchase one of Balenciaga’s works before he agreed to do their portrait. A year and two months after his arrival, he was already painting Francisco Franco’s daughter.

His interest in Renaissance and Baroque works came from his many visits to the Museo del Prado in Madrid where he admired paintings done by old Spanish and Italian masters. Specifically he was inspired by Diego Velázquez for his light effects, Francisco de Zurbarán’s cloth studies, Juan Sánchez Cotán’s still lifes, Juan van der Hamen who popularized still life painting in Madrid, and Luis de Meléndez who had great technical skill in using light to depict texture.

In 1968, Bravo received an invitation from President Marcos of the Philippines to come and paint him and his wife, Imelda Marcos, as well as members of the high society. He spent six months there doing portraits and traveling. Bravo found that the quality of light there was more intense than in Spain or Chile and it transformed how he painted while there. He held an exhibit at the Luz Gallery in Manila where he displayed over 50 works.

Package Paintings

With Spain under Franco’s rule, most art was constrained to his ultra right-wing policies. Bravo’s portraits appealed to the conservative public, but he became frustrated with the lack of intellectual values concerning art. His art shifted one day when he three visiting sisters brought home some packages and left them on the table. He was fascinated by their forms and the texture of the paper they were wrapped with. Bravo’s first exhibit in Spain, at the Galería Fortuny in 1963, had all types of paintings, including these new package ones.

White and Yellow Package, painted in 2005, is a good example of Bravo’s continuation of the parcel series. One of the first things to catch the eye is his use of trompe l’oeil, a technique from the Baroque period meaning “to deceive the eye”, used to create the illusion of three-dimensionality. This painting style is similar to his approach to still lifes and helps to emphasize the tactile qualities of the paper. The way the package fills the frame elevates its status in a similar manner to what Pop art was doing in the 60s when he began. It also abstracts the package, almost breaking it into clean colour blocks, if it weren’t for the string keeping it contained. This abstraction is similar to Rothko’s paintings that employ fields of color and encourage almost a meditative state.

While similar to modern movements, White and Yellow Package also mimics the old masters and their use of draping cloth. Bravo’s use of light is similar to that of Caravaggio, a Baroque painter who used a dramatic lighting style called tenebrism to highlight a climatic moment and to bring attention to the front plane by concealing the background in darkness. Many of Caravaggio’s works were spiritual and Bravo’s Catholic upbringing left him with interest in themes of ritual, mystery, spirituality, death, and the idea of saints. This connection is made obvious through the title of one of his pieces, Homage to St. Theresa, also oil on canvas painted in 1969. A subtle reference to commercialism lingers in the simple fact that it is a parcel, but the mystery of what the paper conceals seems to be more important. The package is teasing the viewer by slowly opening up and while the internal structure is hinted at, it will never be revealed. In this painting, the act of teasing also becomes sexual, reinforced by the colour scheme that resembles an egg – a symbol for rebirth and fertility.Overall, White and Yellow Package showcases his ability as a painter and is a mix of contemporary imagery done with traditional values.

New York

In 1969, Bravo met Melvin Blake and Frank Purnell who were in Spain collecting art – especially figure and surrealist pieces. They encouraged him to move to the United States and helped him get connected to the art scene. He moved into an apartment in the East Side of Manhattan. In 1970, Bravo had his first exhibition at the Staempfli Gallery in New York, receiving rave reviews from renowned New York Times art critic John Canaday. Years later, when Bravo’s work reflected the hippie movement, Canaday would refer to Bravo’s work as “cheap and vulgar”.

Morocco

Bravo’s relationship with the New York art scene stayed strong, but he began to feel the gray cement and urban setting affecting his work. That, paired with the active social demands in both New York and Spain, caused him to start looking for a new place where he could dedicate more of his time to painting. Not wanting to cut himself off completely from his friends in Madrid, Bravo decided to spend some time in Morocco. The fact that was a completely different place in almost every aspect of life (religion, language, clothing, etc.) was intriguing to him. Bravo moved to Tangier in 1972, where he purchased a 19th-century three-story mansion. He had many of the walls removed, and the remaining walls were painted white to encourage the Mediterranean light so present in his paintings.

