Cathy's Art Diary

Fun installation in the atrium of Fortnum and Mason’s by Liz West as part of the London Design Festival. I was away for the week of the festival so it was nice to see even just one of the many installations and exhibitions around town. This was a lovely chandelier like structure made of a frame of cubes clad in dichroic film in two colourways which gives a multi-coloured range of colours as you moved round it and the light changed. It also mirrored the surroundings giving another dimension. It made you look at this familiar space in a different way. Closed 22 September 2019

Beautiful exhibition at Fortnum and Mason’s of work by Chinese artists Zhang Enli. I always look forward to this annual show of work by contemporary artists shown around the shop and it is interesting to see what works and what doesn’t. Enli’s pictures work particularly well this year possibly because 19 of the 22 works shown were produced for this display. The works were abstract but were largely based on his travels in London and Scotland. A number of the works resembled the contours of a map and were painted on top of collaged newspapers from Shanghai. I wondered if this gave the idea of away yet at home to him. They’d have had a different feel if they had been on papers local to where he was travelling. My favourite were the ones which looked like islands. Closes 18 October 2019

Lovely exhibition at Fortnum and Masons of work by John Virtue. I am fond of Virtue’s work which tend to be large black and white abstracted seascapes which make great use of thick white paint. Some of the pictures left areas of beige canvas uncovered which gave a sense of sand. There were also some landscapes painted as small pictures of the same scene stuck together on board to give a repeat pattern. I’d not seen work like this before by Virtue and the excellent booklet on the show points out that these pictures had remained unseen for 30 years. The Frank X Fortnum show has become an annual event featuring different artists and collectors and it is fun to walk round the shop with the plan to find all the pictures. These works blended beautifully in to the décor which surprised me. I suspect a lot of shoppers thought they were a permanent feature. Closed 20 October 2018 Review Telegraph

Colourful exhibition at Fortnum & Mason of work by John Bellany. This is the second exhibition at the shop and this year they chose to look at an individual artist. This is the first exhibition of Bellany’s work in London since his death in 2013. It’s a great idea to show the work in the shop as it give its an almost domestic setting and it’s fun wandering round with the plan trying to find a all the works. Plus I’m not adverse to a nice ice cream sundae at the end as a reward! The works were big and bright and were engaging pictures of people both his friends and figures from his youth in Scotland. There was a sense of joy and freedom about them. “The Scottish Fish Gutter”, an early work from 1965, was a monumental picture with the fish and their innards forming a colourful almost abstract pattern around the central figure. I loved his homage to Titian in a “Danae Shower of Gold” with himself as the main servant. There were also a few landscapes and I think ...

Wonderful exhibition at Fortnum & Mason of art from the collection of Frank Cohen, described in the excellent brochure as “one of the most important private collections of Modern British art in the world”. This was a great opportunity to see some rarely shown works and to see them in such an innovative setting. Most works were on the main staircase but others sat on the shop floor. Trying to see them all took me to areas of the shop I’d not seen before. There were some amazing works. As any regular readers may have realised I love British art from the early 20th century and there were some great examples I didn’t know such as three pictures by William Roberts “Discussion in a Café”, “The Boxing Match” and “Snooker”. All of these were studies of people at leisure in groups and I loved the way the figures fitted together in a flat pattern. There were some great late 20th century work as well. I loved a Maggi Hambling in the 5th floor foyer of a bar with a mirrored c...