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Symphonies and Nocturnes on Canvas

The  James McNeill Whistler  exhibition at Tate Britain is big, probably a bit too big, but it's packed with beautiful pictures and it's not in the least bit boring.  That's not surprising as Whistler led a colourful life, never shying from controversy and confrontation -- notably pursuing a high-profile libel case against John Ruskin  -- and he produced art that was groundbreaking, hugely influential and enormously atmospheric. Including, of course, probably one of the most recognisable paintings in art history, that of his mother in profile, dressed in black. It's in this show, and we'll be taking a look at it shortly.  But we start in Whistler's studio, where the artist has painted himself at work, palette and brush in his hands, and looking out directly at us, the viewers. This is the first picture you see in the show, and we're told that for Whistler, the studio was a place for public performance, as well as making art. So here he is, making a statemen...
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Doreen Fletcher's Streets of London

There's a really rather good exhibition of paintings by Doreen Fletcher on at the Nunnery Gallery. Who's Doreen Fletcher, you ask? And where's the Nunnery Gallery?

We're in Bow in east London, and we're looking at townscapes, virtually all of them of the local area. This is Doreen Fletcher: A Retrospective, and this weekday lunchtime it's quite full of visitors, many of them from the East End, and clearly delighting in recognising landmarks that in some cases are now just history.
Doreen Fletcher has been painting the streets of east London since the 1980s, though she stopped working in the early 2000s for lack of recognition before resuming a couple of years ago after being rediscovered. And justifiably so.

She paints in a fairly precise documentary style that's full of detailed observation. Her pictures are by no means devoid of people, but they certainly don't play a central role. They might be in a car or at a bus stop, rarely taking centre stage.
There are echos of Edward Hopper, George Shaw, Ben Johnson, Dutch 17th-century city views and indeed the East London Group who recorded the capital between the wars.

"I am an artist interested in the pockets of life others ignore," Fletcher has said, and those words are inscribed high up on the wall of the main gallery here.
Rain-drenched tarmac, advertising hoardings, boarded-up shopfronts, a stray traffic cone, graffiti on railway bridges, a pink wheelie bin: There's a sort of urban poetry here.

Fletcher's more recent work continues in a similar vein. There's something very up-to-date about The Beckton Fox, on the prowl at the supermarket petrol station:
Hopper's Gas sprang immediately to mind!

This is a delightful show, even if you're not all that familiar with the East End. Doreen Fletcher's pictures are full of interest and anecdote. If you get the chance to head down to Bow in the next few weeks, it's well worth the trip.

Practicalities

Doreen Fletcher: A Retrospective is on at the Nunnery Gallery in Bow, east London until March 24. It's open from 1000 to 1700 Tuesday to Sunday, and admission is absolutely free. The Nunnery Gallery is just a few minutes' walk from both Bow Road station on the Underground's District and Hammersmith & City lines and Bow Church station on the Docklands Light Railway.
“
I am an artist interested in the pockets of life others ignore
”

Images

Doreen Fletcher, Commercial Road, Whitsunday, 1989. © Doreen Fletcher, courtesy Nunnery Gallery
Doreen Fletcher, Bus Stop, 1983. © Doreen Fletcher, courtesy Nunnery Gallery
Doreen Fletcher, Salmon Lane in the Rain, 1987. © Doreen Fletcher, courtesy Nunnery Gallery
Doreen Fletcher, The Beckton Fox, 2019. © Doreen Fletcher, courtesy Nunnery Gallery

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