Cathy's Art Diary

Delightful exhibition at the National Gallery of Ireland looking at the 16th century artist Lavinia Fontana. I’d read about this exhibition in the press but didn’t think I’d get to it but was delighted to find it would just have opened when I was in Dublin. I’d learnt about Fontana in various lectures but hadn’t seen much of her work in the flesh. The show was clearly set out in themed rooms which also worked chronologically. Her early work was portraits of men, mainly scholars, then she moved on the paint the elite ladies of Bologna. I loved the latter portraits whose clothing she painted beautifully. I wasn’t as convinced by her mythological, allegorical and religious work. For me they worked best when they included portraits. It was an exhibition of firsts. She was the first woman to paint professionally outside of a convent or court, the first woman from whom we have attributed drawings, first woman to have a workshop under her and first woman to paint female nudes. I’m ...

Thoughtful and stunning exhibition at the National Museum of Ireland: Decorative Arts and History by contemporary artist in glass Alison Lowry. Lowry had responded to various Irish scandals from the Tuam Mother and Baby Home, Magdalene laundries and domestic abuse. The works were poignant and beautiful. So often art responding to issues like these becomes very conceptual and ungainly but these made you focus on the story and the effect on individuals. Any piece would have worked as an interesting piece of art even without the story. I think my favourite was this work consisting   of 10,000 figures cut out from old £5 notes with the image of a founder of the Magdalene laundries, representing the number of women who went through them, pouring out of church collection bags.   December 2023  

Interesting display at the National Museum of Ireland: Decorative Arts and History on the fashion designer Ib Jorgensen who was based in Dublin. I think this may be a permanent display but, it was so good and specific, that I thought it worth mentioning. I certainly don’t remember it from last time I was at the museum. Jorgensen was born in Denmark but moved to Dublin aged 15. He opened his own salon aged 22 and his mantra was “fabric, cut and style”. He championed Irish materials. The display was a stunning range of garments donated to the museum. As they had come from ordinary people they were a range of sizes and it was good to see clothes you felt you might wear in a show of this kind. It would have been nice if the clothes had been shown in chronological to give a sense of how his work changed. I particularly liked the highly ornate embroidery on some of the pieces.   No closing date given.  

Fascinating exhibition at the National Museum of Ireland: Decorative Arts and History on the role of photography during Ireland’s revolutionary decade. It set out the story clearly using wonderful images which it explained well. It was a shame they were shown as reproductions but it was good to see a note explaining why and it would have had to be a very different, less accessible show if they had used originals. It was a nice touch to have a few cabinets with original albums and publications in draws. It included a nice balance of amateur and professional work and explained how new cameras enabled more people to take photographs. It also examined how images were used, particularly interesting in a section on surveillance used by both sides in the conflicts. A number of the images were grim but I loved this First World War from a convalescent home. There is a novel in it somewhere! Closes 2024  

Comprehensive but dense exhibition at the National Library of Ireland on the poet William Butler Yates. I must admit I think I had done too much on the day so, when I did this show, I found it hard to engage with it. It didn’t help that as I started to look at it a group of European youth arrived and took over the space. They didn’t seem to be engaging either just talking selfies! I wish I had known more about Years before I went so that the copies of manuscripts and first editions might have meant more. I liked the four little rooms with contemporary settings and good audio visual presentations. I particularly enjoyed the one on the Abbey Theatre as I was off there that evening! I was also interested in the campaign to save the Hugh Lane collection as I had been there in the morning. There was a good leaflet outlining Yeats life but it was a bit too much to read in the show so I’ll look at it as homework. Closes 7 January 2024

Charming little exhibition at the National Museum of Ireland: Archaeology of relics associated with St Columba. The show celebrates 1500 years since the saint’s birth. He is one of the three patron saints of Ireland despite being best known for founding the monastery of Iona. There were just a handful of objects but their history was told clearly and you oddly felt like a direct link to the Saint even if the object had proved to be of a later date. My favourite pieces were the two silver encrusted boxes which were believed to have held some of his writings and which were both also used as battle standards. No closing date given

Interesting exhibition at the National Museum of Ireland: Archaeology looking at the monastic site of Glendalough in County Wicklow. The site was founded in the 6th or 7th century by St Kevin and, at its height, consisted of seven churches, a cathedral, a round tower and 1200 stone crosses. The exhibition told the story of the site and is role in pilgrimages in good, although wordy, information boards then showed objects excavated from the site and other monastic sites in Ireland to illustrate the narrative. I think the most moving item was some oat and barley from a kiln on the site. No closing date given.  

