Tag: history

I’ve been back to the nineties – at Tate Britain – with an exhibition called The 90s: Art and Fashion. The show conjures a time which differs vastly from my own memory of those years. But, for the young, energetic and hedonistic (and living in London) it was a time of invention, fun, frivolity and excess.

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For me, the 1990s is remembered through a haze of babies and young children. I must be a good decade too old to have enjoyed or even been part of the huge cultural movements and artistic changes going on. That’s not to say I wasn’t aware of it, but with tiny children to look after, I was not one of the bright young things of the day dancing the night away at nightclubs, wearing weird clothing, seeking out raves or sampling the latest mood-enhancing drugs.

Nor was I avidly reading all the magazines: The Face and i-D to stay abreast of the latest fashions created by people we now revere such as Dame Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen and Hussein Chalayan. But I did pick up on their work from the more mainstream media such as the Sunday papers. Above is a selection of portraits of ‘contemporary models taken by David Sims for magazines and advertising. They absolutely capture the look of the time, a strange post-punk confidence and distance too.

There was a hedonistic aspect to the late nineties, the time of New Labour and ‘cool Britannia’ combined with a huge relief that the strangle-hold of Tory rule might give way to something more sympathetic and socially kinder. Well, it was a nice idea… and then we got into the noughties, financial meltdowns, wars and everything got a bit serious. Above is a rather fun ‘take’ on Hogarth’s cautionary tale of the price of excess nicely posed by Yinka Shonibare in his Diary of a Victorian Dandy. And on the right is a picture from The Ministry of Sound taken by David Swindells. At the press preview I stood in front of the picture with people who looked wistfully at the image recalling hectic nights at the place, the dressing up, the music…. the drugs. Well, I’m afraid all that passed me by in a haze of baby wrangling.

But I do remember the art and the impact of the YBAs bursting onto the art scene in a blaze of cleverness and originality. They definitely made us sit up and think about art in a different way. Fun to see the huge portrait by Chris Ofili, complete with elephant dung, the famous Pauline Bunny by Sarah Lucas, made of stuffed tights, representing the distasteful male gaze of the girls made to wear those awful costumes at ‘gentlemen’s’ clubs, and then there’s the fun of Yinka Shonibare’s take on The Swing (after Fragonard), reimagining the 18th century painting in his own gorgeous fabric. Yes, there was a lot going on, but I think it was really only felt by people in their twenties, living in London, students or working in the world of art and media who created a ‘feel’ of the time which is quite alien to anyone outside that age group and probably to anyone living elsewhere in the UK.

But it’s fun to see these things celebrated because the nineties is still with us, in some respects in our desire to live life to the full, if possible in a time without conflicts and wars wrecking our lives and expectations. But, with the state the world is in right now, it’s hard for things to be quite such fun.

The show is on at Tate Britain until 14th February 2027.

What is not to love about Renoir and Love, a new blockbuster exhibition at the National Gallery? It’s a terrific show, with plenty of ‘old friends’ to view but the curators have also assembled many paintings from America and Europe we rarely have the chance to see in London. And it helps position Renoir as the great painter he is, an an artist in a hurry, who celebrated the power of the brushstroke and loved depicting narratives and relationships in his work.

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Such a joy to see familiar works such as Dance at the Moulin de la Galette (1876) which is here in London from Paris for the first time, alongside lesser known works which show people engaging with one another. These paintings invite the viewer to provide the likely conversation or situation. Middle shows: Luncheon, 1875, from the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. The couple have just finished their meal and are clearly discussing something fascinating. You long to join them at the table. And on the right is La Grenouillere, 1869 which depicts a popular bathing spot on the River Seine, known as the camembert, for its round shape, where people gathered to party. This painting came from the National Museum of Stockholm.

Encounters between men and women are a frequent subject. This is where Renoir is such a great narrative painter. We can fill the ‘gaps’ with our own contribution and wonder just where that relationship in the painting might be heading. On the left is Secrets (1875) a couple sit close together poring over a newspaper. I can’t help thinking the appearance of the dog by her skirt was something of an afterthought! Middle is Conversation(1876) again, we are dropping in on a couple who’ve reached a very important stage in their exchange. And on the right is The Promenade (1870) and the couple (not really suitably dressed for a riverbank excursion) are navigating a steep bank and about to disappear into the shady trees.

