Cathy's Art Diary

Interesting online lecture from the Victoria and Albert Museum on a display there on the designer Pugin and Hardman who manufactured his metalwork objects. Angus Paterson and Max Donnelly explained how the museum had acquired a cache of 700 designs by Pugin for Hardman in 2023 which formed the core of the display and were being shown alongside some of the objects made from them. The took us through the lives of the two men and their correspondence then explained the themes of the show with examples from each section. I was particularly interested to hear about Pugin’s house The Grange in Ramsgate along with its adjoining church and library which you can now visit so that’s on the list!

Fun exhibition at Woolwich Works presenting an installation of a Windrush generation living room. The work was curated by Tony Fairweather’s Windrush Collection which aims to save original artefacts from the Windrush era. It sets up a living room of the period with clashing patterns and full of objects. The installation is accompanied by various events such as book readings. It was fun seeing this in a busy arts centre and café which made it stand out more and yet feel part of the space. Being a purist I’d like to have seen an old school tv being used, to advertise events within the show, rather than a modern monitor. It’s also interesting to think about what makes it Windrush, as a lot of the artefacts would have been seen in my grandma’s house of the same era. She definitely had that carpet! Closed 16 March 2025

Surprising installation at Sotheby’s of the old Real Madrid locker room. I’d come to Sotheby’s for the next blog entry which is much more me but in looking for it I discovered this! I love London for the bizarre things you find while wandering round! The locker room was laid out like an installation with photos of the players on the doors and one of their shirts above. They were arranged around a mosaic from the stadium. I’m not the right audience for this but it looked very impressive and like an artwork in its own right. Closed 26 November 2024  

Strange exhibition at the Museum of the Home of work by contemporary Vietnamese diasporic artists presenting works about the theme of home. I say strange because most of the work was set out on low displays and you were invited to sit on hessian cushions on the floor to view the pieces. I’m not the most agile so didn’t really feel able to do this and move around the displays. All the labels were nearly at foot level so impossible to read standing up. Hence, although many of the objects looked beautiful, I have no idea who they were by or what they represented. The display is partly to gather ideas for a Vietnamese room for the museum as it is situated in the heart of that community in London. I liked the touch of having a small shrine at the entrance to the display which is evidently typical of Vietnamese homes. Closed 11 July 2023

Wonderful exhibition at the Design Museum on the life and work of 20th century designer Charlotte Perriand. Perriand began by working for Le Corbusier but the work she did for him went uncredited. For him she developed the classic steel framed chairs and in one section of the show there were modern reproductions you could sit in. They were so comfortable. I loved the room recreations including her 1927 flat which included an extendable table with a rubber top which rolled out of the wall. I just loved her economy of space. Later on their were modular book cases which you can still see in shops today. In the 1930s she moved into more organic forms and I fell in love with her Boomerang desk. It looked so ergonomic and practical. She spent time in Japan in the Second World War and designed the carpet shown here based on sailors graffiti on the ship she travelled over on. She went on to design travel agencies for Air France and a fabulous ski resort Les Arc which houses 30,000...

Joyful exhibition at Tate Modern on the life and work of Sophie Taeuber-Arp painter, crafts professional, interior designer, performer and more. This was such a colourful show and from the first room I got a real sense of friendships, loyalty and creativity in all forms. The show was dominated by Taeuber-Arp’s geometric abstract paintings often based on the gird structure of textiles. It also looked at how these designs moved into her craftwork and interior design. There was a fun display of her puppets for the play “King Stag” which were delighting various children when I was there. It was wonderful to see so many of them there alongside the set designs. These were shown in a room with Dadaesque heads, examples of her wood turning and lovely beaded bags. I loved the room on her interior design work particularly her work on her own home at Clamart near Paris. I wanted the simple book shelves made in brightly coloured stackable units. It was also nice to see the stained-glass wor...

Sumptuous installation at the Victoria and Albert Museum by Darren Waterston reimagining a room designed by James Abbott McNeill Whistler. OK this one takes a lot of setting up, stick with me. Whistler was commissioned by Frederick Richard Leyland to design a room to display his ceramics collection however he over stepped the brief creating Harmony in Blue and Gold otherwise called the Peacock Room. Leyland refused to pay in full which led to a vitriolic feud and the painting, by Whistler, of “Filthy Lucre (The Creditor)” which shows Leyland as a peacock in a frilled shirt. In this installation Waterston presents “an unsettling re-interpretation” of the room which distorts the space and shows it in a state of decay. You enter the space where you see the ghost of the fine room, shelves have broken, ceramics have smashed, vases have glazes that look like water damage, the ceiling shows signs of buckling and gold decoration has melted across the floor and into stalactites ...

