Cathy's Art Diary

Colourful and surprising exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum looking at the textile designs of the sisters Susan Collier and Sarah Campbell. I say surprising because I hadn't realised how popular their work was and how much of it I had owned or remembered. I had bought a painting by them at an exhibition at the National Theatre a number of years ago without really knowing that much about them. The show highlighted how they not only designed the patterns but oversaw how these designs were transferred to the textile allowing them to control the colours and retain the copyright of the design. The designs were hand painted and in many cases the show had the original painting and examples of the textile in different colour way. The sisters worked for Liberty in the 1970s and designed Bauhaus for them which I recognised. Later in the decade they worked for Terence Conran at Habitat and those designed were so familiar to me. The show looked at how they adapted to the mar...

Charming small exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum of decorated pin-stuck cushions. The works were from two collectors, Simon Costin and Alessandra Curtis, and were well explained but didn’t get bogged down in the detail of each one. The blurb explained how cushions were often made from a kit although others were designed by the maker. The larger display featured pieces made in the First World War and shortly afterwards by soldiers with kits being available to purchase on the front line and the Post Office delivering the finished works back home free of charge. I am a bit of a First World War nerd, and I had not come across this phenomena before. Closed 13 September 2026

Moving exhibition at White Cube Bermondsey of recent work by the late Georg Baselitz who died in April. I love Baselitz's work and the way he paints images upside down to concentrate the idea of looking so was moved to see these recent works. These were such ambitious, physical works for a man who was 88 when he died. I think my favourites were the black and gold works because of the contrast they set up and the nod back to icons and medieval pieces. These large works looked commanding in the vast white space. Closed 30 August 2026

Interesting online lecture from the National Gallery introducing a new book for the gallery on how to read clothing in paintings. The author, Jacqui Ansell, talked us through the development process of the book explaining how, to fit the series of books, it had to have six chapters with rich illustrations. She told us how she knew the artists she wanted to include and how she wanted to theme the work rather than writing chronologically. She wanted to include social history and practical knowledge with descriptions of the paintings and clothes. She told us how she used paired images where possible, a full picture of the painting and a detail. She then led us through some of the images she had chosen but I found the talk got a bit fragmented at this point as she was trying to cover too much in a short time.

An unbalanced online lecture from the Wallace Collection on two artists who mentored Winston Churchill’s painting. This lecture complimented the exhibition at the museum of Churchill’s art and Frances Fowle from the University of Edinburgh led us though the subject. I say unbalanced as it was a good lecture on Lavery with a bit on Sickert tacked on at the end. I didn’t know a lot about Lavery so it was useful, and it did explain how he was one of the Glasgow Boys yet is considered an Irish artist which has confused me. It might have worked better as two lectures

Small exhibition at the National Theatre of photographs documenting Queer life in Britain. The works are on loan from Queer Britain to mark the theatre’s production of “Pride” which incidentally I saw a few days earlier and loved.   I managed to see the exhibition on the day of London Pride by chance so it had an extra poignance. I loved this picture of Ian McKellan and Michael Cashman leading a Pride march and this portrait of the out footballer, Justin Fashanu. Closes September 2026