Cathy's Art Diary

Interesting display at the Victoria and Albert Museum of contemporary works made in Japanese lacquer. The display explained briefly how lacquer is made but concentrated on how it has been used in this century. The display cases were gently themed but let the beautiful pieces speak for themselves. I think my favourite was this box with a faux zip by Sasaki Gakuto called "Irony". I also loved this box by Suzuki Masaya for its iridescent colours. The display was a lovely opportunity to discover new things. Closes 30 April 2027

Interesting small display at the Imperial War Museum on the singer Dame Vera Lynn. The display marks the acquisition of Lynn’s archive by the museum and including more than 600 fan letters, her own correspondence with her husband Harry Lewis, a diary from her 1944 tour in India to visit troops, and items from her tropical uniform. This display had a selection of items including that 1944 diary, a hat she wore in a film, photographs and a moving letter given to her by a soldier to send to his wife. Closes April 2027

Interesting display at the Victoria and Albert Museum looked at female printmakers since 1900. The display was quite small but included a number of well-known names as well as introducing some less famous. I liked the inclusion of some of the women who had worked on London Transport Posters and well as a Suffragette one. Highlights for me must be two by Dame Laura Knight and a lovely print by Mary Anne Sloane of her friend, the printer, Constance Pott. Closes 27 September 2026

Neat display at the National Portrait Gallery looking at Victorian photographs of family. By picking this subject in a small space it looked at this history of photography at the time from its invention to its popularisation as well as looking at the types of family in the era. I thought it stretched the latter a bit, but it meant they included the Bloomsbury Group so of course I approved. I did find things to Google including Charles Haselwood Shannon and his partner Charles Ricketts shown here. No end date given but these sort of displays are usually temporar y.

Striking display at London Bridge Station, as part of the Totally Thames Festival, of large, collaged photographs of river scenes by Henry Reichhold. The views were of Henley Regatta and the Great River Race and were compiled of a montage of images capturing the complex event into one image. The large, freestanding display, had two large and two smaller images of Henley on one side which were full of people and action. On the other side, the river race is shown as an aerial view of lots of boats going in different directions against an oddly blue river. The display might have had more impact if a charity stall hadn't set itself up at one end making it a bit off putting to stop to admire and engage with the work. Closes 30 September 2025

Clever display at Sissinghurst Castle Garden looking at how the previous owners of the house Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicholson’s circle defied societal norms of gender and sexuality. This show was cleverly arranged in the library using the books on the shelves to highlight the lives of the couple’s friends and lovers, explaining who they were and what they did. There were also displays on various literary legal cases with a focus on the Radcliffe Hall case. It was a good way of telling quite a complicated story in a simple and engaging way.   Closes 30 March 2025  

Lovely display at the Sam Wannamaker Theatre at the Globe of work by Rutgers BFA theatre designers from New Jersey, USA, who are currently in residence there. I was a bit confused as I saw a similar show at the Globe last year. I assume this was by a new intake of students but that wasn’t clear. Costume design and costume technician students had to design and create a cocktail hat that embodies a Shakespearean character which would work under candlelight. My favourite was this one for Lady Macbeth. My favourites though were by scenic and lighting design students who created small open boxes of a scenery design which, when you pressed a switch, produced a shadow on the back which was stunningly created from the shadow of the scene in front. My pick this year was this one of Bottom. No end date given but it had disappeared by next visit in February 2024. 

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  

Small display at the Victoria and Albert Museum highlighting the donation of over 2400 drawings and items relating to Beatrix Potter by Leslie Linder.  Linder died in 1973 and his collection was left to the museum. The display looked at how his collecting started with a drawing of gardening Guinea Pigs which led him to be a scholar of her work publishing “The Art of Beatrix Potter” in 1952.  Most significantly, when Potter’s niece, who inherited her house, discovered a collection of her journa ls written in code, Linder deciphered them discovering many of the stories behind the books.  In a few objects the display told this complicated story simply and clearly.  Closes 14 September 2024

Interesting display at the Garden Museum of repurposed Ikea cabinets to work as indoor greenhouses. Based on a project by the museum and Queen Mary, University of London, the show reflects on collective attitudes towards houseplants' value by making visible research about their roles in our social and political lives. Evidently it is based on an Instagram trend. I didn’t come away knowing much more about houseplants but I did want to try this. I’d have liked a bit more on whether you heat them and if so how. It makes my one house plant look a bit sad. Clo sed 8 September 2023

Interesting small display at the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at the Japanese dye 'beni’. The dye is made from safflower petals and produces red hues and an iridescent green. It fades quickly and often represents passionate but fleeting love. The display looks at its uses in fashion, textiles, cosmetics and ukiyo-e woodblock prints. I loved these heel-less shoes by Noritaka Tatehana although I’m not sure I want to wear them! There was also a nice selection of prints showing the dyes use in fashion and cosmetics. Closes 31 March 2024

