Cathy's Art Diary

Interesting exhibition at Two Temple Place looking at the body in Ancient Egypt using a wealth of objects from regional collections. In doing so it also told the story of how regional collections of Egyptian objects developed. The downstairs section looked at the body in life and included delightful display cabinets of specific items such as a case of mirrors and another of makeup tools. These items seemed very touching and personal. There were also displays on how people were represented in art with men shown with red skin and women with yellow and grids used to get the proportions of the figures correct. Around the top of the staircase were boards on each of the reginal collections which told the stories of some fascinating Victorian Egyptology. I loved the idea that Bolton, being a weaving town, concentrated on collection Egyptian linens. However the boards can be summed up by the idea than Flinders Petrie seems to have had a lot of friends! The main room upstairs ...

Nice exhibition looking at Tate Britain looking at how British artists have depicted alcohol consummation from both an approving and disapproving stance. As the commentary said “In British art, binging is nothing new.” Of course is started with a copy of Hogarth’s Gin Lane but basically it was a chance to see some little seen pictures in a different context. I loved an Edward Le Bas called “Saloon Bar” of a single woman in bar, from the 1940s commenting on a changing society at the time. Who could resist the wonderful big picture by George Cruikshank “The Worship of Bacchus” a compilation of vignettes on the evil of drink partly inspired by the death of his father, the cartoonist, in a drinking competition. As someone who was nursing the end of a hangover it seemed very poignant! Closes autumn 2016

Small exhibition at Tate Britain of three of David Hockney’s double portraits to mark the donation of one of them to the gallery in 2014. The donated one was of Wayne Sleep and George Lawson and it was shown with “Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy” and “My Parents”. I’d not realised before that Hockney was best man to Ozzie Clark and Celia Birtwhistle which explains why it is such a sympathetic picture of them. I couldn’t help but notice that in the picture of his parents they are sitting on the chairs we had in our kitchen at home! I love the touches of the Chardin book and the Della Francesca Baptism of Christ to include himself, an artist, in the picture by showing his influences. The Wayne Sleep and George Lawson picture was unfinished and has a more blocky composition but I love the stance of the dancer leaning against the door in contrast to the more sombre seated figure. Closes autumn 2016

Innovative exhibition at Tate Britain of work by three contemporary artists who use everyday objects, spaces and gestures in their work freezing a transient moment by freezing them in a work of art. I think my favourite was Mary Ramsden who made large pictures based on the smudges and painterly marks left on mobile phone screens. It made you get your own phone out and have a look at the marks on it. Somehow they are now a record of a thought process! Rallou Panagiotou made luxury and leisure items out of marble such as cocktail straws plus his own toe in grey marble with a green toe nail. Marie Lund made casts of ordinary objects and I loved the casts of the inside of backpacks. Each one was different as different things had been carried in it and had tufts of the material from the original around the edges. Closes on 19 Jun2 2016. Reviews Evening Standard  

Interesting exhibition at Tate Britain exploring how Empire shaped practices and themes in British art. This sounds a rather dry theme but it was an interesting way of relooking at the idea of Empire and it set up a dialogue between the effects on British artists and in the colonies themselves. It was also an opportunity to see a number of works which aren’t seen so often due to their old fashioned themes. I thought it was a great idea to start with a room of maps which talked about the need for good maps of any land that was conquered but also how maps could be used as propaganda. I loved the triple portrait of Sir Francis Drake, Thomas Cavendish and John Hawkins, there of the great Elizabethan explorers. Also the reminder that Ireland was one of the earlier English colonies. I loved the room of history pictures with the predictable pictures of the deaths of General Woolf and General Gordon, classic British history pictures. However these we set off with a contempora...

Nice exhibition at Bankside Gallery of work by members of this society of artists. I was very impressed at the range of styles on show and the detail in some of the work. I’d pick out Fay Watson’s picture of Hall Place and Geri Waddington’s lovely pictures of plants. Most of the works were in black and white but it was nice that a few used colour such as Roy Willingham’s use of grey on orange. My favourite was Helen Roddle’s lovely picture of sea shells which filled the whole paper. Closed 21 February 2016  

Colourful exhibition at the Newport Street Gallery of works by abstract artist John Hoyland. These were very large, bright pictures mainly in blocks of colour. I was interested to see that works he did in his country studio in Wiltshire had a different more muted palate. I’ll be honest though I have no idea why the show was called Power Stations. I quite liked the pictures but wasn’t really moved by them. However it was a good chance to see this new gallery set up to show work from Damien Hirst’s art collection. It has the standard white box rooms but I liked the double height gallery with a small walkway along it on the upper floor joining two galleries up there. It was interesting to be able to look down in the pictures and it would be really interesting to see sculpture there. Closes on 3 April 2016. Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph Evening Standard  

Strange but intriguing exhibition at Somerset House featuring 13 vitrines from the Museum of Innocence in Istanbul set up by Orhan Pamuk, the nobel-prize winning author. Now I think I understand this but pardon me if I’ve got it a bit wrong as it’s complicated! His novel of the same name and the museum tell the fictional story of a romance through a selection of everyday day object which take on emotional significance. As far as I can tell the novel was partly written by finding objects which he them imagined into the story. Whatever the reasoning these were fascinating small displays of objects arranged to reflect a chapter of the book. Not having read the book I didn’t understand the significance of the pieces but actually you started to make up your own stories around them.   Closes on 3 April 2016.