He hadn’t intended on staying in Morocco, but it was there that he found the colors and light he had been searching for. Bravo considered what he was able to paint “…symphonies of color.” Morocco quickly became the place that he considered to be home and with his gardens and view, Bravo rarely needed to leave his house. However, in an attempt to reconnect with the Moroccan world around him, he bought a second home in Marrakech that became his winter residence. Later, Bravo purchased a third home in Taroudant.Though Bravo’s style is hyper-realistic in nature, he rejected the assumption that he based his work on photographic imagery. Instead, Bravo had a daily ritual of painting that began with a walk in the garden and ended after he spent hours in his studio painting a present subject. He took his dedication to painting very seriously and tried to paint every day.

Still lifes, packages and figurative paintings make up the majority of these works created in Morocco. While these all have connections to his previous work, they became infused with Moroccan culture. His use of Surrealism becomes more prominent as well, noticeable in his juxtaposition of objects, dreamlike compositions and ethereal backgrounds. Bravo became interested in the spiritual aspects of the Islamic culture that had a sense of religious intensity that matched his preoccupation with mystery and spirituality. Many view his works as being a hybrid of multiple religions and styles – traditional techniques with contemporary sensibilities, Biblical saints displaced in a Moroccan world, and exotic objects next to common Western imagery. This is supported by the fact that despite his interest in his surroundings, Bravo rejected the label of Orientalist because he did not consider himself to be a part of any particular culture but rather a man interested in many. Though he was fascinated by the Arab world around him, his use of exotic objects and imagery was not done as an attempt to merge his work with the culture.

Death and legacy

The artist died at his home in Taroudant, Morocco, on June 4, 2011, due to an epilepsy attack.

The Baltimore Museum of Art, El Museo del Barrio (New York City), the Honolulu Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Santiago, Chile), Museo Rufino Tamayo (Mexico City), Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (Rotterdam, The Netherlands), the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Museum of Modern Art (New York City), Museum Ludwig (Cologne, Germany), the Palmer Museum of Art (Pennsylvania State University), and the Philadelphia Museum of Art are among the public collections holding works by Claudio Bravo.

Personal life

Bravo was celibate for the last 2 decades of his life, in an interview for El Mercurio he stated, “That (romantic love) was very complicated for me…I’m too passionate and jealous. I decided that my paintings and my animals were my best sources of love. I don’t think I’ve had anyone in my bed since I was 50. I got tired of it.”

Bravo was assisted by Bashir Tabchich who was first hired as chauffeur but later relocated to Bravo’s residence with his wife and children and worked as Bravo’s assistant since 1979. Tabchich currently permits tours at Bravo’s Taroudant Palace, “Agwidr Claudio Bravo Camus.”

Exhibitions

Solo Exhibitions

• 1954 – Salón 13, Santiango, Chile
• 1955 – Salón 13, Santiago, Chile
• 1961 – Universidad de Concepción Chile
• 1963 – Galería Fortuny, Madrid, Spain
• 1965 – Galería Edurne, Madrid Spain (through 1966)
• 1967 – Galería Fortuny, Madrid Spain
• 1968 – Luz Gallery, Manila, Philippines
• 1970 – Staempfli Gallery, New York, New York
• 1971 – Galería Egam, Madrid, Spain
• 1972 – Staempfli Gallery, New York, New York
• 1974 – Galería Vandrés, Madrid, Spain

Staempfli Gallery, New York, New York

• 1976 – Galerie Claude Berndard, Paris, France
• 1978 – Staempfli Gallery, New York, New York
• 1980 – FIAC (Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain), Grand Palais, Paris, France
• 1981 – Galerie Levy, Hamburg, Germany

Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York

• 1982 – Museo de Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico
• 1983 – ARCO, Madrid, Spain

Marlborough Fine Arts, London, Great Britain

• 1984 – Galería Quintana, Bogota, Colombia

Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York

• 1985 – Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York
• 1987 – Marlborough Fine Art, Tokyo, Japan (through 1988)

