Cathy's Art Diary

Charming small exhibition at the National Gallery focusing on Jean-Francois Millet to mark the 150th anniversary of his death. Although the show was in a small room it was packed with paintings and drawings mainly from the UK but with a star appearance of “The Angelus” from the Musée D’Orsay. All the pictures were rural scenes of peasants. The works were intimate and well observed and painted in a thin but expressive style. The working figures were given a monumental dignity even in the smaller works. I liked the way the commentary concentrated on the picture you were looking at, describing the work being shown and the techniques being used. It avoided any political discussion of the work which I have heard expounded in some lectures.   Closes 19 October 2025 Reviews Times Guardian

Delightful small exhibition at Glyndebourne Opera House by Luke Edward Hall responding to the sister exhibition on Oliver Messel’s designs for the company. The main work was an imagined small backdrop in the style of Messel alongside six watercolours. I loved the delicate colours and Rococo styling. I had seen Hall talk at Charleston Festival last year, so it was I interesting to see another aspect of his work.   Closed 24 August 2025

Small display at Glyndebourne Opera House marking Pablo Bronstein’s design for the cover of this year’s programme. I love Bronstein’s work so was excited to realise the cover design, featuring ornate opera glasses, was by him. Now, at the end of the season, I have become very familiar with the programme so it was good to learn a bit more about it. It was shown with four drawings by Bronstein from a series titled “Gilded Keyholes” (2013), shown here for the first time in the UK which are like a theatre set in their construction. Closed 24 August 2025

Charming exhibition at Glyndebourne Opera House exploring Oliver Messel’s designs for the company in the 1950s and 1960s. The show had a selection of design drawings and posters as well as costumes and props. Messel is a designer who keeps cropping up in strange places for me so it was a welcome addition to add this one. As well as designing for the stage it was In Messel’s house in London in 1951, that the Glyndebourne Festival Society was launched and he was also instrumental in the creation of the Glyndebourne Festival Programme Book, designing the cover for its inaugural edition in 1952. Closed 24 August 2025

Interesting small exhibition at the British Museum highlighting a recent bequest of 30 works from the collection of Nina Drucker. A selection of the works were shown here alongside other works from the museum's collection which Drucker was known to have seen or which compliment the bequest. The works include pieces form the 19th century but were strongest in the 20th century pieces. My favourites were the works by C.R.W. Nevison whose work I love but these were not the style we usually associate him with. I loved the scenes of the Thames, two of which seemed to be a tribute to Monet's paintings of the river and I suspect they were even drawn from the same hotel room at the Savoy or are a reimagining of those works as another in the series is definitely an imagined view. There were also some lovely John Mintons and a fun watercolour by Sir Muirhead Bone of people at the seaside. Of the earlier works , course I loved a watercolour of Greenwich Hospital by John Lessore and ...

Fascinating exhibition at the British Museum focusing on the collection of Richard Payne Knight which was bequeathed to the museum in the early 19th century. There were some amazing works particularly a Michelangelo, a Raphael and a Mantegna but as interesting was seeing the contemporary art of his time which he collected and how he brought his aesthetic into planning the park of his estate. I loved a number of works by Claude Lorrain and evidently the bequest included 246 studies by the artist. Payne Knight travelled extensively in Italy and he must have found these very evocative of the landscapes he saw there. There was also a lovely set of contemporary drawings by Thomas Hearne of Payne Knight's Herefordshire estate, Downton Castle. In the grounds of the estate he developed ideas of the Picturesque in the landscape. The show also included work by other artists who the collector had supported, John Hamilton Mortimer and John Robert Cozens who travelled with him to Italy...

Charming exhibition at the British Museum focusing on drawings by Watteau from their collection. These were delightful, delicate works. They explained how Watteau would draw the people around him in the streets and reuse and combine the images in his paintings. He also produced finished drawings for collectors. As ever in the print galleries the labels were clearly written and explained Watteau's use of drawing but also used the chronological display to outline his life and career. I felt I came out of the show appreciating Watteau a lot more as I sometimes find the paintings a bit twee. My fact of the day was that he was born in an area of France which had been Flemish and there is a real feel of Dutch genre scenes in his him work. Favourites included this lovely back view and the way he uses the stripes to reflect the shape of the body below and this picture of two maids which he drew when in England for a year. Closed 17 September 2025

Sublime exhibition at the British Museum looking at the work of the 19th century Japanese print designers, Utagawa Hiroshige. I love Japanese prints and these were some of the finest I'd seen. I'd done a lecture on it a few days before which proved helpful to have an outline of narrative for the show already. The labels were clear and simple and told you a lot more about the places you were looking at. I would have liked to know a bit more about the block cutters and printers as they are as much a part of the magic as the designer. The example of a block they did has a very shallow cut and you can't image it producing such beautiful images. I think this may have been explained on videos but they were quite small and caused bottle necks. I the inclusion of a section on designs for fans and it explained that these were very fashionable items which would have only been used for a season. I loved the variety of images for them and my favourite was this wonderful picture ...

