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It’s amazing to think that photography has been recording human life for 200 years.  It must have been thrilling for the early inventors to come up with a system for capturing pictures of people and places, even if it took an age for the image to develop.  And then, it’s just as remarkable to see how quickly new media is adopted by practitioners with an artist’s eye. Almost immediately, early photographers started using the lens in an inventive way and exploring the potential for capturing surprising sights, recording people and staging poses.  To begin with, the process would not have been vastly different from asking a model to pose for an artist to draw or paint them.  The picture above, taken by W.G.Campbell in 1856, of the girl feeding the dog, demanded that both subjects had to stay still for at least seven seconds (good performance by the dog!).

For anyone who loves the evolving technology of photography there are serried rows of early cameras and the paraphernalia of photography to peruse.  I was intrigued to see how quickly photographer learned to use this medium to tell stories.  For example, these shots recreate the story of Little Red Riding Hood. They’re by Henry Peach Robinson from 1858 and show how illustrations and illusion could be created – apparently some reviewers were offended that the images seemed to ‘real’ for a fairy tale!

The ability to capture human expression must have been thrilling. For centuries artists have been capturing faces in all manner of grimace, smile, howl or smirk.  All of a sudden, you could do this in less than a minute. What a breakthrough! A great exponent of this was Ernst Schulz who, in 1967, dressed himself for a whole series of ‘selfies’ acting out a range of emotions. They’re wonderful.

Daguerre established early studios for portraits and this became hugely popular. The human desire for a recording of a loved-one is such a strong desire.  And the results, Daguerreotypes on glass, look so charming in their little velvet frames. These ones were taken by Antoine Claudet, a pupil of Daguerre, who set up a studio in London.

Moving into the last century there are great examples of photographers who found pleasure in incidental images and the chance to capture them. I’ve seen these before, but the ‘faces’ photographed by Brassai in Paris are witty and compelling.

Now these images of Spomeniks are something I’ve never seen before and knew nothing about. They were taken by Jan Kempenaers in 2006-7 and they’re of monuments built in former Yugoslavia on the sites of Second World War battles and concentration camps.  They just look weird.

Mary McCartney has donated some shots from her imaged entitled Off Pointe along with family photographs taken by her mother, Linda McCartney.

And in a separate gallery there is a collection of digitally created images by artist Thomas Ruff. He has created a series inspired by Linnaeus Tripe‘s 1850s paper negatives of India and Burma, held in the V&A’s collection.  Taking images which are 160 years old he has created a series of haunting images which carry the patina of age and atmosphere of the date of the original prints through the enhancing of small details and fogging of focus. The contemporary pieces by Ruff have the feeling of lithographs; they are beautiful.

The Photography Centre opens on 12th October 2018. (Free)  The Spotlight Exhibitions of contemporary photography will change regularly.

www.vam.ac.uk 

Each year there’s a huge buzz in the art world as galleries, collectors, artists and enthusiasts make a bee line for the huge temporary exhibition tents in Regents Park to see a vast range of art on offer – as long as you have a big budget and wall or room space to show off some of the astonishing pieces.  (Above is Yayoi Kusama‘s The Season Came with Tears at Victoria Miro Stand)

As a humble artist and writer I confess I don’t have pockets deep enough to carry away any of these treasures but I can certainly feel enriched by what I see. And this year, Frieze Art Fair, and its younger sibling, Frieze Masters both offer a feast for the eyes and the chance to see just what’s fashionable, and what is likely to sell.

Of course I find myself drawn to works which involve paper, collage or mixed media and I wasn’t disappointed by examples on offer.  There was a satisfying amount of paint on canvas too.  There have been years when I’ve wondered if artists would ever pick up a brush and splash paint onto a surface but this year we are definitely seeing that the painted picture is alive and well and amply represented at this show.

There was a pleasing number of witty artworks on show, but often with a message – there is very much a move to include as many female artists as possible and to promote the #MeToo. The piece entitled Believe Women by Andrea Bowers on the Andrew Kreps Gallery stand illustrates this nicely.

I liked Urs Fischer‘s sculpture entitled Francesco – a real mix of materials – featuring a head you’d expect to see in a museum of Greek sculptures, but done in a kind of wax and staring at at mobile phone. It was on the Sadie Coles stand.

I liked Moshekwa Langa‘s Stranger’s Homes done with mixed media on paper on the Blain Southern stand.  And Lisa Alvarado’s ‘Traditional Object 23’ is a joyous creation of texture on acrylic, fabric and wood. It was on the Mary Mary stand.