Family provided very touching subjects for Renoir too. The sketching must have been done on the spot but I’m assuming that the paintings were completed in his studio and, to some extent, posed. But they do capture that easy closeness between parent and child. Top left is Young Mother, (1881) which echoes traditional mother and child paintings of the 16th century, Middle top is Madame Monet and her son, (1874) showing the artist’s seven year old son in a comfortable sprawl with his mother, then Woman with a Parasol and small child on a sunlit hillside (1874-6) shows his wife with a toddler.

And Renoir was famous for his nudes too. This trio shows the differing styles he adopted. On the left the figures are smoothly painted in The Great Bathers: A New Arcadia (1880s), Renoir called this painting a ‘decorative’ work. Centre is A Nymph by a Stream (1869-70) it’s an interesting combination of the ‘smooth’ and blended brushwork he moved into combined with the much freer brushwork of the earlier paintings. And on the right is Study torso, sunlight effect (1875) which is a glorious celebration of brush strokes and daubs of paint to capture the dappled light on ample flesh.

So, I’ll end with this dynamically strong self-portrait from 1875. It shows the energy which clearly pulsed within Renoir. He was described by friends as a ‘man with a hurried gait, a serious expression and distracted air’. And you can see from the vigorous brush strokes on this painting and many of his other works that he must have stabbed at the canvas, swished paint at high speed and was always eager to finish the piece he was working on and crack on with the next.

Renoir and Love is such a great show and will be hugely popular. It’s on at the National Gallery, the Sainsbury Wing, until 15th January 2027.

Richard Dadd: Beyond Bedlam – what a fascinating show at the Royal Academy. Looking at these pictures you do wonder what kind of mind conceives of such strange fairy-tale scenes and weird theatrical images. Dadd went ‘mad’ at 26, stabbed his father to death and attempted to murder another man. Declared ‘incurable’, he was sent first to Bedlam, London’s notorious home for the mentally sick and then to Broadmoor where his doctors and were caring and encouraged him to develop his art. The results are astonishing.

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Above is an amazing painting called Contradiction. Oberon and Titania (1854-58). It’s based on events in Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream and feature’s the couple’s argument over who should adopt the ‘little changeling boy’. I’m not allowed to photograph close ups but you can see some of the detail in the picture.

Richard Dadd was a precociosly talented artist from a young age. Above is a self-portrait in oils along with studies of his family done in watercolour in 1838 when he was 21 – Dadd is top row centre. His father is top right. Having been taken on a ‘grand tour’ around eastern Europe and Egypt as a new graduate of the Royal College of Art, he started having ‘delusions’, believing himself to be the son of the Egyptian god, Osiris. On his return he murdered his father and attacked another man. Despite escaping to France he was arrested and sent back to England. First of all he stayed in the security of Bethlam – known as Bedlam – in Lambeth and then to Broadmoor, a newly established hospital for the insane.

Whilst at Broadmoor Dadd used his sketchbooks from his travels and his vivid memory to create extraordinary paintings which conjure the romance of his travels and stories from history in Egypt.

Dadd created a series entitled ‘The Passions’, depicting extremes of emotion and human motivation .

The watercolours are full of narrative detail and strange emotion. Above is a very sensitive portrait entitled Celandine which shows how delicate and carefully composed his imaginative paintings were.

On the left is Dadd’s early work depicting fairies. This one is entitled ‘Puck’, the mischievous fairy from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s dream surrounded by dancing fairies. This picture, along with other impressions of an uncanny, magical world, attracted positive attention and launched the young artist. After his travels, the disastrous mania, the murder of his father and life in a secure prison, Dadd returned to these themes in later life and painted fabulously detailed fantasy scenes .

This work, above, The Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke took ten years to paint. You can stare at it for ages and keep seeing new faces, figures and forms appearing in the textured paint.

