Events & Exhibitions – Page 4

NADFAS & Toovey’s Raise £780 for Mary How Trust

NADFAS Day at Toovey's — Rupert Toovey and Chris Winter with members of the Storrington NADFAS at Toovey's

The monies are now in and Toovey’s Special Interest NADFAS Day in aid of the Mary How Trust has realised £780.

For the second year, fine art auctioneers Toovey’s, on the A24 at Washington, teamed up with the Storrington Branch of the National Association of Decorative and Fine Arts Society (NADFAS) in March to raise money for the local charity Mary How Trust. Rupert and Nicholas Toovey put on a series of lectures on Sussex as a centre for Modern British Art in the 20th century and collecting vintage postcards. The day also included lunch, a private view of the forthcoming auction and a valuation session of objects brought by the NADFAS members. NADFAS event organizer Chris Winter commented, “This event was oversubscribed last year, so Rupert kindly offered to run it again this year.”

The Mary How Trust, based at Pulborough, was set up in memory of Mary How by her husband and doctor in response to her battle with cancer. Today the charity screens around a thousand people a year, saving countless lives. Rupert Toovey, director of Toovey’s, said, “I am proud to be a patron of the Mary How Trust. The work its dedicated team does saves countless lives. It receives no funding from the NHS, though, so it is terribly important that we give generously to this exceptional local charity, especially in its Silver Jubilee year. I would like to thank the members of the Storrington NADFAS for their generous help.” The talks and lunch were given free of charge by Toovey’s so that all the proceeds could go to the Mary How Trust. Chris Winter concluded, “I would like to thank Rupert, Nicholas and all the team at Toovey’s for a memorable day.”

For more information on the Mary How Trust and how you might get involved, visit www.maryhowtrust.org

BBC Flog It! comes to Toovey’s – we Blog It!

BBC Flog It! coming to Toovey's

The popular BBC1 antiques programme Flog It!, presented by Paul Martin, is coming to Toovey’s Spring Gardens Auction Rooms on Thursday 21st and Friday 22nd February 2013. The major television show is now in its twelfth series and regularly gets an audience of two million viewers each weekday. Paul and the BBC team will be filming background footage at various times on the Thursday and auction footage throughout the Friday, for inclusion in a forthcoming series. Auctioneer on the Friday will be Rupert Toovey, who is a familiar face to many through his appearances on BBC’s Bargain Hunt. Forty featured items, selected from a Flog It! valuations day held at Guildford Cathedral on 31st January 2013, will be going under the gavel, along with the usual host of antique furnishings and collectables offered every month at Toovey’s. The auction commences at 10.00 am. Click here for viewing times and details of all Toovey’s forthcoming auctions.

Please note: we completely respect the wishes of any of our customers who would like to attend the sale but not be filmed. Designated areas will be made available by the BBC for bidders who wish to remain out of camera shot.

Chris Gale visits the Brighton Toy & Model Museum

Volks Model — Daddy Long Legs Electric Railway Model at Brighton Toy and Model Museum (on loan from Volks' Electric Railway Association)

On Saturday 2nd February, Toovey’s resident Toy, Doll and Game specialist, Chris Gale visited the Brighton Toy and Model Museum. Attending a talk given by Ian Gledhill about the Brighton inventor Magnus Volk (1851-1937).

It was Volk who established the first phone link in Brighton. He also installed the first electric light bulb and was responsible for the beginning of the city’s electrification. One of his many inventions was the first electric railway in the world – Volk’s Railway which has been running along Brighton Seafront for 129 years. The other not less remarkable creation and probably the most recognisable was the Brighton and Rottingdean Seashore Railway (Daddy Long Legs).

Chris said “Ian gave an enthusiastic and educational talk with photographs and a very rare short film of the Daddy Long Legs in action.”

Also on display at the museum, which Toovey’s sponsor, is a wonderful collection of toys and games including Hornby, Marklin, Bassett Lowke, Corgi Toys, Dinky Toys, dolls, and soft toys. Chris now turns his attention to deadlining his forthcoming Specialist Sale of Toys on 27th February, in preparation for the auction on Tuesday 19th March.

Dr Geoffrey Sparrow (1887-1969)

A nationally important comic artist and illustrator is given a one man show at Horsham Museum and Art Gallery this September. Dr Sparrow pursued his hobby while serving the residents of the ancient market town of Horsham for half of the 20th Century. His importance on the national scene was recognised back in 2001 when Horsham Museum obtained a grant from the V&A Purchase Grant fund to buy some of his prints, aquatints and original artwork. 11 years later the Museum is holding a major retrospective on an artist who follows in the tradition of Rowlandson, Leech and Alkin, in capturing the foibles and characters of both man and beast.