There was something really pleasing about Jockum Nordström‘s Valentine’s Day II which is collage, watercolour and graphite on paper.  It’s on the ZENO X Gallery from Antwerp.

And on the Victoria Miro stand was Mama, Mummy and Mamma (Predecesors 2)  by Njideka Akunyili Crosby done with acrylic, colour pencils, charcoal and transfers on paper.

Over at Frieze Masters, a brisk walk north through the autumnal pleasures of Regents Park, there was a calmer, more restrained feel. But the art on the walls was fabulous. Going round that show is like hoovering up some of highlights of the world’s best galleries and museums, there are such treasures on show.  I’m always drawn to the Medieval Dutch painters.  Loved the painting entitled The Wedding Dance by Marten Van Cleve the elder (painted circa 1570)  and also the Peter Breughel the Younger painting, The Adoration of the Magi in the Snow which is more winter wonderland than religious picture. The camels have nice cosy blankets on them!

Frieze and Frieze Masters are only on for three hectic days in October. It’s open to the public from Friday5th – Sunday 7th October and well worth a visit.

http://www.frieze.com

Five hundred years ago the art scene in Italy was pretty thrilling.  A concentration of fabulously talented artists flocked to the key cities – Venice, Florence, Padua, Mantua and others – in search of patronage, experience, studio space and the opportunity to really push their art.  Part of the excitement of the period had been the recent development of oil paints which allowed works to be painted on canvas or linen rather than wooden panels or directly onto walls – frescoes.

Below is the astonishingly beautiful and tender Virgin and Child (Simon Madonna) by Mantegna which captures maternal love in such a simple and convincing way.

Into this world came Mantegna, the son of a carpenter whose prodigious talent spurred him on to the highest echelons of Italian society and he died a wealthy and highly respected man.  Part of his success can be attributed to a very fortunate marriage. He married Nicolosia, the half-sister of Giovanni Bellini. We’ve no idea how the marriage came about but a happy result was that the two brothers-in-law became firm friends, great rivals and, despite ideological and stylistic differences share a fascinating with the logistics of art, the properties of the paint and pushed the exploration of relatively new concepts such as perspective, foreshortening and the use of colour to depict emotion to new levels. For eight years their studios were entwined and they worked closely together.

This show at the National Gallery has gathered together masterpieces by these two painters from museums, galleries and private collections from all over the world.  It’s fascinating to see pictures by both painters side by side for the ultimate ‘compare and contrast’.  Yes, it seems that they shared the same compositions and sketches -whether this is through a desire for artistic one-upmanship or a respectful nod to the other’s talents it’s hard to know.  We all know that artists ‘steal’ from one another, but these two took that idea even more seriously.  However, it is thrilling to stand in front of the two paintings depicting the Christ Child in the Temple, or the Agony in the Garden which are both telling the same story using very similar elements but oh, how they contrast.  Where Mantegna’s version is tightly composed with a rocky mound as the centrepiece, Bellini’s version embraces a panorama of desert and hills and a sublime dawn sky representing resurrection.

Bellini was a master at capturing youthful faces – these are details of the angels surrounding the Dead Christ.

Likewise, he captured this proud, powerful yet vulnerable Doge Leonardo Loredan. Painted in around 1501. (below)

Both artists were highly skilled draftsmen, using drawing as a starting point for all their work, setting up models in the studio to compose pictures and incorporating the most astonishing detail of everyday life into the background and incidental scenes within epic pictures.  Below are details from Mantegna’s The Dead Christ Supported by Two Angels (egg tempera on panel) which has the most astonishing activity going on in the back ground.

This show offers a rare opportunity to feel thoroughly immersed in the world of late 14th and early 15th century art and is an absolutely joy to explore.

Mantegna and Bellini is on show in the Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery from 1 October to 27 January 2019.  Don’t miss it!

The Courtauld Collection is closing for two years and the glorious collections need temporary homes. Step up the National Gallery, the august gallery which Samuel Courtauld enjoyed and supported in his lifetime, which has offered to house some of the best examples of impressionist and post-impressionist art from the collection.

For anyone who has been to the Courtauld’s glamorous home within Somerset House, these paintings will be very familiar.  This exhibition, occupying three rooms within the National Gallery is all about the French impressionist painters who were at the vanguard of this new, and enduring style of painting. We have favourites such as Manet‘s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère – you can stare at that model’s face for hours while moving around the canvas to see the crowded nightclub and the astounding still life painting in the foreground.

I liked Degas‘ portrait of his cousin, Elena Carafa – her slightly quizzical and disdainful expression really captures her character and you can imagine the pair chatting while the painting was made.

