Cathy's Art Diary

Fascinating talk at Charleston Farmhouse as part of the Charleston Festival with Joanna Moorhead author of a biography of her father’s cousin, the Surrealist painter Leonora Carrington. This was an interesting detective story as well as a biography as Joanna told us about how this relative had been the black sheep of the family who she had initially only known of though whispered conversations between relatives. She had realised Leonora had ended up in Mexico but it was only through a chance meeting with a Mexican art historian at a dinner party that Joanna realised that her aunt was still alive and a major artist in Mexico. Joanna told us the story of Leonora’s life from a debutant in 1935, through her artistic life in Paris with max Ernst, holiday’s with Lee Millar and Roland Penrose, being in an asylum in Spain and eventually escaping to Mexico. The chair of the event was Joanna Biggs who had edited Leonora’s short stories so the discussion was interesting about wh...

Interesting discussion at Charleston Farmhouse as part of the Charleston Festival looking at the history and future of East London. Dan Cruickshank talked about his book “Spitalfields: The History of a Nation in a Handful of Streets” which looks at that specific area of East London and charts its history. He talked about how the history of the area is also a history of migration to the UK as all migrants seem to settle in and pass thought these few streets. It’s an area I enjoy walking around and am gradually discovering so I enjoyed learning more about it. Charles Saumarez Smith talked about his book on a broader area of East London based on his regular blog posts musing on life travelling to and from work at the Royal Academy. He talked about how he worked with a photographer to produce the book. The event was chaired by the exhibition designer, Dinah Casson, and much of the discussion revolved around what is happening to the area now. They talked about planning iss...

Fabulous interview at Charleston Farmhouse as part of the Charleston Festival with the artist Maggi Hambling. I heard   Hambling at Charleston a couple of years ago and just loved her and this interview did not disappoint. She is wonderfully irascible and yet very endearing which seems a strange mix. Even while being introduced she was raising a rye but visible eyebrow at some of the praise for her and you immediately know she is going to be trouble, fun but trouble. The talk focused on the role drawing has played throughout her career in the light of a recent exhibition at the British Museum and its catalogue. She talked a lot about her early training at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing under Cedric Morris and Lett Haines and at other art schools. I loved her stories about being the first artist in residence at the National Gallery including opening her studio for one afternoon a week. The brave interviewer, Simon Martin from Pallant House, used pi...

Interesting installation at the Towner Gallery by Becky Beasley reacting to a picture by Eric Ravilious called   “The Bedstead”. The show was a bit like a visual version of musical variations on a theme. There were six rooms each exploring aspects of the composition and content of the picture. You didn’t see the actual picture until the second room and another archive copy of it appeared later on, upside down. One room included lovely textile designs mounted as pictures plus one of them on a chair which was meant to represent a person who had just left. The designs were simple and lovely with repeat patterns of everyday objects. I loved the one with watches. Another room represented the light coming into the picture through the small window. The light was represented by a lighter lino on the floor linking the window of the gallery and a small hole at the bottom on the wall representing the window in the picture. This was an interesting way of deconstructing a...

Delightful talk at Charleston Farmhouse as part of the Charleston Festival looking at British Cathedrals and illuminated manuscripts. Simon Jenkins talked about his recent book on cathedrals taking us on a rough chronological trip through their architecture with wonderful photographs. His lack of believe sat oddly with his love of the buildings. To me the life of a cathedral is so moulded by the worship that has gone on there over the centuries that, whether you are Christian or not, that must be part of its soul. When asked what he would do with the buildings his answer was somewhat vague and seemed to imply a glorified community centre. Christopher de Hamel talked about his book about discovering illuminated manuscripts. His talk was wonderfully quirky and fun with random pictures of dogs thrown in between the wonderful ones of illuminations, so he won me over easily! His love of the subject came across and he was full of fascination detective stories.

