Cathy's Art Diary

Fun and informative online lecture from the Wallace Collection looking at dogs in art. The talk complimented the galleries current show of portraits of dogs. Edgar Peters Bowron formally of the Museum of Fine Art Houston , who had written a book with the same title as this talk, took us though the subject via ten amusing statements about dogs. These ranged from “It started with a Saluki” to “Before dogs played poker they played the piano”. He had some great illustrations which included many pictures I’d not seen plus a number of images from the excellent exhibition.   I could have one without him showing the end of “Lassie Come Home” at the end which had me sobbing but a great idea to bring film into the discussion.    

Delightful exhibition at the Wallace Collection of portraits of dogs. I’d really been looking forward to this show as I have a soft spot for dogs in art and it didn’t disappoint. It was cleverly divided up into categories of dogs from aristocratic ones, through allegorical ones, lap dogs, royal dogs and artists’ dogs. I love that it opened with a Roman statue of two dogs playing plus the addition of two stuffed dogs. It was a bit heavy on Landseer but then he was a genius at dogs. I loved a wall of George Stubbs pictures and the last room of pictures by Hockney of his two dachshunds, Stanley and Boodgie, which represented joy to him at a time when a number of friends were dying. My favourite was Pilau, a performing dog by John Charlton. Pilau could do maths problems with their paws but was sadly killed in a road accident in Pisa. Closes 15 October 2023 Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph Evening Standard    

Charming exhibition at the Wallace Collection of photographs of the Queen and her corgis. In just ten pictures they told the story of her love of the breed from an image of her with the first two dogs her parents owned to the two who joined the crowds lining the route of her funeral cortège on its way to Windsor. It explained how all her dogs were descended from the first one she owned, Susan, and included a family tree of them. I loved the sweet, gold silhouettes of the dogs round the edge of the room. I particularly loved this show as my father bred Corgis, albeit it Cardigan Corgis not the Pembrokes favoured by the Queen, so I grew up surrounded by these dogs and will always have a soft spot for them.  Closes 6 August 2023 Review Telegraph  

Charming online lecture from the Wallace Collection looking at their current exhibition on portraits of dogs. Xavier Bray, Head of the Wallace Collection and Alexander Collins, decorative arts specialist, co-curators of the show talked us through some of the key works in it   and used them to explain the thinking behind the display. I have since been to the exhibition so I’ll save my main critique until I write that up but the talk was a really useful introduction to the show without giving away all the highlights. It was good to hear some analysis which I might have missed in the commentaries within the show, such as how many of the aristocrats lapdogs ended up living on the streets after the French Revolution and parallels in the work of Dickens and Landseer who were friends.