The Catherine Moody Archive – Week Four

Over the summer of 2011 two Art History students; Holly Lambeth-Fradgeley and Hannah Fisher will be working with Worcester City Museum and Art Gallery on an archive relating to the late Catherine Moody. Ms Moody, who passed away recently, was a Malvern artist who was long known to the Museum. Holly and Hannah will document their progress as a blog as they get to know both the archive and the artist.

17/8/2011 – Today we managed to work our way though half of a large box of photos and slides. Again they were mainly photos of Victor Moody’s paintings, but there were also more photos of Catherine’s work than we have seen previously. Nearly all the photos are of poor quality, never centred and often blurred, however Hannah and I came up with the idea of cropping some of the better quality photos and creating some sort of collage for the exhibition so that they would go to good use. This box seemed to be relating to the end of her life; her handwriting had become more illegible and photos of group events showed her as an elderly lady. Quite to our surprise we came across a shaky photo of Garston! She must have taken it when he went to visit her to reclaim the rock sample she’d borrowed and used as a doorstop for years! It made us wonder whether, judging by the massive amount of photos in her possessions, she documented every occasion and person she met! And what does that tell us about her as a person?

 Two days earlier Hannah and I visited Diane Jenkins, former secretary of the Malvern Art Club (M.A.C), who had lots of stories to share and items to show us. Diane is extremely dedicated to documenting, preserving and educating others about the great history of this prestigious club and local history in general. I particularly enjoyed seeing her impressive collection of M.A.C exhibition catalogues; the Art Deco designs adorning the covers from the 1920s were beautiful. The visit was very useful, not only did Mrs Jenkins provide us with key dates about Catherine and Victor’s lives, but she gave us further valuable insights into Ms Moody’s character and lifestyle. We found some wonderful quotes in newspaper clippings: “I have always believed that a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, that is how we improve and this exhibition shows that” said Catherine of an M.A.C. exhibition in 1992. And John Ward R.A. said of Catherine: “[she] managed to keep pleasure and happiness in the art school when everyone else had lost it.” We are extremely grateful to Mrs Jenkins for inviting us into her home and helping us with our project, and for our parting gift; a copy of the hymn that Catherine wrote, which was sung at her memorial.

Blog written by Holly Lambeth-Fradgley: currently on a gap year and going to study History of Art and Design (Contemporary Art History) at Manchester Metropolitan University in September 2011.

The Catherine Moody Archive – Week Three

Over the summer of 2011 two Art History students; Holly Lambeth-Fradgeley and Hannah Fisher will be working with Worcester City Museum and Art Gallery on an archive relating to the late Catherine Moody. Ms Moody, who passed away recently, was a Malvern artist who was long known to the Museum. Holly and Hannah will document their progress as a blog as they get to know both the archive and the artist.

Today we met Diane Jenkins, former secretary of Malvern Art Club (M.A.C) of which Catherine and her father had been presidents. She was very interested to see our collection and talk to us about her memories of the Moody Family as she knew them well. She had M.A.C. exhibition catalogues to show us, including the centenary celebrations where works by former M.A.C presidents were shown. Mrs Jenkins has also kindly invited us to her home to see more of her extensive collection relating to the Moody Family to see if anything is of interest to the gallery.

Week on week we are finding more people who had known Catherine. A friend of my mother’s, is a member of the Malvern Writer’s Circle, as was Catherine. She has loaned me a brief autobiography of Catherine and one of her books ‘A Silhouette of Malvern’. I hope to meet with her for a more in depth conversation about Ms Moody’s association with the Writer’s Circle.

We spent the majority of the day beginning to catalogue the extensive collection of slides we have. Due to their immense quantity we have catalogued each box, with the number of slides and their subject matter. To label each slide would have been extremely time-consuming! Hannah had brought her slide viewer along which helped immensely, giving us a clear view of the slides. They were mainly photos of Victor’s paintings and exhibitions containing his work, as well as lectures and parties. But there were also some more personal photos, ones Catherine had taken of her garden, and even some self portraits. This was a pleasant surprise and made us feel closer to Catherine than before. Amongst the slides we found a rare photograph of a still life painting by May Olive Moody, Catherine’s mother. Diane explained to us that May had been an artist too, but after the birth of her daughter she seemed to cease painting.

