Cathy's Art Diary

Fascinating online lecture from the National Gallery looking at the set of paintings “The Four Times of Day” by Corot in the gallery and why they were purchased by Lord Leighton. Christina Bradstreet took us through why and how the pictures were painted in around 1858. She took us through the style of the work and how they were commissioned by the artist Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps for the studio he was building. She then discussed Leighton’s purchase of them and how he too planned to use them in a studio house and designed the décor of a room around them. The artists were very different but the speaker suggested that Leighton may have purchased them as a reminded of his youthful travels in Italy and France where he met Corot.

Complicated online lecture from the Churches Conservation Trust on the angel roofs in East Anglian churches. I was new to this topic and wished I had brought more knowledge of roof construction and the area to this talk but I was still fascinated and am desperate to tour the area and look at them. Sarah Cassell, an independent scholar, took us through some of her findings from her ongoing research with some beautiful illustrations. I was particularly interested in how she felt the positioning of different types of angels or angels holding different attributes might reflect the use of the space in the church below and roofs which may be trying to show the different orders of angels.

Interesting small exhibition at the Oxo Tower Gallery looking at community action in the Blackfriars area of Southwark in the 1970s. I don’t know the area well enough to appreciate this show properly but it did bring back that period to me by looking at objections to property developments in the area against the background of the 1973 property boom and bust. It also looked at campaigns to demolish squalid tenement buildings and rehouse the residents. It used lots of archive material from the time including campaign produced magazines and some great photographs. It was amusing that some of the projects they were objecting to have since become iconic including the redevelopment of the Oxo Tower were the show was being held. Closed 16 January 2022

Stunning installation at Tate Modern by Rivane Neuenschwander. This work is large blocks of white on the floor of a dark gallery. It is a calming work and very beautiful. Then you read the commentary and find the blocks are talcum power brushed into shapes. Once you knew you realised you could smell it and it’s a very nostalgic scent. The work was first created in 1999 and is remade to Neuenschwander’s instructions every time it is exhibited. I loved the way the swirls looked so painterly. Closes 16 October 2022  

Mind bending installation at Tate Modern by Peter Fischli and David Weiss. All the objects seen in what looks like an abandoned workshop are made from polyurethane carved and painted to resemble the original piece. The commentary likens it to a “three-dimensional trompe-l’oeil still life” and calls it a reversal of Duchamp’s idea of the readymade. I just knew it blew my mind and I so wanted to touch the items. It was originally made for the opening of the Tanks at the gallery in 2000 where is was now being shown again. I don’t remember seeing it before. Closes February 2022    

Interesting installation at Tate Modern of a sculpture by Ciprian Muresan. I was surprised this work was from 2016 and not a recent piece as it references monuments of saints from 14th to 16th century which depicted religious figures to thank them for ending plague epidemics. At good pick for the times. He uses casts of body parts from sculptures which are no longer on display held in museum storages facilities in Romania and I loved the way that on first glance it looked abstract but as you looked closer your saw faces, legs etc emerging. It reminded me of a show I saw in the Catalonia Pavilion at the Biennale in Venice looking at public statues which had been removed as well as the work of Rachel Kneebone. Closes February 2022

Small but good exhibition at Tate Modern showing a selection of work from throughout Phyllida Barlow’s career. I hadn’t realised that a lot of Barlow’s of early work was temporary and was therefore destroyed or recycled into new pieces so there was a rolling screen of photographs of these pieces with just one original 1990s works, a television with rabbit ears. The works were shown with selection of drawings I like how she reuses massive found objects plus her use of colour. There were just a few works but they filled the two gallery spaces. I liked this work called “Untitled: Upturnedhouse2” from 2012. Not sure I saw an unturned house in it but I loved the heft of it. It was interesting watching people interact with the works. No closing date but not permanent Review Evening Standard  

Interesting exhibition at Tate Modern of work by Lubaina Himid, winner of the Turner Prize in 2017. The show was shaped around a series of questions about how the built environment, history, personal relationships and conflict shape our lives and is envisaged as a series of scenes in a theatrical performance. I like was interested in the concepts that were presented but didn’t always engage with the art. strangely for me, I preferred the conceptual work to the paintings. Of the paintings I loved an abstract picture of the sea and some portraits of men mounted in upturned drawers. I liked “The Jelly Mould Project” in which she had decorated Victorian jelly moulds to point at the role of sugar in the transatlantic trade and the growth of British cities. They were originally shown in shops across Liverpool and I would love to have seen them in that setting. I also liked the cut outs, shown here, which are a revised version of Hogarth’s “Marriage-a-la-Mode” put into the context of t...

