greatest Victorian painter ever? Alma Tadema

The Dutch born and educated artist Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912) got married in 1863, and the couple spent their honeymoon touring Italy. This trip had a profound effect on his artistic life as he was inspired by the classical ruins in Rome and Pompeii. Tadema later moved to London in 1870 and made it his permanent home.

Alma-Tadema had painted a number of Egyptian themes early in his career eg Egyptian Chess Players, 1865, is now in a private collection. An Egyptian Widow, which was painted in 1872, is now in Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum. Joseph, Overseer of Pharaoh's Granaries, completed in 1874, is now in the Dahesh Museum of Art New York. These paintings were big, bold and ambitious, but not yet stunningly beautiful.

He travelled to Egypt in 1902 to attend the opening of the Aswan Dam, guest of engineer and project chief for the dam, Sir John Aird. [Winston Churchill was another member of the party]. Aird was already known as a great patron of the arts, and he may well have brought Alma Tadema on the trip to commission another painting from the artist for the Aird collection.

Alma Tadema, Finding of Moses, 1904, 213 cm x 138 cm

Alma Tadema was not a young man in 1902, yet he quickly fell in love with Egypt, just as he had fallen in love years ago in his travels to Pompeii. He offered Aird three subject options for the painting; Aird opted for The Finding of Moses and asked that his daughter be the model for Pharaoh's daughter being carried on the litter. Many of the Egyptian motifs were already located in Alma Tadema's sketchbooks from earlier years, so whichever Egyptian theme Aird chose would have been doable.

Since it was a very large painting, 213cm wide and 138 cm high, and very detailed, Alma-Tadema had to work on the canvas for two years. His works were always amazing for the diverse ways in which human skin, soft clothing and hard marble were painted. The fine execution and brilliant colour work of his earlier paintings were even more outstanding in Moses, but this time his lush pink flowers were shades of blue. The Finding of Moses was completed in 1904 and Aird happily paid £5,250 for the splendid work, full of classical motifs.

This work was exhibited twice by British Royal Academy, in 1905 and in 1913. And it was displayed for several weeks at the Metropolitan Museum in New York in 1973.

Some of Alma-Tadema's best exposure came via a very public display of his works - three of his paintings were exhibited at the 1904 World's Fair in St Louis: The Coliseum, At the Shrine of Venus and Caracalla: AD 211. These works would have been seen by millions of people, people who might not ordinarily go to art exhibitions.

Alma Tadema, Caracalla AD 211, painted in 1902

The Finding of Moses had been sold in 1995 for USA $2.8 million, so Sotheby’s New York knew what sort of price range to expect. In the event they sold the painting for $36 million in Nov 2010, nearly ten times the pre-sale estimate and a new record for Alma Tadema at auction.

The amount of money is fascinating for two reasons. Firstly The Finding Of Moses is, in my opinion, one of Alma Tadema’s best paintings. So it probably deserved to make a record amount. But it clearly shows the seismic swings in art taste. Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema was hugely popular in his own lifetime, desperately disliked from the 1930s until 1970 or so, and now (presumably) hugely popular again.

If you can believe a story told in Art News, a London dealer sold The Finding of Moses in 1955 to a local couple for $900. They paid for it in the gallery, took the painting, and left. An hour later the painting was found in a rubbish bin behind the auction room - the couple had discarded the canvas since they only wanted the frame. The dealer then offered the work free to museums in Britain if they would frame it and hang it, but no museum took the offer. Presumably there were some red faces in Britain when the $36 million auction price was revealed in 2010.

Another thing about taste. Until now the painting has lived in either Britain or the USA. After the 2010 auction, the painting moved to either Russia or China, suggesting that a taste for the Victorian revival has probably globalised.

Trains, whales, wines and wild New Zealand scenery

The rail journey offered by Coastal Pacific was the longest railway construction project in New Zealand, starting in 1875. Prior to its completion, there was no direct train service that ran between Picton and Christchurch.

The Coastal Pacific train with coast on one side, snowy mountains on the other

I had been on a scenic railway tour in the south island of New Zealand before, but I had assumed that the massive death toll and destruction from the Christchurch earth quake in 2011 would have ended the Picton-Christchurch trip. As Anthony Dennis reported, however, the Coastal Pacific journey is up and running again, better than ever.

The Coastal Pacific train journey travels between the delightful port of Picton and Christchurch, the South Island’s largest city. This journey is a scenic feast of New Zealand, with the Kaikoura mountain ranges on one side of the train and the Pacific Ocean coast line on the other. The scenery along this rugged coastline is enjoyed via either the large panoramic windows in the normal carriages or an open air, breezy viewing carriage.

The Coastal Pacific train takes visitors through some of New Zealand’s finest horticultural and farmland areas, to see amazing wildlife such as dolphins, seals and penguins.

