It was a most enjoyable visit to the new exhibition Picasso and Modern British Art, showing at Tate Britain until mid July. This experience was a reminder of how a major exhibition should be, beautifully curated and without the crazy crowds and hysteria that now seem to be the norm, (up to now of course). In fact, it was surprisingly quiet as this exhibition has only been open a few days. This tranquil and calm atmosphere allowed the viewer to quietly look and engage with each piece without been leaned on, pushed out of the way or scowled at. Being able to walk around the exhibition freely, having space to go up close to work and having time to study and analyse a painting was a most pleasant experience.

This is an excellent exhibition, highlighting some of Picassos best known works and the artists influence on an early-twentieth century group of British Artists working in London. Some knew Picasso personally, while others never met but have acknowledged Picassos influence on them in some way. Some of the artists saw his work in Paris, or met Picasso when he visited and worked in London.

The Picasso highlights for me were Girl in a Chemise (c1905), shown below and the etching of the powerful image Weeping Woman. For my taste, I felt that the work of many of the British Artists, Duncan Grant, Ben Nicholson and Graham Sutherland in particular outshone the Picasso works placed alongside. A number of the Ben Nicholson paintings on display demonstrate a beautiful and harmonious palette and subtlety of composition which made them particularly exciting.

Girl in a Chemise c1905 © Tate

The final room in the gallery was devoted to Picasso and Hockney and was a rather good lead onto my next visit. It was interesting to see Hockney’s early photo-montage pieces both acknowledged the influence of cubism, while leading to the Artists current preoccupation with producing large-scale paintings made up of a number of canvases placed next to each other to create a whole.

I look forward to returning to this exhibition and to spend more time there, and also to the newly opened exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery Mondrian – Nicholson, In Parallel

It was then over to the Royal Academy and let battle commence…

The exhibition David Hockney RA: A Bigger Picture now at the Royal Academy until 9th April is one that I had been looking forward to for a long time. I have always had a great admiration and respect for David Hockney, in particular for his figure paintings and exquisite draftsmanship.

This is an outstanding exhibition in which you can only admire Hockney for his vision, dedication, and huge amounts of energy in producing this enormous show. It is difficult to believe that it is only 5 or 6 years of his endeavors that fills the Academy to bursting point. But in all honesty I felt it was too much. Sometimes, less is more and this is one of those times. There is so much to absorb and the repeated theme room after room, with the very large scale work made up of many canvases became overpowering. Working on this scale with such an intensity of colour, one or two works per gallery would have been perfect, not six, eight or more.

This exhibition was one of many recent shows that was totally ruined by the insane numbers of visitors to the galleries. If you thought the recent Leonardo exhibition was busy, you haven’t seen anything yet! If the paintings hadn’t been so large you wouldn’t have seen anything. It was such a frustrating experience, there were so many people that I had almost had enough in the first room. Why Royal Academy, (and fellow institutions) with your ever increasing tickets prices don’t you reduce the number of timed entries. It’s just pure greed. No-one can look at art in these circumstances. Not all of us want to wander round in five minutes flat more concerned by discussing where to go for lunch etc.

The exhibition opens with four large paintings of Thixendale Trees depicting the four seasons that were rather striking. The following gallery had a number of earlier landscapes from the 1960s and 1990s. The large A Closer Grand Canyon of 1998 was stunning in its use of pure saturated colour, oranges and vermillions so vivid they seemed to have an internal light. There were six beautiful charcoal drawings in room 6.

The well documented ipad drawings were interesting food for thought, both in the large print format as well as those viewed on smaller screens. It would certainly be easier to travel to Luxor with this app rather than the usual painting paraphernalia.

Woldgate Woods 21, 23 & 29 Nov 2006 © David Hockney

I do though wish that I hadn’t read Sewell’s review of the exhibition in which he said Bambi would have looked at home in these incredibly colourful landscapes. Although in one or two of them it would be more appropriate to have Grayson Perry riding through on his pink motorbike with Alan Measles aloft!

Maybe the moral of this is not to try and see two blockbuster shows in one day.

Lets just hope that it’s not going to be the same battle around the Freud exhibition in a couple of weeks. But alas I fear it will be impossible to analyse those brushstrokes for too long before the weight of the crowd moves in.

