John McEwen

Finding salvation

A tragic love story lies behind the jovial title to this delightful exhibition, which unveils the David and Liza Brown Bequest, the largest ever received by Southampton City Art Gallery.

In 1967, David Brown was one of Britain’s most distinguished veterinary surgeons, the world authority on the cattle disease rinderpest, and newly appointed federal director of Veterinary Research for Nigeria. It was a daunting job, undertaken during a civil war and overseeing 400 staff, but he and his prospective wife, Liza Wilcox, eagerly accepted the challenge.

Brown was divorced when he met Wilcox, a tie-dying fabric specialist. She was married, but for both it was the love of their lives. By the time they decided to up sticks in Kenya for Nigeria, she had already changed her name to Brown. Nigeria represented their new life together, but within days of arriving she was thrown from his side as they were driving through the bush and died instantly. Brown was 42. He could contain his grief only by reinventing himself. Collecting pictures had long been a private obsession; he turned to art for salvation.

His first purchase, an 18th-century watercolour, had been bought on leave from Africa in 1958. But the gallery world intimidated him, so, as he was a Hampshire farmer’s son, he went for advice to his local English art museum, Southampton City Art Gallery. It was an inspired choice and proved the start of another, albeit slightly different, love affair.

Southampton is an oddity among British art museums. It was founded by a local worthy, Robert Chipperfield, who died in 1911 leaving the City Council with money to build a museum and art college and to form a collection — under the guidance of the director of the National Gallery. This wise provision meant that Kenneth Clark wrote the acquisitions policy, still used today, and laid the markedly unparochial basis of the collection.

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