Penn Club prepares for centenary
The Penn Club in London marks its hundredth anniversary in 2020
The Quaker-associated Penn Club is gearing up for its centenary celebrations next year with commissioned artwork and plans to reach out to Friends for stories of their visits to the club.
The moves follow a competition in March to commission an art piece to mark the club’s hundredth birthday in 2020.
Fergal Crossan, general manager, told the Friend that the club received a wide range of submissions with ‘great ideas’, including paintings, sculptures, ceramics, tapestries and installations. He said: ‘The Quaker Arts Network helped us spread the word and we’ve whittled it down to three artists now, who are going to submit the final proposals, which will go before our board.’
The board is also keen to ‘capture’ stories from Friends about their experiences of the Bloomsbury-based club that opened in 1920. Fergal Crossan said: ‘We assume everyone in the Quaker world know about us but actually we have found there are lots of Quakers who have never heard of the Penn Club.’
Previous occupants of the early Georgian terrace built in the 1800s include Jane Franklin, wife of sir John Franklin the arctic explorer, and author John Wyndham, who lived at the club during the 1940s and 50s.
