Rupert Toovey’s Articles – Toovey’s Blog

Rupert Toovey Sussex Heritage – Christ’s Hospital 500

Christ’s Hospital Curator, Laura Kidner, in the newly refurbished Christ’s Hospital Museum

This week I am in the company of Laura Kidner who is the curator of the Christ’s Hospital Collection and Museum which has just completed a major refurbishment and restoration.

I have long admired Laura’s work. Throughout her career she has embraced the importance of art and objects in telling our common story. In her celebration of the procession of history, art and objects her work has sought to rebalance the narrative and tell the often forgotten, untold stories of women.

This is apparent in the restored galleries at Christ’s Hospital Museum which are now light and immediately give the impression of Laura’s vast knowledge of the school’s history. The dramatically revised layout, beautifully conceived displays and re-hang of the paintings take you from Christ’s Hospital’s beginnings to the present day. The story of Christ’s Hospitals ‘Old Blues’, both men and women, past and present are all celebrated.

Laura explains “The school has had a museum since 1994, but when part of the ceiling collapsed in 2019, it provided the unexpected opportunity to re-think and update the … displays.”

Who Do You Think We Are? at Christ’s Hospital Museum

She continues “The refurbishment project proved to be Herculean. It took four years. 40,000 artefacts had to be moved between rooms as the space was repaired alongside fundraising and planning how to showcase the school’s 500-year-old history. This involved choosing from over 100,000 historic objects to best reflect the facts, themes and stories relating to over 67,000 students educated at CH since 1552, let alone the extensive social history, traditions, and Royal links.”

Christ’s Hospital was founded in 1552 by King Edward VI. Initially 280 boys and girls were lodged and fed in the buildings of the former Grey Friars Monastery and schoolmasters were amongst the staff from the very beginning. Girls were educated at Christ’s Hospital from 1552 making it the oldest girls’ boarding school in the country.

Christ’s Hospital inhabits a unique place in the nation’s education sector providing a private school education, often without charge, to students who come from every possible ethnic and socio-economic background. Of the 900 students at Christ’s Hospital some 630 attend free or at reduced costs continuing the traditions seeded in 1552.

Laura concludes “The restoration has been a huge labour of love, but it’s already fulfilling its main objective which is to be at the heart of the school, being used and enjoyed by current CH students of all ages, Old Blues and the wider community.”

To arrange your appointment to see their new displays celebrating 500 years of Christ’s Hospital history contact Laura and her team by emailing chmuseum@christs-hospital.org.uk.

2025 Sussex Heritage Trust Awards Launched at Saltdean Lido

The restored Saltdean Lido, Brighton © Richard Fraser

More than 100 people gathered in the company of The Lord-Lieutenant of East Sussex, Andrew Blackman, as the 2025 Sussex Heritage Trust Awards were officially launched at Saltdean Lido, Brighton.

Toovey’s was proud to sponsor the launch with RH Partnership Architects.

Through its work and awards the Sussex Heritage Trust promotes and encourages best practice in our county’s built environment and landscape.

London architect, Richard W. H. Jones, designed Saltdean Lido in the International Style, an architectural movement that developed in Europe following the First World War. Importantly, it’s ‘Streamlined Moderne’ international Art Deco design encapsulates Britain’s own modernist and social aspirations for creating seaside architecture for the enjoyment of the masses. Embracing modernity Saltdean Lido’s architecture is considered to be one of the best surviving examples of lido design in the UK. In 2018 it was named by English Heritage as one of the Seven Wonders of The English Seaside.

Visitors today are left with the same impression of being on a large ocean going ship which bathers would have experienced between the wars.

Sussex Heritage Trust Chairman, David Cowan and the Lord Lieutenant of East Sussex Andrew Blackman at the launch of the 2025 Sussex Heritage Awards © Love Heart Photography

But the magnificent restoration, overseen by RH Partnership Architects, belies the fact that this beautiful building was in a terrible state and at risk despite being the only Grade II* listed lido in the country. In 2010 it was threatened by plans to develop the site into flats. The local community campaigned against this and took on the lease for the site themselves. By 2017 they had restored the pool. With support from the National Heritage Lottery Fund RH Partnership Architects and the volunteer team took on the major restoration and repair of the dilapidated building. This included the reinstatement of original features like the neon-lit signage, the chimney and spiral staircase connecting the café.

