Cathy's Art Diary

Ethereal exhibition at the Pontone Gallery of new work by Chris Rivers. These striking pieces examine the 12 signs of the Zodiac and the 4 elements representing them as imagined images of space. The Zodiac works all include a gold circle and stars added as blobs of metal giving them a textural quality. The paint is then expressively applied giving a sense of atmosphere. I notice a few had sold but it’s a shame they hadn’t been bought as a set as they work so well together. Closed 21 September 2024

Exquisite small exhibition at the British Museum putting their new acquisition of a drawing by Rembrandt of a sleeping child in context. The show looked at pictures of children in Dutch and Flemish 6th and 17th centuries works in the context of art and social history. They ran chronologically placing Rembrandt in the centre of the timeline. I loved the early drawings by Henrick Goltzius as well as his engraving of Frederick de Vries who was his apprentice while the boys artist father was in Venice. It was done to send to his father to Sue him there but was well! There was a good selection of Rembrandt drawings from the collection featuring children and the commentary talked about how he often saved drawings of everyday life to reuse the images in religious works. The focal drawing, shown here, was so delicate. Finally the show looked at followers of Rembrandt and a new find for me were some beautiful, coloured interiors by Adriaen Van Ostade. Closed 6 October 2024   ...

Fascinating exhibition at the British Museum of new contemporary acquisitions celebrating a grant from the Rootstein Hopkins Foundation which has enabled them to buy over 300 works. The show had some beautiful pieces but also acted as an overview of art since the 1960s. I was impressed at how many of the artists I knew but I was also introduced to some great new finds. The show was gently themed bringing together works influenced by art history, pictures of people, still-lives, landscape and abstract work. Needless to say it was the art history section which I loved most. As ever in the print room galleries the labels were comprehensive but simply written. Highlights included the first in the show by Cornelia Parker of wine glasses, Jake Garfield’s take on Zoffany’s Tribuna of the Uffizi and Charlotte Verity’s watercolour monotypes based on plants in her garden in lockdown. My favourite was this exquisite Japanese ink work by Joy Gerard based on a photograph of a demonstration...

Amazing exhibition at the National Gallery looking at Van Gogh’s two years in Provence. It was so good I almost don’t know what to write about it! The individual works blew me away so it was hard to follow the narrative. I’d done an online talk on the show earlier on the week so thankfully I didn’t have to! It was arranged in gentle themes emphasising how Van Gogh used the same subject to express different moods and how he repeated images but never copied them. The core of the show focused on the Yellow House and how Van Gogh saw it as a way to display his art. It was magical to have a room of pictures that had been shown there and don’t get me started on the fact they had two Sunflower paintings hung with “The Lullaby” as a triptych suggested in a letter to his brother. It was a great idea to have minimal labels and a booklet with more information to carry round. Make sure you pick it up on the way in. It’s also fascinating to read where the pictures come from. You’ll never s...

Clever and beautiful small exhibition at the National Gallery looking at how David Hockney has been inspired by Piero Della Francesca. It brought together Francesca’s “Baptism of Christ” with two paintings by Hockney from 1977 in which it features, “Looking at Pictures on a Screen” and “My Parents” and hung them like a triptych. It did make you look more closely at all three. They were shown with archive material from the gallery around Hockney’s 1981 exhibition there in which “Looking at Pictures on a Screen” featured and including a letter from him to the gallery requesting private access to Van Gogh’s “ Sunflowers” and permission to photograph art works. I loved the reply from the then director denying the later due to how disruptive it might be. Oh dear I’d just taken at least one picture of each of the works in the show! This also made me think that the title of that “Looking at Pictures on a Screen” means something quite different now! Closed 27 October 2024 Reviews Ti...

Charming exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum showcasing the ceramics collection of Henry Willett. Usually to be seen at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery the collection aims to tell a popular history of the British Isles through the pottery found “on the mantlepieces of many cottage homes”. I have seen the collection in Brighton, donated in 1903,   but not really looked at it in any detail. Here it was shown with pieces Willett had given to the Victoria and Albert Museum and shown under the 23 categories he had defined. I do love ceramics and was intrigued to see such a wonderful cross section of popular subjects from crime, through celebrity to religion. Highlights included this portrait of Princess Charlotte, a jug commemorating the guillotine and of course a Sussex connection in a jug advertising a builder in Lewes. Closed 25 September 2024  

Excellent exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum highlighting Sir Elton John and David Furnish’s photographic collection. I’d seen highlights of the collection before at Tate Modern but it was good to see a more comprehensive show. It was gently themed starting with fashion, moving through celebrity, the male form, documentary photography and ending with abstract pieces. It did feel like the more popular work came first but that might just be my taste. The pictures and rooms were well described and I found lots of stories to follow up. The emphasis was very much on the works not the collectors. I was quite pleased with how many photographers I recognised from other shows. I think my favourite picture was this one by Hiro (Yasuhiro Wakabayashi) of Shinjuku Station in Tokyo and I was surprised to find it had been taken in 1963 as it felt very contemporary. Closes 5 January 2025 Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph Evening Standard    

