`Penlee Gallery, Penzance The Branfield collection

Penlee House in Penzance have an exhibition of works from the private collection of Pep and John Branfield Open now and until January 13th 2024. The art is to be sold at auction in February so this is a good opportunity to see it together. The first room has the oldest paintings. There is a Stanhope Forbes horse which I thought might be done using a photograph from the way it is framed - something rarely mentioned in discussing Newlyn painters. There is what looks like an abstract composition by Thomas Cooper Gotch but is a study for his ‘Lantern Parade’ Further on in the back gallery there is a small David Haughton, ‘Carn Bosavern’ of which he said the drawing of St Just was the hardest to do drawing of any for him. Was this because it’s hard to keep track of a row of houses observed with their great similarities but interesting differences? I liked very much the elegant pots by Peter Swanson. There is a Bryan Pearce of men bowling that does not employ his all round perspective. I wondered if the collector got his explanation of strange symbolism in a Patrick Hayman directly from the painter? Not all the pictures strike me as the artists’ finest work but perhaps the collectors tried to find affordable examples to make a comprehensive collection. The last pictures are by the living Kurt Jackson and there is a stunning large brown one of a vast scene, ‘Carnsew’. My favourite was Willy Barns-Graham’s ‘Gurnard’s Head’ with its wintry look and lively tree amongst buildings but I gathered the attendant would also make a bid for it.

Women in Revolt-catalogue of Tate Britain show.

Women in Revolt is a new show at Tate Britain, Nov 8 2023 to April 7 2024, then at National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh 25 May 2024 to 26 Jan 2025 and at The Whitworth in Manchester 7 March to 24 August 2025 Subtitled’Art and Activism 1970-1990’ The catalogue has a brown cover - unimpressively discreet I thought - conveying a quiet unimpressive revolution. Linsey Young, the curator, introduces the show with personal details about her mother’s feminism, dedicating the show to her memory, reminding those of us who were artists then of the difficulties and energetic efforts of the women who formed organisations and made personal political works and the part played by black women. She claims that there are contemporary women artists carrying on the feminist fight - but I find it hard to think of any. Amy Tobin writes about the groups formed and collective ways of working, mentioning Brixton Women’s Work to which I contributed in 3 shows. It’s a thrill for me to read of artists I met then like the inspiring Kate Walker and calm tower of strength Rita Keegan who worked with the black women artists but I am disappointed that the illustrations are mostly of posters and photos of women in groups not showing the actual content of the shows. Three of the ten chapters are about black and Asian artists and one about transexuality. There are quite a lot of illustrations of women’s work but the notes about them are in very small grey print grey making them tedious to read. An example is the two pages on Bobby Baker.There is room on the second page about her to print the words twice as big rather than stylishly cramping them up at one edge to leave a blank area larger than the text. Thus the design of the catalogue replicates the lack of space given to the women’s movement in the art world. Many of the artists named are still alive and said to be working which points out how little we hear of them now and this show fails to give much reference to their current projects. There are new names and organisations to me even though I was an active feminist artist in this era in London. I have met only a few of these artists and several more whose names and art is sadly not included. The text is the tip of an iceberg that has largely melted away but has been important in art history nevertheless. It’s a worthwhile thing to have made the show and hopefully the images in Tate Britain will make more impact than they can in this catalogue, which will remain to mark the history or as we used to say ‘herstory.

Penwith Gallery St Ives

The Penwith Gallery in St Ives has a wealth of different shows at present. The members have their exhibition, where informed visitors can easily spot who has done what as most of them have recognisable styles and many repeat the same subjects. My favourite was Rod Walker’s ‘Pendeen Gold’ which combines observed landscape with wonderfully decorative elements in glowing colours. In the small Studio Gallery Teresa Pemberton has in a way a similar approach but is a new exhibitor there. At the back of the main room in a newly made space is an interesting group of photographs by Brian Seed of famous St Ives artists. There is one of Terry Frost with his large family eating around a table. Then there are archival images by Denis Mitchell alongside the Hepworth ‘Magic Stone.’ Finally the associate members have their show. As there are well over 200 of them many will not be selected by the changing hanging committee of members but they submit work hoping to be included. I detect recently that there are some new artists being chosen and a few more figurative images disturbing the usual predominance of abstraction based loosely on landscape. Renee Spierdijk has a striking portrait ‘Immigrant Girl (Ellis Island) Delpha Hudson shows one of her lively pictures using many figures called ‘Babble Tower-the life raft of language’. These galleries are some of the most attractively spacious in St Ives and the paintings and sculptures are generally beautifully hung at a good viewing level and well spaced out. There is also a shop area with jewelry and catalogues. No staff will pester the visitor or expect them to do more than stroll round taking a look and I urge people to do so. It is free to enter.

