By
• 7 Feb 2021
POETRY BOOK: Matthew Read has published a book of poems written during his three years as director of the Bowes Centre for Art, Craft and Design TM pic
THE former director of an innovative project to widen the appeal of The Bowes Museum has marked his time in the dale by publishing a book of poems written during his three-year tenure.
Matthew Read, who ran the Bowes Centre for Art, Craft and Design, has released The Arboretum at Day’s Dusk, with poems inspired by his move from a teaching post in Sussex to County Durham.
“The poems progress as the landscape become increasingly familiar and the cold and rain bite less,” he said.
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Thomas Bewick
The wood-engraver was born in Mickley, near Prudhoe, in 1753 and became famous for his engravings of natural scenes.
He is best known for his A History of British Birds and for his illustrated editions of Aesop’s Fables throughout his life. His admirers included the poets Wordsworth and Tennyson, and the novelist Charlotte Bronte.
The work of Bewick is celebrated at the Cherryburn National Trust site - located at his birthplace - and there is a bust at the location of his former workshop behind Newcastle Cathedral.
TODAY’S Object of the Week is actually a series of objects which can be found at different locations in a County Durham town. If you’ve ever wandered through the historic streets of Barnard Castle with open eyes, you just might have come across a mysterious carving of a boar. There might have been many more at one time, but today there are thought to be four still in the town. They are located at: The castle; Blagraves House – which dates back to the 15th century and is one of the oldest buildings in town; St Mary’s Church; Bowes Museum (originally in Newgate).
COTHERSTONE has come home to the Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle. A painting of the museum founder’s Derby-winning racehorse, on which he had riding bets worth £4m today, has been acquired at auction through a bequest left by a former headmistress of Polam Hall School in Darlington. John Bowes bred Cotherstone at his stud at Streatlam Castle, near Barney, in 1840, and, having named him after the Teesdale village, sent him for training at John Scott’s yard in Malton in Ryedale. Cotherstone became regarded as the greatest racehorse of his day, but in an era when the sport of kings was notoriously crooked, he lost first time out in late 1842 which caused him to drift out in the betting to 50-1 for the following year’s Derby.
Students from Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College collaborated with The Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle to produce STUDENTS from a college in Darlington collaborated with Bowes Museum producing their own artistic responses to Dieric Bouts the Elder’s painting ‘St Luke Drawing the Virgin Child’. First-year Fine Art students from Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College, had three minutes to produce a drawing followed by 12 minutes to create a collage with materials from around their homes. Artwork by Bouts, an influential Dutch artist from the 15th century, is rare in the United Kingdom and and the students’ pieces are set to be transformed into a collaborative exhibition by artist, Melanie Kyles, to be displayed at The Bowes Museum, on their website across their social media platforms.