Archive for 2016
Two Americans in Porto
What comes to mind when you think of a contemporary art gallery? Probably, big empty spaces, clean geometric vistas, minimal signing, white walls. The Museo de Serralves in Porto, Portugal’s main centre for modern art, meets all those expectations, and many more. Its new building was opened in 1999. The designers not only had a […]
August Macke waters modern art
The current exhibition at the Royal Academy is all about gardens. The RA receives no state subsidy and relies on a regular series of blockbusters to bring in the crowds. This one, entitled Painting the modern garden, certainly fits the bill. When we went it was so crowded it was difficult to get near most of […]
Kyffin Williams the writer
The text of the 8th Kyffin Williams Annual Lecture, given at Highgate School, London on 1 February 2016. First, I’d like to thank David Smith and Highgate School for inviting me to give this year’s Kyffin Williams Lecture. It’s very fitting that Highgate remembers Kyffin so loyally, because he was always grateful to the school […]
Back to Briggflats
My favourite place in England is the hamlet of Brigflatts, a few miles from Sedbergh. The river Rawthey flows nearby, and the few houses cluster around the Friends Meeting House, one of the oldest Quaker meeting houses in the country (1675). In the graveyard lies the body of Basil Bunting. In Quaker fashion, all the […]
Blues recordings: gwallter’s top 10
Richard ‘Rabbit’ Brown, James Alley blues, 1927 James Alley is in New Orleans. Like Louis Armstrong Brown was a native of the Storyville district of that city. He only recorded six songs, but this one, recorded in his home town, is a peach. Brown was already in his late forties when he sang it, […]
Drinking coffee in the desert with Charles Doughty
On 10 November 1876, having taught himself Arabic, a 31 year old Englishmen called Charles Montagu Doughty set off from Damascus to travel alone across the Empty Quarter of the Arabian peninsula via Meda’in Saleh to join the Haj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. It was a quixotic act. The British Consul refused to help him […]
Cofio am Osi Rhys Osmond
Y dydd o’r blaen rhoddodd ffrind lyfr ail-law imi, ychwanegiad i’m llyfrgell fach o lyfrau ar gelfyddyd cerdded. Doedd y gyfrol, I know another way: from Tintern to St Davids (Gomer, 2002) ddim yn gyfarwydd imi. Casgliad yw e o ysgrifau er cof am Robin Reeves, y newyddiadurwr, ymgyrchydd a golygydd New Welsh Review a […]
How to say goodbye: a picture by Gerard David
The National Gallery of Ireland contains many wonders. As in most big art galleries, though, you can walk past wall after wall of old masters without any of them leaving much of an impact on the eye or memory. Then suddenly one of them will look at you, and make you stop. And if you […]