Pauline Boty by Marc Kristal

The only blonde in the world

IT's a Man's World 1

‘Pauline Boty - British Pop Art’s Sole Sister’, by Marc Kristal, published by Frances Lincoln, 2023

I had heard of Pauline Boty, seen ‘The Only Blonde in the World’ at Tate St Ives and met someone who was at the Royal College of Art at the same time  as ‘the Bardot of Wimbledon’
so to me this new book about her is very welcome  - telling so much about her and showing  so many paintings which were rescued some time after her untimely tragic demise soon after her daughter’s birth.
Pauline had cancer and chose to put off treatment until after her baby was safely born, thereby inviting her own death 1966, aged 28.

Marc Kristal’s narrative flows well and transports us back to the 1950’s, when young women were admitted to the Slade on the attractiveness of their selfies, their portfolios ignored.

Pauline is often referred to as beautiful but I think it was more the case that she had an appealing vitality.
She was able to get onto tv, being  interviewed by Alan Whicker, appear in a Ken Russell film, and take on stage acting. She was a presenter on a radio arts program, The Public Ear’ and sharply criticised the later work of Elvis Presley. She had a bit part in ‘Alfie’
Waldemar  Januscek, before he became the lovable commentator on past art, as an art critic called her a bad, derivative artist whose reputation rested on being a dolly bird.
The author is not sure he can defend her and says, ‘the artist and flibertygibbet began, increasingly, to merge.’
One of the strengths of the book is however that Kristal spoke to a range of Pauline Boty’s friends and family so we get a rounded picture of her from bubbly extrovert to troubled lonely person.
His harshest remark is that she was a narcissist ‘ for what is creating a motherless child if not the acme of self-centredness?’

Pauline Boty brought her experience  as a woman into her pop art, especially in her paintings ‘It’s a man’s world’. The first is an interesting collage of images of men plus a symbolic flower possibly referring to her sex. The second uses images of naked women a la Playboy. Bravely done perhaps and intending not to endorse the degradation  of women but I think you can’t be feminist by imitating what you deplore. Maybe Pauline was in two minds about feminism.

This is  certainly a lively contribution to our understanding of a little known artist and of the era in which she lived.

 

Peyoti for President - Palestinian Children

Post exhibition remarks-Taking Space in the Crypt October 2023

As we only had a week it would not be possible for an independent reviewer to get anything in the press in time. I suppose if we could find a writer willing to write about it we could put it on social media and that would be very welcome, If anyone would volunteer to do that next time please get in touch. 

 So,despite my bias to liking my own group’s show, I thought I would write something. 

 It’s rather a mystery why some work sells better but it seems naturalistic scenes well observed and carried out with panache are again the most popular -  Sharon Reeves and Clare Hughes being cited. This time Sharon sold 3 paintings off the wall of sand dunes and their grasses. 

  However, to quote Schnabel, ‘ You make the paintings not to sell them. You make the paintings to see them.’

So the more abstract- Pat Wilson Smith, Tracy Flett, were as usual less commercial although all the artists have people who appreciate them and often can only afford cards.

There were interesting and unusual ceramics by myself and Pat.

Then Caroline Marwood had very unusual experimental works combining photos and collaged elements and digital designs based on local observations of landscape.

Kate Cameron had expressionist verve in her intensely coloured works, some set in Spain.

Kerry Grant showed delicate close ups of observed nature in watercolour and other media, emphasising pattern and design.

I had a mix as usual of some more expressionist observations or memories of musicians and some political more conceptual items.

So a good wide range of approaches and you would think something for everyone but there is a limited number of visitors to the show able to buy anything large.
Maybe a campaign could begin to encourage folk to decorate their walls with original art.
I hear some strange people have blank walks and others buy reproductions that attract them and have the seal of being approved by history or by marketing managers.

