Cathy's Art Diary

Fascinating workshop at the Conway Hall organised by the London Art History Society looking at Russian art in the years after the Revolution. In the morning we looked at now the revolutionaries used art to create the Soviet myth. We discussed how many established artists fled Russia in 1917 so the Bolsheviks has to choose the avant garde to further their cause and these artists were inspired by the events. Kandinsky returned to Russia after 16 years in Germany. We also looked at the use posters to spread propaganda and the idea of Monumental propaganda with great parades for the anniversaries of the revolution. We then looked at the work of Malevich and Russian Futurism focusing on the work following the Black Square in 1915 and we explored the possible meanings of this work. We also talked about how a lot of his work was left in Berlin on a trip he was allowed to make outside of Russia which meant that he is one of the best know Russian artists of this period in the West....

Nice exhibition at Conway Hall of work by Bob Brown. The work on show was mainly gelee prints from ipad drawings and included figure studies and landscapes. I preferred the landscapes which tended to be deep views. I sat next to a lovely picture of a cornfield all day at a seminar and also liked one of a courtyard with a fig tree. Closed on 30 November 2017

Lavish exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at the history of opera via seven operas the cities they premiered in. I loved the fact this show put the operas into their social and political contexts and that each section had a similar rhythm with a contemporary map of the city, prints of the opera houses and portraits of the main protagonist. I also like the large, blackboard like fact board in each section which gave a simple outline of the story and why the opera was ground-breaking. It was great to have the audio tour as this would have been a strange show without music however I found it didn’t always trigger in the right places and in comparing the experience with the other people I was with we had each missed certain sections as we’d stood in different places. Needless to say I liked the earlier sections best as I preferred this music and they fell into periods I love in art. The Venice section was luscious and focused the city as one of entertain...

Eclectic exhibition at the Bluecoat in Liverpool using work which has been displayed at the Bluecoat to reflect on the history of the building in its 300th year. There was an interesting section on damage to the building starting with a print of the building under construction and including a picture of the damage to it in the Blitz and photographs of a fire in 2008. Also a section on the Sandon Studios Society which were based in the building in the early 20th century which included a pastiche of “When Did You Last See Your Father?” by Donald Lynch showing the Sandon Committee viewing contemporary art with two paintings shown in the picture shown alongside it. I loved some still lives by Edward Carter Preston, one of the Sandon artists, who also designed the Dead Man’s Penny, a plaque given to the families of soldiers who died in the First World War. The show also included Epstein’s “Genesis”, a controversial statue shown at the Bluecoat in 1931 when nearly 50,000 pa...

Fascinating exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery of art works made since the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967 which help to tell the recent history of the LGBT+ community. The show was a bit wordy in places and took great pains to define various terms. I felt the art works, with good commentaries, could have told this story without too many general explanations. At times it didn’t seem to be sure whether it was just trying to inform and tell a story or educate. There were over 60 works in the show and included some revelations to me and I thought I knew gay/contemporary art quite well! I hadn’t seen paintings by Derek Jarman before and there was a landscape and a work called Morphine, painted over tabloid covers which were outing a young actor. It was a nice touch to hang this by Richard Hamilton’s portrait of Jarman. I liked Stewart Home’s work superimposing his own figure over those of models and his own mother to create a fluid image. Also Matt Sm...

Interesting exhibition at the Walker Art in Liverpool of work by contemporary artist Lubaina Himid. The core of the show was a selection of work made by Himid of work by women from the Walker Gallery’s own collections which used a sculpture of Henry Longfellow by Edmonia Lewis as the starting point. The selection included work by Nina Hamnett, Prunella Clough and Tacita Dean. These sculptures were shown with Himid’s watercolour series “Scenes from the Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture”. Toussaint was a Haitian leader of the only successful slave uprising in the Caribbean. The pictures were delightful and read like a cartoon strip. Best though was a wonderful series of colourful, life-sized cut-out figures which were scattered around the gallery which were part of an installation called “Naming the Money” which show examine how European’s showed their wealth and power by using African’s as slaves. They were placed to open up a conversation with the art around them and to m...

Delightful exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool looking at the life and work of Aphonse Mucha the illustrator and artist. These works are so over the top Art Nouveau that it is easy to forget that Mucha was a pioneer and inspirer of the style not the clichéd follower we tend to view his as now. I loved the section looking at his early work designing posters for Sarah Bernardt which became so famous they were stolen from hoardings. I liked the rather Norse poster for Hamlet. There was also a good section on his advertising work with lovely examples of packaging and posters. He was a pioneer of brand recognition through his work with the biscuit maker Lefvre-Utile creating biscuit tins, labels and boxes. The show stresses that he was an egalitarian artist as his work was see by everyone in the streets so it had a wide influence. The show looked at Mucha’s influence across with a heavy emphasis on the local Della Robbia Pottery Company based in Birkenhead. I...