Face to Face

Interesting online discussion as part of London Art Week Digital about portraits.

The talk was chaired by Matthew Reeves of Sam Fogg London and brought together curators, auctioneers and a gallery owner to talk about their recent experiences of working with portraits. It would have been good if the talk had been more themed but I was introduced to some wonderful pictures which were new to me and I am a sucker for a good portrait.

An Van Camp, from the Ashmolean Museum, talked about curating the Young Rembrandt show which was on as the museum closed. She compared three self portraits from 1628/9, a drawing, a painting and an etching to demonstrate the different mediums he worked in, She also talked about a Van Dyck portrait the gallery is hopefully in the process of purchasing and shared research she has been doing in lockdown to identify the sitter, which she thinks may be the wife of a friend of Van Dyck’s father,

Olivia Ghosh, of Christies, talked about some works in a recent online exhibition and sale there of portraits called “Face Time”. She highlighted a beautiful G.F. Watts portrait of Norah Lindsay at the time of her marriage. She went on to become a garden designer when that marriage broke up. Ghosh used the picture to discuss how a portrait can be a socio-political statement, in this case highlighting the role of marriage in the Victorian era. She talked about how a picture is a contact between the sitter, artist and viewer and I would add commissioner to that.

Andreas Pampoulides, of Lullo Pampoulides, provided a nice link between speakers as he started by talking about a wonderful self-portrait of the theatre designer Umberto Brunelleschi, shown here,  which he owns but is in the auction Ghosh has organised. I loved his quote of “I’ll be sorry if it sells and sorry if it doesn’t sell.” He also told the stories behind two other portraits, one of which was hanging behind him on the Zoom call, which both left me heading to Google to find out more.

 

 

 


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