Bristol's Greatest Woman Painter Predicted Northern Rock Crisis

bristol | miscellaneous | opinion/analysis Tuesday December 04, 2007 00:51 by Tony Gosling - Dialect

but Bristol City Art Gallery Stash The Painting In Their Vaults

In correspondence earlier this year I asked Bristol City Art Gallery's Conservator Carolyn Lamb and Fine Art Curator Sheena Stoddard why one of Rolinda Sharples' most famous paintings was languishing in their vaults, where I checked it was still in good condition.

The Stoppage Of The Bank

I asked them to dust it off and get it back in the public gallery as it was rather a prophetic piece. Ironicly these two women decided not to put on show another woman's great work, which arguably takes a pop at the exclusively man's world of banking... They sent me a polite refusal.

I'm thinking of starting a campaign to get them to put the painting on permanent display.

Rolinda Sharples, The Stoppage of the Bank (1831). The scene is set in a fictional Guinea Street, which has a certain resemblance to Bristol's Corn Street. On the right is a bank whose closure is causing dismay. Behind it is the famous Dutch House which stood on the corner of Wine Street and High Street until destroyed in the Blitz. In the background is All Saints Church, which Sharples has shifted to a new position for artistic effect. (Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery.)

A print of this painting costs £60.00 and you have to get it from Italy. Not exacly public access is it!?
http://www.reprodart.com/a/sharples-rolinda/the-stoppage-of-the-bank.html