Cathy's Art Diary

Interesting small exhibition at the Museum of London of photographs by Dick Scott-Stewart from the late 70s and early 80s looking at the London social scene. Scott-Stewart was interested in people whose activities were outside the mainstream. People with an idea of performance and a sense of belonging. There was a wonderful quote from him that “photography is just an excuse to meet interesting people”. There were super pictures of punks on the King’s Road, the closing night of the Blitz Club in 1981 with a wonderful collection of New Romantics and the audience at wrestling matches. My favourites were the pictures of women in various male dominated packs such as Rockabillies, Teddy Boys and skinheads. I liked the fact the show also included ephemera such as Scott-Stewart’s work diary from 1981. Closed on 20 September 2016  

Fantastic exhibition at the Museum of London marking the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire of London. This show conjured up the atmosphere in London before, during and after the fire brilliantly. It was perfectly pitched to be engaging and entertaining but also informative. It was helped by the amazing objects they had to use. I loved the way in which a recreation of Pudding Lane with ghostly silhouettes at the windows but also including real objects from the time including a portable bread oven. In one section on the fire they talked about what people tried to save. Although they couldn’t guarantee all the objects shown had been in the fire they all dated from before the event and represented objects which Pepys had recording seeing people saving. There were also the remains from a shop two doors down from the bakery where it started which showed the fire damage. The section of the aftermath was fascinating too. I had not realised that the ruined buildings smoulder...

Strange little exhibition at the Museum of London of photographs by Rut Blees commenting on the development of London and the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis. It looked at the pressure to maximise space before the crisis and the lift shafts left unfished afterwards like “economic tombstones”. It did this through photographing construction hoardings contrasting the wonderful computer generated versions of what the building will be with the reality of a building site. These were really interesting pictures but there just weren’t enough of them to tell the story well. I think there were about six large pictures which were nice but not enough to help you see the theme and draw conclusions for yourself. Closes on 10 January 2016.

Ghoulish but fascinating exhibition at the Museum of London featuring items from the Metropolitan Police’s Crime Museum sometimes called the Black Museum. The first section on the 19th century was set up like the original museum with a wonderful hotchpotch of exhibits from death masks of criminals hung at Newgate, through court room sketches and the old visitors’ book of the museum. I found the room of execution ropes rather difficult as I am against capital punishment and I found the fact that there was a record of who these ropes had killed quite eerie. The main section was arranged with the stories of 24 cases from 1905 to 1975 along one side of the display and cases on types of crime and detective methods down the other side. The cases side was fascinating but a bit cramped. It told the story of the crime and they had a small display case of objects from it. Again it was eerie looking at murder weapons. I was particularly taken by the case local to where I live of Nell...

Small exhibition at the Museum of London of photographs by Kasia Wozniak to compliment the Sherlock Holmes show. I found the premise for this display a bit contrived. The idea was to use outfits reimagined from the Holmes stories using 21st century menswear designed in London. The outfits were then photographed using the Holmes generation technique of wet plate collodian images which just produces one print of the image. Added to this was the idea of whether we can read people by their clothes. The idea was an interesting one but I thought there were just not enough images to make it work and I would not have seen a Holmes link unless I’d been told. To me the images just looked styled not like real people, more of a fashion shoot.

Delightful display at the Museum of London looking at Paddington Bear in the light of the recent film. There were a number of items lent by the author Michael Bond including the typewriter on which he write some of the stories and letters which children had sent to Paddington at 32 Windsor Garden which had been forwarded to him. Oddly enough there were lots of parallels with the Sherlock Holmes exhibition as both are enduring characters plus both seem to have a new incarnation for each generation. My version was the 1970s cartoon and it was great to see one of the original bears from that as well as some of the flat background characters. I watched a little girl looking at the costume for the new Paddington and I guess that will be her version. Incidentally I do realise the new version is a cartoon but the animators made a costume so they could animated the texture and movement of his clothes and, yes I loved the film! Most fascinating was to see that in the original ...

Interesting installation at the Museum of London to accompany their Sherlock Holmes exhibition. This consisted of six telephone box shaped boxes each with a representation of the famous Baker Street door with clues in their design to the names of Sherlock Holmes stories. These were rather lovely objects and fun to get in a look around, although I will admit I wasn’t too sure when I got surrounded by school children at one point! I hadn’t the patience to do the quiz but a very nice attendant did come up and show me how to do it and offer a pen and paper to help. A nice welcoming touch!

