Cathy's Art Diary

Useful online lecture from ARTScapades describing the exhibition of drawings by Victor Hugo at the Royal Academy. I had visited this excellent exhibition a few days before so it was less of an introduction for me and more of a rediscovery. Sarah Lea guided us through the show’s layout highlighting some key works. I must admit didn’t get a lot from the talk which I hadn’t got from the show which was clearly narrated. I would like to have heard a bit more about how the show was put together and what she had learnt from doing it.

Interesting small exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery of works on paper by Austrian and German 20th century artists. The show explained these works and the links between artists well and went into some detail on the techniques. There was also a section on the cultural anxiety of around the changing role of women. I think my favourite work was a portrait of Reinhard Piper by Peter Trumm which mimicked the effect of wood grain. I was also interesting to see a printing block made by Kandinsky. Closed 22 June 2025  

Small exhibition at the British Museum celebrating works left to the museum by the dealer, Kirsten Schubert. Schubert left 10 works but has donated a further 45 during his lifetime some of which were also featured. They ranged from modern masters like Picasso and Degas and artists he had represented such as Bridget Riley. I loved this early Riley which is hinting at her abstracted work to come but keeps a recognisable landscape. I also liked this Degas copied after a drawing in the Uffizi. Closed 21 April 2025  

Strange exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery focusing on the drawings of Henri Michaux done under the influence of the drug Mescaline. These were abstract works affected by the taking of a psychedelic drug in 1955. Michaux considered them to be a reflection of the inner workings of the mind and continued to produce work influenced by the experience into the 1960s.   He published various books and a film on the topic. The works themselves were quite repetitive consisting of packed images of fine lines so the more interesting aspect of the show was that it told the history of the use of these drugs in therapy and by artists. Closes 4 June 2025 Review Guardian  

Annoying exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery of some of their recent drawing acquisitions. Prepare for more moaning! Why hold an exhibition, even if it’s quite small, in what is basically a corridor? It was hard to step back and look at the works without people walking past or to use the av presentation with more information without being bumped into. That said there were some nice works including one of the Tracey Emin drawings for the new gallery doors, a touching drawing of designer Richard Nicoll by Howard Tangye and Eileen Cooper’s pair of her portraits of herself and Cathie Pilkington. Closes 6 January 2026  

Useful exhibition at the National Gallery focusing on an altarpiece by Parmigianino during his time in Rome. This strange tall picture has been off display for 10 years and has been conserved before this show. My previous blog post was on a curators’ talk on the show which shone a light on the drawings included in the show. The altarpiece is still powerful and people were standing in awe before it. The strange composition and in particular the powerful figure of John the Baptist draws you in. It was lovely to see it with a selection of drawings by the artist, made to work out the composition in a variety of styles. They helped to understand the choices he made. Closed 9 March 2025 Re views Times Guardian  

Interesting exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery of works on blue paper from their collection. The show explained how artists used blue paper to give a mid-tone to drawings and watercolour sketches. It also looked at the different types of blue paper and how it was made. The best aspect was the beautiful works which were on show from a drawing from Tintoretto's workshop to a 20th century piece by Wyndham Lewis. I loved a small Turner landscape and wonderful church interior by Pieter Saenredam from 1634. I was most intrigued at the story with a female nude by Govert Flinck from 1648. It represents one of the earliest documented cases of women posing nude in Western art as a court case from the same year tells us that Flinck painted three sisters "stark naked".   Closes 26 January 2025

Useful online lecture from the London Art History Society looking at the different reasons artists drew in the Renaissance. Grant Lewis from the British Museum proposed that as well as drawing being a way of working out compositions and for use within the studio as artists tried to enhance their prestige they became collectable by patrons. He outlined Vasari’s principle of disegno or design and how being able to see the intellectual thought behind a work became important in raising the status of artists. Lewis showed us how some artists, including Raphael, made works which looked like spontaneous preparatory work but were actually   constructed with underdrawings which were rubbed out. They were playing with these ideals and using the drawings as an act of performance. He also talked about how a market developed for finished drawings with some by Michelangelo talking up to 6 months to produce although he also told us about Luca Cambiaso whose drawings were so popular he set ...

