|
|
 |
| |
Actor who played the secret role of a fine art collector
Peter Barkworth left behind a remarkable collection of paintings following his death last year, writes Gerald Isaaman
YOU see it in the entrance hallway now as your enter Fenton House, the William and Mary merchant mansion atop Windmill Hill, Hampstead. There on the wall is Flask Walk, Hampstead Night, painted circa 1920 by Charles Ginner.
It is a remarkable picture, one of several Ginner was inspired to paint from the rooms he occupied above a shop in Hampstead High Street, directly opposite Flask Walk. And it was the favourite in the personal collection of Peter Barkworth, the noted actor who died last October, aged 77.
Flask Walk was his home from 1962, a struggle to buy for £8,500 despite earning two salaries, one from acting, the other teaching at RADA, where he had trained himself. When Barkworth died that translated into more than £1 million.
He left the house to his partner David Wyn Jones. And in his will, in which he left an estate valued at £2,256,862, he has bequeathed his collection of 55 paintings to the National Trust property on the edge of Hampstead Heath.
Few people knew of his passion for paintings, one reason being his fear of burglars.
I can recall bumping into him in the High Street and him inviting me with his brilliant smile: “Come and see what I’ve just bought.”
Indeed his burgeoning collection built up over the years ended up including two John Constables and works by Walter Sickert, David Cox, John Sell Cotman, Philip Wilson Steer, Spencer Gore, Harold Gilman, Duncan Grant, Peter de Wint, Helen Allingham and the Hampstead painter Robert Bevan.
He originally wanted to leave the collection to Burgh House, the nearby grade I-listed mansion, now a thriving community centre and home of the Hampstead Museum, which he helped to save when Camden Council wanted to flog it off to commercial interests.
But it did not have the room to hang so many pictures so more than a decade ago he told the National Trust that would go to Fenton House, itself left to the Trust by Lady Binning in a stunning country house with a magnificent walled garden.
“They have absolutely transformed the place,” Jane Ellis, curator of the grade I-listed property, told me.
“It’s a fantastic collection. We have all the pictures hung now and everybody who comes here loves Peter’s legacy.
“It was such a delightful surprise and such a colourful and modern collection. He had a great love for Hampstead.”
And Peter has provided his own intimate contribution to what is now called the Peter Barkworth Collection by writing personal notes on the back of the various paintings, which are now listed in an addition to the Fenton House guide book.
Of the Flask Walk picture by Ginner, he says: “I bought this at Sotheby’s on Wednesday 10th June, 1081. It was included in the Points of View exhibition at Kenwood House, Hampstead, in the summer of 1997.”
That exhibition, which I helped to organise, celebrated the centenary of the Heath and Hampstead Society of which Peter was an active member. And of Ginner’s painting of Pond Street, Hampstead, Peter wrote: “This was painted before the Royal Free was there.
“The church tower is still there, though the church itself (St Stephen’s) has been scandalously derelict since I came to live in Hampstead.”
His two Constables are also significant, the more so as they have been hung in the Rockingham Room at Fenton House, alongside a so-called Constable left by Lady Binning.
One is a seascape with shipping, the other a small oil labelled Cumulus Clouds Over a Landscape. About this, Peter notes: “I believe this picture to have been painted in 1822. Certainly I like to think of him going the few yards to the top of the hill from his house at 2 Lower Terrace (Hampstead), and looking north at the small hills and the sky.”
Many of Peter’s water colours now adorn the staircase at Fenton House, replacing what Jane calls a collection of boring prints, and the largest number of pictures bring to life the once bare walls of the top floor, which houses Fenton House’s famed collection of early musical instruments.
So the quiet magic of Peter Barkworth, who dazzled us on stage, in films and on TV, winning two BAFTA awards, the plaudits of actors galore he taught and an army of admirers, lives on. |
 |
|
| |
| Your Comments: |
| |
| |
| |
|
|
|
