Cathy's Art Diary

Stunning art fair   in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea showcasing private galleries. There was an amazing selection of art, design, furniture and jewellery from ancient works, even a dinosaur skull, to the best of contemporary art. Each gallery’s stall was arranged like a room representing the brand and style of the gallery. Despite the simple gird like layout of the show I did keep getting lost as my eye was caught by wonderful works of art. I think I did two circuits before I found the café! The whole thing smelt of money with high end restaurants and champagne bars. I was glad I’d worn a dress! Highlight pieces for me included a Laura Knight sketch for her Nuremberg trail painting, a Zoffany, a Wright of Derby and a William Roberts of Parson’s Pleasure. There seemed to be a lot of Ivon Hitchen’s pictures on a variety of stalls which made me wonder if a collection had come onto the market recently. There were also some great contemporary works. I loved this sculp...

Striking installation at Tate Modern by Bob and Roberta Smith. I’d made a special point of going to see this display as I live quite close to Thamesmead , a modernist large-scale housing project built in the late 1960s. Based on interviews with residents in 2019-20 it documents the histories and identities of Thamesmead and its communities. It records memories from the past and hopes for a post-Covid future. Alongside the text on this huge billboard are bright landscapes of the area to represent the illuminated pages of a medieval book or codex. I loved the placing of the work at one end of the bridge between the two buildings of the gallery so that you could see it from a distance and it gave sense of being in an urban space. Closes 7 May 2023    

Fun sculpture trail around Westminster of decorated corgis to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. If you follow my blog you’ll know I love a sculpture trail what you might not know is that my father bred Cardigan Corgis and we always had at least one and sometimes five around the house. This trail was therefore made for me! I spent a happy afternoon tracking down about half the 19 corgis and I had already found four on the east side of Trafalgar Square a few days earlier. Some had a London theme but others were inspired by the places the Queen has travelled and the outfits she has worn. They were all designed by contemporary artists and designers and named after the Queen's own dogs.  I liked the London ones best although I admit they were a bit of a cliché but you need a cliché for Jubilee year. My favourite though was one which just looked like a giant corgi by Miya Tsuruda-Behan outside Westminster Cathedral but when you got up close you could see the paint strokes and rea...

Useful lecture at the National Gallery looking at the current exhibition pairing portraits by Ingres and Picasso. I had seen the show a couple of weeks earlier. It brought together Picasso’s “Woman with a Book” from 1932 with Ingres’ “Madame Moitessier” from 1856 which it was inspired by. This is the first time they have been seen together. Curator of the show, Christopher Riopelle, gave us a whistle stop guide to the career of Ingres, pointing out works which related to the Madame Moitessier picture and talked us through the long process of making the work itself which was painted over a period of 12 years during which time plans to include a daughter who’d grown up were dropped and the design of the dress changed as fashions changed. He then talked us through the Picasso picture of his mistress Marie-Therese Walter and it’s deliberate links to the Ingres work which he had seen in 1921 and which was for sale in 1936 when he first exhibited the portrait. I did pop back and take...

Interesting annual exhibition at the National Gallery showcasing school children’s responses to a painting in the collection. This year’s picture was Orazio Gentileschi’s “The Finding of Moses” from the 1630s, a fairly recent acquisition by the gallery. I always look forward to this show as it makes you look at a familiar picture in a different way. This year the children’s responses were are varied as ever ranging from Gunthorpe Primary School replacing the women In the panting with inspirational women who have shaped the world, Holy Trinity CR Primary School in London created a patchwork blanked for the baby Moses with scenes form his life and symbols of his character and Snaresbrook Primary School who were drawn to the clothes and thought about clothes their family members had worn in order to design their own dresses. In this occasion I liked the addition of this mind map of the children’s’ first thoughts about the painting. It is good to see how people might react who don’t...

