Category: Art Exhibition Reviews
The London Review of Books editions that arrive every two weeks seem to vary in their interest value. The most recent edition, however, grabbed my interest in a short article on the life of the German Expressionist, George Grosz. Then I went on to read about the amazing Adolfo Kaminsky, the brave photographer and forger on behalf of radical causes. Two good articles and it puts you in the mood to read the rest before the next explosion of magazines arrive with more information having to be processed. (LRB Volume 45 Number 4 -16th Februrary 2023)
Thomas Meaney has visited the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart and his review of Grosz is particularly interesting from a psychological viewpoint with informative quotations from Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt; the former claiming that Grosz’s caricatures were not satire but reportage. His transition to America in 1933 marked a point at which he seems to have attempted to subdue, what he considered, his former arrogance and nihilistic tendencies. Yet he seemed out of sympathy with American society, its cultural interests and the false persona he felt he had to adopt in his teaching of drawing. By 1954 he appears to be in some sort of deep decline. Meaney quotes the Dadaist and friend Schlicter –
“Rarely have I seen a person with such self-destructive rage…..It is a depressing spectacle to see a man whom one once cherished go to the dogs in this way.”
Returning to Berlin where he died in 1958 seems to have exacerbated matters still keenly aware of past issues unresolved.
Secondly, last week there was a dearth of anything but Tory supporting newspapers at Sainsbury’s so I decided to buy the Morning Star. I came across an interview by Chris Searle with the veteran Bassist Dave Green. He and his friend, Evan Parker have just issued a new CD called Raise Four.
The clip above is almost 20 years old but in this recent interview, Green highlights his favourite artists; Roland Kirk, Coleman Hawkins and among British Jazz musicians, Bruce Turner. Green has been a dedicated anti-racist and an ardent believer in constant experimental freedom to develop his craft.
The third article to engage my attention, in this case by the vivid illustrations, was in Saturday’s Guardian and may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/feb/16/women-abstract-expressionism-whitechapel-gallery-krasner-sobel
This article is a review of the Women’s Abstract Exhibition (1940-1970) to be found at the Whitechapel Gallery until 7th May. I particularly was taken by the dark variegated shades of Li Fang’s work of 1969.
I recently happened upon these rather homely images of the English countryside, colourful and imaginative. They seem in the same vein as John Nash and perhaps Stanley Spencer. The falling leaves in front of the Mill House, the stream and the pathway adds a certain timeless quality, slightly abstract and yet impressively lyrical. You can read more about this charming painter’s background at https://artuk.org/discover/artists/barnden-bruce-19252009
Mill near Midhurst
Worthing Museum and Art Gallery
Here the scene has become wintry and dominated with delectable petrol blue shades https://www.pinterest.co.uk/mzei/petrol-blue/
Abstract Leaves https://www.mutualart.com/Artist/Bruce-Barnden/A19A99901EB239BB
Fruit crop – Ludwig von Hofmann
I have been contemplating this painting from the mythical world of this not well known German painter who lived (17 August 1861 – 23 August 1945) As Wikipedia informs us “In 1889, he attended the Académie Julian in Paris, where he came under the influence of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and Paul-Albert Besnard.” Certainly the Art Nouveau and Symbolist styles are present but the general impression of this work is one of tranquil gathering from fruitful nature. After a summer of disturbingly high temperatures and draught it seems a pleasant reminder of what seems a different age. End of summer and Arcadia can exist and as I have recently discovered in the rich orchards of Trengwainton still in existence.
As I have been reading recently about Stanley Spencer and the aftermath of the First World War, I came across the following painting as a comparison. Von Hoffmann’s painting is dated 1906, and according to Boyd Hacock’s “A Crisis of Brilliance“, Spencer’s Apple Gatherers is dated 1912.
To anyone familiar with Spencer, the chunky figures have a certain primitive attractiveness- a robust Bob the Builder robust quality. The abundance and timelessness is achieved by the composition. The sketches upon which it is based shows the time and thought which went into the work. The plenitude of fruit and the couple linking arms around the apple suggest some kind of Eden restored.
In this part of Cornwall we have a special feast referred to as Allan Appletide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allantide
During this peculiar August weather, I have been reading David Boyd Hancock’s remarkable account of young British Artists and the Great War. Firstly, the account has introduced me to the Slade Artists whose work I was fortunate to see a few year’s ago in the Dulwich Art Gallery. So I have become acquainted with the critical instructor Henry Tonks whose sarcasm of student’s drawing was interlaced with great conviction about fostering the development of fine talents. I have learned much about the deep courage of Stanley Spencer, the lyrical regard of Paul Nash and his brother for the countryside, and of how Nevinson subverted Futurism to convey the mechanical dreadfulness of modern warfare.
Secondly, Boyd Haycock is excellent on the personal relationships affecting the development and interaction between the painters. The upbringing of Mark Gertler and his passion for the wayward and difficult Dora Carrington, I found fascinating as the figures of Bloomsbury enter the scene: Strachey, Fry and of course, Ottoline Morrell. Rupert Brooke and D.H.Lawrence are included too and the various links with art dealers, sponsors and critics completely convey the vivid and sometimes lurid time.
Thirdly, the response of these sensitive souls to the destruction so suddenly released in 1914 is powerfully conveyed. Minds as well as bodies are for ever traumatised and the pictures generated under fire have enormous power. Reading about the stalemate which ensued and the trench warfare, the horrors suffered under artillery bombardment and perhaps especially, the unnatural distortion of countryside inevitably bring contemporary issues to mind.