Artists other than the Big Names do not make much profit and really love to get their pictures out into the world.
Personally I fear when I die my family will throw it all away.

Incidentally Yoko Ono had a show called ‘Big Names’ which consisted of just that - huge names of celebrated artists being carried into a gallery.

Please come and see our next shows in 2024 - to be arranged- and please bring your cash or
 credit card - the small purchases not only add up but are very encouraging.

We have all sold more paintings than Van Gogh did in his lifetime- he sold ONE - which seems very odd when his brother was an art dealer. If it had not been for his sister- in -law after the brother died, those works might have sunk without trace.

At least ours are on the internet and Taking Space have a website to Google.



 

 

Art Monsters by Lauren Elkin

<.>‘Art Monsters unruly bodies in feminist art ‘, by Lauren Elkin, Chatto and Windus 2023

This book has an ugly image of a woman on the cover, by Genieve Figgis and lots of off puttingly gross art by feminists is referenced, often in some detail, involving performances or film with use of blood, sexual acts and references to disease. Often the artists break boundaries in ways that make their work difficult to see or even read about.

Lauren Elkin writes unconventionally, at times bringing in her own experiences such as giving birth and creatively jumping around her choices as she seeks women who try to make a new feminist language rather than simply reacting against patriarchy.

Some examples are well known, Elkin adding interesting detail, and many are new to me, necessitating my own research online as there are very few photographs in the book.

She keeps returning to the ‘Three Guineas’ essay of Virginia Woolf and I think unconvincingly presents her sister Vanessa Bell as avant guardedly feminist, whilst not mentioning that she had remarkably done an entirely abstract painting in 1914 which is in Tate’s collection.

I am firmly on the side that you can’t advance feminism by choosing to show women in abject degradation but Elkin is now ready to defend the pornographic efforts of Kathy Acker and others.

She mentions philosophers such as Cixous and Kristeva but without explaining much about them.<\p>

I learnt new things, considered the author’s views and watched some Schneeman film from the seventies that at eight minutes felt very long.

This new contribution to womens’ art history is welcome, well referenced, and gives us Elkin’s personal take on feminist works involving women’s bodies.

‘The Legend of King Arthur , A Pre Raphaelite Love Story ‘ at Falmouth Art Gallery, 17 June to 30 Sept 2023.

‘The Legend of King Arthur , A Pre Raphaelite Love Story ‘ at Falmouth Art Gallery, 17 June to 30 Sept 2023. Walking into the show is to enter a different world, dimly lit, where romantic tales of voluptuous sad women and dark knights hopelessly in love with them can overwhelm the imagination. This is from a time when hundreds of hours could be spent by people paid to hand embroider and weave wall decorations. I would have liked some medieval lute music or a pipe organ to accompany my absorbed enjoyment of the brooding atmospheres and detailed narratives. One note of humour relieves the seriousness as Simeon Solomon’s cartoon is discovered, ‘Sir Galipot bearing the Holy Gruel’

It’s a treat to have some preparatory works close by the finished versions of the paintings. In the case of the ‘Lady of Shalott’ by John William Waterhouse which belongs to Falmouth Gallery, the sketch has a remarkable life and energy in the brushstrokes and the red paint looks as if it was applied that morning. The finished item has more symbols and a higher degree of finish and is less exciting.

The stories of the artists and their love interests sets add another layer of intrigue to the experience. I thoroughly recommend this exhibition, which is free to visit. Mon to Sat, 10 - 5.

The Casablanca Art School -exhibition at Tate St.Ives 27 May 2023 to 14 January 2024

 ‘The Casablanca Art School’. Tate St Ives, May 27th to January 14th 2024, and in Sharjah Art Foundation, United Arab Emirates, from February 2024

This show at first viewing struck me as very colourful and reminded me of seventies hard edge painting in UK

 

 

 

 

 

Mohamed Melehi 1969

 

It seems, free of French colonial rule at last 1956, Casablanca Art School developed to follow the prevailing western style.
I was a bit disappointed, expecting something more different from the 22 artists I had never encountered before.
It was the brown more political and savage pieces by Farid Bekahia, 1961, about torture under the French regime and the spirit of revolutionary victory in Cuba that attracted me.

 

 

 

 

Farid Belkahia Torutres, 1961-2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Farid Bekahia, Cuba SI, 1961

Coming back to see it all again I slowed down to read the captions and view the slide shows. This showed me that a lot of art was placed in the streets on the walls.

