Art

An art day

Yesterday I had one of those unexpectedly enjoyable days that start with a disappointment. Polly, Bob Tickler’s P/A was coming down for the day and we were going to meet for a coffee and walk. She felt unwell and could not travel so I had to rearrange my day. I listened to the latest episode in [...]

May 4, 2021 // 0 Comments

American native art

Yesterday our course on views on art from the overseas perspective covered American and Caribbean art. Unfortunately I had an issue with scaffolding to be erected outside my home and I had to leave the course to take a lengthy call from an advisor. Nonetheless I learned enough to appreciate that [...]

April 30, 2021 // 0 Comments

My art week

I always enjoy the weekly podcast on art presented by Waldemar Janesczak and Bendor Grosvenor. In this week’s episode Bendor Grosvenor interviewed chef and pasta sauce maker cum-entrepreneur Loyd Grossman on his book about the 16th century sculptor Bernini (1598-1680). I had of course more than [...]

April 24, 2021 // 0 Comments

My art week

My art week started as usual with the Collectors programme on midday at Monday. The presenter Emmeline Hallmark’s background is Christie’s. Their main motivation is sales and for this reason she veers towards the obsequious to a collector who might just entrust his collection for sale by the [...]

April 3, 2021 // 0 Comments

My art week

My best achievement this week was working out what a NFT (non fungible token) is. It’s basically a piece of digital art which you can own by a token but anyone can view. It’s leading exponent Beeple achieved $69m for Yesterday’s in auction the other week. I have 3 main reservations. [...]

March 28, 2021 // 0 Comments

My Rembrandt

This is a Dutch documentary available on Amazon Prime which I watched last night. It’s about the ownership or acquisition of a Rembrandt. Rembrandt never went out of fashion unlike his peer Johannes Vermeer who had to wait 200 years for fame. Similarly Gustav Klimt and Sandro Botticelli would [...]

March 24, 2021 // 0 Comments

New Fitness campaign – Day One

With my GFC (great fitness campaign) having become a Covid-19 pandemic victim last summer – since when, apart from occasional long walks, I have failed to indulge in any serious bout of exercise-taking – my plan from today is to gradually crank up my general state of fitness until I [...]

March 22, 2021 // 0 Comments

My art week

Monday’s edition of the Collector series which I so enjoy on Sky Arts featured Frank Cohen, an engaging man who started as a market trader and ended up with 16 drapery shops which he sold out profitably. He then built up a collection of modern British art. He was different from the other [...]

March 19, 2021 // 0 Comments

When football meets art theft…

There was an interesting article in the always excellent The Athletic on Pal Enger, a gifted young Norwegian footballer who had a second career as an art thief. He played for Norway’s leading side Valerenga but shortly after the Winter Olympiad at Lillehammer he stole Edvard Munch’s The [...]

March 17, 2021 // 0 Comments

On Chapel Sands/Laura Cumming

Laura Cummimg’s non-fiction book is the story of the abduction of a three year old girl from the beach at Chapel Sands, Lincolnshire. To say more would be a spoiler as Laura Cumming is the narrator and at the beginning of the book the relationship between her and the abducted girl is unclear. [...]

March 16, 2021 // 0 Comments

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Lockdown observations in a full-on day

May 6, 2021 // 0 Comments

I once met a psychiatrist who specialised in geriatrics who opined that character faults were heightened as the person grows older. For ‘growing old’ I would substitute [...]
Great Lives/Harry Hopkins

May 5, 2021 // 0 Comments

Radio 4’s Great Lives can can be very variable. As often as not the subject is some female trail-blazer of whom I have never heard. Yesterday Matthew Parris presented [...]
An art day

May 4, 2021 // 0 Comments

Yesterday I had one of those unexpectedly enjoyable days that start with a disappointment. Polly, Bob Tickler’s P/A was coming down for the day and we were going to meet [...]
It’s complicated (as they say) …

May 4, 2021 // 0 Comments

Being the Rust’s contributing editor on the sport of pugilism, I cannot not claim for myself the privilege of being a particular fan of football. However, it seems to [...]
Roger Alton/fan power

May 3, 2021 // 0 Comments

One of my favourite sporting columns is that of Roger Alton, the former editor of The Observer, in The Spectator. The Spectator has long had a sporting contribution from the [...]