Elvehjem Museum of Art University of Wisconsin, Madison;

then to Meadows Museum, Southern Methodist University, Dallas Texas,

then Duke University Museum of Art, Durham, North Carolina

• 1989 – Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York
• 1991 – Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York
• 1992 – FIAC Grand Palais Paris, France
• 1993 – Carlsten Art Gallery, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin

Museo del Grabado Español Contemporaneo, Granada, Spain (through 1994)

• 1994 – Museo Nacional de Bellas Arte, Santiago Chile
• 1995 – Galeía Marlborough, Madrid, Spain
• 1997 – Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, Florida
• 1998 – Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York
• 1999 – Marlborough Gallery, Madrid, Spain
• 2000 – Marlborough Gallery, Boca Raton, Florida

Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York

• 2001 – Marlborough Monaco, Monaco
• 2003 – Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York

Group Exhibitions

• 1971 – Art of Dream, La Jolla Museum of Art, La Jolla, California
• 1972 – Documenta 5, Kassel, Germany

Humor, Satire and Irony, Art Center, The New School for Social Research, New York, New York

Sharp Focus Realism, Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, New York

La Paloma, Galería Vandrés, Madrid, Spain

• 1973 – Artes hyper-realistes, Galerie des Quatre Mouvements, Paris, France

Hyper-realisme: maîtres américains et européens, Galerie Isy Brachot, Brussels, Belgium

Contemporary Sapnish Realits, Marlborough Fine Art London, Great Britain

Réalisme Relativiste, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium

Tropic of Cancer – Tropic of Capricon: Contemporary Latin American Art, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts

Super Realist Vision, De Cordoba Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts

Jovenes en torno a la figuración, Torre del Merino IV Exposicíon de Arte Actual, Santillana del Mar, Madrid, Spain

• 1974 – Ars 1974: Alternatives of Realism, The Fine Arts Academy of Finland, Helsinki, Finland

Drawings, Nancy Hoffman Gallery, New York, New York

Kijken naar de werkelijkheid Amerikaanse Hyperrealisten-Europese realisten, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

• 1976 – Modern Portraits – The Self and Others, Wildenstein & Co., New York, New York

Aspects of Realism, traveled through 30 Canadian museums til 1978

• 1977 – Illusion and Reality, traveled through Australian museums til 1978
• 1979 – Figurative/Realist Art, Marlborough Gallery (a concurrent exhibition with Brooke Alexander Gallery, Terry Dintenfass, Fisbach, Alan

Frumkin, and Kornblee Galleries, New York, New York)

• 1980 – Realism and Latin American Painting: The Seventies, Center for Inter-American Relations, New York, and Museo de

Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico

Latin American Paintings, Latin American Gallery of the Metropolitan Museum and Art Center, Miami, Florida

Printed Art: A View of Two Decades, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York

• 1981 – International Contemporary Art, Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City, Mexico
• 1982 – Drawings, Nahora Haime Gallery, New York, New York

Important Paintings by European Figurative Artists, F.I.A.C., Grand Palais, Paris, France; and Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York

Homo Sapiens: The Many Images, The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, Connecticut

Drawing, Inter-American Art Gallery, New York, New York

Forty-Eight Carnegie International Exhibition, Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington

• 1983 – Works on Paper by: Arikha, Botero, Bravo, Grooms, Katz, Kitaj, López-García, Petlin, Rivers, Welliver, Marlborough Gallery,

New York, New York

Nummer 6, Herbst ‘3, Galerie Levy, Hamburg, Germany

• 1984 – International Masters of Contemporary Figuration, Marlborough Fine Art, Tokyo, Japan
• 1985 – 16th Annual Invitational Contemporary Narrative Figurative Painting, Payne Gallery of Art, Moravian College, Bethlehem,

Pennsylvania

El Desnudo: Oleos Dibujos, Esculturas, Galeria Alfred Wild, Bogota, Colombia

Nummer 8, Herbst ’85, Galerie Levy, Hamburg, Germany

Plastica Chilena Horizonte Universal, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Chile

