Man wins Gallery Manager position after identifying mystery painting during job interview

This article originally appeared on Culture24.

Painting detective wins gallery manager job after unmasking painting in historic collection

Confiding his suspicions during a job interview at The Atkinson in Southport, Stephen Whittle revealed a “strong hunch” that an unattributed painting, kept in storage by the arts and cultural centre since the 1920s, was the work of CRW Nevinson, a highly-collectable futurist painter.

Michael John Kirk Walsh, a biographer of Nevinson who is an associate professor at Nanyang University in Singapore, was able to confirm the creator of the depiction of Limehouse docks in East London, made in 1913 but superseded by a more famous version after the artist revisited the scene five years later.

“I was doing my research before attending the interview,” says Whittle, who accepted the role of Museum and Gallery Manager in the latest appointment of a career which has also served Salford University, Gallery Oldham, Blackburn Art Gallery and Preston’s Harris Art Gallery.

“When I saw this unattributed image on the BBC Your Paintings website, it was very reminiscent of Nevinson.

“As soon as I tracked down a picture of the later version - a mezzotint engraving that Nevinson made in 1918 - I knew I was right.
 
“I mentioned my supposition at interview, but I don’t know if it led to me finally getting the job.”

Experts at the National Conservation Centre, in Liverpool, uncovered the artist’s signature and several previous compositions lurking beneath the top layer of the painting, which was previously held at Bootle Art Gallery and Museum before its closure in 1974.

Restored and reframed, the painting is starring in a new exhibition, Rediscoveries, alongside rarely-seen treasures from the resident collection, including sculptures by Henry Moore.

This is not the first mystery work unmasked by The Atkinson, which relaunched in 2013 having originally opened with a cotton manufacturer’s £6,000 donation in 1878.

Another significant unattributed work, listed as ‘unknown artist, Florence’, was discovered by curators thanks to Your Paintings, where keen art detectives spotted a red London bus and questioned the setting of the painting.

Their conjecture allowed the artist to be identified as the French painter Jacques Emile Blanche – a friend of Marcel Proust who lived and exhibited in London and Paris. Retitled London Bridge, the work has been given an estimated date of 1905-1914.
 

• Rediscoveries runs until October 29 2015.

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Source: http://www.culture24.org.uk//art/painting-and-drawing/art512076-man-wins-gallery-manager-position-after-identifying-mystery-painting-during-job-interview