Sir Stirling Moss to launch Gallery Artmobile radical Reach Out Programme
Dulwich Picture Gallery launches its Artmobile Project on 10 September 2013, the latest addition to its multi award-winning education and outreach programme. Sir Stirling Moss, one of the country’s best loved former racing drivers, will launch the vehicle at 9.30am before its inaugural outreach journey across London visiting community sites over the course of the day.
The Artmobile external design is an original piece of artwork by Royal Academician Humphrey Ocean who will complete the work with his signature at the launch.
Humphrey Ocean RA said “Dulwich Picture Gallery is my local gallery. What luck. I have seen first-hand the fantastic and valuable work it does and I know this vehicle will help bring the Gallery’s programmes to even more people. I have much enjoyed my involvement in the design of the Artmobile and had in mind it might be on an adventure, dressed in a kind of high-visibility camouflage if that is not a contradiction, boldly going.”
The vehicle will transport the Gallery’s community learning team along with its brilliant range of art materials to any location in and around London.
Dulwich Picture Gallery currently works with over 100 community centres, care homes and hospitals through its pioneering ‘Good Times: Art for Older People’ programme, with a year round free programme of creative activities. Meanwhile, the Gallery’s vibrant Youth Engagement programme attracts hundreds of harder-to-reach young people every year. The Gallery also runs a wide-ranging public programme of creative workshops, family events and lectures.
The new Artmobile enables the Gallery’s successful programme of education and outreach to be extended to an ever growing number of community venues, schools and events.
The Artmobile Project has been generously supported by Béatrice & James Lupton, CBE.
-Ends
For further information please contact: Press Officer, Louisa Bee
l.bee@dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk / 0208 299 8710
Notes to Editors
Education at Dulwich Picture Gallery
- Education at Dulwich Picture Gallery is one of the UK’s most renowned and radical arts education programmes, providing a pioneering approach and reaching out beyond the confines of the gallery via a team of specially trained artists and teachers.
- Our innovative education programmes reach over 37,000 adults and children each year all in personally taught sessions and has received numerous awards and commendations.
- Dulwich Picture Gallery does not receive any government funding yet all Community and Reach Out programmes are free of charge.
Sir Stirling Moss, OBE, FIE
Sir Stirling Moss OBE became a professional driver in 1948, at the age of 18, racing a Cooper 500. His early career was meteoric, with works drives for both Jaguar and HWM. 1955 was a seminal year; he was signed by Mercedes-Benz and won the British Grand Prix at Aintree.
After Mercedes-Benz withdrew from motor racing following the 1955 Le Mans tragedy, Stirling led the Maserati and Vanwall teams. He raced 107 different types of car, across all classes of motor sport, during his remarkable career. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he led the changeover to rear engined Formula 1 cars with the Cooper-Climax, achieving the first victory for such a car at the 1958 Argentine Grand Prix. His victory in the 1961 Monaco Grand Prix, racing a Lotus 18 against the more powerful Ferrari’s is still regarded as one of the best Formula 1 races ever.
Out of the 375 competitive races in which he finished during his professional racing career, he won an astonishing 212. A near-fatal accident at Goodwood in 1962 ended it all.
Once the decision to retire from professional motoring racing was made, Stirling expanded his commercial interests, amongst these being his property business, which he runs to this day with his family. He continued to race in historic racing, his familiar white patey helmet and blue light weight race suit being a regular feature at historic races across the globe.
Humphrey Ocean RA
Humphrey Ocean was born in Sussex in 1951 and went to art schools in Tunbridge Wells, Brighton and Canterbury. From 1971 to 1973 he was bass player with Kilburn and the Highroads and was elected a Royal Academician in 2004.
In 1984 he painted a portrait of Philip Larkin for the NPG, described by Nick Hornby as ‘unanswerable’. Four years later he went to Northern Brazil with the American anthropologist Stephen Nugent and their book ‘Big Mouth: The Amazon Speaks’ was published by Fourth Estate in 1990. His work is in the British Council Collection, The Whitworth Art Gallery, Imperial War Museum, Wolverhampton Art Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, National Maritime Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum. Exhibitions include Double-Portrait Tate Liverpool 1992, urbasuburba The Whitworth Art Gallery 1997, ‘The Painter’s Eye’ National Portrait Gallery 1999, ‘How’s My Driving’ Dulwich Picture Gallery 2003, Humphrey Ocean ‘Perfectly Ordinary’ Sidney Cooper Gallery, Canterbury Christ Church University 2009 and ‘Here and There’ Jesus College, Cambridge, 2011. ‘Now and Then’ accompanied his Honorary Doctorate from Canterbury Christ Church University 2012.
A series of new portraits ‘A handbook of modern life’ is on show at the National Portrait Gallery until 1 September 2013. In August his painting Lord Volvo and his Estate, 1982 will appear on billboards across Britain as part of Art Everywhere.
Artmobile Vehicle information
The compact nature of the Artmobile makes it easily manoeuvrable, perfect for city driving and parking, yet it yields a spacious interior with a high roof, allowing easy access to large amounts of top quality creative materials to transport along with a teaching artist and project coordinator. The Artmobile is neat enough to live in the small Gallery car park and enables creative programmes and artists to travel to wherever it can park.
The Artmobile is a DFSK Loadhopper, an economical vehicle that is good value for money. Form and function dovetail in the Dulwich Picture Gallery Artmobile.
Vehicle specifications
Length: 3,980mm Load Capacity: 3.18 m²
Width: 1,560mm Engine Size: 1,310cc petrol
Height: 1,825mm CO2 Emissions g/km: 184