Cathy's Art Diary

Delightful  display at Charleston Farmhouse showing the lovely portrait of Virginian Woolf by her sister Vanessa Bell on loan from the National Portrait Gallery. I’m very fond of this picture and it was lovely to see it in a new setting. The loan is part of a series by the National Portrait Gallery called Coming Home which sees 50 portraits of iconic individuals from the national collection travelling to the towns and cities most closely associated with their subjects. What a lovely idea and I’ll certainly look out for more of these. It was particularly nice that this was painted in 1912 as Asheham just a few miles from Charleston while Virginia was living there. It’s a tender, domestic picture yet in a modernist style with blocks of colour in the background and the wonderful orange chair outlining the figure. I think it shows the affection of one sister to another although I’m not sure I normally picture Virginia knitting in my mind. Closing 19 January 2020

Charming exhibition at Charleston Farmhouse looking at the story and work of the Omega Workshop. Founded in 1913 the Omega workshop was the brain child of Roger Fry, inspired by the spirit of Post-Impressionism, who set up a co-operative of artists to bring colour into Edwardian homes and to provide paid work for those designers. Although the workshop only lasted until 1919 it work has had a lasting effect. The show brought together a wonderful array of objects as well as pictures painted at the time or showing Omega items. There was also good use made of archive material. I liked the way it was arranged by type of object so you got a section on rugs as well as a display case of lamps. I think my favourite section looked at furniture as it gave you a real sense of what these rooms would have looked like, although of course you can also go round the house itself to see the effect. A star of the show was a newly acquired portrait of a woman with white Omega plates on the

Nice event at Charleston Farmhouse to mark the opening of a new apple tree orchard for those of us who had given money towards it. This had been a long time coming as it was one of the Centenary projects however various very Charleston misfortunes had scuppered previous versions of it such as the cows in the nearby field eating the initial hedge that was put it! The new version is a an oak tree and line of Sussex apple trees along the edge of the carpark. As the gardener said it’s a long thin orchard. We had a nice ceremony at the trees where Virginia Nicholson, granddaughter of Vanessa Bell and President of the Charleston Trust, unveiled a plaque with the donor’s names on and gave a lovely speech on apples in Bloomsbury legend. A group of us who get tickets to all events in the literature festival had clubbed together to dedicate a tree to one of our number who died a few years ago, Patrick, so it was also lovely to see his oak tree with a nice dedication on it. I’m hoping

Small pop-up exhibition at London Bridge station marking   National Album Day. Information boards highlight the influential, best-selling and iconic albums of Scotland, the North, the Midlands and London and the South. Each region shows the best sellers in that area then two guests from the music business suggesting the most influential and most iconic by artists from that area. Each featured album’s information includes artist, album title, date, a short write up and album cover. It was interesting to realise where artists come from plus to be reminded of old favourites. This was a nice diversion when travelling. Now closed.

Exuberant exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum celebrating Zandra Rhodes’s 50 years in the fashion business. The show has designs from every year of Rhodes’s career and was a fabulous display packed with colourful clothes. It came with an excellent booklet which told you a lot about each outfit but it was a bit difficult to read as you went round so it would have been nice to have a bit more explanation in the show itself. I loved the section on how she designed the patterned material she uses which had a hand drawn design, original silk screen reproduction of the pattern card, some printed chiffon and two dresses made from the design.   Also the section on her recent designs for opera and for the film Bohemian Rhapsody, recreating some of her designs from the 1970s. I think my favourite dress was a pink flapper style one from the 1980s which was heavily beaded to catch the light. It had a touch of the Princess Diana’s about it. Closes 26 January 2020

Elegant small exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum looking at the life and work of the fashion designer Norman Hartnell. This show brought together a selection of outfits with an array of archive material which covered his time in the Cambridge Footlights where he began designing costumes though to his work for the royal family. It told how he changed the silhouette of fashion three times and included a section on his in-house embroidery room. Along one side of the room was a display cabinet of clothes. I loved a short blue coat with an embroidered sailor collar and a gold evening coat. Among the archive material was one of his day books including appointments with the Queen and Queen mother. Closes 26 January 2020

Textured exhibition at White Cube, Bermondsey, of work by Harmony Hammond. These were large paintings but incorporating different fabrics, rope, drawing pins and other items which she then paints over in one colour. I loved the texture of these works   and particularly in the pale ones where the object cast shadows onto the paint. Closes 3 November 2019

Colourful exhibition at White Cube, Bermondsey, of work by Dóra Maurer to coincide with her current year-long display at Tate Modern. I loved her bright works playing with colour theory, overlapping colours to give a 3D effect on strange shaped canvas. The pictures play with your eyes and I found myself trying to look across the surface of some on the works to check they were flat. Closed   3 November 2019

Thoughtful exhibition at White Cube, Bermondsey of new work by Mona Hatoum. This show included installations, sculpture and works on paper and looked great in the huge white spaces. The big square room had one work in it, a mobile world map, with continents cut from sheet-glass and hung on metal rods. The main room had an assortment of works in it but the space was well defined so that each one could speak for itself. I loved “Quarters”, bare, steel bunks laid out in a grid, which set up interesting vistas through the beds making abstract shapes. I had a sense that everyone sleeping on the bunks could get to their own place but you couldn’t move around the whole easily. It gave a sense of community and isolation at the same time. My favourite piece was the title piece “Remains to be Seen” in while heavy, industrial materials were suspended in the shape of a cube, hovering just above the floor. It was robust and yet it had a fragile feel as it felt quite airy and is if

Delightful exhibition at Eames Fine Art Gallery of colourful prints by Nigel Swift. Most of these pictures were simplified sunsets which took on an almost abstract feel with layers of colour. They had a calming effect yet drew you to them. My favourite was the attached called “Glacier” in lovely shades of pink. There were also some nice charcoal drawings and acrylics. Closed 20 October 2019

Fun exhibition at the Art Workers’ Guild of drawings, watercolours and lithographs by Glynn Boyd Harte, a past master of the guild. Most of the works were big bright paintings of old packaging like the Gold Shred label and a Rockets firework box. However there was also a lovely picture of the Rialto and I loved a painting of a postcard of Nice superimposed with a beautifully painted Nice biscuit! Closed 4 October 2019