The Old State House, constructed between 1833-1842, in Little Rock, Ark., is the oldest surviving state capitol building west of the Mississippi River. It is now a museum. Image by Wasted Time R (talk) at en.wikipedia. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) – The exhibition of Arkansas’ first ladies’ gowns at the Old State House Museum is to temporarily close, starting Sept. 7.
The museum said Tuesday that the closure is necessary so the gowns can be assessed for conservation.
In recent weeks, the museum staff noticed some of the garments were deteriorating and two of them were immediately removed from display.
Officials say the assessment will be conducted by Textile Conservation Services, which will work with the museum staff to develop a conservation strategy.
The first ladies’ gowns collection was the first exhibit to showcase Arkansas history at the Old State House Museum, debuting in 1955.
The gowns exhibit opened in 1955 and the oldest dress is from 1889. That gown belonged to Mary Kavanaugh Oldham Eagle, the wife of Gov. James Philip Eagle.
Until the exhibit closes, museum patrons can see 28 of the 30 gowns that make up the display.
Other textile collections curated by the Museum include Civil War flags and quilts sewn by black Arkansans.
Copyright 2014 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-08-26-14 1819GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
The Old State House, constructed between 1833-1842, in Little Rock, Ark., is the oldest surviving state capitol building west of the Mississippi River. It is now a museum. Image by Wasted Time R (talk) at en.wikipedia. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
A photo of British novelist and essayist George Orwell and a signed, typed letter. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and PBA Galleries. PATNA, India, (AFP) – India on Thursday began work to restore the dilapidated house where Animal Farm and 1984 author George Orwell was born and turn it into a museum.
Orwell was born Eric Arthur Blair on June 25, 1903 in Motihari, a tiny town in the impoverished eastern Indian state of Bihar, near the border with Nepal.
His father, Richard W. Blair, worked at the time as an agent in the opium department of the Indian Civil Service during the height of British rule over the subcontinent.
The family’s simple white colonial bungalow had been left to fall into ruins until the Bihar authorities decided to renovate it in a 6 million rupees ($100,000) project.
“Finally, work on the development of Orwell’s birthplace in Bihar’s Motihari town began,” Bihar’s Art and Culture Minister Vinay Bihari told AFP.
“It will become an asset of our heritage,” he added, saying he hoped it would be a tourist draw.
The Bihar government announced a makeover of the site in 2009, but nothing was done.
Last year, local officials caused consternation among Orwell fans when they said the land attached to the house would be developed in memory of independence hero Mahatma Gandhi.
But on Thursday it emerged that the Gandhi memorial would sit alongside the Orwell museum.
Orwell, who lived in Motihari for a year as a child before leaving for England, wrote admiringly of Gandhi in his 1949 essay Reflections on Gandhi.
But he also criticized his famously spartan lifestyle.
“No doubt alcohol, tobacco and so forth are things that a saint must avoid, but sainthood is also a thing that human beings must avoid,” Orwell wrote.
ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE
A photo of British novelist and essayist George Orwell and a signed, typed letter. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and PBA Galleries.A passport photo showing George Orwell during his time in Burma in the 1920s, when her worked for the British government. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Roman Vishniac (1897-1990), ‘Cracow,’ gelatin silver print. Photographer’s credit backstamp and titled ‘Cracow’ in Vishniac’s hand on verso. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Kestenbaum & Co. NEW YORK (AP) – A vast U.S. archive of photographs of pre-Holocaust Eastern European Jewish life is being made available to the public and researchers.
The International Center of Photography in New York and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday announced the joint creation of a digital database to facilitate access to photographer Roman Vishniac’s archive.
Vishniac was a Russian-born Jew who moved to Berlin in 1920. He documented the rise of Nazi power and its effect on Jewish life in Central and Eastern Europe.
The International Center of Photography said it believes the project “represents a new model for digital archives” and it’s excited to bring Vishniac’s collection to a wider audience.
“Our shared goal is to make the images available for further identification and research, deepening our knowledge of Vishniac’s work and the people and places he recorded in his images,” said the center’s executive director, Mark Lubell.
The database includes all of Vishniac’s 9,000 negatives, most of which have never before been printed or published.
The photography center and the museum are asking scholars and the public to help identify the people and places depicted in the images.
The Holocaust Memorial Museum’s director of collections, Michael Grunberger, said he hoped Vishniac’s work would inspire new generations to learn more about the late photographer and Holocaust history.
