Cathy's Art Diary

Interesting online lecture from ARTscapades on the effect of the Surrealists arriving in New York from Paris in the Second World War. Charles Darwent, the author of a book on the subject, focused on the Atelier 17 set up by the English artists S.W. Hayter originally in Paris and later in New York and the artists who gravitated to it. I had never realised before that Abstract Expressionism had its roots in Surrealist ideas of the unconscious in art. I wouldn’t have classed Pollock and co as surrealists but this talk helped me understand those links. I was particularly interested in the idea that when the French first arrived they couldn’t communicate with the American as many didn’t speak English but they congregate at the Jumble Shop restaurant where they started communicate via drawings and sharing works.    

Lovely exhibition at the Barber Institute of Fine Art in Birmingham of John Sloan’s prints of New York shown to compliment the Saul Bellows show.   Sloan moved to New York in 1904 and these etchings were published as a portfolio in 1905-6 and show his first encounters with the city from 5th Avenue to Chelsea. They were an old fashioned style at the time and have a flavour of Hogarth’s observation of life.   The labels were excellent on the pictures with quotes from Sloan’s diaries and other contemporaries and it was a nice touch to show them with two books that he had illustrated.   I loved a picture called “Connoisseurs of Prints” as I can feel myself taking up a similar pose to those in the picture but you then realised that you are not sure if the eminent gentlemen are looking at the pictures or the ladies bottoms. My favourite was one of a woman reading the paper in a dishevelled room with a child playing on the bed. Do we judge her for the chaos or ...

A 130-foot-long by 45-foot-wide stainless-steel sculpture by Roxy Paine made specifically for the roof of the Metropolitan Museum in New York. This work was like walking through the branches of a tree. I loved the reflections of it in the glass windows and the views of central park through the spaces.

Major exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York on the life and works of Vasily Kandinsky. Sadly I’ll be blunt, I didn’t like it. I found the art hard work and it was not helped by the building. It began at the bottom so you were always walking up the slope of the exhibition space and I felt the whole thing felt like pushing a rock uphill. I felt it might of worked better if it had started at the top and worked down. I liked the fact it linked the art to music of the time but sadly it was not music I related to well either! I think I discovered that I really don’t like abstract art I need some sort of figurative element and yet I like Rothko!

Moving exhibition at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex in New York looking at John Lennon’s relationship with that city. It looks at a period of his life full of political activism and later on a period which was starting to be very creative again before his untimely murder. There were wonderful exhibits including clothes with accompanying pictures of him wearing them and a good rolling video and music. Most moving was the bag of his effects collected from the hospital after his death and never opened.

Small but beautifully formed exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York to mark the loan of Vermeer’s “Milkmaid” from Amsterdam to mark the 400th anniversary of the founding of New York as New Amsterdam. The exhibition brought together this picture with the Met’s five Vermeer’s and a selection of pictures in a similar genre. I always love Vermeer’s so to get the bonus of an extra one was super. It was very busy so you had to be patient and earn your place in front of the pictures. “The Milkmaid” is an astonishing picture which seems to be a moment of quiet reflection caught in instant in time.

Small exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York looking at how the Japanese represented their new trading partners in the 19th century. It was delightful to see Western figures in beautiful Japanese prints as they start to appear in the country. In the later pictures they start to imitate fashion plates from newspapers and there seems to have been a fashion for western dress. Sadly I could find no write up of this exhibition on the Met’s website.

Work by the artist in residence at the Whitney Museum of American Art . This was a false room which you could view through spaces in its corners. It was a basically a work space in which the artist works with everyday objects to look at how they transform with use. The website describes it as “questioning the autonomy of the art object through a process of its constant transmutation”. Not sure I understand but I am sure I agree! Must admit the artist had gone for a short break when we were there but the thing which struck me most was the smell, as he had been baking! Review New York Times

Exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art which brings together works from the Whitney’s permanent collection, highlighting connections between art and visions of utopia. I must admit by this exhibit I was getting a bit tired and punch drunk! I hadn’t expected the Whitney to have quite so many exhibitions! Once you are there you feel you need to do them all, especially as it was our last day in New York, but by this stage the feet and brain were tired! For that reason I can only remember the highlights of this one not really anything about the theme! Anyway my favourite piece was Paul Sietsema’s “CG Room” from 2002 which was a modern room resembling one of the Dutch box paintings of a room done within a box to form a 3D picture. Review New York Times

Retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art looking at the work of this photographer who has defined the history of colour photography. These photographs mainly of the Deep South had a sense of peace and deep observation. His set on Gracelands seemed to focus on the focus on the mundane and give it meaning. Many were also like the Hopper’s we had seen earlier in the day. On a mundane level the highlight had to be seeing Ben Stiller going round the exhibition! Reviews New Yorker New York Times