Fun debate at Charleston Farmhouse as part of the Charleston Festival pitting Turner and Monet against each other in a debate format with a vote at the end. Franny Moyle, author of “The Extraordinary Life and Momentous Times of J.M.W. Turner”, spoke for Turner and talked about how ground breaking he was choosing modern subjects for his work and using new techniques.   Monet was supported by Ross King, author of “Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies” talking about how Monet too chose new subjects and how he influenced later artists. After each author had presented their case the chair, Virginia Nicholson, oversaw a lively debate including comments and questions from the audience.   And the winner was, drum roll please, Turner!  

Confused exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery of works by Hashem el Madani from the collection on the Arab Image Foundation and curated by Akram Zaatari. I say confused because with all the names involved it was unclear at first who did what and what you were actually looking at. I liked the pictures but found the narrative confusing. Madani ran Studio Shehrazade from the early 1950s in Saida, Lebanon . His work was often influenced by films showing at the local cinema as people came in after seeing a film and asked to pictured in poses from the film. Many pictures show loving gestures between same sex couples which Zaatari explains are because the sexes couldn’t mix in that society until married so people practiced gestures and kissing with their friends. Part of Zaatari’s curation is to show how these are seen differently when shown in an exhibition. Closes on 3 September 2017

Interesting display at the National Portrait Gallery of two pictures by Marlene Dumas. These were very modern portraits based on famous photographs of Oscar Wilde and his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas and shown in the 19th century room of the gallery. They were in marked contrast to the pictures by Winterhaler et al around them which I guess was part of the point, showing how Wilde and Bosie stood out from the society around them. However I must admit I didn’t really like them as pictures. Closes on 24 September 2017 Review Evening Standard    

Fun exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery looking at the range of live entertainment in 19th century England and how prints were used to promote the performers. The display looked at how the circulation of prints helped to fuel the celebrity of actors. They were either made from studio portraits or some artists specialised in sketching live shows from theatre boxes. The images capture not only the images of the performers but also their costumes and gestures. I loved some of the stories that were highlighted such as Charles Matthew’s ‘Monopolylogue’ performances where he played all the characters. He also collected theatrical portraits and displayed them in his house on the Kenwood Estate. The pictures became the basis of the Garrick Club’s collection. My favourite picture was Eliza Vestris cross dressed to play Don Giovanni in ‘elastic pantaloons’. Closes on 31 July 2017

Small display at the National Portrait Gallery looking at the poets of the First World War. The display was split in two, poets on active service and poets at home. The focus in the first section was on the poets who died, Isaac Rosenberg, Wilfred Owen and Edward Thomas. I was interested to see the label which said that Rosenberg signed up for reasons of poverty not patriotism. The home section of the display looked at the soldier poets who survived and good use was made, again, of the photograph albums of Ottoline Morrell with pictures of Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves and Edmund Blunden at Garsington. I was pleased to see Vera Brittain included as she had served with the VAD. Closes on 1 October 2017  

Moving exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery looking at portraits which mark the passing of time and mortality. The display was focused on “Death Mask” by Tracey Emin which has recently been donated by the artist. There was a good mix of old and contemporary work which lead to interesting conversations between pictures such as John Evelyn leaning on a skull by Robert Walker next the self portrait of Sarah Lucas with a skull between her feet. The show points out that the art of portraiture grew out of funeral practices in the ancient world and has a section on images of death including Constable’s death mask. The last section looked at reactions to illness and escaping death and includes a wonderful Sam Taylor Wood self-portrait addressing her breast cancer where she wears a single breasted suit and carries a stuffer hare in reference to her hair loss. The most moving piece was a photograph of Philip Gould by Adrian Stern where Gould stands on his own grave p...

Strange exhibition at Tate Modern curated by Wolfgang Tillmans of his own work. Each room was configured by Tillmans as a response to current events and was shown without labels although there was a useful handout to help you round and outline themes. I would have liked a bit more guidance on the whats and wheres of the works. Works were shown framed and unframed and alongside installation style pieces. I thought there were some super pictures but I’m not sure I really understood the themes. In the middle of the show was an installation called “Playback Room” which was a room designed for playing studio created music to a high quality in a public space. I loved the room of portraits which Tillman’s sees as a collaborative act between the sitter and photographer. Pictures which struck me included “CLC 800, dismantled” a photograph of an installation where he had unfastened every screw on a photocopier, a large picture of shells and seafood for it’s wonderful colours, a...

