Mackmurdo: the Enfield Art Exhibition 1884

These notes were written over twenty years ago when I was endeavouring to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Mackmurdo with a small exhibition at Forty Hall Museum, Enfield, & now urgently need revision.

To interest people in the art of their own neighbourhood as the starting point of a wider interest in art, I organised an Art and Crafts Exhibition at Enfield, in 1883 [sic], one year before the formation of the Art Workers' Guild. I chose Enfield because I was living there, and had workshops there. I hoped that by showing what work was being done here, it might stimulate local effort and encourage some at least among residents to make beautiful things for their own homes. In this exhibition each exhibit had to be either the design or the work of a person resident within the parish, and the names of designer and executant were to be bracketed as authors of the exhibit.

MACKMURDO. Autobiographical notes (William Morris Gallery)

Mackmurdo in the Enfield local press

"Wren's City Churches." Meyer's Observer and Local and General Advertiser, edition of 21 April 1883, p3 (col.6)

Report of a lecture by Mackmurdo.

"Proposed Local Art Exhibition in Enfield." Meyer's Observer and Local and General Advertiser, edition of November 10th, 1883, p3 (col.6)

Letter from Arthur S.[sic] Mackmurdo, Bush-hill-park, Enfield. 

"Enfield Local Art Exhibition etc." Meyer's Observer and Local and General Advertiser, edition of March 8th, 1884 p5

[Advertisement]: "An Exhibition of Local Art is intended to be held at the Athenaeum, Bycullah Park, from the 30h May to the 7th June, 1884. The Exhibition will be confined to works executed or lent by Residents of Enfield and the neighbourhood."

"Art Exhibition at Enfield." Meyer's Observer and Local and General Advertiser, edition of June 7th, 1884, p6 (cols.1 & 2)

Editorial report on opening

[editorial concerning opening of "A Local Art Exhibition"]. Meyer's Observer and Local and General Advertiser, edition of June 14th, 1884, p5 (cols.1 & 2)

"Enfield Local Art Exhibition." Meyer's Observer and Local and General Advertiser, edition of June 14th, 1884, p6 (cols.4, 5, 6) and p7 (cols.1, 2)

"Mr A.H. Mackmurdo was a large exhibitor of pictures, having on view about 80 oil and water colours, a large number being the artist's own productions, including many really fine works, amongst which may be mentioned ... "Baptistery" [and] "Galileo's Tomb", Donatello, Florence."

"The Relation of Oriental Art to English Art; its limitation  and application" / A.H. Mackmurdo, ARIBA (Member of the Council, Social Science Association Meyer's Observer and Local and General Advertiser, edition of October 13th, 1885, p5 (cols.5 & 6)