“This project will introduce many people to one of the 20th century’s pre-eminent photographers while greatly increasing our understanding of his subjects,” Grunberger said.
Copyright 2014 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-08-27-14 0116GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Roman Vishniac (1897-1990), ‘Cracow,’ gelatin silver print. Photographer’s credit backstamp and titled ‘Cracow’ in Vishniac’s hand on verso. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Kestenbaum & Co.
Facades in the downtown historic district of New Harmony, Ind. Image by Timothy K. Hamilton Creativity + Photography. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – This year’s Indiana Archaeology Month in September will focus on utopian communities that settled in the state.
The Indiana Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology says at least three utopian communities settled in southwestern Indiana in the early 19th century.
A religious group known as the Shakers established the community of Busro or West Union in Knox County. The religious Harmonie Society, also called the Harmonists, and later the secular Owenites formed settlements at New Harmony in Posey County.
The DNR says archaeological investigations have revealed a great deal about how people lived in such communal societies.
A variety of events are held every year by universities, museums, other organizations and individuals for Archaeology Month.
Copyright 2014 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-08-27-14 0740GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Facades in the downtown historic district of New Harmony, Ind. Image by Timothy K. Hamilton Creativity + Photography. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
Democratic party poster from the 1952 presidential campaign for Adlai Stevenson. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) – Officials at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum are planning an exhibit featuring former Gov. Adlai Stevenson II and his family’s political dynasty.
The Illinois Historic Preservation Agency has hired a company to create exhibits that could coincide with the 50th anniversary of Stevenson’s death, the (Decatur) Herald & Review reported.
Stevenson’ son, former U.S. Sen. Adlai Stevenson III of Illinois, donated papers, memorabilia and objects that the Evanston-based design firm Teller Madsen will use in the exhibit.
It’s also likely to include information on former Vice President Adlai Stevenson I. He served as the nation’s 23rd vice president in the 1890s.
“The quality of material available for creating an exhibition is very, very high,” said Greg Koos, executive director of the McLean County Museum of History in Bloomington.
Koos said it’s historically important because the Stevenson family played an important role in local, national and international politics.
Stevenson II served one term as the governor of Illinois and four years as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. He also ran for president twice, in 1952 and 1965.
Artifacts for the exhibit could also come from Stevenson collections at Illinois State University and the McLean County Museum of History.
Teller Madsen has put together Stevenson II exhibits at his home near Libertyville. The firm will receive nearly $20,000 for its contract, which runs through the beginning of next year.
The newspaper reports the exhibit’s opening date wasn’t available Monday.
The Indiana Bicentennial Train touring the Hoosier state. Indiana Historical Society image. COLUMBUS, Ind. (AP) – A new traveling exhibit will make its first stop by rail in Columbus next month leading up to Indiana’s 200th birthday in 2016.
The Indiana Historical Society’s Indiana Bicentennial Train will stop at the Bartholomew County 4-H Fairgrounds from Sept. 18 to 20.
Lynn Lucas, Columbus Area Visitors Center executive director, said the train visit will be great for residents young and old to learn about Indiana’s history.
“Nationally, we see this trend of several generations doing things together. This is a wonderful example of a grandfather taking his grandchildren or mom and dad taking the kids,” she told The Republic. “Even if you’re not from Indiana, and you’re living in the area, why not teach your kids about the area?”
Through the Indiana Historical Society’s extensive visual and archival collections, the free traveling exhibit will consist of Indiana history in the 20th century, Indiana today and what the state might be like in the future.
The exhibit focuses on Indiana’s history in transportation, land use, talent and community and is set up in three of The Next Indiana’s freight cars.
Southside Elementary School teacher Becky Williams said she will be taking her class to check out the exhibit to encourage her students to think about Indiana’s history in a new way.
“For the fifth- and sixth-graders, it will be a review for them and also helps foster that passion for the state,” she said.
“This state has a lot to offer. I keep trying to instill that passion.
“Any time you can offer your kids a hands-on experience, especially with history, I think it is valuable,” she said.
Williams’ students have been learning about Indiana railroads and their effect on the state’s economy in anticipation of the Bicentennial Train’s arrival.
She is encouraging students to prepare questions for a historical interpreter who will talk about Hoosier life over the years.
The train’s visit will incorporate a temporary train depot set up where the public can take part in educational activities, learn about local history and watch performances from historic interpreter Kevin Stonerock as he portrays Daniel Morgan Cook in the year 1916.
