ART EXHIBITIONS VISITED EARLIER - LONDON, MADRID, BERLIN

Here is a link to previous posts about art exhibitions and galleries in London, Madrid and Berlin, posted from 2008.

Pauli-artist.blogspot

EXHIBITIONS TO VISIT - SEVEN GOOD ONES - APRIL 2010

These are my top seven which I want to visit in the near future, but not in order of excellence! What are your top seven?

The Foundling Museum, Brunswick Square, London WC1 1AZ
Permanent exhibition including works by William Hogarth
plus
Paula Rego, Tracey Emin, Matt Collishaw: At the Foundling
Open: Tues-Sat 10-5, Sun 11-5
ends 9 May
The museum is in Bloomsbury
Foundling Museum

Francis Kyle Gallery, Maddox Street, London
Paul Hogarth
Open M/F 10 - 6, Saturday 11 - 5
ends 15 April
The gallery is in Mayfair
Francis Kyle Gallery

National Portrait Gallery, London
Irving Penn portraits
Open daily 10-6, and to 9 pm Thurs/Fri
ends 6 June
The gallery is at the end of Charing Cross Road
NPG

National Portrait Gallery, London
The Indian Portrait
Open 10-6, and to 9 pm Thurs/Fri
ends 20 June
The gallery is at the end of Charing Cross Road
NPG

Compton Verney, Warwickshire, CV35 9HZ
Francis Bacon: In Camera
Open Tues/Sun 11 - 5
ends 20 June
web site includes an interview with Francis Bacon
The house of Compton Verney is a stately home, open to the public, best reached by road
Compton Verney

Dulwich Picture Gallery, Dulwich, London
Paul Nash: The Elements
Open Tues/Sun 10 - 5
ends 9 May
The gallery is in a beautiful building designed by Sir John Soan, in Dulwich Village
Dulwich Picture Gallery

Topolski Century - Feliks Topolski
150-152 Hungerford Arches, South Bank, London SE1 8XU
Open M/F 11-7 and Sunday 12-6
Ongoing exhibition
The exhibition is in one of the railway arches very near to Waterloo Station and the Royal Festival Hall
Feliks Topolski

BATTERSEA PARK AFFORDABLE ART - MARCH 2010

VISITING THE AFFORDABLE ART FAIR ON THURSDAY LATE AFTERNOON

Finding the free minibus in Sloane Square was easy, but traffic holdups meant it took ages to get to the Park on Thursday evening.
The entry area had interesting photo etchings by Andrew Curtis - very large and black/white. I admired the successful results of what I know to be a very difficult and demanding technique of etching.
Inside the main tent was the usual huge collecting of gallery pitches, luckily mostly named and with a location so you could find London galleries easily. I admired the determination of those people who came from Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands etc.
The ceramics I liked are by Pat Armstrong who works in Lincolnshire. Her work is fired in a raku kiln, and the copper in the glaze results in beautiful reds oranges and golds.

Also the small square paintings in acrylics by Anthony Frost jumped off the wall with their brilliance and texture. They were on show at the Penhaven Gallery from St Ives.
Particularly liked the work of woman artists Sue Stone in the Grimsby based gallery called Gate Gallery. She had a small painting of French's - the famous pub in Soho. Very lively and fresh.

It was exhausting though, and there was nowhere much to sit down and rest. Everything very crammed together. Luckily it was not packed up with visitors and many of the stands had nobody viewing, so I did have a good chance to look carefully at the art.

Noticed a lot of money had been spent by some artists on the most elaborate frames, and even small oils had been framed under glass in some cases.
Prices quite low on the whole, from about £300, so if you subtrace the price of framing - perhaps £70, and the commission, the artists do not get very much.

I admired several works done of urban scenes at night, with a lot of red and black. Seems a fashionable subject at present. Saw some of these on the Amstel Gallery stands, from Amsterdam.

