Cathy's Art Diary

Lovely exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum on English blue and white china. I have to admit I am very biased towards this show as my parents collected blue and white and I grew up in a house full of it and with conversations about the different factories and the inspirations for the designs. I now have a small display in my bedroom of the pieces I kept from the collection. I liked the fact this show combined the original works and contemporary takes on them but at times felt the contemporary takes took over. I so want a set of the Richard Rogers plates with the Thames running across them but 6 plates took up a lot of space in a small show. The themes were good and my favourite section was the one called “Life and times – everyday life and famous people” as this had more of the early 19th works in it plus more of the genres that my parents collected. I loved the commemorative works and felt quite emotional over a Vauxhall Gardens plate. I think my Father knew ...

Fascinating exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum on Russian theatre from 1913-1933. I began this show on the corridor by the theatre galleries in which the museum often hold small shows and displays so I was expecting it to be about 5 cases in size so I lingered there! Then I turned a corner and it went on into the galleries and actually turned out to be quite a large exhibition! I found it fascinating as it became not only a history of the theatre but also a history of art and design in Russia at that time.   It was interesting to see the radical art which fed into the Revolution and then the effects of Stalin. I had studied the Russia from the Revolution to the Cold War at O level but never thought of it in terms of art before! I particularly liked a section in the middle with a series of small set models. I did wonder how actors moved on some of the more sets which had stairs and floors at odd angles. Similarly how they would have worn some of the Cubis...

Small exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum of prints from African over the last 40 years. The show pointed out that print is a very democratic medium and is often used for protest works as they are a cheap way of spreading a message. For that reason these works are very linked to time and place. There were a number of Chris Ofili works including some intricate etching made in one sitting which represent different places in Barcelona where they were made and a print called “RIP Stephen Lawrence” made to raise money for the campaign. I loved an image by Willie Cole of an iron from above. It was a striking picture called “Loyal and Dependable” which described the iron but also referred back to descriptions in slave auction catalogues. I also liked Tony Phililip’s “History of the Benin Bronzes” which showed the bronzes being bought, auctioned and displayed in museums (captivity) again a reference back to slavery.

Interesting exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum exploring the work of black British photographers and images of black Britain. I found the show a bit thin and there is actually more information about the photographers on the website. It would have benefited from a bit more commentary about the pictures. I did however like the fact that they were there to be viewed as images not as a history of black Britain although they were hung chronologically. My favourites were the pictures from the 70s with the wonderful retro hair and shoes. I overheard   two ladies going round reminiscing about their platform soles and their mother’s reaction to them. It’s always lovely to hear people engaging with the images. I also liked the pictures of headdresses and hair styles by J.D. ’Okhai Ojeikere which were wonderfully textural. The headdresses, pictured from above, looked like Renaissance drapery studies. I was amused to see Yinka Shonibare’s “Diary of a Victorian Dandy...

Wonderfully restored Weston Cast Courts at the Victoria and Albert Museum. I have always loved these spaces and the silliness of having casts of statues and pieces of architecture huddled together. It’s like taking a walk round European cities. They look so much better now they have been redecorated and refreshed. I love the Italian gallery which is sparser and now a lovely pale green colour. It’s nice to see old friends such as the Gates of Paradise from Florence and where else could you see so many Michelangelo’s together! The Northern European room is more packed and darker. It retains that slightly dusty feeling it had. It’s wonderful to have whole doorways and facades of churches! My favouites are the tombs of the Angevin kings. I think a couple of them may still be being cleaned as I couldn’t find Eleanor. Review Telegraph  

Quirky exhibition at Tate Modern of work by the pioneer of media art, Nam June Paik. These works combined images on screens with objects, often those used to make them or deliver them. OK that’s not a great way of describing it so have an example, two old televisions showing images of famous Nixon broadcasts with magnetic coils in front of them which distorted the image. Oddly enough he looked more sincere when distorted. I also liked “Three eggs” which included a an egg being filmed, it’s image on a TV and a real egg in a TV box. Although these works were from the 1960s they felt very fresh and quirky. I mush prefer them to acres of humourless contemporary video art!

