The Mind of the Artist

Charming exhibition at the Town House looking at work by 20th century artists.

This was a really lovely chance find. I was walking around the Spitalfields area and spotted a sign for this exhibition outside the shop and was attracted in by the fact it had a work by Duncan Grant in it. You go through a delightful early 18th century shop into a gallery across a yard.

The show was beautifully curated and began with a colour sketch by Beryl Touchard, taking up its colour themes and then thinking about how works on paper are the best ways of looking at how an artist develops and works on a creative idea. The booklet to go with the show guides you through the links between the pictures and the ideas.

I loved the watercolours of Venice by Hercules Brabazon Brabazon and Frank Brangwyn  in misty shades of blue with small red highlights. There were some lovely Laura Knight circus scenes. Most moving was a picture of prisoner at Belsen by Feliks Topolski in his role as a war artist.

And of course the Duncan Grant which enticed me in, which was a design for a plate for the Festival of Britain, was wonderful.

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