Blog

From 12 to 17 July this year, artists Hayley Field and Jacqueline Utley, from the collaborative project Obscure Secure, worked in residence at Towner.

Throughout the week, they shared their process exploring the visibility of women artists in collections, encouraging guests in the gallery to join in with their practice-based work and become active researchers.

The artists focused their research on the work of Kathleen Walne (1915-2011), who interested them as fellow painters from a position of care. Kathleen, who was represented by and worked for Lucy Wertheim as a young artist, also cared for her in old age.

Below, Hayley and Jacqueline share notes from their experience, uncovering how they began to learn more about Kathleen Walne and Lucy Wertheim through the personal stories of people who visited the Studio.

We were delighted to come across some unexpected information during our residency at Towner, which has helped us understand more about Kathleen Walne’s work through the living stories of people that remembered her and her practice.

Two women, Daisy and her mum, came into the residency studio by chance one day. They saw Christmas cards made by Kathleen displayed with other archive material.

They both recognised the cards immediately, as Daisy’s granddad had received many of them over the years. He had done building work in Kathleen’s house, helping to make racks in the attic for her paintings and building a storage cupboard for her art materials. Daisy’s mum shared her memories of visiting the house and of the beautiful garden Kathleen had created.

Later, Freddie, a friend of Kathleen's, visited the residency studio twice. Freddie shared memories of her and her husband’s relationship with Kathleen and many of the cards and letters that Kathleen had sent them. Amongst them was a card that showed a painting Kathleen had done in 1940: Portrait of Donald.

Kathleen had written in the card:

‘I may have already sent you this one? It was the last painting I did, before giving it up for the next 30 years; so ending my real burst of creativity!’

This helped answer some questions we had about the period between 1940 and 1970 where there is very little evidence that Kathleen painted. Although we have seen a few works we believe were made during this time, it was interesting to read Kathleen’s own words which also acknowledge the prolific 'burst' she had enjoyed between 1930 and 1940.

Since first seeing a series of paintings from the 1980s of women in hats, we have been curious about the source of this work - it had been suggested to us that they were invented portraits. Freddie enlightened us to information that Kathleen had visited the millinery students at Brighton School of Art which had inspired her Hats series.

Judy and family met with us at Towner to share her memories of Lucy Wertheim and living with a Kathleen Walne painting since childhood.

Judy’s Mother Kate met Lucy Wertheim during WWII. She was a journalist operating in the local villages outside Manchester, and developed a frienship with Lucy while looking for stories. Judy remembered visiting the tithe barn Lucy had bought in Ashford-in-the-water, as well as going to see her in her London flat. She remembers commenting to her Mother that the bath there had been full of paintings. "That's all right" said her Mother, "she can have a bath when she gets back to Chinley!"

Judy has lived with a small Kathleen Walne painting of a horse drawn coach most of her life. Judy called it her 'Cinderella coach’. She had it in her bedroom. Judy’s sister Penny used to worry because there were two horses and only five legs!

The last time Judy saw Lucy was at Lucy's tithe barn in 1951.

On Wednesday 21 September, Obscure Secure will return to Towner for Addressing the Absences, a discussion day bringing together artists, curators, art historians and other interested groups for a day of presentations and open discussion. Join us in conversation to explore the lack of proportional representation for women and non-binary artists in a safe and welcoming space. Book your place now.