Innovative online talk from Christies which brought together five authors who they had asked to annotate first editions of one of their books to be auctioned in aid of English PEN, the international association of writers. This was a wonderful selection of speakers and I was pleased that I had read three of the books being discussed and am now intrigued to read a fourth. Each author has taken a different approach to the project. David Nichols had annotated “One Day” which I love and said he has partly apologises for bad jokes he had made about people in it, explained where some ideas came from and self-edited. Tracey Chevalier took “Girl with the Pearl Earring”, another favourite, and talked about how there was a spelling mistake on the back of the original dust sheet which has made it a collectors item. She said she had not reread it since it came out so found it an interesting experience. She had pasted 25 paintings in the book which she had annotated. Sarah Water looked at ...

Fascinating exhibition at the Royal Academy showcasing the work of the final year students in the schools. I always enjoy this show although I’m not sure I understand much of the work. There was a good handout with a list of the artists and work but it would really benefit from each artists writing a small piece about the work to give a bit of a clue on what it is about. A lot seemed to be quite conceptual but I’m not always sure I spotted the concept. Some work did come alive as the artist was in his studio and explained it to us. This was Pascal Sender and there were layers to the work I would never have grasped without his help. The work had already struck us as it was very colourful after a lot of grey work. The picture I use is the best use I’ve ever seen made of the big windows in the central room between the staircases. It was by Catinca Malaimare. However the show was stolen by Millie Layton’s “My Way, Sing by Wren” which was a recording of a small child singing “My Ma...

Varied exhibition at the Royal Academy for this regular summer tradition. It’s always hard to review this show as it is such a mix. I get CLIMATE was its theme but it was a bit heavy handed and it would have been nice to see other issues given more space. Part of the joy of the show is that it’s a general unthemed entry. This year was beautifully hung particularly Greyson Perry’s two brightly coloured rooms. Highlights included the giant bejewelled rotten lemon by Kathleen Ryan. It was just a shame it was in a doorway as everyone was stopping to take a photo and causing a jam. I liked a watercolour of the Grand Canyon surrounded by rock samples and maps by Tony Foster, Kiki Smith’s impactful tapestry, charming works by Andrew Cranston on book covers and Ken Howard’s picture of the fish market in Venice. I think the pictures I’ve used here are “Meera and Sanjeev” by Sarah Sharma which was large and stunning and a hyperreal picture of ice creams by Lyle Perkins. Closes 21 Aug...

Interesting outdoor exhibition at Coal Drops Yard at King’s Cross showcasing the winners of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture 2022. There was a fascinating mix of projects including quite a few domestic ones. I was slightly annoyed by a library which was praised more for its sustainability than design as a library. The most moving winner was a cemetery in Tunisia for migrants who wash ashore built by migrants that survived. The awfulness of it took my breath away. It was a nice idea that the display boards were mounted on benches but the downside was that if people sit on them, you can’t read the commentary properly which surely is the point rather than providing a bench. Closed 17 July 2022  

Fun exhibition at Coal Drops Yard at Kings Cross and presented by Saatchi Art of an eclectic mix good quality contemporary art. I had been to a previous version this fair last year and it was nice to recognise some artists from the show but also to see a lot of new work. It was nicely set out in a temporary structure in a very logical layout. I love the mix of work in these shows but it is hard to review it as a whole so here are my favourites. I liked Renee Yau’s abstracted interiors, Will Clarke’s stunning prints of London and Aaron Bevan-Bailey’s wonderful portraits with mixing sections filled with a vibrant background. My favourite was Merab Survildze’s pictures of crowds from above. Some had real tiny figures added to them and other were tiny splodges of paint which looked as convincing as the real figures. However the picture I've chosen is the carpet art by Alice Palmer (I think, but my notes aren’t great) as it made me smile. Closes 3 July 2022    

Vibrant exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at the contemporary African fashion scene and its origins. T he ground floor of the show looked back to the Year of Africa in 1960 and the 1966 First World Festival of Black Arts in Dakar and the effect of those events. It also looked at the role of cloth on the continent with the wonderful quote “cloth is to Africa what monuments are to Westerners” and how designers have used traditional fabrics. It ended by looking at the role of photography to record and spread street style. I did find that the information boards sometimes felt like they were in the wrong places. You had seen the display before you could read what it was about. Upstairs was given over to a fabulous display of work by contemporary designers shown in a labyrinth style display as well as round the end of this fabulous space. On the whole this work was brightly coloured but my favourite piece was this beautifully tailored man’s suit in linen. Closes 16 ...

