The Abbey Art Centre and Museum, Founded by William F. C. Ohly … P.S. Lindsay, A.T.D. (Lond.), Hon. Curator, c. 1957

800.0046

The Abbey Art Centre and Museum, Founded by William F. C. Ohly … P.S. Lindsay, A.T.D. (Lond.), Hon. Curator, c. 1957

c. 1957

Abbey Art Centre Museum;
Peter S. Lindsay A.T.D.

text

pamphlet, single sheet, folded to make four pages, printed in black

New Barnet, Herts., UK: Abbey Art Centre and Museum

Private collection, England

Publicity brochure advertising the Abbey Art Centre Museum, open Saturday afternoon, 2:30-5pm, or by appointment. Illustrated on the front cover with a photograph of the tithe barn as seen from the driveway towards the Abbey Art Centre, with the wishing well in the foreground, credited to Francis J. Forty. Inside is a second photograph, also by Francis J. Forty, showing three objects from the museum's collection and identified, left to right, as: 'Pottery Tobacco Pipe (Upper Nile), Wooden Mask (Sierra Leone), [and] Chinese Vase (Tang)'. On the reverse, below further text regarding the Abbey Art Centre, is a map of how to reach the Abbey by public transport (the same map as used in 800.0045 The Abbey Art Centre Museum ... Curator C.A. Burland, c. 1952).

Abbey Art Centre.
Art Art Centre Museum, New Barnet.
Lindsay, Peter S.
Forty, Francis J., 1900–1990.
Art, primitive.
Art, primitive -- Africa.
Art, Primitive -- Exhibitions.
Art, Chinese.
Art, Egyptian.

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English

Simon Pierse and Jane Eckett

Abbey Art Centre, 89 Park Road, New Barnet, England

[p. 2] 'THE ABBEY MUSEUM

The Museum represents the private collection of the late William F.C. Ohly, F.R.A.I., sculptor and art connoisseur.

His aim in founding the Museum and Art Centre in 1946, was to provide a stimulating and satisfying place of study for the artists from home and overseas he intended should live and work there. The measure of success in his achieving this object may be judged by the great number of artists and students, from all over the world, who have come and gone, and benefitted from this Art Centre, and from his personal contribution as friend and patron. 

While being a small museum by some standards, the collection consists of a wide selection from the arts of primitive peoples, carefully chosen for its high artistic merit, rather than for its antiquity alone. This approach was characteristic of a collector who was both connoisseur and artist, and who arranged each case to form an aethetically satisfying group. In consequence, though exhibits are grouped mainly under their place of origin, pieces may be found that would otherwise be differently located.

The Museum contains an important collection of primitive and oriental art, primarily including objects from Africa, Ancient America, and Oceania. There are also many exhibits from China, Egypt, and Tibet.

[p. 3 ff] The great variety of objects to be found range from an African medicine-man's divining set, to a totem pole, and relics from Captain Cook's voyages in the Pacific. There is finely decorated Tibetan metalware, African basket and bead-work, and pottery figurines and vessels from the Aztec and other Pre-Columbian civilizations.

Additional interest, and colour, is given by the housing of the whole collection in a 14th Century tithe-barn, which is scheduled under the Act for the preservation of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest (1947), and stands in pleasant woodland in Park Road, New Barnet, Hertfordshire (Map overleaf).

[p. 4 ff] THE ART CENTRE
The Abbey Museum forms part of the Abbey Art Centre, founded to provide domestic and professional accommodation for practicing artists.

Since 1946, many sculptors and painters from all parts of the world have lived and worked here in residential studios.

Present occupants include a distinguished creator of silhouette films, painters, sculptors, and art teachers.
There is also a Pottery in the grounds, with oil burning kiln, where a potter produces modern ware for home and overseas markets'.

Peter S. Lindsay A.T.D. was announced as the new Honorary Curator of the Abbey Art Centre, succeeding Cottie Burland, in a 1957 issue of Museums Journal, vol. 56, p. 177. The photographer Francis J. Forty was almost certainly Francis John Forty OBE (1900–1990), City Engineer, City of London (1959 to 1963), and prominent architect of postwar reconstruction in London. Forty—like William Ohly—was originally from Hull, Yorkshire. He was also almost certainly the father-in-law of the curator Peter Lindsay. Vital records reveal a Peter A.S. Lindsay who married Frances A. Forty in Ealing in 1952 (General Register Office; United Kingdom; Volume: 5e; Page: 71). Two years earlier, in 1950, Frances A. Forty was registered as living at 9 Kent Avenue, Ealing, with her parents Francis J. Forty and Doris M. Forty. By 1958 Peter and Frances Lindsay were living at 69 Queens Gate, SW7.

By descent to the present owner

Simon Pierse

25 October 2021

1 June 2022