Popular and intriguing exhibition ‘Send Three and Fourpence’, a visual communication between eight Yorkshire artists, will remain on show at Beverley Art Gallery until Saturday, 14 December.
The idea for this novel show emerged 18 months ago, when a group of artists decided to explore their creative potential by engaging in an ‘artistic game of Chinese Whispers.’
Each artist completed one piece of work, which was wrapped and secretly passed to another artist in the group. The receiving artist produced a new work in response. The new work was then wrapped and secretly passed on to the next artist in the chain and so on.
Over a period of 18 months, 64 works were produced, all of which are on display and a mythical tale provided the title for the show. According to tradition, during the First World War, the military leader of a campaign passed a message to a fellow officer with instructions that the message be discreetly passed to the rank-and-file. The message was: “send reinforcements, we’re going to advance.”
When it eventually reached its destination, a mystified soldier was told to “send three and fourpence, we’re going to a dance.” A clear illustration of the creative possibilities of a muddled message.
