Cathy's Art Diary

Passionate interview at Charleston Farmhouse as part of the Charleston Festival of the author and art historian, Katy Hessel. Interviewed by Jon King, Hessel, author of the now famous "The History of Art Without Men" was discussing her new book "How to Live an Artful Life" which brings together daily quotes from artists and writers on creativity to inspire. I was astonished at how well she remembered quotes. The discussion broadened out into the barriers people face going into art galleries and the role of art. I loved Hessel saying that art is the truest representation of a time. The event had been due to have another speaker, Kate Bryan, who has written "How to Art" who had to pull out at the last minute. Hessel ably filled the evening but a second voice might have broadened the discussion.

Charming interview at Charleston Farmhouse as part of the Charleston Festival with the artist, Rose Wylie Wylie was amusingly interviewed by the actor James Norton who owns a painting by her. He was very good at giving her space to speak, reserving questions for when they were needed but not taking a dogged approach to ask them all. Wylie was open and witty. Jennifer Higgie, art critic and editor of Frieze, was also on the panel to add a commentary but I suspect also as backup in case Wylie, who is 92 had struggled, which she did not. Wylie was guided to talk about a selection of her work which was being shown on screens which led her to muse on the titles of her works such as one called "Jumbo Meat Cleaver" because it was in the shape of a meat cleaver, the role of text in her work and the role of fame in her work. There were some brilliant quotes from her, "The older you get the more memories you have. The more you have to work with", as we laughed at one o...

Moving discussion at Charleston Farmhouse as part of the Charleston Festival examining a joint project between the Imperial War Museum and Liberty to look at creativity in war and imprisonment. The catalyst had been the experience of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was on the panel, of getting Liberty material she had collected over the years, sent to her when she was imprisoned in Iran and the benefits of being able to be creative during that time. She talked about how she had shared the material with fellow inmates and other creative endeavours they had shared. James Bulgin and Rebecca Newell from the museum brought an insight into how Zaghari-Ratcliffe's experiences had chimed with their collection and they shared other moving stories of creativity in confinement with illustrations form the collection. Ester Coen, an art historian who has been working with Liberty on their 150th anniversary celebrations talked about the idea of working with Zaghari-Ratcliffe to design thre...

Thin exhibition at Charleston Farmhouse on the campaigning Gorilla Girls. The show brought together a number of their groundbreaking posters displayed multiple times as if on a street or the external walls of a gallery. The room was dominated by their iconic "Do Women Have to Be Naked…" poster which looked amazing in the space. Other posters were shown in groups. I found reading them interesting as they weren't always as strident as I had assumed and many were making sensible suggestions to art galleries about how to address issues of inequality, many of which I have seen institutions responding to. I just say thin as it concentrated on the posters as art objects, but I would have liked to see more about other work the group has done and some analysis of its effects. Closes 6 September 2026

Dense exhibition at Charleston Farmhouse looking at the history of the Hogarth Press. The press was started by Virginia and her husband Leonard in 1917 with the aim of publishing authors with radial new voices who might otherwise not get into print. They also treated books as art objects, commissioning striking book covers. I say dense about this show as the displays were mainly of books and it was very text heavy in its explanations. I am a self-confessed Bloomsbury nerd so I loved it, but I imagine if you were new to the subject it might leave you a bit cold. I was at the house for the start of the Charleston Festival so followed up my visit to the exhibition with the first two talks of the event, both on the Hogarth Press. The first brought together two current publishers with a similar ethos, Margaret Busby and Sharmiane Lovergrove in conversation with Gaby Wood, chief executive of the Booker Prize.   This was followed by a gala style performance with Anton Lesser readin...

