Cathy's Art Diary

Wonderful modern installation at the National Gallery to complement the current Sacred made Real exhibition. The work of Ed and Nancy Kienholz it represents a street in the red light district of Amsterdam and consists of casts of women in windows and doorways with boxes over their faces to show the idea that they can cut themselves off from what they are doing. Although very different to Sacred made Real it has the same idea of figures which exist in the same space as us. I loved the detail in the rooms with dodgy U-bends and pictures on the walls. The exhibition also includes a few Dutch 17th century pictures showing the same subject. Reviews Times Daily Telegraph Independent

Small exhibition at the National Gallery to complement the wonderful “Sacred made Real” exhibition. It looks at how the statues in the larger exhibition were made and features three more the main one being St John of the Cross carved by Francisco Antonio Gijon and painted by Domingo Majias. It looked at how there were made and then the processes that they went through to be painted. Finally it looked at how these statues may have influenced more modern art such as Degas’s Little Dancer and Picasso’s Weeping Woman.

Annual exhibition for the Turner Prize at Tate Britain . This year it featured just four artists and thank goodness none of them were video installations. My favorite was the first one Lucy Staer. I loved her whale skeleton in a small space which you looked into via slits. From some angles you got wonderful abstract views and looked at the texture more than the reality. The winner Richard Wright had done a lovely wall of gold painting like flock wallpaper! Enrico David did not move me and the only highlight was the works title Absuction Cardigan! Finally there was David Hiorns with at atomised jet engine which looked like sand. This not only raised the question why but also how! Reviews Times Guardian Daily Telegraph Independent Evening Standard

Exhibition at Tate Britain examining the influence on Turner of the Old Masters and his contemporaries. Often Turner is trying to outdo the other artists and prove his place in art history. The exhibition also shed light on the workings of the art world around 1800 looking at the markets and the importance of the Royal Academy exhibitions. I found it a very intellectual exhibition which was I admit a bit hard going at times. I did however like that fact that in most cases the works which had actually influenced Turner were hung alongside his own works. My favorite pictures were the ones of Venice. I loved the one of St Marks Square in which Turner had included Canelletto painting the same scene. Next to it was a wonderful late picture of Bellini’s being delivered to a church. The exhibition did get the prize for the worst picture I’ve seen this year! A picture of Jessica from the Merchant of Venice by Turner. Thank goodness he mainly stuck to landscapes! Reviews Times Guardian Daily T...

Sumptuous exhibition at the V&A spanning the period from the beginning of the 18th century to the mid-20th century and examining the changing role of the maharajas within a social and historical context and concentrating on their artistic patronage. The exhibition began with an overview of the role of the maharajas and an examination of their culture and traditions. It was a truly magical moment to turn the first corner of the exhibition to find a life sized model of an elephant and a horse in full ceremonial regalia. I loved the section on the Raj although I was sorry there was not more on the Mutiny. I loved the silliness of the huge painting (20 ft long at least) of Lord Lytton accepting the oath of allegiance from the Indian princes. I noted that it is owned by the Queen and one can only speculate as to where she might keep it. The final room on the early 20th century was my favourite with sari’s made by western couture houses and a section on the resetting of precious stones ...

Stunning talk at the National Gallery to compliment the current Sacred Made Real exhibition. This evening was an interview with sculptor Anna Maria Pacheco who had been artist in residence at the National Gallery in 1999-2000 and who specialized in painted works in wood. She talked about her work and influences and about her thoughts and reactions to the exhibition. The interviewer Colin Wiggins, Head of Education at the Gallery asked very pertinent and leading questions and it was a fascinating evening.

Lecture at the National Galley given by Jan Stubbe Ostergaard from the NY Carlesbergy Glyploteh gallery in Copenhagen. This was part of a series of lectures to compliment the “ Sacred made real ” exhibition. This one looked at the evidence for use of colour in Greek and Roman statues and was fascinating. It was really interesting to see the surface of sculptures magnified 40 times and showing signs of the original colour. It talked about how ingrained in later Western art is the ideal of the white classical sculpture and how wrong that image is.

