Summer exhibition

This year’s Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy seemed a particularly colorful one mainly because of Michael Craig Martin’s curation and painting of three rooms along the main axis in vibrant colours. The pictures just sang again the colour and it created lovely vistas through the rooms.

I also liked the mix of large and small pictures in the same space. I do slightly miss the densely hung Weston Rooms but it’s nice for the small pictures to escape! Themes which came out for me were pictures of blocks of flats and the emergence of 3D printing.

Favourites this year included “St Paul’s Multiview II” by Anthony Whishaw which was various views of the Dome of St Paul’s in rather muted colours. It may have been enhanced by being shown against a bright pink which picked up the pink tones. Also “Looking South” a woodcut by Pine Feroda which was a picture of the sea with the most amazing shimmering effect on the water achieved purely by the use of white.

I think my absolute favourite though was a lovely portrait shaped townscape of a boat, the deep quay and buildings at Mousehole in Cornwall by Cyril Croucher. I so like a portrait shaped landscape! It’s something about the depth it gives plus a sense of looking up.

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