Cathy's Art Diary

Surprising exhibition at the Royal Academy of drawings by the author Victor Hugo. I’d gone along on the basis I try to see everything but wasn’t expecting a lot, however I was blown away. There was an odd mix of works of amazing draftsmanship and surprisingly experimental and abstract work. It made me think of William Blake. I think my favourites were the detailed, accurate works including this amazing chain. I also liked the atmospheric castles. I loved that the first work was this cartoon called “The Art Lover” and here we ask were. Closed 29 June 2025 Reviews Times Telegraph Evening Standard  

Confusing exhibition at the Royal Academy, one of a series of three showcasing the work of 2nd year students in the schools. I have found all these shows annoying for the lack of information about the work. It’s often conceptual in nature and needs some explanation. It might cope with that if it was beautiful but on the whole it hasn’t been. This one took the biscuit as they had run out of the handout, not that it is that useful, so I didn’t even know which work was by which student. By checking the website I think I worked out that these striking paintings are by Djofray Makumbu and that possibly the small model is for an animation and is therefore by Zachariah Riley but if so it might have been nice to see one of his animations to put it in context. As for the other work presumably by Katrina Cowling and Joshua Fay who knows which was which. I rather liked a mechanical wave of corn which I thought was quite witty and the fact the arch of the staircase had been encased in fabri...

Vibrant exhibition at the Royal Academy of art from Brazil from about 1910 to 1980 known as Brazilian Modernism. The art was bright and engaging and I liked the organisation of the layout into ten artists giving space to each which also led roughly to a chronological narrative. I love early modernism and found myself drawing parallels with other art that I know well like the Bloomsbury Group. I was interested to see that many of the earlier artists trained in or came from Europe, such as Alfredo Volpi from Lucca, whereas the later ones tended to be untrained and have started in other professions like Djanira  Da Motta e Silva who had been a seamstress. There were some beautiful portraits which punctuated the show but I think my favourite work was Tarsila do Amaral’s “Farm with Seven Piglets” from 1943. A fun picture with an engaging title. I was interested to see the 1944 show of Brazilian art held at the Royal Academy featured as I had seen an excellent exhibition about i...

Strange exhibition at the Royal Academy featuring work by four second-year students studying at the Royal Academy Schools. I do like to see these annual series of shows but as ever do wish they would offer some explanation of the works. It would be good practice for the artists too to learn how to describe and promote their work. The stand outs this time were the two painters both of which seemed to have hidden elements in their work, drawing you in for a closer look. Mohammed Adel presented dark, monotone works like this one entitled “Living Room”. The lighting was such in the show that it was only when looking at my photo of it that I saw the detail. Francisca Pinto’s worked looked like pillars of fire but writhing in them you found figures. One was called “The Room Where You Are” and think it did show the exhibition gallery itself therefore putting you in the picture and yet transporting you to a different world. Closed 30 March 2025  

Interesting display at the Royal Academy looking at how artists have approached representing the body in art from the Academy’s foundation to the present day. The display related to the body in different ways, in some it is a trace of a figure, or a suggestion of one. I must admit when I was at the show I didn’t realise the older works were part of the show as I had seen them before in that gallery but was impressed how they picked up a similar theme! Oh well it had been long day. I liked the fact the display included the caste of the Belvedere Torso which is cropping up a lot in a course I am doing at the moment on the High Renaissance. There were some nice contemporary works including this lovely picture by Elinor Stanley which at first look looked abstract then I realised it was a figure from above. I also like liked this wooden torso by John Skeaping. I loved the use of a beautiful Jenny Saville circular drawing to fill the space vacated by the Michelangelo tondo which was...

Fascinating exhibition at the Royal Academy focusing on the years in the early 16th century when these three great Renaissance artists were working in Florence. I have done various courses and lectures which have covered this period and I was grateful that I had as I would have liked a bit more scene setting in the narrative and display. A roundup of what the two established artists, Michelangelo and Leonardo, had done before this point would have been useful as well as some more sense of what the city was like and where it was politically. That said, to an art history geek like me, the show was a joy, focusing on a short period of time and covering some iconic projects. I liked the contrast between the mature artists and the young Raphael who was learning from looking at their works. The first room looked at Virgin and Child works and how they were influenced by the “Taddei Tondo” owned by the RA. I liked the depth of this examination. It led into the second room which looked i...