Lovely exhibition at The Grange in Rottingdean looking at the life and work of William Nicholson. The show was in a house in which Nicholson had lived and was a good mix of prints, paintings and ephemera. The first gallery highlighted his graphic work - woodcuts and illustrations from the earliest Beggarstaff period, through his famous woodcut series, to his later book designs. I am fond of his woodcuts and part own a copy of “O is an Ostler”. All the sets were represented here. I’d not realised he had done book illustration as well including the first edition of “The Velveteen Rabbit” and theatrical costume designs.   The other gallery looked at his paintings - portraits, landscapes and still life – including his earliest known painting Blenheim Bridge. They had also borrowed the famous red boots (Miss Simpson’s Boots) that appear in the world record setting still life that recently sold in Christie’s. I’d not been to this gallery before so can I recommend it. In this sh...

Bright installation on the The Tide walkway at the Greenwich Peninsula by Felipe Pantone. I loved the effect of this but it seemed to concentrate more on the underside of the walkway rather than the bit you walk along which last year’s installation did. I would like to see it go further. I need to revisit at other times as I suspect it will change in different lights and it would be very effective at dusk. No closing date given the commentary just says all summer.

Eclectic exhibition in the Design District on Greenwich Peninsula showing work of 50 contemporary artists. Curated by Lisa Gray this was a colourful selection of work in a mix of figurative and abstract styles. There was also a nice selection of sculpture. Highlights for me included Linda Chapman’s architectural works, Caroline Lowe’s abstract works, Paula Menchen’s floral still lives and Hayam Elsayed’s striking portraits. My favourite was this artist, Francesca Busca, who describes herself as a rubbish artist, as these are made of wine bottle tops and ring pulls. Maybe I should start saving them! Closed 26 June 3022    

Clever online lecture from the National Gallery looking at two paintings in their collection by Renoir. Belle Smith looked at “The Skiff” from 1875 and “Umbrellas” from 1881-6 on first site to compare how Renoir treated sunshine and rain. A nice idea for early summer. However she then expanded this out to compare his early Impressionist and later style as he turned more towards classicism. She talked about the new innovations in metal paint tubes, flat topped brushes and new pigments which allowed the Impressionists to work in their characteristic quick style. She also talked about how they looked to new subjects to record the contemporary world.  

Interesting online discussion from the Wallace Collection highlighting examples of Dutch silver in their collection and that of the Rijksmuseum. Dirk Jan Biemond of Rijksmuseum and Ada de Wit of the Wallace Collection gave us an overview of the Dutch items in their collections with excellent illustrations. They then compared two examples of items which they both held. They started by looking at collars owned by civic guards and discussed why they often had a parrot on them. Evidently there were annual shooting contexts when the target was a model parrot and the winner won the right to wear the collar for a year. They also used these to talk about the hallmark structure in the Netherlands. They then moved on to look at baby linen baskets. These were often made of wicker but rich families also had them in silver and each museum had an example and they discussed the decoration and symbolism on them. I must admit to walking rather quickly through silver galleries but I’ll be more ...

Colourful exhibition at Hauser & Wirth of new work by Larry Bell. These works were large and small glass boxes. They seemed to change as you walked round them as light fell on them and you got different reflections.   I found myself seeing the outside world via the reflections in them. They seemed to change the space around them. Closes 30 July 2022  

Gentle exhibition at Hauser & Wirth of work by Luchita Hurtado. Hurtado wasn’t ‘discovered’ until she was 95. These were works painted in 1970s and had a serene quality. There was a sense of looking up through a canyon and they felt very optimistic. I look forward to seeing more of her work. Closes 30 July 2022