Interesting exhibition at Tate Modern looking at the work of Marlene Dumas which I’d describe as expressionist portraits. I admit at first look I wasn’t too convinced by these pictures as they looked quite slap dash but on closer looking the draftsmanship was much more refined. I liked the fact that the room introductions were quotes by the artist which gave insight into her working methods.   I didn’t really connect to them emotionally. I liked the “Black Drawings” sequence which was a series of heard studies with different degrees of finish and abstraction. I also liked the picture of the artist’s daughter “The Painter” which is at first a rather menacing image of a child with what look like bloodied hands however on reading the commentary she had been painting in the garden! A lot of the work was based on found images from photographs and magazines and this technique reminded me of Sickert! Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph Independent Evenin...

Fascinating workshop at the National Gallery focusing on “Madame Moitessier” by Ingres led by Jacqui Ansell. We started off in the gallery looking at the picture and talking about the context in which it was painted and other contemporary works in the gallery. We also looked in detail at the picture and talked about how it had taken him 12 years to paint and how the work changed in that time as fashion changed. The figure had started off in a round chair in a narrower yellow dress by the time this was finished this would have looked old fashioned and of course a lady wants to be shown in her best new clothes! The frame is its original and has the same flowers on it as on the dress. Back at the seminar room we talked more about Ingres’s career and how this picture fitted in. We talked about his exile in Rome and the exquisite drawings he did of British tourists. We looked at other portraits of fashionable women by him and compared the techniques and also at other pictures i...

Delightful exhibition at Leighton House looking at the representation of female beauty in the Victorian and Edwardian eras based on the collection of Juan Antonio Perez Simon. I’d never been to Leighton House before so I have to start by saying how amazing that is. I just loved the Arab Hall complete with pool and William de Morgan tiles and the lovely studio space upstairs. The exhibition fit so well with the décor. Leighton of course was well represented in the exhibition including the lovely “Greek girls picking up pebbles by the sea” and studies for it. There were also some nice Rossetti’s and Burne Jones’s   but most interesting were the artists I had not heard of before such as William Clarke Wontner and John William Godward. As ever I love the silliness of Alma-Tadema. I liked the fact he started off being true to Medieval and classical life and it was great to see the coach he had made with a Greek and an Egyptian side as well as a picture using it. Howeve...

Nice exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery of work by Snowdon to mark the recent donation of over 130 original prints to the gallery. I suspect this was a taster of what is to come but gave a good overview of his career looking at his royal work, fashion photography and photo essays for the Sunday Times. I liked the fact the show started with a picture of Snowdon by Beaton as it gave a sort of line of succession to the work. Of course I loved the picture of Vita Sackville West with a dog but also the look at his breakthrough publication “Private View” which looked at the art world of London in the 1960s. We could do with someone doing a similar look at the current scene. My favourite picture was one of Anthony Blunt holding up a slide in such a way that the image on the slide fell on his eye. So clever.

Very small display at the National Portrait Gallery of three self-portraits by Henry Tonks. I know I am stretching a point to cover this as it’s just 3 pictures in a case but as Tonks taught so many of the 20th century artists I love then I thought it deserved a mention! It is thought that these pictures may be studies for his self-portrait in the Tate. There was a beautiful head study which did remind me of a Stanley Spencer picture, who he taught. Also two full length picture of him sitting in a church very obviously looking in a mirror and studying his pose.

Small display at the National Portrait Gallery looking at Thomas Carlyle whose lecture series in 1846 contributed to the founding of the gallery as it called on influential figures to sit for the leading artists of the time. There was a nice variation of work from a photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron to an affectionate sketch by Sir George Scharf, the first director of the gallery. However I am not sure if gave a sense of the man, I just got an picture of a generic of Victorian old gentleman not a particular character. It might also have helped to give a pointer to his oil portrait round the corner with the other Watt’s Hall of Fame pictures.