Bright exhibition at the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin of new work by Richard Gorman. For once I did like the commentary for this contemporary art show which did make me think about what painting means. I loved a description that it was the manipulation of colour, form and metaphor on a flat plain. The works were large, geometric abstracts in bright colours. I loved how they were hung low on the walls so you walked among them. I also liked the last room with featured circles of colour on paper. Closes 20 August 2023

Strange exhibition at the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin of new purchases and bequests. I only say strange because the works were spread throughout the gallery among other works from the collection and I didn’t realise they were a show for a while. It would have been nice to have a bit more information on their acquisitions policy to accompany the works. That said there were some lovely pieces. My favourite was this stunning picture of Naples Harbour by Stephen McKenna which really drew you towards it. There was also a bold Gillian Ayres work called Cusp II. Representing older art there was a lovely portrait of a woman reading by Katherine McCausland. Closes 30 August 2023    

Interesting exhibition at the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin looking at Irish art from around the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922. I thought the show was going to be more about the people and events of 1922 and after but it was more about Irish art of the time and how it helped forge an Irish identity and broke artistic moulds. It is a period of art I loved so it was fascinating to see how styles developed in another country with a different political background. I loved the Jack Yeats pictures. I always forget how good he was as you don’t seem to see his work in English shows. It also featured a number of female artists I’d not come across before such as Mary Swanzy and Grace Henry. Runs through 2023

Fascinating exhibition at the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin of work by John Beattie responding to Mondrian. The centre price was a video of the reconstruction of Mondrian’s studio. Unfortunately it was a hour long but I dipped in and out a few times. In rooms either side were large black and white photographs of squares from Mondrian pictures. Rather clever to take the colour out of the pieces and yet you knew what they were. As the gallery has Francis Bacon’s studio it spoke to the wider collection. Closes 8 August 2023

Small display at the Garden Museum to mark the donation of Joy Larkcom’s archive to the museum. Larkcom was a vegetable growing pioneer, affectionately known as ‘The Queen of Vegetables’. It explained how she went on journeys with her husband to research vegetable growing around the world. In particular the display focused on her trip to China in the 1980s and included tools she bought there, her language flash cards and seed catalogues. Closed 23 May 2023  

Beautiful exhibition at the Garden Museum of works by early 20th century British artists of gardens and public spaces. This turned out to be a selling show co-curated by dealers Liss Llewellyn to raise money for the museum’s education programme. It is a period of art I know well but I discovered a number of artists I don’t know. I was most interested in how many artist couples were represented. There were some lovely works by Gilbert Spencer including the attached of a balcony in Devonshire Hill in Hampstead. I was introduced to the work of Charles Mahoney and Evelyn Dunbar and there were some beautiful Eric Ravilious pieces. Closed 4 June 2023    

Topical small exhibition at Lambeth Palace Library of documents and artefacts relating to previous coronations. In the week leading up to the Coronation I needed a related exhibition and this fit the bill perfectly. Although it was small it narrated some good stories from past Archbishops of Canterbury who had presided at the ceremonies. In a room to the side there was the cope and mitre worn by Archbishop Fisher in 1953 and with them were prompt boards made for Archbishop Temple for Edward VII’s coronation as he was 80 and his eyesight was failing. A later commentary told how the king kept muttering, 'I am very anxious about the Archbishop’ though the service. The earliest object was a 13th century copy of Henry I’s Coronation Charter, the earliest surviving one.   I think my favourite object was Archbishop Manners-Sutton at the coronation of George IV, with the signature of the King at the foot of the oath. The manuscript text of the coronation oath was mislaid and George ...

Calming exhibition at White Cube Bermondsey of new work by Mimi Lauter. The title comes from a Hebrew word for spirit, wind or breath and the commentary said the work is inspired by the natural world and the cyclical rhythm of plants. These were large pictures, often arranged in groups which at first look felt like abstract landscapes but then I started to see animals and birds in them. I loved this large grouping which felt like an altarpiece to me in its gold colouring and arrangement of panels. However this was probably as much to do with me as a viewer!   You can take the girl out of the Renaissance etc! I also liked a pair in a lovely rich dark turquoise which felt a bit Klimt like. Closed 14 May 2023

Thoughtful exhibition at White Cube Bermondsey of new work by Marguerite Humeau. The show seemed to be all about collaboration be it between artists or in the natural world. There first room had a series of tiled works. I didn’t understand what they were at the time but rather liked them. Reading the blurb it turns out in 1965 the Polish artist Adam Kossowski was invited to create a large mosaic for the Peckham Civic Centre, not far from the gallery called ‘The History of the Old Kent Road’. Humeau had rescued these from the building which is to be demolished and using an AI programme had invented a new city. I must admit I didn’t understand the technicalities but liked the co-operation between a living and a dead artist that had produced attractive works. There was a feel of William De Morgan on speed! The main room had large scale sculptures with some of them emitting sounds. They seemed to be based on repetitive, collaborative natural forms like beehives and mushrooms. Again ...

