Cathy's Art Diary

Lovely summer iteration at Woolwich Works of this contemporary print fair. This was a sparser show than the winter version however it was all the better for that. There was some gallery representation but in the whole the more open stalls were for individual artists or collectives and in many cases there were local artists. It was also nice that the artists were there and up for a chat as it was quiet. Shout outs go to Melanie Bellis’s urban landscapes, Lucille Clerc’s botanical works and Maxine Gregson’s vintage collages. My favourite was this print of a train by Rebecca Choi. I felt you would always see new things in it. C losed 29 June 2025

Useful lecture from ARTscapades introducing the Hiroshige exhibition at the British Museum. I am fond of Japanese prints but don’t know a lot about them so this was a much-needed talk before visiting the exhibition which I have yet to do. Hiroshige was working in the early 19th century so was one of the artists influencing artists like Van Gogh and Whistler. Alfred Haft explained how the show had come about following a gift of 35 prints from the collection of Alan Medaugh which has been enhanced by a further loan of 82 prints from his collection. He talked us through the five sections of the show with illustrations from each of them. He took us through the artists landscape, urban scenes, designs for fans and images of the natural world. I now feel ready for the show.

Stunning exhibition at Eames Fine Art of the complete set of prints by Salvador Dali for Dante’s   Inferno. I think I had seen these once before in Barcelona but it was real treat to find them again on a walk along Bermondsey Street. The works have a real sense of being by Dali but respond sympathetically to the text. Sadly the planned book was never printed but the prints stand as an art work on their own. Closed 18 May 2025

Interesting small exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery of works on paper by Austrian and German 20th century artists. The show explained these works and the links between artists well and went into some detail on the techniques. There was also a section on the cultural anxiety of around the changing role of women. I think my favourite work was a portrait of Reinhard Piper by Peter Trumm which mimicked the effect of wood grain. I was also interesting to see a printing block made by Kandinsky. Closed 22 June 2025  

Interesting selling exhibition at Somerset House of contemporary and historical prints. Galleries had taken space and there were some lovely displays. It was nice to see Abbott and Holder showing the two original First World War series which are being sold in aid of the Imperial War Museum again and I loved a display of Japanese prints from the Japan Print Gallery. There was a good mix of the old and the new but I was most drawn to the old particularly the early 20th pieces like a nice Sickert of the interior of a theatre, a nice C.R.W. Nevinson and a colourful Cyril Power. However my favourite piece was a complex print of Somerset House itself by Adam Dent. I always enjoy his work and I hadn’t seen this piece before.   Closed 23 March 2025  

Small exhibition at the British Museum celebrating works left to the museum by the dealer, Kirsten Schubert. Schubert left 10 works but has donated a further 45 during his lifetime some of which were also featured. They ranged from modern masters like Picasso and Degas and artists he had represented such as Bridget Riley. I loved this early Riley which is hinting at her abstracted work to come but keeps a recognisable landscape. I also liked this Degas copied after a drawing in the Uffizi. Closed 21 April 2025  

Fun exhibition at Eames Fine Art of new prints by Mychael Barratt. I love Barratt’s witty, bright prints which up to now have added dogs to famous art works creating a pastiche of the previous artist’s style. He has now branched into cats! I don’t think they are quite as successful as the cats are slightly cartoon like so they seem less of a nod to the original artist plus I’m more of a dog person anyway! Closed 2 March 2025  

Useful exhibition at the British Museum looking at how Picasso used prints throughout his career. The show was laid out clearly and chronically with good explanations of the different print techniques. I knew some of the prints well but hadn’t realised how many different types of print production Picasso had mastered. I loved that they also showed prints by artists who had influenced him amongst his work which included some beautiful Rembrandts and a Goya. The show also gave a good outline of his career in general including portraits of his wives, girlfriends and art dealers. Closed 30 March 2025 Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph Evening Standard

Disappointing version of this art fair at Woolwich Works showcasing contemporary prints. I say disappointing as I’ve been going for a few years and it’s getting a bit samey. There is interesting work there but it needed a bit more explanation and a change of presentation as it’s looking tired. I will also make my usual moan that bigger labels would help and not placing them so close to the frame that you can’t read them. That said I did have a great conversation with one artist who spotted me photographing this duck picture and explained the technique to me. Sadly so good a conversation that I forgot to note his name! There were some nice blocky prints of the South Bank by Paul Catterall who I always like and I loved Tobias Till’s dense map of London complete with now vanished buildings. It was a nice touch to include an interior designed space showing how the prints might work in your home. A nice trick in this new development. Closed 24 November 2024

Bright exhibition   at Eames Fine Art of prints of London by Gail Brodholt organised into an A-Z. I love Brodholt’s clear, colourful prints and liked her short descriptions of the scenes. The prints were from a range of dates with different titles to the A-Z. I particularly like her scenes of tube stations and railway junctions as they are such iconic London scenes. Some of the prints see to have been made with an iridescent ink and I’d have liked to know more about that. It gives a lovely effect. Closed 3 November 2024

Fascinating exhibition at the British Museum of new contemporary acquisitions celebrating a grant from the Rootstein Hopkins Foundation which has enabled them to buy over 300 works. The show had some beautiful pieces but also acted as an overview of art since the 1960s. I was impressed at how many of the artists I knew but I was also introduced to some great new finds. The show was gently themed bringing together works influenced by art history, pictures of people, still-lives, landscape and abstract work. Needless to say it was the art history section which I loved most. As ever in the print room galleries the labels were comprehensive but simply written. Highlights included the first in the show by Cornelia Parker of wine glasses, Jake Garfield’s take on Zoffany’s Tribuna of the Uffizi and Charlotte Verity’s watercolour monotypes based on plants in her garden in lockdown. My favourite was this exquisite Japanese ink work by Joy Gerard based on a photograph of a demonstration...