Interesting display at the National Portrait Gallery looking at the American heiresses who came to Britain in late 19th century to find husband, all very Downton Abbey! Of course it included Churchill’s mother, Jennie Jerome, possibly one of the most famous of the ‘buccaneers’. Also Mary Curzon and her wonderful sister Daisy Leite who became a helicopter enthusiast who used to drive herself between her house in Cornwall and the Ritz! This was a great view of some characters who you just want to know more about!  

Fabulous exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery of portraits by John Singer Sargent of artists, writers, actors, musicians and friends. This was a really nicely presented show. It uses the space in the gallery in a slightly different way which makes the modern space into a more traditional gallery and it’s quite fun to work out where you are! Also huge thanks for the small booklets with the picture commentaries in them. It makes them much easier to read and keeps people flowing. I also loved the last two rooms which looked at the same period of time but in three difference places. I was most struck by how he used white. There were some dresses which were mostly white and just glowed. In other small splashes of thick white just lit the pictures up. I was fascinated to look closely at the brush stokes which were bold and almost Velazquez like. It’s really hard to pick out the pictures I liked best as they were all so lovely! I loved the bringing together of the pic...

Wonderful documentary film looking at life behind the scenes at the National Gallery which I went to see at the ICA. It’s a long film (3 hours) but totally absorbing. There are a lot of shots of people just looking at the pictures and it is a great study of the gaze. Most interesting is the moment at which people stop looking and how they react. Then there are quite lengthy sections on the gallery talks with different types of groups featured, school groups, older groups, generic gallery visitors etc. It was very strange to see so many of the lecturers I now know quite well from going myself. There were good sections to on the work of the conservation studio and framers. I loved the fact that every time you went back to the study the same man was up a ladder touching up a Veronese. It just showed how long these things take. I also loved a piece on the Leonardo exhibition including its dismantling! My favourite bits were where they had filmed meetings. It’s always inter...

Rather a mixed exhibition at the Mall Galleries of work by Japanese female artists. On the whole the work in a Japanese style seemed much better than that in a Western style.   Some of the Western style had a feel of a very poor regional amateur art show. However as I read the commentaries I warmed to it more as there were some very heart felt reasons why the artist had painted an image which were more to do with them needing to paint it rather than any market or fashionable forces.   There was a lot of work in dried flowers which was really intricate and beautiful such as Timoe Sei’s “House of Time” which was like a 1930s embroidered garden. There were also a number of shadow boxes which I have not come across before, sort of 3D pictures, and a lot of calligraphy. My favourite work was a picture by Taeko Tsunada which was a cubist style picture of docks.

Interesting exhibition at the ICA by Dor Guez, an artist of Christian Palestinian and Jewish Tunisian descent. This was an installation called “The Painter” which tells the story of a painter with the artists own background who serves in the Yom Kippur War through the objects he owns which are shown in display cases. Alongside it is a film of this ‘painters’ life. I thought   this was an interested idea but I must admit most of the nuances were lost on me and the film may have shed more light but the bit I saw   was very depressing and dull and I didn’t engage with it.   

Fascinating exhibition at the ICA on the work of the Merseybeat poet Adrian Henri who had also trained as a painter and who ran ‘happenings’ in Liverpool. I have always loved Henri’s poems and have a beloved copy of the Penguin anthology “The Mersey Sound” so I was really pleased that they included a recording of him reading his work. It was lovely to hear “Without you” read by the author. It never fails to make me smile. The happens sound wonderful and there were lots of posters and flyers for them as well as some of his art works, often Leger like collages using adverts and text. I liked a campaign he ran to memorialise bits of Liverpool which were being destroyed in the 1960s and 1970s and his campaign slogan of “Ashes to ashes, Dust to dust, If the bombs don’t get you, the planner must”! Most interesting was a signed copy of Howl by Ginsberg signed for Henri after Ginsberg had stayed with his on a visit to Liverpool. Also a picture called “Entry of Christ into Live...