A truly enchanting show which rightfully celebrates an extraordinary artist who, one could argue, benefitted from incarceration because it gave him time to explore his own wild imagination and he was encouraged in his art by the doctors who ‘managed’ him during his 43 years of incarceration, offering him materials and portrait commissions.

The show is on at the Jillian and Arthur M Sackler Wing at the Royal Academy of Arts on Piccadilly until 25th October 2026.

In a career lasting just ten years, Marilyn Monroe became one of the world’s most photographed women and her image is just as recognisable and revered today. She died in 1962 and would have been 100 this week. The National Portrait Gallery has staged a magnificent centenary exhibition celebrating her life in pictures.

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This enchanting exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery is really very moving. The first image we see is this tiny photograph, above left, of 15 year old Norma Jeane taken in a photobooth in New York. Still with her natural dark hair, the smile and the clever use of eyes is there to see. And later on, we see the image, some 20 years later, which Marilyn wanted to project as a professional star, bright blonde hair, red, red lipstick, elongated eyeliner and false lashes and the beauty spot. She was lovely looking and it’s such a tragedy that she died at the tender age of 36. However, the result is, it turns out, immortality. Marilyn will always be thought of as a beautiful talented young woman .

The ultimate cover girl, photographers found her inspiring and clamoured to invite her to be photographed. She clearly developed close relationships with many of the photographers and quickly established a degree of control of usage of the images – studying the pictures and only allowing those she approved of to be used in print. Above, you can see her jumping with the photographer Philippe Halsman.

After a career as a photographic model she gravitated to Hollywood and some great roles. She turned out to be a brilliant actress, dancer and singer. But being in front of a movie camera, and sharing a scene with other people, came with issues for her. Difficult to stay in total control of the finished image. Oh, but how enchanting she looks in her white dress as wind from the subway blows up her skirt revealing her legs and underwear. She knew exactly how powerful that image would be. The exhibition shows a montage of her best films and give us a glimpse of how luminous she looked on screen.

Marilyn Monroe’s image inspired artists before and after her death. We are all familiar with those Warhol prints (there are three of them in this show). And I was impressed to see the painting by Richard Hamilton, top right, based on photographs taken by George Barris, shortly before she died. He paints directly onto the images as contact sheets, showing the ones she approved and blotting the ones she rejected. Above middle is Ray Johnson’s collage of a pin up and on the left is a huge ‘vanitas’ by Audrey Flack painted after her death showing images of her life and the transience of her beauty.

Final shots from the George Barris shoot of Marilyn on the beach at Santa Monica. And the Last Sitting photograph by Bert Stern in 1962. She drew an x on the rejected images and took a hair pin to the colour transparencies. One is left with a sense of such sadness that all that talent was over too soon. But in its place is this remarkable immortality – she is forever young and beautiful.

The show is on at the National Portrait Gallery until 6th September 2026.

James McNeill Whistler at Tate Britain – what a treat! So great to see so many works – portraits, self-portraits, narrative paintings, landscapes and the mesmerising ‘Nocturnes’ depicting stretches of water at dusk.

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Loved this self-portrait of James McNeill Whistler. He’s looking quite louche and pleased with himself – blowing that little puff of cigarette smoke from his mouth and looking out at us with supreme confidence. And he was a confident painter. Interesting to learn that, having been born into a military family, he attended West Point and was expected to lead the life of a soldier but he was clearly far too free-thinking and disobedient for that world. And, as we see in the exhibition at Tate Britain, he spent every spare moment making drawings. He wanted to be an artist.

So, in his twenties he moved to Paris to live the Bohemian life as a painter, made friends with contemporary artists such as Degas and started drawing, painting and etching. Looking at his etchings it’s clear to see the influence of earlier artists such as Rembrandt. He also had a great sense of story-telling and obviously relished portrait painting.

These two portraits made in France in1859 are great examples of how he managed to capture likeness, character and the interior world of his subjects. You can see the influence of Rembrandt too.

