Cathy's Art Diary

Intriguing online lecture from Fitzwilliam Museum looking at the still-lives of Vanessa Bell. Rebecca Birrell, Assistant Keeper of Paintings, Drawings and Prints at the Fitzwilliam Museum and formerly of Charleston Farmhouse, compared Bell’s still-lives of flowers to those of the 17th century. She pointed out the latter were mainly about the fragility of life and were moralistic whereas Bell’s are about light, life and happiness. Birrell incorporated Bell’s sister Virginia Woolf’s writing on art to place Bell among the modernist artists and thinkers and to show the feminist position of a female artist who would now hold exhibitions and work as a professional artist. I loved the idea that the pictures of flower arranging could be seen as a portrait of the garden at Charleston and also as a diary. This made me think of the comparison with Virginia Woolf’s dairies where, as well as recording her life, she also seems to be trying out writing styles like a written sketch book.

Fun art festival Artwave   of work by artists and makers from Lewes, Seaford, Newhaven and surrounding villages. Although this festival was over three weekends we didn’t get a lot of time to go round so ended up concentrating on work around Uckfield, Isfield, Glynde and Firle. It is always good to pop into the forge at Glynde and I liked the new tables made with colourful tops made of recycled material and St John’s church in Piddinghoe had some interesting work again. We got a warm welcome at The Stitching Post and Friends and the attached photo is a sculpture by Rachael Nicholson there and I bought a small poppy trinket bowl by ceramist Liza Morton. I also enjoyed the variety of work at the Victoria Pavilion in Uckfield including lovely woodcuts by Adele Scantlebury. Closed 18 September 2022  

Charming installation in the garden at Charleston Farmhouse by Tim Spooner. This work was part of the Queer Bloomsbury weekend and was inspired by the erotic drawings of Duncan Grant which had gone on show that weekend. It consisted of small abstract velvet figures in bright colours which moved calmly as you walked among them. Spooner was standing with the work and encouraging people to add offcuts from the garden to the figures with small clips. It was lovely to meet the artist and talk about this work which I think was my favourite contemporary response to the drawings reflecting their gentleness and the shapes of the bodies. It is a shame it wasn’t a more permanent work. Closed 18 September 2022  

Interesting installation at Charleston Farmhouse by contemporary artist Linder bringing together a series of objects alongside new and existing works to create a multi-sensory collage in dialogue with Charleston. Oh dear I didn’t make notes and don’t remember a lot about this show. I think I went in expecting it to be another response to the sister exhibition of Duncan Grant’s erotic drawings so I was a bit confused. Reading the webpage now I’m still a bit confused as it mentioned pieces I don’t remember so I’ll definitely be going back to take another look. What I do remember is a wonderful sense of fun and colour and her black and white collage photographs superimposing items of jewellery no nudes figures. Closes 12 March 2023 Review Guardian  

Thought provoking exhibition at Charleston Farmhouse introducing the recently discovered erotic drawings by Duncan Grant. It was lovely to see these drawings on show at last, they were acquired during lockdown having been passed down through the queer community including during the time when sex between men was still illegal. It was a lovely touch to show them with portraits of the five men who had looked after them. It’s wonderful that they have now come back home to Charleston. Although many of them are explicit because they are so tenderly drawn and have a certain cartoon like quality, they are easy to look at and quite charming.  I liked the idea of showing the work with contemporary responses that Charleston have commissioned but some of these feel a lot harsher and real and so, at times, they are more difficult to look at. The show did raise many questions in my mind which I will continue to explore. Why explicit art in a drawing and photograph can feel so different? W...

Interesting online lecture from ARTscapades on how Impressionism began and what proceeded it. The author Ross King looked at the rivalry between Ernest Meissonier and Eduard Manet in the  1860s examining the work of each of them and discussing why Meissonier is no longer popular while Manet and his fellow Impressionists elicit large sums at auction and large audiences at exhibitions. He concentrated on Meissonier, as the now lesser known artist, outlining his successful career at the time and showing us some lovely images of his work. He then turned to Manet, how his career started and he was seen as a radical artist. King outlined how Manet was following the idea of contemporary authors encouraging the painting of modern life.   Despite reading King’s excellent book on this period “The Judgement of Paris” I didn’t know Meissonier’s work. I do prefer Manet but will start to look out for the former on my travels.