Surprise event on Savill Row which placed a display of luxury cars on the main street for high end tailoring in London.   The display claimed to set up a concours or competition between tailoring and cars. I’m not a petrol head, in fact I don’t drive, but the cars looked beautiful in the sunshine and I viewed them as art objects. I must admit the whole thing stank of money.   There were various talks planned on a stage in the centre and there was a good brochure describing the cars and the tailors along the street. Car highlights for me included a 1934 Bentley racing car, a 1924 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost Piccadilly Roadster, a 2022 Morgan and a car used in the Kingsman films which seemed appropriate in that street. Closed 16 June 2022  

Fascinating exhibition at the Royal Academy on the life and work of the 19th century Japanese artist Kawanabe Kyōsai. I must admit I didn’t know this artists work at all but I am fond of Japanese prints so I was interested to see what the paintings of the period might look like and to learn more about an artist who was contemporary with the Impressionists but from a completely different tradition. The commentaries were easy to understand and clear. I loved the long format of a lot of these works and they looked beautiful in the space set in deep displays and the gentle sense of humour in some of them. I did find myself smiling at frog acrobats and, lets be crude, fart pictures. The later work reflected the growing Western influences and the modernisation of the country. You start to see the appear on of a telegraph pole and people in top hats. I liked the idea of calligraphy and painting parties where you paid to go then you could commission work from a selection of artists ofte...

Excellent exhibition at the Barbican looking at art in Britain in the twenty years after the Second World War. Under 14 themes this show examined society in the period and how art reflected this. It covered the work of 48 artists many who were familiar to me but there were also new names to look out for in the future. I’m not sure I found a lot of the work attractive however I’ve never seen art that looked better in this rather brutalist space. The show was also good at highlighting important exhibitions from the period such as “This is Tomorrow” at the Whitechapel in 1956 as well as highlight artists who represented Britain at the Venice Biennales, a good way of giving a different shape to the period. New things I discovered included the work of John Bratby and Jean Cooke, a husband and wife whose art was used to challenge the idea of the home as a symbol of stability. Theirs was a turbulent relationship which was reflected in each of their paintings. Although the works were of...

Interesting exhibition at the Photographers’ Gallery looking as photography’s role in making and shaping musical artists. I must admit this show was a bit geeky even for me! I didn’t know a lot of the albums being talked about and there was quite an emphasis on early jazz however it was still interesting and you can always learn something. There were small sections on different topics from the work of Richard Avedon, whose portraits were used on over 120 covers and inspired others, though the collaboration between Grace Jones and Jean-Paul Goude to create her image via her covers and work by Andy Warhol used on covers. My favourite section focused on Ian MacMillan’s work for the Abbey Road cover shown with Linda McCartney’s informal images of the day including the one shown here. It was interesting to see an iconic image deconstructed. Closed 12 June 2022

Eclectic exhibition at the Photographers’ Gallery for this year’s Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize for work published or exhibited in the previous 12 months. I always try to get to this show and it can be a bit of a mixed bag. As ever there were four photographers highlighted. I think my favourite was Anastasia Samoylova whose work looked at the environmental crisis in American coastal cities. I loved the abstract shapes created by the damage as in the attached picture. Her work was shown as big bold works against a striking green and purple background. Jo Ratcliffe’s work recorded conflict and dispossession in South Africa and Angola shown in a white room to contrast with the previous works. I would have liked to have been able to read more of the stories that went with this harrowing works. Denna Lawson, who won this year’s prize, showed work which challenged the conventional representation of Black Lives through encounters with strangers and planned scenes. The p...

Surprising exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery of work by Edvard Munch collected by Rasmus Meyer. I say surprising as often I have come out of Munch exhibitions with a sense of gloom but this show had a number of cheerful pictures! Meyer was an early collector of Munch’s work and so there was a fascinating selection of his early work which was quite impressionistic and colourful. “Spring Day on Karl Johan” from 1890 was an almost pointillist work with ethereal figures. We then moved onto some of the more experimental works for Munch proposed projects called “The Frieze”. Meyer recognised the importance of this idea and bought a number of the works which were here. There was also another picture of Karl Johan Street from 1892 which was very different to the earlier one. In this he records felling emotionally overwhelmed by a crowd. The final section showed later works following a nervous breakdown in 1908 which were shockingly different as they were cheerful and bright again! The...

