OBJECT OF THE MONTH AUGUST 2024

Bill and receipt from Charles Simpson’s grocers

In honour of our current exhibition on The Armitt Explores… Kurt Schwitters, August’s Object of the Month is this bill and receipt from Charles Simpson’s grocery business in Ambleside.

The receipt is made out to a ‘Miss Lufton’ at ‘Plane Tree House’ from the first of October 1934, and records her purchasing several items, including cheese, salmon and ham. Her shopping trip appears to have cost Miss Lufton four shillings.

Charles Simpson was a well-known figure in Ambleside in the early twentieth century. Simpson’s Grocers was a family business based in Market Place in the centre of the village. Charles’s grandfather opened the shop, and Charles himself inherited the business from his father.

Kurt Schwitters painted Simpson’s portrait in 1946, reportedly for £40 to pay off a grocery bill. The portrait was painted in four sittings, on the back of a collage made by Schwitters’ son Ernst. Doris Turner, Simpson’s daughter, claimed he was “thrilled to bits with it” when it was completed. The painting is currently on display in the museum, as a loan from Simpson’s descendants.

Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948) was an artist and graphic designer originally from Hanover. He left Germany in 1937 due to Nazi persecution, and eventually settled in the UK. Schwitters first visited the Lake District in 1944, and the following year he and his partner Edith ‘Wantee’ Thomas moved to Ambleside. They first lived on 2 Gale Crescent, up the hill behind the Market Hall, but later moved to 4 Millans Park behind Compston Road. Both houses now have plaques in his memory.

Schwitters and Wantee registered their ration books at Simpson’s Grocers, and Simpson befriended the artist by playing chess on Thursday afternoons, after the grocers’ shop closed early. Schwitters’s life as a German exile in post-war Britain was not easy, and relationships with key figures in Ambleside like Simpson helped him integrate more easily into the small, rural community.

The building where Simpson’s grocer was founded is now home to a Thai restaurant and takeaway, but the Market Hall sign above the windows is still there.

You can see the bill and receipt, and Schwitters’ painting of Simpson, next time you visit the museum.

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