Cathy's Art Diary

Confusing exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum marking 100 years of them collecting material on performance. I  say confusing because that had used Gabrielle Enthoven's donation of her collection of over 80,000 playbills, play texts and programmes to the museum as the hook but the display had very little link to her. It would have been nice to flag any items which had come from her original donation. Instead the show reflected her nickname as "the theatrical encyclopaedia" to display items from the larger collection as an A-Z of themes to explore how performance continues to entertain, provoke and inspire. I must admit this was lost on me at the time and it just felt like random groupings with a letter attached. It followed similar themes to the main collection. It was a nice excuse to show items which might usually be in storage and who doesn't want to see one of Lily Savage's costumes and Kenneth Williams costume for Carry on Cleo. Closed 29 Mar...

Clever refurbishment and enlargement of the galleries for the Gilbert Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum. I admit I don’t think I'd done the old galleries for this collection, but I was very impressed by this new version. The collection consists mainly of small, precious, decorative items and it would be easy for the display to just be about looking at pretty things and believe me, there are some very pretty things but the narrative becomes about craftsmanship with useful displays and videos about how the pieces were made. I had learnt from a talk the day before (see previous blog) that the space had been expanded by adding three rooms which had been offices. I wouldn't have guessed this and the whole space looked cohesive. There were beautiful new fixtures and furniture. I'd thought I would just walk through the space but I was drawn to study the exhibits and wonder at their beauty. I think my favourites were the glass micro-mosaics which were so fine many...

Fascinating online lecture from the Victoria and Albert Museum introducing the refurbished galleries and redisplay of the Gilbert Collection. Jessica Insley and Isabella Warnham introduced us to Rosalind and Arthur Gilbert and their collection and talked about it was now held at the museum. They explained how they had the chance to expand the galleries into old office space and talked us through the design decisions they made   and how they worked with dementia focus groups to make the space accessible for everyone as the trustees of the collection support dementia charities. They talked about how they introduced sensory experiences into the space to enliven the collection and make it more approachable. They then talked us through the works room by room explaining the decisions they made in displaying it and highlighting key objects with excellent illustrations. They explained how the collection and display have an emphasis on craftsmanship and how they have also used it to ...

Interesting exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery marking 40 years of the groundbreaking gallery. I liked the fact that the show blended iconic pieces which have been shown at the gallery over the years alongside new works by their established artists and work by new artists. Spread over two floors this was quite a mix of work some of which I liked but some I didn't get. I discovered a lot of artists who were new to me such as Polly Morgan and her wall sculptures incorporating snake skin, John Squire's remarkable painting of a fragmented face and Chino Moya's wonderful small digital pictures set in settings reminiscent of the Renaissance in which the figures gently moved. Classic pieces included Richard Wilson's "20:50", a room filled with recycle engine oil which messes with your mind. Evidently it has been shown in every iteration of the gallery. I liked the room bringing together two installations, Allan Kaprow's Yard, which presents a floor covered ...

Interesting online lecture from the National Gallery reflecting on their “Millet : Life on the Land” exhibition as it came to an end. Jacqui Ansell led us though various themes which had emerged from the show over its duration. She started by looking at “The Angelus” and talked about how it has become a French national icon and debating what a British equivalent might be deciding on “The Hay Wain”. She then outlined where the pictures in the exhibition had been lent from as all but “The Angelus” were from British collections. She used this as a way of looking at British collecting in the late 19th and early 20th century. Finally she discussed whether Millet was a political artist deciding that although he didn’t shy away from showing the hardships of rural life, she felt he was more driven by religious ideas and at one point he has said “the Bible is all I read”.

Glorious exhibition at the National Gallery of the Neo-Impressionist collection of Helene Kröller-Müller. This show included many beautiful paintings. The Neo-Impressionists are the artists we might think of as pointillists which is s a style, I am fond of so I was so excited to see so many of the works together. The subjects were much broader than I expected. I tend to think of the pictures as landscapes, but I loved a room of portraits. I expected to see Signac and Seurat but new finds included the Belgium artist Theo van Rysselberghe and my favourite work in the show was this picture by him of five women in a garden. I love the way you can't see their faces. A lovely touch was to include two paintings inspired by works by Millet as there is also a small exhibition of his work in the gallery at the moment. These included a Van Gogh who wasn't a Neo-Impressionists but experimented with some of the techniques and he visited Seurat's studio. This is a show that work...

