Cathy's Art Diary

Fascinating online lecture from the London Art History Society looking in detail at a 14th century psalter. Michelle Brown from the British Library introduced us to his amazing work commissioned by Sir Geoffrey Luttrell which includes unique illustrations in the margins reflecting the life and issues of the time. She took us through what a psalter was and how it would have been used by a family before taking us briefly though the history of the Luttrell’s and Geoffrey’s place in the events leading to the Wars of the Roses. We then looked in detail at the illustrations, what they meant and how they reflected the family. She concluded that the work shows a world in flux in troubled times.

Interesting small exhibition at the Photographers’ Gallery highlighting the publisher Café Royal Books . Since 2012 this publisher has produced a weekly publication in a small format dedicated to post-war photography from the UK and Ireland with a focus on unseen or overlooked work. Each of the over 600 issues highlights a small body of work by a specific photographer such as Martin Mayer looking at London in the 1970s. The journals were beautifully produced with nicely reproduced images and minimal commentary. Closes 2 June 2024  

Interesting  exhibition at the British Library on the children and young persons’ author Malorie Blackman. I must admit I don’t know her work, as I was a bit old to be her target market, but I still found the show fascinating. In telling her story it told the history of writing and publishing by black authors since the 1960s. I liked the section on her motivation and how, as an avid reader as a child, she realised that there were few books in which she saw people like her. It also explained how she went into scriptwriting after a poor adaptation of one of her books. There was another section on her Noughts and Crosses series discussing different editions and the tv adaptation. I was intrigued and it made me want to go back and watch the show. Closed 25 February 2024  

Fascinating and clever small exhibition at the Royal Academy in which contemporary artist Alex Margo Arden recreates some of the dust jackets defaced by Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell. Arden had researched the dust jackets and traced copies of the same books and the images they used in their collages and recreated them. These were shown with Orton and Halliwell’s originals. You couldn’t tell them apart. They were shown with good commentaries on Orton and Halliwell’s project and a rather moving piece on the nature of books which, as an x-librarian I loved. Closed 7 January 2024

Charming exhibition at the Garden Museum, aimed at children, looking at the science of gardening. Based on books by zoologist and author, Nicola Davies, illustrated by Emily Sutton and Mark Hearld the show combined original artwork and simply written explanations of scientific phenomena like microbes. It felt a bit wordy for children but the text was clear and interesting. I loved the delicate illustrations. Closed 14 September 2023    

Charming exhibition at Foyles on Charing Cross Road of illustrations by Tom de Freston. The show featured work from two books "Julia and the Shark" and "Leila and the Blue Fox", both by his wife Kiran Millwood Hargrave, with a mix of prints and original work shown in a nicely designed space with his characters cropping up between the exhibits and around the walls. There were good explanations of his working methods. Each finished image is a collage using various techniques to build depth. I loved the finished product particularly the more abstract pieces like the one shown here which had layers of paint over a map. I also liked his sweet small drawings of the animals and people in the stories. Closes 27 November 2023

Charming exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at Beatrix Potter’s relationship with nature. This was a beautifully designed show and in telling this story it also told the story of the author's life. It looked at her study of nature and how that fed into her stories as well as her move to the Lake District and her role in forming the National Trust. There was lovely use made of the book illustrations as well as other drawings and sketch books. I loved seeing objects from her family home in Kensington as well as her later properties in the Lake District which often appeared in the books. Mr McGregor’s handkerchief anyone?! My favourite section was on her study of nature. It included a photo of her with her rabbit Benjamin Bouncer but sadly what also may be his pelt! I loved her wonderfully detailed drawings of plants and fossils. Closes 8 January 2022 Reviews Telegraph Evening Standard      

Interesting display at the Foundling Museum looking at the creative process between author and illustrator in producing a children’s book. “Don’t Ask the Dragon” is by Lemn Sissay and Gregg Stobbs and this display shows ideas for the book and the final illustrations along with a conversational commentary between them about the process. It was fascinating to see how ideas changed, presented in same narrative order as the book. I was particularly moved to see that Stobbs the illustrator had given Sissay one of the drawings which wasn’t used for his birthday as it reminded him of the first time they met. Closes 9 October 2022