Small exhibition at the British Museum showing three statues from three different ancient cultures. The show marks a collaboration between the museum and one of India's leading museums, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS), highlighting the Mumbai museum's ambitious Ancient World Project. These three statues from Egypt, Greece and India would not normally shown together but the display aims to make comparisons with the varied ways ancient civilisations imagined the divine in physical form. I did find the show felt quite thin. It just showed the three statues with a few questions around the walls about the nature of museums. A beautiful display but I wanted more meat. Closes 11 January 2026

Fascinating online lecture from the National Gallery introducing their exhibition on Millet. Sarah Herring outlined Millet’s career and in particular the role of his paintings of rural life. She talked about both what influences him and then later how his work inspired the next generation of painters including Van Gogh. She also described the political landscape of the time and how these works were viewed the 1848 revolution. She then went though the paintings in the show emphasising how all but one are from British collections. I have since been to the exhibition and this was a really useful introduction as the show is quite small.

Innovative exhibition at the Design Museum looking at all aspects of design for swimming. This show combined many types of design from performance wear, through fashion and architecture and social change. It was cleverly divided into sections based on where people swim, pool, lido and in nature. It covered both sporting and leisure aspects of swimming. I liked that it covered such a lot of ground and was designed with sustainability front and centre. However, at times it was hard to match the objects to their labels and in one case I tracked it down to he opposite side of the display case. My favourite objects were the swimming costumes, and the show explained changes in technology and design well. It was of course fun to see celebrity items like Pamela Anderson’s Baywatch swimsuit and Tom Daley’s Speedos alongside a jumper he’d knitted. Favourite fact? That the bikini is named after   Bikini Atoll, site of American nuclear test explosions! Closed 17 August 2025 Review...

Surprisingly good exhibition at the Royal Academy showcasing and celebrating the creativity of young artists. I say surprising as, when I hear the words children's art my heart sinks, but this work was so interesting and of an amazing standard both in technique and imagination. Shout outs to "The Challenges of History" by Beatrice aged 18 addressing issues of racial equality in a patchwork of historical scenes, Millie's detailed painting of a string shopping bag full of branded groceries   commenting on consumer culture who was again 18, the quirky wall sculpture "Eggs on Toast" by Holly aged 16 and a special mention to Nia aged 7 for her expressive painting of a tree. I think my favourite was this picture of the head of a chicken by Erin aged 15. Settling it against a blue background gave it the feel of a Renaissance portrait! Closed 10 August 2025

Small exhibition at the Royal Academy of work by Lyndon Barrois Jnr. Barrois is the current holder of the Starr Fellowship, a one year's residency at the Royal Academy Schools. The show borrows from film making to create what he describes as "static filmmaking".   Evidently, his work alludes to a heist at a museum but I must admit that passed me by. The work consisted of small, beautiful portraits mounted on camera stands alongside groups of drawings of museum objects around a candle. They looked good in the space but I'm not sure they needed to be an installation. The works would have stood alone. Closed 17 August 2025

Fresh iteration at the Royal Academy of their annual summer exhibition. I have found the show has been getting a bit tired and samey in recent years but this year, with just a few tweaks, it feels fresher and more open. They haven't reinvented the wheel just adjusted it a bit. Changes including mixing up the artistic and architectural work making the architectural pieces easier to see and digest. They have also altered the direction which you go round which strangely makes you look at the rooms in a different way. I think my favourite object was this tiny organ made from a hymn book by Jane Hewitt and my favourite painting was by "I Don't Want to Talk About It" by Frances Featherstone, a figure in blue striped pyjamas and blue striped bed sheets. However I also loved this tiny painting called "View from the Loo" by Katherine Lees and another small poignant work by Pavel Isupov "Self-Portrait at Immigration". Both works held their own among th...