 

There’s a photo of students irreverently accessorising a classical statue - their studies now turning to the local design of jewelry, carpets etc.

 

 

 

 

 

Melehi's notebook

Astonishing facts are found in the wall texts but not highlighted in any way.
In colonial times classes at the art school had been divided not just by gender but by social class.
One of the female artists, Chaibia Tallal had been forced to marry at a very young age, but this I found out from chatting to an attendant, its not in the captions.

 

 

 

  Chaibia Tallal , Marriage Ceremony, 1983

Two teachers of graphic design were imprisoned for Marxist tendencies for 6 and 8 years by the new Moroccan rulers but this is a brief reference which I would have liked to learn more about.

There are some poster designs that feature Palestine but the show does not enlighten us about these.

 

I got some idea of how it was an exciting time when the artists met at the school, in the 1950’s and changed the whole emphasis of the teaching, started controversial magazines and took their art outside the building to the ordinary people. They sought to infuse their work with motifs from their Moroccan culture whilst joining the western mainstream in many ways.

I would have liked to find out something of what goes on at the school of art in Casablanca now.

When the show goes to United Arab Emirates I visitors will be subject to the dress restrictions there.
It would be good to find out how it is received there in a tribal autocracy, an authoritarian state whose cooperation with Tate may serve controversially to polish its unpalatable undemocratic image.

Although Human Rights Watch warn that conditions are worsening in UK,  they are still considerably more intolerant and dangerous in both Morocco and Sharjah. However,  the Tate
Casablanca Art School show limits itself to the past although its subject raises curiosity about present day conditions.

Ken Turner's talk July 16 2023 at Porthmeor studios.

 Ken Turner as an artist is an old campaigner, now aged 95 he gave a remarkable hour long talk, standing up throughout and making it memorable by smashing a rather nice bone china cup with a hammer to show how things have a life and change, and then making an action painting, narrowly missing splattering the audience of interested cognoscenti with paint.

Ken  shook the bottle of paint up and down and squirted it out - rather an invitation to Freudian interpretation. One bottle was a bit stuck at first. However, then he made the splurges into something else with a few flourishes of a brush.

This took place in the Borlase Smart room at Porthmeor studios where Ken has a show of large abstractions until the end of July. These vigorous expressions have titles to which it is sometimes
hard to see the connections in the images.

However Ken Turner’s talk was about art and life rather than his exhibition or his lavishly illustrated available book, ‘A Life Being Ken Turner’.
He referred to Heidegger and other philosophers, to the chaotic state of the world, the art world’s deplorable market, and the need for aesthetic education to sensitise people to the forms and experiences they meet and make.

Dyhano asked if another person’s work would do just as well without the Heidegger connection?

Ken invited us to dwell on the importance of the life of things, to value feelings, to see that art can embody all that the artist has become.

The force of his conviction held us involved as participants in the event and its theatricality left an impression that I turned over in my mind as I walked home.

 

 

Dusk till Dawn - project on involuntary childlessness by Melanie Stidolph

 A project on involuntary childlessness.

Recently I joined a group of childless women who wanted to have children in a project run by the artist Melanie Stidolph, called ‘Dusk till Dawn’.

I attended several sessions where we met but I did not join the final one to film at a beach as I thought it would be too physically demanding for me as it required dusk and dawn performances with an overnight stay in a bell tent or nearby youth hostel.
I also had misgivings about the way the whole thing was going.

I have been in collaborations before - on my MA we tried and wrote about the process. Way back in Brixton Womens’ work I participated in three things in the 80’s in which I felt I was an equal artist member.
 Melanie was working with a group not all of whom would say they were artists or singers.
It was wonderful to meet with childless women and hear their moving stories. It was a worthy idea for Melanie to embark on. But we were volunteers helping her realise her idea, not collaborators.
Were we a little more than the anonymous folk who make Anthony Gormley’s clay figures to his formula - or the workers who made Judy Chicago’s ‘Dinner  Party’ embroideries to her exacting standards? -  well at least we were credited in this case and we did get meaningful meetings.

Collaboration would require more time and few preconceived notions of the result.
Melanie had already engaged the excellent Clare Ingleheart to conduct us and to write part songs.
She probably had the  costume people in mind and she had decided the performance venue, which had to be changed to get permission to another rocky beach near the original choice.