Small but sumptuous exhibition at the British Library on the use of gold in books and manuscripts. It covered 17 languages, 20 countries, many religions and the period from 5th century to 1920s. I like that they left the techniques to the end and didn’t let them dominate. There were some fabulous items. I was mainly drawn to Western works as I understand what I’m looking at more. My highlight were a letter to Richard II by Philippe de Meziers including a portrait of him receiving the document, a portrait of Robert of Anjou, King of Naples, and a beautiful Virgin from an Annunciation by Jean Bourdichon for Louis XII. Of the non-Western items I loved a Lives of the Buddha in which he appeared in gold in his different guises so there were gold horses and elephants, treaties embossed on gold from India and some beautiful Qur’ans including one with the earliest known gold-tooled binding. Closes 2 October 2022 Reviews Times Telegraph Evening Standard    

Interesting exhibition at the Garden Museum looking at the book by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The show tells the story via different illustrators since its publication in 1911 from the original Charles Robinson through EH Shepherd of Winnie the Pooh fame to the latest interactive version by MinaLima. There is a little section on film versions but I’d like to have seen more and some information on the authors own gardens but again I’d have liked to see more particularly on Maytham Hall on which Misselthwaite Manor is based.   Quite a lot of space was given to an installation which would be fun to take children’s photos in but doesn’t add a lot to the show. Because it’s the school holidays it’s very geared to children although I suspect its main audience is nostalgic adults. Closes 5 September 2022

Fascinating exhibition at the British Museum looking at the work of the Dalziel brothers who produced books and prints in the 19th century when wood engraving was the main technology for mass producing images with text. In 1913 the archive of the companies 54,000 prints was acquired by the museum and there were some stunning works. The show looked at the technique of cutting a block. At the height of the firm they employed 36 engravers who were know as woodpeckers. In a number of cases the books they produced were shown with the drawings for the prints or the print blocks. In many cases they commissioned artists to illustrate their books eg Rossetti illustrated Tennyson’s poems for them. I loved a Millais print with his annotations for corrections. Their work included the first edition of Barnaby Rudge and Alice in Wonderland and the show included an album of proofs from Alice. The company went bankrupt in 1893 when photographs became economical enough to take over as the main ty...

Innovative online talk from Christies which brought together five authors who they had asked to annotate first editions of one of their books to be auctioned in aid of English PEN, the international association of writers. This was a wonderful selection of speakers and I was pleased that I had read three of the books being discussed and am now intrigued to read a fourth. Each author has taken a different approach to the project. David Nichols had annotated “One Day” which I love and said he has partly apologises for bad jokes he had made about people in it, explained where some ideas came from and self-edited. Tracey Chevalier took “Girl with the Pearl Earring”, another favourite, and talked about how there was a spelling mistake on the back of the original dust sheet which has made it a collectors item. She said she had not reread it since it came out so found it an interesting experience. She had pasted 25 paintings in the book which she had annotated. Sarah Water looked at ...

Fabulous online course from ARTscapades looking at Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts. Lead by Sally Dormer, Director of the early years V&A course, over two weeks we covered over 1000 years from the 4th to the 15th century however this was cleverly broken up to give an overview plus a rough chronological structure. Week one started with an excellent look at how a medieval book was made from making the manuscript or writing surface, through the covers and the production process. We discussed who the makers were and the whole thing was illustrated with some wonderful contemporary images where possible. We then moved onto early books made for the Carolingian and Ottonian Holy Roman Emperors in the 9th and 10th centuries. I didn’t know these works and the talk introduced me to a wealth of new images and ideas such as the attached image of Charles the Bald. In week two we turned to the look specifically at monastic books which allowed us to focus on English production in the 1...

