Cathy's Art Diary

Wasted installation at the British Museum to anticipate the arrival of the Bayeux Tapestry in September. The work was outside the main entrance to the gallery and consisted of trees and plants typical of East Sussex where the Battle of Hastings happened. They sat on hessian-wrapped rootballs in the colours of the tapestry. The work was designed by Andy Sturgeon. I say wasted as the space was too busy for the work, so it was very hard to see it. It was swamped by tourists and I suspect most of them had no idea that it was a temporary art work. It was such a good idea but it might have been better to place some of the trees in a cordoned off area so you could actually see them. The best area was the flowers along the top of the steps. Closed 2 June 2026

Interesting small exhibition at the Garden Museum highlighting the “Why Women Grow” podcast by Alice Vincent. On the podcast Vincent interviews inspiring women about their relationship with their gardens and the land. It grew out of a book she developed in lock down of the same title The display consisted of photographs by Shiobham Watts of the women Vincent had interviewed in their garden or a garden space which means a lot to them alongside a commentary on their interview. I was pleased to see one, Jamaica Kincaid, had been photographed in the gardens at Charleston. Have a photo of the section on Salley Vickers, one of my favourite authors, in Kew Gardens. Closed 30 June 2024    

Charming exhibition at the Garden Museum of work by Jean-Marie Toulgouat, Monet’s step great-grandson. Toulgouat moved back to Giverny in 1964 and helped with the restoration of the gardens which was also covered in this show. He had been an architect but had always painted and on returning to the garden he started to paint full-time inspired by it. I preferred the more abstracted works but loved the bright colours of all of them. They were hung with photographs of the garden by Andrew Lawson in a nicely designed display including a wisteria arch. Closed 24 April 2024    

Charming exhibition at the Garden Museum, aimed at children, looking at the science of gardening. Based on books by zoologist and author, Nicola Davies, illustrated by Emily Sutton and Mark Hearld the show combined original artwork and simply written explanations of scientific phenomena like microbes. It felt a bit wordy for children but the text was clear and interesting. I loved the delicate illustrations. Closed 14 September 2023    

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  

Beautiful exhibition at the Garden Museum of works by early 20th century British artists of gardens and public spaces. This turned out to be a selling show co-curated by dealers Liss Llewellyn to raise money for the museum’s education programme. It is a period of art I know well but I discovered a number of artists I don’t know. I was most interested in how many artist couples were represented. There were some lovely works by Gilbert Spencer including the attached of a balcony in Devonshire Hill in Hampstead. I was introduced to the work of Charles Mahoney and Evelyn Dunbar and there were some beautiful Eric Ravilious pieces. Closed 4 June 2023    

Sweet mini garden in the Courtyard of the Guildhall to mark the 2023 Lord Mayor of London’s Big Curry Lunch. I had come across a previous version of this garden where traditionally the Worshipful Company of Gardeners as supported the event each year by installing a themed garden display. This years is designed by Gianna Utilini and includes a memorial bench and fallen tree trunks to represent loss, unity is shown by the upright birch trees and hope in the form of butterflies. It’s a small peaceful space in the busy city. No end date given.

Thoughtful exhibition at the Garden Museum focusing on Lucien Freud’s painting of plants and gardens. With just a few works the show told the story clearly and comprehensively beginning with drawings from when he was six kept by his mother of trees. There were sections on his portraits of people with flowers and his paintings of the gardens and backyards outside his studios which one description called an anti-garden. I loved the inclusion of a room on his murals of cyclamen both at his own home at Croome in Dorset and Chatsworth which included the painting materials he left behind, presumably to finish the work on a future trip. The main fact I took away is that the zimmerlindes which appear in a lot of his pictures was probably a descendent of one in Sigmund Freud’s office in Vienna and the plant became a family emblem. Closes 5 March 2023 Review Telegraph  

Charming small display at the Garden Museum to mark donation of Constance Villiers-Stuart’s archive to the museum.   Villiers-Stuart was a garden historian most known for her work on Indian/Murghal gardens. She went to India’s in 1911 with her husband where she studied gardens, did watercolours of them and   designed one of her own in Jabalpur. In later life she turned to photography and flower arranging. She wrote for Country Life and produced small calendars. The display had a selection of beautiful watercolours of English and Indian scenes plus a selection of ephemera including a palate, passport, selection of lantern slides and sketch books. Having read the statement “Constance remained drastically out of touch with the concerns and treatment of Indian people under colonial rule” but also learning she had an elite circle of friends who met at her home Beachamwell Hall I’m off to find out more. Closes 30 November 2022

Lovely small display at the Garden Museum on plantswoman Beth Chatto. In a project funded by Archives Revealed, The National Archives, The Pilgrim Trust and The Wolfson Foundation, Jane Harrison has catalogued the archive of Beth Chatto deposited at the Garden Museum and showed some of her discoveries in this small exhibition. The selection of books, photographs and documents showed how she turned wasteland in Essex into an environmentally sustainable garden and nursery and how she created a dry garden watered only by rain.    

Fun find of this bright mini garden in the Courtyard of the Guildhall to mark the virtual Lord Mayor of London’s Big Curry Lunch. I’d not come across this idea before but traditionally the Worshipful Company of Gardeners as supported the event each year by installing a themed garden display. This year’s has been built with the help of Waste Not Want Not a horticultural social enterprise which uses horticulture as a therapeutic tool. It was magical to find this bright symbol of renewal amongst the grey stone and to see a few stray officer workers who’d ventured back to the city having lunch sitting beside it.