Pastels, Nohra Haime Gallery, New York, New York

The Classic Tradition in Painting and Sculpture, The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art Ridgefield, Connecticut

Twentieth Century American and European Artists, Claude Berndard Gallery, New York, New York

• 1986 – The Foundation Veranneman Invites Marlborough, Foundation Veranneman, Kruishoutem, Belgium (through 1987)
• 1987 – The First America: Selections from the Nancy Sayles Day Collection of Latin American Art, Center for Inter-American

Relations, New York New York

Recent Developments in Latin American Drawing, The Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois

Recent Works by Arikha, Bacon, Botero, Bravo, Grooms, Katz, Kitaj, López García, Mason, Rivers, Welliver, Marlborough Gallery, New York

• 1988 – Visions/Revisions: A Contemporary Representation, Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York

Nummer 9, Herbst ’88, Galerie Levy, Hamburg, Germany

• 1989 – Art in Latin America: the Modern Era, 1820-1980, The Hayward Gallery, London, Great Britain
• 1990 – ARCO 90, Madrid, Soain

Ocho Artistas Latinoamericanos, Galería Fernando Quintanta, Bogotá, Columbia

Marlborough en Pelaires, Centre Cultural Contemporani Pelaires, Palma de Mallorca, Spain

• 1991 – Realismos: Arte Contemporáneo Español, Ashai Shimbun, Nihonbashi, Takashimaya, Tokoyo, Japan; Nanha Takashimaga,

Oasaka, Japan; Shijo Takashimaga, Kiota, Japan; Takashimaya, Yokohama, Jaan

Latin American Drawing Today, San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, California

Selections from the Mary Crosby Kemper Collection, Kansas City, Missouri

Paintings, Sculpture and Works on Paper by: Abakanowicz, Arikha, Auerbach, Bacon, Botero, Bravo, Grooms, Katz, Kitaj, Lipchitz, López García, Rivers, Schwitters, Valdés, Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York

• 1992- Jardín de Vidrio, Galería Leandro Navarro, Madrid, Spain

On Paper, Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York

• 1993 – Drawings III, Koplin Gallery, Santa Monica, California
• 1994 – The Human Body, Nohra Haime Gallery, New York, New York

Debut: Selections from the Permanent Collection of the Kansas City Art Institute, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Kansas City, Missouri

• 1995 – 3 Continents: Botero, Bravo, Rivers, Valdés, A.M.S. Marlborough, Santiago, Chile

Bravo/Tamayo/Toledo, Marlborough Graphics, New York, New York

• 1996 – On Paper, Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York

Paper Visions: A Biennial Exhibition of Works on Paper by 24 Contemporary Latin American Artists, Housatonic Museum of Art, Bridgeport, Connecticut

Latin Viewpoints into the Mainstream, Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn Harbor, New York

Su Carta, Galleria d’arte il gabbiano, Rome, Italy

• 1997 – ART 1997 CHICAGO: 5th Annual Expo of International Galleries Featuring Modern and Contemporary Art, Navy Pier,

Chicago

• 1998 – Forma y Figuracion: obras maestras de la coleccion Blake-Purnell, Museo Guggenheim, Bilbao, Spain
• 2000 – Art Miami 2000, International Art Exposition, Miami Beach Convention Center, Miami, Florida
• 2001 – Latin American Art: La Belleza y la Fuerza, Elkon Gallery, New York, New York

Between Earth and Heaven: New Classical Movements in the Art of Today, Museum voor Moderne Kunst, Ostend, Belgium

• 2003 – Transforming the Commonplace, Susquehanna Art Museum, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

A Singular Vision: Works from the Melvin Blake & Frank Purnell Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts

