Cathy's Art Diary

Delightful exhibition at Pallant House Gallery on the life and work of Glyn Philpot. I’ve loved Philpot’s work for a while but never seen it presented in such a comprehensive way. I was fascinated by the way he moved from being a society portrait painter to becoming Modernist artist. From the start to the end you felt you were in two different worlds and yet you could see the connection. There was a wonderful sense of friendship with him working with and for various people throughout his career such as Sir Philip Sassoon and Oliver Messel and you can’t help but be moved by his relationship with his model Henry Thomas. I love shows like this which introduce you to lots of new and interesting people, most of them rather beautiful young men. Philpot was not just a painter so it was good to see some of his sculpture included as well as reference to his decorative work and costume designs.   A sign of a good show is sometimes that you are left wanting more and this was the case...

Lovely exhibition at Brighton Museum looking at the life an work by Glyn Philpot.   I know Philpott’s work well and am fond of it but had not realised that his family had donated a lot of his work to this museum. It was lovely to see so much of it together and to learn a bit more about his life. He started as a good society portrait painter and there was a delightful picture of his niece, who donated the work, as a child. It told the stories of his main relationships including with Henry Thomas, his black chauffeur who modelled for him an a number of occasions and there were some lovely examples of these paintings and sculptures shown with pictures painted of jazz musicians in New York. It also told the sad story of Vulcan Forbes, who Philpot met in the First World War and shared a house and studio with from 1923-1935 and who killed himself the day after Philpott’s funeral.   I’d not come across the lovey works commissioned by Syrie Maughan, the interior designe...