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Showing posts from January, 2020

A Queer Tale of Deception

Truth is often stranger than fiction, isn't it? Head to the newly opened venue of Charleston in Lewes for  Dorothy Hepworth and Patricia Preece: An Untold Story , an exhibition that relates a piece of art history that, you have to say, would make a good film.  And here are the two principal characters: Dorothy, on the left, a talented graduate of the Slade School of Fine Art , and her fellow student, friend, lover, partner and collaborator Patricia, perhaps not quite so talented, but both passionate about art.  The photograph seems to tell you a lot. Dorothy looks a little bit awkward and ill at ease, slightly frumpy, androgynous even. Patricia appears confident, glamorous, exuberant, perhaps a little.... possessive? But maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves. We need to establish the plot....   The rather retiring Hepworth and the outgoing, gregarious Preece became inseparable as students, and they planned to set up a studio together after graduation. In 1922, Preece took exam
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Opening and Closing in February

British Baroque: Power and Illusion is the title of the new exhibition at Tate Britain in London, devoted to the period between the restoration of Charles II to the throne in 1660 and the death of Queen Anne in 1714 and focusing on the magnificence of the art and architecture of the time -- by names such as Peter Lely, Godfrey Kneller and James Thornhill -- to convey status and influence. Many works, some from stately homes, will be on public display for the first time in this show running from February 4 to April 19. And artworks from one very stately home, Woburn Abbey , which is being refurbished, will be going on show for almost a year at the Queen's House in Greenwich. Van Dyck, Gainsborough, Reynolds and Canaletto are all represented in Woburn Treasures at the Queen's House , which runs from February 13 to January 17, 2021. Also at the Queen's House, from February 13 to August 31, the three versions of the Armada portrait of Elizabeth I, one of them from Woburn, w
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A Soupçon of Orpen

In the 1920s, William Orpen was the leading society portraitist of his day, and you can appreciate just why in an exhibition at the Watts Gallery in Surrey, William Orpen: Method & Mastery .  There's a certain flashiness to some of Orpen's work, as perhaps befits a man who moved in flashy circles, but his rapidly executed pictures are often insightful and brilliantly done. This is quite a small show, but it contains a handful of really memorable paintings.  And possibly the most memorable is this one:  Le Chef de l'Hôtel Chatham, Paris.  Not a society portrait, this, but a celebrity, or to be more precise, someone who was about to enjoy fame, albeit fleetingly. Orpen's diploma work for the Royal Academy, this depiction of Eugène Grossriether was the picture of the year at the 1921 Summer Exhibition. Grossriether moved to London and edited a book aimed at bringing French cooking to the English. This is the cook as hero, in pristine whites with some splen
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Britain's Debt to George IV

Let's face it: George IV was a womanising, dissipated, self-aggrandising spendthrift, with a taste for bling. And there's really nothing in George IV: Art & Spectacle at the Queen's Gallery in London to disabuse you of that received viewpoint. But the exhibition does succeed in its aim of demonstrating that George, as prince and king, hugely embellished Britain's royal art collection. And he definitely had an eye for a good painting, with a perhaps unexpected penchant for the understated sobriety of the Dutch Golden Age. It can't have been easy being heir to the throne for decades, with the thought at the back of your mind that you might never actually get there. An unsuccessful marriage, too, the butt of jokes and worse. Not too difficult for anyone today to imagine all that, but there were added constraints on an 18th-century Prince of Wales: no chance to lead the troops into battle, and no trips to interesting foreign parts. All far too dangerous. So whe
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Troy -- An Epic Experience

Nearly everyone knows something of the story of the Trojan Horse -- how the Greeks hid soldiers inside a cunningly constructed giant wooden horse and tricked the people of Troy, with whom they'd been at war for years, into bringing it into their city, leading to its downfall. The legend surrounding Troy and the Trojan war has endured for thousands of years, though in these modern times, when the study of the classics is not that common -- and there are so many other stories competing for our attention -- the characters and their exploits are likely to be rather hazy for many of us, once we've got past the horse, of course. Troy: Myth and Reality at the British Museum in London seeks to put flesh on the bones of the myths, to find out the truth underlying the legend, and to show how it's inspired artists down the centuries. Does it succeed? Some bits of it do. But it has to be said that unless you're already pretty well up on your Greek and Roman gods and heroes, yo
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