It’s always good to see Pissarro‘s paintings close up and The Boulevarde Montmartre at Night is a painterly treat where you can see the rich layers applied to the canvas to create street lights on a busy street in a steady drizzle.

Samuel Courtauld was a very shrewd collector of art.  He also believed that the arts, and understanding them, was a vital part of not just education but of people’s happiness and the general health of society.  As a successful industrialist and businessman, he navigated his family textile business to heady success – his family, of Huguenot origins, settled in London at the end of the 17th century as part of a community of French silk weavers. Success brought him the opportunity to indulge in serious philanthropy and appreciation of art. He developed a fascination for the work of Cézanne – first seeing a painting by him in 1922 – and resolved to collect his art. I share his delight in these paintings and The Card Players must be one of my favourite paintings. It’s lovely to know that it will be on show in a safe place until January 20th 2019.

So, it’s good to know that, while the Courtauld is undergoing essential refurbishments, the fabulous collection will be on show elsewhere.  They look very comfortable indeed in their new/temporary home at the National Gallery.

Above: Georges Seurat, Young Woman Powdering Herself; Henri Toulouse Lautrec, Woman Seated in a Garden; Pierre Auguste-Renoir. La Loge; Pierre Bonnard, The Table.

Courtauld IMPRESSIONISTS from Manet to Cézanne, The Wohl Galleryies  17th September 2018 – 20th January 2019

I like a bit of subversion.  This new exhibition at the British Museum makes it very clear that, for centuries,  humans have made small interventions, protests or signs on objects which record their disgruntlement or simply a desire to make their mark.

The pieces on show have been selected by Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye, with co-curator Tom Hockenhull.  Clearly, in a museum like the British Museum there is a great deal to choose from and it’s good to see interesting objects taken out of their usual display cases (or storage) and included in this show.  I was already familiar with the wonderful penny stamped with Votes For Women which as such a blissfully clever way of distributing a message on such a commonplace piece of currency which would be impossible to trace yet would circulate widely spreading the message.

Movingly a Chinese stamp was designed to mark the Tienanmen Square massacre in 1989. The numbers on the runners’ bibs carry the date the tanks rolled in and killed protesters.

I liked the Babylonian brick made for Nebuchadnezza’s tomb which had been scrawled with the maker’s name – a pretty treasonable thing – but he must have felt moved to make a grumpy mark on a hot day.

The yellow umbrellas used by protesters in Hong Kong  in 2014 to shield themselves from pepper spray and tear gas during clashes with police spawned the ‘Umbrella Movement’.  A mundane and necessary object has been cleverly adopted as a political symbol but, when challenged, the owner of a yellow umbrella could just shrug and say, ‘It’s raining, that’s why I’ve got my umbrella’.

In a more playful approach to dissent the curators chose to include a witty contribution from the artist Banksy – his cartoon of ‘Peckham Rock’.

Complete with a totally credible caption behind perspex, this drawing was described as a ‘finely preserved example of primitive art dating from the Post-Catatonic era and is thought to depict early man venturing towards the out of town hunting grounds.’  The artist is referenced as ‘Banksymus Maximus’. It’s a very clever pop at the rather po’faced hanging of pieces in a museum, and reputedly, it was quite sometime before the museum folk noticed it was hanging there! Now that’s an example of really clever dissent.

This is the 29th BP Portrait Award and, if anyone thought that painted portraits don’t have a place in a time of photography and the ubiquitous ‘selfie’, this is proof that the desire to make pictures of people using ‘old-school’ media is very much alive and kicking.

I guess the clue is in the name – BP is all about oil and the majority of the paintings on show have been made using oil paints.  This sometimes frustrates me because I’m a great advocate of mixed media (and of course paper collage). But I was blown away by the talent on show at this year’s exhibition.

I would think that photos have been used as reference tools for many of the pictures. It’s just impossible to keep a subject still for any length of time and many of the paintings seemed to capture fleeting moments, glances, and glimpses of personality and emotion.  I think that’s hard to do with a sitter who’s getting a bit itchy and uncomfortable.

The winning portrait, An Angel at My Table by Miriam Escofet is remarkably proficient.  It’s quite photo-realistic but then there is a beguiling ornament which seems to be moving – the angel, perhaps? And the wistful look of the woman sitting amongst the cool, blue china cups and saucers is captivating.

I always look for evidence of brush stroke and the sheer joy of slapping oil paint on canvas. I was encouraged to see that Second Prize went to Felicia Forte for her painting entitled Time Traveller, Matthew Napping.  It’s more a portrait of a moment than the actual person and I loved the big, bold colours and exuberance of the process which is clear to see.

