Museums

This Week in London – King’s maps go online; life at Tower Bridge; Wildlife Photographer of the Year; and, the Gruffalo at Kew…

by exploringlondon

• Treasures including a hand-drawn map of New York City presented to the future King James II in 1664, Nicholas Hawksmoor’s architectural drawings for Castle Howard and some London churches, and Italian Jesuit Matteo Ripa’s massive 1719 Kangxi Map of China are among thousands of maps and views The British Library have placed online. The library is now nearing the end of the project to put 40,000 early maps and views online and most can now be accessed via the library’s Flickr Commons collection website. The documents are all part of the Topographical Collection of King George III, itself a distinct segment of the King’s Library which was donated to the Nation by King George IV in 1823. Other highlights to go online include Italian artist Bernardo Bellotto’s drawings of the town of Lucca, dating from about 1742, James Cook’s 1763 large manuscript map of the islands of St Pierre and Miquelon, and watercolours by noted 18th century artists including Paul Sandby and Samuel Hieronymus Grimm. PICTURED: Nicholas Hawksmoor, [An elevation and plan for St George, Bloomsbury]. London, between 1712 and 1730. Maps K.Top 23.16.2.a.

• A new exhibition celebrating the lives of those who work behind the scenes at Tower Bridge and the visitors who walk its floors opens in the iconic bridge’s Engine Rooms on Friday. Lives of a Landmark features images commissioned in 2019 to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the bridge. Photographer Lucy Hunter spent several months at the bridge, recording daily life there and this display is the result. Admission charge applies. For more, head here.

• Winning images from The Natural History Museum’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year – including Sergey Gorshkov’s Grand Title winner, a rare glimpse of Siberian tigress – go on show at the South Kensington-based museum from Friday. The exhibition features the 100 images, selected from more than 49,000 entries, that were short-listed for the 56th annual competition, the results of which were announced in a virtual ceremony earlier this week. Runs until 6th June. Admission charge applies. For more, head to www.nhm.ac.uk/visit/exhibitions/wildlife-photographer-of-the-year.html.

• The Gruffalo is the subject of a new “curated journey” taking place over the half-term break in Kew Gardens’ Arboretum. Visitors are encouraged to play the role of the “little brown mouse” and follow a trail to track down the Gruffalo, along the way encountering some of the other characters from Julia Donaldson’s famous book including Fox, Owl and Snake. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.kew.org.

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LondonLife – Iconic shirt becomes part of Collecting COVID…

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Arsenal captain Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang with the shirt. PICTURE: © Arsenal FC

A Black Lives Matter tribute shirt worn by Arsenal captain Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang during the 2020-21 Premier League season is being donated to the Museum of London as part of its Collecting COVID project. The Black Lives Matter logo was added to all Premier League shirts following anti-racism protests across the globe earlier this year. Aubameyang – the latest Black player to captain Arsenal – said it was “an honour to have the opportunity to donate my Black Lives Matter shirt to the Museum of London’s Collecting COVID project”. “I hope this will be remembered as the moment that football stood against all forms of racism and that it will inspire young people for the future,” he said. The Collecting COVID project was launched in April this year with the aim of collecting objects relating to how Londoners lived during coronavirus pandemic. For more, see www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/museum-for-london-collecting-covid.

This Week in London – ‘Dub London’; exploring Sin; and, COVID-19 explored at Science Museum Late…

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Channel One Sound System at Notting Hill Carnival 2019. PICTURE © Eddie Otchere / Museum of London

• Dub music and the impact it’s had on London’s identity and people is the subject of a new, long delayed, exhibition which opened at the Museum of London late last week. Dub London: Bassline of a City, which had been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, charts how, from its roots in Jamaican reggae, dub music went on to influence multiple genres and played a key role in the development of punk bands like The Clash. The display includes the iconic speaker stack belonging to Channel One Sound System that has appeared yearly at Notting Hill Carnival since 1983 (pictured above) and a specially created bespoke record shop with a selection of 150 vinyl records chosen by 15 London based independent record shops which can be listened to. Runs until 31st January. Admission is free but must be booked in advance (and bring your own headphones). For more, see www.museumoflondon.org.uk/museum-london/whats-on/exhibitions/dub-london.

• The concept of sin is at the heart of a new free exhibition at The National Gallery. Sin brings together 14 works dating from the 16th century to now by artists ranging from Jan Brueghel the Elder and William Hogarth to Andy Warhol and Ron Mueck. Among the paintings on show are Lucas Cranach the Elder’s Adam and Eve (1526), Hogarth’s The Tête à Tête and Marriage A-la-Mode, Diego Velázquez’s Immaculate Conception, William Holman Hunt’s The Scapegoat (1854-55), and Ron Mueck’s sculpture Youth (2009). The display can be seen in Room 1. For more, see nationalgallery.org.uk.