TALK BY KEN PAINE AT RICHMOND ART SOCIETY

RICHMOND ART SOCIETY MEETING - MARCH 10
Link http://www.richmondartsociety.com



The evening promised to be "An Evening with our President". I had met Ken Paine at the London Art Fair exhibition last month, in Covent Garden, and I got the impression he has a friendly, scruffy, extrovert and humorous personality. After the talk and demonstration he gave last night, I still think this. He was born in the 1920s and has spent a lot of time working and travelling in New York and Europe.
The paintings which he brought were roughs in acrylic, worked with large brushes, some so worn that they had the rather wild appearance of Ken's hair, and he also used chalks over the acrylic. Portraits are his thing, and judging from his books, they are,in the main, male heads.
The demonstration was great, as he started off with a very indistinct image on a coloured sheet of paper, and then got the audience to talk about what they could see there. Afterward he worked up the image with his big scratchy paint strokes until it was more distinct, a man leaning on his hand, for instance, with a shirt, and flower in his button hole.
He emphasized that imagination is the most important thing when viewing a picture. That and the darks and lights. I wish I had had a notebook to jot down a few ideas, because some of the things he said were very interested.

GERHARD RICHTER AT NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, LONDON

GERHARD RICHTER PORTRAITS EXHIBITION
at National Portrait Gallery, St Martin's Lane, London
Lind http://npg.org.uk
Don't expect a large exhibition! The book on sale as you go in suggests a huge collection of his work, full of the iconic black and white portrait paintings, but no, there are no more than 34 pieces on display, and of these, the last one is merely a large mirror, entitled 'Spiegel (Mirror) Mixed media, 2008'. So you can look at yourself.
There are the usual printed notices in each of the five small exhibition areas, with quotes from GR and as usual, you have to read these to get the slightest idea of what the galleryists think is behind his working. In other words you can read what they think or you can think for yourself, and in fact I did, coming to the conclusion that it was unchallenging, flat, uninteresting and lacking in the sensuality of oil painting which I love.
I went with a group of friends from South London Women Artists group http://southlondonwomenartist.co.uk
-
More to follow, though - I did have second thoughts .....

AT LONDON ART FAIR 2009

THE LONDON ART FAIR 2009, BUSINESS DESIGN CENTRE. ISLINGTON.
Saturday, January 17 YES, IT IS STILL GOING, DESPITE THE RECESSION!

Apparently there was a queue on the first day, Thursday, to buy some 'street art' at one of the stands. I think it was the one where an artist was sketching punters. He was still doing it when I was there - maybe I am wrong, but I think the charge was £250.
In case you dont know much about it, this art fair has been going for a long time now, and I have not attended for about 5 years. It remains much the same, the big posh galleries are all on the ground floor. Then upstairs they get smaller and smaller spaces, until you get to the outlying areas, where space is really restricted. There was a lot of photography now, which was not present on my last visit. It is a really big, fashionable movement. Maybe I should be enlarging my photos instead of struggling with oil paint and composition!

The food and drink are are real rip-off price wise, to do not go to any of these art shindigs feeling hungry or thirsty.

On Saturday morning it was not very busy, but the gallery owners (or as they seem to be called, galleryists) appeared fairly sanguine. At any rate, they were not interested in discussing how well they had been doing.

Some work good, of course. I always like to see the old names appearing, like Ann Redpath, Lowry, Bratby, Roger Hilton and the Cornish boys. This is where the big money is still clinging. There was a lot of pretty stuff, safe and saleable landscapes, flowers, nudes.

Unfortunately I do not paint landscapes and flowers, and usually keep my nude studies in a portfolio. I was interested in chatting to a few gallery owners about their attitude to seeing new artists.
I explained to some people I am interested in depicting sports events and muscular athletes, and one reply was it "does not bang our gong". Curses.

Of all the stand-holders I spoke to, only one kindly said, send me some stuff.


So I have send an email with attachments, and await response!