Magritte’s surrealistic ideas of the mid twentieth century epitomise’s that period’s growing interrelationship between language and visual representation. It is my favourite and easiest example to see how philosophy’s obsession with language and truth filters into the visual arts. “This is not a pipe”, Magritte says but it clearly is… and then again it is…
Category: Painting of the Month
A Venice Retrospective – Two Years Ago, Tintoretto, Titian & Bellini.
It is two years since I was in Venice for the autumn term studying medieval tombs and contemporary art. Pre pandemic it seemed a different time with the only things to worry about being floods and industrial action from the lecturers. Hey Ho – what’s new. But it did make me think about the wonderful…
Bridget Riley talks to Kirsty Walk about her art on television
Compton Verney in Warwickshire provided a very enjoyable visit three years ago, taking in Op Art and some wonderful works by Bridget Riley. Her works were also a very valuable artistic juxtaposition to the Barbara Hepworth retrospective we visited in Wakefield earlier this year. So it was a great delight finding her being interviewed by…
Bill Woodrow and Richard Deacon at The Icon Gallery in Birmingham
Shared drawing with paint & ink features in my new header. Bill Woodrow and Richard Deacon have been working in collaboration since the 1990s, mainly in sculpture. Their methodology is either to work in the same studio on a sculpture or drawing or exchange versions allowing the work to evolve. I Can’t Stand The Rain is…
Jeremy Barlow and his Contemporary Landscapes
Les Deux Garçons features in my current header painting. The painting has special memories of our time in Provence eating in this very fine restaurant in Aix. But also of meeting the artist at an exhibition at Broadway. He was also a regular exhibitor at The Llewelyn Alexander Gallery in London. Jeremy Barlow was a…
School Prints and my September Painting of the Month
School Prints was a scheme stated in the middle of the twentieth century whereby artists were commissioned for works from which prints were subsequently given to schools. The scheme fell out of favour with the changes in education policy in the seventies. However the Hepworth Wakefield revived the idea in 2018 with a five year…
Impressionist Masters and a day out at The Fitzwilliam in Cambridge
The Fitzwilliam Museum and Art Gallery is not a regular haunt for me as Cambridge never seems an easy place to either get to or park. However we went there last week on our trip to East Anglia and were well rewarded. The Museum with its magnificent classical front, is set out mainly on two…
Stanhope Forbes tale of life in the Cornish fishing industry: July painting of the month.
Summer Holiday over and time to look at paintings again. My July “Painting of the Month” has a flavour of the sea to celebrate our recent camping holiday by the beach. A Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach, (1884-5) by Stanhope Forbes, is owned by the Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, and is one…
George Underwood paints mythically inspired figures and rock album covers
Music and art has been my theme this month, which brings me to George Underwood and his current exhibition at The Fosse Gallery at Stow on the Wold. Underwood is one of those interesting characters who grew up in sixties Britain. Born in 1947 he went to school in Bromley with the likes of David…
June Painting of the Month: Pictures at an Exhibition.
Modest Mussorgsky was one of the leading lights of Russian art and culture as the nineteenth century closed. His collection of suites for the piano, Pictures at an Exhibition, introduces my theme for June. The companionship between music and the visual arts has become stronger and stronger over the centuries until the two media are…
White Box Art Channel 