London
25/10/2011 Tuesday
An excellent (if a bit wet) day. I found my way to the Ministry of Defence (MOD) building in Whithall Court and safely negotiated the security barriers/protocol to meet up with Charlotte Henwood, the MoD Art Collection curator. We then went to the "vault" to look at a Westall painting in storage, followed by a quick trip "up the road" to Admiralty House to see a further 4 Westall paintings (from Australia) that are hanging in a salon there.
I got quick photographs of all of them but Charlotte kindly gave me a CD with downloaded Hi-Res photos of each. I was invited to stay for a tour by Naval officers, which also dealt with paintings from Cook's voyage(s). All up a very good data-gathering exercise. I will need to follow up with a visit to the Mitchell library in NSW but that will only be for filling in some of the gaps, the basic story is now documented.
The travel/logistics were straight forward. I had double-checked my directions with Google maps and had done a "virtual walk" of the relevant streets. I gave myself an extra half an hour margin for train delays and getting "lost". As it was I had no delays and took no misdirections. The appointment was 1.30 pm and I got there at 1.00, so found a lunch bar and grabbed a Danish pastry. I was back by 1.25 and shaking hands with Charotte by the 1.30 as arranged. A complete change from last time when I could not even find the building, let alone get access.
Photo: Looking through the bars at Admiralty House. The video of this scene shows a security man "shooing" me away.
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