The Meeting by Ronald Mather - where is it? A mystery that needs solving.

 The Meeting by Ronald Mather

In 1975 Ronald Mather, a local woodcarver, created a wood sculpture entitled The Meeting. Ronald was
President of FLAG at the time and the Friends purchased this woodcarving in that year and presented it to
the Art Gallery & Museum.

A previous FLAG secretary remembers that for many years this woodcarving hung in the Spa Centre,
above the staircase. It was removed sometime, possibly in a re-vamp of the Spa Centre, and disappeared.
The Museum staff have tried to find it but no luck so far. Do let us know if you have any information as
to its whereabouts! Unfortunately we don't have any photographs.

Ronald Mather also made FLAG a gavel/board to use at meetings. We never had to use it and it is now in
the Museum collection.

Things you didn't know FLAG had done #6 - Carved Wooden Thrush

 60 Years with FLAG: A Thrush with a Warwick pedigree

In 1984, FLAG purchased this beautifully carved wooden thrush for the collection of Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum.

It is described as a wood carving of a thrush by Kendall of Warwick, with the additional note that the carver was a member of the Warwick School of Wood Carvers.

 

Although we know little about the individual carving, its attribution connects it to an important tradition in Warwickshire's craft history.

Thomas Henry Kendall (1837–1919) was one of the best known figures associated with the Warwick School of woodcarving. He established his workshop in Chapel Street, Warwick, in 1859, and his workshop became known for highly detailed carvings of birds, animals, flowers and foliage.

Birds were clearly an important part of this tradition. Surviving examples of work associated with Kendall and his workshop include finely carved birds and natural history subjects, demonstrating the extraordinary skill with which the Warwick carvers could transform a piece of wood into a remarkably lifelike creature.

Our thrush is a much quieter composition, perched amongst carved flowers and foliage, but it shows the same fascination with the natural world. The delicacy of the feathers, the shaping of the body and the detailed carving of the flowers all reward a closer look.

Kendall's reputation extended well beyond Warwickshire. Among his notable commissions were 22 carved wooden reliefs of fish, birds and fruit for the Members' Dining Room at the Houses of Parliament, made in 1874.

So, although we have only a small amount of information about this particular object, it gives us a glimpse into a distinctive local tradition of craftsmanship, one for which Warwick became particularly celebrated during the nineteenth century.

Sometimes a museum object doesn't need a long story to make us stop and look. This little thrush is a reminder of the remarkable skill of the local craftspeople who could find beauty in the natural world, and in a piece of wood.

There seems to be a connection with the National Trust too! And I need to investigate this a bit more first. 

The National Trust collection at Wallington includes a pair of limewood carvings from 1878, one showing kingfishers and the other a thrush flying from a rat as it climbs towards a nest containing three eggs. The latter is thought to have been carved by Charles Humphriss, Kendall's studio foreman

🎉 Join the Friends and Celebrate 60 Wonderful Years!

 Come and be part of our celebrations!

There’s never been a better time to become a Friend of Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum, because this year we’re celebrating something rather special: 60 years of the Friends supporting our wonderful gallery and museum.

And to mark the occasion, we’ve got a little extra something for you…

Join now for just £15 and you won’t need to renew until February 2028!

What do you get for your £15?

Being a Friend is a lovely way to get more from your local gallery and museum, while helping to make sure it continues to flourish.

As a Friend, you can enjoy:

• 🖼️ Talks and special events during the winter months
• 🚌 Visits and outings in the summer to places of artistic and cultural interest
• 🛍️ 20% discount in the Gallery & Museum shop
• 📚 Free exhibition catalogues when the Friends sponsor them
• 🎉 Special events and celebrations as we mark our 60th birthday
• 💙And, perhaps best of all, the satisfaction of knowing that your membership is helping to support a much-loved local institution.

You can really make a difference. 

The Friends is a charity, and the money we raise goes straight towards helping Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum do more.

Over the years, Friends’ support has helped with things such as acquiring works of art, framing and conservation, and activities for children and families.

That means your £15 is helping to care for the collections, bring new things into the museum, and make sure future generations can enjoy them too.

Download a form from the left hand sidebar straight to your computer or get in touch by leaving a comment or emailing membershipsecretary.flag@gmail.com

Photos of the trip to Abingdon and Kingston Bagpuize.

 With thanks to Cherry Rosewall for the images.

 

ABINGDON-ON-THAMES AND KINGSTON BAGPUIZE HOUSE, OXFORDSHIRE

 

Abbey Gateway, Abington 

 

Medieval painted ceiling St Helen's Church, Abingdon. 

 

 

 

Stained glass at St Helen's Church 

 

 

 

 

Long alley Almshouses, Abington 

 

 

 

 

 

Gargoyle, Abingdon  

 

 

Kingston Bagpuize House

Just out - our winter talks list!

FRIENDS OF LEAMINGTON SPA ART GALLERY & MUSEUM

WINTER PROGRAMME 2026/27

Talks £3 for members and £5 for non members. All welcome.

No need to book, just turn up and pay! 