Rather sparse show at the ICA of recent photographs by Viviane Sassen taken in Pikin Slee in Suriname. There were some beautiful works in this show and I particularly liked the pictures of heads taken against pastel backgrounds. These seemed to emphasis the form and the shape of the head. I also liked the pictures of everyday items like bowls of water. I say sparse because there seemed to be not many works and in quite a small format in a large space. It gave the images room to breathe but made them hard to compare or to see as a body of work.

Confusing exhibition at Somerset House of work by street and graffiti artists supposed on a theme of maps. I say confusing because I wasn’t too sure that all the works fitted the theme. One seemed to say it had stared with the idea of painting a map but it had ended up as woman! Things were not helped by the fact that your only guide round the show was a very confusing leaflet which I have pictured. It was a large format and as the works weren’t in order you were constantly having to open it and refold it to find what you were looking for. Added to that the numbers of the items were printed over the text and arrows, also over the text, joining up works in similar mediums. I’d also say I got lost finding the gallery so I was grumpy before I even got there! I did however love a pyramid of coloured cement castles by 3TT Man. I think it had something to so with combing contradictory beliefs but I just thought it looked pretty. Also Will Sweeney’s take on Cabott Square in Canar...

Charming exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery of rarely seen drawings to mark the opening of their new Gilbert and Ildiko Butler Drawings Gallery. This is a lovely new space on what they are calling the mezzanine level ie the half way point on the stairs between the ground and first floors. It’s a square room with nice lighting and at the moment it is painted white.   It will be really interesting to see what else can be done with the space and how different colours work. There were some really nice pictures on show from a nice Fra Bartolommeo sketch of a landscape which may have been done rapidly out of doors to a Henry Moore air raid shelter picture. My favourite was the picture of a back of a woman going through a door by Fuseli. She is in a lovely empire line dress and intricate headdress and is in an impossibly sinuous pose. The most unusual was by Valentine Klotz of a city after a seige. Klotz was a military engineer and the grey and blue blocky tones gave th...

Luminous exhibition at the Halycon Gallery of paintings on glass by Dale Chihuly. These were beautiful back lit works on glass which mainly consisted of swirled circles of paint with Pollock like drops of paint inside the circles and escaping from them. I loved the fact that you could see the brush stokes when you were close to them. They reminded me of medieval painted stained glass. They were shown with a few of Chihuly’s glass sculptures which are always stunning.

Interesting exhibition at The Fine Art Society of work by Rob and Nick Carter. These works were large and made up of 30 plus small drawings in a Warhol like picture. The first was recognisable but then they gradually became more abstract as each changed slightly in the same way a message changes in the children’s game of Chinese Whispers. It was really interesting to use then to think about what the basic form of an image is. A good example of this was the version of Leonardo’s “Last Supper” which gradually melted into being shapes. It was fascinating to read that the works had been created by giving an Andy Warhol drawing to a copyist in China who then did a version which was passed to another copyist without them seeing the original and on we go. I had not realised that there are art factories in China with copyists making pictures for hotels and offices. The idea linked well to the Linda Karshan show I’d seen earlier in the day which also showed how small diffe...

Fascinating exhibition at Flowers Gallery of work by David Hepher. These works are made from a thin layer of concrete on a canvas and acrylic paint. This gives them a wonderful texture. My eye read them as lovely landscapes concentrating on the horizon. In one a saw rain over a beach and I thought I saw low hills on another horizon. I found them very relaxing and beautiful. I then chatted to the lady at the desk, and yes reread the title, and realised they are in fact of where a wall meets a pavement. Hepher revisited the same section of a London Street over several months and documented the tonality and the weathering of the surface over time, in a rather Monet like fashion. It just goes to show that we all make something different of what we see! The gallery lady very kindly said my interpretation “must mean you are an optimist and are looking up and out in life”. I think it also shows that you can find beauty in anything even the grubby bottom of walls!

Interesting exhibition at the Redfern Gallery of work by Linda Karshan. The show was in two parts with drawings in the series “Signs of Men” and etchings from “Footfalls” upstairs. The pictures were geometric abstracts mainly of repeating patterns. In the later series it was fascinating to see what a small change in an image, such as blurring the joins between squares, made to the image. There were a few where I was playing spot the difference! Downstairs there were works from the collection of Victor Skipp, a collector of Karshan’s work, which were being sold in aid of Kettle’s Yard.