Melanie had work about her theme in the Exchange show, ‘We are floating in space’ and as this was all about artists using the coastline I realised as I left the premier of her film that the childlessness was shoehorned into the coast idea perhaps to get this painful subject shown.
People shy away from childlessness in life and art as I know from trying to show my own work about it. (available now on axisweb and Vimeo and on Jody Day’s instagram ‘Gateway’ )

I have to applaud Melanie for her project, and thank her for the opportunity.
The best part, the raw emotional impactful part was the talking with the other women, and we heard also of the singing done that was not filmed after the crew left.

 Time was spent although it seemed rushed along and a lot of money was available for equipment and crew - the paid people- from the Lottery and Arts Council.

The flashing lights in the video triggered by sound seemed meaningless and gimmicky and might warrant an epilepsy warning.
I feel the costumes looked like the handmaid’s tale, the film was too long and slow, the whole subject was diluted to the point of being completely lost. Why was it at the beach? Why was it made into a sort of ritual ?

As for the wonderful group - I was removed from the what’s app as soon as I said I wasn’t going to be in the performance.
Will we meet up? There would be scope for a therapeutic online thing, for a booklet about the moving stories but I doubt it will happen.

The premier was shown at The Exchange, Penzance, projected in a pale way not in a dark rooom but on a wall at a neck crooking height -  much better on the video screen where the colours were vibrant. The discussion was mostly inaudible despite me asking twice for them to speak louder and the eventual production of one microphone.

The subject is an important one.
Perhaps one day we can have a whole show about childlessness.

Lubaina Himid at Porthmeor Studios, St.Ives UK

 Lubaina Himid talking at Porthmeor Studios. May 23rd 2023

 

Lubaina Himid is an engaging speaker - a Professor of art and winner of the Turner prize and no stranger to St Ives, where she said trying to paint the sea from observation was what first showed her the allure of paint. She feels like an imposter since she was never taught how to paint but I don’t think students have been taught any painting techniques on fine art courses since 1970?
Here in the daylight lit high ceilinged studio with no sea view she has felt free of the attractions of naturalism and her love of simplified bright shapes is clear.
She says galleries don’t have such daylight and rarely light shows well.

Most of the large works were from a series called ‘street sellers’ and are destined to be shown in New York.
The images of the black sellers of baskets, shells and ribbons, or chickens, relate to the black figures included in eighteenth century British paintings such as by Hogarth, where often black figures were slaves, included without concern for their plight. Lubaina thinks about what it’s like to be a street seller performing , connecting with passers-by in a different way from shop sellers. It made me think of all those black sellers of stuff I have encountered on Greek beaches about whose lives I have found out so little.
Lubaina often paints the backgrounds before the figures and she operates as if she knows these people. She speaks of dialogue between figures and of moments where decisions are made after which one’s life goes in a direction as a result.
She says the chicken seller, who has no chickens and whose baskets are too open to keep a chicken enclosed is ‘kind of broken hearted’.
We learn all sorts of fascinating and amusing details about various other works, about how this artist is always looking to try out new things, thinking and feeling in various directions like her cast of characters.
Afterwards Lubaina Himid answered questions very thoughtfully.

I noticed she did not pause before telling us about the content to ask what we understood from the images with no further information. I am always keen to find out what I have communicated via images because I hope to get some things over clearly and to hear reactions which can show surprising other interpretations from my intentions.
Lubaina is so successful now and maybe doesn’t care to find out what we understand.
As so often happens I don’t think the wealth of ideas and feelings she puts into her work can be received by looking at it.

The delicious soup afterwards and lively conversations made it a really pleasant occasion where artists and others meet to enjoy art in St Ives.
(It was a pity it started half an hour late with no explanation or apology.)




 

Claude Cahun

Exist Otherwise The Life and Works of Claude Cahun

by Jennifer L Shaw 2017, paperback 2023 

 Claude Cahun’s art was known to me via a handful of photos and I knew little of her life before reading this account. 

 It’s a very beautifully designed book. There are four chronological chapters and an appendix of a few translated documents and a useful index. 

Claude Cahun chose her name and from an early age was concerned with her own image and identity as a lesbian, inspired by male queer writers and the idea of an Ancient Greek utopia. Her relationship with her mother was fraught and as her father was Jewish she suffered from anti semitism. She met her lifelong partner Suzanne Moore when they were both teenagers. 

