Worplesdon Gallery Discovers Artist Sidney Sime’s Sketches of Celebrated Actress Ellen Terry

Published on: 25 Sep, 2024
Updated on: 27 Sep, 2024

A volunteer researcher at the Sime Gallery in Worplesdon has made a breakthrough discovery identifying caricature sketches of Ellen Terry, leading English actress of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Artist Sidney Sime.

The gallery displays original examples of the varied work of artist Sidney Sime. These include sketches he made between 1896-98 of prominent actors and actresses. His sketches accompanied reviews by reporter Arnold Goldsworthy (who went by the pen-name of Jingle) and published in Pick-Me-Up, a weekly theatrical and music-hall magazine.

The gallery has 213 original sketches that Sime drew for the magazine, but it’s now known that he produced many more, as revealed in a bound volume of Pick-Me-Up magazines of issues running from August 14, 1897, to March 12, 1898, that have been donated to the gallery.

Ellen Terry as Empress Catherine. Original sketch by Sidney Sime.

Jan Messinger’s research, looking at the original sketches at the galley and from the copies of the magazine, reveal Sime sketched Ellen Terry three times.

Henry Irvine as Peter the Great. Original sketch by Sidney Sime.

This was when Ellen Terry played Empress Catherine in the play Peter the Great, with the leading actor of his age, Henry Irvine, playing the title role.

Ellen Terry as Imogen from Sidney Sime’s sketch in Pick-Me-Up magazine.

Another shows her playing Imogen in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, which starred Irvine as Iachimo.

Henry Irvine as Iachimo, original sketch by Sidney Sime.

Another shows her playing a washerwoman in the historical comedy-drama Madam Sans-Gene, in which Irvine played Emperor Napoleon.

Ellen Terry as the washerwoman from Sidney Sime’s sketch in Pick-Me-Up magazine.

Ellen Terry joined Henry Irving’s theatre company at the Lyceum Theatre in London in 1878. For some 20 years she was known as the leading Shakespearean actress in Britain.

In addition to the pair being romantically linked during their time together at the Lyceum Theatre, Terry was married three times: to the celebrated Victorian artist George Frederick Watts (when she was aged 16), the actor James Carew, and Charles Clavering Wardell. A further partner was architect-designer Edward William Godwin.

Ellen Terry was appointed a dame in 1925. Henry Irving had been knighted in 1895.

Of course, there is a slight local connection with Sime and Watts, as Watts in later life, and with his then wife Mary, lived at the house Limnerslease at Compton. He died in 1904, the same year that Sidney Sime and his wife came to live in Worplesdon.

Today, Watts Gallery Artists’ Village at Compton is a popular visitor attraction.

Interviewed for the Idler magazine in 1898, Sime spoke about his caricature sketches, saying: “Caricature is never a portrait – it is a comment.” He also said: “A caricature is in the nature of a sarcastic remark.”

The Sime Gallery, which is upstairs at Worplesdon Memorial Hall at Perry Hill, houses a major collection of the fascinating and highly characteristic works of Sidney H. Sime (1865-1941).

The gallery is open on Wednesday and Sunday afternoons. Admission is free, a small donation of about £3 is welcome. Click here for its website.

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