Small exhibition at the Louvre as part of an Umberto Eco event there called the Vertigo of the List. This exhibition, whose title is based in Leperallo’s aria in Don Giovanni, at the role of lists in art, from lists by Rousseau and Delacroix to modern conceptual art. I loved “From humanity to something else, from something else to humanity” which was two identical lists of words linking humanity to art in two columns working in opposite directions the common word where they meet in the middle in trade.

Exhibition at the Mussee D’Orsay looking at the ways in which designers have taken inspiration from the Art Nouveau period focusing in 1933, 1966 and 1974. There was a room on the effect the period had on the Surrealists with photos by Brassai and Man Ray of Gaude architecture and another of how two exhibitions at the V&A in the 1960s on Aubrey Beardsley and Alfons Micha influenced the psychedelic movement of the 1960s. I loved the furniture there was a room of chairs of different dates and a wonderful desk by Mollino.

Nice exhibition at the Musse Rodin in Paris comparing the works of Matisse and Rodin. The two artists met in 1900 but were of different generations however there often seems to be a dialogue in their work. I loved the room on dancing. Along the middle were small figures by Rodin of dancers, some in full flight. Alongside were Matisse sketches for La Dance. I also loved four large plaques by Matisse of women’s back which had a Gauguin like feel plus a foot on top toe by Matisse.

Wonderful exhibition at the Louvre in Paris comparing the styles of the three great painters of the Renaissance in Venice. The exhibition was very busy and I found it quite hard to relax at first due to the pushing and shoving but once you learn to fight back it was fine! It also took a while to realise the way the exhibition was a arranged as the first couple of rooms set the scene. After that each room took a subject and looked at how the three artists treated it. I loved the room about mirrors which pointed out that reflections were a way of painters working in 3D and fed into the intellectual argument about whether painting or sculpture was the higher art form. There was a super room of Suppers at Ammaus’s which gave a good opportunity to compare the painters and how they treated a subject. I particularly liked Veronese picture set in a Venetian hose with the family almost ignoring the religious event at the middle of it all! I think Titian came out of it as the greatest artist, T...

Installation in the church of St Roch in Paris by the photographer Matthias Schaller . It is a series of photographs of the offices if Vatican priests taken between 2004 and 2008 mounted on a purple backing and placed behind the high altar. I am not sure if you can get any closer to the pictures but I attended a service there and they made a very effective backdrop to the Mass.

Really funky exhibition at Somerset House put on by fashion website SHOWstudio which looks at how the web has influenced fashion and visa versa (I think). I guess it also looked at the cross over between fashion and art. Anyway forgot what it means or represents it’s a series of funky installations/happenings and I really enjoyed it. I loved the table with a projection of the plates at a dinner party and the sounds of the conversation form various people in the fashion trade being played over it. Also great was the film of a groom turning into a bride. I loved the idea that the website published paper patterns from top designers and one section included garments made from them by visitors to the site.

Nice little exhibition at Somerset House to mark the publication of a new book on the photographer Norman Parkinson. Concentrating on portraiture the exhibition ranged from the 1930s to the 1980s and included many fashion shots. I loved the ones which had established the classic 195os new look. There were also picture which were just good fun like two models standing on the backs of donkeys at Blackpool!

Lecture by Peter Cherry of Trinity College, Dublin, focusing on one picture in the current exhibition at the National Gallery “ Sacred made real ”. He used “Saint Serapion” as a way of looking at the live and works of it’s artist Zurbaran. He looked at why he tended to work for the Orders , despite the fact they did not pay well. He also analysed what Zurbaran was good at such as still lives and portraits using other works in the exhibition to emphasis this.

