Holiday Sketches in Manchester

Last week I installed Holiday Sketches in the workplace of my day job - the Portico Library in Manchester - and it is an updated version of the exhibition in London. Most importantly, it has original art works by Mary Severn Newton on display and more information about the people in Rhodes she met. I will be doing an in conversation style event on Tuesday 17 June. It is free, though I will be asking for donations to restore the books Mary Severn Newton has her work in - you can book here.

This is a chance to grab a drink, chat and take part in a 30 minute in-conversation at 6.30pm on the themes of the exhibition and applying empathetic history in practice between the Chair of the Public Programme Carol Ann Whitehead and me.

There is a short video of how the sketches look in the original sketchbook below as they are too fragile to display and people have been fascinated by them.

Video with a hand turning over pages of a sketchbook

Below is the formal press release:

Holiday Sketches uses books from the historic collection of the Portico Library and loaned art works to explore travel by a female artist, with her friend and husband, to an island, then in the Ottoman Empire, and the people she met and drew. It is curated by cultural historian and the Portico Library’s Creative Producer Dr Debbie Challis.

Ann Mary Severn Newton, who was an accomplished professional artist, went with her husband the archaeologist Charles Thomas Newton and her teenage friend Gertrude Jekyll to the Ottoman Empire in 1863. In between Charles’ work for the British Museum at Ephesos, Istanbul and Athens, they spent two weeks on holiday making sketches in Rhodes. Dream you are with them in the exhibition or by downloading a zine here.

The display introduces the work of Ann Mary Severn Newton, then uses reproductions of her and Gertrude Jekyll’s visual and written narrative of their trip to Greece and Turkey to explore their own travels and how people in the Ottoman Empire are depicted. The combination of these two accounts together with Severn Newton’s images make for an alternative reading of the trip, including the differences in what the two women did and where they could go in comparison to the men.

It is accompanied by photographs of what Rhodes is like now, seen through the eyes of the curator’s British family on holiday in 2025, as well as responses to how the communities of people they met have changed due to geo-politics, persecution and war. You can explore the map of Rhodes with photographs on History Pin here. This will be updated gradually throughout the exhibition.

With thanks to the Birkenhead Collection – Severn Family Archive for permission to reproduce images and to Peter Bradford for the loan of art works.

Dr Debbie Challis FRHistS is Creative Producer of the Portico Library and a cultural historian with an expertise on the reception of classical antiquity in the nineteenth century. She is Honorary Fellow of the University of Liverpool and is currently researching and writing about the life of a mid Victorian female artist called Mary Severn as well as travellers in the 19thC Ottoman Empire. She is passionate about socially informed and empathetic practice in public engagement with history and is a resident expert on Alex Andreou's Podyssey (a podcast on the legacy of Ancient Greece).

Portrait of Debbie Challis

Much of the research and first exhibition at the Combined Classics Library in Senate House, University of London was funded by Arts Council England as part of a Developing Your Creative Practice: https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/dycp

About the Portico Library and Newsroom

The Portico Library is a 219-year-old independent subscription library and exhibitions space in Manchester city centre where past, present, and future are unlocked through creativity and collaboration. It is open and free to the public for an eclectic calendar of exhibitions and events, complementing the unique collection of books, archives and illustrations spanning over 450 years: https://www.theportico.org.uk

Follow the Portico Library on Instagram: @porticolibrary, LinkedIn: @ThePorticoLibrary, Bluesky: @porticolibrary.bsky.social and Facebook: @ThePorticoLibrary

Please contact Apapat Jai-in Glynn on engagement@theportico.org.uk for further information and images from the display.