Cathy's Art Diary

Disappointing exhibition at Senate House looking at magic from the 16th to the 20th century. I say disappointing because the description of the show was much more exciting than the way it was delivered. The objects, given it was the library which had organised it, were very book and paper based. The items were displayed in rather dull display cases made slightly more exciting with red draped curtains at the top. The books were shown brief descriptions but with much more information in a handout. It was often hard to match the object to the leaflet as items weren’t numbers. The large section descriptions were not always next to the cabinet they referred to. There were remarkable things including the earliest book on sleight of hand magic, a book on “Tricks for the Trenches and Wards” from the First World War, a handbill for Houdini and catalogues of magic tricks. The most interesting section was on Harry Price, who had collected these items and investigated alleged psych...

Stunning exhibition at the British Library looking at the Harry Potters books and the magical history that they reflect. The show was arranged by the subjects taught at Hogwarts and included original manuscripts by J.K. Rowling, illustrations from the books and books and objects which looked at the same areas of magic. The design was beautiful with each section reflecting the description of the class rooms in the books. From the first section on potions with hanging cauldrons as well as an early caldron pulled out of the Thames I was hooked. I confess to being a huge fan of the books and have recently reread them all so they are fresh in my mind. It was magical, if you’ll pardon the pun, to see sections of the original manuscripts and ideas to see how they had changed. However it was hard to read them carefully as the show was so busy. The star of the show were the illustrations for the new coffee table editions of the books by Jim Kay. Again I have to make a confessi...