Viva Lewes Issue #134 November 2017

ON THIS MONTH: ART
Treasure in the broom cupboard
EW Tristram’s forgotten panels
“What is that?” asked Alex
Grey, who went to inspect
a secret mural hidden away
in St Elisabeth’s Church in
Eastbourne, and has ended up
organising the exhibition of a
different but equally intriguing
work of art. Being shown
round the place by the church’s
resident artist Fenya Sharkey,
the Martyrs’ Gallery curator
spotted what looked like an
Italian quattrocento panel,
leaning against the wall.
St Elisabeth's was completed
in 1938, and is Grade II listed.
The description of the building
in the British Listed Building
archives describes, in the basement, an ‘important
painted mural sequence, depicting the Pilgrim’s
Progress in a free expression style by Hans
Feibusch, 1944’. This is the artwork Alex went
there to see, a painting which is under threat as
the building, left derelict since 2003 when it was
discovered to be of unsound structure, is soon to
be knocked down.
What she didn’t account for was the existence of
another masterpiece, which had recently been rediscovered:
eleven 6x3-foot painted panels, signed
‘EW Tristram, 1938’. Tristram was a revered art
historian and restoration expert, whose watercolour
copies of hundreds of British medieval church
frescoes are kept in the V&A Museum. These
panels are the only originally conceived works he
is known to have done: eleven scenes from the life
of Christ, very much in the style of the medieval
Italian masters. These had been placed around the
Sanctuary of the church, but some time after the
building’s listing in 1993 had been put away in a
cupboard otherwise used for
storing cleaning materials,
and forgotten.
Alex has arranged for all
eleven panels to be displayed
in the Martyrs’ Gallery in the
run-up to Christmas: I meet
her there to talk about the
exhibition, and she’s clearly
excited. “Some members of
the 20th Century Society
had been to St Elisabeth’s
shortly before me to see the
Feibusch murals and had also,
by chance, seen the recently
discovered paintings,” she
says. “They had just compiled
a list of the ‘top 100 works of
British art in the 20th century’, and they said that
if they had known about the Tristram panels, they
would have put them in the top ten.”
It’s remarkable, then, that the panels had disappeared
without anyone seemingly missing them;
Alex jumped at the chance to display them at
Martyrs’. The exhibition will be free to visit, but
she’ll make it clear that donations will be welcome,
and proceeds will go to the St Elisabeth’s church
fund, aiming to raise enough cash to facilitate the
moving of the Feibusch murals – a delicate and
expensive task – from the basement of the church
to a new home before the building is demolished.
“I’m glad that people coming to see one artwork
from St Elisabeth’s will be able to help save
another,” she concludes; there will be a series of
ticketed events connected with the exhibition.
Alex Leith
Martyrs’ Gallery Nov 4th – Dec 17th (private view
Fri 3rd Nov, 6pm) check out martyrs.gallery for
related events.
The Flight into Egypt, EW Tristram, 1938
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