Interesting but disjointed online lecture from the National Gallery using early pictures and late 19th century works to look at gardens in art. Belle Smith led us through images of the Virgin in a garden from some of the earlier works in the National Gallery explaining their symbolism and the links to the Song of Solomon in the Old Testament. She introduced me to some images I didn’t know and I’d never realised before that the turf bench the Virgin often sits on was a real thing which a box was covered in turf and planted with flowers as a garden seat. In the second part she looked at Monet’s garden at Giverny and the role it played in his art. She told us how he acquired and developed the garden and took us through a selection of the works made there. I had not realised before that part of his turning to garden painting in later life was to move away from more French nationalistic images such as haystacks and cathedrals following the Dreyfus Affair. Both parts of this talk were...

Vibrant exhibition at the Garden Museum of paintings by George Rowlett of garden designer Sarah Price’s own garden. I was struck by the smell as I walked towards this show as the paint was think impasto which still gave off a lovely oily scent. The paint was over a centimetre thick in places and had a wonderful sense of texture. In the commentary it said that Rowlett uses decorators scrapers to apply the paint and sets up a large tarpaulin under his easel as it’s such a messy process. The finished works have a real sense of being objects not just paintings and I loved their sense of colour and vibrancy. Closes 4 August 2019

Colourful exhibition at the Garden Museum looking at how Ivon Hutchins used the natural environment in his work. In 1940 Hitchens moved to a caravan in the woods of Sussex after his London home was bombed. He eventually built a house there and curated the land around to be make a natural garden.  The show looked at how he then the land in his art and began  by looking at his simplified blocked landscapes in swathes of colour which experimented with abstraction and then moved to at his lovely still lives with flowers picked from the land around him. Finally it looked at his Tangled Pond series showing the vegetarian around the four ponds in his garden. I loved the descriptions in this show including the fact that he had a potted horse chestnut in his studio which he took to his exhibitions so that real nature was included. I also liked the inclusion of some delightful sketchbooks and textiles designed by him and his son. Closed on 15 July 2019 Reviews ...

Sweet exhibition at the Garden Museum of photographs by Damian Walker of sheds at Ealing Dean Gardens, the oldest surviving allotments which started in 1832. There was a lovely eclectic collection of sheds from an old Anderson shelter to a Wendy house. Each allotment has a similar patch of land and the show highlights how different things can happen in a similar space. Each shed is both functional and decorative. The pictures created a lovely image of community. Closed on 28 January 2018  

Dull exhibition at the Garden Museum looking at the life and work of garden designer John Brookes. I didn’t feel this show explained why Brookes work was important. The subtitle implied that he has influenced how our gardens look today but I didn’t come out of the show with any understanding of what his contribution to this was. I don’t have a garden and am not that interested in garden design and I felt this show required you to have some knowledge and interest before coming. There were a lot of designs but I’d have liked to see more photographs to show how a design becomes reality. There was a good video and it was interesting to listen to Brookes talk about his Chelsea contributions and it was a nice touch to have copies of his books around the show for you to flick through. Closes on 25 March 2018  

Vibrant exhibition at the Royal Academy looking at the relationship between modern art and gardens. I liked the variety of themes and ways of presenting the work in this exhibition however after a while it all became a bit too much! It was just too big a show on one topic. The central room which looked at international gardens   became too chocolate boxlike and I felt like I was drowning in orange chocolate truffles! The stories of each of the gardens was fascinating but even for me there were too many images There was a great sense of visual relief when you hit the wittily titled Avant-Garden room and found works by Van Gogh, Kandinsky and got a different view of the world. However the star of the show was the Monet lilies triptych brought back together from three galleries and shown in the lovely round room, a perfect end to the show. I loved the fact there was no sense of the bank of the pool and they become pictures of infinity. Closes on 20 April 2016. ...

Imaginative exhibition at the Garden Museum giving an overview of the collection before it goes into storage while the museum is refurbished and expanded. It included over 200 objects from the collection shown as if being packed up and in slightly random order. For example there was an open packing case of garden gnomes. There was also a cabinet of pull out draws with photographs in them and a wonderful long wall of pictures. The way the items were shown gave you a sense of discovery and a real excitement for what the new developments will bring.  

Really beautiful exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery looking at gardens in art and how gardens have inspired artists and craftspeople. The first section looks at themes in gardens from how the Persian invented the term paradise and gardens in the Christian religion. After this the show was arranged chronically. Of course I loved the section on the Renaissance garden and having been to Hampton Court recently was so interested in a painting of the garden at Whitehall Palace thought to be the first recognisable garden in art. It was just like one of the gardens I’d been to at the Palace and it had obviously been based on this picture. There was also the earliest portrait of a gardener, Jacapo Cennini, employed by the Medici. It was interesting to see how many of the botanical pictures where by female artists. This was obviously a subject which was considered appropriate for women to work on. The big room in the gallery was devoted to Baroque gardens and was stunning. ...

A wonderful garden/installation in the courtyard of the Victoria and Albert Museum by Xu Bing, based on a Chi8nese fable. Based on the pool in the centre of the courtyard it consists of layers of thinly cut stone built up to form mountains and different landscapes. These are complemented by waterfalls and mist coming off the water. In amongst the hills are small houses and blue and white ceramic fish in the pool. As you walk round there is a quiet soundtrack of goats! It is a really peaceful and relaxing work. I’d love to go back one evening as I get the impression it is illuminated at night and I am sure it is even more beautiful.