Watts Gallery

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This months events!

Mar 31st, 12:14

120th Anniversary Party – Monday 1st April
Come along this bank holiday Monday at celebrate the 120th anniversary of the opening of Watts Gallery. There will be a jazz band, glasses of prosecco and a special display of historic pictures of the gallery. Why not tie in a visit with taking a shift in the gallery? More information here: https://www.wattsgallery.org.uk/events/120th-anniversary-party

Volunteers’ Sketch Club *April change of date*
The next sketch club will be on 15th April (not the second Tuesday) to tie in with the Spring Picnic. Meet at 10am on Limnerslease lawn for sketching a view of Limnerslease or some spring flowers, then enjoy a talk from Chris on spring in the gardens at 11:30, and stay for a picnic and hot drinks. All abilities welcome! Rsvp to volunteers@wattsgallery.org.uk

Spring Sakura Picnic
Monday 15th April 11.30am-1:30pm
Join us to celebrate the Sakura (cherry blossom) and the advent of spring in the Japanese tradition of Hanami (the custom of picnicking under the blossom) to tie
in with the Edo Pop exhibition. We will begin with a talk about the gardens in Spring from Chris Sharples, followed by a picnic on Limnerslease Lawn.
We can also raise a glass (or cup of coffee) in a slightly belated celebration of the 120th anniversary of Watts Gallery opening to the public (April 1st 1904)
Bring your own picnic and a blanket or picnic chair. Hot drinks provided. Email volunteers@wattsgallery.org.uk

Next Volunteers Tour, Thursday 18th April
Join us for a walking tour of the Artists Village. A guide will show you around the key buildings on site and tell you more about their history. Meet at 10.30am at the Visitor Centre. This tour is an outdoor tour so please dress for the weather. Rsvp to volunteers@wattsgallery.org.uk.

Volunteer Meeting: Monday 22nd April 9:45am-11:30am, The Clore
The next Quarterly Staff and Volunteer Meeting will be on Monday 22nd April, join for the latest news from across the departments, to raise questions and participate in a discussion around volunteer recruitment. If you have any questions you would like covered please send them in advance to volunteers@wattsrota.co.uk.

De Morgan Tour for Volunteers and Staff - Friday 26th April 11am-midday
Join one of our DeMorgan guides to hear more about this fascinating couple and their works we have on display. Rsvp to volunteers@wattsgallery.org.uk.
(There will be another running on Thursday

Category:Volunteer Bulletins

This months events!

Mar 31st, 12:14

Category:Volunteer Bulletins

Stock Take Helpers Required

Mar 10th, 16:52

Tuesday 12 March
If you are great with numbers and can help us with the stock take in the Visitor Centre and see all the goodies behind the scenes please email Celia.Hodges@wattsgallery.org.uk directly! Lots of refreshments available!
Thanks all!

Category:Volunteer Bulletins

Weekly update from 27 February

Mar 3rd, 11:32

Echoes of Depth
Rebecca Sharpe, one of the artists represented in the current Artist in Residence exhibition, has written the latest blog on her work. Rebecca is also a co-curator of the Brina May archive and co-curated the VVR exhibition. You can read her blog here: https://www.wattsgallery.org.uk/blog/echoes-of-depth-artist-rebecca-sharpe

Loans
As you know, Paolo and Francesca and Virginia Dalrymple are currently on their holidays in Italy for this fabulous pre-Raphaelite exhibition: https://mostremuseisandomenico.it/uk-version/
Whightwick Manor are loaning us the very lovely Mrs Nassau (arriving early March), which will form part of a slightly altered permanent display in the historic galleries when they reopen on the 19th.

Tuesday *not Saturday as stated in my last email!* 12th March – Surrey Place-Making Event
Can you spare a few hours to chat to Compton residents about Watts Gallery at an event held by Surrey County Council to discuss potential changes and improvements that could be made to the village with some ‘Place Making’ funding? As a key part of the village, it would be great if we could be represented on the day to share conversations about what residents cherish about the village and what some funding could be used for. There will be refreshments, a kids’ corner and residents will be encouraged to bring stories or photos to share. We are looking to participate in conversations around the heritage of the village as well as road safety, and potentially installing village gateways. Watts will bring some materials to share (maybe touch panels of gesso or similar) with anyone coming to the event. The event will be held at Compton Village Hall.
We will be splitting the event into two shifts from 3-5pm (including set up) and 5 -7pm. If you can help, please email volunteers@wattsgallery.org.uk.

Volunteer’s Sketch Club
Thank you to everyone who came to the last volunteer sketch club. The next one will be on Tuesday 12th March where we will be sketching some still life arrangements. Everyone is welcome to come along, please bring any materials you would like to use. Refreshments on arrival. Sign up on the sheet in the kitchen or by emailing volunteers@wattsgallery.org.uk.