Small exhibition at the ICA looking at the relationship between architecture, design and night life in post war Italy. OK I admit it I didn’t understand this! There were lots of descriptions but I never really understood why any of this was important! I suppose it said something about architect interior work but little sense of what the themes were or how it changed things. I did like some pictures of molded chairs round a table and there was a fun looking cocktail bar but I think that is the extent of what I gleaned from this show! Closing on 10 January 2015

Fascinating exhibition at the Foundling Museum looking at the art of stucco both in its historic context and looking at contemporary work by Geoffrey Preston. Preston was invited to lead the team working on the ceilings at Uppark House following the fire. And in doing that work he reinvented the art of hand modelled plaster work. The section on that house also discussed the geometric proportions of the ceilings. I had always wondered how such elaborated work could seem so effortless and the answer seems to be its geometric underpinning. I loved seeming frames pieces of   plaster work at head height so you could see the detail of the design and finish properly in particular the Bachus and Ariadne based on a Tintoretto made   for a room at Great Fulford which the family have been restoring for three generations! He had also done modern work for a house in 2009 including beautiful birds based on drawing by C.F.Tunnicliffe.

Wonderfully colourful exhibition at Tate Modern on the life and work of Sonia Delaunay. I must admit I’d not come across Delaunay before except for a vague knowledge of some of the larger colourful abstracts but came away with a real sense of the person and a sense of colour, vibrance and friendship. Being a big Bloomsbury fan I was interested in the fact Delaunay not only painted but also worked in interior decoration and built up a group of friends and artists around her.   I wonder if she’d heard of the Omega Workshop as her first shop opened in Spain at a slightly later date. However most interesting was her fashion work, using the same colours and techniques as her art and I realised a lot of my view of 1920s fashion is her work. The wonderfully straight loose dresses made in bright geometrically patterned materials. The show mixed paintings with outfits and interior design work together well so you could see the influences each had one the other. I love...

Decorative exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum looking at the history of the wallpaper produced by Watts & Co and the history of the company. I knew Watts & Co as suppliers of ecclesiastical clothing so was fascinated to know more about their interior design work both for churches and secular buildings. The show was beautifully arranged with wallpaper samples round the walls with good descriptions of who they had been made for and information boards in the middle telling the history of the firm. The company was set up by three gentlemen in 1870 one of whom was the son of George Gilbert Scott. I was fascinated later in the week to realised I’d recorded a programme in the BBC Gothic series on the three generations of Scott architects. The exhibition points out that there are descendants still involved in the company. Many of the wall paper designs had been reprinted and recommissioned in the 1990s and the company still supplies the House of Parliament. ...

An installation in Trafalgar Square as part of London Design Week. This consisted of four sheds/rooms by different designers with the brief of “What makes a house a home?”. My favourite was Jasper Morrison’s “Pigeon Fancier’s House”   with a pine finish and a big window from which to watch birds to watch birds. This was witty but was also a room you could live in. Raw Edges’ interior with the ability to move walls to create different spaces at different times was an interesting idea. If you only use the bathroom at certain times of day why does it take up so much space? Just slide the wall over to make enough room to use the wash basin or the shower, the slide it back again for a bigger living space!   The other two pieces were more like installations than rooms you could actually live in.  

Opulent exhibition at the V&A looking at the life and career of the Georgian designer William Kent. This was a beautifully displayed show with the falls in dark Georgian colours but the section dividers in white glass etched with sketches by Kent though which there was a lovely vista to a chandelier. Kent began as a painter but also became an architect and designer for the stage and of gardens as well as being the first British designer to tackle a whole interior. There was a lot about the work which came out of his friendship with Richard Bogle, 3rd Earl of Burlingotn and his friends Alexander Pope, Handel and John Gay which gave a wonderful picture of society and life at the time. I loved the section on the work he did for the Royal family including a barge for Prince Frederick and a Palace which wasn’t built for Richmond. I also didn’t know he designed much of Horse Guards Parade so I can’t wait to go and have another look at it.     The sec...

Small exhibition at Tate Britain looking at the 17th and 18th century fashion for decorating interiors with murals and paintings from the ceiling of the Banqueting House to the Painted Hall at Greenwich. The show looked at royal ceilings, domes, staircases and other ceilings. I loved seeing a number of different possible designs for the inside of the Dome of St Paul’s. I was interested to learn how great mural designs were popular as prints and to see a whole section on the designs of the staircase at Marlborough House including a life size photo of it sent in the corner of the room   and print and painted versions. My favourite item was Carwitham’s “Fantasy of Flight” which may have been a mural design or a book illustration. I so hope it was a mural design! It would have rivalled the Michelangelo Last Judgement with great naked figures tumbling down the picture.

Fun exhibition at Somerset House showcasing the use of wool in the home. This was delightful from the smell of fresh carpet as you walked in, the funky coloured sheep in the courtyard through to the trendy room settings. I loved the lime green bedroom and the nursery complete with a sheep   a child could ride. There were also rooms showing wools use in fashion and rooms show casing people spinning and weaving. All an unexpected delight!

Interesting lecture at the Queen’s Gallery looking at what the interior of a Renaissance house might have looked like given by John Goodall, Architectural Editor of Country Life. The lecture was to compliment the current Northern Renaissance exhibition and discussed the context of the art works in the exhibition. He reminded that most decorative works in this period were portable and moved round from house to house as you travelled. He gave a good overview of the English Renaissance decorative style describing grotesques, strap work and marbling. He then led us on an imaginary walk through a house looking at what art and objects might have been in each room. It was good to see English examples used for a change to show Renaissance style.