Cathy's Art Diary

Surprising exhibition at Belmacz of some of the erotic drawings of Duncan Grant on loan from Charleston Farmhouse. I say surprising as I didn’t know they’d lent any plus I didn’t know the Gallery! I just walked past on my way to Oxford Street and found them. The show was curated by two contemporary artists, Jakob Lena Knebl and Ashley Hans Scheirl, who had designed the space and included some of their own work from the 1980s. I had already seen the exhibition of drawings at Charleston and I think if anything some of these were more acrobatic! They also seemed to include more women. They were beautiful displayed and it was good to find some of the works in a different context. Closed 23 December 2022  

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...

Fantastic exhibition at Charleston Farmhouse recreating Duncan Grant’s first solo exhibition in 1920. The scholarship shown in this show was wonderful. Almost all the pictures had been gathered together and where the original couldn’t be identified or borrowed a suitable replacement was found for it. Those that were in the show were indicated by Grant’s signature under the work. The labels on the pictures were good with each saying how much it cost and in some instances who bought it. Two were touchingly by Maynard Keynes and had been borrowed from King’s College Cambridge. Two panels of contemporary critics of the show.   The works were shown in a shown in white and yellow space split a couple of feet up the wall. It was the perfect yellow to set off the pictures and highlight the yellow in them which gave coherence to the display. As for the pictures they were, of course, brilliant and quite a mix of subjects. They reflected the First World War years when Grant had to bala...

Fun event at Charleston Farmhouse inviting four queer artists to respond to the collection of over 400 erotic drawings by Duncan Grant which have recently been discovered. The event started with Darren Clarke, Head of Collections at Charleston, telling us about how the drawings came into the collection and giving an overview of what they include. Artists and activists, Neil Bartlett, Tanaka Mhishi and Kuchenga then responded to the work in in the form of though provoking essays. I particularly liked Bartlett’s piece which talked about how homosexuality was illegal when the drawings were done and how liberating yet secret that made them. These talks were broken up by short comic, life drawing sessions by Harry Clayton-Wright, for which we had each been given paper and acrylics to join in. I attach one of my efforts here. I’m not sure some of the other poses would pass the Google Blogger censor. I really enjoyed the exercise and want to do more. This session was part of a Queer ...

Fascinating online talk from Charleston Farmhouse and part of OUTing the Past: The International Festivals of Lesbian Gay Bisexual & Trans History looking at the newly discovered erotic drawings of Duncan Grant. Darren Clarke, Head of Collections at Charleston, told us how the drawings had come into the collection of the house having been given to Edward La Bas in 1959 labelled “These drawings are very private” then having been passed from lover to lover until donated to them last year. It had previously been thought that they had been destroyed by La Bas’s sister on his death. Clarke looked talked about the influences on the pictures such as Greco-Roman traditions and contemporary physical fitness magazines while showing us a wonderful selection of these tender and joyful images. He also discussed how they fit didn’t fit with the thinking of the this time when homosexuality was still illegal and how the fitted into Duncan’s life and more publicly known art. This was a great...

Delightful talk at Charleston Farmhouse as part of the Charleston Festival given by Ali Smith.   As the first event of the festival Ali Smith had been commissioned to write a piece about the newly rediscovered dinner service decorated by Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell for Kenneth Clarke. It was a stunning prose poem, appropriately a stream of consciousness on various topics suggested by the paints. It covered the artists, the women shown on the plates, various definitions of the word plate and plates in the works of Virginia Woolf and of the women shown.   It was delivered at a cracking, exciting pace bringing out the rhythm of the words. We just now need a published version so we can comb through the detail in it.   A great start to a fantastic 12 days of talks, ideas and good company. I can’t keep up with writing up all the events so I’ll concentrate on those to do with art and design.