The project received a Sussex Heritage Trust Award the judges noting the quality and scale of the task of renovation and that “The project [had] succeeded in turning the building into a magnet for the community and a source of much local pride.”

The Sussex Heritage Trust’s work is as important today in promoting best practice in our county’s built environment and landscape whilst encouraging and supporting talented young people into careers in conservation, building and horticulture. I am delighted that Toovey’s, remain long-term sponsors and supporters of their important work, alongside a number of Sussex businesses including headline sponsors Thakeham.

The closing date for entries for this year’s Sussex Heritage Trust Awards is 28^th March. To find out more visit sussexheritagetrust.org.uk.

Rupert Toovey DL with David Cowan © Love Heart Photography

Maggi Hambling and the Call of the Nightingale at Pallant House Gallery

Simon Martin and artist Maggi Hambling at Pallant House Gallery © Pallant House Gallery/Sam Stephenson

The friendship between Pallant House Gallery Director, Simon Martin and the important contemporary British artist, Maggi Hambling (b.1945), was apparent in the joyous tone of their conversation as they shared the stage to launch Maggi Hambling – Nightingale Night.

Maggi is famous for the directness of her piercing gaze and insight. These qualities are apparent in her series of predominately large scale painted variations which capture the wonder of her encounter with a Nightingale.

Writing in the accompanying catalogue James Cahill describes how as part of a great friend’s birthday celebrations Maggi Hambling and a number of other guests ventured into a forest in darkness and pouring rain to a place where Nightingales were known to sing. There the Nightingale responded to the voice of folk musician Sam Lee accompanied by violin in song.

Speaking with Cahill Maggi would later recall ‘I felt touched by the sublime.’ And how she wanted to recapture ‘that sense of awe at the contemplation of bigger things.’

The qualities of strength and the ethereal are held in tension in her series of variations on the theme of the Nightingale’s song in bold abstract gold brushwork against the black ground of the night. Their strength and delicacy mirroring the Nightingale’s full throated serenade with its extraordinary variation of tone combined with an array of repeated phrases punctuated by the recurring single note of the bird’s call.

Maggi Hambling, Nightingale Night II, 2023, oil on canvas, 48 x 36 inches © Maggi Hambling

There are migratory Nightingales in the fields next to me where I live in Storrington in the Spring. But, I have only encountered the Nightingales’ song in the gentle half-light of dawn and dusk so I was unprepared for the drama and scale of Hambling’s work with their distinctive black grounds.

In these predominately large, bold, hope-filled canvases Hambling’s abstract brushwork gives voice to the music and tone of the Nightingale’s song in our imaginations – the bird unseen, its song hanging in the damp night air.

Maggi Hambling’s career spans more than six decades. Throughout she has remained provocative and prolific. She is equally renowned for her public sculpture, her numerous portraits, and paintings in which the diverse themes of nature or war, the climate emergency and self-reckoning converge.

This season’s current exhibitions at Pallant House Gallery in Chichester major on female artists including Dora Carrington, Maggi Hambling, both of which run until 27th April 2025, and Rana Begum’s exquisite installation which can be seen until the end of July.

St Barnabas and Chestnut Tree Hospices Celebrated at Toovey’s 30th Anniversary Fundraiser

Toovey’s Directors Rupert and Nick Toovey and Tom Rowsell

Hundreds of people came together from across Sussex to celebrate Toovey’s 30th Anniversary raising more than £8,000 for St Barnabas and Chestnut Tree Hospices. The evening was generously supported by Wiston and their Chalk restaurant.

These hospices are a bright light in our communities. Speaking at the party their Chair of Trustees, Mike Rymer, explained how they depend almost entirely on independent funding from donations from local people, fundraising events, grants, legacies and their charity shops. He praised the volunteers whose tireless work supports the extraordinary professional care provided to people, both young and old, with life limiting illnesses.