Beautiful retrospective exhibition at Tate Modern of sculpture and paintings by Giacometti. The works were beautifully displayed and given space to breathe and react to each other. From the first room which was filled with head studies from realistic ones to more abstract ones. I was entranced. Despite the different styles you can recognise where the heads are the same person. I was interested to see that he had worked in the decorative arts in the 1930s and I loved a cabinet of these as I now really want one of his lamp stands with a small female head on it.   The work was often shown alongside the magazines and exhibition catalogues in which it had featured giving a good sense of how an artistic career built up and the show was very good at blending his work and his life. I was interesting in the room on the war years when he was in exile in Switzerland when his work got very small. I had a sense of him making work he could just pick up and run with if the need ...

Interesting exhibition at the University of Brighton Gallery of two installations by Cathie Pilkington. The first installation was called Harmonium and was a shelving unit covered in small, realistic, fantasy sculptures such as a goat sewing up a goat skin and Red Riding Hood. In the middle was a spookily realistic figure of a strange child sitting at a vintage dressing table. I have no idea what it was about but I loved all the quirky figures and layers of strangeness. The other installation “Anatomy of a Doll” was based on the idea of the life studio at the Royal Academy and in fact it had previously been shown there. There were strange, small, posed female figure on stools surrounded by benches set up on a raked stand as in the studio. It refers back to the days when women couldn’t work from life and also the Degas ballerina figures. I loved the figure in Clarisse Cliff knickers! Closed on 28 May 2017

Fascinating open weekend at the Phoenix Studios in Brighton. There are over 100 studios over 6 floors which gives a wonderful glimpse into different artists’ worlds. I love the fact that each room smells differently because of the variety of materials they use. We set the whole afternoon aside to go round and spent time chatting to artists we talked to last year and meeting new ones. There was a small exhibition on the ground floor highlighting the work of some of the artists under the theme of Present Tense.I liked Oliver Hain’s installation projecting a live feed of the traffic outside eon the floor also Kiki Stickl’s lines of pencil and silverpoint drawn directly onto the wall. Highlights of the studios themselves included Natalie Papamichael’s wonderful Caravaggio inspired paintings. It was fascinating to see two large pictures commissioned by a London club being worked on in the studio. We had a chat to Denise Felkin, who had changed the theme of her display to p...

Wonderful exhibition at the National Gallery of a new tapestry by Chris Ofili. The tapestry is a triptych called “The Caged Bird Song”. It is a colourful piece and shown in a large room where the others walls have been decorated with a grey mural by Ofili of temple dancers. It took 2 1\2 years to make and will have a permanent home in the Clothworkers’ Hall. It shows a couple sitting on a sea shore playing music with a cocktail pouring down towards them from the sky. On each side large figures hold back curtains to let you into the scene. The pastoral nature of it reminded me of Giorgione or Manet’s “Le Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe”. I loved the bright colours and the way the weavers have reproduced the effects of watercolour. It is shown with the sketches he made while working out the ideas and the original watercolour which was given to the weavers. There is also a good video about how it was made and describing the symbolism of it which is well worth seeing. Closes...

Varied exhibition at Canada House of work by Rodney Graham. The title described him as an Impressionist but I’m not sure I understand that title. I think it may be ironic. If I was picking a genre I’d have gone for Pop Art. I liked the fun 3D abstract works with colourful pillars of wood coming out of the surface like a 3D version of a Damien Hurst spot picture. “Sunday Sun, 1937” was a fun picture of a man sitting up in bed reading a large comic. It was only after reading the commentary that I realised the hands on each side where from different people. I also like the take on a Duchamp readymade, a tall wooden stool with a hammer in the top, splattered with paint from the studio. Closed on 27 May 2017

