Category: Uncategorized

These three portraits, above, are just three of the 30 new paintings which fill the final gallery with breathtaking colour and character. Hockney spent lockdown at his home in France and was not idle. Apart from making landscapes of the area around his farmhouse he made portraits of neighbours, friends and random visitors. You can feel the conversations which went on while the paintings were being made. Hockney works quickly and he works from life. Photos references are not for him. He likes to ‘eyeball’ his subject and commit the impression to paper or canvas as quickly as he can. I really loved the results of this latest series. He’s taken to using a kind of spare ‘pointillist’ style of painting. He’s confident in his use of blobs and brush strokes to employ minimal effort to maximum effect.

It all begins with a selection of his early works. I absolutely adore the paper collage self portrait (with the yellow tie). Apart from seeing how paper can be so well used in the hands of an expert, the likeness is wonderful and the confidence is palpable. I liked the early painting of his parents (and you can see him peeping out of the reflection in the mirror) and the early lithograph shows a young artist who is eager to try all the different creative mediums at his disposal. The one on the right is a lithograph.

Above are three of the many portraits Hockney has made of his friend Celia Birtwell. It’s clear from her pose and the gaze that they are very familiar friends and, between the need to stay still, there were some rich and colourful conversations. Again, there’s a mix of media used. The delicate crayon works, made with Caran d’ache pencils are done with such a light but deft touch.

Hockney’s mother, Laura Hockney, was an early and loyal sitter for Hockney. Again, it’s the spareness of the drawing which makes these works so moving. The one on the left, of Laura wearing the hat, was made after the funeral of her husband, David’s father. All the grief and resignation is there in her eyes but done with such minimal detail.

Portraits of Gregory, Hockney’s lover. A wonderful collection of drawings, watercolours and prints.

And in amongst all the subjects immortalised on canvas and paper are the self-portraits. They come from all stages of his life and, again, in all media. Very fascinating to see the i-Pad portraits which show the actual drawing process of an artist scrutinising his face. It’s a very enjoyable show. On at the National Portrait Gallery until 21st January 2024.

I didn’t know what to expect but it was certainly a very exciting and different experience to visit Delight in the Borough Yards tunnels in Clink Street. As the daylight recedes you penetrate an extraordinary environment. Follow the path through these hanging lamps change colour constantly and lead you towards a magical mystery tour of digital discovery. From the moment you step into the space you’re both back in time (Victorian tunnels) and given a fast-forward into the future (Korea’s leading digital artists strut their stuff in this space). (Images: courtesy of Delight London)

I’ve never been to Seoul but, from this exhibition, it looks like an exciting and vibrant place full of colour movement and great humour. Apart from standing in front of and surrounded by pulsing images there are the sounds of the busy streets, children shouting, people chatting, traffic and music blaring. It’s quite an assault on the senses.

We also delve into Korean history too. There’s one room where you hear the constant bong of a bell. We are told that a thousand years ago a foundry was having trouble casting a huge bell. Each attempt failed. Then an old man told the foundry men that they would only succeed if a child was cast into the metal. This was at odds with Buddhist beliefs which did not condone human sacrifice. The bell was successfully cast and when it finally rang it seemed to ring out the name of Emile (the child who, reputedly, was sacrificed). I don’t really like that story but the soundscape of the exhibition is very moving.

It was also interesting learn about the Goblins which Koreans believe inhabit our homes. They can be helpful and irritating in equal measure. But you want to stay on the good side of them.

This show was conceived and designed by Seoul-based artist Gyoungtae Hong and Younsook Im. It’s a very intriguing place to visit with so much to see and absorb. You might be wandering through Southwark on a rainy day and suddenly find yourself in Seoul. The show is on until spring 2024.

I do love The Museum of London Docklands. It occupies a former warehouse building on the water of Canary Wharf and is surrounded by the huge, glassy buildings of this corporate district. There’s always so much to see at the Museum but I do recommend this very charming exhibition which celebrates the huge influence of Jewish immigrants on London’s fashion scene.

Families journeyed across Europe during the 19th and 20th century, avoiding pogroms and persecution, to establish homes and enterprises in London’s East End. Many of these clever makers developed their skills into haute couture and class tailoring.

