Old photos of Ramsgate, Turner prize Comes to Margate for 2019 and Turner in Margate in 1784

Tracey Emin's bed is an artwork that was shortlisted for The Turner Prize in 1999. It was bought by Charles Saatchi for £150,000 which may seem a bit strange unless you appreciate that he sold it for £2,500,000 or more than 16 times as much as he paid for it.

Here you see Margate operatic society in Ramsgate and I suppose this would be in the 1950s a date I may change when I have published this blog post, which will mean I can click on the photo and expand it. I think having looked at the photo it is more likely to be 60s

Mind you Tracey Emin's "My Bed" which was actually created in 1998, has much more of the feel of 1984 for me. Not in an Orwellian sense particularly although the quote from his novel "1984" - “Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.” sort of fits with it. I guess it feel like it relates to the dissipation of Post Punk. 

I guess 11 people working at a firewood - is factory the right name, here in Ramsgate says a lot about how the economic climate has changed over the years.

I think the 2 digit phone number suggests before WW1

Jumping back 200 years to 1784, this is the presumably wrong date, that you usually find on J.W.M. Turner's early watercolours painted when he was at school in Margate. I am pretty certain that he didn't actually arrive in Margate until he was 11 in 1786. He went to Margate to attend Coleman's School, but it's the relationship with his landlady that people often focus on.

I think this is a tinsmiths, looking down into Margate from Cliftonville

Minster Church

St John's Margate

Anyway when he was 14 he went off to study at the Royal Academy in London although he often came back to Thanet, presumably for the skies, landlady, wosisname.

I think he looked a bit like this although my brush may have slipped in some places.

 This is one of his later watercolours of Margate

And this one of Margate High Street.

Anyway

Turner Contemporary are thrilled to announce the official dates for Turner Prize 2019. The exhibition will be open to the public from Saturday 28 September 2019 - Sunday 12 January 2020

Turner Prize is one of the best known prizes for visual arts in the world, and Turner Contemporary are proud to be bringing it to Margate. Every other year, the prize leaves Tate Britain and is presented at a venue outside London.

Four of the most exciting artists working right now will be shortlisted to win the prize based on an outstanding exhibition that has taken place in the previous year. The names of these artists will be announced in Spring 2019.

I did manage to skive off for a bit today

painted a bit at Wetherspoons here in Ramsgate.

Took a few photos on the way there

Here is the link to them

Old Ramsgate and Margate photos Martin Cheek exhibition at Nice Things in Ramsgate photos

Looks like a tricky place to fish to me, I wonder what the cargo is?

Seaside weighing machines, now there's a blast from the past

Another Ramsgate Fish Market one that I hadn't seen before.

The Oval Steps I can't think what this is like now.

Here is the link to the rest of the Martin Cheek exhibition photos,

Well worth popping into Nice Things in Ramsgate and taking a look at this one

Meanwhile back at the bookshop

1Q84 should be enough for anyone but

Here is the link to the rest of the books we put out today

The English Chronicles: One man's story of a south coast language school an novel

As Richard Lewis wrote the "Artistic Thanet" books about famous artists connected with Thanet it would seem there are likely to be parallels between Broadstairs and Bradgate.

In the town of Bradgate on the Kent coast a business-minded earl, Lord Willingham, buys a language school and appoints a new principal, Robert Llewellyn, to run it. Robert’s inside story of his time as this principal is told in these chronicles. They chart the rise and ultimately fall of Darwin College of English and Further Studies, with minutely evoked scenes in between of life and events at the school which are often as comic as they are tragic. As an insight into the making of a language school, and also the making of a principal, 'The English Chronicles' holds a peculiar fascination.

'The English Chronicles' is a sequel to 'Barcelona One More Time', the story of a language teacher in post-Franco Barcelona.

We don't stock new fiction books as they sell at prices in the £10 ballpark and it will be a while before secondhand ones surface so you may want to buy it on Amozon which seems to be the cheapest at the moment, here is the link.

Goat Chaises at Cliftonville and Ramsgate, sketching in Canterbury and other unlikely diversions.

 Goat Chaises,

 Another goat chaise

I Was in Canterbury today, this resolved into trying to take hand held pictures of the moon with my Nikon P610 camera, buying some books mostly from the charity bookshop in Burgate and doing a bit more to one of my watercolour paintings from Chocolate Cafe.

Here is the link to the photos I took

Bookshop wise

Here it the link to the books we put out yesterday

Demolishing the Granville Ballroom

The Granville was Grade II listed on 16 October 1973 the ballroom, in the pictures, was demolished in the 1980s to make way for the hole in the ground we have now.

This was the work of Hitler in WW2

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The tower was originally much taller and housed the tanks for the baths, it's height was reduced in 1900

For those interested in the Granville's history I publish two books bout it, so you may wish to come into the Michael's Bookshop (closed tomorrow as it's a Thursday) in King Street Ramsgate and have a browse of them.

Online here are the shopping links

The Granville Hotel - The Story of the Granville Hotel Ramsgate 1869-2012 

and

The Granville Hotel - Revisited

Also on the work front I have done another post on my blog about working in the bookshop
 here is the link.

The background ramifications of the way ITC and books interrelate fascinates me, as do the changes in literacy at the moment.