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Showing posts from October, 2022

Knowing Me, Knowing You

Self-portraits; now, we've seen quite a lot of exhibitions of those over the years. You know how Rembrandt or Vincent van Gogh saw themselves. But how do artists depict other artists? What happens when Peter Blake meets David Hockney, when Eric Ravilious takes on Edward Bawden? Answers can be found at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester in a very interesting and illuminating exhibition entitled  Seeing Each Other: Portraits of Artists .  And sometimes the artist you see is a different artist from the one you might be expecting. When Mary McCartney photographed Tracey Emin in 2000, what came out was Frida Kahlo. McCartney felt a close affinity with the Mexican artist, and so did Emin, whose controversial My Bed had just been shortlisted for the Turner Prize. McCartney said she'd had a daydream of Emin as Kahlo, who spent a lot of time in bed herself as a result of her disabling injuries.  Emin was made up and dressed for the shoot, and then, according to McCartney , "...
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Opening and Closing in November

German women Expressionists at the Royal Academy in London: This may be the exhibition you've long been waiting for, or the one to make you run a mile.  Making Modernism focuses on the often very vibrant work of Gabriele Münter and Marianne von Werefkin, the intense portraits and self-portraits of Paula Modersohn-Becker and the frequently harrowing prints and sculptures of Käthe Kollwitz. Most of the 65 works have never been shown in the UK before. It's on from November 12 to February 12. A free display at the National Gallery features two JMW Turner paintings on loan from the Frick Collection in New York of the harbours at Dieppe and Cologne  that the artist made on his frequent travels round Europe. Turner on Tour runs from November 3 to February 19.  Back at Tate Britain from November 24 to February 26 is Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Fly in League with the Night , a show whose run in 2020 was curtailed by lockdown. Around 70 works are on show in a retrospective of a conte...
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All the Way from America

House more than a century old? In need of renovation? Perhaps a friendly acquaintance can look after some of those valuable pictures you have while the workmen are in.  It's the Frick Collection in New York that's having the makeover, and they've sent 10 of their Dutch Golden Age masterpieces back to Holland for a few months, paintings that have mostly been in America for over 100 years, since the industrialist Henry Clay Frick bought them for his stunning art collection. They're now on display at the Mauritshuis in The Hague in  Manhattan Masters: Rembrandt and Friends from the Frick NYC . Rembrandt and Friends? Yes indeed: Vermeer, Hals, Cuyp. This is a high-quality show, beautifully presented, and almost guaranteed to instil feelings of inner calm and satisfaction in the viewer. Frick may have been a ruthless entrepreneur (there's an interesting introductory film) but he was also an enthusiastic and ambitious collector, even if some of the supposed Rembrandts he...
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Homer's Oddity

We've all had that sort of conversation about a book; one person praises the fantastic use of language, the brilliant descriptions, the thought-provoking dialogue -- and the other reader says they only made it to page 35: "I just couldn't get into it."  Well, that's a bit like the feeling we had with Winslow Homer: Force of Nature at the National Gallery in London; we just couldn't get into it, somehow (though we did make it all the way to the end, and it gave us plenty to talk about during and afterwards).  Homer (1836-1910) is one of the great names in American art, famed in the States for his realistic depictions of Civil War fighting, the reconstruction of the South, nature and above all storm-lashed coastlines and mariners in distress. A lot of drama. There is, however, not a single work by him in a British public collection. So it's a great chance to discover an unfamiliar artist, the sort of show we normally love. Sometimes, as with Glyn Philpot r...
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Lord Leighton Will See You Again Now

No need to slink in surreptitiously through the separate models' entrance; come right up to the brand new main front door; they've done a splendid job refurbishing the Leighton House Museum in west London, the old home and studio of Frederic, Lord Leighton, one of the giants of the Victorian art scene.  One of the giants? That's an understatement. He was president of the Royal Academy for 18 years, and his house in Holland Park was like no other artist's residence in London, with its extraordinary Arab Hall, inspired by the interiors and gardens of North Africa and the Middle East, as the sumptuous pièce de résistance.  The house reopens to the public on October 15, and we were most impressed with the results of the four-year renovation at a preview for the press; we can remember visiting several times over the past two decades and finding the visitor facilities a little on the poky and drab side. The modern extension is in harmony with the house and the new entrance ha...
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