Cathy's Art Diary

Fascinating online lecture from the National Gallery on the origins of its collection. To mark the start of the weekend of celebrations marking 200 years since the foundation of the National Gallery Susanna Avery-Quash, the lead curator, lead us through the career of the first director of the gallery Sir Charles Eastlake looking at how he added to the collection and then organised and collated it. Avery-Quash drew not only on the main collection of the gallery but also its contextual collection of objects which relate to the main collection and the history of the gallery. She showed us some fascinating, newly acquired archive material relating to Eastlake and his wife Lady Eastlake. A fitting start to marking this important anniversary.

Interesting small display at the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at the digital art collection of Patric Prince which has been donated to the museum. I’m not sure I’m understood all the pieces but was moved to see that many of them would no longer exist if she hadn’t collected them. It feels like it’s almost too early to assess their importance. It was interesting to see how many pieces included notes by the artists/producers when they gave them to her. I particularly liked the idea of an event in 1992 when photographs were transferred between machines and enhanced by the receiver. The picture in the show from this was a portrait of Prince. Closes 15 September 2024  

Interesting online lecture from the National Gallery looking at Longford Castle and its relationship with the gallery. Two tour guides from the castle, Sean Moran and Debbie Bichener, outlined the history of the castle and its art collection with great illustrations. They also took us through works that had been purchased from the collection by the gallery over the years, such as Holbein’s “The Ambassadors”, and current loans from the collection. I love the idea that the first director of the gallery, James Eastlake, had written a ‘hit list’ of works he wanted to acquire from Longford. I’d noticed for a couple of years that the gallery offered tours of the castle and I have now learnt this is partly in lieu of inheritance tax alongside loans to the gallery. I must try to get organised and book next year.

Fun eclectic exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery of work from the art collection of the insurance company Hiscox picked by Sol Calero the Venezuelan artist. The gallery was painted in very bright colours which made the art pop off the walls. Re-reading the handout the artist aimed to set it up like a house and give the sense of looking at someone’s private gallery. Evidently the yellow walls have architectural works, the green the outdoors and nature and the pink the interior of the house. I must admit I didn’t get this at the time but mainly because I was too busy looking at the great art works. Stand outs included Abigail Reynolds folder paper works with cut outs from a top picture exposing sections of a lower one, a set of 10 lithographs by Chris Ofili and William Blaeu’s map of Bermuda from 1640.   Most novel was a silk scarf shown framed by Pio Abad but there were also two rugs by Miro and ceramics by Picasso. Closes 15 August 2021

Fascinating online lecture from the Wallace Collection on Lady Wallace, Julie Amelie Castelnau who bequeathed the Wallace Collection to the nation.   Suzanne Higgott told us the story of Julie’s life from humble beginnings as the illegitimate daughter of a   factotum and a linen maid and how she in turn bore Richard Wallace an illegitimate son, before living with him for 20 years then marrying him on his father’s death. Wallace himself was the illegitimate son of the 4th Marquis of Hertford and was surprised to inherit his father’s estate and art collection. Higgott told us how Lady Wallace was viewed rather negatively by contemporaries in society, partly due to her origins and also because she never learned to speak English despite the couple making London their main residence. She inherited the collection on her husband’s death in 1890 and in turn left it to the nation when she died in 1896, possibly fulfilling his wishes.  

Innovative exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery using work from the “la Caixa” contemporary art collection. This is one in a series of shows which will invite a writer to select works from an art collection and produce a new piece of writing based on them. It’s an interesting way of highlighting unusual and less well known collections. This show just had six pieces but included a Andreas Gursky of an archaeological dig at Thebes and a Gerard Richter from a series of back views of his wife. There was a lovely video installation by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster which recreated a bare room with a video against the end wall of a child sitting on the floor with silhouettes of adults and trees appearing. It reminded me of a Bill Viola in its slow delivery and haunting quality. My favourite piece was this painting by Miquel Barcela called “A Fistful of Earth” a stunning desert or moon scape with built up rocks. I did sit and try the start of the piece of writing which was ...