 Claude had enough money not to need a job and moved in avant garde arty circles in Paris. She wrote the stories of various heroines such as Eve, Sappho, Judith and others, reimagining them from. a modern viewpoint. In self portrait photos made with her partner she played with masquerade doll like roles using androgyny and theatricality. Jennifer Shaw discusses the possible sexual symbolism in Cahun’s montage images. 

 During the thirties Claude met Breton and other surrealists, made playful photographs and joined in turn various political groups of artists to combat fascism. She veered towards Trotsky’s idea of individual freedom for artists to express their inner world and in 1939 signed a manifesto that declared ‘there will be no freedom until everyone is free’. Aragon criticised her as essentially bourgeois in her individuality. Her strange constructions were photographed as illustrations for a disturbing children’s fairytale book by Lise Deharme.

 After the wealth of references and names of well known surrealists that Claude knew and enough details of her work to establish that she should be part of the canon of art history, the last chapter in which she is living in occupied Jersey with her partner is by far the most fascinating. 

 Claude and Suzanne agreed to devote themselves to placing anti war propaganda in a variety of inventive ways in their environment. It was written as if by a disillusioned German soldier, aided by Suzanne’s fluent German language and the two of them spent a lot of time on this and put themselves at great risk.

 Eventually they were arrested, sentenced to death and put in solitary confinement, saved from deportation by the progress the allies were making towards winning the war. Claude called this work ‘militant surrealist action’. She despised the Jersey population’s failure to resist the nazi occupation and hoped to affect the behaviour of those German occupiers who could be influenced against Hitler. 

Their prison experiences and subsequent release are remarkable and could make a wonderful film. Unfortunately Claude’s health was broken and she died, 1953, before their plans to return to liberated Paris were carried out. Suzanne Moore remained in Jersey, killing herself in 1972. 

 The wartime story is such a humdinger - I found it very moving and amazing and highly recommend the book for that well researched and fluently written account.

Lamorna Art Colony -an exhibition at Penlee House, Penzance

 Lamorna Colony Pioneers
3 May 2023 until 30 September 2023

An exhibition at Penlee House co curated with David Tovey whose new book, an in-depth study of the colony, Lamorna – An Artistic, Social, Literary History, will be available during the show.

 

Lamorna Birch, St Buryan-the Fowling Pool, 1907

 

There is a quite astonishing contrast between the first picture in this show and the last.

Marlow Moss,Composition Yellow,Black and White, 1949

How did art go from looking carefully to observe life to constructing simple abstract compositions?

There is no catalogue for the show but the labels give interesting information which is not too lengthy to take in.
I found I was absorbed in the paintings - the way they were done - and also fascinated by the stories of the artists and their bohemian enclave.
Then there is also the visual information of what the artists were observing of life, the social history, the clothing and interiors as well as landscape.
So, three aspects that make it a really enjoyable experience.

Munnings Cattle watering in a stream, Zennor

I found the surprise for me was just how lively Alfred Munnings’ work is. Its the wildness of his bruhstrokes that I noticed. A close up of a section of a painting of cows in a field could be a twentieth century abstract expressionist work.

Munnings , detail from 'Cattle Watering in a stream, Zennor, 1912

Munnings I know made a notable speech denouncing Picasso as a charlatan, at the Royal Academy, but he was more modern unconciously than perhaps he realised.

The item I would have liked to take home with me was a ceramic figure of Laura Knight made by Ella Naper. It reminded me of similarly lively works made by the early artists of the Russian Revolution with its vigorous charm.

 

Ella had modelled for Laura Knight’s ‘“Spring’ of 1915,  the landscape background of which the painter risked incarceration to draw as during the first world war outdoor drawing was banned.

There are a couple of other Knight’s, and in ‘My Lady of the Rocks’ there’s rather an awkwardly proportioned figure as if collaged on top of the landscape.

Dod Proctor’s ‘The Steps  at Oakhill Cottage’ 1910, is a delightful early work of observation.

Harold Knight’s ‘Portrait of Robert Morson Hughes’1915,  is startling in its use of space in the composition after so many detailed landscapes. Apparantly it was a study for a work of a group of men originally entitled ‘’How to win the war’ as they sat talking in The Wink pub, but it was retitled   less bluntly when shown at the RA.

