Untitled10 2019

11th October - 28th February

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Mr Scott’s Best Shirt is historic object that never existed, but that should have been collected at the time the Bowes Museum was created.

 

Sadly the workers and working class people who made the fabric of the Museum were overlooked by the Curators and Collectors who recorded the Museum’s early history.  The craftsmen and women who worked as joiners, painters, polishers, cabinet makers…are for the most part, lost to history.

 

For #Untitled 10 2019, I wanted to find and celebrate these historic craftspeople.  I came across Mr Thomas Lee Scott in the Reading Room of the Bowes Museum.  Thomas, and another joiner, William Gregson, feature as witnesses in a court case that followed a fight at the Museum in 1881.  You can read more about this here.

 

Mr Scott’s Best Shirt is based on a working man’s shirt from 1870.  The shirt is held in the textile store of the Museum. 

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