Guest Blog: Reflections on Coming Home

This series of blogs have been written to coincide with the Coming Home: William Wilberforce exhibition. On display the Ferens Art Gallery, the exhibition sees the return of the famously unfinished portrait of William Wilberforce by Sir Thomas Lawrence, loaned from the National Portrait Gallery. This is part of a nationwide project by the National Portrait Gallery to return works of famous Britons to the places that they are most closely associated with. The blog series will highlight some of the key stories in the exhibition, which also includes art work and objects from the collections of the Ferens Art Gallery and Wilberforce House Museum.

This blog has been kindly written by Philip Evans, a patron of the Friends of the Ferens. In it Philip provides us with his impressions of the exhibitions and picks out some of his highlights.

The first thing you notice upon entering the Coming Home exhibition is the hypnotic music to the video installation The Abolitionist’s Parlour by Keith Piper. This work was originally created for the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade in 2007. The use of sound in art exhibitions is currently fashionable but thankfully the music here doesn’t detract from the rest of the exhibition. 

Another thing you notice amongst the several portraits of William Wilberforce is that not only does he have a large nose, but nobody appears to have mastered painting or drawing it. You are left wondering why such a prominent feature of a person’s face was so difficult to master. 

One key benefit of viewing the wonderful partially completed portrait of Wilberforce by Sir Thomas Lawrence, which was painted after a single one-hour sitting, is to see how radiant Wilberforce looks and to see the twinkle in his eye. This is not apparent in reproductions. You can see why Lawrence was the go-to portraitist of his day. 

The exhibition also highlights organisations in the city that are still channelling some of Wilberforce’s ideas about antislavery, freedom and equality. These include the University of Hull’s Wilberforce Institute and the popular, annual Freedom Festival. There are a number of leaflets and newspaper cuttings on display. These show that the Wilberforce Monument moved from Monument Bridge in 1935. They also show that slavery has never gone away.  Leaflets refer to 3 million people being enslaved in 1926, 4 million in 1927, and 6 million in 1933. Figures from the International Labour Organisation put the figure at 40 million in 2017. 

Lastly, don’t forget that there is a computer animated display now in the Studio Foyer at Ferens. This was created in 2017 by the Wilberforce Institute and the Glasgow School of Art. This is another chance to come face to face with Wilberforce as well as being able to hear his words.

To find out more about the stories and objects in the exhibition, visit ‘Coming Home: William Wilberforce,’ on display at Ferens Art Gallery until 19

January 2020.