Those who have visited recently may have noticed some exciting changes have taken place in the Sculpture Gallery. The space closed to the public on Monday 2 May and reopened on Tuesday 28 June alongside our current exhibition A Fragmented Legacy: G F Watts and Sculpture.

Here, Assistant Curator Dr Stacey Clapperton speaks to Collections Manager Emma Coburn ACR, as they reflect on the eight weeks they spent together project managing the redisplay and reimagining of the Sculpture Gallery.

Stacey Clapperton: So, Emma, we had eight weeks to transform the Sculpture Gallery, what was our first priority?

Emma Coburn: As Collections Manager, my first priority was the collection! We needed to protect and pack over 150 collection items to ensure they were not at risk whilst other activities were taking place, such as glazing, lighting, and painting. We packed the Sculpture Gallery collections in over 25 crates with many hundreds of tissue puffs and each crate had a unique number and a list of its contents. The crates were then stored safely for the duration of the project.

Stacey: Then, with the space cleared and all the objects safe in storage, we turned our attention to lighting. Now, lighting has always proved a challenge in the space. The ceilings are extremely high, for example. The historic cases are interesting as they were originally designed for the seed bank collection at Kew by the architect Decimus Burton and were sourced by a gentleman named Terry Parker and subsequently restored and installed in the Sculpture Gallery during the restoration of Watts Gallery.

Emma: And they are beautiful historic cases! However, they presented challenges in terms of collections care and display. For example, the old glass was incredibly reflective, and the interior of the cases was painted a dark ‘wood effect’ which made it difficult to see what was actually inside. We made the decision to reglaze and repaint the cases and install bespoke LED lighting into the interior of each case. Not only does this create a more impactful display, but it also ensures the long-term environmental sustainability of the lighting within the galleries.

Stacey: And we wanted to try new ways of displaying the sculpture, not just relying on keeping things locked in cases. The beauty of sculpture is you can view it from all angles and gain a new impression of it. Something I was really excited by was mounting the ‘heads’ at a high level, so visitors could view them as Watts would have intended the finished or fully realised sculptures to be. Whereas previously they had just been lying down on a shelf.

Emma: This element of the project was a new direction for us both, as we neither of us had not worked with mountmakers at Watts Gallery before. On the advice of a specialist sculpture conservator, we worked with Zoe Harper, BESPOKE mounts to design and build 15 powder coated metal mounts that fitted each sculpture individually. The individual mounts not only secure the sculpture to their plinths, but they provide a stable and subtle fixing ensuring each sculpture is displayed to its potential.

Stacey: But of course, the decision we’ve made in heightening visitor’s experience of these pieces means there is regular cleaning to be done! And whilst we were closed, we invited some expert conservators to come and look at the two largest items in the entire collection: Physical Energyand Monument to Lord Tennyson. What sort of things did the team from Richard Rogers Conservation look for?

Emma: Regular cleaning is needed to protect the items and we completed our annual high-level cleaning of the space in November 2021. We invited Richard Rogers Conservation to assess, photograph and report on the condition of these two large sculptures. Working off teletowers and a mechanical vertical lift, two conservators spent 5 days meticulously documenting the surface condition and completing remedial treatments for the most vulnerable areas. Then each sculpture had a thorough clean using brushes and vacuum cleaners.

But it wasn’t just the physical nature of the objects that we looked at, you also spent time introducing new interpretation, text, graphics, and descriptive labels to enhance the display in the long term?

Stacey: Yeah, this was really important. The sculpture collection is by nature, fragmented and fairly unconventional. It was saved from the artist’s London and Surrey studios after Watts died and there are some weird and wonderful objects in there – some of which we still don’t know the full story of. Explaining what these objects are, why they are in the collection and how Watts would have used them or drawn inspiration from was essential to uncover his artistic process. And not all of the objects in the collection have a pleasant history. The replicas of the Parthenon sculptures needed to be put in context and when it came to Physical Energy, there’s almost 150 years of complicated and uncomfortable history there that we needed to tell honestly and fully. We’ve worked closely with our audiences to improve that interpretation.

Emma: And finally, we both wanted to make the collection and its stories more accessible to our audiences. It was great to work with Scan The World, London Sculpture Workshop and 3D People UK to help us make 3D models of some of Watts’s most popular sculptures.

Stacey: Definitely, I think its true for both of us personally, but also in keeping with the Wattses ethos ‘Art for All’. The 3D models and the touch elements are fantastic as they give our audiences the physical experience that they can’t get from the historic objects. To be able to touch the materials and feel the forms for themselves is something that our audiences so far have been very excited by and its fantastic that these elements will be a permanent feature of the Sculpture Gallery display for years to come.