Cathy's Art Diary

Interesting exhibition at the British Library of photographs by Chris Steele-Perkins of families that have relocated to London. This is part of an ongoing project which has recorded 164 families for 187 countries pictures in their own homes. The British Library is purchasing a set of these photographs. The pictures have immediacy and joy about them. I loved the ones, like the one shown, which show big families from many countries. There was one clever one which showed the family in the reflections of mirrors on a wall opposite them,. Closes 7 July 2019

Fascinating exhibition at the British Library looking at the development of writing. I’d never really thought about the evolution of writing and this show told the story in a clear and engaging way. I found it very moving how often early pieces of writing concern mundane personal things like a person’s wages or how much someone sold goods for. In particular I loved a small piece of broken pot from 110AD which was a woman called Thinabella’s licence to be a sex worker for a day. The only record we have of that person. I was fascinated to see how letters developed and the display that took the capital letter A from a hieroglyph of a antelope’s head turning round to form the letter we know today. Also to see how Renaissance humanists changed writing from the Gothic script to a text which became the basis of modern printed text. There were sections on the different materials and techniques from sticks to keyboards and on how we learn to write and what writing means to peop...

Disappointing exhibition at the British Library looking at the role of motion in in his quest to understand the natural world. The show was based around three of the codex’s The British Library’s own, Codex Arundel, one from the Victoria and Albert Museum, Codex Forster II and Codex Leicester from the Bill Gates Collection. The leaves from these were shown well in upright display units and double sided ones showed both sides and wove both into the narrative. I just say disappointing as I hadn’t realised the show had such a narrow subject matter and the descriptions become quite scientifically dense. It is always wonderful to see Leonardo’s neat backwards writing but I found it frustrating that you were so reliant on the descriptions as you couldn’t read the originals. I did love the exquisite small sketches in the margins which still had a real immediacy. The show finished with a wonderful AV of the British Library’s own Codex where you could see a scan of the original, ...

Fabulous exhibition at Tate Britain looking at the effect Van Gogh’s time in Britain on his art and in turn of his art of British Artists. This was quite a complex story to tell in one show particularly as Van Gogh wasn’t a practicing artist when he lived in Britain but the show set out a clear narrative which it led you though gradually and clearly. Questions it raised in your mind it had answered by the end of the show. You were led into the story with a set of prints from Gustave Dore’s London: A Pilgrimage, published the year before Van Gogh arrived. He later collected copies of these prints which appeared later in the show with works by him that were influenced by them. I loved a room which brought together pictures Van Gogh recorded having seen in his letters in one room and hung them with later works by him that picked up similar themes and motifs. Another room concentrated on how he was influenced by black and white prints which were seen as a particularly Brit...

Gem of an exhibition at the Wiener Library looking at the life and work of the photographer Gerty Simon. Simon was a German Jewish photographer who photographed many important figures in Weimar Germany then as a refugee in Britain, set up a studio in London and photographed figures from 1930s London society. Her archive and a large collection of prints have been given to the library by her son. The show told the story of her life clearly using the archive material then had a display of about 20 of her pictures with Berlin on one wall and London on the opposite one. You felt every photograph had a story behind it that you wanted to know more about. It was touching in the Berlin section to see a picture of the six year old Anna Judith Kerr who went on to write “The Tiger Who Came to Tea” when she moved to London and who died recently. I rather liked Alexander Iolas shown in the top left hand corner of the attached picture. I looked him us and he was a dancer and later become...

Disappointing exhibition at Senate House looking at magic from the 16th to the 20th century. I say disappointing because the description of the show was much more exciting than the way it was delivered. The objects, given it was the library which had organised it, were very book and paper based. The items were displayed in rather dull display cases made slightly more exciting with red draped curtains at the top. The books were shown brief descriptions but with much more information in a handout. It was often hard to match the object to the leaflet as items weren’t numbers. The large section descriptions were not always next to the cabinet they referred to. There were remarkable things including the earliest book on sleight of hand magic, a book on “Tricks for the Trenches and Wards” from the First World War, a handbill for Houdini and catalogues of magic tricks. The most interesting section was on Harry Price, who had collected these items and investigated alleged psych...

Glittery installation at the Now Gallery by Sara Shakeel. Behind a black curtain in installation of a family meal which is dramatized by being covered in glass crystals giving these ordinary objects a sense of glamour and purpose. The handout says it aims to celebrate the gregariousness of the family table and to mark the sparkling conversations around food and family. Sadly I’m not too sure how many families still eat together in this idealistic way. Closed on 23 June 2019