Excellent online lecture from the British Museum looking at the Bayeux Tapestry. Michael Lewis and Dave Musgrove, authors of “The Story of the Bayeux Tapestry” did a wonderful double act, talking us through who might have made it, the story it tells and its legacy. They had great illustrations which showed off the details and picked some of the more unusual episodes. I did the Norman Conquest for A Level and at university and it is one of my favourite episodes in history but I learnt a lot and was particularly interested in the idea that a number of the images might have their origins in books at Canterbury Cathedral at the time. I so want to rewrite my “Were the Normans Innovators?” essay!    

Interesting online lecture from the National Gallery discussing how to look at colour in pictures and what it might be telling us. Taking pictures from the galleries collection Belle Smith looked at what colour in a painting and how it is used might be telling us about what the artist is trying to tell us. In many of the works colour is indicating status or wealth from showing the Virgin Mary in expensive ultramarine or red, to the role of an intense black in the 17th century. She used a wide range of images. I was interested in the idea that the variety and rhythm of colour use in Jacopo de Cione’s “Coronation of the Virgin” from around 1370 could be referring to the visual depiction of divine harmony. I’ll think about that next time I look at the work. I found using two pictures to talk about indigo and slavery a bit of an odd side issue in this talk. As she had said this talk wasn’t about pigments but use of colour. Neither of these pictures seemed to use blue to imply indigo...

Fabulous online lecture from Paul Nutall on the chapel of the Journey of the Magi in the Medici Palace in Florence. Nutall moved seamlessly from describing the space, talking about how it would have originally looked and how it was altered over the years, what it was built for, how it was painted by Benozzo Gozzoli and the iconography of the scheme. It is a space I know and love as it is like entering a jewel or stepping back in time to 15th century Florence and I knew a lot about it, but I learnt even more. I was most interested in how it might have related to contemporary history with portraits of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, son of the Duke of Milan, and Sigismondo Malatesta, Lord of Rimini, to mark their visit to the city and audience in the space. She also talked about how some of the symbolism relates to the Medici’s place in the city and influence on its government.   It certainly left me wanting to read around the subject even more and possibly watch the cheesy but fun TV s...

Fun installation in Covent Garden of student responses to the musical Frozen which has recently opened in London. 2nd year students from Central Sain Martins were invited to create high-fashion, abstract interpretations of Christopher Oran’s scenery and costume designs for the show. The outfits focused on certain aspects of the story and design including the idea of the human side of animals such as the reindeer Sven. Another set looked at how different seats in the theatre can give different perceptions of the set and costumes. It was a shame the labels were so small that they were too small to read. I ended up photographing them so I could blow them up a bit. I particularly liked the outfits that responded to the effect of ice in the show from one which looked like a bouffant wedding dress to an angular grey catsuit.

Interesting online lecture from Richard Stemp looking at the work of the 15th century Dutch artist Geertgen Tot Sint Jans. Stemp took Geertgen’s “Nativity at Night“ from the National Gallery as a starting point to talk about the career of this artist who I didn’t really know although I knew this picture. He talked about Geertgen or Little Gerald’s links to the Order of St John and walked us through most of the artists   known works with his usual witty take on the pictures. He finished by talking about the Nativity picture a few days before Christmas, looking at the role of light in it linking that to the fact he was talking on the longest day of the year, hence the talks title. He also talked about how the picture reflects St Bridget’s vision of the Nativity which I’ve gathered from other talks changed some of the iconography of the scene.  