Stunning exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at the Alice books and how they have inspired artists since they were published. This show got a good balance between style and substance. It was a very modern design with lots of installations like the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party shown here which helped to space out the show for a post-Covid age but there was also heaps of archive material described in detail. At some points even I felt there might be too many facts, such as sheet music for a peace inspired by Wonderland by Tolkien’s Great uncle! The show started by telling the story of how the books were written, from Dodgson telling the story to the Alice Liddell and her sisters on a boat trip, though John Tenniel’s illustrations and various editions of the work. This went hand in hand with displays on how the book reflected the Victorian era being published just six years after “Origin of the Species” and five years before the 1870 Education Act. Next was a fascinating...

Interesting exhibition at the House of Illustration looking at the work of Maria Neurath who designed science books for children. Neurath devised a way of analysing complex information and distilling it into concise explanations using words and pictures in a technique called Isotype. The style was devised in Vienna in the 1920s with her husband Otto before she fled to England in 1942. Otto died in 1945 but she carried on her work. A lot of the books and illustrations on show did look familiar. The books were a little early for me but I think I was recognising a style which is now fairly common place. She used repetition of an image with slight changes to explain a concept or use large double page pictures to show complex structures such as an underground station. I loved the way her “The Wonder World of Nature” series were shown as open books, two to a frame, showing them off like art. I also liked displays which showed a work from initial idea to published books. ...

Magical exhibition at Charleston Farmhouse marking 90 years since the publishing of Orlando and looking at its history and interpretation. Orlando was written by Virginian Woolf in homage to her lover Vita Sackville-West and plays with ideas of gender and time. It’s a book I love and know well. The show was a lovely blend of the history of the book and an exploration of its themes. I liked the fact that the show had borrowed items from Knole, the house which Vita loved but could not inherit and which features heavily in the book, including portraits which Virginia had used to illustrate the book. There were also numerous copies of the first edition used to show the illustrations. They also had the copy owned by Vita’s mother in which she had written a stream of vitriol against Virginia. There were immediate reactions to the book including a wonderful dinner service painted by Vanessa Bell with scenes from the book. I’d never seen this before as it is privately owned. I...

Delightful exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at the Winnie-the-Pooh books, how they were written and their legacy. I thought this show got the balance right between having interactive things for children and not dumbing down the story and the content for adults. I loved the tea table, the slide and the Pooh Sticks bridge although I could have lived without the bell on Pooh’s house! The show felt slightly odd at first as it looked at the legacy before the books but with hindsight it meant that it got mechanising, Disney and songs out of the way early so that the rest of the show could slowly work through how the books came about. Equal importance was given to A.A. Milne and E. H. Shepherd and there was lots of detail on how they worked together. I watched the lovely film “Goodbye Christopher Robin” which was out recently and the show was a bit like walking through that. It was wonderful to see some of the photographs that recreates, like the picture ...

Charming exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum of Childhood looking at the life and work of the children’s author, Michael Morpurgo. Any show in which you are greeted by the wonderful War Horse puppet from the National Theatre production has to be a winner. I loved the show and get quite sentimental every time I see Joey. I loved the fact that the three puppeteers are called the Head, the Heart and the Hind. This beautifully designed show started with a good biography of Morpurgo who came across as a lovely, loyal person. It looked at his time at Sandhurst and why he writes so many books about war. He wants children to understand war and be critical of it. It also looked at his City Farms project to give city children the chance to live and work on a real far. The exhibition was in themes of books with nice sections of original manuscripts and examples of the different illustrators and book covers. There were also some touching objects such as the picture of Jo...

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...

Fascinating exhibition at the ICA featuring the book “The City” by Frans Maserell, a precursor to graphic novels. There were 50 beautiful wood cuts from the original 1925 edition and a full copy to look through of the 1987 edition. The woodcuts were very art deco in style and looked at encounters in a city. I’m not sure I quite got the narrative but there were some great images and you had a real sense of time and place. I loved a picture of rows of office desks with factories outside the window also one of a man looking at corsets in a shop window. Closes on 2 July 2017