Cathy's Art Diary

Disjointed exhibition at the Gilbert and George Centre featuring 18 works by Gilbert and George made between 1984 and 1998. I say disjointed as I wasn't sure what was tying these pictures together to make an exhibition but that's not to say I didn't enjoy it. It consisted of work from three series The 1984 pictures from which the title work came, The New Democratic Pictures from 1991 and The Rudimentary Pictures from 1998. The works looked great in the space but that's not surprising as it was designed to show the artists' work. I particularly like the tall gallery on the ground floor and the way you can also view it from a balcony above. Closed 28 February 2026  

Excellent three week online course from the National Gallery on the art of Wright of Derby to compliment their exhibition on him. Matthew Morgan started in the first week by outlining the artists life and work and giving an overview of how the art market was changing at this time and how artists were reflecting the new ideas of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. He also brought in Lucy Bamford from Derby Museums Trust to discuss why Wright was known as Wright of Derby and to examine his relationship with the city. Morgan spent the next two weeks examining two aspects of Wrights work, how he reflects the rational and how he engaged the emotions. He started with the rational   discussing ideas at the time about the benefits of looking and observation and Rousseau’s ideas around learning by doing and by demonstration. He discussed the circles Wright moved in, including the Lunar Society, and whether we can consider him an Enlightenment artist. Having examined the ...

Interesting small exhibition at the Wallace Collection presenting five swords made in Lucknow from their collection. The swords were shown together at the centre of the room with good explanations of each around the edge. They were beautiful objects both the swords themselves and the scabbards. They were from the 18th and 19th centuries and made as royal regalia and as diplomatic gifts. My favourite was this one which had a beautiful enamel hand on the handle. I also loved the poppy decorations on the scabbard of another sword. Closed 22 March 2026

Brilliant and subtle exhibition at the Wallace Collection presenting Caravaggio's "Victorious Cupid”. The painting, from 1602 is on loan from the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, is placed within the context for which is was painted. The introductory room introduces you to Rome at the time and the artist and patron. If you then turn right you enter a subtle recreation of the patron, Vincenzo Guistiniani's gallery of classical sculpture.   At the centre is an Aphrodite from Guistiniani's collection with an invocation of the view from the window of his palace at the far ending showing the church for which Caravaggio had painted his St Matthew paintings. Around the edge are reproductions of engravings of classical subjects. The blurb fails to mention that these were all in the collection and the engravings all come from a catalogue of the collection which I learnt from the lecture I'd done on the painting a few days before. The painting itself is shown in the room to th...

Excellent online lecture from ARTscapades introducing the exhibition of Caravaggio’s “Cupid” from Berlin and putting the work into context. Richard Stemp elaborated on this two room exhibition which I went to a couple of days after the talk so look for a blog of the show next. His first talk looked at the first room recreating Vincenzo Giustiniani’s sculpture collection. He used this to explain where Caravaggio was in his career at this point and his relationship with various patrons including the Guistiniani brothers. He explained how the engravings reproduced around the walls were from the catalogue of the collection by the curator of the collection, Joachim van Sandrart in the 1630s. In the second half he moved into the other room which holds the Cupid himself and two sculptures. He put forward some interesting ideas of other works of art which influenced the Cupid and went into some detail about the meaning of the work and precedents for it.   He also discussed how, althou...

Fascinating exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery looking at landscapes by female artists from 1760-1860. These works were by largely unknown artists working during the first 100 years of the Royal Academy. Some of the works had been shown in the annual shows, held at the time in the building they were now being displayed. There were some beautiful works and fascinating stories from Elizabeth Frances Batty's small works which were engraved and published as "Italian Scenery" in 1820, Mary Smirke who showed at the Royal Academy every year from 1809-1814 despite being hindered by her artist father who was on the hanging committee and Harriett Lister who later worked with her husband, Amos Green, on works which began with an ink blot. There were a number of potential novels in this show. Closes 20 May 2026