• The science of the coronavirus is explored in a special night event at the Science Museum next Wednesday, 14th October. Staff from the Francis Crick Institute will be joining with those from the Science Museum in exploring how the immune system remembers and evolves and how the Crick was turned from a biomedical research centre into a COVID-19 testing facility. Visitors can also hear from NHS transplant surgeon Pankaj Chandak who has been using 3D printing tech to make life-saving PPE for frontline staff while the Leonard Cheshire charity shows how assistive eyegaze technology has played a vital role in helping to keep people with access needs connected. There will also be a chance to make a facemask as part of the museum’s #MaskSelfie campaign and the opportunity to explore the museum’s new Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries. Admission charge applies and pre-booking is essential. Head to sciencemuseum.org.uk/see-and-do/lates.

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This Week in London – ‘Artemisia’ at The National Gallery, ‘Black Greenwich Pensioners’, and, Bruce Nauman at the Tate…

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• The original transcript of the trial in which 17th century Italian artist Agostino Tassi faced charges of ‘deflowering’ female artist Artemisia Gentileschi will be public display for the first time as part of an exhibition on Gentileschi’s work opening at The National Gallery on Saturday. The rescheduled exhibition Artemisia, the first major monographic exhibition of Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–1654 or later), was inspired by the gallery’s recent acquisition of Self Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria (about 1615–17), the first painting by the artist to enter a UK public collection. Gentileschi, the first women to gain membership of the artists’ academy in Florence, had a career spanning more than 40 years and is now widely recognised as one of the most gifted painters of the Italian Baroque period. Alongside her artistic achievements, elements of her biography have also attracted considerable attention including her rape as a young woman and the torture she choose to endure as part of the trial that followed (seen at the time as an accepted means by which testimony could be validated). As well as the trial transcript, written in Latin and Italian, the exhibition will include recently discovered personal letters and works such as two versions of Susannah and the Elders – one painted in 1610 when Gentileschi was just 17 and the other, her last known painting, dating from 1652. There’s also self portraits including Self Portrait as a Female Martyr (mid 1610s), and her two versions of Judith beheading Holofernes – one dating from 1612-13 and the other from 1613-14. Runs until 24th January. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.nationalgallery.org.uk. PICTURE: Installation view of Artemisia at the National Gallery. © The National Gallery, London.

• The history of Black British mariners is the subject of a new exhibition opening at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich on Saturday. Marking Black History Month, Black Greenwich Pensioners explores the history of the Black Royal Navy personnel and how they formed one of Britain’s earliest Black communities when they became pensioners at the Royal Hospital for Seaman on the site where the Old Royal Naval College stands today. Through paintings, prints, photographs and a small selection of objects, the display looks at the role Black mariners played in British naval conflicts as well as the personal histories of prominent Greenwich pensioners including John Thomas, who escaped slavery and was later returned to enslavement in Barbados, John Simmonds, a Jamaican veteran of the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar whose descendants still reside in the UK, and Briton Hammon, author of the first slave narrative. Entry is free. Runs until 21st February in the mezzanine gallery at the Visitor Centre. For more, see https://ornc.org/uncovering-the-history-of-black-british-mariners/

• The first exhibition to showcase the full spectrum of American artist Bruce Nauman’s work in more than 20 years opens at the Tate Modern on Wednesday. Bruce Nauman features more than 40 works and “unfolds” over a sequence of immersive installations. Highlights include a selection of early works such as Henry Moore Bound to Fail (1967/70) and A Cast of the Space Under My Chair (1965/68), the moving image installation MAPPING THE STUDIO II with color shift, flip, flop & flip/flop (Fat Chance John Cage) (2001), ground-breaking neon signs like The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truth (Window or Wall Sign) (1967), Human Nature Knows/Doesn’t Know (1983/86) and One Hundred Live and Die (1984) and large scale works such as Going Around the Corner Piece with Live and Taped Monitors (1970) and Double Steel Cage Piece (1974) as well as the whole-room installation, Shadow Puppets and Instructed Mime (1990). Runs until 21st February. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.tate.org.uk.

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This Week in London – Richard Leveridge in the spotlight; ‘Paradise Lost’ at Kew; and, Princess Beatrice’s wedding dress at Windsor…

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• The life and work of Richard Leveridge, a leading singer of the London stage during the 18th century, is the subject of a new display opening at the Foundling Museum in Bloomsbury tomorrow. The display, which can be seen in the Handel Gallery, charts the life of this popular theatre singer who became the lead bass singer at Drury Lane Theatre in 1695 and sang for Purcell in many of his stage works as well as, later, singing in the first performances of Handel’s early London operas. It also includes a look at Leveridge’s work as a composer and coffee shop owner and among items on show are manuscripts, early printed music, artworks, copies of drinking songs and stage works, contemporary accounts and formal portraits. Runs until 28th March. Admission charge applies. For more, see https://foundlingmuseum.org.uk