TUESDAY 13 OCTOBER 2026 at 7.30pm
Simon Gulliver
Managing Historic Gardens in the 21st Century

WEDNESDAY 18 NOVEMBER at 2.30pm
Kevin Thomas
Hand & Hammer: The Arts & Crafts Movement in Birmingham

WEDNESDAY 16 DECEMBER at 2.30pm
Danny Wells
Art of the Christmas Card

WEDNESDAY 20 JANUARY 2027 at 2.30pm
Lewis McNaught
For the Love of Ancient Egypt

WEDNESDAY 17 FEBRUARY at 2.30pm
Tim Clark
Self and Identity in English Art of the Later Middle Ages c1200-c1485

TUESDAY 9 MARCH at 7.30pm
Tony Mawbey
Treasures of Upton House

TUESDAY 13 APRIL at 7.30pm
A.G.M. Followed by talk – tbc.

More things you didn't know FLAG had done #5

 

Image Wiki Commons Mike Peel license CC BY-SA 4.0

Watercolour painting by Mary Wadham 

Detail of the painting showing geese. We are unable to show the full painting because of copyright 

This painting takes us just a few miles from Leamington, to one of Warwickshire’s most atmospheric historic houses:

Purchased by FLAG and presented to the Gallery in 1980, the painting is a lovely example of something which has always been important to the Friends: supporting artists with a connection to the local area, while also building the Gallery’s collection of work that reflects the landscape, history and character of Warwickshire.

And what a subject Wadham chose.

Baddesley Clinton is a remarkable moated manor house whose history stretches back more than 500 years. Much of the house we see today dates from the late 16th century, when Henry Ferrers, a lawyer, diarist and antiquarian, carried out extensive work on the building. Its moat, bridge and gatehouse give it an almost storybook appearance, but behind that picturesque exterior lies a rather more dramatic history. During the religious conflicts of the 1590s, Baddesley became a place of refuge for Catholic priests, who were concealed in its secret hiding places.

The house also has a particularly strong artistic history of its own. In the 19th century it was home to Rebecca Dulcibella Orpen, later Rebecca Ferrers, a talented amateur artist who produced a large body of work in both oil and watercolour. She lived there with her husband Marmion Ferrers, her aunt Georgiana, Lady Chatterton, and Edward Heneage Dering. The group became known as “The Quartet”, and immersed themselves in painting, music, poetry, literature and the preservation of the house. At least 78 of Rebecca's paintings are known today, many still hanging at Baddesley Clinton.

So there is something especially appropriate about a later 20th-century artist choosing Baddesley Clinton as her subject.

Looking closely

Wadham’s watercolour is less interested in presenting Baddesley as a grand architectural monument than in capturing its atmosphere and setting.

The house occupies the middle distance, its pale stonework catching the light beneath the dark canopy of trees. The moat is just as important as the building itself. Its relatively still surface gives us a second Baddesley Clinton, a softened, broken reflection beneath the real one.

And then there are the geese! They might seem like a small, incidental detail, but they give the picture life. Against the substantial medieval architecture and the heavy trees, the two birds introduce movement and a little bit of everydayness. This isn't simply an architectural study: it is a place that is inhabited by nature.

There is also a clever compositional device at work. The large tree on the right acts almost like a curtain, framing the view and leading the eye inward towards the house. The darker greens and browns around the edges contrast with the much lighter building, while the patches of white and pale blue in the water and sky keep the centre of the picture luminous.

Watercolour is particularly well suited to this subject. Rather than giving us every architectural detail with hard precision, Wadham allows the paint to dissolve in places. The foliage is suggested through loose marks; reflections break apart; the stone walls appear weathered rather than clinically described.

And perhaps that is why the painting remains so appealing more than forty years after FLAG presented it to the Gallery. It records a very specific place, but it isn't merely a record of a building. It captures the strange combination of history, water, trees, wildlife and quietness that makes Baddesley Clinton so distinctive.

There is even a nice historical coincidence in the date. 1980 was the year in which Baddesley Clinton passed into National Trust ownership, after the Ferrers-Walker family sold the estate to the Government and it was subsequently conveyed to the Trust.

That is exactly the kind of story we want to celebrate as FLAG reaches 60: local places, local artists, and a local community helping to make sure that art inspired by our corner of Warwickshire becomes part of a public collection for everyone to enjoy.

More things you didn't know the Friends have done #4

Our very first purchase! Presented to the gallery in 1968.

 

Made around 1915, this wonderfully exuberant cut-glass claret jug is a small piece of history for us. The heavily faceted glass body catches the light from every angle, while the dark, polished metalwork of the handle, collar and stopper gives it a wonderfully theatrical presence.

Most importantly, though, this was the first purchase made with FLAG's support. So while it may have started life as a rather handsome vessel for claret, for us it represents the beginning of something much bigger and is the first chapter in FLAG's story of supporting the gallery and helping to build its collection.

It's an elegant cut-glass claret jug combining a beautifully worked glass body with a silver-plated or silver mount, handle and stopper. Its generous, tapering form is covered with an intricate pattern of cut facets, diamonds and starbursts, designed to catch and scatter the light and is just as decorative when empty as it would have been practical when filled with wine! 