The image of ‘swinging London’ owes a great deal to the entrepreneurial clothing manufacturers who emerged from these East End families. Think of High Street names like Mates, M&S, Moss Bross and Wallis. They all found ways to make fashion accessible as the young consumers of the 1960s and 70s flocked to shopping areas such as Carnaby Street and the King’s Road in search of stylish but affordable clothes.

And I hadn’t realised that it was Mr Fish who invented the Kipper Tie.

I did love seeing all the hats and shoes and accessories too. And towards the end of the show is the recreation of a kind of boutique where cool kids and dedicated followers of fashion would find their clothes.

The show is on until 14th April 2024.

Above is a banner depicting the great national hero, Wellington. This image is a rare survivor of the kind of showy offy decorations which a fine house might use in their windows. The banner would be draped onto the inside casement and the room made bright with candles. The idea was that everyone on the street would see the bright decoration and acknowledge the loyalty of the inhabitants.

These banners also displayed worthy messages to be read by observers – assuming they could read. These banners were found in the attic of a home having been folded up and stuffed away about 200 years ago. They are fascinating survivors.

Below is a print depicting the Chinese Bridge illuminated on 1st August 1814. This was part of the huge celebrations in St James’s Park. The Prince Regent commissioned his favourite architect John Nash to build a colourful bridge. It was illuminated by new-fangled gas lighting. Alas, after two hours of impressive illumination the structure caught fire killing the lamplighter trapped on the top and a bystander

You can see the disaster of the burning bridge depicted in this page of dramatic celebrations. August 1st must have been a noisy night filled with pyrotechnics and partying.

Above is an impression of a fine building in Portman Square. How did they create those lights which dangle, like today’s fairy lights down the facade of the fine house? And what a crowd assembled outside to marvel at the spectacle.

The exhibition is filled with other images of fun and festivities in Georgian London. One never tires of seeing images of the famous pleasure gardens at Vauxhall and along the banks of the Thames where people of all classes could assemble, mingle and enjoy music, dancing and excessive eating.

It’s great to have a glimpse of this world from the early 1800s and always a pleasure to visit the Sir John Soane Museum. The Museum is free to visit (open Wednesdays to Sundays) this show, Georgian Illuminations, is there until 7th January 2024.

Mention the name Philip Guston and this kind of image, above, springs to mind. He really took to the colour red, cadmium red, and used it liberally in his later art. The cigarette, the over-sized limbs, the rivets, the Klu Klux Klan headress…. all these images fed into his later work.

At the show it was fascinating to see that he created a kind of heioglyph alphabet of images which he began to use in the 1960s. On the wall of one gallery we have many of his images on small canvases. These runic symbols appear over and over again.

Once he’d established this visual language there was no end to the use. The images represented his concerns with injustice, racism, war and oppression.

But the thing that fascinates me most about this exhibition is the chance to see Philip Guston’s early work. He was a self-taught artist. He spent time poring over books and studying the work of Italian Renaissance painters. He copied, interpreted and repeated their styles. His early works show his interest in artists such as Giorgio de Chirico. Below is a painting he made when he was just 17 years old. It ‘s called Mother and Child and incorporates images he found in books in Los Angeles libraries.

I really loved this painting, below, of children wielding sticks and domestic objects. They’re street kids making games out of any stuff they can use to create weapons or armour. The paper hats look very like fore-runners of the the KKK headwear which appeared later in his work. But the energy is so engaging.

And I’m showing a few other early paintings which really impressed me. You can see the influence of Picasso and Braque and the cubists. There’s also an Edward Burra feel to them too. They really represent the world Guston saw around him.

This show is surprising and satisfying. And it sheds new light on a painter who is both familiar and mysterious. Definitely worth seeing. It’s on at Tate Modern until 25th February 2024.

It’s always interesting to see how contemporary artists evolve. Sarah Lucas shows us that she’s still concerned with the same subjects but has updated her interpretation. Back in the ’90s she made the use of old, battered material cool. She reduced gender identities to simple interpretations of genitalia presenting the sculptures with confidence and wit.

Yes, there are still a great many sculptures made from bits of fabric but they’ve also been reinterpreted in shiny metal and dowdy concrete. The results are beguiling.

Those pesky cigarettes are everywhere too. In fact, the car (half) looks rather smart with the neatly ranged fags over the bodywork. And yes, there are cigarette shaped breasts and male bits for good measure.