Chestnut Tree’s community team provide care for children and young people with life limiting illnesses to families in their own homes across Sussex and at Chestnut Tree House. St Barnabas, too, cares for some 1800 people every year in their homes and the hospice. Time and time again across the county I am told by families how extraordinary their end of life care has been. I witnessed this first hand when St Barnabas accompanied my Dad, Alan, and our family, enabling him to meet his illness with courage, grace and dignity, and to die at home surrounded by those he loved. I started Toovey’s 30 years ago with my Dad so it was fitting that these hospices were central to our celebrations. Nick Toovey and Tom Rowsell were with us in those early days and in 2018 they became equity holding Directors. It has been marvellous to share the business with such talented and principled people. Speaking at the celebrations Gary Shipton DL acknowledged that people are at the heart of all Toovey’s does. Nick, Tom and I, and our entire team share the same values serving people through their art and objects. And we firmly believe that our company should support our local charities, the arts and communities which underpin and give such richness to our lives here in Sussex.

Mike Rymer, Chair of Trustees for St Barnabas and Chestnut Tree Hospices and Rupert Toovey DL

After 30 years these values remain part of our DNA. The importance of being a family firm where people are valued, our clients and our team, has allowed us to build a regional auction house with a reputation for being a centre of expertise for the valuation and sale of art and antiques, with leading specialists and international and digital marketing.

We achieve little on our own. The best things always happen when we accompany or are accompanied by others. So I would like to offer my sincere thanks to everyone at Toovey’s, to Wiston, Chalk, The Welldiggers Arms, The Old Forge, Andrew Bernardi, the charities’ President Henry Fitzalan Howard, Earl of Arundel, our clients and friends, and to Chestnut Tree and St Barnabas Hospices for their extraordinary hope-filled work here in Sussex.

Celebrating Thirty Years Of Art & Antiques At Toovey’s

I cannot believe that it is thirty years since we started Toovey’s. Many of the passionate and dedicated people who have leading roles within the company were there in those early years.

Amongst these were my Dad, Mum and my Uncle Edward. Alongside them were my brother Nick Toovey my brother-in-law Tom Rowsell, his brother William and Chris Gale.

In 2018 Nick and Tom became equity holding Directors. It has been marvellous to share the business with such talented and principled people. We share the same values and recognise the importance of being a family firm where people are valued – our clients and our team. This has allowed us to build a regional auction house with a reputation for being a centre of expertise for the valuation and sale of art and antiques, with leading specialists and international marketing.

Every time I say lets do a fund raiser they just say yes – my thanks to them and our team.

And to Ed and his fantastic Jazz quartet

To Patrick and Cathy Roberts for such extraordinary canapes – dessert ones to come don’t rush off

To all who donated prizes to the auction.

To Wiston for sharing our values and always being so generous – thank you for sponsoring the bubbles this evening in such a good cause

And to my darling wife Teresa and our daughters, Emma and Hester – thank you – you can only do anything in life if you are supported by the people who love you most.

Juan Manuel Blanes’s oil, Gaucho on Horseback in a Uruguayan Prairie Landscape

We opened on a stormy Valentine’s night in 1995 and were overwhelmed by the support of clients and friends. Our investment in our people and tooveys.com allowed us to weather the storm of Covid. We were described as ‘the poshest click and collect in Sussex’! I must say though, it is lovely to have the salerooms packed with people again.

Alongside art and antiques people are at the heart of our business. The pleasure of accompanying people through their art, collectors’ items and antiques remains as strong as it has always been. We all value objects which allow us to speak of our lives – the prompts to fond memories. Many will also celebrate the beauty of a piece, whilst others collect in the pursuit of knowledge, continually refining and adding to the depth of their understanding of a particular field or period, training their eye to the subtle details which set exceptional objects apart. In an age which increasingly confuses information with knowledge and understanding, this is a generous, exciting and refreshing community of people to accompany.

Provenance and the human story behind individual objects or collections add a frisson to the prices achieved for them at auction. This has been reflected at Toovey’s sales again and again over the years and never more so than in the case of the large oil of a Uruguayan Guacho on horseback by Juan Manuel Blanes. The first owner of the painting was the notable Spanish aristocrat Baldomero Hyacinth de Bertodano, 7th Marquis de Moral. He lived at Cowbridge House near Malmsbury in Wiltshire and it remained with his family until it was sold at Toovey’s for a world record breaking £1,150,000.

None of this would have been possible, though, without the generous support and encouragement of the collectors, our clients, friends and supporters. On behalf of all of us at Toovey’s I would like to thank you.