A visual orgy at Works
GALLERY boss Rupert Wood has discovered an orgy going on in one of his rooms for the last 40 years and he wants to know who's behind it.
All four walls and the ceiling are covered with a fresco of semi-naked figures, in the style of Titian, letting their hair down.
"It's an orgy scene with wine, women and song," says Rupert, admiring figures swigging wine from goblets and getting up to some classical high jinks.
"There is even one old guy lying fast asleep on some grassy hillock which is taken by some people to be me!" he laughs.
When he moved his Archipelago gallery from Ecclesall Road to a 19th century industrial building on Sidney Street, previously a cutlery works, he took on a warren of rooms.
He and his team moved through them one by one until, a few weeks after the move, they got to an upstairs room which had previously been used as a sound recording studio.
The walls were covered with insulation material stapled onto wooden battens and as they were removed the fresco gradually appeared.
"I heard screams from Mel (artist Melanie Gibson-Howarth) and I wondered what was happening," he recalls.
Rupert, who deals in modern art, believes the scenes are a composite of figures from various paintings.
Titian's name is around the ceiling rose together with the word Baccanal.
So how good is it? "It's is well done. The draughtsmanship is fine, the figures faithfully copied and I admire the fresco technique. This person could paint," says Rupert.
Now he is trying to find out who the artist is.
He suspects it may have been done by an art student in the Sixties or Seventies because some of the plaster underneath the painting is relatively modern.
According to neighbours, part of the building was in domestic use for some time so Rupert suspects it might have once been a living room or dining room. Sadly, the roof has leaked and the plaster has been damaged on some of the walls but there is enough left of the fresco to admire.
The gallery, currently staging an exhibition called Silver & Black until January 5, will show interested visitors around the room.
And if anyone knows who painted the fresco Rupert would love to know.
The gallery is on 0114 263 4493.
Got a view? Leave your comment below.
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Friday 25 May 2012
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