Rebecca Wright At Dennis Severs’ House
Illustrator Rebecca Wright sent me her fine portfolio of drawings of Dennis Severs’ House which it is my pleasure to publish for the first time publicly today
The Smoking Room
“When I first saw Dennis Severs’ House on television a few years ago I immediately wanted to visit, it looked beautiful and eccentric. I am an illustrator and I was looking for a project. History, architecture and the curious have always interested me, so the house was a perfect fit.
Between jobs it has taken a year and a half to draw each of the main rooms, now I would like to draw the landings and staircases. I began with the front room on the ground floor and finished in the back cellar, and I found some rooms more complicated than others to draw.
The Ladies’ Drawing Room on the first floor took ages because of all the different fabrics and crockery. It has been a lovely experience, studying each room while practicing drawing and experimenting with lighting to get the atmosphere right. One of my favourites is the Smoking Room which has a lot of details like the bird cage and the knocked-over bottles, and the smoke drifting in the sunlight.
I placed Madge the cat is in each of my pictures because the house is her home and she is the presiding spirit.” – Rebecca Wright
The Kitchen
The Drawing Room
The Victorian Parlour decked for Christmas
The Ladies’ Room
The Blue Bedroom
The Regency Room
The Charles Dickens Room
The Paupers’ Attic
The Back Cellar
Illustrations copyright © Rebecca Wright
Dennis Severs House, 18 Folgate St, Norton Folgate, E1 6BX
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A Date For The Bell Foundry Public Inquiry
The Public Inquiry called by Secretary of State, Robert Jenrick, into the future of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry commences on Tuesday 5th May and runs until Friday 15th May, with eight days of hearings. It is being held at Tower Hamlets Town Hall, Mulberry Place, 5 Clove Crescent, E14 2BG, and is open to the public up to a capacity of two hundred.
Please put these dates in your diary now because we need as many people as possible to attend to demonstrate the massive strength of public feeling that exists to save the bell foundry.
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Nigel Taylor, Tower Bell Manager
Four Hundred Years at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry
Pearl Binder at Whitechapel Bell Foundry
Dorothy Rendell at Whitechapel Bell Foundry
Hope for The Whitechapel Bell Foundry
A Petition to Save the Bell Foundry
Save the Whitechapel Bell Foundry
John Dempsey’s Portraits
Fifty Years Porter, Charing Cross, 1824
It is my delight to present John Dempsey’s street portraits from the eighteen-twenties held in the collection of the Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery. Originally attributed to George Scharf, they were identified as the work of John Dempsey (1802-74) by curator David Hansen who discovered a folio of fifty-one portraits in 1996 in a drawer labelled ‘U’ for unknown.
Dempsey was an itinerant jobbing artist without any formal training who created ‘Likenesses of Public Characters’ in London and the provincial cities of England, as he travelled around in search of commissions for portrait miniatures and silhouettes. No record exists of any exhibitions and in 1845, he was declared bankrupt. Yet his achievement is unique and enduring.
In spite of Dempsey’s unconventional perspective and disproportionate figures, he created portraits full of humanity that evoke the presence of street people and the outcast poor with compassion and vitality. These are portraits of individuals and they are full of life. As an itinerant artist in an age that did not distinguish between street traders and beggars, he dignified his fellow travellers through his portraits. He understood their lives because he shared their precarious existence.
When I first saw these pictures, I was startled by how familiar they appeared to me and I assumed this was because I have spent so much time looking at prints of The Cries of London. But then I realised that I recognised the demeanour and expression of John Dempsey’s portraits because I see them, their crew and their kin, every day as I walk around the streets of London two centuries later.
Sharp, Orange Man, Colchester, 1823
Watercress, Salisbury
Black Charley, Bootmaker, Norwich, 1823
Muffin Man
Mary Croker, Mat Woman, Colchester, 1823
Sam’l Hevens, Old Jew, 1824
Charles M’Gee, Crossing Sweeper, London, c 1824
Old Bishop, Pieman, Harwich
Woolwich, 1824
Match Woman, Woolwich, 1824
Mark Custings (commonly called Blind Peter) and his boy, Norwich, 1823
Copeman, Gardener, Yarmouth
A Bill Poster, 1825
The Doorkeeper, Royal Managerie, Exeter ‘Change, (London) 1824
Images reproduced courtesy of Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery
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Phil Maxwell’s East End Dreams
Cheshire St Cafe
Phil Maxwell no longer lives in the East End, which has been the primary subject of his work as a photographer in recent decades. Between 1982 and 2015, when he left, Phil took more photographs of Brick Lane than anyone else and now he returns regularly from his new home in Liverpool to keep up with the old neighbourhood. Yet Phil stills dreams of the East End, as his new haunted images reveal, revisiting his classic black and white photographs from the eighties with emotive painterly colour.
