Category: Exhibitions
Van Dyck found
June 11 2011
Picture: Philip Mould Ltd
Breaking news! I'll post more on this later, but here is a piece appearing in tomorrow's Observer on a few discoveries a certain blogger has been involved with...
Sewell on the RA's Summer Exhibition
June 10 2011
As ever, Brian Sewell's review is worth a read. He begins:
Last week, on entering the Royal Academy's courtyard to see its annual Summer Exhibition, I chanced upon a column of Academicians, their doxies, catamites and hangers-on (no 11,000 virgins there) embarking on their yearly pilgrimage to St James's Piccadilly, there to pray for a pox on hostile critics.
It was once a charming and colourful ritual but now even dour members of a Bible Readers' Union might make a gayer occasion of it, for the sense that these pilgrims still think of themselves as smocked Augustus Johns with their polka-dot Dorelias of a century ago has entirely gone. The fedoras were far fewer, the motley drab, and in this shabby crocodile not one woman shone with artifice and no man played the aesthete exquisite.
Sewell goes onto to highlight some of the works he likes, and indeed there are many fine ones. But the wider point, surely, is that the RA is in danger of losing its relevance when it comes to contemporary art.
What is the RA for? Most people, I suspect, think of it as one of the best places in the world for mounting authoritative exhibitions, such as the current one of Watteau's drawings. In my view, the RA's exhibitions of what we might call historic art are unsurpassable. Arguably, it should build on this role and project itself as a guardian of all things art historical in Britain.
But as some of the second-rate offerings in the Summer Exhibition show, it struggles to fulfil its original purpose of promoting the arts in Britain, first by training artists and secondly by exhibiting the best contemporary works.
Instead, its offerings feel like the massed collection of a few humdrum regional art fairs, uncertain of their own meaning, and openly bewildered by their lack of skill. For an institution which was once headed by Reynolds and is decorated by Kauffman, one has to feel that the decline in standards is worrying.
The last exhibit...
June 9 2011
... for our exhibition 'Finding Van Dyck' has just arrived. We open next Wednesday, 15th June.
Every time we do an exhibition I somehow manage to forget just how much work is involved in organising the loans. In this case, I'm enormously grateful to the staff at Manchester Art Gallery for their help.
Now, before we can hang the painting, I need to go and find my light meter. There are strict museum standards for light levels, usually 250 lux max. For comparison, the average office is lit at between 320-500 lux.
Caravaggio in Canada
June 8 2011
Picture: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City
If you're in Ottowa over the summer, the National Gallery of Canada's new exhibition Caravaggio and his Followers looks to be worth a visit (17th June - 11th Sept). And if you're in Ottowa on 18th June, then why not go to the day long symposium. Details here.
New acquisition at NPG
June 7 2011
Picture: National Portrait Gallery, London
The NPG in London has acquired this very fine pastel by Daniel Gardner, The Three Witches from Macbeth. The picture shows Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, Elizabeth, Viscountess Melbourne and Anne Seymour Damer, the sculptor. It was acquired through the Acceptance in Lieu scheme. Says the NPG's catalogue entry:
This unusual group portrait depicts three of the most notorious women of the late 18th century. They were intimate friends sharing a common passion for Whig politics and the arts. Whereas Lady Melbourne had been friends with Anne Seymour Damer since the early 1770s, the friendship with Georgiana was fairly recent and this pastel may in part be related to Melbourne’s desire to publicize their friendship. While all three women are described as having enjoyed attending private theatricals and tableaux vivants, Gardner’s choice of the cauldron scene from Macbeth can also be related to their shared and shadowy political machinations as leading members of the Devonshire House circle. The composition has no parallel in Gardner’s oeuvre and it is assumed that either Damer or Melbourne suggested the design.
I find the last suggestion a little odd - Gardner was a pretty good artist, and his compositions are varied enough. I don't think it would have been beyond his powers to come up with the grouping himself. He need only have read Shakespeare's stage direction for the scene (act IV, scene 1), which states - 'A cavern. In the middle, a boiling cauldron. Thunder. Enter three Witches.'
Today's announcement was twinned with news of an exciting exhibition at the NPG this autumn; The First Actresses: Nell Gwyn to Sarah Siddons runs from 20th October 2011 to 8th January 2012. More here.
Art History Futures - 'She paints like Picasso'
June 6 2011
Meet Aelita Andre, who has her first solo show in New York. Aelita is four.
Says Angela Di Bello, director of the Agora Gallery:
'She's special in that she really knows what she's doing... if you look at her paintings you'll see that they're balanced... it's one painting after another, she's very very consistent in her work, so she's already developed a style that is hers. What's interesting about her work is that it's abstract impressionism but it's also surrealist in the way she includes objects in her works, and how she includes objects.'
Dubbed 'the youngest professional painter on the planet', Aelita's paintings are priced at up to $9,900 each. Of 24 paintings in the exhibition, 9 were sold by the end of opening night.
Only in New York?
RA Summer Exhibition App
June 3 2011
Picture: Royal Academy
The RA's Summer Exhibition opens to the public on 7th June. For a preview, there's a snazzy app to download, with videos, images etc.
Scottish National Portrait Gallery
June 1 2011
The SNPG will re-open soon after an £18m refit. Tim Cornwell in The Scotsman has a preview:
About 15 years ago the portrait gallery tottered on the brink of closure, until plans to transfer key artworks for a new Scottish gallery caused wholesale revolt in Edinburgh. Yesterday, director James Holloway could stand on its showcase top floor and declare its new galleries among the best in Scotland, if not the UK.
