Cathy's Art Diary

Charming small exhibition at Philip Mould & Company of miniatures by the 18th century artist, John Smart. The show brought together paintings and detailed sketches which Smart had made as preparatory works and as a record of his output. He mounted these in albums which his family   broke up in the 1930s selling the drawings. In one case the show had both the drawing and final picture. Each work had the sitters name and colour notes on the back which has helped to identify some of the sitters in the paintings. These were delicate very personal works. I was   fascinated to read that he had spent some time in India producing work for the British colonial community there. Closed 24 November 2023  

Delightful exhibition at Pallant House Gallery of miniature art galleries. Pallant House has had a miniature gallery from 1934 since 1997 which was commissioned by Sydney Burney. He asked 34 contemporary artists including Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell and Augustus John to paint miniature works of art. I’ve always loved this piece partly because I love the artists he chose but also because who can resist a doll’s house! The gallery commissioned a new version for the Millennium with the model made by St John Wilson who had designed the new wing of the gallery and they commissioned miniatures from their artist friends, many of whom they had designed studios for. They include Frank Auerbach, Peter Blake and Prunella Clough. Finally during the first lockdown they commissioned Wright & Wright architects who are working on proposals for a new Collections Centre for the gallery and works from 31 contemporary artists including Grayson Perry, Edmund de Waal and Maggi Hambling. Also movin...

Charming display at the National Portrait Gallery as part of the Tacita Dean: Portraits exhibition which I missed on my first visit to that show as it was not with the main show.   This was room looked at the idea of miniature portraits with the title taken from Hamlet where Hamlet refers to the escalating value of “portraits in little” of his uncle when he became king. For this reason there was a portrait of Shakespeare in the room along with those of Donne and Drayton who also mention miniatures in their work.   The miniatures were shown to reflect the literary world of the time with a picture of one of the brothers to whom the First Folio is dedicated and the Earl of Derby, the earliest court patron of the stage.   In the midst of this was a small scale Tacita Dean video of David Warner, Stephen Dilliane and Ben Whishaw, all of whom have played Hamlet. Oddly compared to the miniatures the film felt rather out of focus and misty however it was a nice m...