Art for the Nation
Exhibition at the Queen’s House, Greenwich of 200 works in the National Maritime Museum’s art collections.
Arranged in a slightly off order I think the aim is to show the different collections owned by and looked after by the Museum. Collections such as that of Eric Palmer, a soldier, restaurateur and bon viver, who, following research on one Netherlandish seascape he bought began a full scale study of Flemish and Dutch marine pictures or the collections of the Ministry of Defence which include pictures from Cook’s 2nd and 3rd trips to the Pacific.
The collections includes pictures by Turner, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Hogarth and William Orpen. Even though the pictures are of one subject they are amazingly varied.
My favourite room contained works chosen by the War Artists Advisory Commission and included pictures done by World War II war artists. Most moving were pictures by John Worsley, a POW in a naval prison camp Morlag (0). These are painted on bed sheets as he had no canvas.
My favourite theme was portraits of young seamen, which probably says more about the viewer than the exhibition! The most obvious was the portrait of the Young Nelson by John Rigaud, commissioned by his Captain and completed when he was 28 but this contrasted with the C20th portrait of Maurice Easton, Naval telegraphist by Henry Carr.
Arranged in a slightly off order I think the aim is to show the different collections owned by and looked after by the Museum. Collections such as that of Eric Palmer, a soldier, restaurateur and bon viver, who, following research on one Netherlandish seascape he bought began a full scale study of Flemish and Dutch marine pictures or the collections of the Ministry of Defence which include pictures from Cook’s 2nd and 3rd trips to the Pacific.
The collections includes pictures by Turner, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Hogarth and William Orpen. Even though the pictures are of one subject they are amazingly varied.
My favourite room contained works chosen by the War Artists Advisory Commission and included pictures done by World War II war artists. Most moving were pictures by John Worsley, a POW in a naval prison camp Morlag (0). These are painted on bed sheets as he had no canvas.
My favourite theme was portraits of young seamen, which probably says more about the viewer than the exhibition! The most obvious was the portrait of the Young Nelson by John Rigaud, commissioned by his Captain and completed when he was 28 but this contrasted with the C20th portrait of Maurice Easton, Naval telegraphist by Henry Carr.
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