Dr Sparrow grew up in a Devonshire Home, as his autobiography ‘Foxes and Physic‘ states “in such an atmosphere of red coats, horses, hounds, terriers and old sporting prints on the wall I became thoroughly soaked in the tradition of fox hunting and have always held old Jorrocks’ opinion that all time not spent in hunting is wasted.” He studied medicine at Cambridge and Barts, going into medicine as “something had to be chosen… I was offered the law, medicine or the church: didn’t like an uncle who was a solicitor, so that was out; our parson was rather stout and greasy and preached long and dull sermons, and away with that, so there remained medicine.”

Dr Sparrow arrived in Horsham in 1919 having served as a doctor in the First World War where he was awarded a Military Cross. He co-wrote a book about the campaigns he fought in: ‘On Four Fronts with the Royal Naval Division‘. The volume was peppered with comic masterpieces, many of which were taken from his diaries which now reside at the Imperial War Museum. Once settled in Horsham he observed everyday life and developed a fond affection for the place and people. During the Second World War he saw military service and at the end of the war he retired from medical practise devoting his life to hunting and art. He joined Brighton and Hove Art School where every Friday he would learn etching and aquatinting.

The exhibition of over 35 works of art collected over the last 20 years reveals a quality of illustration, line and observational skills that mark out Dr Sparrow’s drawings from the humdrum. Through his quick sketches he spans some 50 years of life in Horsham town and field with a fascination for the hunting, the absurd and the ironic. The illustrations were always done with a sense of soft humour , making them sketches that could delight the wall of the Horsham gentlefolk rather than the savage satire that appeals to the lovers of Gilray.

'The West Street Nuisance, Horsham', etching by Dr Geoffrey Sparrow

The exhibition ‘A Host of Sparrows’ (for a grouping of Sparrows as ornithologists and the Doctor would know is called a Host) opens on Tuesday 4th September and runs until 13th October 2012 at Horsham Museum and Art Gallery, located in the Causeway, which Dr Sparrow referred to as “a curious old cul-de-sac leading to the church”. Toovey’s forthcoming auction of Selected Fine Oil Paintings, Watercolours, Drawings and Prints on 12th September, also includes four works by Dr Geoffrey Sparrow, each highlighting the mastery and wit of this Horsham-based artist.

Major Exhibition at Horsham Museum

Ivon Hitchens - Autumn — 'Autumn' by Ivon Hitchens, one of the exhibits at Horsham Museum & Art Gallery

Thanks to amazing good fortune Horsham Museum & Art Gallery is able to showcase work by Henry Moore, Jacob Epstein, Paul Nash, Ivon Hitchens, Stanley Spencer and twelve other greats of British art in a temporary exhibition called ‘A Summer of Great British Art.’

Good fortune is the key to an amazing opportunity that has blessed Horsham this summer. The University of Chichester’s Otter Gallery had the good fortune to have a major refurbishment. It also had the good fortune to have a fantastic collection of contemporary British art. While it is being refurbished 17 pictures from its collection are being loaned to Horsham Museum & Art Gallery. This is an incredibly rare opportunity, literally once in a lifetime, as galleries don’t often lend out the crème of their collection, yet thanks to an investment by the University in its facilities, that is exactly what University of Chichester’s Otter Gallery is doing.

The exhibition, which runs for two months from 17th July to 15th September, was only possible through the support of Toovey’s, the Washington-based auction house that assisted with the insurance of this major collection of art. For two months the art will adorn the walls of Horsham Museum’s recently opened art gallery, a venture which has attracted a whole new audience to the Museum. An audience that would go to the Tate to see a David Mitchie, or Elizabeth Blackadder, or Richard Eurich, or a Walter Sickert can now come to Horsham to see these works for the summer of 2012 only.

2012 is a remarkable summer for Britain with sporting and cultural highlights. For the town of Horsham it is also a remarkable summer that started with Matisse and now with this outstanding exhibition on display, an event only made possible through the work of Horsham District Arts, Toovey’s and The University of Chichester’s Otter Gallery. It is an exhibition that will go down in the annals of the town’s cultural history.

‘A Summer of Great British Art’ opens at Horsham Museum on 17th July and closes 15th September 2012.