Articles by Alice Mansfield

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

Popularity in the arts

In recent posts in the Rust, popularity in the arts has been discussed in the context of Daphne du Maurier ‘s writing and Edward Seago. Popularity itself does not mean a writer or artist is second rate. Critics who often fail to make living from their art or writing are sometimes scathing [...]

September 20, 2014 // 0 Comments

Edward Seago

Edward Seago was a popular artist, led an interesting life and knew well circus performers as well as the Royal Family but sadly the biography by Jean Goodman does him little justice. It is billed as as a wider canvas drawing on the writings of his brother John a humane trapper of animals in Kenya. [...]

September 16, 2014 // 0 Comments

Jacques Emile Blanche

One of the interesting aspects of my work is to advise friends and clients on paintings. One friend buys through a well known gallery. It’s generally thought that this is an expensive way of building a collection. However it does have certain advantages in provenance and quality. You would be [...]

September 10, 2014 // 0 Comments

Edward Seago

As an art critic and historian, I sometimes am requested to advise on collectible artists and one I recommend is Edward Seago. Born in Norwich in 1910 as the son of a coal merchant, he was entirely self-educated. He had a heart condition, first diagnosed aged 7, which forced him to spend a great [...]

August 7, 2014 // 0 Comments

Michelangelo: His Epic Life / Martin Gayford

Martin Gayford is amongst the best of art biographers. I read both hisYellow House which depicts the time that Van Gogh and Gauguin spent in Arles and his life of John Constable and was impressed by both. His biography of Michelangelo did not scale the heights of these two as in it he was rather [...]

March 27, 2014 // 0 Comments

Richard Hamilton at the Tate Modern

There are some painters normally to be found in the Royal Academy that stay safely within their comfort zone knowing what their patrons like and producing it almost formulaically. Richard Hamilton could not be accused of this as he was forever trying new styles and methods of painting. He has [...]

March 19, 2014 // 0 Comments

The Watts Gallery

The Watts gallery which I visited yesterday with Dominic, a collector of Victorian painting, houses the work of George Frederick Watts (1817-1904), one of the most celebrated artists of his day. Watts married first the actress Ellen Terry when she was just 16 and Mary Seton Fraser herself 42 years [...]

January 30, 2014 // 0 Comments

The scale of time

There is a report featured on the website of The Independent today about the discovery of a cemetery of a previously little known Ancient Egyptian pharaohs’ dynasty at Abydos, about seventy miles from the Valley Of The Kings. I bring it to the attention of National Rust readers because I have had [...]

January 17, 2014 // 0 Comments

« 1 … 18 19 20