An Artist's Village G.F. and Mary Watts in Compton

by Bills, Mark; Underwood, Hilary; Franklin-Gould, Veronica; Greenhow, Desna; Hunt, Perdita; Hilary, Catherine

• ISBN13: 9780856676963
• ISBN10: 0856676969
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-07-15
• Publisher: Philip Wilson Publishers

Summary

The book tells the story of the impact of G.F. Watts, a major nineteenth-century artist, and his wife Mary Watts on Compton, a small village in Surrey which became their artists' retreat and where they built the Watts Gallery, the Compton pottery, and the extraordinary Cemetery Chapel.

Author Biography

Mark Bills is curator of Watts Gallery. Formerly he was senior curator of paintings, prints, and drawings at the Museum of London and Visual Arts Officer at the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum. He has published widely on eighteenth-century and particularly nineteenth-century art, including William Powell Frith and G.F. Watts, Victorian Visionary, and numerous articles for magazines including Burlington Magazine and Apollo. He has curated national and international exhibitions including A Victorian Salon, at the Dahesh Museum, New York and Satirizing London, at the Museum of London with the accompanying book The Art of Satire: London in Caricature, also published by PWP.

Table of Contents

Foreword -- Simon Thurley, Chief Executive, English Heritage * ‘Two artists who are of just the same mind concerning their ideals of art’: George Frederic Watts (1817-1904) and Mary Seton Watts (1849-1938) -- Mark Bills * Limnerslease: ‘Only a great artist can make a house look like this’ -- Mark Bills * Mary Watts, the Home Arts and Industries Association and Compton -- Hilary Underwood * Mary Watts and the Creation of Watts Chapel -- Veronica Franklin Gould * The Symbolism of Watts Chapel -- Desna Greenhow * Compton Pottery -- Hilary Underwood * The Watts Picture Gallery -- Mark Bills * The Future of Watts Village in Compton -- Perdita Hunt * Appendix: Mary Watts’s Ceiling Decoration at Limnerslease -- Catherine Hilary * Chronology