Joan Lauder, Cat Lady of Spitalfields, outside Christ Church
On Brick Lane
Under Brick Lane railway bridge
Trolley lady on Sclater St
Trolley lady on Vallance Rd
On Brick Lane
On Brick Lane
In Grimsby St
On Brick Lane
On Brick Lane
On Brick Lane
On Roman Rd
In Whitechapel Rd
On Brick Lane
In Swanfield St
In Swanfield St
On Brick Lane
On Brick Lane
In Cheshire St
Photographs copyright © Phil Maxwell
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Phil Maxwell in Bethnal Green Rd
In Search Of The Alleys Of Old London
Almost a century later, I set out in the footsteps of Alan Stapleton seeking London’s Alleys, Byways & Courts that he drew and published in a book in 1923, which I first encountered in the archive at Bishopsgate Institute.
It is a title that is an invitation to one as susceptible as myself to meander through the capital’s forgotten thoroughfares, and my surprising discovery was how many of these have survived in recognisable form today.
Clearly a kindred spirit, Stapleton prefaces his work with the following quote from Dr Johnson (who lived in a square at the end of an alley) – ‘If you wish to have a notion of the magnitude of this great city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares, but survey its innumerable little lanes and courts.’
Jerusalem Passage, Clerkenwell
Jerusalem Passage, Clerkenwell
St John’s Passage, Clerkenwell
St John’s Passage, Clerkenwell
Passing Alley, Clerkenwell
Passing Alley, Clerkenwell
In Pear Tree Court, Clerkenwell
In Pear Tree Court, Clerkenwell
Faulkner’s Alley, Clerkenwell
Faulkner’s Alley, Clerkenwell
Red Lion Passage, Holborn
Red Lion Passage is now Lamb’s Conduit Passage, Holborn
Devereux Court, Strand
Devereux Court, Strand
Corner of Kingly St & Foubert’s Place, Soho
Corner of Kingly St & Foubert’s Place, Soho
Market St, Mayfair
Market St is now Shepherd Market, Mayfair
Crown Court, St James
Crown Court is now Crown Place, St James
Rupert Court, Soho
Rupert Court, Soho
Meard St, Soho
Meard St, Soho
Alan Stapleton’s images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
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My Advanced Blog-Writing Course
On Sunday, I wrapped up the last of my ‘How to Write a Blog that People Will Want to Read’ courses that I have been undertaking for the past eight years in Spitalfields.
In March, I am running two Advanced Blog -Writing Courses for those who already have a blog and want to develop and refine it. I wrote privately to all the graduates of my previous courses and the demand was such that I am doing it twice.
This means there are a few places available on the weekend of 7th/8th March and on the weekend of 28th/29th March. If you already have a blog or have experience of writing, you are eligible and welcome to attend, just drop me a line to SpitalfieldsLife@gmail.com and I will send you the details.
This is your last chance to spend a weekend with me in an eighteenth century weaver’s house in Fournier St, enjoy delicious lunches, savour freshly baked cakes from historic recipes, discover the secrets of Spitalfields Life and learn how to improve your own blog.
East End Women Photographers
Contributing Photographer Sarah Ainslie has curated an exhibition of fellow female photographers who have photographed the East End, WE STAND TOGETHER, Women’s photographs of women 1970-2020. The show runs at the Brady Centre, Hanbury St, E1 5HU, from Monday 2nd until Saturday 28th March. All are welcome at the private view on Tuesday 3rd March from 6pm.
Marketa Luskacova – Street musicians
Marketa Luskacova – Three girls
Patricia Niven – Portrait of Jagir Kaur
Patricia Niven – Jagir Kaur in her Princelet St kitchen
Chris Kelly – Manda Helal at her Cable St allotment
Chris Kelly – Anwara Begum at her Cable St allotment
Rachel Ferriman – Portrait of Lucy Yates
Rachel Ferriman – Portrait of Alison Light
Moyra Peralta – Portrait of Peggy
Moyra Peralta – Portrait of Mary reading the Big Issue
Sarah Ainslie – Portrait of Emily Shepherd in her wardrobe
Sarah Ainslie – Portrait of Ruhela in her wardrobe
Tamara Rabea Still – Portrait of Leigh Mayo in Ridley Rd Market
Tamara Rabea Stoll – Portrair of Angelique in Ridley Rd Market
Lucinda Douglas Menzies – Portrait of Val Wilmer
Lucinda Douglas Menzies – Portrait of Lutfun Rahman at Spitalfields City Farm
Jenny Lewis – Portrait of Sonia with Florenca
Jenny Lewis – Portrait of Xanthe with Louie
Julie Cook – Portrait of Stacey Clare
Julie Cook – Portrait of Kitty Velour
Hussina Raja – Portraits of Mehreen Ahmed, Mohona Qadar & Riamaz-Saich
Hussina Raja – Portraits of Akuc Bol & Bel Odawa
Paula Roush – Blackchapel Flaneuse
Paula Roush – Blackchapel Flaneuses
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