Small display at the Garden Museum to mark the donation of Joy Larkcom’s archive to the museum. Larkcom was a vegetable growing pioneer, affectionately known as ‘The Queen of Vegetables’. It explained how she went on journeys with her husband to research vegetable growing around the world. In particular the display focused on her trip to China in the 1980s and included tools she bought there, her language flash cards and seed catalogues. Closed 23 May 2023  

Small display at the Design Museum celebrating this year’s winner of this design award, Marco Capardo. The prize is awarded to an emerging product designer whose work points to a new direction for design and Capardo's work was chosen because of his diverse and creative approaches to materials and making   imaginative use of waste materials. The display highlighted a selection of Capardo’s projects. I loved his reversible temporary furniture is made from powdered sugar and expanded clay. The objects can be completely dissolved with water into their original components when the pieces are no longer needed. My favourite was this chair using linear pieces of wood which fit together in a modular system. Closes 3 April 2023  

Interesting  little display at the Victoria and Albert Museum of Paul Nash’s illustration work for books. Nash’s earliest ambition was to be an illustrator and he continued to do commercial work as a source of income. There were some nice examples and I particularly liked the work for Richard Aldington’s book of First World War poetry “Images of War” which combined realism and Vorticistism as I love Nash’s war work. I also discovered a book I’d not come across called “Memoirs of Other Fronts” by John Rodker about his experiences as a conscientious objector which I am off to look up. Closes 13 August 2023    

Lovely display at the Sam Wannamaker Theatre at the Globe of work by Rutgers BFA theatre designers from New Jersey, USA, who are currently in residence there. Costume design and costume technician students had to design and create a cocktail hat that embodies a Shakespearean character which would work under candlelight. I loved these two for Olivia and Titania. My favourites though were by scenic and lighting design students who were tasked to create an object that with the addition of a single light source there a Shakespeare related shadows. These were small open boxes, each beautiful in their own right, which, when you pressed a switch, produced a shadow on the back which seemed was stunning created from the seat in front. I loved this one for Julius Caesar created from sheets of the US constitution. No end date given

Tiny one cabinet display at the British Library to mark 250 years since the birth of the poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. There were just five items in the display which seemed a shame and only three were by him, a later transcription in his own hand of a childhood poem and   two notebooks. The other two items were copies of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner with illustrations by Willy Pogany and Mervin Peake. Don’t have much knowledge of Coleridge so it would be nice to have had more. Closes 25 September 2022  

Small display at the British Library of newspapers, leaflets and ephemera from the LBGT+ Community in the 1970s and 1980s. As the commentary says it “reflects a time of consciousness raising, identity building and activism”. It is wonderful that this very temporary feeling material has been kept. It not only narrates the history of gay lives and rights in the period but also of how issue related   ideas were spread pre-internet. I liked the humour in it “Bi-Monthly” for the bi-sexual magazine. Every group seemed to have a paper or magazine. It was good to see the infamous “Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin” which partly sparked Clause 28 banning the promotion of homosexuality. Closes 30 October 2022    

Small display at the Royal Festival Hall looking at the life and music of Ravi Shankar, the Indian musician. This display curated by Shankar’s biographer Oliver Craske selected rare archive pieces to highlight key moments from the musicians life to mark 100 years since his birth in 2020 but delayed due to the pandemic. Because the display was small the narrative felt a bit random to make it fit   and it was sometime difficult to match the label and the object particular as the labels were also hard to read a black typeface on green. However I did learn a lot including that he first appeared on stage in 1931 at Theatre des Champs Elysees with his brother’s dance troupe.   There were some nice objects including a letter from George Harrison and the outfit he wore at his last concert. Closes 15 May 2022

Useful display at the National Gallery presenting their plans for remodelling sections of the building to mark the 200th anniversary of the gallery in 1824.  There were good display boards outlining the plans which included a reworking of the Sainsbury wing entrance to make it lighter and more welcoming, to provide a link at basement level between the two buildings and opening up some of the space in the Research Centre, possibly the introduction of a members’ area and rethinking the space outside the gallery linking it to Trafalgar Square.  The display may still be there but I went there was an information desk there and I had a good conversation with a friendly lady who is working on the project and who talked me through the changes.  I went along sceptically as I felt the Sainsbury Wing is still quite new so why does is need changing. I was shocked to realise it’s 30 years old! I’d also not realised that it had become the main entrance in 2018. I thought its use as th...

Creepy but effective pairing of two sculptures at the Fitzwilliam Museum. Both works were made of wood and show tortured and emasculated young men made 500 years apart. The hyper-real one shown here “Action 125” was made by Irian born artist Reza Aramesh in 2011 and shows an anonymous Iraqi prisoner of war who was subjugated by American forces in 2003 at the start of the Iraq War.   This was paired with a St Sebastian from about 1525 by Spanish artist Alonso Berruguete which uses takes a similar heightened naturalist approach. I love these 16th century Spanish sculptures. Bringing these figures together made interesting parallels about how times don’t change from the idea that young men still become victims of war to how artists influence each other over the centuries. It was a good example where just two pieces in a display enhance and inform each other. Closes 31 December 2021