Interesting online lecture from the National Gallery on Rembrandt’s portrait of Margaretha de Geer. I am very fond of this insightful picture of a determined old lady so it was good to have Bethan Durie talk us through where it sits in Rembrandt’s career and how it differs to the pendant picture of his husband, Jacob Tripp. She also looked at another picture of De Geer in the collection which may have been painted by one of the artists studio and then talked about how the main painting came into the galleries collection during the Second World War and, after pubic demand, was brought to the gallery and shown when the rest of the pictures were still in storage and created the idea of a painting of the month programme which continues to today.

Fascinating online lecture from the Wallace Collection looking at the drinking fountains which Sir Richard Wallace commissioned for the city of Paris. The talk marked 150 years since the first fountain was installed and brought together Suzanne Higgott from the gallery and Barbara Lambesis from the Society of the Wallace Fountains. Higgott took us through the design and the commissioning of the fountains and how they are based on French Renaissance and Neo-classical models. She outlined the symbolism on them. Lambesis then talked about how her enthusiasm for the fountains came about and the celebrations for the anniversary in Paris. She also introduced us to the Society of Wallace Fountains and I was impressed that as well as aiming to preserve and maintain the pieces it also promotes philanthropy in the same spirit and making them a symbol for global and equal rights to clean water. I must admit I hadn’t known about these fountains before booking the talk and had popped to se...

Evocative exhibition at the National Gallery on the life and work of Winslow Homer. Homer had come up in so many lectures I’ve done recently I was excited to see this show and it didn’t disappoint. It was beautifully presented with soft blue walls and clear labels and the pictures were nicely placed to give you space to look at them. I love his sense of reportage from the Civil War works based on his time as a journalist, through the Reconstruction period and on to the politics of the Caribbean at the end of the 19th century. The themes and images felt very current. Some fell a bit between symbolism and sentimentality. The heart of the show was his time in Cullercoats now in Tyne and Wear sketching the fishermen and their wives and their equivalent of lifeboat men. He worked these sketches up into oil paintings back in America and drew on the sketches for the rest of his career. I was lucky enough to get talking to a couple from the town at the show who were very proud of this p...

Delightful exhibition at the Wallace Collection looking at how Disney was inspired by the Rococo. There was a lovely juxtaposition of original Rococo pieces from the collection with artwork from the Disney studios and good explanations of the creative process. The show focused on Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast but also included other examples from earlier in Disney’s career. I loved the clips from the 1934 short film “The China Shop” which featured dancing China figures and were shown next to Sevres examples on small turntables to give them movement. There were good descriptions of the artists involved and a focus on how Disney often used female artists. I loved the room at the end with examples of Rococo furniture and China in a setting designed to represent the Hall of Mirrors. A really innovative approach to a small space. Closes 16 October 2022 Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph Evening Standard      

Interesting exhibition at the Wallace Collection looking at how curators and objects from the museum have shaped how we view Richard III. There were only two objects in the show, plus a redirection to a third in the museum, but they came with good information boards and some interesting stories. Alongside a small version from the museum of Delaroche’s “The Princes in the Tower” there was a suit of armour made with input from curator, Tobias Copwell, for the new film “The Lost King”. You were also directed to go to look at one of their sets of armour for a man and horse in the main gallery which was reproduced in rubber for the Lawrence Olivier film of Richard III. A good use of a few items. Closes 8 January 2023 Reviews Guardian Telegraph Evening Standard

Timely online course from the Wallace Collection looking at Royal and court clothing and its symbolism.   On day one Jacqui Ansell from Christies Education took us though the clothes worn for coronations and the objects which monarchs can be seen holding and wearing in their portraits. She talked us through how the crown jewels were melted down in the Civil War and how Charles II reinvented them, as well as discussing some of the jewels in the Imperial Crown. She also talked about the idea of court dress and why this was often quite based on the fashion of a previous generation as well as comparing the competing courts of England and France. On the second day she concentrated on George IV and the idea of the presentation at court looking forward to the reign of Queen Victoria. Ansell used Lily Langtry’s account of being presented from her autobiography extensively, highlighting that she was in fact the mistress of the Prince of Wales at that time. She had previously also loo...