• The first solo exhibition by Dutch-born, Mexico-based visual artist Jan Hendrix to be held in the UK opens in Kew Gardens’ Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art next week. Paradise Lost features new works in a number of mediums created as a responser to the transformation of the landscape known as Kamay Botany Bay, in Sydney, Australia (which gained its English name – Botany Bay – from plants collected and recorded there in 1770 by European botanists Sir Joseph Banks – Kew Gardens’ first director – and Daniel Solander abroad the HMS Endeavour). Reflecting on how the visit of the Endeavour sparked a transformation of the region – from a pristine environment to what is now a suburban and industrial landscape, the exhibition explores themes including the destruction of the natural world in the wake of colonial industrialisation, contemporary urbanisation and climate change. New works include a vast monochrome tapestry evoking the dynamic texture and beauty of an Australian landscape threatened by wildfire – which ravaged the region in 2019 – as well as the display’s centrepiece – a huge walk-through mirrored pavilion inspired by two plant species that grow in Kamay Botany Bay – Banksia serrata or Wiriyagan (Cadigal) and Banksia solandri, and a moving image work created by Hendrix in collaboration with filmmaker Michael Leggett. A visual tour narrated by the artist will be made available online for those not able to visit in person. Runs from 3rd October until 13th March. Admission charge applies. For more, head to www.kew.org. PICTURE: Mirror Pavilion III, 2020, Stainless Steel by Jan Hendrix/Kew Gardens

• FURTHER AFIELD: Princess Beatrice of York’s wedding dress, first worn by Queen Elizabeth II in the 1960s, goes on display at Windsor Castle from today. Designed by Sir Norman Hartnell, the dress was first worn by the Queen during a State Visit to Rome in 1961 and was altered for Princess Beatrice for her marriage to Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi on 17th July this year. The display, which can be seen in the State Dining Room, also features Princess Beatrice’s wedding shoes, made by Valentino, and a replica of her bouquet. Can be seen until 22nd November. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.rct.uk.

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This Week in London – Open House London; The British Army in Germany; and, Christine Granville’s Blue Plaque…

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• It’s Open House London this weekend and, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, this programme features a host of documentary films, online events and self-led walking tours. Highlights from the festival, which runs over Saturday and Sunday with some additional events taking place until 27th September, include online tours of the HM Treasury in Whitehall (pictured) and Dorich House Museum in Kingston-upon-Thames, a self-guided walking tour of Fosters + Partners buildings in London’s centre, and the chance to visit Rochester Square in Marylebone. The programme features a series of collections of related events – such as those related to ‘colonial histories’ or ‘architecture for the climate emergency’ – to help make it easier for people to access. For the full programme of events, head to https://openhouselondon.open-city.org.uk. PICTURE: HM Treasury Building taken from the London Eye (Dave Kirkham/licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0/Image cropped)

• The work and lives of the more than million British Army soldiers who have served in Germany following World War II is the subject of a new exhibition opening at the National Army Museum in Chelsea next Tuesday. Foe to Friend: The British Army in Germany since 1945 charts how the Army helped to rebuild a broken nation in the aftermath of the war, provide protection during the Cold War and, later, how they used Germany as a base to deploy troops all around the world. It will include stories of family life as well as those involving espionage and massive military training exercises. The free exhibition can be seen until 1st July, 2021. For more, see www.nam.ac.uk.

• Christine Granville, Britain’s first and longest-serving female special agent, has been honoured with an English Heritage Blue Plaque. The plaque is located at the 1 Lexham Gardens hotel (previously known as the Shelbourne Hotel) in Kensington which was Granville’s base after the war. Granville, who was once described by Churchill as his “favourite spy”, was born in Warsaw as Krystyna Skarbek. She joined  British intelligence after Germany invaded Poland in 1939 and undertook missions including skiing over the snow-bound Polish border in temperatures of -30 degrees Celsius, smuggling microfilm revealing Hitler’s plans to invade the Soviet Union across Europe and rescuing French Resistance agents from the Gestapo (in fact, it’s said she was also the inspiration for Vesper Lynd, a spy in Ian Fleming’s first James Bond novel, Casino Royale). Christine Granville was one of her aliases she had been given during her time with intelligence and it was a name she decided to keep after the war. For more, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/.

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This Week in London – National Maritime Museum, London Transport Museum reopen; and, Picasso at BASTIAN gallery…

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• The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich opens its doors this Monday, 7th September. Those who visit in the first week will be able to see all the winning images in the ‘Insight Investment Astronomy Photographer of the Year’ competition.Entry is free but tickets must be booked in advance. For more, see www.rmg.co.uk/national-maritime-museum.

