Sickert and Photography

Fascinating exhibition at Tate Britain looking at how Walter Sickert was inspired by photography in his later years.
 
Sickert was interested in how photographs froze a dramatic moment, took unusual viewpoints and eliminated detail in poor focus.  The paintings explored their flattened perspective and tonal contrasts. He was working with black and white photos but added his own ideas of colour.  He was also commenting on the growing ideas about celebrity and topicality.
 
There was an interesting group of portraits of Sir Alex Martin and his wife and son but I must admit I didn’t like them. I did however like a strange picture of Peggy Ashcroft in Venice inspired by a photograph in the Daily Sketch. Sickert added strange but effective salmon pink colours giving it sunset quality. I also always love the picture, again based on a newspaper photograph, of Emelia Earhart landing in Britain where in Sickert version you can’t really see the plain or Miss Earhart! 
 
A nice touch was to include a picture of William Roberts of Sickert and his wife clipping newspaper cuttings entitled “He Knew Degas” which showed the practical side of the exhibition plus the link with Degas, another artist heavily influenced by the introduction of photography.
 
Closes on 17 April 2017
 

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