Interesting exhibition at the Royal Academy featuring work by three second-year students studying at the Royal Academy Schools. I   like to see these annual series of shows but do wish they would offer some explanation of the works. They are often conceptual work which you do need a bit of help to understand. I liked Lolly Adams’s weird sculptures using found objects centred, in both cases, on a bright pink mannequin head. One seemed to be a fountain and as the friend I was with said, it was a shame it wasn’t working. I also liked Dwayne Coleman’s large blue work made up of a patchwork of blue material. Was it a statement on Indigo and colonialism which is a common theme in contemporary art? His two smaller works seem to have had sound associated with them but I missed that. Maya Gurung-Russell Campbell offered a strange wall sculpture which looked like a discarded fishing net. Some help would be appreciated! Closed 16 February 2025  

Confusing exhibition at the Royal Academy in their Architecture Window space looking at a nomadic studio commissioned by Ukrainian arts foundation in exile, IZOLYATSIA, to offer a space for artists visiting Kyiv. The work is a collaboration between artist James Capper with designer Thomas Pearce and architect Greg Storrar, and is an 8m long inhabitable space on hydraulic legs so it can move. It seems to contain tools and set into the walls and the outer shell shows their outline. It all seems like an interesting idea but I couldn’t work out if it had actually been made or was just a prototype. I know the arts are important to morale in the Ukraine but I wasn’t convinced this was the answer to the country’s problems. Closes 29   November 2025

Excellent online lecture from the Paul Mellon Centre discussing a portrait of the Maharani Jind Kaur which was shown at the Royal Academy annual show in 1865. Adam Eker, from the Metropolitan Museum, which has recent acquired this work by George Richmond, took us though how the picture was commissioned by the sitter’s son, Duleep Singh, possibly to mark the return of her jewelry from the British government. He put the work in the context of other work representing the Indian subcontinent in Royal Academy shows and in particular works which engaged with the idea of women in purdah. He talked about how the women were often exoticized. He then talked about how it was shown at the Royal Academy show. The Maharani was a well-known, although controversial, figure in London so the work drew the critics and Eker outlined some of the press reporting of the work. This was a clearly explained overview of ongoing research to inform an exhibition at the Met in collaboration with Tate Brita...

Colourful exhibition at the Royal Academy looking at the career of Michael Craig-Martin. The show opened with Craig-Martin’s early work using found objects and explained how he developed this into painting large, bright, bold, simple images of everyday items. The work was explained clearly and I found they works were much deeper than I had imagined. I have had a tendency to dismiss them as pop art. I hadn’t realised that his drawings and wall murals are made using tape or that some of the objects reflect an alphabet he was developed with each representing an unrelated letter. The show ended with a new immersion piece shown on the four walls of a gallery using images he has made over the last 45 years. C losed 10 December 2024 Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph Evening Standard

Novel exhibition at the Royal Academy showing the work of three of the Royal Academy Schools students. Lolly Adams, Djofray Makumbu and James Sibley explore “staging through methods of set building, costuming and moving image production” according to the blurb. I must admit a lot of the blurb was pretentious and incomprehensible like “Presented here are fragments of the narrative vehicles in which each artist escapes across the causeway, towards finished work.” Please teach students to present their work in a simple way. Looking at the handout since I realise the random old phone in the floor was a soundscape by Djofray Makumbu. It would have been used to have a label on it to encourage its use. That said I liked Lolly Adams bits of costume design and animated avatar wearing it but my favourite was James Sibley’s recreation of the cupboard under his grandparents stairs created to the size it appeared to him as a child. Closed 3 November 2024  

Interesting small exhibition at the Royal Academy looking at the processes to create a work of art. Using items from the Academy’s own collection it   looked at art from the sketching of the first ideas, use of drawings to build compositions and   though the materials used. There was a nice case of sketchbooks including a contemporary one from Eileen Cooper and it was interesting to see a traveling watercolour box used by Turner and a palette set up by Reynolds for a pupil. I was fascinated by a set of tracings from a book of costume designs but Millet with he used as models for some of his paintings. My favourite piece was a preparatory lithograph for Dame Laura Knight’s poster for the 1937 summer exhibition. C loses 31 December 2024  

Vibrant exhibition at the Royal Academy looking at art in Ukraine in the early 20th century. The work was beautifully hung against bright complimentary walls in chronological themes. I loved the edition of a room of theatrical designs. I discovered lots of artists I had not come across before and found myself particularly drawn to Alexandra Exter and Vadym Meller. The show was clearly described and set the art against the history of the country at the time. It built a narrative distinguishing it from the Russian art of the time but I found the outline very similar with Avant Gard artists being encouraged around the time of the Revolution but the suppression of most of those artists in once Stalin came to power. Closed 13 October 2024 Reviews T imes Guardian Telegraph  

Excellent exhibition at the Royal Academy for their annual show. I thought this year was a good one with a lot of figurative work, less photography and more work that you felt skill had gone into even if you didn’t like it. The rooms were curated well especially two by Anne Desmet, the print maker, which featured a lot of the small work hung in vague themes. I have to admit that the next to last room of sculpture gave me visual indigestion! Highlights included two lovely paintings of water bottles, one by Gavinn Turk and the other by Rachel Robb. I loved Harriet Mena Hill’s pictures of the old Aylesbury Estate on pieces of the demolished buildings.   My favourite work was this print of a dog’s nose by Caroline Jones which sadly had sold out or I would have bought one. An interesting feature this year were some small installations my favourites of which was a string quartet set against a carpet with music on and music playing by Ron Arad. Closed 18 August 2024 Reviews ...

