A New Year's Resolution

HAVING acquired a Masters in Art History as a mature student, I've decided I'd like to share my thoughts about the London art scene (and maybe further afield) with a wider audience. Not just about the big public exhibitions, but the smaller public collections, and, more locally, the art scene in my home area of south east London (which contains not only Goldsmith’s and Camberwell art schools and a large number of working artists, but also architectural gems at Royal Greenwich and Dulwich Picture Gallery, which also hold important collections of paintings). I'm also fascinated by the vagaries of the international art market, and will be passing on news about this world from time to time.

So what do I bring to this project? Like many people, I go to the big exhibitions but tend to ignore the permanent collections. I have limited knowledge of galleries outside London – only Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle – and I hope to remedy this. Again like many people interested in art, I concentrate on easel painting rather than the decorative arts or sculpture. My earliest artistic memories are of being impressed by two pieces from an Impressionist exhibition in Edinburgh (what I now know to be the statue of the little dancer by Degas and Les Parapluies by Renoir) at the age of seven or eight, and by the architecture of Edinburgh itself (I remember being astonished to discover the architectural inferiority of most English cities, in spite of England being a much richer country!) I suppose I can say my conscious introduction to art thus began at a high level, although purely by coincidence. I then had little direct contact with art until I moved to London as a young adult, although I became interested in photography and Chinese art, and closely perused books on both, as well as books on the history of art and on individual artists. Early on in my time in London, I vividly remember an exhibition of Chinese ceramics set up by a private society of collectors, the first time I had seen this work in the flesh, so to speak. I remember being struck by the simplicity of the Imperial ware on show compared to the highly decorated export work we were more familiar with in this country; I found this simplicity much superior, because of the emphasis on shape and the quality and subtle colouring of the glaze. I also remember a rather elderly gentleman viewing my awe with lightly disguised amusement – no doubt one of the collectors feeling justifiably pleased with himself.

I then became more interested in the social sciences than art, though I did work for an art school for a while and discovered the Wallace Collection when temporarily working nearby. I went to the odd exhibition from time to time, but academically I pursued a social science degree. It is only in the past few years that I have put the two interests together, largely as a result of curiosity about the rise of Britart and the huge prices for some contemporary art, and the possible connections of these to contemporary society. During my art history studies, I put this interest back in time to become interested in the 18^th and 19^th century origins of the English art world and did my dissertation on the growth of the public art gallery. (If you are wondering why I did not look at Scottish art world, I think this has its own history, which I hope to take further in the not too distant future.)

Looking back on 2012, I think my major impression is of being disappointed with the major Tate Britain exhibitions – to my mind, they were too big and unfocussed, and even sometimes misleading. The Picasso exhibition for example exaggerated the direct influence of Picasso on British artists, and ignored the Italian Futurist influence on Wyndham Lewis and Mondrian’s influence on Ben Nicholson, with the result that both artists seemed much less accomplished than they were. The simultaneous exhibition at the Courtauld Institute on the personal and artistic relationship between Nicholson and Mondrian was far more satisfying, and the recent Wyndham Lewis exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery was much more representative of his talents. The exhibition demonstrated that Picasso is like Dickens: imitators tend to copy his faults rather than his virtues, and in that exhibition only Henry Moore was shown as able to absorb Picasso’s influence successfully. Another very informative and enjoyable exhibition was the Holbein to Durer exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery; like the Courtauld, this gallery always seems to get it right (and it’s always worth a visit just to boggle at the thought that all these masterpieces are merely part of a single private collection).

 I did however enjoy the Turner, Monet, Twombley exhibition at another part of the Tate empire, Tate Liverpool. I know Cy Twombley's vibrantly coloured semi-abstract paintings are not to everyone’s taste, and the two-level exhibition space at Tate Liverpool has its drawbacks, but the upper level proved to be a wonderful setting for Twombley, to the extent that his work rather overshadowed that of Turner and Monet. It was a good year for Twombley, as Dulwich Picture Gallery also showed selected paintings in conjunction with works by Poussin, which not only successfully demonstrated Poussin’s influence on Twombley (I hope someone from the Tate attended!) but, as Twombley died just before the exhibition opened, the event also acted as a fitting memorial. Dulwich also provided what must have been one of the more fun-filled events of the year with the exhibition in its grounds of four 15ft fibreglass representations of the four seasons (based on a series by Arcimboldo) by the American sculptor Philip Haas (left).

 

Not so much fun is the recent series of thefts of large outdoor works for their scrap metal value, and Dulwich Park just across from Dulwich Picture Gallery lost its Barbara Hepworth sculpture during the year; a local resident actually heard the work being cut down and driven away, but didn’t realise what the noise was until the next day. The Friends of Dulwich Park were of course devastated that it is highly unlikely that the work will ever be seen again.

I’m lucky enough to have the time to attend whichever exhibitions take my interest, and I saw many other exhibitions during the year which I enjoyed to a greater or lesser extent, but the only other one I will mention was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity – the Royal Academy’s huge Bronze. The exhibits were chosen for aesthetic rather than historical reasons, the works being grouped by type rather than chronologically, and these bronzes from all over the world from pre-history to the present day stunningly demonstrated the virtues and versatility of this medium, as well as providing an opportunity to view these incredible artworks together for the first (and probably the last) time. A really good demonstration of the Royal Academy’s ability to pull strings, call in favours, or whatever it is they do, to put on something unique.

Should you be thinking of acquiring a major artwork yourself, the continuing astonishing prices in the art market are a bit of a downer. Fine art photography is relatively affordable, but apparently now may be the time to buy, as interest is steadily rising and experts think prices will continue to go up. Prices for prints and drawings can also be within reach, and I noted in the first volume of Brian Sewell's (very entertaining and very frank) autobiography that he acquired a good quality collection at Christies as an impecunious young man in the 1960s. However, prints and drawings were sold as job lots in those days, and I suspect such bargains are no longer available. (But fine art prints by talented contemporary artists are definitely affordable, so it's worth looking out for exhibitions if you want original work on your walls.)

 

Talking about photography, I discovered a problem with my tiny budget camera when I photographed Tower Bridge during the Olympics. Instead of capturing the colours of the Olympic rings, I found the camera had been set in a black and white mode which I didn’t even know existed. However, as black and white photos seem to have an inbuilt “arty” look, I have now decided to regard the photo below as my contribution to the cultural Olympiad (creativity is quite easy after all, apparently…).

    
By my next post, I’m hoping to have visited the Estorick collection of modern Italian painting in Highbury, and made a note in my diary of all the good stuff coming up in 2013. And maybe the upcoming Kurt Schwitters exhibition will revise my opinion of Tate Britain…..