Welcome - Fra Newbery Home

A month-long trail of exhibitions, events and activities across Dorset celebrating the life and work of the painter Fra H Newbery.

Official launch of month-long trail

THE PAINTINGS at Bridport Town Hall were centre stage last week as the town paid homage to one of its most influential sons.

The Newbery Trail, a month-long series of exhibitions, events and activities across the county, was launched with a reception for invited guests on Thursday, followed by a private view of the Fra Newbery Exhibition at Bridport Arts Centre’s Allsop Gallery.

The trail celebrates the life and work of the painter Francis H Newbery, who was born in Membury, Devon, brought up in Bridport and retired to Corfe Castle in 1919 after a long and illustrious career as one of the most significant directors of Glasgow School of Art.

It was the culmination of a project developed by Bridport Heritage Forum, chaired by local councillor Charles Wild and made up of local organisations including the museum, arts centre, town council, history society, camera club, library, the West Dorset Research Centre and the Somerset and Dorset Family History Society.

The idea originated in the 1990s, at the time of an exhibition in Glasgow held to mark the 50th anniversary of Newbery’s death.

It was a special occasion for project manager Crystal Johnson who, with her mother Julie Price, worked on the original project. She put together the project proposal that was instrumental in securing a £44,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. Funding also came from Dorset County Council, West Dorset and Purbeck District Councils and Bridport Town Council.

Crystal paid tribute to all the organisations and individuals who had helped bring the trail to fruition.

“It’s really been a privilege to get involved in this project,” she said.

Simon Hunt, from the regional Heritage Lottery board said the project ‘hit all the right buttons’ and described it as innovative. It was a celebration of the town’s heritage and involved a cross section of people of all ages. Work by children from local primary schools was on display alongside Newbery’s paintings that line the walls of the town hall.

In his day Newbery’s paintings were well regarded and widely published although they are now little known despite being held in public and private collections around the world.

As well as a respected painter in his own right he is perhaps best known for his pivotal role in promoting the work of his protégé, Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

Throughout his life Newbery’s driving force was “to make art more readily available to a wider public, attempting to relate it to their daily lives and to celebrate the traditions of the specific localities in which the works were sited”.

Newbery’s work can be seen at a variety of different venues. For more information, log on to www.franewbery.co.uk or pick up a leaflet from local venues.

Newbery Trail events - All events are FREE unless otherwise stated

Saturday 12 April & Saturday 26 April, 10.00am – 4.00pm
Beginner’s stone carving – a one day course
Durlston Country Park
Charge: £30.00 per student (tools & materials provided but please bring your own lunch). To book please call Libby Hodd on 01929 557336 or keystone@purbeck-dc.gov.uk. Each course has room for only 6 students.

Saturday 19 April, 10.00am – 3.00pm
Dorset’s Links with Art Nouveau - A one day study course
Dorset Adult Education Centre, Dorchester
Charge: £24.00/£16.80 concession - including lunch. To book please call Dorchester Adult Education Centre on 01305 251040 or email: dorchester@dorsetadulted.info quoting course code: 5W0466DD

Saturday 19 April, 2.30pm
Bridport Town Hall – A tour with Elizabeth Gale
Bridport Town Hall

Thursday 24 April, 2.30pm
Fra Newbery and the Bridport School of Art - A talk by Fiona Tamplin
Bridport Arts Centre Cafe, South Street, Bridport

Saturday 26 April, 10.30am – 12.30pm and 1.30pm – 3.30pm
Drop-in photographic workshop with Helen Muspratt’s granddaughter. Dress up in a
costume of your choice and have your portrait taken.
Dorset County Museum, High West Street, Dorchester
Charge: £6.50 adults/£4.50 concessions (annual pass). Children free.

Tuesday 29 April, 2.30pm
Bridport Town Hall – A tour with Elizabeth Gale
Bridport Town Hall

Thursday 1 May, 6.30pm
Talk on Fra Newbery by John Jagged
Bridport Town Hall

Sunday 4 May, 2.30pm
Exhibition Tour by Crystal Johnson
Allsop Gallery, Bridport Arts Centre

For more information contact project manager Crystal Johnson on
07968 577867.

Francis Henry Newbery 1855–1946
By George Rawson
Fra Newbery, as he liked to be called, was a leading figure in British art and design in the 20 years around 1900. As Director of Glasgow School of Art from 1885 to 1917 he made his school one of the major art training institutions in the world.

As a painter he was closely associated with the Glasgow Boys, a group of artists who were part of the European avant-garde in the early 1890s. He was an important figure in the Arts and Crafts movement in Scotland and in the later 1890s helped the group of designers around the architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh to achieve international fame.