Public Collection

• Archer M. Huntington Gallery of Art, University of Texas (Austin, Texas)
• Art Museum, Florida International University (Miami, Florida)
• Art Museum, Princeton University (Princeton, New Jersey)
• Ateneum Art Museum (Helsinki, Finland)
• Baltimore Museum of Art (Baltimore, Maryland)
• Doane College Museum (Crete, Nebraska)
• Gibbes Museum of Art (Charleston, South Carolina)
• Indiana University Art Museum (Bloomington, Indiana)
• Kansas City Art Institute (Kansas City, Missouri)
• Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art (Kansas City, Missouri)
• Mitter Heinisches Landesmuseum (Mairiz, Germany)
• Museo de Arte Abstracto (Cuenca, Spain)
• Museo de Arte de Ponce (Ponce, Puerto Rico)
• Museo de Artes Visuales, Colección Santa Cruz-Yaconi (Santiago, Chile)
• Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Santiago, Chile)
• Museum Boymans-van Beuningen (Rotterdam, The Netherlands)
• Museum of Art, University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
• Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, Massachusetts)
• Peter Ludwig Museum (Cologne, Germany)
• Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
• Rufino Tamayo Museum of International Contemporary Art (Mexico City, Mexico)
• The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College (Poughkeepsie, New York)
• The Metropolitan Museum and Arts Center (Miami, Florida)
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, New York)

The New York Botanical Garden, Where Viagra Helps The Plants !!!!!

 

The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) is a designated national landmark botanical garden located in the Bronx, New York City. It spans some 250 acres (100 ha) of Bronx Park and is home to the Pfizer Plant Research Laboratory. The facility offers exhibitions and flower shows throughout the year and is visited by over 900,000 visitors annually.

Mission statement

The New York Botanical Garden is an advocate for the plant kingdom. The Garden pursues its mission through its role as a museum of living plant collections arranged in gardens and landscapes across its National Historic Landmark site; through its comprehensive education programs in horticulture and plant science; and through the wide-ranging research programs of the International Plant Science Center.

History

The Lorillard family owned most of the land that later became the New York Botanical Garden. That land and adjacent acreage was acquired by the City of New York and set aside for the creation of a zoo and botanical garden. The Garden was established on 28 April 1891 on part of the grounds of the Lorillard Estate (formerly owned by the tobacco magnate Pierre Lorillard) and a parcel that was formerly the easternmost portion of the campus of St. John’s College (now Fordham University). The Garden’s creation followed a fund-raising campaign led by the Torrey Botanical Club and Columbia University botanist Nathaniel Lord Britton and his wife Elizabeth Gertrude Britton who were inspired to emulate the Royal Botanic Gardens in London. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1967.

Grounds

The Garden contains 50 different gardens and plant collections. Sightseers can easily spend a day admiring the serene cascade waterfall, wetlands and a 50-acre (20 ha) tract of original, old-growth New York forest, never logged, containing oaks, American beeches, cherry, birch, tulip and white ash trees—some more than two centuries old.

Garden highlights include an 1890s-vintage, wrought-iron framed, “crystal-palace style” greenhouse by Lord & Burnham, now Haupt Conservatory; the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden (originally laid out by Beatrix Jones Farrand in 1916); a rock garden; a 37-acre (15 ha) conifer collection; extensive research facilities including a propagation center, 550,000-volume library, and an herbarium of over seven million botanical specimens dating back more than three centuries.

At the heart of the Garden are 50 acres (20 ha) of old-growth forest, the largest existing remnant of the original forest which covered all of New York City before the arrival of European settlers in the 17th century. The forest itself is split by the Bronx River, the only fresh water river in New York City, and this stretch of the river includes a riverine canyon and rapids. Along the shores sits the landmark Stone Mill, previously known as the Lorillard Snuff Mill built in 1840. Sculptor Charles Tefft created the Fountain of Life on the grounds in 1905. “It was conceived in the spirit of Italian baroque fountains, with the surging movement of galloping horses and muscular riders.”

Research laboratories

The Pfizer Plant Research Laboratory, built with funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, New York State and New York City, and named for its largest private donor, is a major new research institution at the Garden that opened in 2006. The laboratory is a pure research institution, with projects more diverse than research in universities and pharmaceutical companies.

