fri 29/03/2024

Art Gallery: The Museum of Everything | reviews, news & interviews

Art Gallery: The Museum of Everything

Art Gallery: The Museum of Everything

Walter Potter's curious world brought to life in a Peter Blake exhibition of outsider art

Whether you think the weird world of Walter Potter is cute or creepy, there’s little doubt that the Victorian taxidermist, and creator of humorous tableaux in which fluffy creatures enact human scenarios, has acquired some standing in the art world. When his museum collection went under the hammer at Bonham’s in 2003, Damien Hirst, David Bailey, Harry Hill and Peter Blake each bid for valuable items. Now each has contributed to an exhibition that not only recreates part of Potter’s original museum, but invites us to celebrate the quirky art of the outsider artist.

Baby rabbits that pore over their schoolbooks and squirrels who smoke cigars, squabble and get up to mischief are among the many, some might say macabre, delights of Potter’s world. However, his best-loved characters were kittens, and though his most famous kitten tableau is unfortunately not on loan (it’s owned by a collector in the US), The Kittens' Wedding can still be seen on an exhibition poster (pictured below). Meticulously detailed, right down to the frilly undergarments, it was the last tableau Potter created, in 1890 (he died in 1918, aged 83). All were originally displayed in The Potter Museum of Curiosity in Bramber, Potter’s home village in West Sussex. When it closed in the Seventies, the collection moved to Brighton, then Arundel and lastly to the Jamaica Inn in Cornwall, until it was finally dispersed at auction. All the items went to private collectors.

As well as Potter’s extraordinary curiosities, part of Blake’s own studio has also been recreated. A life-long collector of self-taught and folk art and popular memorabilia, the items on view range from a miniature fairground by retired Norfolk farmer Arthur Windley to papier mâché puppets by vaudeville entertainer Harry Vernon and a series of pin-up tapestries by ex-serviceman Ted Willcox.

  • Exhibition #3 at the Museum of Everything can be seen until Christmas

To view gallery below click on first image.

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1. Clown and boxer puppets, Harry Vernon, c1920/30

2. Happy Families, Walter Potter, c1850/1900

3. The Upper Ten, or Squirrel's Club,  Walter Potter

4. Two-headed sheep, Walter Potter

5. Charlie Chaplin puppet head c1930

6. Pin-up tapestry, Ted Willcox, c1950s

7. Handmade fairground, Arthur Windley, 2010

8. Jig doll, c1940

9. Boxing squirrels, anonymous, after Walter Potter

10 Boxing squirrels, anonymous, after Walter Potter

11. Squirrels, Walter Potter

12. The Potter Museum of Curiosity poster (The Kittens' Wedding, Walter Potter, 1890)

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