 

 Coincidentally Rupert White’s ‘Magic and Modernism’has just been published, which describes the two paths of modernism and surrealism, the latter an uncensored anti bourgeois disorder whereas modernist abstraction aimed to make a more harmious world after the chaos of war. And we see these two divergent approaches in the work of Ithell Colquhoun, and John Tunnard - both weird and surreal and Marlow Moss with her constructed order. 

Ithell Colquhoun, Rock Pool, 1957

How varied art is       

John Tunnard, Arena, 1959

 

 

- observation, imagination, chaos and calm and a treat from way down in Lamorna.

Magic and Modernism by Rupert White

 Magic and Modernism  - art from Cornwall in context 1800 - 1950    

 

Rupert White 2023

On the back of this book it says it ‘throws light on the links between art, folklore and tourism, as well as the Celtic revival and the occult’

Rupert White certainly seeks to write about his chosen period, not isolating the fine art as is so often done, but showing a wide web of connections between people and places and various activities.

I would have liked a contents page to show me what sort of scope the book had and regretted that the photos are rather grey being on matt paper.

Rupert White  must have done an immense amount of research and I learnt a lot reading the book.
I found some quotes such as John Harris’ account of the dangerous descent into a mine at Dolcoath very vivid.
Some books were mentioned whose content I would have liked to have read more about,
There however is a useful bibliography.

It does occur to me that most of those described were very well off individuals free to indulge their quirky interests in unusual directions.

The idea that Gothic architecture was not, like ancient classical buildings, built by slaves, was interesting and my own study of the carvings at Southwell Minster Chapterhouse suggest that medieval masons had considerable freedom rather than following a strict plan.

That the Newlyn painters sought to authentically represent the workers who they depicted and their labour I thought well worth explaining.

I had not read before that Havelock Ellis , who lived and worked at Carbis Bay, had described ideas for an nhs in 1897.
Rupert White evidently does not consider psychoanalysis  a science and commends Ellis for giving free marriage guidance sessions.

However the assertion that the St Ives modernist artists embodied ambivalence towards industrial and technological progress surprised me and I would have liked more information to back this up.

The people who became famous and were most accepted in the  cannons of art and literature such as Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson and D H Lawrence were those who concentrated their efforts on being modern and innovative rather than the host of others mentioned who were more zany or esoteric.

Ben Nicholson disliked surrealism apparently and Henry Moore spoke of a serious quarrel between modernism and surrealism. The latter encouraged an uncensored anti bourgeois disorder whereas modernist abstraction aimed to make a more harmonious world after the chaos of war. This distinction made sense to me.
Rupert White acknowledges that it was the fame of the modernists that lead to the St Ives Tate being established 1993.

I felt sometimes the author was loth to sufficiently sift his researches and an example is the inclusion of, as the very last item in the book, the plaque on St Ives RC church commemorating the execution of John Payne in 1549, alongside the terrible slaughter of hundreds of Cornish people who objected to imposition of the English prayer book.
This is a topic rather outside the scope of the book and it sent this reader off at a tangent.

I would say ‘Magic and Modernism’ is a compendium of interesting research that gives an awareness of the times described.

I enjoyed this account  of developments in Cornish culture and thank Rupert White for writing it.

Naked Education on TV

 Naked Education.

This is a new series on British tv, channel 4, presented by Anna Richardson, she of the ridiculous ‘naked attraction’ program where people  choose a date from looking at someone’s naked body and discussing their genitals.

Now this new idea seems a bit better - aiming to help people accept themselves.
The first week concentrated on body hair. The present generation are often used to watching pornography showing  hairless bodies so this seemed to be revelatory to the four young adults looking at the four hairy naked older adults and it was encouraging more naturalness and choice.

We don’t see many naked people so it was interesting and enjoyable to that extent.
(I remember aged 16 being allowed out of school to go to Derby art college life drawing. I was presented with what was to me a very old very large woman who seemed a different species from my then svelte self)

However the two women showing one another their Caesarian birth scars was done more feebly, so we were not shown the scars at first.
How can you encourage shamelessness whilst the camera is so tentative and  wary and the shots are of slow motion discarding of dressing gowns?
Eventually the scars were shown and were reassuringly acceptably not at all horrific and were fading. The presenter joined in with hers.


