Image:Wentworth Woodhouse Courtesy of Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust, Photography by James Mulkeen
TM Lighting explains how it was brought onboard by the Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust to illuminate the sculptures, photographs, and canvases included in its exhibition.
Wentworth Woodhouse, until recently the largest private residence in the United Kingdom, has displayed great art throughout its history.
Its one-time owner and two-time prime minister, the 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, first envisaged a sculpture gallery at the house, installing many statues and sculptures in the Statuary and the Gardens. As a keen patron of the arts, in 1762 he invited George Stubbs, the preeminent painter of animals at the time, to stay at Wentworth Woodhouse. During this visit, Stubbs would eternalise Rockingham’s stag hounds, mares and horses including Rockingham’s renowned racehorse Whistlejacket. The commission would go on to be Stubbs’ most acclaimed work which now hangs in the National Gallery Stubbs’s legacy and connection to Wentworth Woodhouse is such that the inaugural exhibition in its newly re-opened exhibition space brings back four of Stubbs’s paintings made during this 1762 residency, bringing back the menagerie of animals that once hung on its walls.
Aptly named ‘Beneath the Surface’, the exhibition showcases animals painted by George Stubbs and contemporary artists alike, calling for the greatest sensibility and sense of feeling when curating, hanging, and lighting them.
TM Lighting, the UK’s leading specialist in the lighting of art, was brought onboard by the Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust to illuminate the sculptures, photographs, and canvases included in the exhibition. With its expertise in lighting historic homes like Goodwood, Kenwood, and Waddesdon Manor, and having lit the entirety of Frieze London, TM Lighting was well placed to bring this extraordinary exhibition to light.
As a Grade I listed, 300-year-old building, Wentworth Woodhouse cannot be fitted in the same way that one would furnish a modern gallery for the lighting of its exhibits. Instead, TM Lighting was tasked with finding innovative solutions to illuminate ‘Beneath the Surface’ to a museum-grade standard, within the strict limitations associated with protecting the period decorations of the house, a feat complicated further by the fact that the exhibition is temporary, with all fittings needing to be constructed with deconstruction in mind.
In the Van Dyck room – so named for a painting that once hung there – TM Lighting designed temporary structures to sit securely on top of the ceiling’s cornices, onto which TM GalleryOneThirty (G130) LED spotlights were attached and angled with precision to illuminate five paintings by George Stubbs, and a contemporary glass sculpture of a horse by the Swiss-born artist Ugo Rondinone.
Providing 98+ CRI high colour rendition and featuring quick-swap lenses, the TM G130 is capable of lighting artworks that vary by size and medium; when fitted with its most acute lens, it can produce an ultra-narrow beam of just 9 degrees, allowing for precise control when lighting three-dimensional sculptures like the Rondinone. Though the works in the Van Dyck room share as their subject the anatomy of a horse, this anatomy is rendered in distinct ways, and thus requires distinct methods of illumination.
Likewise, in the Whistlejacket Room, TM Lighting was tasked with lighting a conceptual work in bright blue and red by Sutapa Biswas, a series of taxidermy dogs, and a Stubbsesque painting of a bucking horse by contemporary artist Hugo Wilson, displayed in the frame moulding opposite the painting that inspired it, and for which the room is named. Each required a tailored approach to lighting, with TM Floor 50s placed discreetly atop mantelpieces and other robust surfaces to focus the eye not on the light source, but rather the menagerie on show.
Victoria Ryves, Head of Culture and Engagement at Wentworth Woodhouse, commented “This exhibition is the most ambitious exhibition at Wentworth Woodhouse to date and brings great art, old and new, to Rotherham. Working with TM Lighting has enabled us to ensure the works are lit in the best way to ensure our visitors see the works at their best”.
Harry Triggs, co-founding director of TM Lighting, said “we are honoured to be involved in this inaugural exhibition at Wentworth Woodhouse, and to bring to light paintings by Stubbs for the three-hundredth anniversary of his birth. While respecting the historic integrity of the building, we have created new and innovative ways of installing our spotlights to showcase the exhibits in their very best light”.
‘Beneath the Surface: George Stubbs & Contemporary Artists’ will remain at Wentworth Woodhouse until Sunday 3 November.