The tour is in partnership with the Indiana Rail Road Co. and Norfolk Southern Corp. The Bicentennial Train will travel to Jasper, Terre Haute and Bargersville after its stop in Columbus.
A pop-up market to purchase Indiana and bicentennial-related items from the Indiana Historical Society also will be available. The historical society is sponsoring the traveling exhibit.
Anna Barnett, education manager for the Bartholomew County Historical Society, said the point of the mobile exhibit is to get residents in Bartholomew County excited about their Hoosier heritage.
“I think they’re hoping to teach people about Indiana’s rich history and help people understand what’s made our state so great,” she said. “I think it’s also to help build excitement about the bicentennial. It’s the first bicentennial activity.”
Most of the exhibits will have information about areas throughout the state, but Barnett said there will be information that is just about Bartholomew County.
The Bartholomew County Historical Society and the Yellow Trail Museum will have a joint community tent with hands-on natural history artifacts displays for guests to learn about what life was like in Bartholomew County 200 years ago.
A Bartholomew County Historical Society interpreter will greet the train when it arrives to describe how Bartholomew County changed through the 19th century and to talk about the future.
Guests who visit the Columbus depot will be invited to design a town flag, mark their “Indiana-versary” on a timeline provided by Indiana Humanities and vote for their favorite Hoosier innovation. The Columbus depot tents will contain displays, demonstrations and presentations from local organizations that highlight each community’s offerings and opportunities.
“There are many photographs around the state, including some from Bartholomew County, within the train,” Barnett said. “There will be games and activities for them to learn about our county. There will be opportunities for local organizations like the historical society to have specific things from our county.”
Indiana historian James Madison will be at the Columbus stop in the late afternoon of Sept. 18 to talk about and sign his new book, Hoosiers: A New History of Indiana.
The Next Indiana bicentennial train originally was known as the Indiana History Train and stopped in Columbus in 2004 with a “Faces of Lincoln” exhibit, drawing 2,654 guests, and again in 2006 with “The Faces of the Civil War” exhibit, drawing 2,883 guests.
“We’ve had the train every time it has stopped. They’ve had excellent response from our community,” Barnett said. “Logistically, we have a wonderful place for it. It’s hard to find a place to stop where it doesn’t impede train traffic.”
The Indiana History Train traveled the state of Indiana from 2004 to 2008 before being renamed as the Next Indiana train and launched in 2013.
Since 2004, the train had more than 57,000 guests. In 2013, the train stopped in Kokomo, New Haven, Valparaiso and Delphi and had 13,165 visitors.
A Carltonware pottery ‘Guinness’ toucan advertising table lamp. The inscription around the base reads: ‘How Grand to be a Toucan, Just think what Toucan can do if he can say as you can Guinness is Good for You.’ The zoo figures lampshade is also original. It sold for £170. Photo: The Canterbury Auction Galleries.
LONDON – The Business Manager (Mrs. P) went to Dublin and, to coin that well-known t-shirt phrase, all I got was a lousy bar of chocolate. Oh, and a bag of roasted peanuts, although to be fair, both were flavored, oddly enough, with the distinctive taste of the world’s most famous stout. I prefer it out of a glass.
No trip to the fair city would be complete without a visit to Arthur Guinness’ St. James’s Gate brewery. It’s the first stop on the hop on/off tour bus, but it serves the world’s most expensive pint: the 18 euro entry (£14.32, $23.73) gets you a “free” one. Worse still, she felt not enough is made of its history or the great advertising campaigns that put the brand where it is today.
So, by way of redressing the balance, I thought I’d raise a glass in celebration of the raft of Carlton pottery toucan pub lamps, zoo animals, pub jugs and ashtrays we collectors cherish and the man from whose imagination it all sprang: the graphic artist John Gilroy. (1898-1998).
John Thomas Young Gilroy (1898-1985) was born in Whitley Bay on Tyneside into a family of eight children. His father, John William, was a marine landscape painter and technical draughtsman, and by the age of 15, young John was contributing artwork to the local newspaper, the Newcastle Evening Chronicle.
He subsequently won a scholarship to art school at Durham University, but on the outbreak of World War I, he joined the Royal Field Artillery, serving in France, Italy and Palestine.
After the war, Gilroy accepted a place at the Royal College of Art, and after winning several more scholarships to further his education there, he was invited to stay on to teach.
His introduction to Guinness began in 1925, when he joined the advertising agency S.H. Benson Ltd.
