White Table

Did something I'd not done in ages today. I had a wander around the centre of Coventry. I approached from the IKEA end, past New Look, the Pound Shop and the Lower Precinct, and then on to Broadgate. Here the city holds the distinction of being home to, probably, the world's largest Primark. From there we passed the old courthouse, the cathedral, and then onto the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum.

The shopping district may struggle, but the city can sure pack a punch at the gallery. Running until 11 January is 'People of India', a fabulous exhibition of 50+ B&W portraits by Jason Scott Tilley. The prints are of folk he met in the course of travelling through that country during the period 1999-2009, all exquisitely printed, mounted and framed, say 25x25 in 50x50cm white frames. The programme includes an interesting twist. Alongside these 50 or so photographs, curated I might add from some 10,000 negatives, is a display of photographs made by Tilley's grandfather, a man rejoicing in the name of Bertram Edwin Ebenezer Scott. For brevity and to distinguish him from his grandson, I will call him BEES. BEES was a photographer who worked for The Times of India between 1926 and 1940, an English-language paper and then, the largest selling newspaper in the world. Come WWII, BEES headed up the Indian Army's Photographic Unit, only leaving India in 1948 to avoid the violence of partition, bringing back to Coventry a wealth of prints, negatives and so forth.

In the evening we saw Mr Turner, a film I missed the first time around. I've since taken up grunting.

For anyone interested, below is a link  to a short about the Scott Tilley exhibition.

People of India