The Glasgow School of Art building, which Mackintosh designed in close collaboration with Newbery, is acknowledged as one of the masterpieces of 20th century architecture. Newbery, however, spent more than half his life in Dorset.

He was born in Membury in Devon on 15 May 1855, but grew up in Bridport where he lived from 1858 to 1875. Here he trained to be a teacher at the Bridport Boys’ General School under its gifted headmaster John Beard, qualifying in 1874.

From about 1871 he attended the Bridport School of Art, on the first floor of the Literary and Scientific Institute, qualifying as an art master, and acting as assistant to its headmaster.

In 1875 he obtained an appointment as art master at a London secondary school. He worked in London schools until 1882 when he obtained a scholarship to become an Art Master in Training at the National Art Training School (now the Royal College of Art). By the time he left to become the head of the Glasgow School of Art in 1885, he was acting as a member of staff, teaching painting, the figure, and architecture.

At Glasgow Newbery appointed major professional artists, designers, and architects to teach his courses.

Its teachers included artists, designers, and architects of international standing from across Europe, and the number of women on its staff far exceeded those to be found in other schools. Classes were conducted on practical lines, the students being thoroughly trained, where possible, in the use of the materials of their chosen professions.

Under Newbery Glasgow was one of the first art schools to introduce courses in craft subjects. Believing that everyone was a potential artist, Newbery saw the teacher’s role as enabling the student to discover and develop his or her own unique artistic personality.

On his retirement Newbery and his wife Jessie, a leading embroiderer, designer and artist in her own right, retired to live in Corfe Castle.

Newbery enjoyed a successful painting career from the 1890s, showing at leading exhibitions in London, Paris, Munich, the Venice Biennales, and the United States: his paintings finding their way into public and private collections across the world. Influenced by Whistler, the Dutch Hague School and the French painter Millet amongst others, his work was quite diverse in style.

He was primarily a painter of the human figure: ranging from groups of children, to aesthetic interiors with single female subjects, to studies of working people at their occupations, or at leisure. His holidays during the early twentieth century had been spent at Walberswick on the Suffolk coast where many of his works were executed.
Newbery died, aged 91, at Corfe Castle on 18 December 1946.

Events - All events are FREE unless otherwise stated

Friday 4 April, 10.00am – 3.00pm
Make a Mural family workshop led by artist Darrell Wakelam
Allsop Gallery, Bridport Arts Centre, South Street, Bridport
Charge: £2 per child – to book a place please call Bridport Arts Centre on 01308 427183

Saturday 5 April, 2.30pm
Fra H Newbery – A talk by Dr George Rawson
Allsop Gallery, Bridport Arts Centre, South Street, Bridport

Sunday 6 April, 7.30pm
Fra H Newbery – A talk by Dr George Rawson
Corfe Castle Town Hall, Corfe Castle

Tuesday 8 April, 6.30pm
Charles Rennie Mackintosh & Dorset – A talk by Dr George Rawson
Dorset County Museum, High West Street, Dorchester
Charge: £6.00 – reduction for Trail visitors showing exhibition guide

Saturday 12 April & Saturday 26 April, 10.00am – 4.00pm
Beginner’s stone carving – a one day course
Durlston Country Park
Charge: £30.00 per student (tools & materials provided but please bring your own lunch). To book please call Libby Hodd on 01929 557336 or keystone@purbeck-dc.gov.uk. Each course has room for only 6 students.

Saturday 19 April, 2.30pm
Bridport Town Hall – A tour with Elizabeth Gale
Bridport Town Hall

Thursday 24 April, 2.30pm
Fra Newbery and the Bridport School of Art - A talk by Fiona Tamplin
Bridport Arts Centre Cafe, South Street, Bridport

Saturday 26 April, 10.30am – 12.30pm and 1.30pm – 3.30pm
Drop-in photographic workshop with Helen Muspratt’s granddaughter. Dress up in a costume of your choice and have your portrait taken.
Dorset County Museum, High West Street, Dorchester
Charge: £6.50 adults/£4.50 concessions (annual pass). Children free.

Tuesday 29 April, 2.30pm
Bridport Town Hall – A tour with Elizabeth Gale
Bridport Town Hall

Thursday 1 May, 6.30pm
Talk on Fra Newbery by John Jagged
Bridport Town Hall

Sunday 4 May, 2.30pm
Exhibition Tour by Crystal Johnson
Allsop Gallery, Bridport Arts Centre