11:17am Monday 2nd February 2009
Hannah Cullwick, who secretly married a man of letters and
documented her 40 year marriage in a sado-masochistic relationship
Hannah Cullwick, who secretly married a man of letters and
documented her 40 year marriage in a sado-masochistic relationship
An installation featuring photographs of a 19th-century servant, who secretly married a man of letters and documented her 40 year marriage in a sado-masochistic relationship, have gone on show at the National Trust’s Fox Talbot Museum in Lacock.
“Hannah Cullwick was a cross-dressing, servant who revelled in dirt and sweat and willingly married her master and lived as a self-confessed slave - even licking his boots,” said Roger Watson, Curator of the Fox Talbot Museum.
“She would visit local photographers and have portraits taken of herself dressed as a man or in dirty clothes to collect and present to her husband, Arthur Munby.”
“Artist Alison Marchant’s installation begins with the surviving pocket-sized images from Hannah’s collection and by enlarging them onto glossy paper and mounting them on aluminium gives them a sleek contemporary look, while preserving the 19th-century subject matter.”
Hannah Cullwick had an amazing capacity for self-expression. Her pictures, which survived along with diaries and letters she wrote in stolen moments, illustrate her determined commitment to a life of sweat, toil and dirt as a servant of the lowest rank.
Biographies about the couple based on Cullwick’s work reveal how even though she had the chance to become a lady of the Victorian era, she chose to continue working in cellars and scrubbing, because she felt less constrained than the ladies of her time.
“Hannah Cullwick didn’t think of herself as an artist but was simply trying to document her life through photographs and diaries” says Roger. “Like her subject, Alison doesn’t create the images themselves, but through their selection and judicious editing she is able to give us a 21st century look at a 19th century life.
"With images and texts she finds in archives, Alison looks for the broader message behind the documents. She focuses on the lives of women in the workplace, weaving these threads to create a thought provoking commentary on the lives of Victorian Women.”
“Alison Marchant studied Fine Art at the Slade School of Art in London and the signature of her work is her creativity in working with local historians and their archives to uncover otherwise hidden or displaced histories, and through this installation she brings new meaning to Hannah’s personal archive,” said Mr Watson. Alison Marchant’s intriguing re-interpretation of this archive speaks volumes about women’s labour, social and class barriers, and the use of photography in creating a multi-faceted portrait of one woman.
Relicta (all that remains) an Installation by Alison Marchant is on show at the Fox Talbot Museum in Lacock until June.
The Museum is open weekends until Saturday 14 March when it opens daily for the season. Further information can be found at via the web link on the right.
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