Delightful exhibition at the Mall Galleries of work by members of the Royal Society of Portrait Artists. It’s always interesting to see that colleges, companies and organisations are still commissioning portraits although some of the more personal works were the better pictures. There were a lot of artists working in egg tempura and it was interesting to look at the tiny hatched strokes which built into highly realistic pictures. I loved the striking “Study of the Artist as a Heart Patient” by Jeff Stultens a series of self-portraits of his operation, recovery and ending with him sitting up in a chair. He’d asked the medical staff to document his treatment so he could paint this.   Alaister Adam’s portrait of Professor Roy Cowell pulled you across the room, partly because of the well composed background of a library’s red balcony and the stairwell behind which threw the figure out of the picture. Other pictures told stories like Sam Dalby’s “Packing Away” which show...

Fascinating exhibition at the ICA looking at the campaigning work of Peter Dunn and Loraine Leeson producing posters, a video and exhibition to draw attention to health cuts in the late 1970s. On paper this sounded like a very dry show but it told some really interesting stories and was a reminder of the sort of political posters I had on my college walls in the early 1980s. The graphics on the posters were very effective combining images and information in an easily read and understood way.   I was fascinated by the story of the Bethnal Green hospital where the government closed in down in 1977 but the staff occupied it. Only the administrative staff left so it still kept working as a hospital and GPS continued to make referrals, people still went to the casualty unit and ambulance drivers responded to calls. As patients were still being treated the government had a duty to continue to pay salaries. There is a lot we could learn not from the approach of these camp...

Fascinating exhibition at the ICA featuring the book “The City” by Frans Maserell, a precursor to graphic novels. There were 50 beautiful wood cuts from the original 1925 edition and a full copy to look through of the 1987 edition. The woodcuts were very art deco in style and looked at encounters in a city. I’m not sure I quite got the narrative but there were some great images and you had a real sense of time and place. I loved a picture of rows of office desks with factories outside the window also one of a man looking at corsets in a shop window. Closes on 2 July 2017

Incomprehensible exhibition at the ICA of two new works by Stuart Middleton. Now as you know I’m not scared of a bit of contemporary art and am game to try most things but you have to give me a clue! A handout maybe or a label doesn’t go amiss. This had nothing.The handout I was given seemed to be a piece of creative writing which bore no relationship to what I was looking at. I ended up getting quite annoyed and having a moan to one of the attendants. So what was I seeing? Well downstairs Middleton had gutted the gallery and stripped it down to floor boards with the ceiling gone, some of the plaster chipped and cables and pipe work showing. Checking the website since it said it was referencing “the buildings used in modern industrial agriculture to house livestock, upcycled interior design projects and historical site-specific artworks.” Really? That seems like a lot to be referencing in one work and I must admit it’s not what struck me at the time. Upstairs was a la...

Small colourful exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery of works on paper and prints by Alo. The pictures were mythical figures, friends and people observed in the street. They were made up of a series of lines in different colours with the images coming together in an almost pointillist way. You did get a feeling of very different people and the images reminded me of 1970s magazines. Closed on 23 May 2017

Surprisingly good exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery looking at the growth of the selfie and how that sits in the tradition of self-portraiture in art. I was surprised as some of the press I had read leading up to this felt a bit cheesy including a selfie competition.   I’ve never bought into the great selfie craze so I was prepared to be annoyed by this show but I really enjoyed it! I liked the fact it started with two rooms of self-portraits one looking at the old masters, including Rembrandt and Durer, and one of modern masters such as Freud and Spencer. These were shown on super large, mobile phone shaped, back lit screens with smaller phones next to them for you to show loves and likes like a Facebook photo. There was then a room of famous or unusual selfies. It made you realise how they are finding their way into the zeitgeist! The Ellen DeGeneres Oscar selfie was there, a picture of Mr Bean taking his own photo with a Polaroid, the Benedict Cumberbatch photo...