Interesting exhibition at White Cube Bermondsey of new work by Samuel Ross. I loved the way you entered the space through a reduced doorway and that the thickly painted abstracts and floor sculptures were shown with a soundscape and smell of incense. This really added to the atmosphere and it had an installation feel to it. I loved the object-ness of the thickly painted abstracts which I read as landscapes. They worked from a distance but I also liked getting up close to see the texture and depth of the paint and the cracks in it. The commentary said the work represented “collapsed landscapes and supine bodies to explore the subject of Black experience” which I’m not sure I got from it or understood. A bit more explanation would have been good or just leave me to like the work. Closed 14 May 2023  

Delightful small exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum of textile works by Pauline Caulfield. The show consisted of her wall hangings and ecclesiastical work. I loved the Trompe-l'œil effect of some of the hangings such as one like an airmail letter. I was particularly drawn to her ecclesiastical work including an altar frontal and cope. It felt strange but nice to see religious works in a contemporary show. Closes 10 September 2023    

Fantastic exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum of textiles by Andy Warhol. I’d expected it to be late soup can stuff but it all dated from when he was a graphic artist in the 1950s and consisted of fun, novelty prints. You could see the start of Pop Art and his ideas of repetition and colour differences in the pieces. There was a nice mix of hanging swatches of material   and clothes made from it. I loved the humorous design of the material, usually of repeated everyday objects. The clothes were simple 1950s shapes which showed off the designs. I loved a skirt with large apples around the bottom and repeat pattern of buttons. I had also booked a talk on the site the curators, Geoff Rayner and Richard Chamberlain, which was fascinating particularly as they were such engaging speakers. They’d basically had an inclining that he’d done this work from a couple of small clues and they have researched it and bought pieces. What an interesting project. Chamberlain did admit...

Delightful exhibition at Eames Fine Art of prints, watercolours and etchings on copper by Jason Hicklin of the Thames. As I had just got off the boat from Woolwich at London Bridge, I felt like this was a continuation of my journey. I loved the way he captures the silhouettes of the buildings and the sense of light on the water very simply and atmospherically. I was amused at the way he captured the odd roof in the City that looks like a play video symbol. You could feel the influence of Whistler and it lovely to have an updated version post Docklands. Closed 7 May 2023    

Excellent study morning from Paula Nuttall looking in depth at Quentin Massys’s “The Ugly Duchess”. The morning complemented the current exhibition at the National Gallery which had reunited the Duchess with her other half, “An Old Man”, and had examined the context of the work. Nuttall did this in more depth looking at the fashion for grotesque images both in Northern Europe and Italy and discussed how this knowledge may have passed between the two centres of Antwerp and Florence. She also looked at the traditions of Morris dancing which often featured a similar figure and discussed how that was probably played by a man at the time. I loved her delicate way of explaining the sexual innuendo involved.   We finished by looking at the history of the painting and how people gave tried to identify the Duchess as a real person and how she has seeped into the cultural zeitgeist.   

Strange exhibition at Unit London of new work by Karms Thammatat. I admit I’d had done a lot the day I saw this work and it might have been one show too far. They had a cartoon, street art feel although inspired by Sir Thomas Moore’s Utopia of 1512. I’m not sure what Moore would have thought! Karms creates an imagined world peopled by figures with enlarged eyes and manic smiles in uncanny environments. I am afraid they were just not for me. I could see what they were doing but they aren’t my aesthetic. Closed 20 May 2023    

Colourful exhibition at Unit London of new work by Sasha Ferre. The works looked like huge flowers paintings with the coloured blending and jumping off the walls and reading the useful leaflet now I see they are hung in such a way that the colours flow better the canvases. She created the work by placing the canvas in the floor and crouching over it using oil sticks which she then rubs in with her hands. She compared the abstract imagined landscape to jazz music. I loved the effect. Closed 20 May 2023  

Monumental exhibition at Hauser and Wirth of paintings by Günther Förg. The series are called Tupfenbilder after the German for ‘spot paintings’. There images were more like strokes of paint than spots combining different colour combinations. They were very large scale works which were displayed not only on the walls but also on false walls in the centre of the gallery so you walked among them which gave the monumental feel. Closed 29 April 2023

Annoying little exhibition at Hauser & Wirth of work by David Smith. I say annoying because there was no information on it. When I asked about a press release or web page the person on the information desk said there wasn’t one as it was a temporary display. A bit of Googling told me Smith was an Expressionist sculptor and the centre of the display was a selection of interesting standing and hanging work. Around the edge were works on paper which I would like to have known more about. I’d done a talk recently on the Surrealist roots of expressionism and I felt they fitted in with that idea but who knows as there were no labels or commentary.  