Small exhibition at the Royal Academy looking at early 20th century sculpture via the works of Eric Gill, Gaudier-Brzeska and Epstein. I liked the fact a room was devoted to each artist rather than combining the work in themes. It meant you got a clear visual concept of the artists work and could see the differences between them. The tape tour added a lot of information about the lives of the men and an idea of the controversy they caused in their day which you would not have got from the objects themselves. Reviews Daily Telegraph

Exhibition at the Royal Academy showing recent work by Anish Kapoor. It had more of a feeling of a ‘happening’ than an exhibition. There were just a few works but what there were were big anf the viewers became part of the exhibition. I loved the big block of wax moving through the galleries but did worry that they might never get the doorways clean. I loved the fact that lots of people stood patiently waiting for the block to clear a door and then all clapped! The canon blowing wax at a wall is exciting but not as anarchic when you realise it goes off every 20 minutes in a side room which you have to queue up to go in. I’m not sure what it was all about but I didn’t care, I just liked it! Reviews Times Guardian Daily Telegraph Independent

Lecture by David Davies of the University of London putting the current exhibition at the National Gallery “ Sacred made real ” into context. It was a good introduction to the exhibition which I had viewed earlier that evening. It looked at the political and religious context in which the works were produced. It also went though the various themes of the works explaining their contemporary meanings.

Brilliant exhibition at the National Gallery looking at the dialogue between painting and sculpture in Spain at this period. The objects in the exhibition were amazing and a real discovery for me. I know nothing about polychrome sculpture and was bowled over at how realistic and beautiful they were. The two standing figures of Saint Francis Borgia and Saint Ignatius Loyola were so lifelike that they felt like real people in the room with you. It was lovely that many of the works were not in glass cases but shared the space with the viewer. The paintings were stunning too, in particular the two pictures of St Francis by Zurbaran. But the exhibition was actually better than the sum of its parts. The objects were given space to breathe and to work off each other. The lighting was wonderful with the sculpture casting shadows against the walls. A friend also noticed that were there was an obvious light source in a painting then the lighting of it came from that place. I haven’t done the tap...

One and Other has now ended and I am finding I am missing it. There is nothing to pop to look at after work! Anyway I’d better finish my blog on it! Saturday 10 October at 2pm was Hannah G1 who blew up balloons to raise awareness for Action Aid. Monday 12th at 5pm was Marcus G who promoted Fairtrade chocolate. Tuesday 13th at 6pm (my last visit) was Digital JEJ who dressed as two other Antony Gormley work, the iron man on Crosby beach and the electroplated suit made for Aquascutum which I actually saw earlier in the year at an exhibition at Somerset House. This seemed an appropriate place for me to end!

A 130-foot-long by 45-foot-wide stainless-steel sculpture by Roxy Paine made specifically for the roof of the Metropolitan Museum in New York. This work was like walking through the branches of a tree. I loved the reflections of it in the glass windows and the views of central park through the spaces.

Major exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York on the life and works of Vasily Kandinsky. Sadly I’ll be blunt, I didn’t like it. I found the art hard work and it was not helped by the building. It began at the bottom so you were always walking up the slope of the exhibition space and I felt the whole thing felt like pushing a rock uphill. I felt it might of worked better if it had started at the top and worked down. I liked the fact it linked the art to music of the time but sadly it was not music I related to well either! I think I discovered that I really don’t like abstract art I need some sort of figurative element and yet I like Rothko!

Moving exhibition at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex in New York looking at John Lennon’s relationship with that city. It looks at a period of his life full of political activism and later on a period which was starting to be very creative again before his untimely murder. There were wonderful exhibits including clothes with accompanying pictures of him wearing them and a good rolling video and music. Most moving was the bag of his effects collected from the hospital after his death and never opened.

Small but beautifully formed exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York to mark the loan of Vermeer’s “Milkmaid” from Amsterdam to mark the 400th anniversary of the founding of New York as New Amsterdam. The exhibition brought together this picture with the Met’s five Vermeer’s and a selection of pictures in a similar genre. I always love Vermeer’s so to get the bonus of an extra one was super. It was very busy so you had to be patient and earn your place in front of the pictures. “The Milkmaid” is an astonishing picture which seems to be a moment of quiet reflection caught in instant in time.