"What we have got on this floor are fabulous spaces for showing art," he said. The gallery, he suggested, represented "Scotland's family objects. It's Scotland's DNA. It's thrilling that we are going to be back, and firing on all cylinders."
...
Exhibitions in main gallery spaces will run for about four years, drawing on the portrait gallery's existing collections with some loans. The small galleries will change 18 months or two years, while the photography gallery will stage three exhibitions every year, exploring "what in many ways is Scotland's greatest art form," said Mr Holloway.
I wonder what Ramsay, Raeburn et al would say about photography being Scotland's 'greatest art form'.
What are museums for?
May 31 2011
In the Art Newspaper, Maurice Davies tries to find the answer in three new books on museums and collections. They are:
- Contesting Human Remains in Museum Collections: the Crisis of Cultural Authority, Tiffany Jenkins, Routledge, 174 pp, $95 (hb)
- Under the Hammer: Iconoclasm in the Anglo-American Tradition, James Simpson, Oxford University Press, 204 pp, £25 (hb)
- The Best Art You’ve Never Seen: 101 Hidden Treasures from Around the World, Julian Spalding, Rough Guides, 288 pp, £14, $22.99 (pb)
On the joys of being an art dealer
May 27 2011
The recession may continue to throw up challenges for art dealers - some say that this year’s European Fine Art Fair in Maastricht was pretty gloomy - but there is still plenty of fun to be had 'in the trade'.
For me, the most exciting part of art dealing is that you never know where the fickle of finger of fate might point you, be it the pictures you encounter, or the people you meet.
Every week I look at hundreds of paintings for sale around the world, and though much of it is little better than the stuff you find on the railings outside Hyde Park, probably at least one will be worth buying. [More below]
Steve Bell exhibition
May 26 2011
The Cartoon Museum in London has a new exhibition devoted to Steve Bell, best known for his biting cartoons in the Guardian. The video above is well worth a click, as is this piece recording the thoughts of a few politicians who have been drawn by Bell.
Says John Prescott:
Every politician likes to think they aren't going to be dumped on, but cartoons don't play to the normal rules. And the images do influence people's attitudes. The character Steve Bell turned me into was a bulldog. I couldn't see if I had any balls or not, but the suggestion is I hadn't. And I had no teeth. That was his judgment on me politically, I assume.
Such cartoons are not always considered 'proper art', but in my view they undoubtedly are. Few mediums capture the spirit of an age better than political cartoons, and probably Steve Bell is the best practitioner of the genre of his generation. It helps that he's also a very good artist.
Here is Bell's own take on the retrospective.
Art of the New Deal
May 23 2011
Picture: Smithsonian American Art Museum
A fascinating new exhibition opens this week at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art - 1934: A New Deal for Artists.
The show will have 56 works that emerged from Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Public Works of Art Project. Under the scheme artists were encouraged to depict various aspects of 'the American Scene'.
Above is Lily Furedi's 'Subway', 1934. See more examples here and here.
The project lasted just six months, but led to 15,663 paintings at a cost of $1.3m. Should we something similar for the Great Recession?
Lady with an Ermine vs Mona Lisa
May 23 2011
Might The Lady with an Ermine one day trump the Mona Lisa as the most popular Leonardo painting? Sam Leith, in the Guardian, investigates ahead of the National Gallery's Leonardo blockbuster.
Titians make it to Houston
May 22 2011
Picture: National Gallery of Scotland
Titian's Diana and Actaeon and Diana and Callisto, currently on a loan tour of the US, have now made it to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. They will be there until August 14th.
If you see them, please leave a few bucks - we're trying to buy them and are about £50m short.
You've been Sewelled
May 20 2011
Trecy Emin gets the Brian Sewell treatment. Worth reading, for whether you agree with him or not, there's no doubting that Sewell is a brilliant writer.
Illuminating Fashion
May 20 2011
Picture: The Morgan Library & Museum
A new exhibition of medieval illuminated manuscripts has opened at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York. There's a nifty online exhibition here.
The exhibition closes on 4th September.
Re-joining 'Leftover Mountain Painting'
May 19 2011
Picture: CNTV
Great excitement in China as the two halves of one of China's most famous landscapes are to be reunited. 'Leftover Mountain Painting', painted by Huang Gongwang in c.1350, is travelling to Taiwan to be joined together with 'The Wuyongshi Painting'. More here, and a video here.
Bill & Melinda
May 19 2011
Picture: Smithsonian Institute
A new portrait of Bill & Melinda Gates has been unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington. The artist is Jon Friedman. News reports say that it was based on a photograph.
Meanwhile, in Scotland
May 18 2011
Picture: NMS
Interesting to note the contrasting fortunes of two museums in Scotland. According to The Scotsman:
- The National Museum of Scotland has blitzed its public appeal target, raising £13.6m. This total included £1m from 'reclusive tycoon' Dr Walter Scott, and £2m bequeathed by Adele Stewart, a spinster. National Museums Scotland had already raised £17.8m from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and £16m from the Scottish Executive Government.
- The National Galleries of Scotland, however, have not fared so well. The campaign to raise £7.5m for the refurbishment of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery fell short, and a £2m bail-out from the Scottish Government was needed.
Does the discrepancy mean the Scots are philistines? I doubt it, since both projects essentially revolved around the telling of Scottish history. Perhaps it just came down to the quality of the appeals.
Met App
May 18 2011
This must be the first of many: the Met Museum has launched an iPad interactive e-publication. The exhibition is Poetry in Clay: Korean Buncheong Ceramics from Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art. Download it here.