Entrancing exhibition at the Museum of London looking at the fictional character of Sherlock Holmes, how he came about, the world he lived in and how he has been represented. From the entrance through a bookcase I was completely engaged with this exhibition. It starts by looking at the origins of the character and how Conan Doyle came to write the books and stories as well as how they were received and became popular. There was an interesting section on how the illustrations of Sidney Paget helped to establish the character in the public imagination and his friendship with the author. My favourite section looked at the London of the time through maps, photographs and paintings. I loved three old maps with pinned string showing you the journeys around London taken I particular stories and a time lapse film of what those journeys looked like now. The exhibition built up a real sense of how life at the time the books were written what changing and how Holmes used all the...

Small display featuring two paintings of the Frost Fair of 1684 at the Museum of London. I seem to be going to quite a few exhibitions at the moment which look at the River Thames and as I travel to work by the Thames Clipper each morning I find them fascinating. One of the pictures looked towards Southwark and showed great blocks of ice in the river and showed how river men who were deprived of their income rowing people across the river tried to make an alternative living by controlling the routes down and looking for payment for showing people across safely. The other gave a better overview of the fair in a flatter area near Temple with rows of stalls, people playing o the ice and a big crowds watch cannon’s being fired. I just knew I’d have gone along to see the fun!

Nice display of modern jewellery made in London at the Museum of London to compliment the Cheapside Hoard exhibition. There was some lovely work and some of it was interestingly display in a recreation of a studio which was particularly nice as it mirrored a display in the Hoard show. My favourite piece was a bracelet made of small galloping horses that carefully curves round to form the loop. I also liked a long ring shaped like an animal’s rib cage which was hinged at the knuckle. The ethos of the work was summed up in a nice quote from one of the craftsmen, Jordon Askill, “Jewellery is like a sculpture that’s small enough to carry round with you.”

Small but interesting display at the Museum of London looking at how a suit jacket is constructed. There are four jackets from different 20th eras which have been cut down to show the internal structure of them and an excellent video taking you through the different tailoring features. It talks about building up the shoulders and while leaving room for the arms to move smoothly as well as about how the front of a jacket is strengthened to give a smooth line which gives a variety of men’s shapes a similar silhouette. My only criticism would be that I’d have like to have something to tell me the date of the suits so I could compare how styles had changed.

Exquisite exhibition at the Museum of London showing the complete hoard of Stuart jewellery found in Cheapside in 1912 for the first time. The exhibition put the work into context looking at what Cheapside was like in the period including a wonderful print of Edward VI’s Coronation passing along the street and showing the gold items in shop windows and people handing clothes from the windows like you see in Venice for the regatta. There were portraits from the Goldsmith’s company of leading jewellers of the time and a number of the old shop signs including the Black Boy. It then showed the hoard in a lovely dark space, showing similar items together, almost like a shop window. All round the edge of the gallery were portraits showing how the piece would have been worn and examples of the clothing and accessories of the time. I loved the case of pendants of small carved stones shaped like bunches of grapes. Each pendant had about eight stones falling from them and there...

Small display at the Museum of London looking at the life and work of Michael Caine. What there was was interesting but there just wasn’t enough. I suspect there were less than 20 photographs altogether and not much commentary on them. I like the idea of playing films and interviews to complement the pictures but because the space was small and quite open it was difficult to focus on one sound track without other interfering.

Grisly but fascinating exhibition at the Museum of London looking at the history of dissection and in particular where the surgeons and students got the bodies from. I’d not really thought before that pre-anaesthetics   surgeons had to be very quick so they had to have bodies in order to be able to practice. The first section looked at resurrection men who took bodies from cemeteries to sell to the surgeons. It looked at what measures people too to avoid this fate plus what happened when the resurrection men got greedy and turned to murder to acquire bodies. I loved the very vivid reading of a contemporary ballad. Most fascinating through was the room looking at skeletons which were excavated in 2006 at the Royal London Hospital which showed evidence of dissection. There was evidence from the time that the hospital had robbed its own graveyard for bodies. My only slight worry was that as a chaplain at the time had fought to get all bodies a decent burial what woul...