The Fan Museum has
over 3500 fans and fan leaves which include the splendid Hélène
Alexander collection and further gifts and bequests which have been
received since the museum’s incipience ten years ago. The
collection is comprehensive, with examples from all over the world
from the 11th century to the present day. However the collection
is particularly strong in 18th and 19th century European fans.
For conservation reasons it is not possible to
display the whole collection together at any time; therefore the
museum features two distinct displays. The first is permanent and
serves as an introduction to fans: their history, how they are made,
the materials used, and the various types and sources of fans. The
second, highlighting a particular theme, changes three times a year
to enable visitors to appreciate the many aspects and intricacies
of fans.
Major New Acquisition of a Sickert Fan
by The Fan Museum through a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund
A very important fan painted around 1889 by the British artist Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942) has been acquired through a very generous grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, augmented by further donations.
The fan, painted in gouache on vellum and mounted onto a grey mother of pearl monture (ie sticks and guards) depicts the artiste Little Dot Hetherington performing on stage at the Old Bedford Theatre, Camden . The spot-lit performer raising her face to the gods sings the song "The boy that I love is up in the gallery" (also made famous by Marie Lloyd). The subject is copied from an earlier Sickert painting and has been slightly amended to suit the fan leaf shape, which Sickert and his more famous contemporaries such as Degas were experimenting with.
The music Hall was very much the regular entertainment centre for everyman in the Victorian and Edwardian eras and for a decade such theatres (at four pence a seat) provided Sickert with subject matter. He would paint many scenes of inner-city life with its accompanying hopes and disappointment and the inspiration behind his later works very much derive from his ambiguous fascination with "tabloid" stories cut from newspapers. Sickert, a cultured bohemian, led a varied and colourful life attracting many legends and controversies. The Dot Hetherington fan was a gift to his friend and fellow painter Florence Pash (Mrs A A Humphrey) and descended in her family. We are not quite sure why he gave her such a gift but can only acknowledge the striking resonance between the obverse of a fan - which hides the face or emphasise a look - and the front of stage depicted on the fan. If this impressive early fan provides a small but evocative glimpse of the long-gone working man's London of the High Victorian era, one can only wonder what was happening behind the scene.
This fan is now on display at The Fan Museum. |