• Other reopenings include the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden which also throws back its doors on Monday. Along with displays including historic vehicles and iconic posters, the reopening includes the ‘Hidden London’ exhibition revealing London’s ‘abandoned’ Underground stations. Tickets must be booked in advance. Admission charges apply. For more, see www.ltmuseum.co.uk.

• Picasso’s Cannes’ studio has been recreated in an immersive experience  at the BASTIAN gallery in Mayfair. Atelier Picasso is an installation-style exhibition and features furniture, sculptures, ceramics, drawings and prints. Highlights include portraits of the artist taken by his friend André Villers, ceramic works such as Wood Owl (1969) and Carreau Visage d’Homme (1965), lithograph and linocut posters and books including Gallieri Jorgen Expose Le Lithographies de L’atelier Mourlot (1984), and the masterpiece Minotaure caressing une dormeuse from the artist’s Vollard Suite. Admission is free. For more, see www.bastian-gallery.com. PICTURE: Courtesy of Luke Andrew Walker.

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This Week in London – Rare Hebrew manuscripts at British Library; British Museum to reopen; and art at the Old Royal Naval College…

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• The launch of a new exhibition looking at Hebrew manuscripts marks the next phase of the British Library reopening. Hebrew Manuscripts: Journeys of the Written Word explores the history, culture and traditions of the Jewish people around the world and features rarely seen treasures including a letter to King Henry VIII written by an Italian rabbi in 1530 regarding Biblical laws that could support Henry VIII’s claim to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon as well as the earliest dated copy – 1380 – of Moses Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed, a rare uncensored copy of the Babylonian Talmud dating from the 13th century, and a 15th century illustrated copy of Abraham bar Hiyya’s Shape of the Earth, one of the first Jewish scientific works written in the Hebrew language. Also reopening is the library’s free permanent gallery – the Sir John Ritblat Gallery: Treasures of the British Library – with a new one-way route taking in treasures including Leonardo da Vinci’s sketchbooks and handwritten manuscripts by the Brontë sisters, Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath. For more on the exhibition and the library’s reopening, see www.bl.uk. PICTURE: David Jensen.

• The British Museum reopens to visitors from today after the longest closure in its 261 year history. Tickets must be pre-booked online or over the phone and visitors will be able to access the ground floor galleries through a new one-way route. The museum has also announced that Grayson Perry’s work, The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman – an elaborate, cast-iron coffin-ship originally created for his British Museum exhibition of the same name in 2011 – is returning to the museum. For more, see www.britishmuseum.org.

• A “celestial choir of spinning sound machines” can be seen at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich this weekend. Positioned in Lower Grand Square, Chorus is the monumental work of award-winning artist and British Composer of the Year Ray Lee. It features a series of giant metal tripods supporting rotating arms, at the end of which are loudspeakers which emit finely turned musical pitches. It can be viewed from Friday through to Monday. Meanwhile, the Painted Hall is hosting Luke Jerram’s artwork Gaia which features NASA imagery in creating a virtual, 3D small scale Earth. Gaia can be seen from tomorrow until 6th September (admission charge applies).  For more, see www.ornc.org.

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This Week in London – Family fun at London Transport Museum Depot; and, Science Museum reopens…

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• The London Transport Museum Depot in Acton Town has flung its doors open for 10 days of “special family fun”. The depot, which houses more than 320,000 items from the city’s transport history including vintage London buses and classic Tube trains, now features a special family-friendly trail for the 10 day season which takes a look at historic vehicles from the past 200 years including a yellow 1881 horse drawn ‘garden seat’ bus and a red 1938 Stock Tube train. The London Transport Miniature Railway will be running and all children visiting will receive a special sealed pack including a craft kit. Admission charges apply and tickets must be prebooked for times between 11am and 6pm until Sunday, 23rd August, and from Wednesday, 26th to Sunday 30th August. For more, see www.ltmuseum.co.uk/whats-on/depot-summer.

• The Science Museum in South Kensington reopened its doors this week after a closure of five months. As well as the innovative Wonderlab: The Equinor Gallery – which features interactive exhibits and live, socially-distanced science demonstrations – and the world’s largest medical galleries – Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries, visitors will be able to take in the temporary exhibition, Driverless: Who is in control?, the season of which has been extended to January next year. Tickets, which are free, must be pre-booked online and social distancing measures apply in the museum. For more, see www.sciencemuseum.org.uk.

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This Week in London – VJ Day remembered; Steve McQueen; and, Windsor gardens…

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• The National Army Museum in Chelsea is joining with the Royal Air Force Museum, the National Museum of the Royal Navy and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to mark the 75th anniversary of VJ (Victory over Japan) Day, this Saturday, 15th August, with a series of free events including online talks. Among those taking part are World War II veteran Captain Sir Tom Moore, recently knighted by the Queen for his efforts in helping raise funds for the NHS during the coronavirus pandemic, author and explorer Levison Wood (who explores the story of his grandfather’s service in Burma), and Professor Tarak Barkawi, author of Soldiers of Empire: Indian and British Armies in World War II, as well as General Lord Richards, Grand President of the Royal Commonwealth Ex-Services League who’s involved in a conversation about the contribution of Commonwealth soldiers during the Far East campaign. For the full programme of events, head to www.nam.ac.uk/series/vj-day-75.

