“Beer, Wine and Spirits”

 On Thursday, 12 October, Friends gathered in Kelvingrove to hear the first in a series of free talks by Burrell Guides and were treated to an extremely amusing but very informative talk about alcohol by John Rattenbury.

We learned of the origins of beer making in Mesopotamia c 7000 BC and continued through the ages with the introduction of wine and finally spirits.

I learned a lot about items in the Burrell collection and facts like “tonnage” referring to a ship’s cargo comes from the word “tun”, meaning barrel, and the cargo was taxed according to how many “tuns” or barrels of wine it could hold.

The only thing which could have improved on the talk was if we had been able to sample some of the drinks being discussed!

The talks continue to be held on the second Thursday of the month at 2.00pm.

Liz Dent

Tea with John Byrne

Friends were invited by the staff at the Glasgow Museums shop to Afternoon Tea at the St Enoch Centre on the 11^th October. The room in which we met was comfortable and decorated with art work from schools. We had come for a conversation with John Byrne about his work as an artist and author and the questions covered a variety of topics and were answered with grace and humour.  Many of us left with signed postcards of his portrait of Billy Connolly and copies of his book. It was a pleasant afternoon and we thank Catherine McGurk for organising it and for chairing the meeting.

Courtesy of Frances Dryburgh

Launch of book “Deep in the Heart of Your Brain

On Monday 2 October, Friends, at the kind invitation Glasgow Life, attended the launch of the publication of the book “Deep in the Heart of Your Brain” in the splendid setting of the Gallery of Modern Art.

The book was the part of the recent exhibition of the same name by Jackie Donachie and recorded research and interviews with a group of women affected by myotonic dystrophy.

Both Duncan Dornan and Jackie Donachie expressed their thanks to FoGM for supporting the publication of this book and from what they said it was clear that artworks such as Jackie’s exhibition were a positive influence on research and care in the field of genetics.

We were able to view the video of “Hazel” a key work of the 2016 exhibition and, despite the sound quality in GOMA, we found it to be a moving and involving experience.

It was good to be able to hold the beautifully produced book ( available in the shop at GOMA) in our hands and feel that our grant had contributed something positive to both art and medical research.

Liz Dent

Tapestries from the Burrell collection

 Rebecca Quinton talked to the Friends on 27 September about the tapestries and the book which has just been published by Glasgow museums. She entitled her talk A Hunt for Fidelity and ably led us from the 14^th century to the 17^th century with examples of tapestries in the collection. She not only gave us the date of the tapestry but also its origin. Many of these come from the northern countries, from the Southern Netherlands, from France and from Germany. The tapestries varied in size from a small tapestry, which could be hung in a normal room, to very large tapestries designed for hanging in churches and great halls. The book covers about 200 tapestries and Becky covered nearly 40 of them! We are grateful to her for a clear, beautifully illustrated and comprehensive lecture.

Art of Power

Masterpieces from the Bute Collection

A group of Friends visited the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow University to see the exhibition of paintings from the collection of Lord Bute. We were introduced to this by Dr Peter Robinson, curator. Many of us had heard of Lord Bute as a Prime Minister in the reign of George III but we were interested to hear of his previous life as a tutor to the young George III and then of his subsequent career. His interests were Art and Botany and indeed he published a nine volume book on Flora. He was a friend of Linnaeus and knew Joseph Banks who was the botanist with Captain Cook on his voyage to Australia. Both these interests are covered in the exhibition.

The paintings on show at the Hunterian are mostly small paintings from Dutch and Flemish artists and they are hung as they would have been at Mount Stuart. This is a delightful exhibition and we are most grateful to Dr Robinson for giving his time to explain it. Many of us will visit again.

The Hunterian