Cathy's Art Diary

All day event at the National Gallery looking back at the 1972 television series by John Berger “Ways of Seeing” which revolutionised how we view images. The day consisted of sessions where one of the programmes was screened followed but a response to it by a speaker. The first programme was followed by a fascinating discussion with the director Mike Dibb and the editor of the book which accompanied the series Richard Hollis. It was interesting to hear about the mechanics of the work. Responses to the other programmes came from art historians Griselda Pollock and Michael Rosenthal, Director of the National Gallery, Nicholas Penny, and director of exhibitions at the Haunch of Venison gallery, Ben Tufnell. It was a fascinating and stimulating day but I did come away not that impressed by the programmes. I don’t remember them from the time so was not influenced by them then. With hindsight I am sure they changed a lot of things but I think they were so long ago that we ma...

Fascinating conversation at the National Portrait Gallery in response to the Lucien Freud exhibition looking at the role larger figures have had in art and how contemporary society deals with size. Art historian Leslie Primo looked at the art historic aspect of the larger figure pointing out that it is only in recent years that thin figures have been regarded as attractive and that in many countries thinness is equated with poverty. Of course Rubens figured prominently! Charlotte Cooper, a fat activist, talked about how fat is viewed in contemporary society and talked about how fat people in newspapers are often depicted with out headless, dubbed by her the “headless fatties”! Justin Varney, a public health doctor, talked about health perceptions of weight and how fat people were not necessarily more unhealthy than thinner people despite public opinion. There was a fascinating, rather affirming conversation about size issues. I loved Justin’s statement that what is...

Intriguing little exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery of portraits of people whose identities are unknown. Often thee works had been acquired as pictures with an identity but these attributions have since been disputed. Many of the pictures were very fine and full of clues to her the person was if only we could read them such as the lady with two lovely watches. The most unusual picture is a death bed portrait of a rather beautiful long haired young man. It seems so tragic that someone went to a lot of effort to commission this just for the identity of the subject to be forgotten. There is an accompanying book of short stories by well known authors based on the pictures and imagining the lives of the sitters. 

The first weekend of the Brighton artists open houses and I managed to chalk up 18 in the Five Ways and Hove trails plus a few independents. The highlight so far has to be Eve Shepherd who was showing amazing sculpture out at Woodingdean. Her star piece was a double statue of a boy called “Face Off” but I also loved her zodiac statues and have come back to count my pennies! The joy of the open houses is getting to meet and talk to the artists and Eve was very generous with her time. I found the artist who had incorporated his wife’s ashes into a set of ceramic breast shape bowls a bit challenging. I thought it was a lovely gesture but I can’t imagine how he could let anyone else own any them. Bargain of the weekend (and one of only 2 purchases) was a lovely little seascape by Royston Hawley at All Saints Church in Hove for £20! He had lovely works which I felt were really underpriced. For the quality of the work you could have added another nought! Royston be more ...

A curated open submissions exhibition , open to all artists exhibiting in the May Brighton Artists Open Houses festival at Brighton Dome. This was a nice little exhibition just small enough to look round before a performance or in an interval showing and giving a good taste of what the open houses have to offer. The audience got a chance to vote for their favourite and I went for Vanessa Conyers who had produced a beautiful tea set with pictures of tattooed men on it!

Fascinating lecture at the National Portrait Gallery given by Faramerz Dabhoiwala, a senior fellow at Exeter College Oxford discussing how and why attitudes to sex changes in Britain between 1600 and 1800. Before this period sex outside marriage was illegal however with the coming of the enlightenment it started to be considered that sex is a private matte and morality cannot be imposed by force. He discussed sexual radicals in the period including early discussion of gay rights issues and how the notion that men are more lustful than women was challenged. He concluded by looking at the growth of newspapers and the advent of the sex scandal taking as an example Kitty Fisher who recovered from bad publicity by commissioning portraits by Reynolds.