These are BIG oil paintings. On the left is a scene set on the Coast of Brittany (Alone with the Tide) from 1861painted in the open air and full of atmosphere. The texture of the paint is impressive and really worth getting up close to this one to see how he captures the approaching waves. And on the right is a painting I really love, Wapping, which was created from a series of drawings made in the busy port on the River Thames and very much a studio piece in its complexity. The viewer’s eye is so cleverly drawn from the foreground scene of drinkers (models) in a disreputable pub on the waterfront and the jumble of ships, boats, buildings and the great metropolis in the background. You just want to sit down at that table, smell the beer and the filthy river and dream of trade and travel to far flung places.

And here she is, Whistler’s mother. How still she looks in this austere setting with an oriental fabric drape to the side, a single print on the wall behind her (the print itself is also in the exhibition) and the woman seated, solemnly, staring at something. It’s unusual to see a portrait in such severe profile and the colours are very subdued. Having enjoyed colour in his earlier work, Whistler make a point of reducing the colour to subtle tones and allows the monochrome, or grey, of his palette to dominate. It’s a large painting with a tremendous draw to it.

And here are some of the ‘Nocturnes’ the later paintings he made which capture watery scenes at dusk or by moonlight. I think there must be a warm, orangey ground underneath all those cool blues and greys because there’s a hidden warmth to the pictures. They are dreamy and compelling.

What a great show. It’s on at Tate Britain until 27th September. Well worth a visit.

We don’t get to see much contemporary art from the Asia Pacific region so it’s great that the V&A has devoted a gallery space to a show called Rising Voices: Contemporary art from Asia, Australia and the Pacific – a broad scoop of the planet featuring works from Indigenous peoples from remote islands to huge, densely populated countries.

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It’s quite hard to describe what, exactly, you are seeing at this show, but it was interesting and engaging to see the work of so many contemporary artists from places as diverse as Hawaii, Cambodia, India, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines… what a great sweep of the world to try and represent!

The works, above, caught my eye because they represented people and events: La Famillle Pomare by Aline Amaru from Tahiti, Independence Celebration by Mathias Kauge from Papua New Guinea and Svay Ken’s depiction of People on 18th April 1975 when the Khmer Rouge took power in Cambodia

What’s striking is that so many of the images referenced violence, domination and occupation. These regions have been buffeted by so many of the greedy countries of the West for whom faraway lands represented an opportunity to take by force, own and exploit. So there’s a lot of that on show.

Above you can see: Pala Pothupitiye’s Kaulara Fort which gives an impression of the colonial experience in Sri Lanka, showing a fort first built by the Portuguese, captured by the Dutch and then taken over by the British. Middle is Heri Dini’s Eating Bullets, a rather ‘Guernica-like’ expression of invasion and fury and on the right is a depiction of Vietnamese planes and Pol Pot Soldiers in battle.

Good to see a variety of sculptures and crafts too. I was impressed by these three, painted dishes and everyday objects, a ceramic bust by Ah Xian from China who works in Australia, and Spikey One by Shirley Macnamara from Queensland, Australia who uses spinifex, emu features, ashes, porcupine quills and polymer.

The exhibition ends with a spectacular sculpture depicting the Phoenix Pavilion which is part of Kyoto’s Byodo-in temple complex. Made from Japanese cypress he building appears to float on water with a reflection created to mirror the building. And Montein Boonma from Thailand has created Lotus Sound, made from terracotta ‘bells’ which is very beguiling.

The exhibition is on show near the main entrance to the Victoria and Albert Museum until 10th January 2027

Lucien Freud: Drawing into Painting is a very enjoyable show at the National Portrait Gallery. I’m pretty familiar with Freud’s work but it was very special see works which are rarely exhibited and to see the relationship between his drawing (which was so fundamental to his work) and the painted pieces which followed.

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Right at the start of this show we are treated to a huge photograph of Freud’s studio in West London. It has the look and feel of one of his paintings and it’s quite moving to see the way he daubed the walls, furniture and floor with paint. Above is the picture and one of his later self-portraits.

Anyone familiar with Freud’s work will know how he evolved from an artist fascinated by detail and fine lines into a painter who used large, bristle brushes and created his work from bold, expressive brush strokes. I was very intrigued by the early drawings on show. The middle one, above, is a self-portrait with hyacinth drawn with conte crayon on paper. On the left is Portrait of a Young Man and on the right is The Village Boys, which is oil on canvas from 1941 and probably painted when Freud was studying at the East Anglia School.

