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Articles by Alice Mansfield

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About Alice Mansfield

A graduate of the Slade, Alice has painted and written about art all her life. With her children now having now grown up and departed the nest, she recently took up sculpture. More Posts

Churchill: the artist

When I saw that a programme on BBC 4 about Winston Churchill the artist was to be presented by Andrew Marr, I sighed as I anticipated it would be as much about Marr as Churchill. I imagine as he is one of  BBC’s star turns it was he who insisted on making the programme which was called Marr [...]

August 19, 2015 // 0 Comments

Sickert in Dieppe

On the National Rust we pride ourselves that we bridge sport and art both of which feature prominently. I cannot recall why I became a WBA  fan, it might have been that the first soccer game I watched was the 1968 Cup Final when Dad bought a colour tv and we watched Albion beat Everton 1-0. I [...]

August 14, 2015 // 0 Comments

Fake or fortune

Fake or Fortune is now in its fourth series and I find it compelling viewing. I do not often like televised arts programmes for much the same reason I do not care for Tudor histories, namely the presenter is less than an interface and more the subject. Fake or Fortune could not be guilty of this as [...]

August 3, 2015 // 0 Comments

Dinner at the Chelsea Arts Club

Last night I introduced Ken Howard the artist to the art historian Martin Gayford. Ken I have known and admired for over 30 years and Martin is well-liked and respected in our world for his art journalism and biographies of John Constable,Van Gogh and Michelangelo. Ken had written to Martin after [...]

July 9, 2015 // 0 Comments

The New English Art Club

Yesterday I visited the New English Art Club exhibition at the Pall Mall Gallery. The New English was founded in 1885 by a group of artists working in Paris and has been an important element in English art. In its first exhibition in 1886 George Clausen, Stanhope Forbes, JS Sargent and Wilson [...]

June 24, 2015 // 0 Comments

An evening with Ken Howard

Personality in artists is highly important. They have to get on with their dealer, models, galleries and museums, and in the case of Ken Howard clientele, a selection of whom he invited to his studio in the week. Ken’s studio home is just off the Boltons and once belonged to Irish [...]

April 18, 2015 // 0 Comments

Auvers: Van Gogh’s resting place

After 90 turbulent days in Arles, Van Gogh went north and settled in Auvers in a tiny room above an inn. There in a field he either took his life or, according to contemporary theory, was shot. The main arguments for the latter theory are that the gun was never found and the method of killing by [...]

March 29, 2015 // 0 Comments

Van Gogh Tour

Generously backed by my sponsor Bob Tickler I am organising short tours of Van Gogh’s works in Amsterdam, Utrecht and the Louvre Paris. It’s quite a daunting task so l welcome the opportunity of a trial run with Daphne Colthard  helping with  the hotels  restaurants. We got off to [...]

March 26, 2015 // 0 Comments

Ken Howard

Reading the autobiography Ken Howard – Light and Dark I am struck by the similarities of his life and works with Ted Seago. Both were/are figurative painters, immensely popular with sell-out exhibitions at the Colnaghi gallery, both had more popular than critical acclaim, and both careers [...]

December 22, 2014 // 0 Comments

The flourishing of the artistic spirit

Last night I had dinner with a cultivated lawyer who is an aficionado of the art of the early Renaissance. He made the point that Masaccio, Brunoleschi, Ghiberti and Donatello flourished in a time of the Black Plague, internecine wars with other Republic City states and in the case of Donatello he [...]

December 2, 2014 // 0 Comments

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