Terrible times: poverty and unemployment everywhere around; right-wing strongmen and populists in power overseas; and the shadow of war hanging over it all. Times for artists to take a stand. And, in the 1930s, some of them did, forming a group in London called the Artists International Association. Their story is the subject of Comrades in Art: Artists against Fascism at Towner Eastbourne, a show with a lot of very interesting art amid fascinating history -- but rather too much detail to absorb easily. There are many little-known or unknown names to conjure with, and it's a big exhibition; this is a venue where you never feel short-changed. Let's plunge straight into the action, because it's all kicking off in Trafalgar Square, where the police are going in violently against protesters who've arrived in London after a hunger march against unemployment. The Struggle between the Unemployed and the Police Forces (also known as Hunger Marchers Entering ...
Britain and Russia don't enjoy the easiest of relationships. Espionage, assassination and mutual mistrust seem to be the order of the day. But in the time of the Tsars, the two countries' royal families cultivated friendly ties and became linked by marriage. That is the subject of Russia: Royalty & the Romanovs at the Queen's Gallery in London.
It all started with Peter the Great, the first Russian ruler to set foot on English soil in 1698. He stayed for three months, meeting King William III and finding out among other things about how to build ships as he sought to open up Russia to the West. On departure, Peter presented William with his portrait, painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller.
Kneller's one of the few artists in this exhibition you may actually have heard of. Shows at the Queen's Gallery provide a chance to put on public display works from the Royal Collection. There was a Canaletto exhibition in 2017, and starting in May you'll be able to admire 200 of Leonardo da Vinci's greatest drawings.
This one, though, is less about the art and more about the history. Do make sure you're equipped with the audio guide, which includes incisive contributions by experts such as the former BBC Moscow correspondent, Bridget Kendall, or you may find yourself floundering amid pictures that are largely from the family album.
Russia's Romanov dynasty, we learn, tended to swing from the reforming to the reactionary and back again. The reforming Catherine the Great, who became repressive in later years, is shown with great pomp in this portrait by the Danish painter Vigilius Eriksen, all in gold, silver and ermine in her coronation robes on a platform of red porphyry. This picture is thought to have been given to George III.
Anglo-Russian relations took a hugely positive turn during the Napoleonic Wars, when the two countries were allies against the French. Here's Princess Charlotte of Wales in a Russian-style dress with a Russian imperial order pinned to it in a painting from the period. The actual dress, with a drawstring waist allowing it to be adjusted for the princess's pregnancy in 1817, is also on show nearby.
Charlotte, looking something like a cross between George III and Victoria, was the only child of George IV, but she died at the age of just 21 after giving birth to a stillborn son. Had she lived, she would have become Queen in 1830.... and we might never have had a Victorian age. The Charlottian age? No Victoria Station, no Albert Hall....
But we did get Victoria, and she produced lots of children and married them off around Europe. One son, Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh, wed Tsar Alexander II's daughter, Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, in 1874, while two granddaughters also married into the Russian imperial family, one of them Princess Alix of Hesse, who became the wife of the last Tsar, Nicholas II.
It's at this point that the exhibition becomes pretty bogged down in pictures of royal family groups and of royal weddings, none of them especially sparkling. Here's the extended British Royal Family in 1887, painted by Laurits Regner Tuxen, another Dane. We didn't linger long working out who's who, but Alix is in the middle at the back.
But we did get Victoria, and she produced lots of children and married them off around Europe. One son, Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh, wed Tsar Alexander II's daughter, Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, in 1874, while two granddaughters also married into the Russian imperial family, one of them Princess Alix of Hesse, who became the wife of the last Tsar, Nicholas II.
It's at this point that the exhibition becomes pretty bogged down in pictures of royal family groups and of royal weddings, none of them especially sparkling. Here's the extended British Royal Family in 1887, painted by Laurits Regner Tuxen, another Dane. We didn't linger long working out who's who, but Alix is in the middle at the back.
Nicholas II last visited England in 1909. Famously, he and his cousin, the future George V, shared a strong family resemblance. Britain did not take in the Tsar and his family when he abdicated in 1917. A year later, they were dead, executed by the Bolsheviks. King George and Queen Mary began collecting objects associated with the imperial family in apparent atonement. This exquisite Fabergé egg, given by the Tsar to his wife at Easter 1914, and containing a cameo with profiles of their five children, was one of the objects they bought.
Of course, the Communist takeover didn't put an end to contacts between the British royals and Russian leaders. In 1956, Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin visited Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace, and like Tsars before them, they presented the Queen with a picture: A Winter's Day by Igor Grabar, a snow-covered landscape of birch trees, painted in 1941, just before German troops invaded the Soviet Union.
We're generally big fans of the Queen's Gallery, but we struggled to appreciate this show. There are some fascinating objects, but much of the art is rather dull, and the show is perhaps one for confirmed fans of the British Royal Family or the Romanovs. It certainly didn't come close to matching the excellent exhibition we saw at the Hermitage Amsterdam in 2017 relating the downfall of the Russian imperial family 100 years earlier. We'll be back, though, for Leonardo.
We're generally big fans of the Queen's Gallery, but we struggled to appreciate this show. There are some fascinating objects, but much of the art is rather dull, and the show is perhaps one for confirmed fans of the British Royal Family or the Romanovs. It certainly didn't come close to matching the excellent exhibition we saw at the Hermitage Amsterdam in 2017 relating the downfall of the Russian imperial family 100 years earlier. We'll be back, though, for Leonardo.
Practicalities
Russia: Royalty & the Romanovs is on until April 28 at the Queen's Gallery, just round the corner from Buckingham Palace and less than 10 minutes' walk from Victoria Station with all its London Underground and main-line rail services.
The gallery is open daily from 1000 to 1730. Full-price tickets cost £12 including an audio guide, and that includes entry to an accompanying show of Roger Fenton's pioneering photographs of the Crimean War. Tickets can be converted into passes giving free readmission for a year, letting you see for free both the Leonardo drawings and the following exhibition on the collection built up by George IV. Bookings can be made online here.
Images
Sir Godfrey Kneller, Peter I, Tsar of Russia, 1698. Royal Collection Trust. © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2018Vigilius Eriksen, Catherine II, c. 1765-9. Royal Collection Trust. © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2018
After George Dawe, Princess Charlotte of Wales, c. 1817-22. Royal Collection Trust. © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2018
Laurits Regner Tuxen, The Family of Queen Victoria in 1887, 1887. Royal Collection Trust. © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2018
Fabergé, Mosaic Egg and Surprise, 1914. Royal Collection Trust. © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2018
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