Art

Seeing Each Other/Pallant Gallery Chichester

Once again the Pallant has been innovative in an exhibition of portraits of artists by artists. It’s well-curated and ordered chronologically but the actual portraits are of variable quality. As you arrive you see a “Wanted Poster” of a Lucian Freud portrait of his (then close friend) [...]

May 21, 2025 // 0 Comments

Dora Carrington/Pallant Gallery

Was Dora Carrington an entitled, hedonistic member of the Bloomsbury set or a talented artist not properly recognised as she was a woman? I went along to see her exhibition at the Pallant Chichester yesterday and came away with the latter view. She was admitted to the Slade – where under [...]

April 26, 2025 // 0 Comments

Inventing Post Impressionism/Charleston

Yesterday I went to Charleston near Lewes for the exhibition Inventing Post Impressionism. The connection between Charleston and Post Impressionism is the art critic Roger Fry who invented the term. Charleston was the home of Vanessa and Clive Bell and the Sussex outpost of the Bloomsbury Group. [...]

March 27, 2025 // 0 Comments

The Upside Down World/Benjamin Moser

This book is an assessment of the Golden Age of Dutch Art – the 17th century- by an American who relocated from the States to Utrecht. He is not an art historian but an appreciator. I was recommended to it by a friend whose bag was more Renaissance Art but looked for an introduction to Dutch [...]

February 19, 2025 // 0 Comments

A Woman Bathing In A Stream/Rembrandt 1654

You might have thought radio is not the best medium to present an art programme but I always enjoy Moving Pictures on Radio 4 presented by Cathy Fitzgerald. The picture subject matter is on the programme website but I prefer to consult my Works of Rembrandt by the publisher Taschen which had a [...]

February 6, 2025 // 0 Comments

The Atlas of Art Crime/Laura Evans

Laura Evans subdivides her engaging review of art crime into three categories: 1) Theft 2) Vandalism 3) Forgery In regard to theft you have to have quite a lot of chutzpah to steal a painting to enter a gallery, church or museum and appropriate a picture. The motivation is normally financial but [...]

December 26, 2024 // 0 Comments

Two art books: Rogues and Scholars/Don’t Tell Sybil

Rogues and Scholars, penned by the ex-chairman of Sothebys – James Stourton – is a fairly comprehensive and balanced assessment of the London art market from 1945 to 2000. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the author centres on the two main players – the auction houses Christie’s and [...]

December 11, 2024 // 0 Comments

Second day in Madrid: The Thyssen collection

Yesterday I went to visit the Thysenn collection which makes up a trio of fine museums with the Prado and Reina Sofia. The collection was amassed by the super rich industrialists the Thysssens – father and son. It was offered to London in the 1980s who suggested Canary Wharf whilst Madrid [...]

November 17, 2024 // 0 Comments

Auction houses v Art dealers

Yesterday I spent the whole of my afternoon following the Christie’s auction of Modern British and Irish Art. The famous auction house has adapted to the digital age by holding auctions online. It attracts a more global audience but I felt some of the bidding tension one experiences in the room [...]

October 18, 2024 // 0 Comments

3 art views

I’m sometimes asked whether I have visited any of the big art exhibitions in London right now – the Van Gogh at the National Gallery, the Francis Bacon at the National Portrait Gallery and the Claude Monet at the Courtauld. The answer is an emphatic “No” as these block buster [...]

October 16, 2024 // 0 Comments

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BRIAN WILSON/ R.I.P.

June 13, 2025 // 0 Comments

Even though he was diagnosed with dementia a couple of years ago, I was still shocked and sorrowed to learn in the media this week of the death of Brian Wilson, the Beach [...]
The US Open at Oakmont

June 13, 2025 // 0 Comments

They say that the US Open is the one of the four Majors that the pros want to win. A few well-known golfers have never done so (Sam Snead, Phil Mickelson, Seve Ballesteros [...]
First Day World Test championships/Australia v. South Africa

June 12, 2025 // 0 Comments

I was in two minds whether to use my ticket for the ICC WORLD TEST FINAL contested between South Africa and Australia. I have had a recent run of bereavements and I thought [...]
A la Colthard/Cannizzaro House Wimbledon

June 10, 2025 // 0 Comments

The main assets of Cannizaro House are its gardens and the white palladian villa. Its location is on the west side of Wimbledon Common within walking distance of the buzzy [...]
The Barber of Seville (Glyndebourne)

May 28, 2025 // 0 Comments

This was an excellent production of Il Barbiere di Siviglia Rossini’s great opera buffa (comic opera), based upon the play by Pierre Beaumarchais. The story is of the [...]