I really liked this portrait of Cedric Morris, Freud’s tutor at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing. Made in the summer of 1940 when Freud was only 18. It captures Morris’s character beautifully.

There were a lot of women in Freud’s life. Some were lovers, wives, models or simply friends. Above is a selection of the ones he loved. Above left is Suzy Boyt and centre Caroline Blackwood. One the right and above are two portraits of Kitty Garman. Quite a mixture of drawing and painting – detail and broad brush strokes.

Freud’s mother, Lucie Freud, was also an important model. On the left is a very direct charcoal drawing of her from life and on the right a painting combined with a nude of Jacquetta Eliot.

Two faces you may recognise? On the left is David Hockney, centre, the late Queen Elizabeth II and on the right is Frank Paul.

His portraits always seem to capture the sitter’s thoughts. There’s a really contemplative feel to these to portraits. On the left is his daughter Bella Freud, in the centre is a nude etching and on the right is Suzy Boyt – the painting is entitled Girl Smiling.

The show is on at the National Portrait Gallery until 4th May 2026.

A blockbuster show at Tate Britain celebrates two of the the UK’s most acclaimed artists. Born a year apart, JMW Turner (1775-1851) and John Constable (1776-1837) both pushed their art into entirely new aesthetics and left a lasting legacy in the development of British art, paving the way for the Impressionist’s movement and everything that followed.

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Turner, self portrait
Portrait of John Constable by his contemporary Ramsay Richard Reinagle.

The works of Turner and Constable must be amongst some of the most recognised images in art history. Say the words Flatford Mill or A misty sunset in Venice and most of us will conjure the familiar bucolic image of a Suffolk Mill with a horse and cart or the beauty of Venice seen through a haze of cloud and watery sunshine. These works are amazing. But the history of these two artists is more entwined and their approach more similar than I had realised. This show, entitled Rivals and Originals, charts their artistic development as contemporaries and adversaries.

Both Turner and Constable were dedicated to art from an early age. Turner, you could argue, had the more difficult journey – the son of a barber based in Covent Garden, London, he demonstrated his skills at an early age and his father did his best to support his son’s desire to paint but he was not of the class expected to choose art as a career. Constable was born into middle class comfort in Suffolk and had to convince his family that he did not want to follow a conventional profession but devote his life to art. The pair developed their styles through study of Old Masters and a desire to push a narrative element into their art while recording contemporary life.

Sometimes it’s hard to differentiate between them – just look at these two, above. On the left is Turner’s Snow Storm – Steam-boat off a Harbour’s Mouth and on the right is Constable’s swift oil sketch called Rainstorm over the Sea. Both of them were fascinated by the power of nature and the constantly changing sky and weather conditions. They spent all their time sketching landscapes and painting the scene directly onto whatever surface they brought with them.

Both must have spent hours observing clouds in their infinite variety and using immediate sketches to dramatic effect. On the left is a selection of cloud studies by Constable and on the right is Turner’s massive painting Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps.

My takeaway from the show, apart from having thoroughly enjoyed it, was the chance to see the evolution of these two artists from detailed work, which might be as literal and accurate as possible, towards a much freer, expressive way of working. Both appear to have created their work at speed, using wonderful gestural swishes of paint or urgent daubs of white and black to denote drama and impact. They are both glorious. This is a wonderful show and well worth seeing.

It’s on at Tate Britain until 12 April 2026.

The Story of South Asian Art at the Royal Academy shines a light on the artist Mrinalini Mucherjee, her family and fellow artists. Their work spans the the second half of the twentieth century and shows how Western art was stylistically absorbed into traditional Indian art.

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I had no idea what to expect when I attended the press preview for this show. My knowledge of Indian history is scant. For this exhibition we were introduced to the work generated by Benode Behari Mukherjee, his wife, Leela, daughter Mirnalini and students who lived and work an an idyllic-sounding art school established in Santiniketan in 1919. This was a time when Indian artists might look to the West for influence but were determined that their work would be definitively Indian, and reflect their deep-rooted culture.

