Cathy's Art Diary

Dense exhibition at Charleston Farmhouse looking at the history of the Hogarth Press. The press was started by Virginia and her husband Leonard in 1917 with the aim of publishing authors with radial new voices who might otherwise not get into print. They also treated books as art objects, commissioning striking book covers. I say dense about this show as the displays were mainly of books and it was very text heavy in its explanations. I am a self-confessed Bloomsbury nerd so I loved it, but I imagine if you were new to the subject it might leave you a bit cold. I was at the house for the start of the Charleston Festival so followed up my visit to the exhibition with the first two talks of the event, both on the Hogarth Press. The first brought together two current publishers with a similar ethos, Margaret Busby and Sharmiane Lovergrove in conversation with Gaby Wood, chief executive of the Booker Prize.   This was followed by a gala style performance with Anton Lesser readin...

Fantastic exhibition at the Accademia in Venice looking at the life and work of Aldo Manuzio, a 15th century publisher and humanist. I had thought this show might be quite dry but it was a fascinating insight into early publishing and put it into the context of the time. I loved one commentary which described Venice as the “Silicon Valley” of the Renaissance comparing the changes brought about by printing to the internet. Aldo started by spotting a niche market with the growth in humanism for re-edited versions of the Greek texts in an affordable form. In turn these new versions of the texts revived ideas and lead to painters being compared to Apelles. He introduced the idea of small portable books which were easy to carry and created the idea of reading as a quiet, private, intimate pastime. The exhibition ended with a wonderful series of portraits of people with these small books, showing that they were fashionable items and held as a sign of learning. He also inven...

Interesting exhibition at the Guildhall Art Gallery looking at the publishing company and bookshop of Jessica and Eric Huntley and the circle of artists that grew up around them. The show was quite cleverly displayed with archive material from the publishers, Bogle-L’Ouverture Publications, in cases down the middle of the first room with the pictures hung around them. There were some interesting works such as the self-portrait by Paul Dash but I found some of the more political work a bit impenetrable. I loved the second room which reproduced the Walter Rodney Bookshop with the walls papered with pictures of shelves of books and displays for the archive material set into them. This was a really imaginative way of showing quite dry material. It really recreated the feel of radical bookshops of the time and I felt quite nostalgic! Closes 24 January 2016.