Interesting online lecture from ARTscapades introducing an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum on the 1924 Paris Olympics. The co-curator Caroline Vout from the University of Leiden led us through the main themes of the show and some of the highlight exhibits. She showed us how the show started by setting the scene of what Paris was like 100 years ago and how it hosted the games. She then looked at some of the personalities o the games including the runners made famous by Chariots of Fire some of whom were students at the University of Cambridge giving local interest. Next she talked about how the games reflected modernity but also drew on classical themes particular around the presentation of ideal bodies in a period after the destruction of the First World War. I had wanted to see the show but ran out of time so this talk was the next best thing and gave a good sense of what it was about.

Fascinating online lecture from the National Gallery introducing their exhibition on Van Gogh. Christopher Riopelle and Cornelia Homburg led us around the show explaining the themes including lovers, gardens and architype portraits, and the choices they had made when hanging it. They emphasised how they wanted to put the art rather than Van Gogh’s life at the centre of the narrative. They talked at length about the Yellow House and how he decorated it and how it became a place to show art in a new way. The best fact I learned was that Arles is full of Roman artefacts and yet Van Gogh doesn’t paint them. There was an excellent Q&A session at the end with some intelligent questions and illuminating answers. I have since been to the amazing show and he talk had been very useful in setting the scene and in pointing out the works on loan which are rarely on show.

Charming and informative exhibition at the King’s Gallery looking at royal portrait photographs since the 1920s. The show worked on many layers. It was a history of the royal family over the period, a look at the development of the technology and style of photography and a discussion of how photographs can be used to promote an image. It was nicely displayed with good, clearly written labels. I could have done with a family tree particularly for the late Queen’s cousins which might have helped with the multiple names used for one person eg Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon = The Queen ( till 1952) = The Queen Mother. The show cleverly used the name which was used at the time the picture was taken. Review Telegraph

Interesting online lecture from the National Gallery looking at the life and work of Henri Rousseau. I have never quite understood Rousseau whose works seem to stand out in a world of their own against contemporary works be they by the Impressionists or the Realists. Lucrecia Walker led us through a selection of his work spending some time with the gallery’s own “Tiger in Tropical Storm” from 1891. She pointed out how difficult his work is to analyse as it is so out of its time and that he often wrote about his own work in a confusing way calling himself a Realist. Much of the work shows exotic, imagined scenes even though he never left France. She also looked at the people who championed him particularly Picasso and we looked in some detail at the banquet he hosted for Rousseau which was attended by most of the avant garde of the time. There seems to have been a fine line between admiring him and mocking him. I’m not sure I understand him any better but at least I now realise...

Charming exhibition at Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft in the life and work of the illustrator Raymond Briggs. The show was beautifully described with lots of quotes from Briggs and included a rich selection of original artwork. It was accompanied by a lovely video of an interview with him. The show also looked at his technique and compared different approaches. From the opening case of memorabilia inspired by his books I was hooked. I loved seeing the portraits of his parents painted on cupboard doors from his house. I hadn’t realised how groundbreaking his books were with “Father Christmas” being one of the first British picture books to use the comic strip format. Closed 27 October 2024 Reviews Times Telegraph

Fun selling exhibition at the Photographers’ Gallery marking the summer with photographs of the British seaside. I knew a few of the photographers represented from an exhibition with a similar theme at the National Maritime Museum a few years so there was some of Martin Parr’s observational pictures and one of Simon Robert’s pictures of piers. New to me were Anna Fox’s vividly coloured images of Butlins at Bogna Regis but my favourites were Luke Stephenson’s series “99 x 99s” recording how ice cream makers across the country make the 99 ice cream unique. Closed 8 September 2024

Enigmatic exhibition at the Photographers’ Gallery showcasing work by Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide. Most of Iturbide’s career has been spent documenting indigenous populations in Mexico, offering a glimpse into their rituals, traditions and struggles. This sounds quite dry on paper but the images were quirky with an eye for the strange but beautiful. My favourite picture is this one which took me a while to work out. It is a man carrying two mirrors which create images within images. I think it’s one of the best photographs I’ve ever seen. Her later work has moved away from photographing people to look at abstracted images of cacti and other plants in a series called Naturata. Closed 22 September 2024 Review Guardian    

Pointless exhibition at the Photographers’ Gallery of books relating to the subject of love. This was a display of photobooks, novels and fiction publications which were intended to encourage an understanding of love that is open to interpretation. They were just laid out around the room with no guide into them or themes. The large info board said it was co-curated by Develop Collective a three-year programme (2023-2026) that mentors and commissions emerging creatives aged 18-24 through a series of talks and workshops connected to a photography-based outcome each year. I’d be interested to see what they work on next as this is early in the process but it needs to have more substance. Closed 22 September 2024  

