Cathy's Art Diary

Interesting exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery of work by Helen Saunders, one of the two female members of the Vorticists. I had not come across Saunders work before but loved it. The commentary said she was on the edge of the Bloomsbury Group despite being a Vorticist and I could see similarities to their early and later work. I was interested to see a large collection of her work had been left to the Courtauld by a relative and fellow artist, Brigid Beppin. I loved a portrait of her friend Blanche Caudwell done in an almost Cubist style and making her look like a sculpture made of felt sewn together. I also liked a Vorticist picture of a man being shot from the barrel of a rifle. The show also included some post war pictures of lovely French rural scenes around L’Estaque. Closed on 29 January 2023  

Succinct exhibition at Tate Britain exploring the Vorticist movement. This avant-garde movement emerged in London in June 1914 to create a new art for a changing world but had largely died out by the end of the war due the horror that the mechanisation that Vorticism celebrated brought. I’ve never warmed to this movement as it was partly a reaction against Bloomsbury led by Percy Wyndham Lewis and, as you may have realised, I’m a big Bloomsbury fan. This room had everything you’d want to see of this movement and provided good explanations of it. I loved this juxtaposition of Bomberg’s “In the Hold” of 1913-14 with the torso of “Rock Drill” by Epstein and the inclusion of a work by women such as Jessica Dismorr as women were core members of the group. Closes 25 September 2023