Shell lady

We recently watched Mike Leigh’s amazing film. ‘Mr Turner’ starring Timothy Spall as the painter J.M.W. Turner; as we were in Kent last week, we decided to visit the new gallery in Margate named after Turner. We had never been to Margate before and as we didn’t have a lot of time there after visiting the Turner Contemporary gallery it is definitely on our list of places to visit again.

We wandered along the harbour arm in lovely sunshine and came across an amazing piece of art called ‘Mrs Booth’ made out of metal shell shapes. Mrs Booth was Turner’s landlady with whom he had a loving relationship for many years. When I saw the statue I was reminded me of the little figures which were made out of shells and sold as souvenirs, and apparently this was the inspiration for the piece.

I later discovered that the artist is Ann Carrington Ann was commissioned to make twelve art works for Margate’s seafront. Ann chose to make large life-sized shell ladies out of actual shells, scallop, melon and oyster shells, and each was a character, for example Baroness Orczy, Marie Corelli and Mary Lamb the writers, and Ann Hill who owned the shell shop in the town.

The sculpture is incredible, it’s twelve-foot high and yet it has a jaunty, almost comical air. The statue is on the harbour, not far from where Mrs Booth’s lodging house was, where Turner stayed. In my featured image you can see the gallery behind Mrs Booth’s shoulder. If you are interested in how it was made, or more about Ann Carrington, have a look here:

http://www.anncarrington.co.uk/mrs-booth

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