10 x 10 : drawing the City

Small exhibition in new galleries at Somerset House of drawings of London by various artists which were to be sold at Sotheby’s to raise money for Article 25, a development and disaster relief charity.

The premise of the exhibition was that a square mile of the West End had been divided into 100 squares and each artist was allocated a square to create an art work inspired by it.  

It was a mix of standard views and new takes on subjects such as Mary Bowman’s overlaying of a map of her square on a photograph of barrels.

I loved a picture of the old War Office on Whitehall by Joseph Robson done in sections of photographs, drawing and  watercolour and pieced together to form a picture of the whole building.  Also Richard Portchmouth’s view of the corner of Sir John Soane’s house with a reflection of Lincoln’s Inn outside in a convex mirror.

Another interesting picture by Michelle Mossessian showed the view up through buildings shown as the space they made against the sky rather than the buildings themselves.

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