Compton Verney Art Gallery
DCMS/Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund - 2012
Compton Verney Art Gallery, in Warwickshire, has been awarded £17,400 to re-display the Marx-Lambert Collection.
Overview of the project
The Marx-Lambert collection is one of six permanent collections on display at Compton Verney. The purpose of this project is to re-display and reinterpret the Marx-Lambert Collection, making it more accessible to visitors and shedding new light on Marx’s work and legacy as a designer.
Enid Marx (1902-98) was one of Britain’s most important 20th century designers. She was a textile designer, an author and illustrator of children’s books, a book designer, a printmaker and a painter. She is most well-known now for her striking geometric designs of 1937 for the upholstery of London Underground trains. The Marx-Lambert Collection at Compton Verney contains work produced by Enid Marx as well as over 400 items of folk or popular art, ceramics, domestic objects, furniture and ephemera which she collected with her partner, historian Margaret Lambert (1906-95), and which inspired her work. In 1998, Marx loaned items from her collection to be displayed alongside the Folk Art Collection at Compton Verney and subsequently left much of her collection to the gallery in her will.
At present, the Marx-Lambert Collection is displayed partly in a side room and partly in a cabinet at the end of a long attic gallery displaying folk art paintings and furniture. Some of the collection is kept in drawers which are currently inaccessible to visitors.
This project will:
1.Re-display the Marx-Lambert Collection in the existing display areas to highlight Marx’s career as a dynamic designer, show visitors how her work relates to other designers working at the same time, and for the first time show how her collection inspired her work. For example, you’ll be able to see how some of the shapes and patterns on the ceramics she collected reappear in her textile designs.
2.Provide more detailed information on individual pieces from her collection. Visitors will be able to visit an ‘In Focus’ display area where they will be able to discover more about one of the objects from the collection in depth. This area will be regularly updated so that different aspects of the collection; which ranges from paper weights to wool works, can be explored.
3.Showcase works by contemporary artists/designers alongside works by Enid Marx in the ‘In Focus’ display area, to highlight the designer’s ongoing influence.
4.Produce a new printed guide to accompany the re-display, so that visitors can enjoy all that the collection has to offer.
5.Set up a reading area where visitors can digest British design in relation to Marx and form links between Marx and Lambert’s book on ‘English Popular Art’ and Marx’s collection and design practice.
The re-display will take place during the winter of 2012-13 (November 2012 – February 2013) when Compton Verney is closed to the public, and will be launched when the gallery re-opens in March 2013. The DCMS/Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund has made a grant of £17,400 towards the costs of the project.
More info on the DCMS/Wolfson Fund: www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/museums_and_galleries/3378....
© Compton Verney
Compton Verney Art Gallery
DCMS/Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund - 2012
Compton Verney Art Gallery, in Warwickshire, has been awarded £17,400 to re-display the Marx-Lambert Collection.
Overview of the project
The Marx-Lambert collection is one of six permanent collections on display at Compton Verney. The purpose of this project is to re-display and reinterpret the Marx-Lambert Collection, making it more accessible to visitors and shedding new light on Marx’s work and legacy as a designer.
Enid Marx (1902-98) was one of Britain’s most important 20th century designers. She was a textile designer, an author and illustrator of children’s books, a book designer, a printmaker and a painter. She is most well-known now for her striking geometric designs of 1937 for the upholstery of London Underground trains. The Marx-Lambert Collection at Compton Verney contains work produced by Enid Marx as well as over 400 items of folk or popular art, ceramics, domestic objects, furniture and ephemera which she collected with her partner, historian Margaret Lambert (1906-95), and which inspired her work. In 1998, Marx loaned items from her collection to be displayed alongside the Folk Art Collection at Compton Verney and subsequently left much of her collection to the gallery in her will.
At present, the Marx-Lambert Collection is displayed partly in a side room and partly in a cabinet at the end of a long attic gallery displaying folk art paintings and furniture. Some of the collection is kept in drawers which are currently inaccessible to visitors.
This project will:
1.Re-display the Marx-Lambert Collection in the existing display areas to highlight Marx’s career as a dynamic designer, show visitors how her work relates to other designers working at the same time, and for the first time show how her collection inspired her work. For example, you’ll be able to see how some of the shapes and patterns on the ceramics she collected reappear in her textile designs.
2.Provide more detailed information on individual pieces from her collection. Visitors will be able to visit an ‘In Focus’ display area where they will be able to discover more about one of the objects from the collection in depth. This area will be regularly updated so that different aspects of the collection; which ranges from paper weights to wool works, can be explored.
3.Showcase works by contemporary artists/designers alongside works by Enid Marx in the ‘In Focus’ display area, to highlight the designer’s ongoing influence.
4.Produce a new printed guide to accompany the re-display, so that visitors can enjoy all that the collection has to offer.
5.Set up a reading area where visitors can digest British design in relation to Marx and form links between Marx and Lambert’s book on ‘English Popular Art’ and Marx’s collection and design practice.
The re-display will take place during the winter of 2012-13 (November 2012 – February 2013) when Compton Verney is closed to the public, and will be launched when the gallery re-opens in March 2013. The DCMS/Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund has made a grant of £17,400 towards the costs of the project.
More info on the DCMS/Wolfson Fund: www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/museums_and_galleries/3378....
© Compton Verney