Interesting  exhibition at Messums London of new work by Shaun Fraser. The work was based on landscape and memory of landscape. I loved the earthy colours in the pictures and as well as the lovely green sketches of moss and the piece that actually included moss he found on his residency in sub-arctic northern Iceland during the summer of 2022. This was an interesting echo of work I’d seen earlier based on a residency in Antarctica. It’s strange how often when you have a day going round galleries that the shows start to speak to each other. Closed 26 May 2023

Interesting exhibition at Messum’s London of work by Jean-Vincent Simonet. Simonet comes from a printing family and uses their print factory to experiment. Based on photographs he uses heat, humidity and different drying methods to change the surface of the work. Each version and print is different. These works were from two series “Flowers, Novembre” based on still lives set up in the studio and “Sapporo Lights” from neon floral displays in Japan for the Christmas season. The images became abstracted and full of colour and texture. Closed 26 May 2023  

Humorous but beautiful exhibition at Messums London of marble sculptures of everyday objects by Tom Waugh. You couldn’t help but smile at this selection of traffic cones, packing boxes and pill bottles but they were exquisitely made and finished. Most were plain marble but the traffic cone was made of different coloured stone. The press release pointed out the “tensions and contradictions: between classical and contemporary art; between temporality and permanence; and between humour and serious environmental and social issues.” How clever to represent such complex ideas so simply. Closed 26 May 2023

A useful exhibition at Alon Zakaim Fine Art looking at the male gaze in modern art. Only the day before I’d done a study day on Berthe Morisot which discussed female modern artists and how their view was different to men so it was interesting to find this so soon after. I must admit some of the works felt very strange after the previous day’s discussions. There were some stunning pieces. I loved this Raoul Dufy of Leda and the Swan that was in the window. There was also a stunning Toulouse-Lautrec of a brothel madam. Add in there Picasso drawings and a Rodin sculpture and you can see the standard of this show. However, here comes the moan, there was another section of the show including photos to bring it up to date, but it was closed on the day I went as they had used the space for laying out other work! I will try to go back but if you’ve put on a show make sure it’s accessible.   Closes 30 June 2023    

Delicate exhibition at Flowers Gallery of new work by Victoria Cantons. It was a mix of figurative work and decorative paintings of flowers mainly in light pastel colours. The flower pictures were simplified with a lovely drip effect and were evidently done on a residency in Italy. They were undemanding and would be lovely to live with. My favourite work was shocking in comparison and was a self-portrait after facial surgery complete with bruises, gauze and blood. It was an amazingly honest look at herself. I’d seen it in an email from the gallery but hadn’t realised the scale of it being nearly 2m in height. Closed 20 May 2023    

Fascinating exhibition at The Redfern Gallery of work by Mark Lancaster. The work was a wonderful mix of styles from a very classic Yorkshire landscape to bright geometric abstracts. I was so intrigued I looked up the artist while was there to find he had worked as a designer for Merce Cunningham’s dance company and then with Andy Warhol. The latter made sense when I found a series of 12 small Marilyn Monroe pictures in different styles. I was grabbed by a take on a portrait of Vanessa Bell by Duncan Grant which I love. This was so different and yet so recognisable. I wonder why he did it? Closed 8 June 2023

Attractive but baffling exhibition at the Royal Academy by the current Star Fellow, Unyimeabasi Udoh. I hadn’t come across this fellowship before which provides a bursary and a studio at the Royal Academy Schools for an American artist to develop their practice. The show had some attractive work particularly this row of bowls of water with mirrors above and a pile on of volcanic ash with a votive candle in it. I say baffling as there was no explanation of the work within the show except for a list of works. As they were attractive, they did speak for themselves but I’m sure I would have got more from them with some commentary. Closed 21 May 2023

Fascinating little display at the Royal Academy around a woodcut by Emma Stibbon. The large print of a whaling station was at the heart of the show. As she is inspired by where elemental forces of nature meet human endeavour it was paired with prints, drawings and photographs on similar subjects as well as her preparatory photographs and sketch. I was fascinating to find that the Scott Expedition to the Antarctic had been organised from 6 Burlington Gardens which is now part of the Royal Academy and Stibbon has been sponsored as an artist in residence in Antarctica by the Scott Polar Research Institute. There were photos of the expedition in a display cabinet and a lithograph by Dr Edward Wilson who was part of the team. I’m a bit of a polar nerd so I loved this touch. Closed 11 June 2023    

Insightful little exhibition at the Royal Academy of self-portraits by academicians from the last fifty years. There were just eight works but there were some lovely examples and they were well written up. My favourite was off Paula Rego which appeared sketch like with just the face and hands completed, the source of artistic vision and creation. I was interested to see one of Hew Locke’s “How Do You Want Me” series in which he was photographed in various identities as I had heard him talk about them recently. Closes 31 December 2023