Henri Rousseau was born in Laval, France in 1844. Considered a ‘naïve’ painter he often used pictures from books and regularly visited museums, parks and tropical glasshouses to gather material. In 2005 there was an exhibition at the Tate called ‘Jungles in Paris’. Henri had only ever visited jungles in his imagination but what if Henri had been born in Penge in 1844 ?
The Crystal Palace – a cast iron and plate glass structure was originally built in Hyde Park to house the Great Exhibition of 1851 when Henri was 7 years old. It was then relocated to Penge Common where it stood from 1854 surrounded by the park, gardens and dinosaurs. Henri would have been 10 years old.
The five re-imagined paintings are based on Henri’s ‘The Carnival Evening’, ‘The Sleeping Gypsy’, ‘The Flamingos’, ‘The Snake Charmer’ and ‘Monkeys in the Jungle’