Fascinating exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery looking at the air raid shelter drawings of Henry Moore and how they influenced his later work. I love this sort of small exhibition which not only shows beautiful work but also weaves an interesting argument around them. There was a lovely selection of shelter drawings. I hadn’t realised before that he just sketched and made notes in the shelters out of respect for the people. He worked them up into finished drawings later. I also hadn’t realised that his studio was bombed leaving him unable to make large sculptures during the war so he turned to drawing. The show concluded by looking at two post-war sculptural pieces which were visually influenced by the drawings and included a marquette for the relief wall of the Bouwcentrum in Rotterdam which I hadn’t come across before. Closed 22 September 2024 Review Evening Standard    

Lovely exhibition at the Stephen Friedman Gallery of three series of drawings by Kenturah Davis. These were exquisite drawings on paper embossed with text from various books and essays as well as comments on the process of the work. I loved the texture this gave to the work. Two series were portrait based, one shown in groups and the other in a bespoke frame with mini sculptures built in made by the artist’s partner. I loved the movement in these pictures and the detail in them. The third series showed clouds based on snap shots and were displayed in one room like an installation. Closed 20 July 2024

Engaging exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery of portraits in charcoal by Frank Auerbach. These were exquisite works from early in his career where the heads seemed to look out of the darkness with a ghostly quality. Close to they had a ragged feel but as you moved away beautiful faces emerged. The commentary was fascinating saying how he made them by drawing the figure over a number of hours then rubbing it out and drawing over it. He repeated this until he was happy with the image. Often, he rubbed them out so many times and vigorously that the paper tore and he patched it. This had the effect of making the people look broken. I loved the fact that he drew the same people again and again, with this show featuring his friends Stella, the artist Leon Kossoff, his cousin Gerde Bohem and his wife Julia. My favourite however was a self-portrait from 1958 which was beautifully drawn and pulled you across the axis of the two rooms to look at it. It had a Rembrandt like quality of in...

Interesting exhibition at the British Museum of work by four German and Austrian artists from a recent gift of 67 works on paper by Count Christian Duerchein. The show devoted a section to each of the four artists. I warmed more to the three Germans, Rudi Troger, Karl Bohrmann and Carl Heinz Wegert whose work was more introspective. Austrian, Herman Nitsch’s work was inspired by his rather strange sounding performance art. I think my favourite was Troger who did expressive, figurative work often of his wife and home. There were some brilliant quotes from him such as the idea of “drawing something so it becomes something else” and that art is “expressing feelings with visual means”. Talking quotes I also loved one by Bohrmann that “a drawn line is a moment of time though which the artist has lived”. Closes 1 April 2024

Beautiful exhibition at the British Museum focusing on works on paper from Genoa. The title came from Petrach’s description of the city as ‘La Superba’ or The Proud which I thought was a lovely play on words. The commentary explains how the city attracted artists with the arrival of one of Raphael’s pupils, Perino del Vaga, but has been largely overshadowed by Venice. The show consisted of a large selection of prints and drawings which were well explained. I think my favourite was Giovanni Batista Castello’s “Ulysses in the Gardens of King Alanous’ Palace” from about 1550. I loved Luca Cambiaso’s simple but expressive pieces. Among the explanations were some fascinating stories such as how Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione’s invented the monotype print and a nobleman artist who murdered a fellow noble in self-defence and had to flee to Florence. There was also a section on Flemish artists who came to the city including a wonderful sketchbook of genre scenes by Cornelius Wael. A...