Lovely selling exhibition at Abbott and Holder of a set of prints commissioned in 1917. The prints were commissioned by the British Government from 18 artists and are made up of two series depicting Britain’s efforts in the first Word War and its ideals. The works have been stored at the Imperial War Museum awaiting sale. They are now being sold in aid of the museum. The prints included works by some of my favourite artists of the period including Eric Kennington, Christopher Nevinson and William Nicholson. I thought the Efforts were more successful while the Ideals now felt overly symbolic. Closed 6 July 2024      

Interesting exhibition at Eames Fine Art of new work by Chris Roantree and Akarsh Kummattummal a collaborative print making duo. The chap in the gallery explained how Roantree is an artist and etcher and Kummattummal comes from the world of games design. Rather than traditional roles of etcher and artist the pair collaborate on the compositions. You could see the influence of the gaming world in these smoky works with strange creatures and animals appearing out of the mist. Closed 13 May 2024  

Delightful exhibition at the Guildhall Art Gallery of new prints by Anne Desmet. I’d come across Desmet’s delicate, detailed prints before in various exhibitions and loved them, so I was fascinated to see new pieces where she cuts up her work and makes the pieces into the sort of symmetrical patterns you see through a kaleidoscope. These works were shown with the complete prints she had used. There was an excellent video on how she works and cases showing her tools and her wood blocks. I was amused though by the contrast between these small delicate works and the huge John Singleton Copley painting which shared the space. I think I know which I prefer! Closes 8 September 2024  

Bold, colourful exhibition at Hauser and Wirth of prints by Robert Indiana. The show consisted of 19 previously unreleased silk screen prints signed by the artist and printed between 2001 – 2011 which were on sale in aid of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Each work relates directly to a painting made by Indiana between the years 1959 and 1999 and were chosen by the artist for a limited-edition print. I loved the bright colours of these works particularly a series of numbers and this pair of Marilyn Monroe prints. They all had a slight feeling of being design for packaging.    Closed 20 April 2024    

Fascinating exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum of etchings by Lucien Freud. The show marks a donation to the museum in lieu of inheritance tax from the estate of Marc Balakjian, the master printer who Freud worked with on etchings. Balakjian had kept a collection of trial proofs of their work. The commentary explained how they had worked closely together with Freud marking up the proofs with charges and the prints in the show these changes. There were multiple examples of each prints showing the subtle changes between each. I must admit a lot of the tweaks were too subtle for me to spot. In one case they were shown with the original etching plate. There were some beautiful images shown with examples of prints in the collection by artists whose prints were admired by Freud. I was particularly interested as in talks on Renaissance art I often hear about the relationship between artists and print makers so it was insightful to see an example of this relationship in a co...

Interesting exhibition at Canada House of prints from pictures by Ningiukulu Teevee reflecting stories told by the Inuit people of Canada. The commentary explained how her drawings have been translated into prints for the Kinngait annual print collections. The studios there have produced an annual print collection every year since 1959. I loved the clarity of the work and the descriptions helped to me to understand the stories that had inspired them. It was interesting to read how stories had been shared across different areas and I found some of them similar to British and Irish stories such as that of the kelpie translated here into a fox. I loved this image based on the story of the owl and the Raven. When you look you can see that the head of the owl is actually a raven. Closes 1 June 2024  

Interesting exhibition at Eames Fine Art of prints by Graham Sutherland. This was a lovely collection of Sutherland prints based on natural phenomena. The earlier works were more lifelike and readable such as “A Bird and a Mouse” then they became more abstracted while usually still recognisable things or landscapes. I loved his use of a bright yellow, used particularly well in this picture of thorn trees or is it Golgotha? I also liked works which were an abstract form but at the bottom he showed the three objects which had informed it. Closed 18 February 2024    

Small display at the British Museum to highlight their acquisition of six screen prints by Ed Ruscha called “Insects”. The set of prints is from 1972 showing life sized insects resting or moving across the paper. They were detailed depictions of the insects in a minimal setting. They also showed the portfolio they came in which contained soil from Ruscha’s elementary school. I loved the detail which, as someone who doesn’t like insects, made you want to swat the surface of the work. To bulk out the display, and to make the point that Ruscha often collects objects or categories in visual series, the portfolio was shown with sets of prints about roads. I loved his 2001 series of abstract, minimalistic imaginary maps. Closed 28 January 2024

Interesting exhibition at the British Museum of work by four German and Austrian artists from a recent gift of 67 works on paper by Count Christian Duerchein. The show devoted a section to each of the four artists. I warmed more to the three Germans, Rudi Troger, Karl Bohrmann and Carl Heinz Wegert whose work was more introspective. Austrian, Herman Nitsch’s work was inspired by his rather strange sounding performance art. I think my favourite was Troger who did expressive, figurative work often of his wife and home. There were some brilliant quotes from him such as the idea of “drawing something so it becomes something else” and that art is “expressing feelings with visual means”. Talking quotes I also loved one by Bohrmann that “a drawn line is a moment of time though which the artist has lived”. Closes 1 April 2024