Former LMBC rower donates Henley Regatta painting to celebrate bicentenary
A former Lady Margaret Boat Club rower has returned to College to oversee the installation of his gift of a painting.
Dodge Thompson (1970) was invited to see the large oil painting, titled The Henley Regatta, by Thomas Hines, which has been put on display in the Master’s Lodge above this year’s May Bumps trophy.
He decided to donate the painting through Cambridge in America while attending a 50th anniversary reunion dinner at St John’s.
Dodge said: “St John’s Master Heather Hancock alerted me to the forthcoming 200th anniversary of the Lady Margaret Boat Club, the first Cambridge college rowing club. In addition to being an official of LMBC as a student, I was honoured to coach the pioneering University women’s varsity rowing team in 1972. What a great opportunity to give back to the venerable college that gave so much to me.
“As a graduate student from America, I was in awe of the remarkable university-wide enthusiasm for rowing and physical activity,” said Thompson. “I understand that roughly 50 per cent of the more than 13,000 students participate in rowing at some point in their academic life at Cambridge. It’s a colourful tradition and great fun.”
Master Heather Hancock said: “Dodge has been incredibly generous to gift such a beautiful painting, one that will strike a chord with thousands of Johnians. It looks beautiful hanging in the hall of the Master’s Lodge, above the May Head of the River Plate, where it can be enjoyed by the 3,000 or so people who pass through the Lodge every year.”
During his time at St John’s, Dodge rowed competitively. He is the retired Chief of Exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. During his career, he organized 734 art exhibitions and authored numerous published articles and art exhibition catalogues.
His gift depicts a panoramic view of The Henley Royal Regatta, which took place the first weekend of July 1897, at Henley-on-Thames. Steam yachts, punts, skiffs and eight-oar shells fill the foreground, as thousands of spectators dressed in Victorian finery cheer on the race. “I am thrilled and humbled that our large Victorian painting of the Henley Royal Regatta, 1897, now resides at my Cambridge college,” says Dodge.
College Librarian Tanya Kirk said: “Theodore Hines, the artist, was born John Theodore Hynes in 1859 in Southwark. He was the son of a tin plate worker originally from Yorkshire. Both Theodore and his elder brother Frederick became artists specialising in landscape painting. Theodore exhibited from 1876 to 1889 at several prominent London galleries and at the Royal Academy, but seems to have retired from painting in middle age, and by 1911 was instead managing a wholesale fine art dealership. This painting is by far the most significant of his extant works, in terms of scale and detail, and its masterful depiction of a moment in history. He died in 1922.”
