Gerald Mac Spink (flourished 1920 – 1940)
Rodeo
Watercolour
15 x 23 cm
Stallion bucking and whip cracking, a cowboy loses his hat.
A depiction of the magnificent chapel at Kelham Hall, a sumptuous Gothic Revival Victorian country house designed by George Gilbert Scott. The artist highlights the soaring, cavernous proportions of the chapel and the delicate beauty of its focal point: a raised crucifix which also acts as an altar screen.
There have been three halls at Kelham over the centuries, all built by the Manners Sutton family, whose links with Nottinghamshire go back to the 12th century. The first Kelham Hall was built shortly after the end of the Civil War for Robert Sutton, 1st Lord Lexington. It was destroyed by fire in 1728 and rebuilt for Bridget, the Duchess of Rutland, the daughter of the 2nd Lord Lexington. Bridget Sutton had married John Manners, the 3rd Duke of Rutland. Today’s Kelham Hall was built by the revered Victorian architect Sir George Gilbert Scott after the second Hall was destroyed by fire in 1857. Between 1903 and 1973 the hall was used an Anglican theological college for the Society of the Sacred Mission, which built the domed chapel in 1928. The Hall is now a sought-after wedding venue.
Spink was a skilled artist, illustrator, and designer who produced a series of posters in the inter-war period for companies including the London Underground, Southern Railways, LNER, Hawker Engineering, and British Steel. He won a prize in 1933 from the Imperial Institute for his poster artwork. He also worked as an aeronautical engineer in Kingston-on-Thames for Hawker Engineering; his greatest achievement was the creation of the ‘Squanderbug’, a 500cc racing car which he built in 1947, and which races even to this day.
Provenance: the artist’s estate.
Condition: generally very good.
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