After all the excitement of the Jane Austen Festival Promenade on Saturday morning, l met up with my husband for a visit to No.1 Royal Crescent.
This time around we weren’t there to view the ‘magnificently restored town-house museum where you can explore fashionable life in Georgian Bath of the 18th Century’ but to view the contents of a former ‘dressing up room’ which has been transformed into a fine gallery space.
I have to say they have come up with an impressive opening exhibition with ‘Being There’ – curated by Ingrid Swenson, MBE.
It features four recently-acquired Thomas Gainsborough portraits – alongside 18 British contemporary artists who are working in portraiture today.
I am told the exhibition is the first in what will be an ‘ambitious new programme of contemporary art exhibitions.’
To quote from the website (https://no1royalcrescent.org.uk/whats-on/new-exhibition-being-there/) “The four Gainsborough paintings will be presented as key components of a kaleidoscopic group exhibition of portraiture featuring 18 contemporary British artists selected by guest curator Ingrid Swenson MBE.
The title for the exhibition, Being There, is intended to invite visitors to reflect on the experience of artists and their sitters or subject in the act of making the artwork, and to consider what similarities and differences there may be for the role of the artist in Gainsborough’s time and today.
Artists in Being There are Michael Armitage, Frank Auerbach, Sarah Ball, Richard Billingham, Glenn Brown, Brian Dawn Chalkley, Kaye Donachie, Paul Graham, Maggi Hambling, David Hockney, Claudette Johnson, Chantal Joffe, Lucy Jones, Joy Labinjo, Melanie Manchot, Celia Paul, Gillian Wearing, Shaqúelle Whyte.”
And, a little information about the Thomas Gainsborough portraits – painted while the artist was living in the Circus, in Bath.
“The four portraits by artist Thomas Gainsborough, painted circa 1763, depict members of the prominent Tugwell family from Bradford on Avon: clothier Humphrey Tugwell, his wife, Elizabeth and sons William and Thomas.
It is exceptionally rare for a set of four portraits of members of the same family by Thomas Gainsborough to survive together. Rarer still is the fact that the sitters are not aristocratic visitors to fashionable Bath, but middle-class manufacturers from a small West Country town.‘ (Bradford on Avon)
The exhibition for me is a real winner. The new gallery space amazing!
‘Being There’ is due to run through to February 23rd, 2025.
It’s possible to view the exhibition without seeing the full house and tickets are £5 per person (£5.50 with Gift Aid), concessions are £4 (£4.40 Gift Aid).
Or the exhibition can be an add on to the full tour of the house for £2 (£2.20).
More information about tickets via
https://bath-preservation-trust.merlintickets.co.uk/product/EVE-00195
