Cathy's Art Diary

Quirky exhibition at National Portrait Gallery looking at popular portraits in society. This is a new area of collecting for the gallery and it looked at how named individuals or identifiable characters are represented and seen by a wide cross section of people via the pictures of people that surround us that aren’t formal portraits. These range through caricatures, souvenirs, currency and posters. The show was arranged in sections including royalty, politics and Shakespeare as a national hero. I loved the use of ceramics in it including a bust of William Booth, a commemorative plate for Victoria’s Golden Jubilee and a medieval floor tile of king. The more unusual items included the attached tea towel of Charles and Diana, a rubber duck of Shakespeare and a dog toy based on the Splitting Image puppet of Margaret Thatcher. Closes 1 March 2020

Delightful exhibition at the Festival Hall of drawings done by Ab Solomons for his wife   done on the back of his wage packets for over 55 years. These pictures were so charming and told the story of their life together, both the ups and downs of daily life. In all the collection includes over 3000 images starting with simple doodles and growing in complexity. Ab’s wife Celia appears in every picture. The story has been made into a play. There seemed to be a running theme of Ab dressing badly with one lovely picture of him holding up a tweed jacket and her pointing out he needed a dinner jacket for the Golders’s Green Hippodrome.   Their lovely yellow kitchen appeared at lot. Occasionally a wall appears between them which I guess means they’d had an argument.   Some of the pictures were quite saucy in a seaside postcard sort of way. I think my favourites were the one I’ve used as a picture plus one where she sits knitting and he’s standing in his overcoat...

Quirky exhibition at Tate Britain looking at folk or naïve art from around Britain. My only argument with the show would be that some of the work shown was not produced as art but as trade signs, notices etc therefore to judge them in artistic terms seems strange. However they are beautiful objects with a social interest. I did however love the display of trade signs as you came in against a bright yellow background. I also like the way the show featured three artists, George Smart, a tailor who produced numerous textile pictures which he sold in Tunbridge Wells, Alfred Wallis, the St Ives artist much feted by the artists who settled in the town, and Mary Linwood who produced copies of the old master in needlepoint which were amazingly successful in their day.   Favourite pieces included the quilt made by a couple in the year before they married in which each of them showed things that meant a lot to them. It was like a conversation in textile. I also liked the pi...