Museum London’s puzzle contest is back by popular demand! For the next four weeks, we are giving away more of our locally designed and hand-printed face masks by artist Robin Henry in our Fall Puzzle Contest. The masks are entitled “Scarcity of Touch” and are inspired by Michaelangelo’s hand paintings in the Sistine Chapel. They come in four different colours: white, purple, grey, and green. We will be posting a puzzle each week made from an art work or historic artifact from our collections. The 6 fastest puzzle times each week will win a mask. Take a screenshot of your completed puzzle (make sure the completion time is visible) and email it to ebainbridge@museumlondon.ca by the end of each Saturday that there is a new Fall Puzzle. Winners will be contacted to arrange prize pickup at the Museum.
We're sharing works from our collection as online jigsaw puzzles! Watch for the announcements on our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram on Mondays for this mindful activity to start your week off with!
Fall Puzzle #4 - Monday, November 16 to Saturday, November 21
Edward Weston, “Tepotzlan, Mexico, 1924”, Silver Print, Gift of Saundray P. Ball, Toronto, Ontario, 1991
Edward Weston is considered one of the great innovators of 20th century photography. Using black and white images he became known for taking realistic photographs rather than trying to make his works look like paintings as was the trend at the start of his career. In his late 30s, Weston spent four years working in Mexico. The town of Tepotzlan (where this photograph was taken) has a small pyramid that dates back 1500 years and, according to myth, is the birthplace of the feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl. Rather than focus on these stories and histories, Weston instead draws our attention to the composition of intersecting angles, and crisp lines of light and dark. We can almost feel the textures of brick, grass and wood, and the lone floating sombrero. See examples of realistic, conceptual, staged, and caught images in Museum London’s current exhibition Realism: A Century of Photographic Art.
Fall Puzzle #3 - Monday, November 9 to Saturday, November 14
Music Box Chair, Before 1910 , Gift of Allen Ralph, 2015
This exquisitely detailed wooden chair with crest is currently on display in Museum London’s exhibition Sit On It! Anyone old enough to get the Fonzie reference? This exhibition brings together art and history works to explore the stories, designs, and histories of those underappreciated objects that support us, literally! This chair has a hidden music box underneath it that activates when sat on. Is it a social ice breaker, prank, or early invention of the game musical chairs? We don’t know, but it sure is fancier than anything we’re currently using to work from home.
Fall Puzzle #2 - Monday, November 2 to Saturday, November 7
Photograph, mid-20th Century, Gift of Alan Gleason, 2004
Press photographer William Hamilton is showing off his Graflex Super Graphic camera in this 1961 photo. It was considered the quintessential press camera because the rapid shutter speed could freeze motion in a picture. Did you notice the vertical “flash gun” on the side of the camera? Fun fact: George Lucas’s set decorator Roger Christian took the bulb off the top of a Graflex flash gun and used the post as the handle for the original Star Wars light sabres. The Graflex camera weighs four and a half pounds which is the equivalent to about 20 cell phones! This gives us a new appreciation of the various camera technology photographers used in Museum London’s current exhibition Resolution: A Century of Photographic Art.⠀
Fall Puzzle #1 - Monday, October 26 to Saturday, October 31
Hallowe’en Post Card, 1911, Gift of Elizabeth Spicer, 2001
Puzzle #6
Image: Clare Bice (Canadian, 1908-1976), View from St. Paul’s Cathedral, undated, oil on canvas, Collection of Museum London, Gift of Mrs. Jean Snell, 2007
Puzzle #5
Image: James Hamilton (Canadian, 1810-1896), Forks of the Thames, circa 1850, oil on canvas, Collection of Museum London, Anonymous Gift, 1968
Puzzle #4
Image: Mildred Peel (Canadian, 1856 - 1920), Breton Farmyard, circa 1885, oil on canvas, Anonymous gift, 2012
Puzzle #3
Image: Paul Peel (Canadian, 1860-1892), The Wreck, 1884, oil on canvas, Gift of Mrs. Richard Bland, London, Ontario, 1933
Puzzle #2
Image: Paul Peel (Canadian, 1860-1892), Three Boys Fishing at the Coves, 1880, oil on canvas, Collection of Museum London, Transfer from the Material Culture Collection, 2009, Gift of Mrs. Edna Bland Stratton in memory of her father, John Bland, 1959
Puzzle #1
Image: Paul Peel (Canadian, 1860-1892), The Covent Garden Market, London, Ontario, 1883, oil on canvas, Collection of Museum London, Gift of the City of London by Mrs. Marjorie Barlow, London, Ontario, 1969