086 TECHNOLOGY / MUSEUM CASE STUDY
WATTS ON SHOW Daylight and precision spotlighting combine at the revamped Watts Gallery in Surrey.
The work of one of the Victorian era’s greatest ‘lost’ artists is being seen in a new light following the £10 million rescue of the Watts Gallery in Compton, Surrey, UK. The gallery, built in 1904, houses a collection of more than 1,000 works by the influential Victorian painter and sculptor George Frederic Watts. Although it was intended to make the maximum use of natural daylight, in reality its design made much of the art hard to see. Now, Watts’s works can be viewed clearly, thanks to sensitive remodelling by Zombory-Moldovan Moore Architects and lighting design by Charles Marsden-Smedley, which uses more than 100 of Precision Lighting’s Evo spotlights. Museum and gallery expert Marsden- Smedley’s lighting strategy was devised to illuminate Watts’s works of art – painting and sculpture – to their best advantage, focusing light on the works of art and allowing the walls to remain relatively dark. He was also keen to make the fixtures as discrete as possible.
Curator Mark Bills has been impressed by the results. “The lighting has been a crucial element to the redevelopment of the gallery,” he says. “Not just because of the wonderful atmosphere it creates, but primarily because of the way it illuminates the paintings, which has been a revelation to many.” Precision Lighting’s Evo was partly designed with the Watts Gallery in mind, after
a request from Marsden-Smedley for a lockable spotlight. The scheme features 104 Evo 16 spotlights with 6mm honeycomb louvres, plus another 54 Evo 16s with snoots designed to eliminate glare. The specially designed heat sink and airflow system reduces the lamp and surface temperature while preventing any light spill. They are mounted on 130 metres of Eutrac three- circuit track housed in specially designed troughs and custom-finished to match the newly painted ceilings.
An Evo 16 with a projector was also installed to light the Sower of Systems, a remarkable symbolist painting regarded as having changed the course of modern art in Britain. The projector has an integral framing attachment providing a projection of adjustable square light to accentuate images.
The gallery is the biggest in the country devoted to a single artist. It was originally designed to make extensive use of daylight, in part to create a strong connection between the art and the surrounding countryside but this also made some of the works hard to view. Says architect Andrew Zombory-Moldovan, “When the gallery was decrepit, there were a handful of bulbs in odd places where they had replaced gas lamps and they weren’t lighting the paintings.” Part of the lighting challenge, therefore, was to “introduce properly controlled artificial light on the painting
and sculpture that would preserve that original intent by keeping it as discreet as possible and building the lighting into the architecture,” he says. “Spotlighting the paintings and sculptures in this way was an important part of keeping the gallery’s extraordinary cosiness and homeliness, while also modelling the space.” “The big thing about the Watts Gallery is that is has a magical atmosphere quite unlike most others,” says Zombory- Moldovan. “It is very personal and idiosyncratic. The light plays a vital part in preserving that while also making sure that the viewing and conservation conditions are right.”
www.precisionlighting.co.uk
Photographs: Precision Lighting / Carl Pendle
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