Moving exhibition at the Photographers’ Gallery marking the 1967 book “House of Bondage” by Ernest Cole. Cole published the book in exile in America and it is seen as one of the most important photo books   to record life in Apartheid South Africa and revealing its brutality and injustice to the world. The pictures were shown in the same chapter themes as the book and all the commentaries were in Cole’s own words which added an immediacy to them. The images were clear and effective and told the stories of the people shown simply.    The sheer inhumanity of the stories being told still beggar belief. I kept wondering what had happened to individuals. The most bizarre pictures were of rush hour trains which highlighted the illogical absurdity of making the black populations live a long distance from the cities while providing the Labour needed in them without reasonable train provision. Closed 22 September 2024 Review Telegraph    

Interesting exhibition at Woolwich Works of pieces by Caroline Hinds. The work by Hinds who has been an artist in residence at the venue was shown throughout the venue and added colour and life to the venue. There was a variety of paintings, textiles and sculptures using reclaimed materials. I liked the sculptures shown in the courtyard as the backdrop to their outdoor summer stage. Closed 21 September 2024

Fun and informative exhibition at Young V&A looking at Japanese myths and how they influence modern life and design in the country. I was disappointed at first that the display was aimed at children however it struck a good balance between telling the stories clearly but not being condescending. As it wasn’t a subject I knew about at all I appreciated it. It divided the themed the stories around where they were based from the sky, through the sea to the city. It used a good selection of prints and objects to illustrate the tales. I found the most interesting sections were the ones which looked at modern life and the origins of the stories today particularly in toys and cartoons. Closed 8 September 2024 Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph    

My first visit to the refurbished Young V&A previously the Museum of Childhood. Apologies that it’s taken me a while to get to see this refurbishment which has been open about a year and has since won the Art Fund Museum of the Year award. I had been before the changes and it was looking more spruce and cared for. A fun spiral staircase with a mirror feature has been added with the café nestled underneath it. There were much improved toilets and an additional lift. However the galleries were somewhat hidden and despite fun, big signage it was unclear what they offered from the main space, almost like it didn’t matter. It has given the curators a chance to rethink the displays and they are now aimed at children not just about them. It certainly seemed to be working when I was there in the summer holidays as it was buzzing with children enjoying the space. Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph Evening Standard    

Excellent exhibition at the Royal Academy for their annual show. I thought this year was a good one with a lot of figurative work, less photography and more work that you felt skill had gone into even if you didn’t like it. The rooms were curated well especially two by Anne Desmet, the print maker, which featured a lot of the small work hung in vague themes. I have to admit that the next to last room of sculpture gave me visual indigestion! Highlights included two lovely paintings of water bottles, one by Gavinn Turk and the other by Rachel Robb. I loved Harriet Mena Hill’s pictures of the old Aylesbury Estate on pieces of the demolished buildings.   My favourite work was this print of a dog’s nose by Caroline Jones which sadly had sold out or I would have bought one. An interesting feature this year were some small installations my favourites of which was a string quartet set against a carpet with music on and music playing by Ron Arad. Closed 18 August 2024 Reviews ...

Strange video installation at the Hayward Gallery by Naomi Rincon Gallardo. I’m afraid this might have suffered from being one show too many in a day and from its sister show of work by Tavares Strachan being so good. The video followed children dressed as animals as they chased deities across Mexico, I think. The commentary says it reflects the artists belief that planetary collapse is imminent. It was shown with some of the masks that the children were wearing. I’m afraid I just wasn’t in the mood to engage with this colourful but confusing piece however I did notice a little girl who had settled on a bean bag and seemed enthralled or possible stunned! Closed 1 September 2024      

Fabulous exhibition at the Hayward Gallery of work by Tavares Strachan over the last two decades. Strachan’s work poses questions about who is seen and unseen and tries to rediscover forgotten black figures in history. He does this in a beautiful and layered way producing exquisite objects as well as making you look at history in a different way. I loved his ceramic pieces combining transitional shaped pots with the faces of historical figures in some instances combining two by splitting the older head to show a more contemporary one underneath such as this one of the Roman emperor Septimus Severus and Steve Biko. There were some interesting pieces around Matthew Henson who was possibly the first man to reach the North Pole and Robert Henry Lawrence Jnr, a black trainee astronaut who died while training. In both cases Strachan replicated their experiences visiting the North Pole and undertaking cosmonaut training. My favourite pieces were the giant heads particularly this one ...