The laboratory’s research emphasis is on plant genomics, the study of how genes function in plant development. One question scientists hope to answer is Darwin’s “abominable mystery”; when, where, and why flowering plants emerged. The laboratory’s research also furthers the discipline of molecular systematics, the study of DNA as evidence that can reveal the evolutionary history and relationships of plant species. Staff scientists also study plant use in immigrant communities in New York City and the genetic mechanisms by which neurotoxins are produced in some plants, work that may be related to nerve disease in humans.

A staff of 200 trains 42 doctoral students at a time, from all over the world. Since the 1890s, scientists from The New York Botanical Garden have mounted about 2,000 exploratory missions worldwide to collect plants in the wild.

At the Pfizer Plant Research Laboratory, genomic DNA from many different species of plants is extracted to create a library of the DNA of the world’s plants. This collection is stored in a 768-square-foot (71.3 m²) DNA storage room with 20 freezers housing millions of specimens, including rare, endangered or extinct species. To protect the collection during winter power outages, there is a backup 300-kilowatt electric generator.

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has granted the NYBG $572,000 to begin a project called TreeBOL, the Tree Barcode of Life. By sampling the DNA from all 100,000 different species of trees from around the world over the next few years, TreeBOL will document the diversity of plant life, and advance the process of plant DNA barcoding.

LuEsther T. Mertz Library

When, in 1881, land was set aside by the New York State Legislature for the creation of “a public botanic garden of the highest class” for the City of New York, the Library and Conservatory were the first two structures built on the grounds. Prominent civic leaders and financiers, including Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and J. P. Morgan, agreed to match the City’s commitment to finance the buildings and improvements.

Founded in 1899, the LuEsther T. Mertz Library is considered to be the largest, most comprehensive botanical library in the Americas. In addition to botany, horticulture, the Library’s collections are used for studies in fields as diverse as history, anthropology, landscape and building design, architectural history, ethnobotany, economic botany, urban social history, and environmental policy. In addition to current scholarly books and serials, the Mertz Library holds many rare, and historically important works ranging from medieval herbals, to 17th-century depictions of the princely gardens of Europe, to accounts of botanical exploration and discovery in the 18th century, to the writings of Carl von Linné (Linnaeus) and Charles Darwin.

The Library has been led by a series of accomplished individuals during its over 100 year history. Their names and dates of service are as follows:

• T. MacDougal (acting librarian, 1899)
• Anna Murray Vail (January 1900 – September 1907)
• John Hendley Barnhart (October 1907 – December 1912)
• Sarah Harlow (January 1913 – October 1937)
• Elizabeth C. Hall (November 1937 – 1960)
• James J. Daly, Administrative Librarian (1960–1961)
• Robert Jones, Administrative Librarian, 1962
• Mulford Martin, Acting Senior Curator of the Library (1964–1965)
• John F. Reed, Curator of the Library (1965–1971)
• Charles R. Long, Administrative Librarian (1972–1986)
• John F. Reed, VP for Education and Director of the Library (November 1992 – June 2003)
• Susan Fraser, Director of the Library (2004 – present)

The collection grew both through purchase of books and through the generous donation of significant botanical and horticultural libraries from notable botanists, gardeners, scientists and book collectors Among the important personal collections to be given to the LuEsther T. Mertz Library are donations from

• Eleanor Cross Marquand
• Sarah Gildersleeve Fife
• Lucien Marcus Underwood
• Robert Hiester Montgomery
• Emil Starkenstein
• John Torrey
• Harriet Barnes Pratt
• David Hosack

Enid A. Haupt Conservatory

The Enid A. Haupt Conservatory is a greenhouse located toward the western end of the NYBG. Inspiration for the park and the conservatory stemmed from Nathaniel Lord Britton and his wife Elizabeth. The couple had visited the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew on their honeymoon and thought a similar park and conservatory should be built for New York City. The conservatory was designed by the major greenhouse company of the late 1890s, Lord and Burnham Co. The design was modeled after the Palm House at the Royal Botanic Garden and Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace in Italian Renaissance style. Groundbreaking took place on January 3, 1899 and construction was completed in 1902 at a cost of $177,000. The building was constructed by John R. Sheehan under contract for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Since the original construction, major renovations took place in 1935, 1950, 1978, and 1993.