Interesting exhibition at Somerset House organised by Historic England looking at work in the public realm since the Second World War. This show had a good balance of real objects, document s and photographs. It highlighted the role this work had played but also at the current vulnerability of the work. The first section looked at the Festival of Britain and the work commissioned for that. There was a lovely selection of marquettes of the pieces as many of the originals had been made in cheaper materials with no idea of them having a life after the exhibition. Particularly interesting was a model for Miranda by Arthur Fleishmann which had formed a fountain in the display for the Lockheed Hydraulic Brake Company display. I liked the section on Harlow new town which has 65 integrated art works around the town including a number such as Elizabeth Frink’s Board which have recently been listed.   Also the section on how the Ministry of Education encouraged schools to a...

Brilliant exhibition at Kings College London at Somerset House organised by the National Archives and featuring nine original documents looking at Shakespeare’s life in London. The show is only small but it is very well presented with the documents in side rooms organised into four themes. They are explained well without overwhelming you with information. If you want to see the full transcript the attendants in each room have copies. I loved the AV display at the end recapping the exhibition using a map of London and some good animations. The first document is a bill of complaint of how company stole a theatre in Shoreditch and moved it to Southwark, rebuilding it as the Globe. Another room looked at documents concerning the performance of Richard II staged on the Eve of the Essex Rebellion at the instigation of the rebels. I love the fact that the actors wanted 40 shillings more because they said the play was old fashioned or maybe because they knew the performance might ...

Beautiful exhibition at White Cube Mason’s Yard of work by Korean artist Park Seo-Bo in his Eciture series dating from 1967 to 1981. These were very minimal looking works being mainly in creams and from a distance looked like a plain canvas however as you got closer you say pencil marks in the paint which has a scrafito effect of pushing the paint into patterns. The surface of the canvas also gave a slightly pointillist effect to the work. For such minimal works the pictures were very physical and you could feel the hand of the artist in them. This is not usually my style but I loved these! A photo doesn't do the works justice you need to see the real thing to appreciate them.   Closes on 12 March 2016.

Intriguing exhibition/installation organised by the Barcelona gallery Mayoral and held in Duke Street recreating Miro’s studio. The top floor was the recreation of the studio albeit on a smaller scale. I loved the detail of the paint splattered floor and the paint in white bowls and on a plate as a palette including that wonderful shade of blue Mirso used. There were also objects and cuttings which he used as inspiration. There were a number of, what I assume, were original works. The shame was that these were in frames whereas they’d have been unframed in the studio. Downstairs there were related documents including letters to and from the architect of the studio Josep Lluis Sert and an excellent short film of an interview with Miro in his studio which gave a good idea of how he used it. Closed on 12 February 2016. Review Times Guardian Evening Standard  

Excellent course at the National Gallery on Renaissance portraits taught by Caroline Campbell and Gill Hart over two mornings. I loved the mix on this course of an overview of the topic then concentrating on three pictures from the collection in more details, introducing them in the first week and revisiting them in the second. Both of them talked about the relationship between the artist, commissioner and sitter and where some of the ideas in the works might have come from. They also looked at the relationship between the Northern and Southern Europe at this time and their influence on each other, seeing this as an   ongoing dialogue throughout the period. The three main pictures which were discussed were Alesso Baldovinetti’s lady in a yellow dress, Titian’s man with a blue sleeve and Holbien’s the Ambassadors. We looked at each picture in some detail then talked about the different styles. We also looked at why they might have been painted and what input the si...

Sumptuous exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum of jewellery made in India or for the Indian market. The show was based on the Al Thani collection with three pieces lent by the Queen and covered from the 17th century to contemporary work. I loved the earliest pieces best, particularly the wonderful rough cut spinels often shown on a pearl necklace. The contrast of the colour and texture of the stones and pearls was beautiful. The show complimented the Victoria Alberts exhibition last year on fabrics of India show as it looked at similar themes. A particular good ink was looking at pieces from Tipu Sultan of Mysore including a bird from his throne lent by the Queen as it had been given to George III. I loved the jade wine bowls decorated in rock crystal, rubies and emeralds and really wanted a gold parrot with jewels set into green enamel. As the show headed into 19th and 20th century it looked jewellery made in the west for the Indian market including piec...

Good exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum celebrating the bicentary of the birth of the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron. It also marked the 50th anniversary of her first museum show held at the Victoria and Albert Museum itself. The most interesting section of exhibition looked at that show and the studio she set up at the museum. There were a number of pictures that she had taken there. I have come across Julia Margaret Cameron a lot as she was the great aunt of Virginia Woolf and had not known about this period of her life. I was also interested to see some of the pictures given to G F Watts who was happy to take unmounted, damaged prints as he used them to judge their composition. Also the pictures she did to illustrate two volumes of Tennyson poems which were not profitable. Closes on 21 February. Reviews Times Guardian Evening Standard  

Interesting exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum of photographs by Richard Learoyd taken with a room sized camera obscurer. These are unique pictures where the life sized image is exposed directly onto photographic paper. This gives amazingly detailed intimate works. You feel like you are looking at real people in a slightly voyeuristic way. There was a stunning picture of a horse’s head in wonderful detail but it was just the horses head! After last week’s stuffed horse in an exhibition horse don’t seem to be doing too well in art at the moment! I was fascinated by the pictures of mirrors done with this technique. They showed every scratch and speck of dust and gave the illusion of looking in a real mirror except that you weren’t reflected back. Closes 14 February 2016.