Cathy's Art Diary

Exhibition of a group of pictures by Walter Sickert of nude women in a dark bedroom at the Courtauld Gallery. Painted between 1905-1912 these pictures are described by the exhibition introduction as “a reinvention of the female nude as a subject for modern painting”. Rather voyeuristic in nature they are still sexy and edgy. They are similar to the Bonnard bathing pictures but are more detached and less affectionate. There was an optimum distance to view the early works from. From across the room they almost took on a landscape quality with the bodies resembling hills and from close up they took on an almost abstract quality but take a few steps back and they come to life. The way that the pictures study skin reminds me of Lucien Freud particularly the leg in “La Hollandaise”. This was a super opportunity to see these pictures together, including 4 of the Camden Town murder pictures. Many of them are held in private collections so this is a rare chance to see them together. Reviews Tim

Most recent exhibition in the Art Now series at Tate Britain featuring a new installation by Seb Patane called “So this song kills fascists”. I must admit it went rather over my head and was a bit confusing! The main work was, I think a sound installation, and according to the write up was about popular culture bringing about political change. There were other smaller works using sticky biro on other images and something in the middle which was meant to represent a rudimentary stage. Oh well I tried, you can’t get everything!

Exhibition at Tate Britain featuring works by all the winning artists since it began in 1984. This was a good overview of how the prize, named after Turner as he had wished to set up an award for young artists, has developed since its introduction in 1984. Because many of the works were large I was disappointed that more were not included but it was good to see Damien Hurst’s “Mother and child divided” again. It is a work you need to experience rather than just seeing photos. Also Anthony Gormley was represented by “Testing a World View”. I find Gormley to be the Alan Bennett of the art world, he can be quite ground breaking and edgy but somehow we end up saying “How nice!”. Anyway I thought in a rather pompous fashion I’d look at who I’d have picked in each year! 1985 Terry Atkinson 1986 Derek Jarman 1987 Patrick Caulfield 1988-89 No shortlist 1990 No contest 1991 Rachel Whiteread 1992 Alison Wilbury 1993 Rachel Whiteread 1994 Anthony Gormely 1995 Damien Hurst 1996 Simon Patterson 199

Exhibition of the work of the Pre-Raphaelite John Everett Millais at Tate Britain. This exhibition was extremely busy as it just has one more weekend to run. I must admit to finding it all a bit sweet and sugary particularly the room entitled Fancies which included pictures of children often in historic costume, the highlight of which was “Bubbles” which was used for the famous Pears Soap advert. It quite turned my stomach! However it is easy to forget how ground breaking some of his early work was. For example “Christ in the house of his parents” is to us a rather over familiar sentimental image however when it was first exhibited was considered offensive. In the early work there is almost a super real quality. One of the picture write ups put it perfectly “mastery of realism in the service of emotional intensity”. It was the portraits I liked best particularly a small one of Emily Patmore and a ¾ length of Louise Jopling. There was also a wonderful Disraeli which had had its expressi

Small exhibition at the National Gallery highlighting new research done by the National Inventory Research Project . It features eight paintings from around the country describing the new research which has been done into them. For example a of a courtyard from Buckinghamshire which had been used as a dart board has been identified as one of the earliest pictures of Ruben’s house. Another picture by Panini from Northamptonshire has been dated by a column in the background which was erected in Rome fro a firework display in 1729. My favourite? A super Nevinson from Southampton.

Exhibition at the National Gallery of German Renaissance stained glass showing the glass alongside paintings from the same region. It began with a good technical explanation of the different techniques involved. It had never struck me before that the light effects in glass were often not painted but were the effects of scraping off the tint which had been painted onto the back of the glass. I did start to wonder if there are any parallels between the sections of stained glass panels and fresco day pieces. It was super to see drawings by Durer next to the windows which were based on them. My favourite piece was the first you see “Tobias and Sarah on their wedding night” a small but detailed picture of a couple in bed. I loved the effect of the tiling behind the bed, the grain on the wood of the furniture, the lovely dog and the slippers by the bed. Reviews Times Guardian