Interesting  pavilion at the Hayward Gallery by Jyll Bradley. This work is colourful and uses bright colours which look great against the concrete of the South Bank. I liked the link to Londoners going to Kent as Hop pickers and the shape is meant to be like hop vines. I’m not sure I would have got the link to hop picking without the explanation and that’s a shame as it is an interesting emotive one and the reason for the piece, I loved the way the colour of the sky changes as you walk through. I’ve seen it against since in different lights and from different angles and it is effective. However if you want people to sit in it, picnic etc as the introduction suggests, it would be good to have seats inside. It does feel like a lean to on a concrete structure and is not inviting to stop within it. Closes 2 October 2022

Beautiful and innovative installation at the Tower of London of wildflowers planted in the moat to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. I was blown away with the idea of this work and booked to see it quite soon after it was opened. It was a bit behind where it was expected to be and some of the planting looked a bit thin. However I had been warned and offered a free ticket for later in the year. In fact I am going again next week so from the flowers being held back by low temperatures it will be interesting to see how it has coped with very high temperatures. There were good commentary boards explaining why it was behind including the lack of rain and cold. Evidently there were more frosts in April than February this year. The east side had been planted first and it was a bit further ahead. There were very friendly guides who explained that they are hoping to continue the display next year and they are interesting to see how the first planting self-seeds and looks in future years. ...

Fun online talk from the National Gallery to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. Matthew Morgan looked at a picture that was acquired by the gallery in each decade of the Queen’s reign emphasising that she didn’t influence their acquisition and they don’t reflect her taste but is was just a fun way of looking at some of the collection. He covered works from 1570 until 1910 and actually looking at this list you can see how tastes have changed from collecting the obvious available works to choosing works which fill gaps in the collection. He talked us though each picture saying a bit about why it was painted and looking at some of the details. He told us stories about the acquisition in a few cases and I’d have liked to know a bit more about how they were acquired. I thought you might be interested to see the list. Obviously, these weren’t the only works acquired just a selection. 1950s Mr and Mrs William Hallett (The Morning Walk) by Thomas Gainsborough 1795 acquired in 1954 ...

Excellent morning workshop from Paula Nuttall on the Portinari altarpiece now in the Uffizi Gallery. I have always loved this work since coming across it in the Uffizi a number of years ago holding its own with the Botticellis. I was stunned by the clarity and detail in this 15th century piece. Nuttall spent the first half of the workshop telling us about Tommaso Portinari and his life in Bruges working for the Medici bank. She talked about his relationship with the Burgundian court and other art works which he commissioned. She set the scene well and gave a good overview of a fascinating man and his time in the city. After the break she led us through the iconography of this Nativity scene with shepherds and talked about why it was so ground-breaking when it arrived in Florence. She looked at the details of the picture using clear, sharp slides. She finally looked at its influence sharing other paintings which picked up on the unusual subject for the city of Florence and the new...

Smart exhibition at the National Gallery pairing portraits by Ingres and Picasso. Picasso’s “Woman with a Book” from 1932 was shown with Ingres’ “Madame Moitessier” from 1856 which it was inspired by. Picasso saw the Ingres picture in Paris at an exhibition in 1921. They are shown together for the first time. The Picasso is on loan from the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena while the Ingres comes from the National Gallery’s own collection. They look lovely against a dark grey background and I liked that they were just hung side by side with all the commentary on the wall behind so you could just sit and compare the composition and techniques. They looked great together.   Looking at dates again I realise the pictures are only painted 76 years apart and yet they are from completely different worlds. Would a picture from 1946 look so astonishingly different to one from now?  Closes 9 October 2022 Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph Evening Standard

Effective  installation at Charleston Farmhouse by Nathan Coley. This work is one of a series of six around Lewes called “Tentative Words Change Everything” organised by Sussex Modern. Coley creates these monumental sculptures using existing phrases that come from overheard conversations, song lyrics, news report, books or any found text. This one, ‘I Don’t Have Another Land’, was a piece of graffiti found on a wall in Jerusalem in the early 2000s. I have seen this work in many lights and, as the words are made up of light bulbs, it works best after dark however it is also effective in the day and makes a powerful statement. I also saw the piece at St Mary’s Church, Glynde, “You Create What You Will” as we drove past which looked beautiful standing amongst the gravestones.   Closes 29 August 2019  

