Chester’s Grosvenor Museum announces free silhouette event for half term

Feb 8 2010 Chester Chronicle

FOR one day only Chester’s Grosvenor Museum will be hosting a silhouette artist in residence.

Come and have your likeness cut in the Victorian style by silhouette artist Chris Wright.

This free event will take place on Wednesday, February 17 from 10.30am-12.30pm and from 2-4pm.

Peter Boughton, the museum’s Keeper of Art, explained: “The ‘silhouette’ is named after the French finance minister Etienne de Silhouette, whose cheese-paring economies during a credit crisis in 1759 were likened to his hobby of making portraits from cut paper.

“Silhouettes are cut from black paper using tiny scissors, and mounted on a white background.

“Chris Wright is a specialist silhouette artist, and can cut the profile of a head, freehand, within a few minutes.”

This event is part of a week-long programme of activities at the Grosvenor Museum during the Spring half-term. It accompanies the museum’s ambitious new exhibition ‘Face Value: Portraits in Public and Private’ (13 February – 9 May), which includes a rare opportunity to see some of the museum’s own collection of silhouettes.