Fascinating exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery looking at the air raid shelter drawings of Henry Moore and how they influenced his later work. I love this sort of small exhibition which not only shows beautiful work but also weaves an interesting argument around them. There was a lovely selection of shelter drawings. I hadn’t realised before that he just sketched and made notes in the shelters out of respect for the people. He worked them up into finished drawings later. I also hadn’t realised that his studio was bombed leaving him unable to make large sculptures during the war so he turned to drawing. The show concluded by looking at two post-war sculptural pieces which were visually influenced by the drawings and included a marquette for the relief wall of the Bouwcentrum in Rotterdam which I hadn’t come across before. Closed 22 September 2024 Review Evening Standard    

Lovely exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery of photographs by Roger Mayne. The show focused on pictures of young people starting with Mayne’s street photography in Southam Street and Kensal Rise in the 1950s where he recording children playing in the streets and on bomb sites. There was an interesting commentary explaining they were playing outside partly due to overcrowded housing. The show then went on to look at pictures he took on his honeymoon in Spain and of the 1950s phenomenon of teenagers including his commission for the cover of the first edition of the book “Absolute Beginners”. The show finished with his touching later work which focused on his family recording the development of his own children taken for a series of albums for them. They included some amazing photos of his wife giving birth. Closed 1 September 2024 Reviews Times Guardian  

Well-constructed online lecture from the National Churches Trust looking at the 15th and 16th century phenomena of cadaver tombs in England. I have always been fascinated by these tombs since seeing that of Alice de la Pole in Ewelme as a child. Morgan Ellis Leah from the Trust’s engagement team described a selection of them and developed the argument that in England these were not corpses and a memento mori but instead represented the starvation of the soul and show emaciated bodies. She looked at the turbulent history of the period due to wars, poor crops an economic crisis post Black Death. She pointed out that one effect of the plague was a shortage of chaplains which led to people relying on themselves for spiritual support and turning back to old ideas. She also talked about the tradition of eating at burial sites dating back to the Romans and idea of Sin Eating as well as the inclusion of dishes and food in Saxon burials.

Disappointing exhibition at the Design Museum looking at 60 years of Habitat. I would have loved a lot more of this but it had a feel of being an advertising installation and was style over substance. This anniversary deserved more detail. I did like a fun display of iconic items like a chicken brick shown with modern versions designed to mark the event. There was also a sweet swing outside based on a classic chair design. Closed 11 August 2024

Dry and over intellectualised exhibition at the Design Museum on the designer Enzo Mari. I thought the show failed to give an overview of Mari’s career and ideas but instead delved straight into the detail of his process with dense labels. The show made a point that it had been curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist with Francesca Giacomelli but I couldn’t find any information on either of them and why this was significant. There were some beautiful objects many of which I recognised as taste influencers in the 1970s and 80s but I wasn’t sure how they fitted together and some sections like a display of scythe had me very confused. Close 8 September 2024 Reviews Guardian Telegraph

Fun exhibition at the Design Museum looking at the phenomena which is Barbie. The show is everything you would want looking at the doll as a fashion icon, leader of sociological change and an innovator of manufacturing techniques. Women of different ages were going starry eyed at different eras and I was definitely in the late 1970s pack. There was a brilliant section looking in detail at the different models of doll and how the design adapted over the years which showed dolls in bright boxes. There was also a section on the Dreamhouse and other accessories. I would have liked more on the clothes you could buy as that was my favourite aspect of the doll. I was fascinated by how it was designed to promote imaginative play and that’s certainly how I used mine. Closes 23 February 2025 Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph Evening Standard    

Fascinating online discussion from the British Museum looking in detail at Michelangelo’s Epifania cartoon. Sarah Vowels and Grant Lewis, curators of the excellent exhibition “Michelangelo: The Last Decades” at the museum, introduced us to the cartoon dated from around 1550-3 and its possible iconography. They also talked about the painting based on it by Condivi which was also in the show. Art historian Daniel Godfrey then took us through the history of the cartoon after Michelangelo’s death and how it got to be in the museum’s collection. Finally conservator, Emma Turner led us through the six year conservation project with some great pictures of all the processes and explained what had been discovered during the project. All the talks added to a more rounded view of the picture and its history.

Fascinating discussion at the National Portrait Gallery with some of the judges of this years Herbert Smith Freehills Portrait Award. The panel included the actor Russell Tovey who described himself as an art geek, Tom Shakespeare disability researcher and sociologist and the founder of the award Tanya Bentley. Bentley guided the discussion as the chair. They talked about the process of choosing the shortlist picking works from digital submissions and viewing a selected 250 in person in a warehouse to be judged anonymously. They discussed how they had to pick quickly and trust their gut instincts. They talked with enthusiasm about a selection of work which they had picked including the prize winners. I learnt a lot about the show, which I had loved, such as the fact that the work had to be on canvas or panel not paper and that this work wasn’t just from the previous year but from 2020 as was the first year the show had returned to the gallery following its refurbishment.