Interesting exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery of portrait drawings by David Hockney. It was a rerun of a show which was closed by Covid which I had managed to go to so check out my original review . When I now look at how much I was out and about in London on the run up to lockdown I amazed I didn’t catch the lurgy. This show was very similar, focusing on three friends plus his mother and self-portraits with an added section of portraits he did coming out of lockdown in his Normandy studio. There was a lovely sense the joy of being with people again but, from a couple where you know what the person looks like, I’m not sure they are particularly good portraits. Closed 21 January 2024 R eviews Guardian Telegraph Evening Standard

Lovely exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery of 18th century drawings of Venice. The show as a whole built a sense of the city at the time which was then, as now, a magnet for visitors from carnival figures, through scenes of the Grand Canal, portraits of characters and records of interior design. I loved a small drawing by Pietro Antonio Novelli of a gnocchi seller. I’d not known that the Friday before lent was called Gnocchi Friday and Punchinello figures like this sold them in the streets. I also liked the tiny watercolours of the Grand Canal on blue paper like postcards. My favourite work was a picture of the church by the Rialto by Canaletto which looked just like it does now. I struck up a lovely conversation with the gentleman next to me about where the fish market was in relation to it. Closes 11 February 2024  

Fascinating  display at Tate Britain of drawings and watercolours by contemporary artist Chris Ofili shown with works by William Blake that inspired him. It was a clever move to have the different artists in different rooms and the show would have worked whatever order you saw them in. Both artists drew from a variety of sources to inspire their work and the colour palette is similar. It is surprising to think the artists were working 200 years apart.   There were good explanations of the works and some Blake’s I’d never seen before. Closes 2 June 2024    

Charming exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery using drawings from their collection to explore Western artists interaction with Orientalism and the Arabian Nights stories. The show invited us to read the pictures as a conflation of observations when traveling with the literature. The stories had been passed down orally over the years but were first published in Europe in 1701 in French. There was a good selection of work by a range of artists. The star of the show was a study by Ingres for “La Grand Odalisque”, an exquisite nude drawing. The show explained how the idea of the Odalisque was a European construct as male artists didn’t have access to the harem or local models. My favourite work was a sketch by Glyn Philpot again as a study for a larger work. Closes 3 June 2023

Charming exhibition at Leighton House of drawings in gold by Evelyn De Morgan. I am fond of Evelyn de Morgan’s work although it’s subject matter can be a bit strange and I own a small sketch by her, but I had never come across her rather unique idea of drawing in gold. The show explained her technique well and how she bought ‘cakes of gold’ which she ground down to create gold paint and a type of   crayon which she’d invented. It also explained how, informed by Renaissance mystic and alchemist, Paracelsus, she felt gold was a colour of spiritual salvation. The works were very delicate but at first looked a little dull but when you looked closely you could see the gold shimmering on the surface and giving an other-worldly effect. Closes 27 August 2023 Review Evening Standard  

Interesting exhibition at the British Museum highlighting works from a donation of prints and drawings to the museum from the collector Hamish Parker. The show became a history of late 20th and early 21st century art and included some beautiful pieces. There were three exquisite portrait etchings by Lucien Freud as well as works by Richard Serra, Lee Krasner, Ed Rusha and Jake and Dinos Chapman. A new artist to me was Avigdor Ankha who has been in a concentration camp and lived in Paris after the Second World War. He was a friend of Samuel Beckett and there was a lovely portrait of him here. My favourite was an etching of a pair of shoes, shown here,   which I found touching. Another find was the tapestry like drawings by Caroline Kryzezechi the effect being achieved by small strokes from ball point pens. I also discovered the wonderfully named Blinky Palermo! I want to be called Blinky Palermo. Closes 5 March 2020  

Thought provoking exhibition at Charleston Farmhouse introducing the recently discovered erotic drawings by Duncan Grant. It was lovely to see these drawings on show at last, they were acquired during lockdown having been passed down through the queer community including during the time when sex between men was still illegal. It was a lovely touch to show them with portraits of the five men who had looked after them. It’s wonderful that they have now come back home to Charleston. Although many of them are explicit because they are so tenderly drawn and have a certain cartoon like quality, they are easy to look at and quite charming.  I liked the idea of showing the work with contemporary responses that Charleston have commissioned but some of these feel a lot harsher and real and so, at times, they are more difficult to look at. The show did raise many questions in my mind which I will continue to explore. Why explicit art in a drawing and photograph can feel so different? W...