I was impressed by the variety of work and, at times the visceral nature of the imagery. Above is a water colour sketch on paper by Leela Mukherjee demonstrating the influence of Matisse through bold, vigorous brush strokes.

I really liked this trio of work. On the left is a paper collage made with cut outs by Benode Mukherjee. He became blind in his 50s but continued working and teaching. His daughter, Leela, worked closely with him, describing what she could see around them and helping him interpret his art by preparing and cutting up paper for him to collage. He would then, intuitively, ‘feet’ his way into these later works. In the centre is a carved wood mosaic by K G Buramanyan (a student) which relates to a monumental mural commissioned in 1962. The mural stretches some 25 metre and used 13,000 terracotta tiles – examples are shown on the right.

These two paintings caught my eye. On the left is a watercolour by Mrinalini Mukherjee which is like an abstract landscape using great colours. And on the right is a very Matisse and Picasso-inspired ‘Reclining Woman’ by K G Subramanyan.

The sculptures are interesting. On the left is Night Bloom II by Mrinalini Mukherjee, a partly-glazed ceramic made with folds of clay which convey the idea of a woman seated in the lotus position. They clay bears impressions of textiles. And on the right is her intriguing sculpture named Jauba, from 2000 made with hemp and steel.

I found this lithograph, Landscape 1968, by Gulammohammed Sheikh quite threatening with intimations of unsettling goings on. And on the right is an etching entitled Riot from 1871 where the violence is evident.

A very intriguing show. It’s on at the Royal Academy until 24 February 2026.

Maria Antoinette Style at the Victoria and Albert Museum is a triumph. The curators have assembled many surviving objects which were worn or used by France’s last Queen and sensitively chart the life of the child bride who evolved into a fashion icon but ended her days as a derided aristocrat executed by the guillotine at the height of the French Revolution.

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Immortalised in many art forms and still celebrated in fashion and style, Queen Marie Antoinette’s influence is legendary. Mention her names and the words, ‘let them eat cake’ spring to mind, but it’s likely that she simply had no idea of the poverty of the French people in the 1780s which precipitated the country into revolution while she lived a life of palatial splendour with royal funds to indulge her interest in fashion.

She was an attractive woman who clearly understood the power of image. Judging from the number of portraits and sculptures on show at this brilliant exhibition, she was always eager to pose for artists. And artists clearly responded to her interest in fashion, eagerly capturing the details of her outfits.

it’s fascinating to see the black lace ‘collerette’ which featured in a portrait miniature by Francois Dumont – and was lent to the artist so that he could capture the details.

Oh, the costumes! There’s an amazing collection of gowns – not necessarily worn by Marie Antoinette but come from the 1780s and 90s and are very similar to many of the dresses and clothing featured in the portraits. It’s astounding to see the detail in the couture and opulence of these dresses.

The jewels and the shoe (above) were known to have been worn by Marie Antoinette and the embroidery was, apparently, a sample of an over-dress which a couturier would have presented to her for a potential gown. It’s very fitting that this show has been sponsored by Manolo Blahnik.

Anyone who watched Bridgerton – the total fantasy version of Regency Britain – will recognise the extreme wigs and hair dos. Clearly things reach heights (literally) of fantasy in the court of Marie Antoinette as hair was teased ever upwards and adorned with fantastical decoration.

Queen Marie Antoinette’s reign ended badly with the brutal blow of the guillotine in 1793. There’s this very graphic drawing of the crowd cheering as the decapitated queen’s head is held aloft by the executioner. And the death mask, we are told, was taken soon after her death by Madame Tussaud. It’s all such a brutal end and she was certainly not guilty of any crime other than representing an overblown, indulged and superfluous monarchy.

But her style lives on. It’s great to see how contemporary designers, in the years since her death, have found ways to represent her style using modern materials. I did love the Moschino wedding cake dresses designed by Jeremy Scott and Vivienne Westwood’s Marie Antoinette bridal dress.

The show is at the V&A until 22 March 2026.