Young Mustafa

Opening hours are Monday to Friday 10am – 5pm, Saturdays 10am – 4pm and evenings Monday to Thursday 6.30 – 9.30, Friday 6.30 – 8.30. Putney School of Art and Design can be found on the corner of Disraeli Rd and Oxford Rd, Putney, SW15 2LQ. (Putney railway station is 5 mins away and 2 mins from East Putney tube).

Aza, drypoint etching

and still showing at the Petrie Museum…

Sherif

This painting of Laura began last June and has since slowly been progressing week by week. At this time I began rethinking my work on the nude as I wanted to pursue a painting from the figure in a more sustained way as I used to at the Slade, rather than working quite so rapidly. This idea of a nude on a chaise-longue is a re-visited one and a re-working of this theme has been in my mind for a while now.

Drawing and blocking-in during the earliest sessions

This painting is the largest nude I have done for a while, since ‘Narcissus’, and she measures 30 x 20 inches. The palette used is very subtle and light in key. The pale, cool skin tones of the model are very harmonious with the surrounding drapes and cool northern light.

A little further on...

As the sessions continue you can see how areas of colour are fine-tuned, the edges of each colour plane remaining to describe contour and form over the torso and thighs. The detail of feet below shows how the areas of colour build-up, adjusting and re-adjusting the planes. Minor changes in drawing continue throughout the entire painting process.

feet

The model is very tall, with incredibly long legs. Measuring carefully during each session is a must making sure the previous sittings proportions are correct and not trusting the eyes completely.

An optimistic halfway through?

Progressing through the Autumn, the light becomes cooler and the painting days shorter. There now seems to be more adjustment of colour temperature during each session, and the close tonal range on dark days is proving very problematic. At this stage it feels like two steps forward and one step back with each sitting. My hopes at ending the painting at Christmas now seem optimistic.

Eyes now shut..

During one later sitting, Laura closed her eyes and I thought how much more relaxed and tranquil a mood this gave to  the painting.

where we are up to

Now to the difficult stage.. how many more sittings, hopefully not long to go!

Rehearsal Orchestra 'cellos

While in the Art School library just before Christmas I then discovered some wonderful drawings by Tom Phillips RA made of his son playing the violin. They are beautiful fluid drawings depicting movement, yet they also have a tremendous sense of structure to them. This research then lead me back to the drawings and paintings of Degas. I have always found Degas’ work inspirational, in particular his drawings, early history paintings (eg ‘Young Spartans Exercising’ NG) and his portraits.

I visited the recent exhibition Degas and the Ballet: Picturing Movement at the Royal Academy. It was the drawings and Degas’ study of the figure in movement that pulled me to the exhibition hoping for some inspiration and ideas in my own research of the depiction of the moving figure.

What I have been experimenting with for some time is finding the appropriate medium to enable me to represent movement. Linear approaches hadn’t been as successful as when using brush and paint. What was interesting when looking at the ballet dancer drawings was the way that many different mediums had been used together. Pastel, watercolour and graphite used together for one, gouache, indian ink and chalk on another. The mark-making was fluid, broad and suggestive and the studies in essence and brush on paper were tremendous. (This is a process where oil is drained from the paint on blotting paper, and the remaining pigment thinned with turpentine). A number of rapidly made studies of the figure had been made on a coloured or tone ground in charcoal, and heightened with white chalk. This is a similar approach to the one I have used when drawing during the Gotterdammerung course with the Rehearsal Orchestra.

Gotterdammerung – Rehearsal Orchestra, October 2011

French Horn, Val

Bass Clarinet, Quentin

Violinist, Jonathan

Wagner Tuba

Young Harpist

Painting Still Life in Oils

It was during the Autumn of 2009 that I was first approached by Crowood Press to write a book for them. Although the initial idea for the subject of the book was still life painting, this was rather fluid and they were open to suggestions on other subject matter. Before taking on such a huge project there was a great amount of thought and soul-searching to be done as I knew this would take enormous amounts of time over the next few months. My main worry being that writing would impact too much on precious studio time, already being juggled with teaching commitments.

