Fisherman hauling in nets, pilchard-pressing devices, and d'Artagnan: it's the Cornish art survey of a lifetime, but it's not in the west country – it has just opened in a remarkable Victorian building off the Strand in London. Featuring paintings made in Cornwall in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the exhibition includes many that have been in store for decades, and one not exhibited for well over a century.
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Pilchard driver in Mousehole oil on board by Christopher Wood |
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The same boat photographed steaming off Mousehole when hand lining for mackerel in 1978 |
The building is now owned by a charity, the Bulldog Trust, which has launched a programme of annual exhibitions based on regional collections to open up the space to visitors. Palatial … Two Temple Place in London. Photograph: Will Pryce Curator Roo Gunzi, who's completing a thesis on one of the best-known artists, Stanhope Forbes, has worked in partnership with the Royal Cornwall Museum in Truro, but she has also tracked down paintings in private collections and museum stores all over the country. One gigantic painting by Forbes, showing the interior of a blacksmith's shop, normally hangs in the council offices in Ipswich. The artist began painting it on the spot, but was so overcome by the heat and smoke that he had to resort to reconstructing the scene in his Newlyn studio. Another huge canvas, a pair of horses drawing a block of newly quarried stone, has come from a private collection and hasn't been seen in public since 1905.
Another painting of "seine" fishermen dragging their catch was completed in 1897 by Charles Napier Hemy – after 14 years of making studies for it. It caused a stir when initially exhibited in London, celebrated as "a sea piece of the first order", but has been in the Tate stores for decades.
Gunzi has also borrowed some of the real objects painted by the artists, including a miner's barrow, an iron and granite weight for pressing pilchards, and a wooden box used to carry fish from the boats to be sold on the beaches. Detail from Henry Scott Tuke's Portrait of Jack Rolling (1858-1929). Photograph: The Tuke Collection Hilary Bracegirdle, director of the Royal Cornwall Museum, said: "It's a magnificent opportunity for us to have these pictures seen together anywhere, never mind in London – there is no county museum service covering Cornwall, so we're used to battling it out alone. I hope this makes people more aware of the cultural treasures that we do have in the county."
But visitors may find themselves helplessly distracted by the building, which has some of the most spectacular – if barking – interiors in London. While the exterior is startling – topped with a copper weathervane in the shape of Christopher Columbus's ship – the inside almost defies description, with a gemstone hall floor, stained glass Swiss scenes, and a frieze of characters including Desdemona, Bismarck, Lorenzo de' Medici and Mary Queen of Scots. And the mahogany staircase is adorned with figures from the book Astor considered the greatest ever written: Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers.
"It certainly isn't the easiest of spaces to hang paintings in," Gunzi said, stepping back to look at a row of gnarled weather-beaten faces, portraits of people who would have been discomfited to find themselves in such grand surroundings. "But I think, in the end, it has worked surprisingly well."
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Venue: Two Temple Place, London Until 14 April