The BP Portrait exhibition is free to visit – it’s in a different gallery this year which makes it feel rather smaller than usual ( I don’t know if that’s true) but it’s always worth a visit.

http://www.npg.org.uk   www.bp.com/arts

It’s on until 23rd September 2018

“People get the words dull and subtle muddled up” said Grayson Perry at the press preview for this year’s Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy which he has curated.  Well, standing in Room 3 painted a zingy bright lemon yellow, there was no chance of that.  Perry’s enthusiasm for the weird, wonderful, colourful, seductive, playful, non-conformist and just a bit rude is clear to see in his selection of works.  But they are such fun.  Yes, I know the Summer Exhibition’s primary objective is to sell work and raise money to fund the schools but that has often made the choices very safe – maybe a bit dull? In the past we’ve seen a lot of cute cats, birds, boats and moody landscapes.  Not a bit of it this year; there’s a giant bear emerging from a rug, an eggshell portrait of Iggy Pop (Eggy Pop  geddit!), sculptures made of smashed up crockery and lots and lots of colour.

Detail from Change in Fortune,by El Anatsui aluminium and copper

Je t’aime moi non Plu, marker pen on rubber gloves, Wilma Johnson

So, this is my kind of show. You get the usual mash up of RA works with the Summer Exhibition, cheek by jowl with ‘amateur’ artists but the juxtaposition is fun and starts a kind of visual conversation. Grayson Perry is great advocate of the ‘outsider artist’, the artist who is compelled to create and makes work which has no classical or trained back story but has emerged from a compulsion to express an idea or a passion in their own language; that’s always fun, and often very moving.

Red Bear, carpet and mixed media, by Debbie Lawson

Detail from Change in Fortune,by El Anatsui aluminium and copper

Eggy Pop by Gary Miller

Je t’aime moi non Plu, marker pen on rubber gloves, Wilma Johnson

In Between the Island acrylic Jenny Wheatley

But over in another part of the now HUGE gallery, the John Madejski Fine Rooms, Weston Rooms, Galleries I and II  is another treasure trove of visual delights – The Great Spectacle: 250 Years of the Summer Exhibition.  The premise of the exhibition – originally called The Annual Exhibition – was to exhibit art made NOW. Of course, 250 years later we see art made THEN but it’s absolutely fascinating.  What is clear is that the shock of the new is a constant, it’s something which we’re all looking for and even if it can’t be defined in exact terms there are certain paintings which become huge hits. For example, some of the terrific genre paintings by David Wilkie, such as The Village Politician, contained fascinating visual narratives and people would cluster and stare at the picture for ages.

Back at the start of it all, Joshua Reynolds, founder of this great institution, understood fully the need for the blockbuster image which had that ‘wow’ factor. He introduced it with his fabulous portraits which used light in a wonderfully dappled way. The portrait of Mrs Lloyd is semi classical but shows the young woman in a diaphanous gown in a sun speckled glade and her face positively glowing against the dark leafy background. Apparently all the ladies who saw that image wanted to look like that, or be painted like that.

Then there’s all that  argy bargy with the artists trying to out do each other in terms of bravura and attention grabbing.  As you can hear from Grayson when he was negotiating his hang of this year’s show, nothing changes, egos can be huge and expectations can be high and artists can be easily incensed by the space (or lack of it) they have been given.  Reynolds always competed with Gainsborough, Turner with Constable. We love all that!

Turner – Calais Sands at Low Water

John Constable – The Leaping Horse

Elisabeth Frink – running man

Yinka Shonibare RA Young Academician fibreglass mannequin, Dutch wax printed textile, books, globe and steel baseplate

Tracy Emin Chair

So, what with the new permanent exhibition, the Great Spectacle, the Summer Exhibition and the show of work by RA students, there is a great deal to see at this magnificent gallery.

The Summer Exhibition and The Great Spectacle run from 12th June – 19th August. The Schools Final Year Show runs from 8th June – 1st July.

For the last four years we’ve been immersed in memories of the First World War as centenary of its conclusion approaches and it’s been fascinating and moving to review the art which recorded the slaughter and devastation on a scale the world had never seen before.  Those images of shell-blasted battle fields, ruined trenches, mud, puddles, corpses and dreadful injuries fix in the mind.

This exhibition at Tate Britian assembles some of those images of conflict to set the context – well known paintings by artists such as Paul Nash, CRW Nevinson and William Orpen – and the absolute misery and relentless horror of what they witnessed is captured in both literal terms and in bleak abstracts. And indeed it includes many images made from the German and French viewpoint, which we haven’t seen so much of but are no less powerful in their evocation of the suffering which was endured by everyone involved.