Interesting evening at the Royal Institution organised by the Art Fund to launch an appeal to raise money to conserve the paintings by Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant in Berwick Church. The evening consisted of Deborah Gage interviewing Julian Fellowes about his childhood in Sussex and what the art of the area meant to him. This was followed by a lovely presentation looking at how the pictures were commissioned and talking you through the iconography using quotes from letters and accompanied by lovely pieces sung by baritone, Michael Bunting. It brought the pictures to life but I felt was a bit heavy on the symbolism given that the artists were not religious.   This event had two added bonus’s, firstly that is was held in the iconic lecture theatre at the Royal Institution and secondly that there was a nice drinks reception afterwards and a chance to meet up with friends and fellow Bloomsbury nuts.  

Delightful exhibition at the Piano Nobile Gallery looking at the art and design of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. As any of you who read this know I am a huge Bloomsbury fan so needless to say I loved this show. The centre piece was the newly rediscovered Famous Women Dinner Service made for Kenneth Clark in the early 1930s. It was believed that this had been lost and Charleston Farmhouse is in the process of raising money to buy it to display in their new gallery. There are a few test pieces at Charleston which I had always felt looked a bit messy but the set looks much more impressive when seen together. I loved the eclectic mix of women represented from Pocahontas  to Greta Garbo. It was also lovely to see that plates of Vanessa and Duncan at the centre of it as a quirky signature. The plates were shown with some other lovely items including pieces from Charleston Farmhouse so it was like seeing old friends. There were also some pictures I’d not seen before and I l...

Superb exhibition at the Brighton Royal Pavilion and Art Galleries of the early work of Duncan Bell and Vanessa Bell. It was full of old friends such as Duncan’s ‘The Bathers’ which hit you afresh as you walked in. However there were also some super pictures which I had not seen before. Paintings were hung well together to create a dialogue, such as pictures by both artists of a camp site. I think this period saw the product of most of the artists’ best work so it was good to see a such a concentrated examination of it. There was a lovely video to go with the exhibition which just lasts about 6 minutes and comes at the end so it does not distract from the pictures. Reviews Times

Small exhibition at Charleston Farmhouse of works by Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell which look at drawing the body. Most of the pictures are life studies of nudes. The notes covered not only how the pictures were done but also often who the models were and how the artists found them. It also included a few pictures by Vanessa of her children. This was the first exhibition of work drawn from thousands of sketches, sketchbooks and paintings that make up the Angelica Garnett Gift to Charleston and I look forward to many more exhibitions of this quality from the collection.

An interview with Angelica Garnett at Charleston Farmhouse . Angelica was the daughter of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant who lived and worked at the house. Soon to hit 90 she was interviewed by art historian Simon Watney and was lucid and interesting if a little deaf. Two images stay with me one of Maynard Keynes showering her with bath salts as a child and one of her burning a picture which Duncan had been dissatisfied with on his death. The talk was followed by a showing of the film ‘Duncan Grant at Charleston’.

The featured artist this month at the Abbott and Holder Gallery in Museum Street is Duncan Grant with works possibly for the Cambridge production of Aristophanes 'The Birds' in 1923/24 and some recumbent male figures. Being a big Bloomsbury fan it was good to see these works and realise that a line block print which I bought a few years ago relates to “The Birds” pictures. Although these pictures were too expensive for me I did fall for a small drawing by Leonard Leslie Brooke for a illustration for the poem “Mr and Mrs Spikky Sparrow” by Edward Lear and two very small, honest not much bigger than a postage stamp, sketches by William or Evelyn de Morgan. Now where will I hang them?

I am a Friend of Charleston, the house where the painters Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell, the art wing of the Bloomsbury Group, lived in Sussex. In last years AGM we bought a tour of the house with Simon Watney, one of the leading writers on the Bloomsbury group whose most recent book is " Bloomsbury in Sussex ". It had taken a while to arrange but on Saturday four of us gathered for our tour. Although I know the house well already it was a real treat to go round with someone who had known the house when Duncan was still alive and had been instrumental in saving and conserving it. It was also good to focus on the paintings and decorative aspects of the house rather than the personalities. I had not known before how much of the decoration had been done quite soon after they moved in in 1916. It was good to have your eye drawn to paintings you might have missed on previous visits. While there we also took the opportunity to view the small temporary exhibition which was on in the...