Contemporary collecting : David Hockney to Cornelia Parker

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.

Closed 29 September 2024


 

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