Category:Volunteer Bulletins

Weekly update form 12 February

Feb 18th, 15:34

Victorian parlour evening
Tuesday 20 February 2024, 6.30 - 9pm
We’ve set up a special 20% discount code for volunteers for this event next week: https://www.wattsgallery.org.uk/events/victorian-parlour-evening

As we celebrate the final week of the exhibition Victorian Virtual Reality, join us for this special evening event, with an exclusive tour of the display from Denis Pellerin and Rebecca Sharpe from the Brian May Archive of Stereoscopy followed by a talk on Victorian Working Women in the Stereoscope.

This will be a relaxed and sociable evening, experiencing Victorian style entertainment viewing and handling stereoscope images, with the opportunity to talk to the Curators of the Brian May Archive of Stereoscopy.
A selection of small bites, cheese, wine and soft drinks will be provided, all snacks and first drink included in the ticket price.

Collaboration with Kingston University
You might have noticed wooden structures that have popped up across the site. These have been made and left for us by students from Kingston University 3D Design Foundation course who visited yesterday.

As part of their coursework, our learning team set them a series of briefs to create pieces for families, to encourage play, exploration and connection with our outdoor spaces, and all designed to elevate our Ways of Making family days this week.

Each of the six objects were made by a team of students working together and were informed by their research of Watts Gallery, our artists, collection and surroundings; including making connections to GF and Mary’s reading alcove, local wildlife, arts & crafts architecture, Mary’s collaborative approach to constructing the chapel and bee imagery.

Please do have a wander to see them all: there are three in the Verey Playwood, two on the Gallery Lawn and one by the Sculpture Gallery window. Each has a small text panel written by the student group.

Three habitat pieces – by Surrey Arts
Created to celebrate biodiversity and regeneration of nature, Chris Sharples and our Estates Team and Volunteer Mike, have assisted Surrey Hills Arts in these installations. Splitting wood from our estate by hand and preparing them for the artwork, they are now ready to view near the Sculpture Gallery.

Curators corner
Have a peak inside the historic galleries when you are stewarding and you will see a ghostly apparition of covered paintings as we are cleaning the ducts post fire. It really is an intriguing sight.

Laura will be appearing on BBC Surrey Radio Breakfast Show next Monday talking about Victorian Virtual Reality – don’t forget to listen in.

She is currently taking Paolo and Francesca and Virginia Dalrymple (the lady in the Green Dress) paintings to Forli, near Bologna for a huge pre-Raphaelite exhibition. So if you are trying to decide where to go on holiday this year take a look at this link:, https://mostremuseisandomenico.it/uk-version/

Finally our new Collections Officer Sarah Mercer has been condition checking all the Edopop prints. Yes that’s sketching and reporting any damage on all 71 objects sat in the Conservation Studio

Call out for Bins or sign writers
If you have any bins that you no longer require (indoor rather than the outdoor variety) please pop by our office with any – we are starting a new recycling regime and it requires more bins which we are trying not to buy if we can help it!

Also if we have any creative sign-writers who would like to help with our A boards – please let me know!

Category:Volunteer Bulletins

GALLERY UPDATE AND XMAS COFFEE

Dec 17th 2023, 15:33

GALLERY UPDATE AFTER THE PLANT ROOM FIRE
Thank you all for continuing to bear with us as we work through what needs to be done in the aftermath of the fire in the external building. It’s been great seeing some of you who are regulars in the gallery come and spend some time in the Studios, thank you for being so adaptable in our time of need and for responding to the requests for your help! If you’re thinking about a shift at Limnerslease but haven’t done one in a while the team are very happy to provide a refresher or first time training on the day of your shift.

There is still a lot of work to do in ensuring the gallery spaces are safe and clean, and processes like cleaning the art works, testing the water and co-ordinating a huge number of third parties from art handlers to electricians to insurers means that the gallery won’t be reopening before Christmas. We will have a more accurate timeline for re-opening after Christmas. In light of this could anyone who is signed up for a gallery shift between now and Sunday 7th January please take yourself off the online rota so that we know you’ve received the message about its closure and, we will call up anyone with their name left on the rota.

Fortunately, we have managed to relocate most of our planned activities and look forward to welcoming Father Christmas back into Limnerslease for a second and third visit this Sunday and Wednesday next week as part of our Festive Family Days. There are still some spaces available in the afternoon (follow this link for more information and booking https://www.wattsgallery.org.uk/events/festive-family-days).

Theres still plenty to see on site including a beautifully decorated Limnerslease, a visit to Watts Studios, festive offerings at the Tea Shop, a shimmering twelve-foot tree in the Chapel, lots of interesting stock in the shop, the print exhibition ‘Joy’ in the contemporary gallery, and of course a woodland wander to listen to the birds and see what natural interests and oddities might reveal themselves…and all for a half-price ticket!