The piece I liked best was the concrete sculpture of a giant marrow (grown by the artist’s mother) and various other huge veg.

The show is on at Tate Britian until 14th January 2024.

Abramavić is fearless. She told a packed lecture hall at the Royal Academy that, right at the start of her career as an artist, she decided to make her body her medium. She wanted to explore the human condition and challenge herself to experience extremes and represent emotions and experience.

Above is a still from Imponderabilia. With Frank Uwe Laysiepen (1943-2020) who is known as Ulay. They presented themselves as a ‘living door’. This was reproduced at the Royal Academy with two models who stood sentry in the same way while people squeezed between the two naked bodies.

I do a lot of life drawing and contact with the model’s naked body is not something anyone would ever contemplate in a class. She invites the audience to have an uneasy ‘close encounter’ with another person’s nakedness and it is unsettling for clothed viewers.

Another artwork which was reproduced for this exhibition was the performance in a box with a skeleton. A live model was placed above the video of Marina, also nude beneath a skeleton, and it’s a very beguiling sight. Marina told us that she had been fascinated and exercised by thoughts of mortality and death. Life imitated art for her when, earlier this year, she became dangerously ill with a pulmonary embolism and very nearly died. Now, she told us at the press conference, she has changed her view on life. She’s now so pleased to have survived that she has stopped feeling fearful and wants to embrace the pleasures of life and enjoy everything.

Much of her performance art has been recorded on video. She has trained herself to be able to sit or stand for long periods. She can deny herself food or the company of other people. This is all part of her exploration of pain and what it can do to a body, and a mind.

Marina has recruited a group of artists who are prepared to recreate some of her works. They spend time training themselves to endure pain, discomfort, exposure and denial in order to re-perform the pieces as authentically as possible.

This is quite a hard show to describe. It’s very immersive, an assault on the senses and presents uncomfortable situations which can make you wince. Her partnership with Ulay led to some very interesting collaborations. It’s moving to see the film of them as they each walked 90 days along the Great Wall of China to a central point where, it was planned, they would marry. But, by the time they met, the relationship was over.

The exhibition is on at the Royal Academy in the main galleries until 1 January 2024. Then it will tour other galleries in Europe.

Above is a painting by the renowned German painter Gerhard Richter. He challenged himself to use paint to create a work which has a photographic quality and he’s been very successful in creating those strong contrasts and shadows which you find in photography. It’s called Barn and was painted in 1984. I also liked his painting based on a snapshot of himself as a baby in 1932 with his aunt Marianne, who was not much older than him. He painted it in 1965 and it’s a very touching way to represent the familiar black and white family snapshots which we all have in drawers and frames. But it’s dreadful to learn that young Marianne was murdered by the Nazi eugenics programme in Dresden during the second world war. So, while we glance at a snapshot of two children the hinterland of the image takes on greater significance when you look at the hazy painting which captures such a serious moment in time.

Once photography had been developed it was a boon to artists. At last there was a way to record a subject, a scene, a situation with accuracy. So, it’s no surprise to see examples of how artists used the immediacy and intensity of a photograph as a starting point for their work. To illustrate this, the show included the famous photograph of the Migrant Mother in California in 1936. It was taken by Dorothea Lange who was recording the work of the Resettlement Administration to raise support for impoverished farm workers during the Great Depression. Picasso also used references from the conflict in Guernica to paint Weeping Woman in 1937. However, the model for the painting was Dora Maar who denies it looks anything like her, referring to the portraits of her as “Picasso’ portraits, not one is Dora Maar.”

I was also fascinated to see a large collaged photograph which gave the impression of being a moment in time but it turns out it was wholly contrived. Jeff Wall’s large photograph entitled A Sudden Gust of Wind was inspired by a woodcut by Hokusai. Nearby is the paper layout of the photograph with all the players in place and the position of the fluttering pieces of paper. So, it’s looks like a photograph but was carefully constructed using a variety of images. Fascinating.

This exhibition has been realised in collaboration with the YAGEO Foundation in Taiwan. The collection possesses many photographs and the Tate curators have found a clever way to use works within their collection to match with these new pieces.

Below are just a few of the other images which caught my eye. Photography was the source for the paintings and painted art the source for the photographs.

The show is on until 28th January 2024.

