Event - Gold medal on show (Newark)

A gold medal won by a Newark-born artist at the 1928 Olympic Games has gone on show at the Town Hall museum.

Mr William Nicholson was awarded the medal for graphic design at the games in the Netherlands.

At the time the Olympics also awarded medals for architecture, literature, music, painting, and sculpture, a practice that continued until 1952.

Mr Nicholson’s medal for his sports picture almanac, Un Almanach de douze Sports, forms the centrepiece of the exhibition, along with personal items, including his dressing gown, waistcoat and bow tie, photographs and sketches on loan from his grandson, Mr Desmond Banks, of London.

Museum curator Mrs Patty Temple said Mr Nicholson only found out at the last minute that his work had been submitted by his publisher Heinemann and had won a medal.

She said: “He nearly didn’t make it to the award ceremony.

“He had to run out of his house and get on the first plane to Amsterdam, which was the first time he had ever been on a plane, and he just made it in time.”

Mrs Temple said the exhibition aimed to give visitors an insight into what Mr Nicholson was like as a man as well as an artist.

She said: “We wanted to select some of the more personal items but there really was so much to choose from we could have easily filled the whole room.”

Mrs Temple said as well as linking with the Olympics the exhibition also had a strong civic connection as both Mr Nicholson’s father and grandfather were mayors of Newark.

Mrs Jill Campbell, a member of the Friends of Newark Town Hall Museum, helped to put the exhibition together.

She said Mr Nicholson had many influential friends, including Winston Churchill, who he tutored in art during the 1930s.

Mrs Temple said she was hoping Mr Banks would be able to visit the exhibition along with his mother, Lisa, Mr Nicholson’s daughter, who is 91.

The exhibition continues until Saturday, June 30.

From: http://www.newarkadvertiser.co.uk/articles/news/Gold-medal-on-show

News - Historic St Leger paintings set to fetch £1,500 at finishing post

TWO 180-year-old colour prints of the St Leger at Doncaster could sell for a total of £1,500 at auction next week.

The 16 by 20 inch prints were produced in the early 1830s and are entitled ‘Doncaster Races - The Horses Starting For The Great St Leger Stakes’ and ‘Doncaster Races - The Horses Passing The Judges’ Stand’.

They are among around 200 equestrian and British sporting prints put up for sale by wealthy Chicago banker and financial consultant Norman R Bobins and which could sell for more than a quarter of a million pounds at the two hour sale.

Both are hand-finished aquatints, a method of etching on copper with the use of resin and nitric acid, and are copies of pictures by James Pollard, a London coaching and sporting artist who collaborated with the illustrious 19th century artist John Frederick Herring senior.

Herring started his painting career in Doncaster and went on to become the foremost equestrian artist of his day, producing paintings of 33 St Leger winners.

For one of his pictures, ‘The Doncaster Great St Leger 1839’, Herring painted the racehorses and jockeys while Pollard completed the intricate background of grandstand architecture and crowds.

The Doncaster pictures show top-hatted toffs standing on their horse-drawn coaches drawn up alongside the course for a better view of the race.

Both prints will be auctioned at Dreweatts at Donnington Priory, Berkshire, next Wednesday.

The St Leger was first run in Doncaster in 1776 and moved to its present day home of Town Moor from Cantley Common in 1779.

The race is named after Lt Col Anthony St Leger, an Irish gentleman soldier and governor of St Lucia.

From: http://www.thestar.co.uk/lifestyle/historic_st_leger_paintings_set_to_fetch_1_500_at_finishing_post_1_3280416