2020

Elisabeth Frink Messums Wiltshire You can hear the chip of the chisel, you can sense the slap of wet plaster on the maquette, to can almost visualise Elisabeth Frink working on her latest creation. Messums Wiltshire : Elisabeth Frink Messums Wiltshire Maybe it could be thought of as one of the silver linings of the current Covid-19 crises, that with few people venturing out, galleries such as Messums Wiltshire are not inundated with casual visitors, but those with a genuine interest in what they are viewing and thus prepared to put up with the inconveniences of masking and social distancing. This gives viewing of such a display as Frink’s re-built studio such atmosphere and almost intimacy for the visitor.   The visitor obviously cannot touch anything, but courtesy roping enables a close inspection and a feeling of togetherness with her … Continue reading Elisabeth Frink Messums Wiltshire →

The mechanisation of the human spirit. Apocalyptic. David Bomberg London National Gallery. @NationalGallery Is that how our so vulnerable flesh, blood and soul was seen in the early 20th Century?  WW1 mechanical slaughter. The objectification of the human being. To feed the industrial revolution’s devouring profiteering and commercialisation of the spirit surviving and enforced in the 20th Century. Is this how David Bomberg saw his fellow humans? Is he capturing the zeitgeist of the times as CRW Nevinson (1890 – 1957) boldly depicted in ‘La Mitrailleuse’, men as merely mechanical components of their killing machines both mutually dependent upon each other for existence? As Picasso and Braque portrayed humans with Cubism, Boccioni and Balla of the Futurists,                 Wyndham Lewis and Bomberg of the Vortisicts – depicting humans: angular, mechanical, dead metal, dead-weight, dead … Continue reading David Bomberg London National Gallery →

Down at Tate StIves there’s a fantastic exhibition of the artist Naum Gabo. @Tate_StIves Tate StIves Naum Gabo Gabo was a Russian born visionary avant-garde artist (1890-1977) who worked in St Ives alongside Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson during the course of WWII. He was a pioneer of what was called international Constructivism and believed that art should impact positively on our everyday lives at work, in the home at rest and play. Art should have a social purpose ‘in order that the burning urge to live may never be extinguished in mankind.’ Nobel thoughts. So how did Gabo attempt to make real his artistic philosophy? Quite simply by turning sculpture on its head. In my understanding of his approach, rather than sculpture being a solid mass, Gabo created shapes to enclose whilst exposing, space. ‘Stereometric’ or volume achieved without … Continue reading Tate StIves Naum Gabo →

Jake Wood-Evans ‘Relic’ Baroque eroticism & mysticism @hampshireculturaltrust Sometimes it’s a relief to explore away from the dominating metropolitan and particularly London-centric carousel of dramatic show-biz exhibitions featuring the big well-known artists. The monuments of the art world. The familiar furniture of our cultural every-day life. Such relief can often be found in our rich treasury of regional galleries and museums. In the last week I’ve visited Messums and Salisbury Museum in Wiltshire and Winchester’s Discovery Centre. A contemporary response to Baroque eroticism and mysticism. Winchester’s Discovery Centre is showing Jake Wood-Evans’ works in an exhibition called ‘Relic’. Abstraction from the questionable taste of Rubens’ nude physicality and Poussin’s mythological themes. Baroque eroticism & mysticism Art-Tales is a magazine blog site following the journeys and reflections through the art world of artist, sketcher, art historian and critic Al Beckett. Merely … Continue reading Baroque eroticism & mysticism – a response →

Albert Goodwin found oils ‘too messy’ in favour of watercolour. @SalisburyMuseum. Who was he? Should he be up there with JMW Turner? Maybe. Salisbury Museum Albert Goodwin Sometimes it’s a relief to explore away from the dominating metropolitan and particularly London-centric carousel of dramatic show-biz exhibitions featuring the big well-known artists. The monuments of the art world. The familiar furniture of our cultural every-day life. Such relief can often be found in our rich treasury of regional galleries and museums. In the last week I’ve visited Messums and Salisbury Museum in Wiltshire and Winchester’s Discovery Centre. At Salisbury Museum, a wonderful display of an artist I’d heard very little of before, Albert Goodwin ‘Visionary Landscapes’. Influenced by JMW Turner and admired by none other than John Ruskin, Albert Goodwin worked primarily in watercolour finding oils ‘messy’. He trained with the … Continue reading Salisbury Museum Albert Goodwin →