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Art

The Art Mysteries (BBC4) Waldemar Januszczak

Every Wednesday evening on BBC4 Waldemar Januszczak unravels the mystery of a painting and last night it was Paul Gauguin’s Vision After the Sermon.   The picture depicts Jacob’s famous wrestle with the Devil in the bible, symbolises good and evil before a congregation in a small church. There [...]

April 1, 2020 // 0 Comments

Matisse all time favourite

Comparing artists of different eras is about as productive as comparing sports stars. The vagaries of fashion and that moveable feast that is reputation makes the whole process difficult if not unreliable. In this Me Too age female painters are generously viewed. Picasso’s reputation as the [...]

March 26, 2020 // 0 Comments

Some things keep changing – and some don’t

It is of these things that in the world of entertainment some of the standard rules of business apply and some don’t. In one sense it’s an obvious point to make – and no doubt most sectors (e.g. fishing, fashion, flying and … er porn) would probably claim similar – but few have been more [...]

March 8, 2020 // 0 Comments

Klimt jigsaw

One of the columns I most enjoy is Mary Killen’s in The Spectator. She advises on the sort of problem that anguish the haute bourgeoisie but younger readers would not understand at all. It’s usually some breach of social etiquette that makes the Spectator reader seek her counsel. This week, [...]

March 2, 2020 // 0 Comments

Dealers v auction houses

That the Donald B. Marron collection of classic and modern art worth more than $300m is to be sold by 3 leading American dealers (Pace, Gargosian, Acquavella) and not Christie’s or Sotheby’s marks a distinct break in a trend. In the last 100 or so years dealers like Paul Durand- Ruel, Amboise [...]

February 26, 2020 // 0 Comments

Museum trips: British Museum and Foundling Museum

Yesterday our art course teacher organised a tour to the Sir John Soane, the British and the Foundling Museum. On arrival at the Sir John Soane we discovered it was closed on a Tuesday.  Normally one might be annoyed but we like our teacher so and – let’s face it – she is neither [...]

February 19, 2020 // 0 Comments

The Art of Presenting

As in sport the way the subject in art is presented is all.  Too highbrow and technical, you lose your  audience – too low-brow and you have not added value. I believe that enthusiasm is key and being over opinionated off-limits. I have already commented that I believe Mary Beard to be a [...]

February 12, 2020 // 0 Comments

Picasso and Paper

This is a monumental exhibtion and expostion of Picasso’s works from his  early years as precocious draughtsman in his birthplace Malaga when he was compared to Raphael, through the blue and rose periods, to Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, to cubism, his obsessiveness with Delacroix and Manet, his [...]

January 28, 2020 // 0 Comments

You pays your money …

The name Picasso is so engrained in the world’s psyche that several times during his lifetime, and indeed regularly after it, his reputation has become subject to relentless attack by the forces of reappraisal, revisionism, post-modernism and even those who aspire to the famous ‘with [...]

January 21, 2020 // 0 Comments

Allen and Beryl Freer: a salutary lesson

Its often and incorrectly assumed that to build a collection you have to be one of the super-rich. It is true that fine art and high finance have merged and collecting an old Master – or a modern one – is a badge of wealth. However the collection built up by Allen and Beryl Freer, to be [...]

January 15, 2020 // 0 Comments

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