Delightful online lecture from Artscapades on Madame de Pompadour and her collecting of Sevres porcelain. Dame Rosalind Savill, former director of the Wallace Collection, took us through the history of the output of the Serves factory by focusing on what was purchased and commissioned by Madame de Pompadour. There was an emphasis on work which featured flowers and she used this as a way of discussing the role of flowers and gardens at the time. I’m not a fan of elaborate porcelain but I came away with a better understanding of it and of the life of the woman who collected it. I loved the intricate purposes of some of the vases particularly one in which you grew bulbs in season but out of season you put porcelain flowers in with potpourri in another section to provide scent. I also liked the square tubs for indoor or outdoor shrubs. I’ve just reported a Mother-in-Law’s Tongue and am on the look out for a new pot for it!

Excellent online lecture from the National Gallery on Madame de Pompadour and other mistresses of Louis XV. Fiona Alderton, used “Madame de Pompadour at her Tambour Frame” by Francois Hubert Drousaid (1733-4) from the gallery as the starting point to talk about the women of the court of Versailles. The talk concentrated on Pompadour herself to mark the 300th anniversary of her birth a few days later looking at how   she sought to continue to entertain the king over their 19 year relationship and how she used various artists to construct her image. Alderton also talked about the queen, Marie Leszczy?ska, and the mistresses who proceeded and succeeded Pompadour, Marie-Anne de Mailly-Nesle and Madame Du Barry.

Fascinating lecture from Wallace Collection on the 15th armourer Konrad Seusenhofer from Augsburg. Toby Capwell, Curator of Arms and Armour at the Wallace Collection, outlined the history of armour at this time and the relationship between Seusenhofer and the Emperor Maximillian. He took us though why Augsburg became the centre of armour manufacture and the different styles. He then took us through various Seusenhofer pieces In the museum and talked in detail about the recent attribution of   a set of foot armour, shown here, to Seusenhofer. I usually walk past armour in museums and find it hard to relate to but this talk really showed how it can be considered as artwork and how elite pieces are as fascinating as paintings commissioned by the same patrons.

Strange installation at The Whitechapel Gallery of new work by contemporary artists Simone Fattal. There were some lovely works but I’m not sure I understood how they hung together. The commentary said there were “elements of an ancient landscape” but I’m not sure I got that. I liked the ceramic figures and how they related to the brick, kiln like walls. I liked this tower of bricks and how the exhibition related to their major show at the time of the work of Theaster Gates. Closes 19 June   2022  

Beautiful exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery of a selection of work from the Christen Sveaas Art Foundation. Ida Ekbland, a Norwegian contemporary artist, had selected these works from the collection of Christen Sveaas who has collected painting by Norwegian and international artists as well as antique silver and glass. Ekbland look at first line of a poem by W.H. Auden as their starting point and explores moonlit interiors and landscapes and how they “frame dreams, dramas and transgressions”.   I’m not sure how all the works fit this concept but there were some beautiful pieces and it was an interesting way of picking works from a collection to display. There were works be wellknown artists such as Giorgio de Chirico, Howard Hodgkin, Edvard Munch and Louise Bourgeois alongside artists I hadn’t come across before. I loved Per Krohg’s picture of a girl reading from 1916 and in the same vein a Freud like portrait of a girl by Christian Schad Tyskland from 1935. I was also dra...

Interesting installation at the Whitechapel Gallery by Yoko Ono. This work had first been presented as part of an exhibition in 1966 at the Indica Gallery. The idea draws on the Japanese concept of kintsugi, the repair of broken pottery with lacquer missed with gold and silver. There were tables laid out with broken white pottery, scissors, glue, strong and Sellotape. The idea was that you sat and ‘mended. The pot but in practice you made a new sculptural object which were then displayed on the shelves around the room. Part of the idea was that the mindful act of mending also mends the mind. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to sit and join in but I did admire the idea and the array of shapes around the room. Closed 2 January 2022 Reviews Guardian Evening Standard  

Fascinating exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery of work by the contemporary artist Theaster Gates. I confess I didn’t know Gates work so I found the introduction boards really helpful. He mainly works in clay quoting Isiah 64:8 which likens God and humanity to a potter and his clay. Gates himself said “as a potter you learn how to shape the world”. He has founded the Rebuild Foundation to rejuvenate his neighbourhood in Chicago where he trains potters. T he show started with a historic display of ceramics from his Stony Island Arts Bank, many linked to colonialism and global trade, and including items made by Gates. I was particularly interested to see works by Dave the Potter, recognized as the first enslaved potter to inscribe his work.   There was an excellent video of him talking about his work and clips of him working in his studio as well an inviting musicians in to play there. The upstairs room showed new work, such as that pictured here, made during a reside...