Always ready for a challenge and excited by the subject of still life things soon moved forward and the synopsis was agreed and contracts exchanged. From that moment I had twelve months to organise 200 images of my own work along with 55,ooo words. In the studio I do work from still life regularly, along with my portrait and life painting. The majority of my teaching though is from the nude or portrait with only a very occasional still life course at West Dean College. I was very much enjoying the prospect of my own intensive and sustained research on still life painting.

During the writing process I had to be extremely organised, with endless self-imposed deadlines to keep to and list after list of ‘must do’s’. These had to be kept otherwise disaster loomed! As there are eight chapters in the book I was working on one chapter per month, or thereabouts which would then hopefully leave enough time to complete paintings and pull everything together during the last few months.

From the beginning, I wanted to include a strong art history element alongside the tutorial/course format and exercises as I continually look to the work of other artists within my own practice and in my teaching. This was to be the basis of chapter 1, and as the backbone throughout the book as a whole where historical background is used to put each chapter in context, be it history of colour theory, the first still life paintings or a look at more alternative subject matter depicted by artists.

The most challenging aspect of the book was to keep on top of the writing and the painting side by side. This became rather tricky during the final three chapters when the paintings are shown stage by stage, and the writing follows alongside as a diary of each step and process. I had to work on one or perhaps two paintings during the day, the work was then photographed and the writing about that days painting began. I felt I had gone back a few years to my final year at University when I would be in the life room all day preparing for the degree show, and then spend the night writing my dissertation.

Sanity was kept throughout the entire process by focusing on one small section, or chapter at a time. Had I allowed myself to think of the enormity of the task ahead I think I would have ground to a halt rather quickly.

The book was published last week, and to finally see a copy after all this time not only seemed very strange but rather surreal. My publisher and many others ask if I will be writing another. Initial feelings of ‘never again’ will no doubt soon subside and as my philosophy is never say never, who knows?

In the Life Room

Next month will feature part-two which focuses on tone and reductive drawing when working from the nude, (March 2012).

This exhibition brings together the work of this dynamic generation of British painters made during a thirty year period. What struck me was the range of approaches, contrasting paint application and techniques, from the measured geometry of Coldstream and Uglow to the thick encrusted surfaces of Auerbach and Kossoff, demonstrating the diversity of these artists working alongside each other at what must have been an incredibly inspirational and exciting time to be working in London as a painter.

” To me, the mystery of painting today is how can appearance be made. I know it can be illustrated, I know it can be photographed. But how can this thing be made so that you catch the mystery of appearance within the mystery of the making?… one knows that that by some accidental brushmarks suddenly appearance comes in with a vividness that no accepted way of doing it would have been brought about”.   – Francis Bacon

It was wonderful to be able to study the work of three heros of mine – Michael Andrews, William Coldstream and Euan Uglow, with my nose almost touching the canvas being able to examine, and hopefully absorb every brushstroke.

'Seated Girl' 1972-3 Private Collection © Estate of William Coldstream

This William Coldstream painting of a seated nude was my highlight of the exhibition. The painting was unknown to me as it is in a private collection, but it brings together all the elements of painting that excite me and make me want to rush back to the studio to continue. On close inspection, the paint was applied thinly with much energy in the brushstokes and laying down colour. I liked the composition and the cropping just above the ankles, as I feel this draws the viewer into the pictorial space, so that we share the same space as the girl who quietly gazes at us. The amount of drawing using graphite over the surface was surprising, but these marks establishing points and revisions create much tension when seen with similar marks made with paint and brush. A beautiful work.

'Nude, Lady C' 1959-60 Private Collection © Estate of Euan Uglow. Courtesy of Browse & Darby.

This painting of ‘Nude, Lady C’ by Euan Uglow I thought was stunning, so tranquil. Like the Coldstream I was amazed by just how thin the paint was in places, the paint-handling being so loose and fluid, areas being greatly simplified. The planes of colour are placed so freely and the light palette glows. Euan was my tutor, friend and mentor so it is very difficult to write about his work, so I’ll just let you quietly enjoy this painting…

Study of a Head with a Green Turban, 1967 Private collection ©The Estate of Michael Andrews, Courtesy James Hyman Fine Art, London.

