Charles II: Art and Power
England was no longer a Monarchy after King Charles 1 of England, Scotland and Ireland was executed in 1649 at Whitehall Palace. This brutal act marked the climax of the English Civil War. The following period was known as the ‘Interregnum’, and England was, de facto, a Republic, ruled by...
Modigliani
This is Tate’s Big One for the autumn/winter season. Alexei Modigliani is a favourite with the public, probably because he represents everything an artist living in Paris at the time of Picasso should be. He ticks all the boxes: often penniless and sometimes starving, he adopted the role of the...
Red Star over Russia
The sub-title of this densely-illustrated exhibition is A Revolution in Visual Culture 1905-1955, and is taken from the enormous and comprehensive collection of the graphic designer and historian David King, who died last year. It is a remarkable achievement, amassing, as he did, over a quarter of a...
Living with Gods: People, Places and Worlds Beyond
The human race has always had an awareness of its own ‘divinity’, its soul, and the belief in a ‘ higher power’ since the earliest Ice Age up to the present time. ‘Divinity’ is in us all and fear, insufficiency and inadequacy turns us towards it. Our ‘divinity’ gives us...
Cézanne Portraits
Although Cézanne himself said that he was more interested in ‘capturing a moment in time’ and the physicality of paint than in any underlying personality of the sitters for his portraits, it is impossible not to detect the persona beneath the application of oils and the layering of colours. How...
Matisse in the Studio
‘Small, but perfectly formed’ is a good description of virtually any exhibition held in the Sackler Galleries. Matisse in the Studio is the perfect example of just how the right number of pictures and objects in four rooms make a cohesive and containable show by telling stories. After the Introduction, the exhibition divides into...
A date with ‘The Master’: Balenciaga at the V&A
Christobel Balenciaga was called ‘The Master’, and for anyone in any doubt, a walk around the current celebration of his work at The Victoria & Albert Museum will explain why. Despite the fact he died in 1972, his influence can be seen in silhouette after silhouette on the catwalks today,...
The Postal Museum and the Mail Rail
Whilst I am perfectly au fait with using the Great British Postal Service (at least when it comes to regrettable late night impulse purchases off Amazon), I have never, it must be said, been particularly curious about the history and inner workings of one of our oldest institutions. Indeed most...
Michelangelo & Sebastiano
Michelangelo & Sebastiano National Gallery Until 25 June 2017 Admission £18 nationalgallery.org.uk ‘Neglected’, ‘overlooked’, ‘forgotten’, ‘unappreciated’ are just some of the words that could describe Sebastiano del Piombe (1485-1547), at the time, the achingly talented Venetian and as big a name as Michelangelo, Titian and Raphael in Rome, from...
David Hockney
The media has become preoccupied with who ‘Britain’s Greatest Living Artist’ is. After Francis Bacon died in 1992, the hollow crown was perched precariously on Lucian Freud’s head until he died in 2011, and this was was then followed by an interregnum, while various art critics bandied around names like...