Lovely exhibition at Browse & Darby of new works by Victoria Crowe. These were calming works featuring tree branches against wintery skies. The effect was helped   by the weather outside! There was a mix of prints and paintings. I loved “Winter and shadow” which had brown branches against a dark blue sky. There was also a nice long picture “Reflection on Winter, London Plane” with white branches against blue and ghostly woman’s face superimposed in a rectangle.

Lovely little exhibition at the Royal Academy looking at Charles Stewart’s illustrations for the book Uncle Silas. Stewart had become haunted by the novel and began his illustrations in the Second World War when he was working as an ARP warden. He researched the period of the novel including buying period clothes and putting them on mannequins to study how they sat on a figure. It was interesting to see that he’d discovered the book was being filmed in 1947, a year before his book came out, so he visited the set and took photos and made sketches. The show talked about how the firm then influenced his drawings. The exhibition included his large format drawings, the smaller page sized format, the binding designs, designs for chapter headings and footings and even his proof copy. The pictures were very sharply drawn with, as the title suggests, a very gothic feel. It tied in with the recent exhibition at the British Library really well.  

Disappointing exhibition at the Royal Academy looking at how later artists have been inspired by Rubens. I say disappointing because a lot of the publicity has implied that this a big Ruben’s show but they isn’t actually a huge amount of his work in the show. It’s far more about his legacy which is really interesting but the narrative of the show doesn’t flow very well. After a couple of rooms I worked out you needed to find the Rubens in the room then work out from it to what came after. Often the Rubens is not the first thing you see in a room and it takes some hunting and pushing against the flow. I also found some of the room introduction boards were in odd places and didn’t lead you into the narrative. For example in the first room you read the board and naturally turn to your right where you find a Constable. Until you’ve looked at the Rubens you are not sure why you are looking at a Constable! There were some fascinating works and things to learn. I loved the d...

Interesting outdoor exhibition in the Royal Academy courtyard by the Royal Photographic Society to mark the International Year of Light. The show looked at how data can be displayed in different photographic formats. It defined light as “a wave moving through the electromagnetic field present throughout the universe” and talked about how we can use light of different wave lengths to exploit its ability to carry and record information.   OK I’ll admit I didn’t always understand the science but some of the images were fascinating and beautiful. My favourite picture was the one in the photograph which shows data from three space missions mapped onto globes. I also liked the x-ray picture of people kissing by Hugh Turney and of chocolate shells in an infrared heater.

Excellent study morning at the National Gallery focusing on Wright of Derby’s picture “An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump” led by Jacqui Anselm. We began by looking at the picture in the gallery but went a long way round so we could look at other narrative pictures and think and how they told a story. I have done a few study mornings with Jacqui now and she is great at making you look at the picture carefully and think about the position of the people and what they are looking at. We talked about lots of things including the ages of the people in the picture and the light sources. Back in the seminar room we discussed how this picture fitted Enlightenment thinking and the idea of “Learning through Looking”. We looked at the fashion for scientific experiments in the home and talked about whether we thought the main protagonist was a travelling showman or the master of the house. We also talked about whether the picture was saying that the laws of God gone out of the wi...

Interesting exhibition at the Royal Geographical Society featuring work by Natasha Kumar and Paul Vanstone. Natasha’s works were prints based on Indian chhatris and based on the concentric circles formed by the underside of their domes. The prints were in different colour combinations and each colour looked quite different. Some featured dancing figures in the circles which were meant to represent figures dancing between heaven and hell. Paul’s works were lovely sculptures mainly of long female torsos. They were very tactile and I particularly liked the ridged figures which looked like they were in Greek clothing. Just a comment though, if an exhibition is advertising that it is on until 5pm on a certain date, then it is frankly rude to be dismantling it at 10.30 that morning. I did still pick my way through the boxes to have a look but it did not feel welcoming! I wasn’t the only person who had come specifically to see the exhibition who was disappointed.