Super exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art looking at the work done by Alexander Calder when he lived in Paris and the influence that time had on the rest of his career. It was particularly interesting following on from the current exhibition at the Royal Academy of the work of the Galerie Maeght which featured Calder. It started well with the wire portraits he had made of people he met in Paris exhibited beautifully against a white wall and lit so you saw the shadows they threw. Star of the show had to be the room devoted to the circus he built at this time which he could use to generate income from giving shows. The circus itself was set up but with it were films of how it worked. The whole thing was charming! I loved the two figures which came on and took a third off on a stretcher after and accident and the kangaroo! A room at the end showed how his work changed on visiting Mondrian’s studio and culminated in a series of large scale mobiles including “Small Sphere and ...

Small exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York of contemporary photography purchased by the museum. Probably most memorable were the first two pictures, mock ups of obituaries for Bill Clinton and Malcolm MacLaren. Also striking were street scenes by Zoe Leonard.

Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum looking at the impact of Futurism and Cubism on British modernist printmaking from the beginning of World War I to the beginning of World War II. Arranged in themes this exhibition reminded me of the one at the British Museum earlier this year of American prints. There were many familiar artists as well as new names. It was great to see so many C.R.W. Nevison’s, in particular to see his New York work there. I fell heavily for the work of Cyril Power who did vivid London scenes. I loved his picture of a rowing crew called “The Eight”. It is always nice to see some old friends when abroad. Reviews New York Times

Retrospective of at the Metropolitan Museum of the work of this 20th century artist. This exhibition had a wonderful sense of peace about it. Morandi had lived and worked in the same house for many years and concentrated on minimalist still lives which at their most pared back were almost abstract. He would take the same set of objects and paint them over and over from different angles and in different arrangement so they became a study in shape. Although repetitive they built up a sense of rhythm. There were also some lovely muted landscapes and a set of pictures of vases of flowers painted for his sisters. Reviews New York Times

Fascinating exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York looking at works which had been acquired by the museum while Philippe de Montebello has been its director. It was an eclectic mix of painting, furniture, sculpture, calligraphy, dresses and more, which gave a great sense of the range of interests of the museum. The tape tour was well worth taking as it explained why and how many of the pieces had been bought. Many of the stories were quite funny and touching and, as Philippe de Montebello himself was the main narrator, it gave you a real sense of the man and what he might be like to work with. Where to start of favourite pieces? I have to pick the Lucien Freud of Leigh Bowery from the first room, such a study in flesh; Room two a wonderful self portrait of Rubens with his wife and child; A winged boy from the Medici garden in Florence; Van Gogh wheat field; Macintosh wash stand made for Kate Cranston and two rooms of prints and drawings just as your legs were giving out! Re...

Excellent exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York looking at how Van Gogh looked at the problem of how to use colour to depict darkness throughout his career. Having read “The Yellow Book” recently, the story of the time Van Gogh and Gauguin spent together in Arles, it was particularly interesting to see many of the pictures from this period which I had read about it detail. I loved the way he showed the sources of light in a very deliberate way. Stars and lamps show the rays of light leaving them as well as the objects themselves. Also the way the pictures work so well from a distances as a composition but up close you get the added element of texture and pattern. The exhibition included many letters to his brother Theo which gives you a wonderful sense of his brother’s infinite patience with him! Reviews New York Times

Exhibition dedicated to Andrea Riccio (1470–1532), the Renaissance sculptor, at the Frick Collection . The joy of this exhibition was that it brought together multiple models of the same sculpture and explained what the differences were and why the models differed. It also brought together four of the five known lamps from the Frick, Ashmolean, Lourve and V&A. Very touching was the Carrand Vessel where they had brought together the main vessel from the Bargello in Florence and the cover from the V&A. It seemed such a shame that they would be parted again. It would be nice if they two could spend six months in each place. I loved a wonderful plaque of the entombment complete with hysterical figures with a real sense of movement and grief. Also a wonderful seated nude with a syrinx (Pan pipe to you!). Reviews New York Times

Small exhibition at the Frick Collection in New York bringing together their three Verneer’s on one wall for the first time in ten years. The three pictures “Officer and Laughing Girl”, “Mistress and Maid” and “Girl Interrupted at Her Music” are all quite different but lovely. “Mistress and Maid” is a slightly untypical picture focusing on the action of the maid handing the lady a letter but leaving out the background details. This gives it a nice intensity. The other two are the more usual scenes set in the corner of a room with familiar furnishings and pictures. “Girl interrupted at her music” has a slightly unfinished look. I love the cool intensity of Vermeer and this was a great opportunity to see three together within a small flick of the eye of each other!