Fantastic exhibition at the British Library telling the story of gardening in England and what it means to us today. As ever at the British Library, the story was told clearly with some stunning exhibits. I love the way their labels set the narrative rather than describing the object in detail. The show was gently themed starting with looking at growing for food, medicine and mental wellbeing, moving on to how gardening can build community, then how garden plants can tell a global story and ending with environmental issues. Each section used books, documents and objects to describe the history but also included videos discussing current practice. Highlights included an Anglo-Saxon herbal, John Evelyn’s sketches of gardening tools, countless beautiful botanical illustrations and the first lawn mower. Closed 10 August 2025

Fascinating exhibition at Tate Britain on the work of the surrealist Ithell Colquhoun. Colquhoun’s dates and work had a similar trajectory to the accompanying show on Edward Burra, with a move from the figurative to the surreal but she took a very different path. The early room featured her student work while at the Slade of mythical scenes with shades of Stanley Spencer, but she soon moved into spiritual and mystical surreal work often employing automatic techniques such as staining paper and then developing it into an image. I must admit I found the mystical aspects of the work such as the occult and Celtic traditions a bit of a turn off, but I liked the colour and vibrancy of the images. I was interested to see the phenomena of the Merry Maidens stone circle near Lamorna mentioned as similar ideas had been quoted in the Triumph of Art celebrations in Trafalgar Square which I’d been to the weekend before. Closes 19 October 2025 Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph Even...

Fabulous exhibition at Tate Britain of work by Edward Burra. Burra’s career summed up the early 20th century both in terms of style and subject and this was carefully teased out over six rooms, starting with the vibrant works of the 1920s and a young man discovering himself, through the despair of the Spanish Civil War and Second World War expressed via the surreal, to the relative tranquillity of the post-war years but reflecting a changed world through landscape. My favourite pieces were the early ones showing groups of people in clubs in Paris and New York. You could almost hear the music pumping out of them. Shown with a selection of archive material you got a view of a group of friends enjoying life. I particularly like the pictures of Harlem. He seemed to move suddenly into the surreal with his encounter with violence in Spain before the Civil War. These works were brutal yet drew on some of the earlier imagery.   I liked the inclusion of a room on his theatrical wor...

Dense exhibition at Tate Britain of work by Ed Atkins. Atkins is mainly known for his computer generated videos often based on motion capture of his own body. There was much technical explanation of these which I found hard to follow and engage with. I liked the imagery but found I was giving them little time. I did however like the instances where they were incorporated into installations particularly one using opera costumes which I had seen before at a Venice Biennale. My favourite pieces were his hyper detailed drawings of his hands and feet and a moving display of Post It Note drawings he included in his daughter’s lunch boxes during Covid. Closed 25 August 2025 Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph

Interesting exhibition at Tate Britain featuring a video installation by Hylozoic/Desires. Hylozoic/Desires are two artists Himali Singh Soin & David Soin Tappeser and in this work they examine the legacy of the Salt Line, a planted hedge grown by the British Empire in the Indian subcontinent between 1840 and 1880 which separated the British-occupied Bengal Presidency from independent states to prevent smuggling and enforce the British monopoly on salt. The work consisted of a video, interesting display on the floor, which you viewed from a platform, alongside a piece of scenery used in the video. It was beautifully filmed and blended archive material and an imagined narrative. I had seen another work on the same theme by these artists at Somerset House earlier this year so this added to that experience. Closed 25 August 2025

Fabulous, fun happening in Trafalgar Square to mark the end of celebrations of the National Gallery’s Bicentenary. Coordinated by contemporary artist Jeremy Deller, the event had grown around the country and this event brought together all the strands into a procession along Whitehall and various performances and events in the square. The procession was led by an inflatable Venus who then took up residence in one of the fountains and included Atlas and his disco world, Adam and Eve, William Morris in a coffin (I’m not sure why) and hordes of dancers and performers. I then watched a wonderful Hogarthian Rave danced by students from the London Contemporary Dance School followed by 21st century Morris dancing complete with dancing rocks. I recovered with a coffee in the new Supporters’ House before having a final look round. It was lovely to see the square so busy and celebrating art and nationality.

