We must confess that religious paintings are not our favourite subject, and we've tended to regard Spanish Catholic art as being, well, just a little too religious to cope with. So we approached the Francisco de Zurbarán exhibition at the National Gallery in London with a certain amount of trepidation. A degree of contrition is due.... Yes, there were monks, altarpieces and lots of saints, but we were blown away by Zurbarán's ability to depict textures and fabrics and to convey an intensity of feeling. It's an absolutely excellent exhibition, full of truly beautiful paintings. Such religious art was intended to bring the faithful closer to God, to bridge the gap between Heaven and Earth, in an age when many could not read. Zurbarán was a master at it. Let's start with a saint: Just take a look at the fabrics, trimmings and gems in this picture. And the garments are even more striking when you are stood in front of this nearly life-size figure. This is Casild...
Work, work, work, of course. It was Thomas Edison who said genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration, and for every artist's light-bulb moment, there'll be a lot of hours sitting in the studio.
A Century of the Artist's Studio: 1920-2020 at the Whitechapel Gallery in east London takes us to a hundred of those studios to witness the hard labour of the creative process in an ambitious and often fun exhibition.
"Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday...." intone the voices in the video From March to April.... 2020 by the Dubai-based Ramin and Rokni Haerizadeh and Hesam Rahmanian. Tehching Hsieh took it further. One-Year Performance saw him clocking on daily. In Darren Almond's A Real Time Piece nothing disturbs the eerie quiet of the artist's empty studio apart from the loud thwock once a minute of the changing display of the mechanical digital clock on the wall. In this other piece by Almond there's not a sound to be heard, but if there was any noise, you might imagine it being dulled by all the soft cloths or painter's rags reproduced in The Remnants (Freud).
Lucian Freud is one of the artists we see in a collection of photographs right at the start of the exhibition, falling onto the floor amid paint-spattered rags. Freud's studio is not as messy as that of Francis Bacon, who poses moodily in leather jacket, the floor covered in scraps of old newspaper (you can see a big full-colour blow-up photo of Bacon's studio later in the show). There's Jackson Pollock in action, action painting. Frida Kahlo in a wheelchair with her doctor, posing with her painting of her and her doctor. And Pablo Picasso, hamming it up for Robert Doisneau's camera in an orange off-the-shoulder number.
Later in the show there's one of Picasso's own pictures of his studio, with the huge windows and the palm trees outside. Looks a nice place to work, and rather orderly. Reminded us of a hotel foyer....
But do any studios ever really look as pristine as this 1945 interior painted by Wilhelmina Barns-Graham. This was her new workplace in St Ives, so she'd literally just moved in. Is it a true view or wishful thinking? Artistic licence perhaps?
There are a number of studio corners the curators have recreated and scattered through this show that try to bring you in to the creative process, to get a feel for where the inspiration and perspiration are distilled: a bit of Charleston Farmhouse decorated by Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant; a recreation of Henri Matisse's 1940s refuge in Provence, hung with textiles from Africa and the Pacific; and huge blow-up photographs of Henry Moore's and Barbara Hepworth's sculpture workshops among them.
And this studio is a hidey-hole, an escape from the real world. In 1930s Nova Scotia, Maud Lewis turned a shack in the wilderness into a home and studio, painting the cabin and its contents with elaborate motifs of flowers, birds and butterflies, depicting paradise rather than the poverty and pain she was afflicted with.
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In Rodney Graham's lightbox triptych The Gifted Amateur, the artist clad in blue pyjamas and smoking a cigarette casually creates a drip painting in a stylish modern house, surrounded by works of art history.
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There's a huge amount of amusement and entertainment to be had in this show. You want more artists? There's a hundred of them, from all around the globe. You won't like all of it, but you're bound to find something unusual and refreshing.
Practicalities
A Century of the Artist's Studio: 1920-2020 can be seen at the Whitechapel Gallery in east London until June 5. It's open Tuesday to Sunday from 1100 to 1800, with lates on Thursdays until 2100. Tickets cost a standard £14.95, or £16.45 with Gift Aid, and can be booked online here.
If you watched all the videos religiously, you could probably spend most of the day in this show, but you can take it all in without rushing in about 90 minutes. There weren't very many visitors the day we went, but it was very cold and wet.
The gallery is right next to Aldgate East station on the Underground's District and Hammersmith & City lines.
If you watched all the videos religiously, you could probably spend most of the day in this show, but you can take it all in without rushing in about 90 minutes. There weren't very many visitors the day we went, but it was very cold and wet.
The gallery is right next to Aldgate East station on the Underground's District and Hammersmith & City lines.
Images
Darren Almond, The Remnants (Freud), 2021Pablo Picasso, L'Atelier (The Studio), 1955. © Succession Picasso/DACS, London 2021
Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Studio Interior (Red Stool, Studio), 1945, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust. © Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust
Installation view of Maud Lewis Studio Corner
Lucian Freud, David and Eli, 2003-04, Schroeder Collection courtesy of the Faurschou Foundation
David Dawson, The Mirror and the Bed in Lucian's Studio, 2020, David Dawson
David Dawson, The Mirror and the Bed in Lucian's Studio, 2020, David Dawson
Rodney Graham, The Gifted Amateur, Nov 10th, 1962, 2007
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