• Steve McQueen is back at Tate Modern. The exhibition, which reopened last Friday following the reopening of all Tate galleries, spans 20 years of McQueen’s work and features 14 major pieces spanning film, photography and sculpture. The exhibition adds to the three visitor routes already in place at the Tate Modern and coincides with McQueen’s latest artwork Year 3, an epic portrait of London’s Year 3 pupils created through a partnership between Tate, Artangel and A New Direction which can be seen at Tate Britain until 31st January. Visitors must prebook. For more, head to tate.org.uk/visit.

Beyond London (a new regular feature in which we include sites around Greater London)
• The East Terrace Garden at Windsor Castle – commissioned by King George IV in the 1820s – has opened to weekend visitors for the first time in decades. Overlooked by the castle’s famous east facade, the formal garden features clipped domes of yew and beds of 3,500 rose bushes planted in a geometric pattern around a central fountain. It was originally designed by architect Sir Jeffry Wyatville between 1824 and 1826 on the site of an old bowling green made for Charles II in the 1670s. Plants, including 34 orange trees sent by the French King Charles X, were specially imported for the garden and statues were brought from the Privy Gardens at Hampton Court, including a set of four bronze figures by Hubert Le Sueur which  were made for Charles I in the 1630s and which remain in the garden today. Prince Albert is known to have taken a particular interest in the garden and the Queen, then Princess Elizabeth, and her sister Princess Margaret grew vegetables there during World War II. As well as the opening of the East Terrace Garden on weekends, visitors with young children on Thursdays and Fridays in August are being given special access to the Castle’s Moat Garden beneath the iconic Round Tower, thought to have dated from the period of King Edward III and believed to be the setting for Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Knight’s Tale, the first story in Canterbury Tales. Pre-bookings essential. For more, see www.rct.uk.

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This Week in London – V&A reopens; institution reopenings; and, ZSL London Zoo looks for volunteers…

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• The V&A in South Kensington reopens its doors to visitors today in the first phase of a staged reopening strategy. All of the ground floor galleries are reopening including the Medieval & Renaissance Gallery, the Cast Courts, The Jameel Gallery of Islamic Art and Fashion Gallery, as well as the Europe 1600–1815 galleries on lower ground floor. The first and second floor collection galleries including The William and Judith Bollinger Jewellery Gallery, Theatre & Performance Galleries, and the Photography Centre as well as the museum’s Paintings, Tapestries and Silver Galleries are all scheduled to open on 27th August as well as the exhibition Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk, which had closed just two weeks into its run.  For more, see www.vam.ac.uk. PICTURE: M.chohan (Public domain). 

• Other recent and upcoming reopenings include: the Horniman Museum, the Foundling Museum, the National History Museum, The Queen’s House in Greenwich (Monday, 10th August) and the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich (exhibitions only; galleries coming later).

• ZSL London Zoo is calling for volunteers to help assist visitors as they make their way around the zoo via three new one-way trails. The move, which follows a successful fundraising effort fronted by Sir David Attenborough, is aimed especially at people still furloughed and students forced to cancel gap year travel plans. Those interested in volunteering are asked to commit to a minimum of half a day each fortnight. For more, see  www.zsl.org/volunteering.

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LondonLife – Listening to London…

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The first recorded soundscape of London’s busy streets was created in 1928 as part of a Daily Mail campaign calling for noise restrictions. Recordings were made at five sites – Whitechapel East, St George’s Hospital at Hyde Park Corner, Leicester Square, Cromwell Road and Beauchamp Place in South Kensington – in a collaborative project between the Mail and the Columbia Graphophone Company. Now, more than 90 years later, the sounds at the five original locations – or rather the lack of sounds during the coronavirus pandemic lockdown – have been captured again, this time as binaural recordings, a method of recording sound that uses two microphones to create a 3D stereo sound. It’s all part of the Museum of London’s ongoing ‘Collecting COVID’ project and was created in collaboration with String and Tins, an award-winning team of sound designers, composers, sound supervisors and mix engineers. Both the 1928 recordings (now digitised) and the modern recordings have been made available to listen to in their entirety for the first time on the Museum of London’s website. There are accompanying photographs by Damien Hewetson as well as historic imagery from the museum’s archive. PICTURE: A sparsely populated Leicester Square in an image taken in May this year during the coronavirus lockdown (ACME/licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0)

This Week in London – Kensington Palace reopens with Diana’s ‘Travolta dress’; institution reopenings; the Luna Cinema at Greenwich; and, ‘British Surrealism’ online…

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• Kensington Palace has reopened its doors today after four months of lockdown and, to celebrate, the famous “Travolta dress” worn by Princess Diana is going on show for the first time. Designed by Victor Edelstein, the midnight blue velvet gown became the focus of world attention in 1985 when the Princess wore it to a White House Gala during which she danced with actor John Travolta. Historic Royal Palaces acquired the dress at auction in 2019. The palace will feature a new one-way route as part of coronavirus social distancing measures. For more, see www.hrp.org.uk/kensington-palace/.