What this exhibition is does is look at the aftermath of the conflict and how artists started the process of recovery, repair and resolution.  The First World War became memorialised very early on.  The ubiquitous war memorials in every town, village and hamlet bear testament to the appalling loss of young lives but this exhibition gathers together an impressive collection of sculptures, bronzes drawings, prints and paintings which capture the impact of not only the fallen but those who have been left behind.

The enduring costs of conflict were only too apparent in the injuries endured and the pain of maimed bodies .  I’ve seen these portraits of soldiers by Henry Tonks before and they are very impressive, conveying a quiet dignity; there’s nothing sensational about the making of these portraits – just honest medical recording of the damage done and how the injuries were treated.

Anger at what young men were forced to endure seems to roar from the prints and drawings of German expressionist artists such as Max Ernst, Otto Dix and George Grosz.  These drawing, prints and sketches suggest that all pleasure and innocence had been chased away and replaced by a kind of self-destructiom fuelled by domestic cruelty and unfair treatment of those who endured the conflict .

I enjoyed the selection of collages by artists such as Kurt Schwitters, Rudolf Schlichter and Hannah Hoch which seemed to express the chaos of the post-war years as people resumed their ‘normal’ lives and tried to put the horrors behind them.

It’s almost a relief to get to the gallery entitled Return to Order and see images of sun soaked landscapes, portraits and families enjoying themselves.  But there are still images which capture loss – widows, families where husbands and families are missing – and a feeling that the world is now an emptier place.

The final room in the exhibition looks to the future – images of machines taking over, of society being rebuilt with the help of new technology and innovation.  But nothing can override those initial images of wartime devastation and, no matter, how people strive to repair, recover and redeem the situation, the reality of conflict does nothing good for us.

Art in the Wake of World War One, Tate Britain, 5th June – 23rd September 2018.

It’s been a long time coming but well worth the wait. The Royal Academy has finally joined up its Piccadilly fronting mansion, Burlington House, with the splendid building on Burlington Gardens, which it bought back in 2001.

At the press preview this week I was fascinated to hear from the architect behind this new link, David Chipperfield.  It was far from straightforward, as he outlined. There are many ‘tribes’ within the RA and each one had a strong view on how the gallery should evolve.  He found a way to connect the buildings by taking the route down to the basement level, revealing intriguing vaults, going through the RA School which has occupied the back of the building for the past 250 years, and connected the space with the beautifully restored building on Burlington Gardens, which was formerly The Museum of Mankind.

The result is the opening up of new spaces, the creation of a breathtaking new lecture hall and a home for the RA’s permanent collection.  We always knew the gallery possessed artistic treasures but we rarely got to see them since the original space was always used for ‘blockbuster’ shows and the Summer Exhibition (which funds students at the RA School).

Now, you can wander through spaces with some stunning examples of art from Roman sculptures, through to High Renaissance work up to works created by early members of the Royal Academy.  I was astounded by the vast copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper – apparently soon after the original which is in Milan. This version is in rather better condition and, as Christopher Le Brun, President of the Royal Academy pointed out, you can see the feet and sandals of the apostles below the table (they’ve disappeared from the version on the wall of the Santa Maria delle Grazie).

I stared long and hard at Michaelangelo’s Taddei Tondo, The Virgin and Child with the Infant St John (c 1504) You could argue that it’s unfinished but what you can see in this piece is the artist’s hand at work – the way he shaped the figures using smaller and smaller claw chisels and getting to the stage where the stone is smoothed. I loved the little dint in the fabric made by the finger of the figure of baby Jesus.

There are also examples of James Thornhill‘s huge biblical paintings.  They’re fabulous in a slightly gaudy, colourful way and I was intrigued to see that the same model popped up playing different figures in the pictures.

The new spaces offer an extraordinary showcase of art and architecture (for which the RA was established to promote).  This gallery is having a serious ‘moment’.  And, to bring things right up to date, the contemporary artist, Tacita Dean is having the THIRD of her moments with an impressive display of landscape inspired pieces. I was really impressed by the chalk on blackboard artworks of snowy, craggy mountains – a painstaking piece of work to produce.  And I was amused by her rather touching collection of three or four leaf clovers which she’s collection.

Down in the Vaults the space is devoted to the early learning of drawing and has collected a variety of pictures of students studying the human figure and many of the plaster casts which were used as models for aspiring artists getting to grips with the art of looking – really looking.

The whole project has cost a cool £56million to create – and £12.7 million came from Heritage Lottery Funds.  I reckon it’s all money very well spent.

https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/  #RA250 #TheNewRA #TacitaDean  @royalacademy