Fascinating and useful online lecture from the National Gallery on their new exhibition on Winslow Homer which opens in two days’ time. Christopher Riopelle talked us though the life of Homer using paintings which have been chosen for the show. He covered his early work in the American Civil War doing woodcuts from the front for the newspapers and how this then fed into his later career and his continued interest in taking a journalistic approach to subjects. He then looked at how he came to England in 1881 to visit the seafaring community of Cullercoats on the North East coast recording the work of the rescue crews there and the lives of the fishermen and their wives. He talked about how Homer built a collection of drawings and sketches which he drew on for the rest of his career. Finally he looked at some of the iconic paintings from Homer’s his later years and how they commented on   American life . I’m off to see the show tomorrow at a members’ preview and am really lo...

Surprising exhibition at National Trust property Polesden Lacey of the treasures collected by Margaret Greville. I say surprising because I had not realised there was an exhibition at the house and had just gone to kill time before a party so this was a bonus. It was nicely arranged with an introduction to the collection and then rooms on different types of objects from pictures, though ceramics and ending with a lovely room of Faberge objects. Mrs Greville had been collecting in the late 19th and early 20th centuries both via auctions and through gifts from friends. It was nice that the labels not only told you about the object but also about where and how it was acquired. It was also a good opportunity to see the upstairs rooms which are normally closed to the public and I liked the way when you did then go downstairs it continued with sign posting to important objects in the main rooms. Closes 30 October 2022

Fascinating online lecture from the Church Conservation Trust on a scrapbook by an 18th century woman recording her clothing from the age of 8 to 80. Dr Serena Dyer from De Montfort University and author of “Material Lives: Women Makers and Consumer Culture in the 18th Century” explained how Barbara’s mother had educated her children to keep accounts and document their lives, encouraging her daughter to start this album with her first sac dress at the age of 8. She also talked about how this reflected the growth in consumerism at the time leading to the need to keep good accounts as with this came the advent of ready credit. Barbara was a woman of independent means and never married. Most interesting to me was how Barbara pinned samples of all the material of her dresses in the book as well as recording its price, the amount used, who made it and if it was for a particular occasion. She also added small fashion engravings from pocketbooks. The album is now kept at the Victoria ...

Stunning exhibition at Tate Britain of work over 30 years by contemporary artist Cornelia Parker. The best thing about this show was that the commentary and labels had been written by Parker and were personal but also clear and informative. I was fascinated by the depth of her ideas behind some of the simpler works. I loved the large installations particularity “‘Perpetual Canon” of squashed brass instruments hung in a circle which cast clear shadows of their shapes around the walls. “Cold Dark Matter” a blown up shed was dramatic and you found people having conversations around it about what might be in their own sheds. There was a good balance with small works many of which seemed to record things that had gone such a what looked like pieces of fluff which were in fact the carved-out grooves of vinyl records or a cast of the gaps in the paving at Bunhill Fields cemetery. Sadly I didn’t have time to watch the video installations but I do find I have to been in the right frame...

Comprehensive exhibition at Tate Britain on the work of Walter Sickert. Sickert transitions the 19th and 20th centuries and continued to experiment throughout his career. The show starts when he was working with Whistler in an almost impressionistic way, to working for press photographs and a precursor of Pop Art. I had come across him as an inspiration for the Bloomsbury Group, and indeed Duncan Grant took over one of his studios, however I can’t bring myself to love him.   I can appreciate what he’s doing and admire the groundbreaking ideas but I’m not sure I’d want to live with one. The rooms were gently themed whihc also give them a rough chronology. My favourites were the early music hall pictures particularly those that captured the audience and those that use mirrors to give strange angles. I am less fond of the nudes. There was a good commentary on what he was trying to do with them, showing real, working-class women and the effect of interior light but they still ...

Fascinating lecture at the National Maritime Museum on the monumental art legacy of Ukraine of the 1960s – 1980s and the effect of the war on it. Organised by the British Council and Ukrainian Institute as part of the Greenwich and Docklands International Festival this talk brought together photographer Yevgen Nikiforov and art historian Lizaveta German. Unfortunately the speakers visas to travel had not come through in time so they had to deliver the talk to the audience in the lecture hall by Zoom. German started the event by talking us though the history of monumental art in the Ukraine since the 1960s with a focus on the large mosaics. She outlined how the idea for mosaics came from the Byzantine tradition in the area then the idea of decorating some of the simplified post Second World War buildings with them. Photographer Nikiforov then outlined his project to record and photograph the over 5000 mosaics in the country. This has become even more important since the start of ...