Award-winning crime writer Frances Fyfield has opened the doors of her private art collection in Russell-Cotes’ criminally captivating exhibit ‘A Question of Guilt’. This gallery of oil paintings, portraits and drawings, created from 1890 to 1950, form a fascinating collection of Bloomsbury / British Modernist Art from a variety of artists including many anonymous painters.
True to the author’s first passion, Fyfield’s eclectic art collection is styled as a fun ‘Whodunnit! Her 24 novels are filled with mysterious and gruesome tales of accidental murder, dental mishaps, art theft and family feuds and her paintings could have been plucked from any one of her gripping tomes.
The collection asks the audience to examine at each piece of ‘evidence’ without prejudice before pondering the character, their story and motive for their crime; portraying victims, charlatans, detectives, murderers, crime scene witnesses and onlookers.
Fyfield has written all the exhibition cards personally, building on the tale and intrigue that surrounds this unique private collection. Alongside her lovingly-selected and treasured anonymous pieces sits work by well-known artists including Walter Sickert, Frank Dobson, Duncan Grant, Evelyn Dunbar and Gwen John. So, grab your magnifying glass and deerstalker hat (or borrow them from the museum’s dressing-up room!) and piece together the clues of this intriguing and (literally) arresting exhibit.