Cathy's Art Diary

Delightful day organised by the London Art History Society at Birkbeck College looking at the art and design of the Art Nouveau led by Ann Anderson. The day was divided into four lectures with plentiful breaks for coffee and lunch. In the morning Ann led us through a good overview of the main motifs of Art Nouveau style with really good visual examples from different countries and in different mediums. She also talked about the different between this style and the arts and crafts movement. The second talked looked at who this art was for and how people bought the objects. I had not come across Samuel Siegfried Bing, the owner of the Art Nouveau Gallery, the Liberty’s of Paris. Ann gave us a good overview of what we might have been able to buy there. She also talked about the Paris exhibition of 1900 and how that led and influenced style. In the afternoon we looked at two producers of this period. We began with Rene Lalique focusing in particular on his jewellery. Ann ...

Interesting exhibition at the Fan Museum looking at French fans of the late 19th and early 20th century. I had expected them all to have Art Nouveau designs but there were also a number which looked back to the Baroque. The Art Nouveau ones were the most beautiful with wonderfully painted leaves (thank you for the great glossary on the wall) and sticks with sinuous designs. I hadn’t realised that the best fans were hand painted often done by the major artists of the day. The Impressionists loved working to a fan shape. I know nothing about fans so learnt that Duvelleroy & Kees were the leading fan makers in Paris. My favourite was the Iris fan pictured painted by one of the Billotey family of fan painters. I also loved a display of advertising fans including one for the Charing Cross Hotel.

Fascinating exhibition at the Fine Art Society of items from the collection of John Scott who specialised in objects from 1830-1930 a period which saw the rise of the professional designer. In all there will be seven exhibitions and this show comprised three of them modern English design from the 1860s and 1870s, Powell & Sons Whitefriars glass and British art pottery. The modern English design section was a wonderful mix of furniture, pictures, ceramics and metal work. I had not come across the metalworker Thomas Jeckyll before and loved his work. The Glass section was beautiful but there was almost too much of it to look at! A lot of the wine glasses had quite a modern feel to them and I would buy them now. I think my favourite section was the art pottery. There were designers I knew already such as De Morgan and the Martin Brothers but also one’s I had not come across like a wall of Majolica dished by Della Robbia Pottery.    

Exhibition at the Mussee D’Orsay looking at the ways in which designers have taken inspiration from the Art Nouveau period focusing in 1933, 1966 and 1974. There was a room on the effect the period had on the Surrealists with photos by Brassai and Man Ray of Gaude architecture and another of how two exhibitions at the V&A in the 1960s on Aubrey Beardsley and Alfons Micha influenced the psychedelic movement of the 1960s. I loved the furniture there was a room of chairs of different dates and a wonderful desk by Mollino.