Colourful exhibition at Charleston Farmhouse focusing on the work of Roger Fry. Fry was part of the Bloomsbury Group and frequently visited Charleston and the show included paintings of the house and barns and the people who congregated there. The show was themed by genre with sections on still life, landscape, spaces and community and finally portraits. The room of portraits was stunning and like walking into a group of friends. I loved the wall of self-portraits by Fry. He looked such an approachable person. The works were beautifully curated with a gentle narrative but leaving the works to speak for themselves. My favourite piece was this still life in muted colours with a strange perspective. Ended 12 March 2026

Fascinating discussion at Charleston Farmhouse as part of their garden festival exploring the value of vanishing rural skills and what we might recover when we live closer to the land. The event brought together hedge layer Paul Lamb and charcoal burner Ben Short interviewed by   Lulah Ellender. They read from their respective books then outlined how they had discovered their alternative professions and what it has meant to them to work on the land. They then discussed the importance of not losing rural skills and what they brought to the environment and to the people who practiced them.

Charming discussion at Charleston Farmhouse as part of their garden festival focusing on the gardens of four iconic female gardeners Annie Guilfoyle ably chaired the event and was   joined by Rebecca Lemonius, custodian of Long Barn (where Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson created their first garden); Julia Boulton, Beth Chatto’s granddaughter and CEO of Beth Chatto Plants and Garden and Claire Greenslade, former Head Gardener at Hestercombe Gardens designed by Gertrude Jekyll. Amongst the exchange of ideas they discussed what it was like to manage a historic garden and how they felt the influence of their predecessors. Lemonius said the wonderful quote of Vita “I hear her words but they are written”. Greenslade remarked on bad decisions made by Jeykll which they have to live with like planting in walls which breaks them. As ever the questions at Charleston were insightful and fun.  

Magical discussion at Charleston Farmhouse as part of the Charleston Festival looking at the life and work of William Blake. Philip Hoare, author of a new biography of Blake was interviewed by the writer Michael Bracewell and led us through the artists life and work with excellent illustrations. Most magical was readings of Blake’s letters and poems by actor Jack Farthing which added an extra layer to the event.

Interesting discussion at Charleston Farmhouse as part of the Charleston Festival looking at the life and art of Paul Gauguin. It brought together the author of a recent biography, Sue Prideaux, with Mette Gauguin, the artist’s great granddaughter chaired by Michael Prodger, associate editor of the New Statesman. Both had sought to place Gauguin as a man of his time rather than judging him by contemporary standards. They talked us through his life and I learnt that he gone to the Americas to help build the Panama Canal but it went bust before he got there!

Fascinating interview at Charleston Farmhouse as part of Charleston Festival with fashion collector and muse Daphne Guinness. Interviewed by fashion writer NJ Stevenson, Guinness discussed visiting courtier houses in Paris and her fascination with going to the see the cutters and embroiders called Les Petites Mains. She talked about her fashion collection and had examples from it on stage with her. She was wearing the most amazing platform shoes with no heels which puzzled many of the audience. For the Charleston audience it was equally exciting to realise that she is the granddaughter of a Mitford.  

Feisty discussion   at Charleston Farmhouse as part of the Charleston Festival pairing contemporary artists Maggi Hambling and Sarah Lucas. At first this seemed an unlikely pairing but it turns out they are great friends, living close to each other in Suffolk. The discussion flowed freely ably chaired by art critic, Louisa Buck. They compared their studio practice and an exhibition in Hastings which had just been announced where they are to choose work by each other they admire. Hambling revealed that she has recently lost the little finger on her right hand so is increasingly working with her left hand in her daily practice of drawing. As ever her eye rolling said so much. Review Times Guardian    

Fun interview at Charleston Farmhouse as part of the Charleston Festival with Grayson Perry around his current exhibition at the Wallace Collection. This was a lively discussion wrangled by journalist and broadcaster Miranda Sawyer who led Perry into why he did the show and how he found himself reacting to a collection whose art he found he didn't like. As ever with Perry I found myself noting down quotes and soundbites to think about later such as "narrative is the most potent form of art", "I'm becoming a militant traditionalist", of AI "It's like a pedantic 14 year old" and of his studio set up "I have Colin who does the photocopying". Review Guardian  

Interesting discussion at Charleston Farmhouse as part of the Charleston Festival examining the work of Vanessa Bell. The talk brought together Wendy Hitchmaugh, who had recently released a new biography of Bell focusing on her art as well as her life, and Kate Hessel, author of the successful "The Story of Art Without Men". The event was well chaired by Jon King, research fellow who also has a book on Bell due out in a couple of months. The all highlighted how radical Bell's art was and how she created spaces for people to gather and work together from the house whose garden we were sitting in to important art groups. They also looked at the barriers she faced to working and selling her paintings. Needless to say, if you know me, I bought the biography and got it signed.  