• Other reopenings this week include: the Imperial War Museum, Churchill War Rooms, Wellington Arch, the Ranger’s House in Greenwich and the Jewel Tower in Westminster (Saturday, 1st July); the Royal Observatory in Greenwich (Monday, 3rd August); and, the Natural History Museum in South Kensington (Wednesday, 5th August).

• The Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich will host Luna Cinema’s open-air cinema from Tuesday 4th to Thursday, 6th August. Audiences will be able to sing and dance along to blockbuster hits Rocketman, Judy and Dirty Dancing with the college as the backdrop. Meanwhile the Old Royal Naval College is launching new smartphone tours with the first, available for free on any smartphone using the Smartify app, a family tour aimed at those visiting with children aged five to 12 years. For more, see www.ornc.org.

• The Dulwich Picture Gallery’s British Surrealism exhibition will be available for anyone to view online from Friday. The exhibition, which celebrates the British artists that contributed to the iconic surrealist movement, features more than 70 artworks from 42 artists, including Leonora Carrington, Francis Bacon, Henry Moore, Paul Nash, Ithell Colquhoun, and Conroy Maddox. For more, see www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk.

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This Week in London – Princess Beatrice’s bouquet; Technicolour Dickens; and, the Royal Parks’ ‘Summer of Kindness’…

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• Princess Beatrice, who married Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi in a private ceremony in The Royal Chapel of All Saints at Windsor’s Royal Lodge last week, has sent the bouquet she carried during the wedding to rest on the Grave of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey. The tradition of royal brides sending their bouquets to rest on the grave was started by Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, when she lay her bridal bouquet on the grave in memory of her brother Fergus who was killed in 1915 at the Battle of Loos during World War I. Brides including Queen Elizabeth II, the Duchess of Cambridge and Princess Beatrice’s sister, Princess Eugenie, have since continued the tradition. The grave commemorates the fallen of World War I and all those who have since died in international conflicts.

• The Charles Dickens Museum in Bloomsbury reopens on Saturday, 25th July, with a new exhibition marking the 150th anniversary of the author’s death. Technicolour Dickens: The Living Image of Charles Dickens explores the power of the writer’s image and features paintings by the likes of William Powell Frith, Victorian-era photographs, ink drawings by “Automatons”, and letters from Dickens in which he explains what he really thought of sitting for portraits. The museum has also commissioned artist and photographer Oliver Clyde to create eight colourised portraits based on images taken from its collection. For more see www.dickensmuseum.com. Other reopenings this coming week include the Horniman Museum (Thursday, 30th July).

• The Royal Parks are launching a ‘Summer of Kindness’ campaign to keep the parks clean after unprecedented levels of rubbish were left in the parks during the coronavirus lockdown. The Royal Parks, which played a key role in the physical and mental wellbeing of many people during the lockdown, report that some 258.4 tonnes of rubbish – the equivalent in weight of 20 new London buses or 74 elephants – were collected from London’s eight Royal Parks in June alone with staff having to spend more than 11,000 hours to clear up. And, with groups now able to gather, the littering has continued, prompting The Royal Parks to call for visitors to care for the parks by binning litter or taking it home. So, please, #BeKindToYourParks.

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This Week in London – London’s new embankment named; and, ‘Cutty Sark’ reopens…

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• London’s first new River Thames embankment in 150 years has been named after Joseph Bazalgette, the Victorian civil engineer who revolutionised London’s sewer system. The ‘Bazalgette Embankment’ is located alongside Victoria Embankment, to the west of Blackfriars Bridge, and includes a new City Walkway as well as open space for recreation and leisure activities. Bazalgette’s sewer design led to cleaner water in the Thames and was also responsible for helping to eliminate cholera outbreaks in the city. The embankment is one of seven new embankments which will be opened as part of the Thames Tideway Tunnel project due for completion in 2024.

• Greenwich landmark, Cutty Sark, reopens to visitors on Monday, 20th July. Other reopened institutions include the Royal Academy of Arts, The Foundling Museum, The Wallace Collection and Somerset House.