Innovative series of five online talks from the Wallace Collection responding to the recent cleaning of “The Swing” by Fragonard. Yuriko Jackall , Curator of French Painting at the   Wallace Collection, chaired all five events which brought together artists and designers with thinkers to discuss aspects of the painting, the times it was painted in and ideas which still hold today. The title and idea had partly been suggested by the set and costume Simon Bejer is partly about thinking about who is looking at the collection. All the artists referenced going to the gallery and many had directly quoted the 18th century paintings there. The five subjects were the colour pink, identity, fashion, play and the idea of the Libertine. At first sight these seemed an odd collection of themes but they fit really well and led to discussion on a wide range of topics. It’s not a period of history that I know well and I learned a lot about it. I will see a lot more in these pictures in the fut...

Beautiful exhibition at the National Gallery of new work by contemporary artist, Kehinda Wiley. The first room had five of Wiley’s wonderful hyper-realistic paintings taking inspiration from Winslow Homer, Bosch’s Ship of Fools and Caspar David Friedrich’s “Wander Above the Sea of Fog”. Each insert modern, black characters, cast by Wiley from the streets, into the context of the original work. I loved the combination of the art historic and the modern and their highly finished style. The second room was a six-screen video, placing black figures within a Norwegian landscape. It lasted about half an hour and was mesmeric. It had echoes of the sublime in landscape painting and was accompanied by reading of sections of Wordsworth’s “Prelude” placing the piece in the romantic tradition. My only criticism would be that two of the paintings are so large and the room is quite small so it is hard to stand back far enough to appreciate them properly or to see their effect from a distance....

Excellent online symposium from London Art Week looking at the role of Jewish dealers in the late 19th and early 20th century art market. Over three one hour sessions and with an array of good speakers we were guided through aspects of the subject. Day one looked at how Jews influenced the growth of Modernism in this period. Charles Denhiem who has written a book on the topic said that, with the growth in interest in Nazi stolen art, he didn’t want to see Jews as victims but wanted to know how they played a part in the art market in the first place. Why did they have the art that was taken? Day two looked specifically at the dealer Asher Wertheimer and how he commissioned portraits of his whole family from John Singer Sargent which he then left to the National Gallery. They are currently on display at Tate Britain and I blogged the display recently. Speakers discussed the reasons both for their commissioning and donation as well as talking us through some of the works and the cont...

Fascinating online lecture from Churches Conservation Trust on the Giotto’s Last Judgement in the Scrovegni Chapel. Richard Stemp, took us through the iconography of the fresco and how it fits within the detailed scheme of the whole chapel. He also compared to other Italian Last Judgements. This was a talk to mark advent and Richard pointed out that this was because sermons were preached in advent to mark the Four Last Things which are death, judgement, heaven and hell. I have heard Richard talk about the chapel a few times but I always learn something new about it and love his witty eye for details. This time I realised some of the damned are entering hell by walking along the top of the door arch and there are angels at the top rolling up the earth and sky as this is the end of the world.    

Novel public light installation in Peninsula Square on the Greenwich Peninsula by the O2 by experimental lighting designers, Squidsoup. The work consists of about 500 suspended lights in a rainbow waves which gradually changes colour. Some commentaries I have read say it has a sound installation within it which noises from speakers in some of the lights which react as people walk though it. Either this wasn’t working when I was there or the surroundings were too loud to hear it. I found the work more striking from a distance and it looks great across the square as you leave the O2. It was less effective when you were under it and it didn’t really work in daylight when it looked a bit thin. No closing date given    

Fun installation at the Now Gallery by multidisciplinary artist, Lydia Chan. The show creates a brightly coloured science fiction world. You can download augmented reality filters on your phone which add creatures and new layers to the scene in front of you. Many thanks to the assistant who was there when I went who showed me how this worked on her iPad as I couldn’t get it to work on my phone. This would be great fun to take children to as they could not only play in the space but also with the technology. On your own on a damp December day it was still an attractive space but not so much fun. Closes 6 March 2022  

Interesting online lecture from Victoria and Albert Museum on their current exhibition of fragments of illuminated manuscripts.   Catherine Yvard, Collection Curator at the National Art Library within the museum, took us through the thinking behind the show and some of the research done for it. I had seen the show shortly before and have already blogged it. She outlined how it was split into two sections one on the collection of these fragments and the fashion for them in the 19th century and the other on the original purpose and artistry of the manuscripts. Having seen the show a lot wasn’t new to me so the most interesting aspect of this talk was the   research which had gone into it such as identifying the book from which a picture of the painter Irene had come from and a Presentation in the Temple which was said to be a copy but has been identified as a page from a book of hours in the Bodleian.