Gilroy’s versatility and technical skills were remarkable. He had the ability to flit with ease from intricate pen-and-ink drawings – as featured in the Guinness Doctors’ Christmas books of the 1930s (now highly prized by collectors) – to the expansive canvas of the poster.
He was as happy painting murals as he was greeting cards, but he also had a reputation as an accomplished landscape and portrait painter.
His work was exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, and his sitters included several members of the Royal Family, Sir Winston Churchill and Rupert Guinness, Lord Iveagh II.
However, Gilroy will be best remembered for his Guinness posters and press advertisements, of which he created well over 100 in a 35-year period.
Among them are two of the most enduring advertising images ever crafted: the “Guinness for Strength” workman casually carrying a steel girder on his head, and the impudent sea lion making off with the zookeeper’s pint in the “My Goodness, my Guinness” poster.
The inherent humor was, of course, achieved by simple exaggeration: after supping a glass of Guinness, you could apparently lift huge metal girders, pull a horse along in a cart or chop down a tree with the single blow of an ax.
The antics of the harassed zookeeper and his mischievous charges are said to have been inspired by a visit Gilroy made to a Bertram Mills Circus in Olympia, although his sketches and studies of the various animals were made at London Zoo.
The red-faced mustachioed zookeeper was apparently a caricature of the artist himself.
The first poster in the highly sucessful campaign was launched in 1935, and featured a sea lion making off with a pint of Guinness perched on its nose.
It provided the basis for innumerable variants which saw the hapless keeper pitting his wits against kangaroos, ostriches, pelicans, gnus and lions, all determined to hijack his precious pint.
An interview for Guinness Time, the company’s house magazine, which appeared in 1952, gave an insight into Gilroy’s humor.
He said: “The hoardings are the Museum of the Masses. They hoard the art treasures of the man in the street. But the man in the street is usually in a hurry to catch a bus or to avoid being caught by a bus; he has no time for contemplation.
“My posters, therefore, are a kind of aesthetic meal in a minute. A man may whizz by on a motorbike or in a Black Maria and yet absorb one of my posters. Why? Because my posters are like a certain self-made man – they have no background.”
For pottery manufacturer Carlton, the opportunity to immortalize Gilroy’s characters was heaven sent. The pottery was established in 1890 following the partnership forged between James Frederick Wiltshaw and J.A. and H.T. Robinson.
The business began producing decorative earthenware at their factory, the Carlton Works in Copeland Street, Stoke-on-Trent.
The firm was first registered in 1893 and the trade name Carlton Ware was adopted in the following year. However, it went into receivership in 1931 and merged with Birks, Rawlins & Co. Ltd. the following year.
Renamed Carlton Ware in 1957, the firm was purchased first by Arthur Wood & Son (Longport) in 1966 and then by County Potteries in 1987, going into voluntary liquidation in 1991.
The name then remained dormant until 1997 when Francis Joseph acquired it together with a small number of molds and a few preproduction models, which continue to be made.
Guinness turned to Carlton in 1955 and the Toucan bar lamp was the first of a steady stream of figures and model groups to roll off the production line.
Today, the lamp changes hands for up to £500 … if it’s genuine. Fakes of the same thing, priced around £75-£100, are in truth worthless. The giveaway is the fake has no hole in the bird’s head for the light fitting, while the frothy head on the pint of Guinness is much shallower than the original.
The drayman pulling his horse and its cart is one of the rarest Carlton figures, but again fakes are commonplace. The original has a small figure of a ladybird climbing up the side of the cart, but not the fake.
Fake zoo figures include the ostrich, which has a white face and a black lump in its throat where the glass is lodged – both should be pink; the tortoise with a froth-free glass on its back and a missing foot; and the penguin, which lacks the ”Draught Guinness” lettering on its chest and the wrong color beak and eyes.
So be careful out there.
ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE
A Carltonware pottery ‘Guinness’ toucan advertising table lamp. The inscription around the base reads: ‘How Grand to be a Toucan, Just think what Toucan can do if he can say as you can Guinness is Good for You.’ The zoo figures lampshade is also original. It sold for £170. Photo: The Canterbury Auction Galleries.Guinness For Strength, as proved by this drayman capable of pulling his own cart with its horse as a passenger. Note the ladybird on the back of the cart. Made in about 1957, it sold for £260. Photo: The Canterbury Auction Galleries.Left, a Carltonware pottery three-piece Guinness advertising condiment set decorated with the toucan and worded in orange ‘My Goodness – My Guinness,’ next to a matching stilton cheese dish and cover. The pink luster plates are worded ‘Oh Lovely Guinness! Oh Guinness My Love, What a Wonderful Guinness You Are!’ As an auction lot, they would be estimated at £150-200. Photo: The Canterbury Auction Galleries.A collection of six Carltonware pottery Guinness ‘Zoo Series’ figures. They sold for £190. Photo: The Canterbury Auction Galleries.The Guinness Storehouse museum in St. James’s Gate does have a display of original Gilroy poster artwork. This is how Gilroy’s famous ‘Girder Man’ was conceived.The Guinness Storehouse museum in St. James’s Gate does have a display of original Gilroy poster artwork. This is how Gilroy’s famous ‘Girder Man’ was conceived.Naturally being an Irish pottery manufacturer, Wade was quick to get in on the act, producing a series of Guinness advertising whimsies. This group of four sold for £40. Photo: The Canterbury Auction Galleries.All manner of Guinness memorabilia abounds to delight collectors. This lot comprised two sets of six ‘Zookeeper Series’ waistcoat buttons, two pocket watches, lapel badges and an ingenious toastmaster’s gavel, which sold together for £130. Photo: The Canterbury Auction Galleries.
Large Chinese cloisonne enamel charger. I.M. Chait image.
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – I.M. Chait Gallery / Auctioneers will conduct an Asian arts and antiques auction Sunday, Sept. 7. The auction will begin at 11 a.m. Pacific. LiveAuctioneers.com will provide Internet live bidding for the 550-lot sale.
The auction will feature:
– Numerous snuff bottles including glass, hardstone and jade etc. from a Northern California collection;
– Chinese porcelains including “eggshell,” Famille Rose, monochrome glazes etc. from local collections;
– Numerous Chinese cloisonne enamel vessels and covered boxes from a Nevada collection;
– Chinese ink and color scrolls, including landscapes, figures, flowers, etc. from various collections;
– Large group of various carved wood African masks;
– Numerous Neolithic and early Chinese pottery from the Tom D. Williams collection of Indianapolis, Ind.
For details contact I.M. Chait Gallery / Auctioneers, email chait@chait.com or phone 310-285-0182.
The engraving on the back of the watch declares the New York Yankees champions of the 1928 World Series. Lou Gehrig hit four home runs and batted .545 in the four-game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals in the Series. SCP Auctions image. LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif. – Lou Gehrig’s 1928 New York Yankees world champions wristwatch sold for $340,000 on Monday, the day after SCP Auctions’ Mid-Summer Classic auction came to a close.
“Lou Gehrig’s 1928 World Series watch is one of the most significant items ever offered at auction representing baseball’s beloved Iron Horse,” said Dan Imler, vice president of SCP Auctions. “We are thrilled to see this treasure sell to an advanced collector for a price worthy of its quality and historical importance.”
The $340,000 price marks one of the highest prices ever paid for a Gehrig item. In November 2011, SCP Auctions sold a game-used bat swung by Gehrig in 1939 to hit his final home run with the New York Yankees during a spring training game for $403,664.
What’s more, both the consignor of the watch and SCP Auctions have agreed to make donations to their local ALS Association chapters. “With this summer marking the 75th anniversary of Gehrig’s ‘Luckiest Man Alive’ speech, it seems only fitting,” added Imler.
The buyer of the watch wishes to remain anonymous at this time.
ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE
The engraving on the back of the watch declares the New York Yankees champions of the 1928 World Series. Lou Gehrig hit four home runs and batted .545 in the four-game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals in the Series. SCP Auctions image.Lou Gehrig’s name is engraved on the side of the watch, which sold for $340,000 on Sunday. SCP Auctions image.
‘VII Betrayed,’ one of a series of 14 paintings by Brian Whelan. Image courtesy of the artist. WASHINGTON (AP) – In the weeks before British nurse Edith Cavell was executed by a German firing squad in World War I, she pored over her copy of Thomas à Kempis’s 15th-century devotional book, The Imitation of Christ.
“I am left exiled and destitute in an alien land, where there are daily wars and dreadful disasters. Give me comfort … and calm my grief.”
Artist Brian Whelan was so struck by Cavell’s love of the sacred tract that he painted its medieval author, quill in hand, into the background of a new painting about Cavell’s life.
The work, titled Imitation, is one of 14 Whelan paintings in a small but compelling exhibit at Washington National Cathedral that retells the story of Cavell’s “martyrdom” during the war.
Scarcely remembered in the United States today, Cavell’s execution was a sensation in its time. One British newspaper called it “the most damnable crime of the war.” Another termed it “foul … infamy.”
“It is a deed which … stuns the world, and cries to Heaven for vengeance,” declared another.
Her death, a century ago next year, is said to have helped tip the United States toward entering the war. Scores of children – as well as a mountain in Canada, a racehorse and a kind of rose – were later named after Cavell.
The exhibit, which marks the centennial of World War I, opened July 24 and runs through Sept. 18. It is the paintings’ public debut.
Cavell, whose name rhymes with “travel,” was 48 and the head of a nursing school in Brussels when Germany invaded Belgium in 1914.
While caring for victims on all sides of the conflict, she also helped scores of Allied soldiers escape capture.
When German officials found out, they put her on trial and had her shot on Oct. 12, 1915.
Two years ago, Whelan, 57, who was born in London to Irish parents and is known for his colorful, post-modern religious paintings, said he was approached by two British clergymen from Norwich Cathedral, where Cavell is buried.
With the centennial of the 1914-1918 war, would he consider painting a commemoration of her for the British cathedral?
Whelan, who now lives in the Washington area, was hesitant. He recalled Cavell more as a historical than a religious figure.
“I was very aware of her as being buried deep under an awful lot of war propaganda … and Edwardian sentimentality,” he said in an interview at Washington National Cathedral this month.
“I was a little wary,” he said. “I thought, ‘I’ve got to find a new way of approaching her.’”
Eventually, he produced five paintings of different aspects of Cavell’s life and showed the clergymen. They were intrigued, he said.
“‘This is exactly what we need,’” he said one told him. “They were very keen that I developed the spiritual side of her.”
He did nine more – with acrylic paint and acrylic varnish on a wooden board.
The paintings, finished this year, are intimate and crammed with color and figures. They portray Cavell as a solitary person of faith rather than the victim of an atrocity.
They include depictions of the prim Cavell with an exaggerated wedge-shaped face, large round eyes and a mound of upswept hair.
The paintings include dogs, doves, a crucified Christ, an open grave rimmed with skulls and a delicate cross fashioned with foil from a chocolate wrapper.
“You can get some amazing colors,” he said of the orange foil bearing the name “Galler,” a Belgian candy company. He said fans mail him foil wrappers, knowing that he uses the foil in his art.
The Cavell paintings make up a narrative, he said. They show her as war is declared, as she is working with skeletal wounded soldiers wrapped in blankets and as she helps men escape.
They depict her betrayal by a ghostly, Judas-like figure, her arrest, trial and execution, and her funeral in England after the war.
At first glance, the vibrant energy of the paintings seems unsuited for the somber confines of a cathedral. And Whelan said some of his other religious work has been viewed as “cheeky.”
But the Cavell work hints at medieval art, which Whelan loves, and is filled with Christian symbolism.
“Each person’s got their own reaction to the work,” he said. “And it’s as valid as anybody else’s, including the artist.”
Whelan said he did the paintings at a house his wife owned in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Bluemont, Loudoun County, in Virginia.
Once they were finished, he said, he began looking for a place to exhibit them before they are installed at Norwich Cathedral at Easter.
He approached Washington National Cathedral, which had been looking for a way to mark the centennial of the start of World War I. The cathedral holds the tomb of the wartime president, Woodrow Wilson.
The paintings seemed perfect. “Not only was (Cavell) a great humanitarian, she was a devout Christian,” said Ruth Frey, director of programs at the cathedral. She said that like many Americans, she did not at first know who Cavell was.
But researching her, “I just felt like I opened up this little historical treasure trove,” Frey said in a telephone interview.
It “was an exciting thing to learn about her and her courage and compassion and the impact that she had on, really, the whole world at that time,” she said.
The day before her execution, according to biographer Helen Judson, Cavell wrote from Brussels’s Prison de Saint-Gilles to a troubled young friend she had been mentoring:
“My dear Girl …
“If God permits I shall still watch over you and … wait for you on the other side. Be sure to get ready for then. I want you to know I was neither afraid nor unhappy, but quite ready to give my life for England. …
“Only remember that I love you and love you still.
Copyright 2014 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-08-24-14 1423GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE
‘VII Betrayed,’ one of a series of 14 paintings by Brian Whelan. Image courtesy of the artist.‘Imitation – The Passion of Edith Cavell,’ the series of 14 paintings by Brian Whelan. Image courtesy of the artist.