Small exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York looking at how the Japanese represented their new trading partners in the 19th century. It was delightful to see Western figures in beautiful Japanese prints as they start to appear in the country. In the later pictures they start to imitate fashion plates from newspapers and there seems to have been a fashion for western dress. Sadly I could find no write up of this exhibition on the Met’s website.

Oh dear I am playing catch up! This entry is for the week beginning 21 September! In fact all on one day Tuesday 22nd! 5pm was an anonymous person possibly called Kaylou , raising awareness for Huntingdon’s disease. 6pm was Gary_H who worked on his laptop, made phone calls and took photos from his wheelchair. 9pm was JaneGauntlett in a striking bright pink coat communicating with the crowd via flash cards.

For a week there is a giant chess set in Trafalgar Square set up as the centre piece for the London Design Festival . Next week chess masters will play it in the morning and the public in the afternoon. Designed by Spanish designer, Jaime Hayón, the pieces represent the domes, towers and spires of iconic London buildings. Review Times

OK two week’s worth in one! Monday 7th September 6pm to 7pm was Lucy Richards had a good sound system and sang to the crowd. Tuesday 8th between 5pm and 6pm was Molekilby who was giving out books to raise awareness of the Bookcrossing movement. Wednesday 9th at my usual time was Okey who made sausages! Monday 14th from 6pm to 7pm was Ben S who ran a pub quiz calling his pub the Plinth of Wales! He had people handing out question papers. I saw me again on the video, closing up my camera and walking away! Friday 18th at usual time was Tricia who asked friends to write her letters to read out on the plinth.

Definitely slowing down a bit! Wednesday at my usual time, between 5pm and 6pm, was 2621 who was doing a soduko when I passed but he had had a flip chart and display of pictures which were significant to him. Friday usual time was Ralph who was supporting the Chicago 2016 Olympic bid. No very exciting.

I think I’m slowing down a bit! Wednesday from 5pm to 6pm was a woman with a flip chart who I assumed was sending messages to friends however as she is anonymous on the website I’ll never know! Thursday at the same time was Oliver L who was a text machine for an hour. He wore his mobile number so people could text him and he read them out through a megaphone. Saturday saw two visits. 3pm to 4pm was Dousty who raised awareness and collect funds for The Rural Libraries of Peru by having a banner and hitting leaflets into the crowd with a badminton racket. 4pm – 5pm was Lois P who dressed as a pigeon.

Very small exhibition at the National Gallery to celebrate the conservation of a picture by Titian. The picture is round one representing the Triumph of Love shown as a cupid on the back of lion. It was a cover for a portrait so is shown alongside Titain’s “Allegory of Prudence”, the wonderful picture of three ages of man which may also have been a cover and the reverse of other works. It is a nice small study of a niche subject. It complimented my Courtauld Summer School as it had been owned by the Vendramin family who feature in the great Titian family portrait in the gallery. Reviews Evening Standard

The Royal Academy have been lent W.P. Firth’s “Private View at the Royal Academy 1881” and are displaying it in the Lee and James C Slaughter Room. It is a wonderfully busy picture which puts the viewer in the place of one wall of the exhibition. You look at the crowds of visitors much as you would do now. Alongside the picture is a key to who the people are and they include the great, good and notorious of Victorian London. You can imagine the equivalent today on those Evening Standard magazine pages which show celebrities arriving at cultural events!

Small exhibition of the work of Robert Austin in the Tennant Room at the Royal Academy . Austin, working in the mid 20th century, specialised in prints and engravings. These were small works but very detailed with a Dureresque quality. There was a beautiful cropped image of a woman in landscape format which was stunning. My favourite was of two nun’s called “Sisters of Assis”.