Fascinating discussion at Charleston Farmhouse as part of the Charleston Festival with two members of the activist group Led by Donkeys. Guardian columnist Zoe Williams interviewed James Sadri and Oliver Knowles, two of the founders of the group. Before the talk I hadn't thought I knew their work but as they spoke I realised I had come across it but more from the press than galleries etc. In fact in the introduction they admitted they didn't think of their work as art but more as political statement. However I think it is a type of art so here I am blogging it. There was an excellent rolling display of their projects from the Covid Memorial Wall, through Tweets from politicians turned into billboards and a very moving installation of children's clothes on Bournemouth beach representing children killed in Gaza. They explained their work in a humorous but inspirational way. Just let’s say I've done a lot of Googling since and have followed them online wherever I ca...

Strange exhibition at Charleston Farmhouse of work by Izumi Kato. They were a mix of paintings of amoeba like creatures and painted sculptures made from found objects. The blurb said the “work explores the space between the physical and the spiritual, the human and the otherworldly” but I’m afraid it didn’t do a lot for me. The sculpture in the garden was effective. Usually the two shows on at Charleston speak to each other in some way, often picking a contemporary artist whose work mirrors an earlier genre in some way, but in this occasion, I couldn’t see the link to Post-Impressionism. Closes 2 November 2025  

Beautiful exhibition at Charleston Farmhouse on Bloomsbury’s role in inventing Post-Impressionism. The show was mainly based on examples of pictures from after Impressionism from the Barber Institute of Fine Art including a late Renoir used to discuss the change in style and the variety of this work. It then also looked at Roger Fry’s role in organising the 1910 exhibition of the work and how he and a journalist coined the phrase. I loved the inclusion of a set of cartoons by Henry Tonks mocking the endeavour. The culmination of the show was “The Cezanne in the Hedge” the painting, infamous in Bloomsbury lore, which Maynard Keynes brought back from a buying trip to France after the First World War and left in a hedge at Charleston as he had too much luggage to carry up the path. It was lovely to see it return. I wonder if it remembers?! Closes 2 November 2026 Review Telegraph  

Delightful and colourful exhibition at Charleston Farmhouse looking at the lives and art of Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines. The show looks at Morris and Lett-Haines's time founding and running the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing and examines their radical approach to creating and teaching art. The first room sets the scene explaining how, once the school was established, Lett-Haines spent less time painting to run the school and teach. Morris continued to paint as well as being a leading horticulturalist. Comparisons are made with their contemporaries in the Bloomsbury group based at the venue. The second room looks at their time before Suffolk in Paris and traveling in Europe. I think these were my favourite works in the show particularly two landscapes. The next room concentrated on Lett-Haines work mainly surreal paintings and small sculpture made from found materials. The show ended by looking at their protest work from environmental to political is...

Excellent discussion at Charleston Farmhouse as part of the Charleston Festival on the craft of pottery. The event brought together YouTube potter Florian Gadsby and Rose Schmits of ‘The Great Pottery Throwdown’ to be led in discussion by Nancy Durrant. They talked about how they both got into the craft and whether they considered it a craft or art. They talked about the technicalities of the work from the role of the ‘kiln gods’ to potters’ ankle as well as the role of social media in selling their work as Schmidts said “more people will see the image than the finished work”.

Fun discussion at Charleston Farmhouse as part of the Charleston Festival about the process of putting together stories of queer love from the ancient world for an illustrated book. Poet Seán Hewitt and artist Luke Edward Hall were guided by the chair Nikita Gill though describing the collaborative process, from which stories were chosen to how the book was put together. I include the event in this blog to recognise the charming illustrations by Luke Edward Hall and I will be looking out to see more of his work.