The Friends of Turner’s House
News
The Annual General Meeting in March 2007 was well attended. The Chairman reported on the year’s activities to September 2006 and the Treasurer reported a healthy financial situation. Expenditure during the year included funding the printing of the booklet,"A Brief Account of Sandycoombe Lodge" and the postcards of the house.
The AGM was followed by Dr David Allen’s lecture on Turner and the Society for the Arts, Commerce and Manufactures for which we were joined by members of the William Shipley Group,(William Shipley founded the Society.) The Chairman thanked Dr Allen on behalf of the Friends for sharing his scholarly insights with us.
Also in March we were very fortunate in being offered a private view of the Sir John Soane's Museum’s small exhibition "Soane and Turner: Illuminating a Friendship", curated by Helen Dorey. There was a good turn out and the museum looked particularly romantic in the subdued evening light.
The Blue Rigi - saved for the nation.
The Turner watercolour, "The Blue Rigi: Lake of Lucerne Sunrise" (seen above), has been saved for the nation following a terrific campaign by Tate Britain and the Art Fund and will now remain at Tate Britain.
A previously unrecorded Turner water-colour of Lucerne was sold at Sotheby’s on July 5th along with 13 other important Turner paintings, some owned by Turner’s early patron and friend Walter Fawkes and by John Ruskin, the champion of his mature years.
The Courtauld has received a bequest which includes 8 Turner watercolours, to go on show next year.
The exhibition "Hockney on Turner" at Tate Britain, curated by the contemporary English artist David Hockney, runs until February 2008. Admission is free.
In August 2007 Felicity Myrone, a researcher working on material in the British Library, found watercolours and sketches by the artists Constable, Girtin and Sandy in a "scrapbook" compiled by a wealthy businessman John Platt during the 19th century and donated to the British Library on his death. The collection also included five previously unknown letters by Turner.
Catherine Parry-Wingfield, Chairman.
TURNER’S TWICKENHAM PROGRAMME MEMBERSHIP SHOP