On Richard Harris’s website there is a picture of him sitting on a sofa in his front room, a coffee table just in front of his knees.
There wouldn’t normally be anything remarkable about that, but in Harris’s case the coffee table holds a display of four skulls; astonishingly, there are more on a table behind him.
Harris, a former antique print dealer, started collecting objects relating to death in 2001, and some of them are now on display in a fascinating, if slightly uneven, exhibition at the Wellcome Collection, London.
Death: A Self-Portrait is as much about Harris’s extraordinary collection as it is about representations of death.
Apparently, Harris fell into this area of collecting by accident. He had previously collected prints on the advice of experts, and had acquired works by the likes of Matisse and Rembrandt.
However, he decided that he wanted to trust his own eye, so he dispensed with help from art experts and moved into the area of 16th- and 17th-century prints of human anatomy. This collection eventually morphed into objects related to death, and it is remarkable in its depth and breadth.
Harris made a conscious decision not to create a “trophy collection” and so has made acquisitions ranging from etchings by Goya to anonymous photographs, with works dating from the 15th century to the present day.
This temporary exhibition shows 300 items out of approximately 1,500 in the collection Harris has amassed.
The selected objects are displayed in five themed rooms. Four of these examine broad questions about our attitudes and relationship to death.
One, in the middle room, looks at a more specific feature. For the most part the interplay of the themes and Harris’s rich collection enable visitors to explore death on multiple levels. Occasionally, though, the limitations of imposing a theme become evident.
Memento mori
The first room, Contemplating Death, exhibits a selection of objects reminding the viewer of the inevitability of death.
The room includes memento mori – reminders of the inevitability of death – such as Barthel Bruyn the Elder’s Portrait of a Man, which has the portrait on one side and an image of a skull on the other.
Other pieces contemplate philosophical and theological questions about death and dying, and pose questions about what happens afterwards. Some of the objects have practical applications, such as ex libris bookplates featuring skeletons, and a skull-shaped netsuke.
These, in particular, invite visitors to ponder where we see or use representations of death in our daily lives, and thus our own attitudes towards it.
The second room focuses on the certainty of death, particularly through images of the dance of death in which skeletons dance and play instruments around a grave.
Works here include the beautiful image of the dance in the 15th-century Nuremberg Chronicle, and others from Europe and Japan.
Its message – that we all die – is repeated in works from around the globe, including Calavera by the Argentinean Mondongo Collective.
This massive relief, made from modelling clay, features a skull and is formed from vignettes, depicting Argentinean slum housing (the lower jaw) up to representations of European and American power at the top, with, among other things, small books and bodies in between.
All this is set against a Pacman backdrop. It is a bizarre and fascinating piece that I found hard to move away from.
The exhibition then leaves philosophical questions aside, and examines violent death in war.
Harris’s collection contains three series of artworks made in reaction to different wars: Jacques Callot’s biting critique of soldiers’ appalling behaviour in the 30 years war, Goya’s depiction of the horrors of the Peninsula war, and Otto Dix’s memories of fighting in the first world war.
Comparisons
Dix was influenced by Callot and Goya and the three series are presented in a way that allows visitors to look at each in detail and move back and forth between them to compare themes and styles. Unfortunately, doing so can leave you with the depressing feeling that nothing much has changed.
Patchy
I found the next room to be the weakest. Its idea is that our fascination with the morbid reflects what Freud identified as a conflict between humans’ instinct for life and instinct for destruction.
The works displayed hark back to the original starting point for Harris’s collection, namely anatomical prints, which have now been augmented with more contemporary pieces.
One can see that the destruction of a corpse by dissection is done with the intention of aiding the living, but it is a rather laboured analogy and I can’t help feeling that the works could have been better explored with a different frame.
Nonetheless, you can’t help but be stopped in your tracks by John Isaac’s Are You Still Mad At Me? Let’s just say, avoid this room if you’re of a delicate disposition and you’ve just eaten.
The final room presents us with the flipside of the opening theme by considering how we commemorate death.
It contains anonymous photos of people in the US posing with skulls, Marcos Raya’s family portraits in which he has painted skulls over the faces of those who have died, photographs of Mexican Day of the Dead celebrations as well as skulls from Peru and masks from Tibet and Cameroon.
But this selection highlights an interesting issue: this is the only room in which there are a significant number of non-European or north American artworks. The implication is that the other themes are little explored in non-western art and vice versa. Is that really the case, or is this balance a reflection of Harris’s collection or an aspect of this exhibition?
If the last two rooms inadvertently expose questions about exhibition making, specifically about framing ideas through themes, that’s no bad thing.
It also shouldn’t detract from the fact that Death: A Self-Portrait provides the chance to see Harris’s extraordinary collection and to explore an issue that we often avoid discussing.
Rachel Souhami is a museum consultant and lecturer in museum studies
There wouldn’t normally be anything remarkable about that, but in Harris’s case the coffee table holds a display of four skulls; astonishingly, there are more on a table behind him.