Useful online talk from the National Gallery introducing their exhibition of new work by contemporary artist, Kehinde Wiley. The talk was given, by Christine Rider , shortly before the exhibition opened who introduced us to some of Wiley’s previous work and the themes of the show. I knew of Wiley’s portrait of President Obama and recognised some of the other imaged but it was interesting to learn more about the ideas behind his work. I have since seen the show so this blog looks at the talk rather than reviewing the show itself which will follow shortly. It was really helpful to learn more about Wiley’s practice of casting his pictures from seeing striking people on the street. He then works with them on the pose in the finished work and sees the process as a collaboration. Riding also gave us an outline of two projects from 2017 which have fed into this new work. “The Trickster”, a series of 20 portraits of black artists and “In Search of the Miraculous” in which he responded t...

Fascinating online interview from the Victoria and Albert Museum with Janty Yates, the designer of the costumes for “House of Gucci”. I was pleased I had seen and enjoyed the film a few days before the talk. Of course, being about Gucci, clothes were an important part of the styling of the film. The interviewer, Oriole Cullen, a curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum, started by asking Yates about her Oscar winning work on “Gladiator” and she talked about how she had factories making togas for the scenes with 3000 extras. This led her into talking about working with Ridley Scott who also directed the Gucci film. She talked about her process and how an artist, Laura Heath, draws all the outfits on the actors to share with the director and to be used in publicity by the studio. She told us how 30% of the clothes in the film were vintage rented, from costume houses and some from Lady Gaga’s own archives. I was fascinated to hear her talk about how involved Gaga was in choosing...

Nice small exhibition/display at Tate Britain of work by Stanley Spencer. I’m always happy to see a bit of Stanley and there were works in this display I don’t recall seeing before. I don’t remember this lovely picture of people on the bridge at Cookham from 1920. Evidently one the dog is painted from life all the rest is made up. “Dinner on the Hotel Lawn” was also new to me, a wonderful mix of guests and maids with a swathe of tablecloth like a sail. However I’m not sure what the show’s purpose was other than a brief introduction to Spencer in which case it was odd to use obscure pictures. How about doing a more focused view of an aspect of his work instead or telling people who are new to his work a bit more about him. Closed 3 January 2022

Wonderful small exhibition/displa y at Tate Britain of John Singer Sargent’s portraits of the Wertheimer family. I have since attended a fascinating online talk on these portraits and had partly gone to see them in preparation. Watch this space and I’ll blog the talk too so I’ll try to make this entry a reaction to the pictures themselves. The paintings were left to the National Gallery by Asher Wertheimer and were being shown together as a standalone group for the first time. With a total of eight portraits this was Sargent’s largest commission and he became friends with the family. It was a nice touch to show the portrait of Asher’s wife Flora with a bust of her by James Harvard Thomas. It seemed to give more movement to the room. I think my favourite work was the joint portrait of Ena and Betty in evening dress in their drawings room which included a fabulous, huge vase. I liked the contrasting textures of velvet and satin in their dresses. Particularly charming was a portra...

Comprehensive exhibition a Tate Britain looking at Hogarth and Britain in the context of Europe in the 18th century. I liked the way this show gave a social and political history of the 18th century through the work of Hogarth but also looked at how he was influenced by work on the continent and similarly how he influenced European art at the time. It was quite a complex but interesting narrative leading me to discover some artists who were new to me and telling me a lot more about the times. The first room looked at the changing role of the artist at the time with less work done to commission and more for the market. It showed how Hogarth had to advertise himself and exploited the growing demand for prints amongst the growing middle classes. There was a good room on Hogarth’s great moral series “A Harlot’s Progress” and “A Rake’s Progress” which highlighted a new kind of story-telling and placing them in the same oeuvre as Dutch genre pictures. Similarly a section on new leisur...

