Cathy's Art Diary

Exhibition at the Royal Society of Medicine Library of items from the London Clubs and other members of the Association of Pall Mall Libraries (APML). I have to say it’s excellent because my library (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors) has lent three items . Ten of us went to the opening party on Thursday night and had a great evening. The exhibition was opened by the author A.N. Wilson introduced by Ian Snowley, President of APML and Cilip and the wine flowed freely! Of course I think our items are highlights but must admit they can’t match up to a stuffed penguin from Scott’s final expedition. He stands presiding over the proceedings with his head at a rather jaunty angle! Reviews Time Out

Small exhibition at Charleston Farmhouse to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Julian Bell’s death on the 18th July 1937 while driving an ambulance during the Battle of Brunete in the Spanish Civil War. This is a collaborative exhibition with Photoworks and Magnum Photos will includes images by Magnum co-founder Robert Capa and his lover Gerda Taro, who was killed just 9 days after Julian. It includes some very moving pictures but is a very small exhibition and could do with a bit more explanation. It’s a nice taster but I was left wanting more.

Going through Victoria Station on Friday night I spotted a headline in the standard promising art on the station concourse so of course I went to look. By the escalator up the shops I found a statue of a giant woman with her head in a photo booth. Further reading of the Standard told me it is by Louis Molloy, David Beckham’s tattooist. Its advertising a new reality TV show and there is another statue at Tower Bridge of a swimmer. I’m all for a bit more public art and anything to brighten up a Friday night.

Very small exhibition at the Wallace collection bringing together two versions of this picture, one from their own collection and one from the Getty. They were probable painted in the same year and this was the first time they had been together since they had been in the studio. Conservation work for this exhibition has shown the Getty one to be the first as the under drawing shows signs of the composition changing whereas the other does not and shows more clarity in the finish. Reviews Guardian

Exhibition at The Wallace Collection of silver collected by two generations of the Schroder family between 1870 and 1930. Mainly German renaissance in origin the first part of the exhibition focused on English and Continental domestic silver including beautiful German stacking beakers which fitted perfectly one inside the other and a drinking cut in the form of a bear which looked rather like a demented hamster. The second room focused on silver for display and talked about the advent of kunstkammer or schatzkanner, art or treasure chambers, in houses to display precious objects. These were said to be the forerunner of museums. The finest piece was a ewer in the shape of a ship complete with tiny enamel figures of solders, rowers and event a small party men eating dinner. Those men wore the Maltese cross as it was made for the order of St John in Germany. The exhibition was accompanies by a small display in the conservation galleries showing a mock up of a silver workshop explaining ho...

Exhibition of photographs at the National Portrait Gallery tracing the history of British press photography in the Fleet Street years from the turn of the century to 1986. It looks at the different roles of staff photographers and agencies and has a number of photos with photographers in them including one for about 1910 of an incident at Downing Street with a photographer in the middle. There was a good section on how different people or causes have used press photographs to their advantage such as the Suffragettes and Winston Churchill at the siege of Sidney Street. I liked the more odd ball pictures such as members of Broadstairs Council ready for gas drill showing a collection of gentlemen in gas masks looking like refugee monsters from Doctor Who or Lord Hailsham swimming at Brighton. Reviews Daily Telegraph FT Observer

This annual exhibition and award at the National Portrait Gallery aims to promote the very best in contemporary portrait painting. This year it has been opened to all artists abolishing the upper age limit but introducing an extra prize for artists aged between 18 and 30. Although each picture is decided on merit, inevitably each year themes do seem to appear. This year seemed to have a good selection of pictures focusing on age. The winner “Michael Simpson” by Paul Emsley is a large portrait of an older man, in fact an artist from him home town. It is so big and so finely painted that every crevice in the face is visible and the whole face seems to look out of the black background towards you. Another picture entitles “Bevan Boy” showed the artist, Philip Renforth’s, father who had been a Bevan Boy in the war. He now had a face of great dignity. Another theme seemed to be paintings of not just anonymous sitters but sitters who were not actually know by the painter. “Commuter” by John ...