It’s always a joy to visit the Sir John Soane Museum but right now, if you pick your way through the small rooms filled with sculptures, artefacts and artworks from the ancient world, you will find the Picture Room nestling at the back of this crowded house. The small gallery is hosting a very intriguing exhibition by Dutch artist Bouke de Vries. He has found a clever way to reference the famous Hogarth paintings which can be seen (at specific times) in the gallery which was specially built by Sir John Soane to house his wonderful pictures. The Rake’s Progress is a set of eight canvases which chart the decline of its eponymous hero. And it doesn’t end well. De Vries takes the eight stages of his decline and represents them in porcelain pots which resemble apothecary’s vessels of the eighteenth century. Each vessel is uniform in the beginning but the dissolution is represented by cracks, breaks, ‘exploding’ clay, mending, repairs, and, ultimately ends with a vessel which contains the broken shards of other pots, all cracked and in a state of collapse. Each pot is topped by a charming figure representing the foolish young Tom Rakewell. The pots are made with celadon glazes.

Upstairs in the architecture gallery is a very appealing exhibition on the work of London architects and the houses they’ve designed and built for themselves. You could argue that creating your own home is both the ultimate act of self-expression and also an impressive platform for your work and a statement of self-belief. Very interesting to see the plans for The Red House by William Morris and Philip Webb, the plans and photographs of 2 Willow Road built by Erno Goldfinger, Michael and Patty Hopkins’ House in Hampstead which is an audacious glass and steel structure, the Cosmic house conceived by Charles Jencks and Maggie Keswick Jencks with Terry Farrell which involved completely rebuilding a Victorian terrace house and 9-10 Stock Orchard Street which was created for the family of Sarah Wigglesworth and Jeremy Till.

Above: Shot of the interior of 9-10 Orchard Street, a chair specifically designed for Charles and Maggie Jencks’ Cosmic House and a design for a mosaic made for them by Eduardo Paolozzi.

The Soane Museum organised these exhibitions to tie in with the London Festival of Architecture. Entry is free. http://www.soane.org.

Above: French Connection by Brian Oxley

As usual, there’s just so much to see and this hang has been a DENSE hang! There are 1600 works on show. And it’s simply fun to cruise the galleries, gaze, ponder and generally peer at the work. Some pieces jump out, others fit well with the subtle background colour. There are themes of faces, places, people, issues, monochrome, great colour, animals, vegetables…. and lots of abstract. I really enjoy seeing the rich mix of styles and subjects on offer.

Above: Sisters Maud and Mabel by Elaine Preece Stanley Anarchy in the UK push pins wood and foam by David Mach RA and

It’s always great to see the work of friends on the walls and this year I was thrilled to see familiar names listed in the catalogue and see their work looking splendid amongst other pieces. Here are a couple of the ones I spotted. The excellent abstract is by Francesca Simon and the charming print with two vases is by Jacki Baxter.

Above, centre: Check 8 Francesca Simon and The Discussion by Jacki Baxter

I approved of the way the works had been chosen to create a really cohesive hang. It’s eye-catching to see the the different styles of work really sing against a well-considered wall colour. Royal Academicians are always well represented and some have large expanses of wall to show work but many can be found nestling in amongst works by unknown artists and they really complement each other.

Above: Studio Toilet, Right Cubical by A. Lincoln Taber, Selection of prints by Sir Peter Cook RA, Family by Jill Leman, She Became by Sabrina Shah, Bacchanal by Paul Dash and The Punic Emojis in Glass, 2,3 and 1 by Stephen Farthing RA I was taken by the narrative element of many of these works. There’s nothing like seeing a story within a picture.

Above: Went to see the Gypsy by Jill Eisele, Interval 1 by Sheila Wallis, Homework by Martin Ridgwell

And this was an odd one. It’s a sculpture of a cat, a rather battered cat can be seen to breathe and sort of twitch. A bit unsettling at first and then you rather warm to the poor creature and want to stroke it. It has the title: Rest in Pieces, or the Squatters (Charlie meet Hammons’ untitled (Night Train) (1989) made of wood, latex, resin, synthetic fur, paint and animatronics by Ryan Gander RA. Yours for £66,000!

The 2023 Summer Exhibition opens on 13th June and runs until 20th August at the Royal Academy, Piccadilly, London #SummerExhibition #royalacademyarts