Nice exhibition at the Royal Academy of the work of John William Waterhouse. This was much better than I’d expected. I must admit the finding Waterhouse a bit chocolate boxy but I’d missed placed him as a late Pre-Raphaelite and not realized how much later he was. He brought together the ideas of the Pre-Raphs with the Impressionist techniques which were coming in from France. I had not realized that by the end of his life he was contemporary with Picasso and Cezanne. It was worth taking the tape tour as it brought out the sociological ideas behind the pictures and how they reflect the changing roles of women and the Freudian theories which were coming in. The pictures were not as glossy as I expected but had a rougher freer finished. I would like to have known more about the dresses in the pictures. In one case I felt one was used again which implied to me that they might be real not imagined. The exhibition however did not work in the space it had (Sackler Wing). I went on a Saturday...

A photographic exhibition at the National Museum of Wales examining photography in Britain from 1967 to 1987. Taken from the collections of the British Council and Arts Council the pictures from the 70s looked at the public world whereas those from the 80s examined commercialism and individualism. I loved a set called The Visitors which were portraits of visitors to Tintern Abbey in the 70s. They seem to have mainly been women in hats! I must say though that the photographs made Britain look a much gloomier place than I remembered. How did we not all cut our throats? I obviously wore rose tinted spectacles!

Retrospective of the work of New York photographer Diane Arbus at the National Museum of Wales . These were rather intense photographs of people described by the blurb as “a self conscious encounter between sitter and photographer”. Most were slightly odd and not what they seemed at first glance. One featured a giant, another a dwarf. There was picture of a crying baby which could not fail to move. You really felt the old cliché of “every picture tells a story” was correct in this case.

Small exhibition at the National Museum of Wales looking at artists who fought against the academic artistic traditions in 19th century France. There were some beautiful pictures in the exhibition such as a Cezanne still life of apples and a teapot and a Monet water lilies however I found the theme got a bit lost. I wasn’t too sure if this was an exhibition or just their Impressionist gallery so probably did not pay enough attention to the labels! The write up on the website was really interesting but it all passed me by in the room.

Nice little exhibition at the National Museum of Wales looking at the time Gwen John spent in Paris as Rodin’s lover. It featured sketches and paintings by Gwen John alongside sculptures by Rodin. There was a lovely contrast between her subtle delicate pictures and the more passionate sculpture. As ever I loved the pictures she did of aspects of her room and studio. They have a Vermeer like quality of tranquillity and repetition.

Tuesday 5pm to 6pm was Fast Eddie , a man in wellies with a cone on his head riding a hobby horse. Well why not! Wednesday in my usual slot (5pm to 6pm) was Helen B raising awareness for Fibromyalgia in a bright yellow dress. Friday at the same time was Robert I who used his time to discuss climate change. A shade tedious but nice big banner!

A quieter week this week! In fact I only made it to it one evening, Thursday but I did fit in three plinthers. 5pm -6pm was Kevin M 1 when I saw him he was campaigning to get Abbey Crunch biscuits reinstated! I must admit they hadn’t gone. He was good fun and got the crowd involved cheering for the biscuit! 6pm to 7pm was Joe M who was broadcasting to Roundhouse Radio. Sadly you can see me on the video wandering off with my feet stuck out when his co-presenter takes over on the ground! 9pm to 10pm was Antonia who was an Agony Aunt with a mega phone taking peoples problems by text and from the crowd. I must admit I couldn’t tell this when I was there. Update OK I got it wrong I was there earlier in the week too I just forgot till I looked more carefully at the photos! Monday 5pm-6pm was Bridget C who wrote messages and thoughts on a flip chart and shared with the audience. Tuesday at the same time was Fiona C1 who sketched the view despite t...

Monday between 5pm and 6pm was Deryck H who seemed to sit in a chair and read a book on being a groom. Tuesday between 1pm and 2pm Ben1 who took a flip chart up to communicate with the crowd when I passed he was playing Hangman. 5pm to 6pm was Jan _S_1 who promoted the Blood Donor Service. Friday between 12pm and 1pm was Clive H who was raising awareness of the Lary Project which meets the needs of voice impaired people, by standing with balloons. Between 4pm and 5pm is a mystery as he’s not on the website! There is no active link. It was a man in a deckchair with laptop.

