‘Pots of paint’

Introduction

Victorian Bournemouth (199) explores how the resort’s fine arts culture flourished and broadened during the 1880s. This article follows the progress of an annual exhibition of paintings that attracted amateur and full-time artists to show their pictures. It also finds how the exhibitions played a role in encouraging both cultural and commercial activities within the category of fine arts. Together with amateur interests in dramatics, music, and natural science, the exhibitions helped to expand cultural life in the resort.

Victorian Bournemouth (199): developments

First steps

Bournemouth’s first Fine Arts Exhibition may have escaped press attention, but the second, held at the small Town Hall, received notice. Visitors had the opportunity to inspect 350 paintings, oil and water colour in almost equal number. About a third of the collection consisted of loan stock. The reviewer adopted a positive attitude, injecting respect into the descriptions. The approach for the fourth exhibition, however, changed. After a respectful beginning, the reviewer proceeded to sneer at the workmanship. ‘We need only say it is a hard, matter-of-fact production, as devoid of merit as it is of interest.’ [The artist] ‘has succeeded in thoroughly spoiling a good canvas in his picture …’. Perhaps the reviewer thought it necessary to put amateur exhibitors to his professional sword. Criticism applied to some attendees. ‘Many visitors, whose enthusiasm for art was less predominant, were availing themselves of the opportunity for social chat …’

Becoming established

By the fifth exhibition, 1885, however, the review had a more positive slant. It referred to the exhibition having drawn considerable interest amongst the public. The phrase ‘Royal Academy in miniature’ located the event on a high plane. On this occasion, the report included a list of medal-winners. The following year suggests that progress had continued. A local picture dealer together with a committee of local artists managed the event. Around a hundred exhibitors participated, bringing between three and four hundred paintings to visitors’ attention. The reviewer thought the quality of work exceeded that in previous years. For 1888, the committee moved the exhibition to an auction room on Old Christchurch Road, but the reviewer thought pockets of bad lighting harmed the effect of some paintings. Nevertheless, the event had drawn official approval, for E. W. Rebbeck, chairman of the Improvement Commission, and colleagues conducted the opening.

Victorian Bournemouth (199): marketing

Richard Aldworth

Born at mid-century in Stamford, Lincolnshire, Aldworth grew up in an artisan context. His father had a smithy and also made saddles. Both parents had come from Ireland. After a brief period in London, working as a gilder, he had arrived in Bournemouth by 1875 where he became married. Six years later, he had premises on Old Christchurch Road, where he worked as a carver and gilder. In 1891, however, he listed his activity as picture dealer. This may have marked a step up from artisan work, someone selling the entire picture not just frames. Such a change perhaps occurred as the result of his leading the Fine Arts’ exhibitions from the middle 1880s. He must have showed expertise at managing an event which had some local prominence, for his name reappears in this capacity in subsequent exhibitions. Aldworth succeeded, leaving a respectable estate and earning a length obituary notice.

Tourism platform

The Fine Arts’ exhibitions during the 1880s always occurred during February or March. Thus, they enhanced Bournemouth’s winter season, prized by the tourist trade and property developers. The winter had always catered for convalescents taking a lengthy stay, most belonging to the upper levels of society. As Bournemouth’s tourism trade evolved, the summer attracted a different social group, middling but respectable. Train companies also brought day-trippers. Most of the summer visitors, therefore, perhaps had interests other than fine arts, which remained embedded at a higher social level. Thus, a Fine Arts exhibition could become a useful marketing platform to convince members of Bournemouth’s former main audience group, the gentry, that the town still had offerings suitable for them. An indicator of this awareness perhaps occurred when the Improvement Commission chairman decided to open the 1888 exhibition. A background committee comprising Bournemouth civic grandees emerged and took interest in the event.

Victorian Bournemouth (199): cultural roots

The art business

Prior to the 1880s, little organised painting occurred in the resort. Also, little evidence exists for a trade supply structure. By 1881, however, change had happened. Between ten and twenty artists now appeared at Bournemouth, residents or visitors, the difference, as always, hard to establish. Carvers, gilders, and a frame maker had arrived, as had an ironmonger who also sold art supplies. By 1891, the concerted effects of several Fine Art exhibitions had perhaps encouraged significant category growth. The census for that year listed over fifty artists, most of them painters. In parallel, the trade infrastructure had grown. At least one art gallery appeared in the directories. Carvers, gilders, and frame-makers increased in number. Art supplies perhaps lagged. During the 1890s, however, the category experienced sharp growth. Frame-makers also continued to establish businesses. More galleries opened. Thus, painting, activity and trade, had become established in Bournemouth.

Cultural depth and cross-over

In 1888, Richard Aldworth managed an exhibition of paintings on behalf of the Bournemouth Art Society. The exhibition took place in the Fine Art Gallery. This project perhaps occurred as an exercise separate to the main annual exhibitions. If so, this suggests that art as a cultural expression had become further rooted at Bournemouth. It signifies a continuous interest in the subject separate to annual exhibition which had become part of the town’s reputation marketing. A School of Art had started early in the decade, later incorporating science as a subject. The Natural Science Society convened its meetings at the Fine Art Gallery towards the end of the decade. Whereas this indicates marketing energy by the gallery, it also illustrates at Bournemouth a melting pot for different but sympathetic academic and cultural activities. The contemporary development of other amateur arts – dramatics and music – supports this conclusion.

Takeaway

Victorian Bournemouth (199) has explored the series of Fine Art Exhibitions which occurred in the resort during the 1880s. These attracted established artists as well as local amateurs. It became part of the town’s tourist marketing platform. In addition, during this period, art became established within the local cultural landscape, taking a place alongside music and drama as activities to occupy interested amateurs. Thus, the cultural texture of the resort became more evolved and varied.

References

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