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Fra Angelico : Picturing Divinity

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Excellent online course from Paula Nuttall on the 15 th century Florentine artist Fra Angelico. Week one Paula introduced to the artist and placed him in the of the city at the time discussing his influences from Lorenzo Monaco, Masaccio and Gilberti. She also looked at the impact of the theorist Alberti on his work. We looked at Fra Angelico’s early altarpieces. Week two we concentrated on his work for the monastery of San Marco discussing how the commission came about through Cosimo de Medici’s worries about his immortal soul and his friendship with Pope Eugenius IV who was living in Florence at the time. We started by looking at the altarpiece for the then moving in the dormitories looking in detail at the fresco’s in the cells there. Most fascinating was hearing about the different style of designs for the novices, clerics and lay brothers. In the final week we looked at commissions outside of San Marco and covered in some detail Fra Angelico’s years in Rome. I hadn’t know a...
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Edwin Austin Abbey: By the Dawn’s Early Light

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Novel exhibition at the National Gallery featuring studies by Edwin Austin Abbey for the decoration of the state house in Pennsylvania. I’d heard a slightly confused talk on the show the day before but the show was more succinct. (Stop press : I said the opposite in my blog post for the talk! I my defence it’s been a while since I saw the show.) Abbey had designed the scheme but then sent the designs to the US for the final work to be done by other artists. He never saw the finished work and died before it was completed. The centrepiece was his design for the dome called “The Hours” which dominated the space and pinged off the wall. It shows one woman for every hour of the day who gradually put on a cloak as night came. It had a sense of a circle of angels on a Renaissance work. I think my favourite piece was this study for steel workers for “The Spirit of Vulcan”. Closed 15 February 2026 Reviews Guardian  
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Sense of Self

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Interesting exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery presenting works produced as part of a schools’ project looking at the gallery’s Van Gogh self-portrait. To coincide with two new site-specific commissions at the Courtauld Gallery by artist Rachel Jones students across the UK, local community members and families, have participated in free workshops, projects and events, exploring the picture to create their own artworks on the theme of ‘sense of self’. I was a bit unclear how Jones had fed into this but one work was responding to   her work. I loved this tiled version of the self-portrait where each person had painted a section in their own style also this stunning self-portrait by Ellie aged 17. A number of the works were presented in a studio style setting which was fun. Closed 15 February 2026
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Wayne Thiebaud :Delights

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Charming exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery of prints and drawings by Wayne Thiebaud to compliment the main show of his paintings. The focus was a series of 17 prints produced as a book and portfolio called “Delights” mainly of food.   A few of them which had been left in the studio were coloured by Thiebaud. They were delicate works often of the same subjects as the paintings but produced as distinct art works. The show also included some of the plates for the prints. Closed 18 January 2026
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Wayne Thiebaud : American Still Life

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Surprising exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery focusing on Wayne Thiebaud. I say surprising because if you only know these calm, pastel images from reproduction you assume they have a smooth finish but, in reality, the objects are almost sculptured in low relief paint. They are more complex that you think. The show included some early pieces which were darker in colour with loose brushwork. The images tend to be of displays of food, often in shop windows, or nostalgic trappings of sweet shops. They have a distinctively American feel even when the objects shown might have come from anywhere. A number of people around me were saying how they had a feel of a Hopper in their sense of nostalgia but also strangely loneliness. I think my favourite was the large picture of cakes and I had to go to the café and indulge after my visit. Closed 18 January 2026 Reviews Guardian Telegraph
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Laurence Edwards at Space House

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Powerful exhibition in a pop-up space by Messums showing a selection of large sculptures by Laurence Edwards. The work looked majestic in the space and mainly consisted of life sized and over life sized male figures. There were also some fragmented faces. The main focus was three huge walking men statues which seemed to stride through the space. When I came to photograph them I realised they were all looking in different directions. I’d been the week before and found the gallery shut but they even looked imposing through the window. Closed 15 January 2025
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Hyundai Commission : Maret Anne Sara

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Interesting installation in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern by Máret Ánne Sara, a Sámi artist. The Sami people are indigenous to Northern Scandinavia and Sara draws on their reindeer herding traditions in the two works in this installation. The first one you see hangs reindeer hides floor to ceiling by electric cables. I hadn’t realised when I was there that these were impregnated with a scent released by the animal as a warning sign. I’ll have to go back and have a sniff as I felt this piece wasn’t big enough for the space. The main work was a maze-like structure made of branches based on the internal anatomy of the reindeer’s nose. I was so taken by that I missed that this too was scented and there were sculptures based on the animals ears. Another reason to go back and a lesson to read the blurb more carefully. Closes 6 April 2026 Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph    
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