Sumptuous exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum on the Russian jeweller Faberge with a focus on his English shop and clients. I was pleased that I’d listened to a live curators talk on the show before I went as it was quite busy and hard to read some of the commentaries. You quickly didn’t care that much about the narrative as the objects were so stunning but I was glad I had some outline of what was happening in my head. Although the focus was on London the background was set up well with a section on work for the Russian Royal Family. This was followed one on the craftsmanship divided into different materials and techniques and looking at the different family workshops that were used. This was well illustrated with design drawings. I loved the section on the London shop and the English clientele. The show outlined various Edwardian characters with examples of the work they bought or were given. I loved the woman who gave her lover a cigarette case every New Year marking ...

Beautiful exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at their collection of fragments of illuminated manuscripts and at how they acquired them. The fashion for collecting these fragments started after the French Revolution when many manuscripts were sold off and religious text were no longer seen as relevant so they were split up and the illustrations taken out. The show was divided into two rooms. In the first one I looked at the fragments themselves discussing what type of books they came from, who commissioned them and who the artists were. I was surprised at how many of the artists could be named. It was fantastic to see these pictures hung at head height rather than looking down on them in cases. You could really study the details. My favourite, shown here, is the artist Irene from Boccaccio’s “On Famous Women” made for Jacques d’Armagnac. The second room looked at how the fragments had come into the museum’s collection in the 19th century focusing on the great co...

Interesting exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum for this triennial award for contemporary art inspired by the Islamic tradition. I have been to previous shows for this prize and they always throw up new ideas. This time the show included the work of eight artists and designers. The winner, Ajlan Gharem, had a mosque made to chicken wire, the material used for border fences and refugee detention centres. so that the interior was visible. There was a section of it in the show and a video of it in use in a desert. The idea was to demystify Islamic prayer for non-Muslims. Fashion designer, Kollol Datta, draws on the traditional clothing from around the world to make connections between communities and looks at how dress has been used to control women. Also on the theme of clothing, Bushra Waqas Khan, makes miniature dresses, like the one shown here, made of affidavit paper used for official document which often carry national motifs. The nod to Victorian fashion hints at co...

Fun pop-up installation  in the window of 95 New Bond Street by Paul Robinson, known professionally as LUAP. I came across this work on a day going around the Mayfair Galleries and it came as a breath of fresh air, an antidote both to the pretentiousness of some of the work I’d seen and the Christmas nonsense which was taking over the area. The work was part of a series depicting a pink teddy bear come-to-life and placed in the real world which evidently acts as “a metaphor for discovery and exploration”. Whatever it means who can resist a life size pink bear waving from a shop window!  

Interesting exhibition at the Halcyon Gallery of new figurative work by Bob Dylan. These works were based on film stills and the title comes from the cinematic technique tells a story through the foreground, middle, and background, rather than focussing on one visual plane over another. They were cropped like film in enhanced colours reminding me of movies of the 1950s. I liked the paintings and they inevitably reminded me of Hopper and 1930s/40s American documentary photography but I guess that is because those influenced the cinema of the time. It like the work was coming full circle from art, through cinema and back to art. Closes 21 January 2021

Fascinating exhibition at Ordovas of drawings by Richard Serra better known for his large site specific sculptures. All the works were made in 2018 and were entitled “Orchard Street” after the street where he lives in Long Island. I must admit visually I found these rather dull large black and white works however a friendly gallery assistant explained how they were made by spreading ink and silica on a printing plate then applying a sheet of paper and pressing down with a steel block and his body weight so they are in essence monoprints. I liked the fact they had a physical aspect them which reflected the physicality of sculpture. Closed 17 December 2021

Interesting exhibition at Hauser and Wirth of new work by George Condo. These works were abstracted portraits of imagined people shown from combined viewpoints to reflect different emotions. These are large colourful works with layers of images created by Condo painting and them erasing images and repainting. As you know I am not that keen on abstract work but I did like the layering in these and spotting eyes and features within them. Closed on 23 December 2021 Review Times