Thin exhibition at the Royal Academy looking at new ideas for housing design in London and Paris. I say thin as it was rather complicated but badly described. Evidently it showed completed and live projects by architect Nichola Barrington-Leach reflecting on the Parisian housing projects designed from the 1960s to 1980s by pioneering French architect Renée Gailhoustet. There were models and drawings but I wasn’t sure what any of them were. The show was in a newly designed space called The Architecture Window consisting of a large black box with doors which could be opened onto the interior space. It could work well but it needs better explanations. Closes 22 September 2024    

Eclectic exhibition at the Royal Academy of work by final year students in their schools. I always like to try to get to this show as it’s an idea of what might be appearing in galleries soon. It was also good this year to see the refurbished schools space. It’s always quite a mix but this year there seemed to be more painting than usual which was refreshing. I loved Norberto Spina’s wide landscape which had a slight Anselm Keifer feel and Fleur Dempsey’s geometric abstracts. The best conceptual art was two small rooms you looked into by Massimiliano Gottardi but I also liked Lize Aulmane, “Mood Board of my Garbage”, partly for the title, a room of what looked like unfinished work. I think Tanoa Sasraku’s installation “A Tower to Say Goodbye” deserves a prize for the longest description of the media used ever “Newsprint, foraged English and Ghanaian earth pigments, digital print, UV-print produced using a sunbed, tailor's chalk, fixative spray, thread, tap water from the R...

Fascinating exhibition at the Royal Academy looking at the life and work of one of its two female founding members, Angelica Kauffman. At first sight the information in this show seemed sparse but if you took time to read the labels you found some charming stories which lifted the art for example a painting of “Christ and the Samarian Woman” in the show was carried at her funeral which was organised by Canova. I liked her portraits best including the numerous self-portraits. Her portrait of Joshua Reynolds showed him as a real, relatable person and I loved the detail on her portrait of a woman in Turkish dress. The allegorical and historical works felt overblown to contemporary taste however I found her comparable in style and technique to her contemporaries. It was nice that the Zoffany group portrait of the early members was included albeit that Kauffman and Mary Moser are only shown as pictures on the wall as it is set in the life drawing room where they were not allowed to...

Thoughtful exhibition at the Royal Academy addressing the links between the academy and colonialism. I’d worried this would be a woke, one dimensional show but it was backed up with some fascinating research on the founders and history of the academy alongside contemporary works which commented on the issues raised. I love the way the first few rooms were weighted towards the early works and organised by the art genres of the time. There were some iconic pieces. I’ve done a number of online talks that have referenced “Watson and the Shark” by John Singleton Copley so I was very excited to see it in the flesh. From the first, elegantly hung room of portraits I was hooked. As you moved into the later rooms the contemporary art started to take centre stage again with iconic pieces such as Lubiana Himid’s “Naming the Money” and Issac Julien’s wonderful video "Lesson’s of the Hour” on Frederick Douglas. I  came away buzzing with ideas and lots of nuances to think about. Clos...

Neat little exhibition at the Royal Academy of preparatory drawings for Lubiana Himid’s large installation work. The large work of 100 cut out figures is in the “Entangled Lands” show in the other side of the building. Each figure represents an imagined, forgotten Black figure with a rhyme on the back about who character had been and who they were made to become. It’s a work I have seen parts of many times. These preparatory studies paired a sketch with a collaged version of a figure. They were in the same bright palette of the final work and it was interesting to see her working through ideas. I was interested to see that this was Himid’s diploma work on her admission to the academy. Closes 16 June 2024  

Interesting exhibition at the Royal Academy to make Lord Leighton’s “Flaming June” on loan. I assumed the show would just be the picture, but they used it talk about Leighton’s technique and process and showed it with his small sculptures he used to create compositions and sketches for the the picture. It was also used to demonstrate the long running art historical debate on the whether sculpture or painting is the superior art form. As ever it was lovely to see the work, on loan from Puerto Rico, 128 years since it was shown in an annual Royal Academy show. I last saw in it 2017 when it was shown at Leighton House. It is an iconic picture and I love how it sits within its beautiful frame but I was surprised at how rough some of the finish was on the drapery. Closes 12 January 2025 Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph