The Friendly Contest – Conservation Grant
Today we heard from Woodmansterne Art Conservation Awards that the judges have selected our painting The Friendly Contest by William Kidd which means that we can bring this work back to its former glory.
This oil painting was put on show during our Autumn Weekend last year when we focused on the two Williams within our collection: William Kidd and William Calder Marshall who were contemporaries of Patrick Allan-Fraser and are represented in our archive of artists’ letters at Hospitalfield. Since then we have been fundraising to pay for repairs to the painting following a quote for the work from Egan, Matthews & Rose, the Dundee based painting conservators.
The Friendly Contest shows a group of Greenwich and Chelsea pensioners playing draughts in a light-hearted and comical scene. The surface of the painting is very badly damaged (much more in fact than it appears within this photograph) and the work to start conserving it will start in August. We look forward to showing you the finished painting and extend our thanks to Woodmansterne for enabling this to happen.