Christmas Coffee in the Clore: Monday 18th December 11 - 12:30
We’ve decided to have a slightly impromptu festive coffee for anyone who might be free to come along. You’re invited to drop into the Clore on Monday next week for a hot drink, a mince pie and plenty of festive cheer…some of the team are even threatening to bake. We would love to see you and wish you a Merry Christmas before the Christmas break, Father Christmas also has a little something for anyone coming along. Festive jumpers recommended but not obligatory. If you’re free, please rsvp to volunteers@wattsgallery.org.uk. If you’ve not had a chance to see the fabulous Christmas tree in the Chapel, you could tie it in with a walk down to visit it!

Category:Volunteer Bulletins

Whats Happening in December 2023

Nov 26th 2023, 11:33

Christmas Hours
The site will be closed on the following dates over the festive period:
Saturday 23 – Tuesday 26 December
Monday 1 January 2024

Christmas Lights Switch on to Launch the Big Give - Tuesday 28th November
You’re invited to join us for switching on the Christmas Tree lights at Watts Chapel, with mince pies and carols from Godalming Gospel Choir at midday on Tuesday 28 November.
If you have been volunteering with us for over a year you may already know about the Big Give Christmas Challenge – a fundraising initiative where we can receive match funding for every donation given to us during a certain period. So for every £1 we are donated we get £2 to go towards the running of the outreach and events programme.
To celebrate we will be having a festive get together at Watts Chapel to switch on the lights of the Christmas tree kindly donated by Hans Christmas Andersen, and decorated by the volunteers, staff and participants of the Learning Programme at Watts Gallery – Artists’ Village. Donations to the Big Give Christmas Challenge, which supports our Learning Programmes, are warmly welcomed. (no rsvp required)

5 December, 11am – 13:30pm, Volunteers’ Walking Tour
Tour the site with one of our expert guides to find out about the history of the buildings across the estate. Sign up in the kitchen or by emailing volunteers@wattsgallery.org.uk.

Volunteers Christmas Crafting – Monday 11th December, 10-12
You’re invited to celebrate the festive season with us by joining us for some Christmas crafting. There will be mice pies, hot drinks and Christmas music. During the sessions we will be making our own wrapping paper. If you would like to join, please email volunteers@wattsgallery.org.uk.

Category:Volunteer Bulletins

Whats Happening in December 2023

Nov 26th 2023, 11:33

Category:Volunteer Bulletins

Watts’s Sculptural Technique

Aug 2nd 2021, 13:30

Our Curatorial Advisor, Hilary Underwood, offers an insight into Watts's Sculptural Technique.

The Sculpture Gallery at Watts Gallery is dominated by two huge white models for the sculptures of Tennyson and Physical Energy. These were the objects that the artist himself made: they were the originals from which bronze casts were made at a foundry at the end of the artist's life. Watts worked on Physical Energy for about 20 years when he was in his 70s and 80s. He started Tennyson in 1898 when he was already 81. How did the elderly artist create such massive sculptures?

Obviously he had help. Successful artists like Watts have always employed studio assistants for routine tasks, but they rarely say much about it. Partly this was because it was taken for granted in an era which was used to employing servants and used to their invisibility, partly because of romantic ideas of original creativity. Large sculpture in particular needed a small workshop of assistants because of the heavy work involved. One of Watts's sculptural helpers from 1900 on was Thomas Wren. He later became the most talented modellers at the Compton Potters' Arts Guild and created the little effigy of Watts in the Cloister at Compton Cemetery.

First Watts would create a small model of his design, to work out the composition and proportions. There is a metre high model of horse and rider in the sculpture gallery here. This is not for Physical Energy but an early idea for Watts's earlier equestrian sculpture, Hugh Lupus, made for the Marquis of Westminster to display outside Eaton Hall in Cheshire. This commission let Watts build a sculpture studio on the garden of his Kensington home which he then used for Physical Energy.

Then his assistants would follow the proportions of the sketch and build a strong full size skeleton of wood and metal to support the weight of the final model. This armature would usually be hung with loops of wire and criss-cross pieces of wood to grip the modelling material better. A large photo in the Sculpture Gallery shows Physical Energy in progress with its original wooden supports. Watts had the internal armature of the legs made with joints so he could change their position as his ideas evolved. Spot the differences between this and the final version. If you look under the skirts of Tennyson's coat at the back (!) you can see ends of wooden and metal poles from the internal armature.