Plenary lecture to mark the end of the Courtauld Institute summer school . The lecture was given by one of the professors at the Institute Paul Hills. He discussed the effect of trade with the East on colours in Venice. In particular he seemed to concentrate on the effect of the imported blue and white ceramics. I must admit he lost me at this point. I couldn’t make the leap from blue and white pottery to the role of blue and white in pictures. I felt those colours were more about sunshine and blue skies on the lagoon. I felt the argument wandered around a bit and just showed how good our lecturer for the rest of the week had been.

Can’t believe the course is over already. You just get into a routine and it’s finished! Today’s first lecture was Tintoretto v Veronese. I’d never really understood Tintoretto before but, although I’m not sure I’ll ever respond emotionally to it, I get what he was aiming for and like some of the images in the iconography, I’d not really understood that his works tend to be for and full of the tradesman of the city. We did Veronese quite quickly, but it turned out the lecturers phd was on Tintoretto’s church Madonna dell’Orto so maybe a bit if bias crept in! Second lecture was on the counter reformation. As usual I realised this is where I start to loose it with religious art. Things just become too prescriptive and a bit violent, I think I like my religion peaceful. As part of the session twpo members of the class read the dialogue between the inquisitor and Veronese regarding the “Feast at the House of Simeon” (or is it?) This really brought the topic to life and we followed it with ...

Superb exhibition at the British Library looking at the life of Henry VIII. It had the original of everything you’d want to see! There were wonderful portraits including the Holbein original of Edward VI from Dresden. It was a highly intelligent exhibition put together in a very academic fashion and yet it wasn’t dry. The coverage of the Reformation was fantastic. There were two or more cases of the books Henry collected to find evidence to support his divorce. It was amazing to see the hand he had drawn in a copy of Leviticus pointing at he passage about not marrying your brothers wife. I will say you need to give it a lot of time in fact I’d suggest two visits! I spent two hours and was getting slightly hysterical! I’d done the young Henry, the Reformation, the Field of Cloth of Gold, various wars and six wives at which point we then seemed to ruin into trouble with Scotland! At the point I started laughing in a slightly desperate way and had to speed up! I was with a friend so thi...

Wow it has seemed a long day as I’ve packed things in! Two lectures this morning. We started with portraits with a debate on what a portrait is and isn’t. We then looked at the role of Netherlandish art, the difference between public and private portraits and the place of women in portraiture. After coffee was the role of the Terra Firma in Venetian art. It was an interesting discussion about whether the influences came from city to country or visa versa the conclusion was that they influenced each other it was not just one way. This gave us a chance to look at some less well-known artists such as Lotto and Pordenone. This afternoon was a wonderful trip to the British Library to look at books printed in Venice in the 15th and 16th centuries. These had been retrieved for us and we looked at them in a room upstairs. The curator there was really knowledgeable so there were some great discussion between our lecturer and him. It was great to get a chance to handle the books and have a reall...

Joint exhibition between the British Museum and Kew Gardens to showcase the plants of the Indian subcontinent. It shows how the landscape changes and the different plants which grow there. It was really nice to see the familiar space outside the British Museum used in this way and I must admit, as you’ll see from this post, I had fun with my new camera there!

Today’s lectures were excellent. As one fellow student said “At last we’ve left religion and found sex!”! We began with the mysterious Giorgione who we know very little about and who only left a handful of pictures as he died young, however what he did leave was remarkably significant and seemed to introduce a new style of pastoral art to Venice. We tried analysing some of the more mysterious pictures but who knows what they mean. After coffee was Titian with particular emphasis on the mythological series. The themes in these became more and more racy. In one series he seems to have admitted that one of the reasons for the figures in them was to show naked women from all angles! The trip this afternoon was the Print Gallery at the British Museum which I always enjoy. We were able to look at Gentile Bellini’s drawing for the big procession in St Marks Square, a Ttitan drawing, two Carpaccios, a Veronese and a Tintoretto. It is so nice to be able to compare style and technique that clos...