In the afternoon we were given the opportunity to explore the stores in the basement of the gallery. The gallery owns two pastels by Catherine; ‘The Great Hall at Madresfield Court’  one of her finest works, and a quick sketch of Richard Dunstan giving a painting demonstration at Malvern Art School – just like one of the many photos of his lectures we had catalogued last week! This piece was the only one the gallery managed to purchase at the Phillip Serrell auction. There were also two portraits by Victor Moody; one of Mrs Tysoe, former head at Sunnyside School in nearby Barbourne and one of another lady, the photo of which we’d come across last week, but her name escaped us! It was great seeing the real ones after only seeing reproductions previously, we could really appreciate the skill both father and daughter possessed.

We all very much enjoyed our tour of the stores, catching glimpses of paintings and exploring the labyrinth of drawers making up the natural history collection. Garston and Deborah showed us some beautiful butterflies and we had a good giggle at all the bizarre Victorian taxidermy. On a more serious note we learnt about the museum’s stringent selection process when people offer them items for their collection, they just don’t have enough room to take everything! Items must have particular significance and of course be relevant to the Worcester City area. They also explained how collections that are over one hundred and fifty years old are still being used today for research purposes, for example, to monitor the decline of wildlife species.

Blog written by Holly Lambeth-Fradgley: currently on a gap year and going to study History of Art and Design (Contemporary Art History) at Manchester Metropolitan University in September 2011.

The Catherine Moody Archive – Week Two

Over the summer of 2011 two Art History students; Holly Lambeth-Fradgeley and Hannah Fisher will be working with Worcester City Museum and Art Gallery on an archive relating to the late Catherine Moody. Ms Moody, who passed away recently, was a Malvern artist who was long known to the Museum. Holly and Hannah will document their progress as a blog as they get to know both the archive and the artist.

20/7/11 – Our second day cataloguing the ephemera of Ms Moody. Everything has been stored in boxes & bags and we seem to get a box done a week; there’s an awful lot to go through. This week we were working with a lot of photographs, most of which were from Catherine’s time as Head of Malvern School of Art. Soon we’ll be sorting through what could possibly be a thousand or so of her photographic slides. We’re quite fond of this format though I’m sure through documenting all the duplicates we’ll have a few second thoughts.

A large portion of the photographs we sorted were printed by Norman Mays in Malvern which many residents still remember. They were from the mid-late 70’s and were taken of classes and seminars at the art college. They give a picture of how important the college was to the community and even its international reputation. Catherine’s enthusiasm must have been quite infectious as artists were there annually to teach special lectures which were always full of students.

This week we really got to grips with cataloguing – every photo got a number and was added to our spreadsheet which will eventually use to organise every item in the collection. There were a couple hundred black and white pictures to sort this week and we did find it hard to differentiate each individual item.

Some of the nicest pieces we’ve found so far are photographs. We have an original photo from the 1897 official School of Art picnic with pupils and teachers lounging in the grass wearing boaters. There’s plenty of explanation as to who the individuals are so it’s a very nice piece to be able to examine. Another photo is possibly of the director Henry Cass implying that he might have links with the college, but it’s a lovely photo regardless.

Next week we may have a visitor who knew Catherine and the Moody family for most of her life. From what we’ve heard of her so far I’m sure it’ll be fascinating and it’s quite special to get a real human account of an artist and someone who was obviously quite important to Malvern.

Blog written by Hannah Fisher – just completed a foundation diploma in Art and Design at Camberwell College of Art and will be returning to London in September to study Art History and Art World Practice at Christie’s Education with the University of Glasgow and will eventually end up in Scotland for the last two years of the degree.

The Catherine Moody Archive – Week One

Over the summer of 2011 two Art History students; Holly Lambeth-Fradgeley and Hannah Fisher will be working with Worcester City Museum and Art Gallery on an archive relating to the late Catherine Moody. Ms Moody, who passed away recently, was a Malvern artist who was long known to the Museum. Holly and Hannah will document their progress as a blog as they get to know both the archive and the artist.

13/7/2011 – First day on the new project: cataloguing a collection of ephemera relating to the local artist Catherine Moody.

Catherine was the daughter of the artist Victor Hume Moody and succeeded him as Head of the Malvern School of Art after his retirement in 1962. She studied at the college, as well as the Royal College of Art and Birmingham College of Art. She was a respected artist, poet and writer and also taught at the Manchester School of Art.