Interesting exhibition at the Hayward Gallery of work made in collaboration between two Iranian artists Ghazaleh Avarzamani and Ali Ahadi. The work was described as “a punning and playful critique of Britain's imperial past and exploring ways in which contemporary global economics functions as a continuation of that history”. I’m not sure I understood all the nuances and I’m a bit tired of shows on the topic of colonialism. What was cutting edge is getting a bit repetitive however who can resist a show with a toy cat on a step ladder. Closed 31 August 2025

Bland exhibition at the Hayward Gallery showcasing the work of Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara. I have seen Nara’s work online and must admit do not find it appealing with his big eyed, childlike figures. The commentary helped and I realised there was more depth to the work than I realised but en masse I found it repetitive. I did like the installation representing his studio and a fountain of heads where the water fell as tears. I must say though that I was in a minority. The show had attracted a young audience who were avidly taking selfies, so I suspect there was something that this middle aged lady was missing. Closed 31 August 2025 Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph Evening Standard

Charming exhibition at the Royal Drawing School marking its 25th anniversary. The show featured drawings by artists from across a variety of fields including most of the big names in contemporary art. Each drawing had a thoughtful quote by the artist often about what drawing means to them.  I loved this gentle still live by Jony Ive and it’s always good to see an Antony Gormley. It was fun to include a ‘wire drawing’ by Cornelia Parker as well as a drawing by King Charles III and a drawing of him by Eileen Hogan. I think my favourite aspect was the quotes so I include a selection of them here. Closed 26 July 2025 Review Telegraph Quotes “Drawing is a language I feel I can speak and understand, more than words. With a piece of paper and something as simple as a pencil we can chart, discover, explain and inform, we can create a surprising magic: maps, emotions, illusions and history. A universal language that doesn't need translation."  Ishbel Myerscough ...

Interesting exhibition at the National Gallery showcasing work inspired by this year’s Take  One Picture schools’ project. This show is often fun as it brings out different aspects of a familiar picture spotted by the children. This year’s picture was “The Courtyard of a House in Delft” by Pieter de Hooch from 1658, a painting I am very fond of. Aspects the children picked out included details of the architecture, the child’s clothing, the contemporary ceramics of the time picking up on the Delft connection and, in one case, imaging an advert for the position of the maid. This year the show was in two parts, one in the education centre and one at the St James Market Pavilion, neither of which I had visited before. It would have been good to see better advertising of the show within in the gallery. Closed 31 August 2025

Magical lecture at in the Supporters’ House at the National Gallery looking at how music is depicted in paintings of the 13th to 15th centuries. Belle Smith talked us though a selection of paintings from the gallery, describing the instruments which are shown and playing examples of the sound they would have made. She also looked at how music changed in this period moving from plainsong to polyphonic works. She discussed how the music shown in the works reflected theological ideas not necessarily the music would have been heard in the services in which the paintings would have been seen. In particular paintings of the Coronation of the Virgin which show ideas of divine harmony. It was lovely follow the talk by going up to the first floor of the Sainsbury Wing to look at the works which had been discussed. This was the first of a series of talks on music and art and I hope to get some of the rest.

Neat small exhibition at Canada House marking the centenary of the building. The show examined the history of the building, including its refurbishment in 2015, and the role of the high commission over that period. The story was told via a timeline with illustrations and objects along it. It told a complex narrative in a clear and imaginative way.    

Fascinating online lecture from the National Gallery looking at the life and work of the 19th century artist Georges Seurat. Amy Mechowski, a freelance art historian, started by leading us though Seurat’s life and techniques. She outlined ideas of colour contrast, Pointillism and Neo-Impressionism clearly, then talked us through the main paintings which used these ideas. I n the second half she focused on Seurat’s works which would appear in the “Radical Harmony” exhibition at the Gallery. Since I listened to the talk I have visited the show and this was a useful introduction to what I saw there.

Fascinating online lecture from ARTscapades looking at how Rodin was influenced in dancers and in particular Nijinsky. Juliet Bellow, from the American University and the author of a book of the same title, talked us through three sources of dance influence for Rodin, the Art Nouveau solo dancer Lois Fuller, the Cambodian Royal Ballet who visited Paris in 1906 and Ballet Russe and Nijinsky. For this talk she concentrated on the latter and   looked in detail at a small sculpture Rodin made of the dancer in 1912. She talked about how Rodin was influenced by the ballet “Apres Midi du Faune” and in turn how the dancer looked to sculpture for inspiration for his choreography. She speculated on how the work was made based on recent studies of two versions and concluded that it was made to be held in the hand and turned and in doing so it took on various aspects of the ballet. She also broadened the lecture out to show how Rodin was a supporter of the republican cause and positio...