Bath Holburne Museum

A day out in Bath on Saturday included a visit to the city's Victoria Art Gallery, where I confess to having been distinctly underwhelmed by an exhibition about art and sport.  Lots of small sculptures of sprotspeople of various kinds, but not my cup of tea either sports-wise nor arts-wise.  I felt this was simply attempting to cash in on the olympics year.  I am not sure whether the works had been specially commissioned: if not, I am surprised that so many small and accommodating pieces could be found, but perhaps I ma a sports dinosaur and this really is a fruitful commonwealth for sculptors.

Then I walked the length of Great Pulteney Street to visit the Holburne Museum which is a small but imposing Georgian house facing back towards Pulteney Bridge and the city.  

It was originally a hotel, so the blurb tells us, and converted into a gallery about 100 years ago.  It has had a major upgrade and extension in the past few years, only re-opening to the public about 18 months ago.  The extension is all at the rear of the building, and on first sight looks pretty dreadful - black pillars and lot of smoked glass.  My i-phone photo is not very clear but gives the general impression of the back view...

But the extension does warm on you - and on a lovely summers day, with the garden full of elegant people having elegant lunch from the museum's up-market cafe, it all looked rather splendid.  Inside there is a sizeable permanent collection including glass and ceramics as well as 18th and 19th century portraits.  

On the top floor there is space (in the new extension) for small special exhibitions.  The one currently on view is stunning: Portrait Sculpture is a study of how the human head has been used as a subject for sculpture and various forms of 3D portraiture, from classical times onwards.   This is the Silstone Head, described in the catalogue as the striking head of a North African carved in green siltstone in the 1st century BC. with incredibly detailed carving of the hair.  

The whole exhibition is a wonderful selection - there were probably less thn 40 pieces in total gathered from various homes including the V and A and the NPG - which demonstrate the enormous range of sculptural work, and how effective sculpture has been in recording the personalities and scale of our forebears - somehow more lifelike than painted portraits, and some, of course, taken from death masks and so exactly reproducing the features and form of the departed.   There is even a waxwork from Mme Tusssaud's, which looks tawdry by comparison with the 'real' sculpture - and is ironically of Sir Henry Moore, who own work was so diametrically removed from the wax-works.   The range is wide and comprehensive and includes a magnificent and hugely more-than-lifesize head by Ron Muek

                                                           Ron Mueck, Mask II, Anthony d'Offay