PICTURE: Christine McIntosh (licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0)

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This Week in London – Tower of London lowers drawbridge; other openings include Westminster Abbey and The Queen’s Gallery…

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• The Tower of London will officially lower the drawbridge in a symbolic ceremony this Friday morning to announce its reopening after a 16 week closure, the longest since World War II. A new one-way route has been introduced to allow for social distancing and while the Yeoman Warders, known as Beefeaters, won’t be restarting their tour immediately, they will be able to answer visitor questions. The Crown Jewels exhibition will also be reopening. Online bookings are essential. For more, see www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/.

• Westminster Abbey reopens its doors to visitors on Saturday after the longest closure since it did so to prepare for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. The abbey will initially be open to visitors on Saturdays and on Wednesday evenings, with a limited number of timed entry tickets available solely through advance booking online.

• The Queen’s Gallery and the Royal Mews at Buckingham Palace as well as Royal Collection Trust shops reopened to the public this week. The Queen’s Gallery exhibition George IV: Art & Spectacle has been extended until 1st November while Japan: Courts and Culture, which had been originally due to open in June this year, is now expected to open in spring 2022. Tickets must be booked in advance at www.rct.uk/tickets.

• Other reopenings include Kew Gardens’ famous glasshouses (from last weekend) and the Painted Hall, King William Undercroft and interpretation gallery at Greenwich (from Monday 13th July).

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PICTURE: Nick Fewings/Unsplash.

 

This Week in London – National Gallery – and other landmarks – to reopen while National Portrait Gallery remains closed to 2023…

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• Plans are afoot for the reopening of London’s iconic historic and cultural institutions with The National Gallery becoming the first national museum in the UK the first to do so when it reopens its doors on 8th July. Special exhibitions include Titian: Love, Desire, Death which had to close after just three days and has now been extended to 17th January, 2021, and Nicolaes Maes: Dutch Master of the Golden Age which has been extended until 20 September. Meanwhile, Room 32 – one of the gallery’s largest rooms displaying 17th-century Italian paintings by artists including Caravaggio, Artemisia and Orazio Gentileschi, Guido Reni and Guercino – will reopen as the Julia and Hans Rausing Room after a 21 month refurbishment project while the Equestrian Portrait of Charles I by Van Dyck (about 1637/8) will be back on show in Room 21 after a more than two year restoration. There are also number of newly-acquired paintings on show including Liotard’s The Lavergne Family Breakfast (1754), Gainsborough’s Portrait of Margaret Gainsborough holding a Theorbo (about 1777) and Sorolla’s The Drunkard, Zaraúz, (1910). All visits must be booked online in advance and, of course, social distancing measures will be in place. For more, see www.nationalgallery.org.uk.

Tower Bridge is among landmarks reopening its doors in London. PICTURE: Javier Martinez/Unsplash 

• Other landmarks opening include Tower Bridge (with a new one way route from 4th July), Eltham Palace (from 4th July) and the Tower of London (from 10th July). Openings later this month include interiors at Hampton Court Palace (from 17th July) the British Library Reading Rooms (from 22nd July), and Kensington Palace (30th July). We’ll keep you informed as more sites open.

• And amid the openings, comes a closure with the National Portrait Gallery shutting its doors until spring 2023 to allow for a massive redevelopment project known as ‘Inspiring People’. The redevelopment project – the gallery’s biggest since the building in St Martin’s Place opened in 1896 – includes a comprehensive re-presentation of the gallery’s collection, spanning a period stretching from the Tudors to now, across 40 refurbished galleries along with a complete refurbishment of the building including the restoration of historic features, a new and more welcoming visitor entrance and public forecourt on the building’s north facade. For more, see www.npg.org.uk.

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This Week in London – Windrush oral histories; Berkeley Square gets a new sculpture; and, Sir Robert Geffrye statue under review…

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• Hitherto unheard oral histories documenting the lived experience of the Windrush generation and the generations that followed have been released by the Museum of London. The oral histories, which were recorded in 2018 as part of the Conversation Booth project in City Hall, are part of the museum’s new online collection of Windrush-related content. Drawn from the collections of both the Museum of London and Museum of London Docklands, it includes objects, photos, videos and articles. To explore the collection, head to www.museumoflondon.org.uk/museum-london-docklands/windrush-stories.

• A hybrid sculpture depicting the body of a woman with the head of a hare has gone on show in Berkeley Square. The work of Sophie Ryder, Crawling was hand-made in 1999 from wet plaster, old machine parts and scavenged toys then cast in bronze. The work is part of City of Westminster’s City of Sculpture programme which brings sculpture to iconic outdoor locations.

• The Museum of the Home is asking people for their opinion on the future of the statue of Sir Robert Geffrye which stands out the front of the almshouses housing the museum in Shoreditch. The almshouses were built by Geffrye, who was involved with the slave trade having made made his fortune with the East India Company and the Royal African Company, in 1714. The consultation is being held in partnership with Hackney Council which is conducting a wider review of landmarks and the naming of public spaces in the borough. The consultation remains open until the 2nd July. To have your say, head to www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/geffrye-statue.

