Cathy's Art Diary

Charming exhibition at Charleston in Lewes of newly commissioned work by San Francisco artist Koak. This was a mix of paintings, sculpture and installations which cleverly mirrored the themes in the Vanessa Bell show downstairs. I could see echoes of Bloomsbury art in it. I think my favourite was the large sleeping woman which looked so bold in the space but I also liked the take on a pond.    Closes 21 September 2025

Lovely exhibition at Charleston in Lewes focusing on Vanessa Bell. As you know I’m a big Bloomsbury fan so I was so excited to see this show, which I’d not managed to get to when it was is Milton Keynes, and it didn’t disappoint. I loved that a lot of space was given to Bell’s earlier, groundbreaking work and that a big section looked at her design work. Most of the show was arranged by place, reflecting the importance of place to Bell, plus giving it a rough chronological structure. I liked the mixing of portraits and landscapes as places as are as much about the people in them as the space itself. I found lots of old friends but there was also a great selection of works from private collections and regional galleries. Closes 21 September 2025  

Interesting exhibition at Charleston in Lewes of works by Grayson Perry relating to the idea of home. The show included tapestries, pots, prints and videos. My favourite were the two tapestries made for Julie's House, a real home designed by Perry in 2015 and telling the story of the fictional Julie Cope. I also loved the intricate prints of maps of imagined places such as “Our Town” from 2022 of a small cosy town and a mapped guide to a society that spends much of its time online. Closes 2 March 2025  

Wonderful exhibition at Charleston in Lewes of Modernist paintings from the Radev Collection. The collection was started by the music critic Eddy Sackville-West before being passed to the artist and art dealer Eardley Knollys and finally to Mattei Radev after whom it is now named. Each collector added to it reflecting their personal tastes. It is now owned by Radev’s civil partner Norman Coates. The show was arranged roughly chronologically and contained some stunning works including a number by Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell with whom Sackville-West was friends. I discovered lots of artists who were new to me too and have lots of names to Google. The show also looked at Radev’s journey as an immigrant from persecution in Bulgaria to becoming a picture framer and finding a new family in queer artistic circles. Closes 2 March 2025 Review Guardian  

Interesting exhibition at Charleston in Lewes looking at collaboration in art from the Bloomsbury Group to contemporary artists. There was an interesting blend of work with good explanations of it. From the Bloomsbury Group they talked about Vanessa Bell creating dust jackets for her sister, Virginia Woolf’s novels and the unattributed production of the Omega workshop. Contemporary work included work by a number of artists I didn’t know, such as Boyd and Evans’s interesting paintings, Irina Melsom and Hans Askheim’s exquisite portraits and the locally based Rottingdean Bazaar. I loved the statements on the art world by The White Pube including a piece that has reproduced for you to take away. I always love a show where you come away with a piece of free art. Closed 8 September 2024

Fascinating exhibition at Charleston in Lewes looking at the collaborative art of Dorothy Hepworth and Patricia Preece. I have known this story for a while plus I own some drawings by them. Hepworth and Preece were a couple and artists in the early 20th century. Hepworth was the better artist but Preece was the more outgoing character so the former produced work under the latter’s name and Preece promoted it. They fooled a number of art establishment figures including the Bloomsbury Group who helped to promote the work. Preece is also known for being a muse and later wife of the artist Stanley Spencer although she continued to live with Hepworth. The show was beautifully narrated and wove together paintings and archive material well. Most intriguing was that Preece photographed Hepworth with all her finished works obviously intending the story to be known at some point. I loved the still-lives in the show often documenting their house in Cookham but was less impressed by the p...

Interesting exhibition at Charleston in Lewes of work from throughout the career of the contemporary artist   Jonathan Baldock career. These were large sculptural works often using textile in bright colours. They were shown like an installation in a big, light gallery on the top floor. I do need to go back and see this as, on party night, it was difficult to see the vistas across the work plus it was a hot night and the hard surfaces of the gallery made it very noisy. But as a first impression I liked the work and would like to engage with it more. Closes 7 January 2024  

Fantastic  exhibition at Charleston in Lewes on fashion and the Bloomsbury Group. It went through the main characters looking at the clothes they wore and what those clothes said about them. I loved that it gave equal weight to the men and women as often men get left out of shows about clothes. They made good use of portraits, many of which I’d not see before, as well as their writings. The title is a quote from a letter by Vanessa to a guest meaning they wouldn’t be dressing for dinner. A particularly brilliant loan was some of the wardrobe of Ottolline Morrell from Fashion Museum in Bath. Alongside the history the show also looked at how the group were influencing modern designers with wonderful displays of their work. As I was there on opening night, a number of the designers were in the show standing with their work. I can’t wait to go back on a quieter day and take in more of the detail. Just one moan though,   please can we have bigger typeface on the labels p...

Fabulous new venue in Lewes for the Charleston Trust. I was lucky enough to be invited to the opening party for the venue and it was fascinating to hear how the building had been turned round from old council offices to a great arts space in just 12 weeks. The council still own the building but it includes gallery space curated by Charleston, an outpost of their shop and a café from their wonderful caterers Caccia and Tails. There are ambitious plans to use the space for educational events. There is also going to be a mini bus running between this space, branded Charleston in Lewes, to the house (Charleston in Firle) and the Towner Gallery in Eastbourne. A great new project and I wish it well. It will be good to go and visit at a quieter time to get a clearer view of how it will work. Party night was more about getting your glass of fizz and meeting people.