Small exhibition at the National Gallery of French 19th century landscapes from their collection. I must admit this exhibition did not turn me on! Sadly I suspect it was all that greenery and countryside. I am too much of an urbanite not to panic when I see all those tress, I lived up once the Impressionists came on the scene placing people in the pictures and looking at countryside on the edge of the city. I could start to smell the smoke! Reviews Independent Evening Standard

Another good day at the summer school! The first lecture was on devotion in painting focusing on the development of the altarpiece in Venice. We looked in quite a lot of detail at what wasn’t an altarpiece, ie private devotional works. Altarpieces in this period went through three phases the gilded polyptic form through the sacred conversation style to the large narrative pieces. It was great to see lots of images which I knew well so a bit like studying old friends. The second lecture was on the Scuole, the Venetian version of confraternities, and the art they commissioned. They developed a wonderful narrative tradition which often places miracles and biblical events into a contemporary setting. The afternoon was a session in the National Gallery looking in particular at the Bellini’s most of which in the collection were for private devotion. We discussed the changing nature of private devotion, the influence of Flemish and Netherlandish art and the early development of portraiture. I...

Super small exhibition at Somerset House which paired up 18 designers of men’s clothing with 18 contemporary artists to produce a suit to challenge the form of men’s suits. The suits were fascinating but it was as exciting to see the way they displayed. The figures were headless and looking into mirrors so you saw the outfits from many angles. Quite spooky! Of course I loved the Anthony Gormley/Aquascutum metal suit which was as perfect and interesting on the inside as the outside. I loved the shoes on the Paul Smith figure with pointed toes and different coloured laces. Reviews Evening Standard

Lovely exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery o f the work of the Omega Workshop. Established in 1913 by the painter and art critic Roger Fry, the Omega Workshops were an experimental design collective, whose members included Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and other artists of the Bloomsbury Group. The exhibition included wonderful drawings of the designs and many examples of finished works. It was great to see a “Lily Pond” screen and table together. I particularly liked the textile designs and it was wonderful that the curator had managed to bring together most of the colour ways of each design. Reviews Evening Standard

Today has been my first day of this year’s week at the Courtauld Institute’s summer schools. This year I am doing “Painting in Renaissance Venice” which is being led by Michael Douglas-Scott. It was nice to see some familiar faces and there are at least five of us who did Michael’s course last year. Today has been two lectures. Firstly setting out the background of Venice in this period looking at how the city had set up a myth of itself, the role of the Doge. the nature of the Republic and the role of citizens. The second lecture looked at why the nature of Renaissance was different in Venice. There was still a sense of the coming of antiquity and humanism but in Venice it fused with the Gothic and Byzantine rather than replacing it. The day ended with a choice of gallery talks. I went to one on the second floor of the Courtauld on the coming of Modernism. In essence it looked at the Impressionists and discussed what they were reacting against and what themes they portrayed. All in a...

Ok this week’s Plinths visits! To sum them up the thing to do seemed to be to blow up balloons and raise awareness of something. It’s a good idea but does get repetitive. I am starting to realize that another art work will emerge from this which is the photos people take of their experience and the things they make. It could go on for ever! Monday between 5pm-6pm was Paul_D-1 a man in a black suit billed on the web site as a ‘last minute replacement’. He was quite friendly and engaged in conversation with passers by. In watching his slot he seemed to have had five minutes notice and was called on because he worked in a building nearby. I think he may be my favorite so far probably because he’d not over thought it and just enjoyed the moment! Tuesday between 5pm and 6pm was Shawn the Sheep who inflated and released balloons to raise awareness of CLAPA an organization which helps people with cleft palettes. Between 6pm and 7pm A Denholm who took a photo of the Square eve...