Tag: self-portraits
Francis Place, pioneer artist and potter
In the late seventeenth century York was a lively intellectual centre. The York Virtuosi – modesty was not one of their features – were a group of scientists, historians and artists including the zoologist Martin Lister, the antiquarian and historian of Leeds Ralph Thoresby and the glass painter Henry Gyles. Another member was a pioneering […]
The revolutionary gaze of Constance Mayer
In a room a woman, about thirty years of age, sits alone. The room is plain, with two bare walls, dark and grey. Its furniture is sparse, just a chair and a round table with round brass handles. The woman wears a simple white cotton dress. It has a high waistband and lacks sleeves, leaving […]
Sophonisba’s game of chess
Not before time, the seventeenth century painter Artemisia Gentileschi is now receiving just acclaim, in response to the National Gallery’s new exhibition in London (alas, out of bounds for those of us who are locked down). Even if her ultra-violent ‘Texas chain-saw massacre’ dramas are too much for you, you can always admire her picture […]
Lucian Freud and Celia Paul
Lucian Freud isn’t one of those big artists whose star quickly fades after death. To judge by a visit to the Royal Academy exhibition of his self-portraits (it finishes tomorrow), his work still attracts plenty of public interest. The paintings were arranged chronologically, so you could follow easily the track of Freud’s development, and how […]
August Sander and his Germans
The National Museum in Cardiff is currently showing a generous selection of the portraits of August Sander, possibly the best-known large series of photographs produced in the first half of the twentieth century. It’s hard to explain how it feels to walk slowly along the gallery of figures Sander captured. Admiration at the brilliance of […]
The portraits of Kyffin Williams
This article is based on a talk given to The Arts Society: Brecknock in Theatr Brycheiniog, Brecon on 11 September 2018 to mark the centenary of Kyffin Williams’s birth. Introduction My starting point is a talk given by Peter Lord as the Kyffin Williams lecture for 2018 at Oriel Môn, entitled ‘The portraits of Kyffin […]
Shani Rhys James
Who is Shani Rhys James? That seems to me to be the central question underlying all of her paintings. Many of the very best of them are gathered together in Distillation, a big retrospective of her works in Oriel Gregynog at the National Library of Wales. This is quite simply an overwhelming exhibition. It’s remarkable […]
Anselm Kiefer and Rembrandt van Rijn
Visit the big retrospective of Anselm Kiefer in the Royal Academy and it’s unlikely that you’ll quickly forget it. Which is apt, because memory, personal and especially collective, is the big theme that runs through all his work since he began his career as an artist in 1969. For Kiefer memory is seldom direct or […]