Interesting exhibition the Saatchi Gallery of work from the 1950s and 1960s by Tsuyoshi Maekawa. These were large textural works using birlap or old sacks as the canvas. They are painted and slashed with the canvas being manipulated to alter the surface. It’s hard to say whether they are paintings or sculptures but I liked the texture. I seem to be seeing a lot of works at the moment which work the surface of the canvas into the picture. It felt strange that these were in the downstairs gallery where the installation made of oil used to be. How on earth did they move it? Closed on 14 May 2017  

Confusing installation at Fabrica in Brighton by Ipek Duben. The show consisted of a very dark space filled with life sized videos of people talking about their experiences of difference in Turkish society. I was partly confused by the dark. It was actually quite hard to walk around and see people in the space. I found it quite disorientating. I also found it hard to find the right place to stand to hear the soundtracks particularly as one soundtrack rather dominated so it was hard to hear the others against it. The soundtracks were also quite long and I didn’t have the time to give to the show properly. I added to my confusion as I went in through the wrong door. If you are going enter by the Duke Street entrance then at least you get a chance to read the explanation of the show rather than being plunged into dark confusion with no idea what the focus was. I will say though that the life sized videos looked really impressive in the dark space and it felt like the peo...

Varied and eclectic Artists Open Houses in Brighton. I only managed to do one weekend of houses this year but packed them in! There was the usual wonderful mix of pictures, ceramics, jewellery, textiles, basically you name it it was there! I manage to contain my purchases to a croquet hoot necklace, some cards and a small oil painting of a seascape. A highlight was John Constable’s studio which I’d learnt earlier in the day was now lived in by an artist so it was great to see it. As ever I loved the basement in Brunswick Square which was packed with lots of tempting things. A thank you goes out to Francesa McLeod for the invitation to her private view and drinks. Francesca painted the portrait I use as my blog profile picture. She’d done some lovely new work and I particularly liked seeing her pictures based on a cage of stuffed birds alongside the real cage. Closed on 29 May 2017

Interesting exhibition at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery looking at plans for and images of the area around the Royal Pavilion. It was lovely to be seeing this having walked through the Pavilion Gardens and the museum itself being part of the estate. The focus was some wonderful new 3D images for a virtual reality tour  which were really sharp and clear. I’ve not tried the tour yet but I will do. Alongside these modern images were historical ones starting with a picture from when Pavilion area was stables and including the ground floor plan by Pugin. There were also nice photographs including one of pigs in the gardens during the Second World War. I loved the inclusion of books including an 1841 guide book, a Georgette Heyer novel and Raymond Brigg’s “The Snowman” in which the snowman and the boy fly over the Pavilion. Closes on 3 September 2017

Current hang of the Fine Art Galleries at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery focusing on paintings featuring flowers. Because the gallery has such a large picture collection and to keep the display fresh the museum regularly rehangs their Fine Art Galleries on different themes. The current theme of flowers is wide ranging and delightful. It includes classic Dutch floral pictures, pictures featuring flowers in the composition and abstract flower pictures. The descriptions on the pictures are excellent with one flower from each picture being featured. There was a lovely Edward La Bas picture of flowers in a vase with a pile of books and a delightful picture by Ethel Gabain called “The Nymph” of a nude woman dressed in flowers which were in the same colours as her skin. I also liked “Blackberries and Sunflowers” by Elizabeth Jane Lloyd where the flowers are strewn across a table with lemons in a bowl and eggs, great use of yellow. My favourite was a tiny picture by Arthur Ha...

Delightful exhibition at the Brighton Museum & Art Gallery looking at the four years when John Constable lived and worked in the city. He moved to Brighton with his family because he was worried about his wife’s health and sadly they left when she became sicker and died soon after in London. While in Brighton Constable concentrated on small landscape sketches some of which he later developed into large scale works. The exhibition included his painting of the chain pier on loan from the Tate. The show was arranged to reflect his three main walks around the area, West to Shoreham, North to Devil’s Dyke and East to the Chain Pier. They didn’t quite flow in geographic order but did give you the impression of doing the walk along with him. They were small, delicate pictures. I particularly liked the ones of fishing boats on the shore. I loved the small domestic works as well such as a tiny sketch of a mouse with a piece of cheese and another of moorhens. As his wife be...