Cathy's Art Diary

Fascinating online course from the London Art History Society on James Whistler and Walter Sickert and their role in introducing avant-garde art to England. Via 10 lectures over five weeks Jo Rymer led us through aspects of the two artists careers and set them in the context of European art at the time using a small selection of their work to guide us through the main themes. I was a bit disappointed that we didn’t start with a broad overview of each artists’ work but did also appreciate the more academic concentrated look at themes from Whistler’s “Symphony in White” and “Nocturne” series to Sickert’s work in Dieppe and Camden Town. However since I’ve found myself wondering about other themes such as Sickert in Venice and Whistler’s more general portraiture. I guess it’s good to leave us wanting more! One little gripe was that there were a few mentions of aspects of how Degas influenced Sickert which were glossed over as there had been a previous course on the subject. I unders...

Comprehensive exhibition at Tate Britain on the work of Walter Sickert. Sickert transitions the 19th and 20th centuries and continued to experiment throughout his career. The show starts when he was working with Whistler in an almost impressionistic way, to working for press photographs and a precursor of Pop Art. I had come across him as an inspiration for the Bloomsbury Group, and indeed Duncan Grant took over one of his studios, however I can’t bring myself to love him.   I can appreciate what he’s doing and admire the groundbreaking ideas but I’m not sure I’d want to live with one. The rooms were gently themed whihc also give them a rough chronology. My favourites were the early music hall pictures particularly those that captured the audience and those that use mirrors to give strange angles. I am less fond of the nudes. There was a good commentary on what he was trying to do with them, showing real, working-class women and the effect of interior light but they still ...

Interesting display at the National Portrait Gallery tracing the idea of transmission of an artistic culture over centuries by tracing a link from Ingres to Auberbach. The idea was represented by one portrait from each of five artists, Ingres, Degas, Sickert, Bomberg and Auberbach. The trail was that Degas met Ingres once plus was taught by a former pupil of the great man, Sickert was taught by a pupil of Whistler who had met Degas when taking the portrait of his mother to the Salon, Bomberg attended Sickert’s evening class at the Westminster School of Art and Auberbach was a at Bomberg’s classes at Borough Polytechnic. It could have gone one step backwards into the 18th century as Ingres was a pupil of David.   I did think some of the links were a bit tenuous but it was an interesting idea to trace an artistic tradition in this way and I’d love to see a bigger show on a similar theme   Closes on 2 September 2018  

Fascinating exhibition at Tate Britain looking at how Walter Sickert was inspired by photography in his later years.   Sickert was interested in how photographs froze a dramatic moment, took unusual viewpoints and eliminated detail in poor focus.   The paintings explored their flattened perspective and tonal contrasts. He was working with black and white photos but added his own ideas of colour.   He was also commenting on the growing ideas about celebrity and topicality.   There was an interesting group of portraits of Sir Alex Martin and his wife and son but I must admit I didn’t like them. I did however like a strange picture of Peggy Ashcroft in Venice inspired by a photograph in the Daily Sketch. Sickert added strange but effective salmon pink colours giving it sunset quality. I also always love the picture, again based on a newspaper photograph, of Emelia Earhart landing in Britain where in Sickert version you can’t really see the plain or M...

Nice exhibition at the Fine Art Society of works by Walter Sickert both for sale and lent from private collections. It includes pictures from all periods of his career and includes paintings, drawings and etchings. Some of them were even cheerful, much as I like Sickert I do find he can get a bit brown and muddy. I particularly liked the selection of pictures of Venice many of which had been in the 2009 Dulwich exhibition and some nice Paris street scenes. This was the first time I’d been to this gallery and I will certainly be checking what else it has on in the future.

Interesting exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum taking Sickert’s “Gallery of the Old Bedford” to explore 20th century music hall. I would have liked to see more artefacts with the painting, in fact I almost felt I was missing some if it. However the best this was a wonderful installation in the gallery showing the picture. It was a 20 minute play projected on screens around you to give different views of what was happening. It was about a retired music hall singer moving into an old folk’s home and reflecting on her life through her possessions. It was very touching. Unfortunately I didn’t note down who had done it and the web site doesn’t tell me. I’d love to know more.

Nice exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery looking at the work done by Sickert during his stays in Venice in the late 19th century. Starting with his views of the city it also looked at the models he found there and his relationship with them. There was a bit of a sense of mass production about some of the work and a real sense that it was painted to make money but he also did different versions of the same view in the same vein as Monet’s Rouen Cathedral pictures. However try as he might he paints in sludge brown! Reviews Guardian Daily Telegraph Evening Standard

Exhibition of a group of pictures by Walter Sickert of nude women in a dark bedroom at the Courtauld Gallery. Painted between 1905-1912 these pictures are described by the exhibition introduction as “a reinvention of the female nude as a subject for modern painting”. Rather voyeuristic in nature they are still sexy and edgy. They are similar to the Bonnard bathing pictures but are more detached and less affectionate. There was an optimum distance to view the early works from. From across the room they almost took on a landscape quality with the bodies resembling hills and from close up they took on an almost abstract quality but take a few steps back and they come to life. The way that the pictures study skin reminds me of Lucien Freud particularly the leg in “La Hollandaise”. This was a super opportunity to see these pictures together, including 4 of the Camden Town murder pictures. Many of them are held in private collections so this is a rare chance to see them together. Reviews Tim...