When I originally wrote the Postman's Park series, the gallery devoted to its creator GF Watts was closed for refurbishment. An exhibition of his work at Guildhall Art Gallery was provoking mixed reactions:
While I've been considering Watts as creator of the memorial in Postman's Park, he was of course best known as an artist. The Watts Gallery is currently closed for refurbishment, so its collection is on tour: see the exhibition G F Watts: Victorian Visionary at the Guildhall Art Gallery until late April [2009].
I've not seen the exhibition yet - but there's a splendidly vitriolic review in The Times (click here - now unfortunately behind a paywall). For example,
Everything that matters in art, every precious grace, every delicate touch and independent thought, every subtle nuance and lyrical turn, every brighter colour and every genuinely deep thought ...missed him out or avoided him.
For a contrasting view of the exhibition, and of Watts, click here.
Image: G F Watts, Hope, from Wikimedia Commons.
Happily, the Watts Gallery in the village of Compton is now open again. It's well worth a visit, even if you are not a fan of the artist - and a short walk away is the village's extraordinary mortuary chapel, decorated by his wife Mary Watts.
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