Just discovered this new exhibition at Bethnal Green. I wonder if the photographer, Craig Deane, might be interested in coming to look at Mary’s dolls? We certainly saw some amazing ones at Platt, and many that have presumably been asleep in their cardboard boxes for years that we still haven’t woken up yet…
Alex
ABC counters
Our resident photographer, Alan Seabright, has just spent the morning taking lovely photographs of the ABC counters (1922.534) currently on display (or at least they will be once I have put them back) in the Gallery of Craft & Design. These are going to be used by Jonathan Hitchen, who is the Programme Leader for Graphic Design at MMU in some sort of Mary Greg typeface creation that we’re getting very excited about. The process of taking photos revealed something mysterious upon which I would like to muse for a while…
Which letters are missing from the series? 6 of them, no less.
A, D, E, N, S, Y
As a crossword fiend, I noticed that this is an anagram for “And yes!” or, “Yes, and?” which made me chuckle. I then typed the letters into a special anagram site online and came up with the following – totally senseless – but there’s something a bit ‘Da Vinci’ code and eccentric about it all which makes me think of Mary. What can it mean?
Ad Yens
And Yes
Sand Ye
Sad Yen
Ads Yen
Days En
Day Ens
An Dyes
Nays Ed
Any Eds
Nay Eds
As Deny
Say End
Say Den
Ay Send
Ay Ends
Ay Dens
Ya Send
Ya Ends
Ya Dens
The letters also nearly spell ‘Denys’ – who was both my supervisor at university and a few centuries before that, a mystical theologian who wrote all sorts of things which perhaps are or perhaps are not relevant to Mary. But that’s another story…
Alex
Learning at the Interface is a conference being jointly held by the University of Brighton and the V&A on 1-2 July this year. It is all about collaborative projects between universities, museums and galleries and seeks to address the question of how institutions can work together to enhance the learning of higher education students. I put forward a case study about the Mary Greg project which is available online. It has been selected to form a publication and will be discussed as part of the networking event which Sharon and Hazel will hopefully be attending at the V&A in July. We will feedback after the event! Alex
Box of shoes at Platt Hall
Wedding dress with embroidered ivy leaves
And so many ideas about how we might exhibit some of these things in this amazing space (especially following our visit to Enchanted Palace at Kensington Palace, and the Concise Dictionary of Dress at Blythe House). A giant dolls’ house in itself… Where will these thoughts take us? We shared some interesting comments with Miles too about whether Mary’s collection only came into the gallery because of a desire to have the ‘grander, more important’ ceramics collection of her husband. Miles always refers to Mary as ‘Mrs Greg’. I like that. I wonder if there is a difference in the generalised contrast between the ‘scientific’ collecting of men (e.g. the costumes of Mr Cunnington who apparently could have been a ceramics collector had ceramics been more affordable – instead he looked to something affordable and other – e.g. costume – that he could catalogue, collect specimens and almost finalise) and that of women – Mary who collected what she loved because it was beautifully crafted, domestic, just a lovely thing that she wanted to share with others, particularly children.
So many ideas. So much that we still haven’t seen.
In the meantime, look here on Flickr for further pictures I took today…
Alex
Who could have predicted this? Sadly Hazel and I are no longer going to present our paper ‘Lost and Found: The Mary Greg Collection at Manchester Art Gallery’ at the AAH10 conference in Glasgow. All internal flights have been cancelled today due to the volcanic ash from Iceland. We are really upset as we were looking forward to sharing our project and were raring to go, having packed and got everything ready. Apologies to the organisers, particularly Heather Birchall, who has worked so hard, and, I fear will have quite a few apologists (is that the right word?!)
If anyone at the conference was particularly interested in hearing us speak, please do get in touch via the blog.
Alex
Through our links with Dr Stuart Eagles, Sharon has just forwarded some pages copied from the fantastic book by Sheila Ormerod, ‘The Gregs of Westmill’ (Buntingford, 1996). A few more clues about Mary emerge…
She was remembered as an overly frugal housekeeper who would not allow her husband to have two eggs for breakfast and was much impressed by a lecturer who declared that margarine was better than butter for domestic staff. (p.18)
And as if by way of an afterthought, the paragraph continues…
However, she was generous to the village.
So, beneficent to the world, but alas, not to poor Thomas!
The article also points out that at 8 years older than Thomas, Mary would not have married until she was 45. Perhaps this is a reason for their lack of children?
Alongside this reading, I have been busy pursuing links with the Guild of St George, and have contacted the former Master, Dr James Dearden who is an authority on Mary Greg, as well as Robert Wilson who is the Director of Westmill interests, so I’m eagerly anticipating further information…
Hazel and I also met this morning to plan our session at this year’s Association of Art Historians Conference in Glasgow on Friday morning. More to follow after the event.
Alex
We had another day doing object photography today. Ben’s pictures are amazing – even the tiniest of objects can be blown up so that all the intricate details invisible to the naked eye become significant. Colours and torn edges on books, fine engraving on pin ends, patterns seeping through paper…
One highlight of the day for me was re-finding the solander boxes full of miniature books. Mary amassed lots of children’s books – tiny ones, nursery rhymes with beautiful lino block miniature prints to illustrate, Biblical ones, and books of religious and moral instruction for children, tiny almanacs and diaries of Saints’ Days that are smaller than my thumb. I first saw them when I started work at the gallery about two years ago, but haven’t seen them since: I’ll definitely be going back for another peek.
Have a look at this link on YouTube to see Thomas Tylson Greg’s family tree.
This ties in beautifully with Melanie’s post about the Hope family tree: the one above was found by Sharon and is of the Greg side of the family. With no women mentioned. As Sharon says,
I had to pencil the women in myself!
I’ll put an image of the family tree on this post later so that you can see it while listening to Sharon talk about it.
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