Delightful interview at Charleston Farmhouse as part of the Charleston Festival with fashion designer Zandra Rhodes. Rhodes was joined by renowned milliner, Piers Atkinson, and curator and lecturer at the London College of Fashion, N. J. Stevenson to talk us through her career and discuss the process of archiving her collection and records. I was most interested to hear about the process of the archiving. Rhodes admitted she has been a hoarder and has kept an example of at least one of every piece she has designed as well as the drawings for them. It is a working archive and she listed the projects she is working on at the moment based on the vintage designs. The best part though was when she invited members of the audience up to don a pink wig and one of her designs. It was fascinating to see how, because a lot of the dresses were wrap around, they fitted and suited an assortment of ages and sizes and very one looked fabulous. It was lovely to see her obvious delight in dressin...

Fascinating discussion at Charleston Farmhouse as part of the Charleston Festival looking at the future of museums. Chaired by Charlotte Higgins, chief culture writer at The Guardian, the event brought together Gus Casely-Hayford, founding Director of V&A East which is currently under construction in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, and Ed Vaizey, Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries (2010–2016). They discussed competing claims on who owns cultural heritage and who it is speaking to against the background of the pandemic and the economic problems this has caused for museums. They talked about the lessons of the pandemic including relying less on tourism and looking more to the domestic audience and the growth in digital content. The latter led to a lively discussion about the relative merits of going to see real objects and looking at them online. As an avid museum and gallery visitor this discussion gave me lots to think about in my visits since.

Charming talk at Charleston Farmhouse as part of the Charleston Festival looking at the creative process behind Kim Jones’s first women’s wear collection for Fendi. The collection and been inspired by and launched at Charleston during lockdown and a luscious book had been created to accompany it. The talk brought together a selection of the creatives on the project, Kim Jones the designer, Nikolai Von Bismarck the photographer and Demi Moore who had modelled for it. Yes that is Demi Moore the actress! The event was ably chaired by fashion journalist, Alexander Fury. I was fascinated to hear how Jones had got to know Charleston as a teenager when he did etchings in the garden for his GCSE and how he came to appreciate the outsider nature of the place. He talked about how he had several copies of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando and Moore talked about how the books were at the photo shoot for the book. Von Bismarck talked about how he used vintage cameras on the project to create photogra...

Interesting discussion at Charleston Farmhouse about art and life between the two world wars. This event was part of the Charleston Festival with over 40 events over 10 days. I was an all event ticket holder and am proud to say I think I was the only person that actually did all the events! I’m afraid if I blogged them all I’d be here for ever so I’m just blogging any of the events with an art or design theme. It was an exception festival this year, partly due to the joy of it being back in person and I came away brimming with ideas and inspiration. Anyway back to this event which brought together Frances Spalding, talking about her book about the visual arts between the wars, and Nino Strachey, on hers about a new generation of the Bloomsbury Group in the 1920s. The event was chaired by Mark Hussey who write a biography of Clive Bell. We started with a short talk by Spalding with excellent slides which wove the story of the art with what brought her to it. She discussed the ris...

Interesting online lecture  from ARTscapades looking at a new way of looking at art history. Charlotte Mullins, art critic for Country Life talked us through the arguments in her book “A Little History of Art” inviting people to take a wider look at art history bringing in people and places usually not considered in the traditional cannon. She began by pointing out that people have made art even before they could write and that some of the earliest works are two sculptures of bison in a cave made over 17,000 years ag. We don’t know who made them or why but they still have the power to affect us. She then took us though various little studied aspects of art history including the women artists of the Renaissance and black artists of the American Depression. She also looked at areas of the world which are often not considered including China, Benin/Nigeria and Australia. I found her arguments very interesting but, as an ardent exhibition goer, I felt I had done shows on all th...