Whale watching in Kaikoura, on board the Tiki Touring boat

Along the way the train passes though Kaikoura. As far as I can see in the town’s web pages, Captain Robert Fyfe became Kaikoura's earliest European settler in 1843. He established Waiopuka, the first shore whaling station near where his house, built in 1860, can still be visited. Other whaling stations soon followed at South Bay, but after 1850, whale numbers steadily declined and the industry became uneconomic. Today all marine mammals are protected in New Zealand.

The town actively promotes itself a popular stop off for those passengers who choose to immerse themselves in the sheer drama and beauty of this place with its majestic alpine scenery, beautiful rugged coastline, Maori culture and amazing ocean wildlife. Visitors can and do break their journey to sail on the whale watching boats or to swim with the dolphins, literally.

vineyards in Blenheim

Or jump off at Blenheim to see the Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre. Built around one of the world’s largest collections of original and replica World War 1 aircraft, the collection includes rare, crafted trench art, personal items belonging to the Red Baron and realistic scenes created for the Knights of the Sky exhibition.

The service runs in both directions between Christchurch and Picton daily, stopping enroute for passengers at Rangiora, Waipara, Mina, Kaikoura, Seddon and Blenheim. The trip takes 5 hours 20 minutes, one way, with new café cars to sample the local food and wine.

 New Zealand's South Island.

I have marked Picton, Blenheim, Kaikoura, Waipara, Rangiora and Christchurch

From May to September, KiwiRail’s Coastal Pacific train service between Christchurch and Picton will operate a reduced winter timetable i.e only on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays. So while winter scenery is more spectacular, summer is the most flexible time to travel.

Family health and the Peckham Experiment: 1926-50

Throughout the history of this blog, I have been interested in a growing medical concern for fresh air, sea-water, sun, beach huts, walking gardens, pavilions, pleasure piers, lidos, healthy food and physical fitness.  The problem was that wealthy families could always afford to pay for holiday time in a spa resort or a vigorous ski holiday in the Alps. But what happened to families with inadequate housing, no paid holidays in the fresh air and little access to lidos and pleasure piers?

Swimming pool and diving platform, designed by architect Owen Williams in 1934.

Pioneer Health Centre was specifically set up by a husband and wife medical team (Dr George Williamson d1953 and Dr Innes Pearse d1978) in Peckham, a working class suburb of South London. Motivated by modern ideas of hygiene and good health, the founders wanted to study how light, air, openness and vigorous exercise could be enjoyed by working families and could influence their health outcomes. They did not want to run an illness service; rather they insisted on promoting conditions for personal, family and social well-being.

From 1926-9, the project was started in a small way in St Mary's Road, to serve families living within walking distance. The initial data were written up by the doctors and funding was sought to build a larger centre. Pioneer Health Centre then re-opened in 1935 in a purpose-built piece of modernist architecture.

I am impressed by how the architect, Owen Williams, used modern techniques so that the architecture could play an active role in the Pioneer Health Centre’s philosophy. For example the walls of glass around the Centre were intended to
a] maximise the natural light and
b] retain a structural transparency, representing informality and a welcoming attitude to the community.

The large swimming pool was covered by a glazed roof; all windows could be fully opened, allowing natural air to circulate inside. A flat roof alongside the pool provided ample space for open-air gym classes, as we can see from the photo. Older children had a covered playground that opened directly onto the lovely gardens.

Drs Williamson and Pearse recruited 950 local families to be part of the health-care experiment. For a shilling a week, the families had access to a range of activities eg physical exercise, swimming, games & workshops. Perhaps locals couldn't afford a shilling a week, but the goal was to make the health centre feel like a club which belonged to the families, not an outside charity.

Members were asked to take part in a formal health check each year, and their health was informally monitored as they participated in activities from week to week. The only traditional health treatment on offer was contraception.

Gym class on flat roof top

The core facilities were accommodated by the architect eg cafeteria, games rooms, pool, nursery and gym. The members were actively encouraged to initiate their own choice of classes and activities, using the facilities offered by the Centre at no extra cost eg dress making, ballroom dancing. Self help was the buzz word.

According to Transition Town Tooting, the doctors also recognised the importance of good nutrition, and had a farm providing the centre with fresh, organic produce.

The Centre closed down during World War Two, but was restored and reopened as soon as the soldiers had been demobilised. Alas the bright and breezy Centre finally closed in 1950. It failed for different reasons: firstly it was concerned exclusively with the study and cultivation of health, not with the treatment of disease; secondly it was based exclusively on a limited suburban locality; thirdly its basis was contributory and not free; and finally it didn’t conform to the newly developed NHS structure. But what an amazing concept it had been between 1926 and 1950.

scalloped-glass bay windows right across the front of the Pioneer Health Centre (Pioneer Health Foundation photo)

The old archives from the Pioneer Health Centre, including the medical data collected during the experimental years, are now in the Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine.  And a review document, called The Pioneer Health Centre Peckham London, was published in 1949 by the National Trust for the Promotion and Study of Health. For an excellent analysis of the rather radical politics involved in self help and in cooperative health facilities, see Anarchism and the welfare state: the Peckham Health Centre by David Goodway.