Interesting small exhibition at the British Museum highlighting a recent bequest of 30 works from the collection of Nina Drucker. A selection of the works were shown here alongside other works from the museum's collection which Drucker was known to have seen or which compliment the bequest. The works include pieces form the 19th century but were strongest in the 20th century pieces. My favourites were the works by C.R.W. Nevison whose work I love but these were not the style we usually associate him with. I loved the scenes of the Thames, two of which seemed to be a tribute to Monet's paintings of the river and I suspect they were even drawn from the same hotel room at the Savoy or are a reimagining of those works as another in the series is definitely an imagined view. There were also some lovely John Mintons and a fun watercolour by Sir Muirhead Bone of people at the seaside. Of the earlier works , course I loved a watercolour of Greenwich Hospital by John Lessore and ...

Fascinating exhibition at the British Museum focusing on the collection of Richard Payne Knight which was bequeathed to the museum in the early 19th century. There were some amazing works particularly a Michelangelo, a Raphael and a Mantegna but as interesting was seeing the contemporary art of his time which he collected and how he brought his aesthetic into planning the park of his estate. I loved a number of works by Claude Lorrain and evidently the bequest included 246 studies by the artist. Payne Knight travelled extensively in Italy and he must have found these very evocative of the landscapes he saw there. There was also a lovely set of contemporary drawings by Thomas Hearne of Payne Knight's Herefordshire estate, Downton Castle. In the grounds of the estate he developed ideas of the Picturesque in the landscape. The show also included work by other artists who the collector had supported, John Hamilton Mortimer and John Robert Cozens who travelled with him to Italy...

Fascinating online lecture from ARTscapades introducing a Degas exhibition at the Burrell Collection. Frances Fowle from the National Galleries of Scotland outlined the themes in William Burrell’s own collection covering the ballet, jockeys and modern life. She talked about how he had acquired these works and showed us excellent illustrations of them. However the most interesting section was when she looked at how Degas work was collected in Britain in general telling us about the main collectors and their collections. She introduced us to some wonderful characters and gave an overview of the art market at the time. She also looked at where some of these works can now be seen which shows a tradition of donating art and of the patterns of buying of public collections.

Comprehensive small exhibition at the British Museum looking at antique gems and the history of the museum’s collection. For a small show this exhibition covered a lot of ground. It had some beautiful examples but also talked about how the gems were faked and included those. It talks about collecting in the Renaissance and 18th century with a focus on the collection of Charles Townley which was sold to the museum in the early 19th century. There is also a section on the recent thefts from the museum which had included gems and some of those which have been recovered were there. It talks about how this has prompted a major project to catalogue and record the gems in the collection which has not been done before. Closes 2 June 2024

Surprising exhibition at National Trust property Polesden Lacey of the treasures collected by Margaret Greville. I say surprising because I had not realised there was an exhibition at the house and had just gone to kill time before a party so this was a bonus. It was nicely arranged with an introduction to the collection and then rooms on different types of objects from pictures, though ceramics and ending with a lovely room of Faberge objects. Mrs Greville had been collecting in the late 19th and early 20th centuries both via auctions and through gifts from friends. It was nice that the labels not only told you about the object but also about where and how it was acquired. It was also a good opportunity to see the upstairs rooms which are normally closed to the public and I liked the way when you did then go downstairs it continued with sign posting to important objects in the main rooms. Closes 30 October 2022

Beautiful exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at their collection of fragments of illuminated manuscripts and at how they acquired them. The fashion for collecting these fragments started after the French Revolution when many manuscripts were sold off and religious text were no longer seen as relevant so they were split up and the illustrations taken out. The show was divided into two rooms. In the first one I looked at the fragments themselves discussing what type of books they came from, who commissioned them and who the artists were. I was surprised at how many of the artists could be named. It was fantastic to see these pictures hung at head height rather than looking down on them in cases. You could really study the details. My favourite, shown here, is the artist Irene from Boccaccio’s “On Famous Women” made for Jacques d’Armagnac. The second room looked at how the fragments had come into the museum’s collection in the 19th century focusing on the great co...

Nice small display at the British Museum of prints of Switzerland bequeathed by Robert Wylie Lloyd. Lloyd was a businessman, entomologist, art collector and mountaineer as well as being chairman of Christie’s. He left the museum over 5000 prints, paintings and books including 60 watercolours by Turner. Some of the prints demonstrate how the landscape has changed. It included a print of a model of Mont Blanc and a coloured and uncoloured version of a print of the Reichenbach Falls. I loved this print of Saussure and Balmat’s ascent of Mont Blanc in 1787. The show looked at geography, geology, print technique and mountaineering. No end date given

Interesting online lecture from ARTscapades on the life, work and collecting of the Helena Rubinstein, the cosmetics magnate. Lucrezia Walker, Independent Art Historian, took us from Rubenstein’s poor beginnings in Poland through to be a global business woman taking in her time in Australia where she developed her Valaze face cream, based on Lanolin, thought her time in London and Paris and on to New York in 1915. She talked about her two husbands, a publisher, through whom she knew DH Lawrence and James Joyce, and a Georgian prince. Most interesting she talked about Rubenstein’s art collection consisting of Leger’s, Picasso’s, Chagall’s as well as works by Frida Kahlo and over 360 African masks and sculptures.