Then Watts with his team would model the final sculpture. Usually Victorians modelled in clay, but this had to be kept damp with wet blankets while the sculpture was in progress to stop it drying and cracking. Think about doing that for 20 years… A friend of Watts once wrote that older painters he knew were always cheerful but older sculptors were miserable, which he attributed to rheumatism from the damp atmosphere. Watts was prone to colds and chills and an Italian assistant, Fabbrucci, introduced him to Gesso Grosso which he used for our big sculptures. This is a mixture of chalk, glue and fibre. It can be allowed to dry out, when you can carve into it or add more gesso – ideal for Watt's creative process. If you look at the surfaces of the sculptures, you can see traces of the brown fibre in the gesso.

Watts did much of the modelling work himself. Despite his age, there are many photographs of him at work on the sculptures, balanced on tall platforms reached by ladders. It must have been a great wrench to him when his work was finally taken away to the Foundry.

Hilary Underwood
Curatorial Advisor

Category:WGAV News and Events

Watts and Tennyson

Jul 30th 2021, 14:28

Watts certainly admired Tennyson deeply. He had been the poet's friend since the 1850s. Watts's wife Mary noted that the news of his death in October 1892 made Watts ill with sorrow, and that he could never again hear these lines from Tennyson's poem Ulysses and remain unmoved;

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles
And see the great Achilles whom we knew

Watts painted Tennyson's portrait no less than six times between 1857 and 1892. One version is part of the Watts 'Hall of Fame' in the National Portrait Gallery. However we do not have any of those portraits here. We do have the huge gesso model Watts made between 1898 and 1904 which was cast in bronze as the county of Lincoln's memorial to Tennyson. Tennyson was a Lincolnshire man in origin and the bronze now stands on a tall plinth to the southwest of Lincoln cathedral. This was a very personal tribute to his friend. Watts was asked to advise on the choice of sculptor, but offered to make the sculpture himself, without fee, if the County paid for the bronze casting.

However, I think the similarities in Watts's and Tennyson's appearance are more to do with their closeness in age and social position, than an attempt by Watts's to emulate the poet. Tennyson was born in 1809, Watts in 1817. They were therefore both of the generation to follow the male fashion for ear-length hair in the 1830s and 1840s (which Dickens, born 1812, shared) and for Tennyson to hang onto it in later life when younger men preferred shorter hair. They both grew beards in the 1850s, when they were in their 40s, around the time when soldiers returning from the cold of the Crimean war (1853-6) made beards fashionable. It would be interesting to date their beards more precisely, to check whether they were following or preceding the fashion.

They are both shown in many images wearing an inverness coat with its built-in cape cape and with a broad brimmed, shallow crowned, wideawake hat. The inverness coat could be a dandyish, urban garment: think about the way that Jon Pertwee, third Dr Who in the 1970s wore his in Victorian revival style. But its cut also made it weatherproof. Tennyson, great nature poet, wore his to walk on the Freshwater Downs near his Farringford home on the Isle of Wight. It is an appropriate part of his image. And Watts, always delicate in health, was always careful not to expose himself to chills. The top hat, widely worn across classes in early 19th century Britain, became middle and upper class headgear in the later century, but it was not rural wear, and attracted increasingly establishment, conventional connotations. Victorian artists and writers did want to be respectable, but they were also seen – and wanted to be seen – as slightly outside bourgeois conventionality. So the board-brimmed hat became a sign of the independent minded artist or intellectual – as readable as the stereotyped 20th century artist's beret.

Hilary Underwood
Curatorial Advisor

Category:WGAV News and Events

Volunteer Quarterly Training Session - Watts’s Early Self-Portraits 11th February 2020

Feb 11th 2020, 13:07

Attached(PDF) are notes from Dr Stacey Clapperton, Collection Online Early Career Research Fellow (Portraiture) training session

Category:WGAV News and Events

Watts Portraiture, (pdf, 1600.9kb)

1581426765-Volunteer Quarterly Training notes - 11th February 2020.pdf

Watts Studios Training notes

Sep 25th 2019, 13:18

Please find attached the notes from the recent Studios training, which focuses on the gesso panels made by Mary Watts for the Cambridge Military Chapel.

Very best wishes,

Lauren Hall
Visitor Services Assistant

Category:WGAV News and Events

, (pdf, 3665.2kb)

1569414110-Cambridge Military Chapel Pick Up Interpretation 2019 (002).pdf

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Go to shift calendars

Latest updates

This months events!

This months events!

Stock Take Helpers Required

Weekly update from 27 February

Weekly update form 12 February

GALLERY UPDATE AND XMAS COFFEE

Whats Happening in December 2023

Whats Happening in December 2023

Watts’s Sculptural Technique

Watts and Tennyson

Volunteer Quarterly Training Session - Watts’s Early Self-Portraits 11th February 2020

Watts Portraiture, (pdf, 1600.9kb)

Watts Studios Training notes

, (pdf, 3665.2kb)