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This Week in London – Statue of slave owner removed; Finsbury Circus to be redesigned; and, ZSL London Zoo reopening…

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• A statue of slave owner Robert Milligan has been removed from its position outside of the Museum of London Docklands. The Canal and River Trust removed the statue this week in recognition of the “wishes of the community”. The move had the support of the museum which is one of only three museums in the UK to address the history of the transatlantic slave trade. “The Museum of London recognises that the monument is part of the ongoing problematic regime of white-washing history, which disregards the pain of those who are still wrestling with the remnants of the crimes Milligan committed against humanity…” the museum said in a statement issued earlier in the week. “Now more than ever at a time when Black Lives Matter is calling for an end to public monuments honouring slave owners, we advocate for the statue of Robert Milligan to be removed on the grounds of its historical links to colonial violence and exploitation.” Milligan was a prominent British slave owner who, by the time of his death in 1809, owned 526 slaves and two sugar plantations in Jamaica. The statue, the work of Sir Richard Westmacott, was moved to a position outside the museum in West India Quay in 1997. Earlier this week, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, announced a new Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm which will review landmarks – including murals, street art, street names, statues and other memorials – across the city of London with a view to improving diversity in the public realm.

• The City of London Corporation has launched a competition to redesign the Grade II-listed gardens at Finsbury Circus. The two-stage competition aims to identity creative and sustainable design ideas in a bid to return Finsbury Circus Gardens to being a multifunctional public space with a pavilion as well as a “sanctuary” within the Square Mile. The corporation is seeking a joint bid from an architect and a landscape architect to deliver a new design for the reinstatement of Finsbury Circus Gardens and Pavilion. Some two-thirds of the Finsbury Circus Gardens, one of the oldest parks in the City, have been used by Crossrail for the past 10 years to provide access to a section of tunnel between Farringdon and Liverpool Street. The works required the removal of historic features like the bowling green and historic Grade II drinking fountain and these will now be reinstated into the new design. PICTURE: Looking across Finsbury Circus Gardens in 2006 (David Williams /licenced under CC BY-SA 2.0)

• Tickets for ZSL London Zoo have gone on sale ahead of its planned reopening next week. The zoo will reopen on Monday, 15th June, for the first time since its closure on Saturday, 21st March due to the coronavirus pandemic. The zoo, which is offering pre-allocated, timed entry slots, limited to just 2,000 visitors a day, says its taken numerous measures to ensure the safety of visitors. For more, head to www.zsl.org/zsl-london-zoo.

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This Week in London – ‘Disease X’ online; explore the world of the kimono; and, National Gallery announces extensions and deferrals…

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• The Museum of London is offering the chance to explore its previous exhibition, Disease X: London’s next epidemic?, online. The exhibition, which was first shown at the museum in between November, 2018, and March, 2019 to make the 100th anniversary of the second wave of the Spanish flu, draws on the museum’s collections as well as historical research and expert views to explore if the city was at risk from an unknown ‘Disease X’. Among the objects in the display are the mourning dress worn by Queen Victoria to mark the shock passing of her grandson Prince Albert Victor due to ‘Russian Flu’, a 17th century pomander used to waft away the foul vapors thought to cause diseases like the plague and a poster advertising ‘Flu-Mal’, a supposed cure for both influenza and malaria. To see the exhibition, head to https://virtualexhibitions.museumoflondon.org.uk/disease-x/. The online exhibition is part of the museum’s mission to bring online content to people at home while its doors are closed under the banner of the ‘Museum for London’. PICTURE: Influenza conquered by Flu-Mal. Advertising Poster © Museum of London.

• The V&A has launched a series of five films that take viewers on a behind-the-scenes tour of its exhibition Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk. Curator Anna Jackson guides viewers through the exhibition spaces and provides personal insights into the making of the show, some of the star exhibits and the history of the kimono. The exhibition tracks the “sartorial and social significance” of the kimono from the 1660s to the present day in both Japan and elsewhere around the world and features international designer fashions and iconic costumes from films and performances. Highlights include a kimono created by Living National Treasure Kunihiko Moriguchi, the Alexander McQueen dress Björk wore on the cover of her album Homogenic, and original Star Wars costumes modelled on kimono by John Mollo. To watch, head here.

• The National Gallery has announced it has extended its landmark exhibition Titian: Love, Desire, Death which had been due to close on 14th June, having been open for just three days before lockdown measures were put in place. The gallery has also announced the exhibition Nicolaes Maes: Dutch Master of the Golden Age will also be extended while dates for upcoming exhibitions including Sin, Conversations with God: Copernicus by Jan Matejko, and The Credit Suisse Exhibition: Raphael have been pushed back. For more, see www.nationalgallery.org.uk.

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