Harris, a former antique print dealer, started collecting objects relating to death in 2001, and some of them are now on display in a fascinating, if slightly uneven, exhibition at the Wellcome Collection, London.
Death: A Self-Portrait is as much about Harris’s extraordinary collection as it is about representations of death.
Apparently, Harris fell into this area of collecting by accident. He had previously collected prints on the advice of experts, and had acquired works by the likes of Matisse and Rembrandt.
However, he decided that he wanted to trust his own eye, so he dispensed with help from art experts and moved into the area of 16th- and 17th-century prints of human anatomy. This collection eventually morphed into objects related to death, and it is remarkable in its depth and breadth.
Harris made a conscious decision not to create a “trophy collection” and so has made acquisitions ranging from etchings by Goya to anonymous photographs, with works dating from the 15th century to the present day.
This temporary exhibition shows 300 items out of approximately 1,500 in the collection Harris has amassed.
The selected objects are displayed in five themed rooms. Four of these examine broad questions about our attitudes and relationship to death.
One, in the middle room, looks at a more specific feature. For the most part the interplay of the themes and Harris’s rich collection enable visitors to explore death on multiple levels. Occasionally, though, the limitations of imposing a theme become evident.
Memento mori
The first room, Contemplating Death, exhibits a selection of objects reminding the viewer of the inevitability of death.
The room includes memento mori – reminders of the inevitability of death – such as Barthel Bruyn the Elder’s Portrait of a Man, which has the portrait on one side and an image of a skull on the other.
Other pieces contemplate philosophical and theological questions about death and dying, and pose questions about what happens afterwards. Some of the objects have practical applications, such as ex libris bookplates featuring skeletons, and a skull-shaped netsuke.
These, in particular, invite visitors to ponder where we see or use representations of death in our daily lives, and thus our own attitudes towards it.
The second room focuses on the certainty of death, particularly through images of the dance of death in which skeletons dance and play instruments around a grave.
Works here include the beautiful image of the dance in the 15th-century Nuremberg Chronicle, and others from Europe and Japan.
Its message – that we all die – is repeated in works from around the globe, including Calavera by the Argentinean Mondongo Collective.
This massive relief, made from modelling clay, features a skull and is formed from vignettes, depicting Argentinean slum housing (the lower jaw) up to representations of European and American power at the top, with, among other things, small books and bodies in between.
All this is set against a Pacman backdrop. It is a bizarre and fascinating piece that I found hard to move away from.
The exhibition then leaves philosophical questions aside, and examines violent death in war.
Harris’s collection contains three series of artworks made in reaction to different wars: Jacques Callot’s biting critique of soldiers’ appalling behaviour in the 30 years war, Goya’s depiction of the horrors of the Peninsula war, and Otto Dix’s memories of fighting in the first world war.
Comparisons
Dix was influenced by Callot and Goya and the three series are presented in a way that allows visitors to look at each in detail and move back and forth between them to compare themes and styles. Unfortunately, doing so can leave you with the depressing feeling that nothing much has changed.
Patchy
I found the next room to be the weakest. Its idea is that our fascination with the morbid reflects what Freud identified as a conflict between humans’ instinct for life and instinct for destruction.
The works displayed hark back to the original starting point for Harris’s collection, namely anatomical prints, which have now been augmented with more contemporary pieces.
One can see that the destruction of a corpse by dissection is done with the intention of aiding the living, but it is a rather laboured analogy and I can’t help feeling that the works could have been better explored with a different frame.
Nonetheless, you can’t help but be stopped in your tracks by John Isaac’s Are You Still Mad At Me? Let’s just say, avoid this room if you’re of a delicate disposition and you’ve just eaten.
The final room presents us with the flipside of the opening theme by considering how we commemorate death.
It contains anonymous photos of people in the US posing with skulls, Marcos Raya’s family portraits in which he has painted skulls over the faces of those who have died, photographs of Mexican Day of the Dead celebrations as well as skulls from Peru and masks from Tibet and Cameroon.
But this selection highlights an interesting issue: this is the only room in which there are a significant number of non-European or north American artworks. The implication is that the other themes are little explored in non-western art and vice versa. Is that really the case, or is this balance a reflection of Harris’s collection or an aspect of this exhibition?
If the last two rooms inadvertently expose questions about exhibition making, specifically about framing ideas through themes, that’s no bad thing.
It also shouldn’t detract from the fact that Death: A Self-Portrait provides the chance to see Harris’s extraordinary collection and to explore an issue that we often avoid discussing.
Rachel Souhami is a museum consultant and lecturer in museum studies
Project data
- Cost £140,000
- Funder Wellcome Trust
- Curator Kate Forde
- Exhibition design Jane Holmes
- Lighting DHA Lighting
- Graphics Marianne Dear
- Exhibition ends 24 February
