P R E S S R E L E A S E

ONCE IN A LIFETIME EXHIBITION CELEBRATES ARTIST HANNAH FRANK’S

100TH BIRTHDAY

If you can imagine it, you can achieve it. (William Arthur Ward)

When an old friend asked Fiona Frank, niece of iconic Scottish Jewish artist Hannah Frank, to accompany him to the Peruvian rainforest this Summer, she was delighted. Yet the minute she said ‘Yes’ Fiona realised this would mean that the run up to the final exhibition in the five year tour of Hannah Frank’s work, which Fiona has spearheaded, would be frantic to say the least.

“This is a unique time,” Fiona explained. “The Hannah Frank centenary exhibition actually opens on the artist’s 100th birthday – 23 August 2008 -in her native heath, Glasgow. We feel certain that this is a first for the city, perhaps even for the world… a living artist being involved in the arrangements for an exhibition opening on her 100th birthday!”

She added: “Apart from helping to set up the exhibition with the team from Glasgow University - which includes some postgraduate students from the university’s History of Art department who are using the experience as part of their studies - I’m fielding media enquiries, sorting out preview invitations, proofreading the final version of a new book about Hannah, filming for a DVD about her life and work and we’re searching for five or six original pictures whose whereabouts are untraced.”

The ‘missing’ pictures include Sorcery (1929), Flight (1939), The Seeker (1931) and Folly (1930). They are signed ‘Al Aaraaf’ – the pen name that Hannah Frank used for many of her drawings, so their owners may not associate them with Hannah’s name.

“They were probably sold through the Compass Gallery, Glasgow, during the 1970s. If anyone knows where any of these pictures are please do get in touch. We would love to be able to show them to the many visitors expected at the exhibition, some of whom are coming from overseas,” Fiona explained.

The Hannah Frank Centenary exhibition will be housed in the University chapel and runs until 11 October. Rev Stuart MacQuarrie, chaplain to the University of Glasgow, said:

“The interfaith chaplaincy at Glasgow University is delighted to be able to host this important exhibition in celebration of one of the university’s most distinguished students.”

Sponsorship for the exhibition has come from ‘One Glasgow’, a University of Glasgow initiative to promote and celebrate equality and diversity with staff, students and the local community

Fiona summed up the five years she and her team have spent on the mission to make her aunt a household name in her own lifetime.

To begin with I mapped out all I wanted to achieve leading up to my aunt's 100th birthday. I dreamed of wildly unlikely things - an interview on ‘Woman's Hour’, a spread in a weekend colour supplement, a television appearance; plus more achievable milestones like exhibitions across the UK and exhibitions overseas. The highlight was going to be an exhibition opening on her 100th birthday somewhere in Glasgow. All these things - and more - have actually come to pass! Yet never in my wildest dreams did I envisage that there would also be a congratulatory motion and a reception in the Scottish Parliament for my aunt; that Glasgow University might put on a two day International Symposium on Art, Religion and Identity in her honour; that she would be featured on the front page of the university Alumni magazine which goes to many, many thousands of former Glasgow University students. Every day brings something new in my aunt's 100th year and, I’m happy to report, she's easily as excited as I am about the forthcoming exhibition and her 100th birthday.

Hannah herself has said: “If you're an artist, you do it for people, so that people will admire it, so it's no use if it's kept in a dungeon and nobody ever sees it….You hope that people will see it and think you're wonderful.”

That is certainly going to be the case for the centenary exhibition visitors who will see a large selection of Hannah Frank's works, many loaned from private collectors and never before exhibited. There will also be family sketches, self-portraits and extracts from her illustrated diaries and a special exhibition of Glasgow University Magazines from the 1920s and 30s, to which Hannah Frank contributed on many occasions. There will be a rare chance to acquire an original Hannah Frank drawing or sculpture as some of these will be for sale at the exhibition.

A new book ‘Hannah Frank: Footsteps on the Sands of Time. A Hundredth Birthday Gallimaufry’, edited by Fiona Frank and Judith Coyle, will be launched at the exhibition’s preview evening (Friday 22 August). Published by the Scottish Jewish Archives Centre in association with Kennedy & Boyd it is part-funded by the Scottish Arts Council.

Gavin Wallace, Head of Literature at the Scottish Arts Council said: ‘The dark and beautiful heart of Glasgow sang out from every work in Hannah Frank’s portfolio. We are delighted to be able to support and celebrate such an important, and perhaps overlooked, artist.’

A film by visual anthropologist Sarah Thomas about Hannah’s art and life will be launched at the same time. Entitled ‘Hannah Frank – The Spark Divine’, the title coming from a compliment she noted in her diary of Wednesday 10th July 1929: “A letter from Sidney Needoff …thanking me for the poems which would surely feature in the first issue - I had the spark divine”.

The film features two of Hannah’s young great-nieces. Jen Rankin, 26, from Preston, Lancashire, a trainee teacher, who has an uncanny resemblance to the young Hannah, is featured in the DVD sketching and walking by the sea in Ayrshire where the Frank family used to go for the summers; and Barbara Spevack, 30, an actress and singer from Newton Mearns, Glasgow, provides the voice-over of the young Hannah reading her diaries aloud.

The birthday week itself will see a host of celebratory activities around the city of Glasgow, with family and friends coming from all over the world for the celebrations.
Hannah Frank Centenary Exhibition, 23 August - 11 October 2008, Glasgow University Chapel, Glasgow.
Tel: 0141 330 5419. Monday-Friday 9am – 5pm. Sat 23 Aug and Sat 11 Oct 9am – 11am

Do you know the whereabouts of any of the ‘missing’ Hannah Frank original drawings? Please contact Fiona Frank on 07778 737681 or email hannahfrankart@googlemail.com

Signed prints, cards and recasts of Hannah's sculpture are on sale through the webshop at www.hannahfrank.org.uk

Notes for Editors:

Full press pack available containing Hannah Frank background information, biography and past exhibitions. Please contact Judith Coyle (details below) if you require one.

Important Dates:

Press Preview Friday 22 August Glasgow University Chapel, 5 - 6.30 pm.
Reception, Scottish Parliament, Tuesday 23 September, 6 – 8 pm.
International Interdisciplinary Symposium on Art, Religion and Identity: hosted by
The University of Glasgow Graduate School of Arts and Humanities, 23 - 24 September 2008.

High resolution images and high quality photos of Hannah Frank available.

Contacts:

Fiona Frank

3 Dalton Road, Lancaster LA1 3PR

Tel: 07778 737681 (between 9 July and 13 August this number goes to Judith Coyle).

Email: fionafrank@soundboard.f9.co.uk

Website: www.hannahfrank.org.uk

Judith Coyle, PR for Hannah Frank Art.

Tel: 01524 60383. M: 07845 499 343

Email: judith@judithcoyle.co.uk

Ray McHugh, Senior Media Relations Officer, University of Glasgow.

Tel: 0141 330 3535

Email: r.mchugh@admin.gla.ac.uk

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