Excellent online lecture from the Barbican Library on the life and collecting of Peggy Guggenheim. Alexandra Epps took us clearly through the life of Peggy Guggenheim concentrating on her art collecting and curating from her first purchase of a sculpture from Frans Arp, through her mass purchases at the start of the Second World War to her later championing of Jackson Pollock. I was fascinated by the sections on the galleries she opened including Guggenheim Jeune in Cork Street London from where she introduced Britain to continental Modern art showing Kandinsky, Cocteau, Picasso, Magritte and more. We also looked at her Modern art museum in New York “Art of the Century” with floors dedicated to Surrealism, abstract art and kinetic art as well as space for changing shows. Of course we ended by looking at the origins of the wonderful Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice.

Interesting online lecture from the National Gallery looking at Degas’s art collection, what he planned for it and how it influenced him. Christina Bradstreet started by listing the paintings in Degas’s bedroom as an indication of his taste in art. She took us through a brief outline of his life including how he had to sell his father’s art collection and how he started to build up a collection himself as he grew richer. He looked at how the artists he owned influenced his own work in particular focusing on Ingres, from whom he took line and composition, and Delacroix, for his use of colour. She talked about his plans for his collection to become a public museum on his death however this didn’t happen and it was auctioned at the end of the First World War. The National Gallery sent Maynard Keynes to the sale and bought old masters and works by Degas and we looked at some of the works they bought.  

Interesting online talk from the National Gallery on the history of its building, collection and services.  Ed Dickenson led us through the history with great pictures and amusing anecdotes. He combined the story of the buildings creation and expansion well with the story of the growth of the collection. I am always fascinated by how works which are so familiar to me got into the gallery and why they have the pictures they do rather than different ones. It reminds me that I must read a book about Eastlake’s (pictured here) great buying trip round Europe which has been on my bookshelf for ages. A nice touch was that Ed included quiz questions to keep us awake which were fun but it was telling how well informed his audience was as the majority got all of them right. It was also interesting to know that there were over 1000 people on this online zoom talk. He said that moving talks online last year had been very successful and even when the world opens up again they plan to keep...

Fascinating online discussion as part of the Masterpiece Fair online about how selling and purchasing older art and antiques has changes during lockdown and what we might learn from this. The event was well chaired by Anna Bray from the Art Newspaper and included collector, Katrin Bellinger; chair of the Masterpiece Fair, Philip Hewat-Jaboor; dealer, Philip Mould and Orlando Rock from Christies. They all outlined how they had adapted to lockdown including Philip Mould discussing his Art In Isolation videos, Philip Hewat-Jaboor talking about how the fair moved online and what they have learn from it and Orlando Rock looking at new techniques, such as augmented reality, being used by his auction house. I  was most interested to Katrin Bellinger saying she has bought cheaper things in lockdown or works she knew already and could trust. I loved he quote of “As a collector you need your fix”. She also discussed her collection’s website and how they have started to do a bit more cu...

Fascinating exhibition at Two Temple Place examining the collection of textiles by women.  This show looked at the collections of seven women organising them roughly chronologically and by collector, telling you a bit about the woman and why they collected then showcasing items from those collections. He clothes spanned four hundred years and most of the world.   The show introduced me to some great characters and well as including some beautiful textiles. I think my favourite ladies were the early ones. I liked Louisa Pesel, an embroider from Bradford, who started the Bradford Khaki Club in 1917 for injured First World War soldiers and taught them how to sew and embroider and later on worked at Winchester Cathedral and led a project to create 360 kneelers. I loved Olive Matthews who started collecting pre-Victorian clothes with her pocket money. She never paid more than £5 for a piece and amassed 3000 items. She reminded me of when I collected vintage clothes...

Interesting exhibition at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection looking at the art she collected after she moved to Venice in 1948. The first section looked at the 1848 Biennale where she took over the Greece Pavilion which was the first show of a modern art collection in post war Europe and her Jackson Pollock show at Museo Correr which was the first Pollock show in Europe. It was lovely that they had so many great Pollocks form the show here but the space was too small for such large pictures. From her early days in the Palazzo on the Grand Canal Peggy established the idea of exhibitions in the space with a show of 20 pieces of contemporary sculpture, a few of which were shown here along with archive material from the show. The show included work she bought from British artists including the dramatic Graham Sutherland shown here and a Bacon of a chimpanzee. There was also a fascinating room of kinetic and optical art works which really messed with your eyes. What was a...