One interesting exhibition which has displayed the artwork in relation to the Ukrainian conflict has taken place in Brussels and is the subject of an engaging article from The Guardian- Making sense of the senseless: Ukrainian war-art exhibition arrives in Brussels and may be viewed at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/31/ukrainian-war-art-exhibition-arrives-brussels-captured-house
Another which well repays viewing and includes outstanding sketches by George Butler may be seen on this BBC website and shows extensive video clips with further artists at
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/entertainment-arts-61347805
Finally, there is this academic discussion relating Ukranian artist’s work with issues of Russian colonialism from Columbia University. It also includes Music and Film.
I don’t understand why I like this painting so much on first glance. The most disturbing element, I suppose is the strip where the horse has simply disappeared giving it the appearance of being a light transparent trunk itself. This, I think adds a joking quality to the overall work which I find a kind of magical forest. The sort that you might well find in a fairy tale or an adventure. The rider does not seem discombobulated by this wooded environment. Indeed she seems to have a sense of purpose and direction quite at variance to the seeming dissolution of her means of transport beneath her. The colours or palette seem to add to a jolly effect and the canopy of branches seems protective.
Next to my laptop propped against the now never used printer is a postcard which I bought at the remarkable Musée Jacquemart–André. This lovely gallery is grandly situated in the Boulevard Haussman in the 8th Arrondissment (huitieme). The postcard shows what a Scotsman might have called a fair bonny lassie.
This Italian Baroque painter was born in Verona and died in St Petersburg. His paintings are remarkable for both their astonishing beauty but also for their realism as can be judged from the following clip.
Looking at these lovely paintings gives me the same feeling as reading this-
Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory—
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the belovèd’s bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.
Just discovered this rather relaxing post by this superb anti-Nazi Austrian painter. The accompanying Chopin Nocturne adds to the ambience I find.
Leo Putz (18 June 1869, in Merano – 21 July 1940, in Merano)[1] was a Tyrolean painter. His work encompasses Art Nouveau, Impressionism and the beginnings of Expressionism. Figures, nudes and landscapes are his predominant subjects. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Putz
1909 Exhibition in Munich
I very much admire this painting, “The Fried Fish Shop”, its composition and the limited range of colours which suits this painting which is in the New Walk Museum and Art Gallery in Leicester. Rowe was an important active member of the Artist’s International Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artists%27_International_Association
An interesting Guardian Review of an exhibition in 2013 can be read at https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2013/sep/13/exhibitionist-art-shows-14-sep
I did not know when I arrived here that students in the 18th Century used to stand on a nearby hill and recite their poems. Hence the nickname Mount Parnassus. Like many a modern flaneur, however. I associated the quartier with the jazz loving Americans of the 1920s. The habitués of the Café du Dôme rubbed shoulders with the ‘crowd’ as they called themselves; Ernest Hemmingway, Sylvia Beach, John Rodrigo Dos Passos and Ezra Pound. This was the Lost Generation fleeing prohibition living it up in cheap dodgy hotels – later to be followed by Henry Miller. These fading lyrical echoes in the shade contrasted with the undistinguished entrance to the hidden charms of the Musee.
Once into the museum, you enter the creative space of Antoine Bourdelle(1861-1928), the pupil of Rodin and the teacher of both Matisse and Giacometti. It was in 1926 that this typical Parisian atelier was to be turned into a museum. The quiet sanctuary of the front garden gave me the first glimpse of four sculpted figures including La Victoire (Victory) and l’Eloquence (Eloquence) surrounded by a secluded peristyle. At the time of my visit, I was unaware that there were over 500 works of art here. I simply sat and made a few sketches of the first few of these impressive statues.
Passing into the Great Hall, which was built in 1961, for the centenary of the artist’s birth, I encountered an impressive array of magnificent figures some of which towered way above the visitors. Interspersed between these at the further end were brightly colourful dresses by famous contemporary couturiers. This museum has frequently had special exhibitions and this focussed on the fashion of dresses from the back. (Dos à la mode}.However my attention was taken by the famously energetic sculpture of Hercules the Archer.
Bourdieu made some 12 versions of this dynamic sculpture. The model was a certain athletic Commandant Doyen-Parigot who twisted his muscular body into the required difficult posture. He contorted his body in demanding fifteen-minute sessions. Bourdelle also famously used his rather primitive Kodak camera to facilitate his project. A wealthy financier, Gabriel Thomas was deeply impressed by this statue of Hercules in 1910. Thomas together with Gabriel Astruc, the impresario that brought Rubenstein, Caruso, Toscanini and famously Diaghilev to Paris, set up a real estate company to build a new theatre. This became the Theatre des Champs-Elysee, the façade and inner atrium were, under Thomas auspices, to be decorated by Bourdelle. This was to be the debut of Art Deco style, a feature of the new modernism.
Returning through the studios there were many fine sketches by Bourdelle including those he made of the dancer Isadora Duncan. Proceeding through an outlying corridor I came across the Beethoven heads. These imaginative and expressive works began around the time he started his association of 15 years with Rodin. Altogether he made some 40 of such masterpieces.
In the tranquillity of the ivy leafed inner garden I encountered a huge and towering bronze. This was the statue of Centaure Mourant. From just where I stood, I could not see more than the torso of the horse and only by moving gingerly around the piece could I discern the twisted direction in which the head lay. Inspired by classical myth and considering its construction in 1914, Bourdelle was asked why does the centaur die? Bourdelle replied in Nietzschean mode, “He dies like all the gods- because no one believes in him any more.”
penwithlit 