Art

A morning at the National Gallery

It’s still a wonderful asset and advantage to tourists and locals alike that you can see all the treasures of the National Gallery for nothing. Two trips to the Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh set me back nearly 40 euros. Yesterday the tutor of our excellent art course organised a curated tour to [...]

December 4, 2019 // 0 Comments

Preview of Modern British at Christie’s

Yesterday I attended a preview of an auction of Modern British art held by Christies. All the big names were there – L.S Lowry, Stanley Spencer, Ben Nicholson, Walter Sickert, Graham Sutherland – though their representative work was not of their highest quality. One of the factors in [...]

November 19, 2019 // 0 Comments

The lady has a point …

For the most part in the social circles I inhabit the subject of gender equality occasionally arises but causes debate less often. Credit where it is due – in more senses than one – for last summer’s revelatory Lyon & Turnbull exhibition Bright Souls: The Forgotten Story of [...]

November 1, 2019 // 0 Comments

I think I’m turning Japanese … [Not?]*

(Note: * above is a reference to the worldwide single hit Turning Japanese by The Vapors, taken off their 1980 album New Clear Days). Despite our Rust delegation out in Japan continuing to set new standards of reporting excellence, overnight I spotted a piece in the British media suggesting that [...]

October 30, 2019 // 0 Comments

Headlong/Michael Frayn

Michael Frayn’s novel Headlong operates on 2 levels. The first is a fiction in which Martin, a philosopher married to Kate an art historian, chances upon a painting of his neighbour in the country which he strongly believes to be a missing Brueghel. It is worth millions and he starts a [...]

October 13, 2019 // 0 Comments

The Great Vermeer forger

Following my article today I thought readers might be interested in this article on the Telegraph website about a forger of Vermeer with a rackety life and dubious allegiances – Vermeer [...]

October 8, 2019 // 0 Comments

Tim’s Vermeer

Johannes Vermeer, the Dutch Baroque painter (1638-75) was always admired for his photo-like lucidity. In this documentary Texan inventor Tim Jenison advances the theory that to achieve such a photo-like realism Vermeer must have used the technique of painting from an optic in a dark room (camera [...]

October 8, 2019 // 0 Comments

Something to write home about

As it happens I was out on the golf course yesterday partaking in a traditional practice round in the company of a Canadian relative by marriage in advance of an annual family tournament – an outing in days of yore used to be a welcome warm-up for the main event. Sadly, I fear that at my stage of [...]

October 4, 2019 // 0 Comments

$50m art swindle/BBC 2

This documentary is the story of art dealer Michel Cohen who went from rags to riches and back to rags again. Born in impoverished circumstance in France after the war he came to the USA with a friend in the 80s. He bought a stack of lithographs and sold them. He realised that he had a talent to [...]

September 25, 2019 // 0 Comments

Ivon Hitchens /Pallant Gallery

I like to say “I’ve a Hitchens” – the alliteration being sufficiently close to Ivon Hitchens that many think I possess one of his, rather than one of his son John. Whether by accident or design, John’s rectangular abstract landscapes of the Downs resemble his Dad’s work in [...]

September 3, 2019 // 0 Comments

1 2 3 … 12 »

The last word (nearly)

December 15, 2019 // 0 Comments

I have been fascinated by recent contributions to this organ – underlining as they have the freedom of our scribes to plough their own furrow and address any subject from [...]
The morning after

December 14, 2019 // 0 Comments

Travelling to the centre of Brighton by bus for my hair appointment yesterday morning it was very much business as usual and I heard no reference to the election on the bus [...]
The folly of being divorced from reality

December 14, 2019 // 0 Comments

After all the excitements of Election night itself and the media analysis of the entrails yesterday which I (and no doubt many others) tuned to – given the general backdrop [...]
The art of it is that there is no art

December 14, 2019 // 0 Comments

During our impromptu festive phone call yesterday, in passing the Rust’s editor and I touched briefly upon the number of business journalists, marketing and branding [...]
Election Reflections

December 13, 2019 // 0 Comments

My invariable practice with all night events is to hit the sack early, knowing I will wake up regularly but in truth – once the exit poll is announced at 10.03pm [...]