OTD in early British television: 24 April 1939
John Wyver writes: Monday 24 April 1939 saw one of the BBC’s pair of mobile control rooms parked outside Burlington House for an afternoon outside broadcast from Varnishing Day for the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition. Above is the image Radio Times used to trail the transmission.
Before moving inside, viewers saw filmed shots of works being taken down the adjacent lane for consideration on sending-in day and then a fragment of British Movietonenewsreel showing the selection committee at work.
Then commentator Edward Halliday, a noted painter and radio broadcaster, accompanied the cameras into the RA’s Vestibule and galleries 1, 2 and 3. Among those who Halliday encountered were grandees Eric Gill, A.K. Lawrence and President of the RA Sir Edwin Lutyens as well as Louisa Hodgson and ‘Miss Bethel’ (the internet draws a blank; any ideas anyone?). Among the works viewed, as a remarkable photograph shows, was Lawrence’s massive ‘Queen Elizabeth reviewing her armies at Tilbury’.
The 25-minute broadcast, produced by Philip Dorté, attracted several positive critical responses. The correspondent for The Times wrote:
Artists were seen in their overalls putting the finishing touches to their pictures; Mr Eric Gill had a cogent word to say about architecture being the mother of the arts, and of how he and his colleagues, in arranging the sculpture had put the emphasis on architectural sculpture this year.
Large mural paintings were seen, both in oils and tempera, and a dozen works of art of various kinds were clearly focused on the screen. The portraits in particular showed up extraordinarily well…
As the cameras moved round the galleries, Mr Edward Halliday, who provided the commentary, was greeted by fellow artists, by a student from the Academy Schools, and by the President, Sir Edwin Lutyens. It was all very casual and pleasant and gave a real impression of informality, so that viewers were given a good idea of what a Varnishing Day is like.
However, as a journalist for the Daily Telegraph observed, ‘Only one artist was discovered actually varnishing his picture.’ They continued:
In spite of lighting difficulties arising from an indoor transmission the transmission was very satisfactory. The Academy was seen in workaday dress, with ladders, workmen, and overalled artists everywhere. Sometimes the buzz of talk was so loud that it was almost impossible to hear the commentary.
Miss Kay Bethell is listed in the exhibition catalogue – on the RA web site – with a piece called “Portrait of my sister”
Ah, Miss Kay Bethell was a student at the Academy, who had two portraits hung in the exhibition. The following day’s Daily Mail has a photograph of her with Edward Halliday in a report on the programme, and in another piece on the exhibition, she is “a pretty brunette from Bloomsbury” , “walking about in a daze over her ‘amazing luck’.
Great detective work – thanks!