There were two small Andrews portraits in the exhibition alongside the large-scale ‘The Thames at Low Tide’, 1994-95 and ‘The Lord Mayor’s Reception in Norwich Castle Keep, On the Eve of the Installation of the First Chancellor of the University of East Anglia’, 1966-69, both impressive pieces in their own right. The two small portraits, the Green Turban above and a sensitive portrait of the Painter and painters friend Craigie Aitchison are exquisite. The study above demonstrates Andrews fluid and gestural paint-handling, some areas thinly painted while others the surface is opaque and buttery. Scratchmarks, using the other end of the brush can be seen where boundaries are suggested or re-drawn.

John St. Clair, 1972 Private collection ©David Hockney

I have always greatly admired David Hockney’s coloured crayon and graphite drawings, particularly his drawing of Gregory Leaning Nude 1975. Only Hockney could pull off such sublime drawings of this exceptional quality using coloured pencils. This was the only drawing of his in the show, but it has made me look forward to the forthcoming Hockney exhibition ‘A Bigger Picture’ at the RA even more.

Mosque at Çiftlik Koyou, 1966 Private Collection © Estate of Euan Uglow, Courtesy of Browse & Darby

This inspirational exhibition is showing until Feb 18th 2012 @ The Haunch of Venison, 103 Bond Street, London (North end, just around the corner from Bond St tube).

Now back to the studio…

I was intrigued by the idea of the exhibition, as a homage to all the thousands of craftsmen through the ages, their names unknown but their works stand before us in museums and sites around the world of both exceptional quality and beauty. When looking at the Art of the Ancient world do we know who carved the exquisite Kouros, who toiled in the claustrophobic tunnels of tombs decorating every surface, and who painted the beautiful and haunting Roman Mummy Portraits? Particularly when in the current contemporary art scene name and ‘celebrity’ seem to be everything, and I’m not going to name names here!

Grayson Perry RA curates an exhibition of objects and artifacts from the British Museums vast collection which are shown alongside his own works. A wonderful sense of humour, intelligence and a tremendous respect of the art of the ancients and humanity runs throughout the exhibition. Of his exhibition the artist writes…

‘This is a memorial to all the anonymous craftsmen that over the centuries have fashioned the manmade wonders of the world… The craftsman’s anonymity I find especially resonant in an age of the celebrity artist’. (Grayson Perry RA, Turner Prize winner)

I recently attended a lecture that Grayson Perry gave at the BM in which he talked about his reasons for selecting the pieces he did, and about his ideas and working processes. A most inspiring and extremely entertaining evening. I very much like his idea of the British Museum as a place of modern pilgrimage, for us all to go to study and experience cultures and wonders from all over the world.

Many exhibits have been dug out of the huge store of the BM to support Graysons own work, pieces that could be seen to be influencing his work. Surprisingly though many have been found afterwards, sometimes many years after a particular work has been made. Here is a link to a recent British Museum blog written by Philippa Perry, Graysons wife, about his Making Connections with his own work.

Over the years I have made work in response to the art of the ancients, in particular from the sculpture of Ancient Greece and Egypt. A number of recent drawings and drypoint etchings have been inspired by sculpture found in both London and Luxor Museums. The way light touches the surface of a sculpture creates stunning contrasts, a beautiful softness of tone when seen against the richness and depth of tone in the shadows that is both dramatic and exciting. It is the passage of time shown on the surface that I find particularly interesting.

Koptos Temple, Egyptian Stelae II, found in the Petrie Museum

I very much like the idea of showing artworks within a museum setting. This is something I have done with the Petrie Museum UCL, who have hosted two exhibitions of my Egyptian work which has been hung throughout the museum, amongst the exhibits from Ancient Egypt and Sudan. This is quite a humbling experience seeing your own work next to such an important collection, yet it is a perfect setting. Much more sympathetic than hanging the pieces in an art gallery ‘white cube’ environment, devoid of these influences and history.

Statue of God Amun at Karnak, found in Luxor Museum

My new exhibition Luxor: People & Places will be opening at the Petrie Museum on Jan 7th and will run until 31st March. Only 5 minutes away from the British Museum!

Grayson Perry The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman is showing at the British Museum until 19th February 2012. Thoroughly recommended, don’t miss it.