She worked tirelessly producing and promoting art in general, with special attention to her father’s work which she greatly admired. She was a prominent member of the Malvern social and academic scene. She held salons and symposia on art, philosophy, architecture and environmental issues. She was full of character, with many friends and acquaintances whom all have fond memories of her.

Catherine passed away last year, and though most of her possessions were auctioned at Phillip Serrell a few made their way to an agricultural auction in Ledbury where Garston Phillips, Collections Officer at Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum, came across them, luckily recognising their significance and rescuing them!

Since that serendipitous day the boxes have lain untouched in the Museum’s store, we now have the task of cataloguing the items, making suggestions for the permanent collection and eventually making a display in the gallery.

The first day was spent creating an inventory system on the computer then beginning to input the information about all the photos, newspaper cuttings, correspondence and hundreds of slides!

Another stroke of serendipity as it turned out another of the volunteers knew Catherine, and I myself have contacts and links to the Malvern School of Art (now South Worcestershire College). With this in mind we would love to collect memories and possibly more ephemera from her old friends to add to the display.

Blog written by Holly Lambeth-Fradgley: currently on a gap year and going to study History of Art and Design (Contemporary Art History) at Manchester Metropolitan University in September 2011.

Coming Home…….”Miss Moody’s Doorstop”

BARITE (BARYTE) – Aggregate of white-pink (iron stained) tabular barite crystals, “cockscomb” habit with small transparent nail-head calcite crystals on massive barite.

Miss Moody's Doorstop

 The best form of this mineral in the Museum’s Geology collection – Rosemary Roden

Miss Catherine Moody was a well known Worcestershire artist and a member of the Malvern Circle of Artists. She was the daughter of Victor Hulme Moody who was a founding member of Malvern Art College. On her father’s death, Miss Moody became the College’s Principle. Sadly, Miss Moody passed away in 2010. Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum has two of her works in the fine art collection.

Several years ago I had the pleasure of meeting Miss Moody in her home in Sling Lane, Malvern and visited her on many occasions afterwards.  During one of these visits I interviewed her and recorded her memories of the local art world and her recollections of Worcester City Museum and Art Gallery.  Her memories of exhibitions at the gallery were incredible given fine details of works that were hung as far back as the early 1950’s.  Asking her what she remembered about the museum she told me to go to her front door and look at her doorstop.  I picked it up and examined it and thought it may have been barite, which later, our Geology curator Rosemary Roden confirmed.  I asked where did you get such a nice piece from, she replied Mr Smith the curator had given it to her.  It appears that Miss Moody had taken her students into the Museum to see the display of crystal formation in the Geology gallery (Gallery IV at the time) and Smith had given it to her so that she could use it for the students to draw back at the Art College in Malvern.  When she said Smith had given her the mineral she actually meant loaned the mineral as it would have been naughty to have given away such a gem from the City’s collection!!!

It was very easy to date when this “transaction” had taken place as Vincent Smith was only here a short while in 1949/50. 

It was very sad to read that Miss Moody had passed away earlier this year and the entire contents of her home were up for sale.  Serrells Auctioneers were asked to conduct the sale and we received their catalogue but Miss Moody’s doorstop was not listed.  I rang the sale room to see if it was one of the items that would be described on the day of the sale.  They thought not but asked me along to have a look myself.  The following day I visited the sale room and looked through all the lots but alas it was not there.  I saw Mr Serrell and spoke with him and told him of the article and he kindly introduced me to Miss Moody’s solicitor.  I told him the whole story about the doorstop and how I had assumed that if it was not in the sale it had most likely been lost, stolen or put on the garden rockery.  He asked “would you recognise the piece if you saw it again?” I said yes and without hesitation he said jump in the car and we will go to the house and have a look.  I walked up the path to the front door and it was still there where it had been for many years.

The following day I took the specimen back to the Museum where it had not been for over 60 years and gave it a good clean, all these years outside had given it a green coat but it cleaned up well and was ready for Rosemary to inspect and identify. She confirmed it was barite and comparing it with the specimens we have it had many similarities with ones that had been found in Malvern – is this one from Malvern?  We may never know ……………

This blog was written by Garston D Phillips who curates the Natural Science collections at Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum. He can be contacted at museumcollections@worcestershire.gov.uk