Cathy's Art Diary

Delightful exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery looking at the relationship between industrialisation, art and social reform from 1880 to 1940. The exhibition focused on the Manchester Art Museum, Leeds Art Club and the Mass Observation project and had many works from public collections in the North West.   All three were fascinating but I think they brought the Manchester Art Museum to life best. The idea was to open a gallery in a working class area to educate and provide leisure. Realising a static displays wouldn’t bring people on repeat visits they also organised a series of talks and lectures. As well as telling these stories there were also some lovely works. I liked the design for a union banner by Walter Crane, a stunning pencil portrait by Emily Ford and a sweet, slightly Greek Eric Gill of two skaters. The final section picked up the idea that local museums often had a section on their local industry so they included a section on cotton. It looked not ...

Fascinating exhibition at the Photographers Gallery looking at the role of photography in the Mass Observation Archive. Mass Observation was set up in 1937 as an experiment in social science, art and documentary. It aimed to collect anecdotal evidence from people’s everyday lives and experiences. The exhibition looked at the main photographic studies within this such as the study of working class life in Bolton and Blackpool and the two books which came out of MO on an Exmoor village and British circus life. In the upstairs gallery the focus moved to more recent projects such as the “One Day for Life” project held on 14 August 1984, to raise money for cancer research which asked people to take an submit one photograph on that day. There is also an ongoing project which issues directives for people to write about or picture a topic. Review Telegraph