More things you didn't know the Friends have done #3

Black Snow by Harry Weinberger. 

A painting bought in 2002 for the Gallery's collection by FLAG members to mark the Golden Jubilee of HM Queen Elizabeth II

 To see this painting on Art UK's website click here.  (We are unable to reproduce because of copyright)

 

Harry Weinberger at work

There is something rather wonderful about knowing that a painting in our local art gallery is there because ordinary people decided it was worth having.

Black Snow, by Harry Weinberger (1924–2009), is one of those paintings.

The work was purchased for Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum by FLAG, the Friends of Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum, to mark the Golden Jubilee of HM Queen Elizabeth II. So when we look at it today, we are not simply looking at a painting by an interesting local artist. We are looking at something that members and supporters of FLAG helped make possible for everyone to enjoy.

And it is a particularly intriguing painting.

Who was Harry Weinberger?

Harry Weinberger was born in Berlin in 1924 into a Jewish family. In 1939, as a teenager, he escaped Nazi persecution and came to Britain on the Kindertransport.

He went on to become a painter and an influential art teacher, eventually becoming head of painting at Lanchester Polytechnic in Coventry, now Coventry University.

Weinberger became closely associated with Warwickshire. He lived in Leamington Spa from around 1969 until his death in 2009, continuing to paint here after retiring from teaching. His work is represented in a number of British public collections, including the Government Art Collection, National Museum Cardiff and the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum in Coventry.

The Leamington collection contains several of his works, making Weinberger an important part of the town's artistic heritage.

He was, above all, a painter who loved colour. His influences included Van Gogh, Matisse and Munch, although his mature work developed into a highly individual style. Iris Murdoch, the novelist and philosopher who was a close friend of Weinberger, admired his paintings for their intense colour and changing light.

So what is Black Snow?

The museum's collection record identifies the painting as oil on canvas, 770 × 1004 mm, and tells us something particularly useful: the subject is Hampstead Heath in winter.

Weinberger and his wife had a flat overlooking the Heath, and the museum records that this was the landscape he painted here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But why Black Snow?

Weinberger wasn't trying to paint snow as a camera might record it. His landscapes are constructed through strong areas of colour, shape and pattern. The snow becomes part of that visual structure rather than simply being a white covering over the landscape.

The next time you visit the gallery and see the picture, why not see if you can work out why it's called Black Snow? Perhaps it is snow but in shadow?

 

The gallery records do not explain the title, and there is no evidence that we have found in which Weinberger tells us exactly what he meant by it, so any explanation would be speculation.

And sometimes it is rather nice not to have the answer.

A painting with a local connection

Weinberger wasn't simply an artist who once visited Leamington. He lived here for around forty years.

His home was filled with objects that interested him as an artist, including masks, carvings and Russian icons, and these became sources of inspiration for his work.

His friendship with Iris Murdoch is another fascinating part of his story. Their correspondence, which spans many years, survives in an archive at Kingston University. Some of those letters had remained in Weinberger's Leamington home after his death.

So although Black Snow shows us a landscape many miles from Warwickshire, the artist who painted it has a very real connection with our own town.

Thank you, FLAG members!

Every membership, every subscription and every contribution to FLAG helps to build something which lasts beyond the individual donor.

Black Snow is a physical example of that.

Someone who joins FLAG may contribute a relatively small amount each year. Yet collectively those contributions helped bring an original painting by a significant local artist into public ownership.

It means that Weinberger's painting can be seen, studied, enjoyed and argued about by generations of people who never met him.

 

New Trip for September 2026!

 ABINGDON-ON-THAMES AND KINGSTON BAGPUIZE HOUSE, OXFORDSHIRE

TUESDAY 8 SEPTEMBER 2026

Leaving Leamington at 9.00am we will travel direct to the quaint market town of Abingdon, which
dates back to the Saxon era, where we will have free time to explore the architecture and historical
treasures including Abingdon Abbey, St Nicolas Church, St Helens Church and Long Alley
Almshouses. 

The Friends of Abingdon Civic Society has several walks on their website, on the
Events page, which can be downloaded. Two look particularly interesting – Heart of Abingdon and
Heritage. 

The ancient church of St Helens has a medieval painted ceiling in the Lady Chapel. The
church website has more information under History. 

There are local cafes to obtain coffee/lunch or bring a picnic to enjoy beside the river.

We leave Abingdon at 13.45pm to travel to Kingston Bagpuize House, a family home set in the
Vale of The White Horse and surrounded by a beautiful garden and parkland. There has been a
manor at Kingston since Saxon times but the current house is Georgian as is much of the furniture.
It featured in an edition of Downton Abbey as the home of Lord Merton! We will have a 45
minute tour of the house and then time to look round the garden. Redevelopment of the garden and
grounds started in 1949 and continues to the present day. In the early days advice, and plants, were
provided by Harold Hillier.
We will have tea and cake (included in the price) before leaving at 16.30pm.