Then we met a tall woman who had for years wished she was smaller and hated being called ‘big’.
Four other people who were ok about their bodies joined in. Strangely the insults they had endured were written on their bodies and they were posed together. They were repeatedly called beautiful.
I wasn’t happy with this as it did not come from the woman with the problem but seemed imposed by the presenter. The four naked helpers were evidently very keen to pose naked and so the woman who hitherto had not liked her body now was drawn into revelling in it. This was very surprising but showed the compelling effects other people can have on a person - would this be a lasting effect? Will she be forever glad she was shown naked on tv with insults written on her flesh?

I feel sorry for Anna Richardson. I think she is  trying to rescue herself from the inane crudity of  ‘ naked attraction’  and do something more worthwhile - and maybe it is - or at least parts of it are?

Nakedness remains a rare event for most of us.
Anna has a niche that can be explored or exploited for a while.

Mary Fletcher

Leach Pottery Doug Fitch and Hannah McAndrew: An Ongoing Devotion. 25 Feb to 30 April 2023

 Leach Pottery- Doug Fitch and Hannah McAndrew: An Ongoing Devotion.

25 February to 30 April 2023 St Ives, Cornwall, UK
Online 15 May to 11June

The Private View gave a great sense of occasion for those present. The pots looked sparkling and delicious as they are so well lit, drinks were flowing, with nuts and crisps to nibble and  there was an inclusive atmosphere where one could strike up conversation with a stranger in the small gallery. 

To top this the two potters appeared online to convey their special enthusiasm for the tradition of slip decoration, all the way from Scotland and after that you could take a turn with the headphones to speak to them privately.

These two are a couple and say that  potting  ‘isn’t  our job, it is our very being’.
Prices began at £35 so many were tempted to buy.

I liked everything but particularly the black plates which set off the colours alluringly and the assured slip trailed drawing of birds or tulips. 

There were tall sinuous vessels and crisper forms for the planting of bulbs.

There were rounded vases very satisfying to hold and large chargers that look too good to use for anything.

One plate had a particularly bold design that looked very modern and as if based on something biological.

It made me want to seize a slip trailer and try it out for myself.

Leaving in a euphoric ceramic dazzled mood I realised I had not worked out which of the two  made which pots.
And I was carrying a perfect small rich honey yellow vase with beautifully placed vegetation decoration which turned out to be by Hannah.
I gather there is a stock to replenish from when sales are made but you might want to make up your mind quickly if you want to secure a purchase.

Locals can obtain free entry with a card to the show and the museum, which not many people may know.

'Penlee Inspired' 18Jan to 22April 2023

 This is a show which invited people to make art as a reaction to one of the paintings in Penlee House’s collection of Newlyn pictures.

An obvious problem with this is that the collection is of very good paintings so that those who make copies of them tend to painfully illustrate the difference between very talented artists that many visitors know and love and less talented artists that we have never heard of.
In a way this invites more admiration for the original artists  and more noticing how they have made their work.

For example the flat copy by I Hazel of a Fred Yates shows how the thick ribbons of paint in relief in his work make it so lively.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those who don’t just copy fare better in the comparison. Some have written poems, others take the same subject but look at the same view nowadays.
‘The Rain It Raineth ‘ by Norman Garstin 

 

is reseen at night by Amanda Mackenzie Morton, 

 

 

a view of Newlyn by Charles W Simpson 

 

 

 

is brightly updated by Michael Hart.

Then there are the works by young chidren. So many were sent in - teachers no doubt grabbing the idea with both hands -  that there has so be a slide show to include them all - and this is indeed a rare event to see children’s paintings alongside famous artists. It brings out the absolute verve and unselfconsciousnness before they get a bit older - the abandon and Joie de Vivre that   Picasso tried to re acquire.

 

When I was there a class of primary school children were assembled in front of ‘The rain it raineth’
They were from Perranporth and many took it to be not a picture of Penzance but of Newquay. One strangely suggested London. They were remarkably well behaved, quietened easily by their genial teacher. It was a treat to see them looking eagerly and to imagine that they would enjoy making their own paintings later from their quick sketches.

Yes,  a good idea which refreshes our view of the collection.

Prostitutes in Pictures?

 Do men often see women in paintings as prostitutes?

Tonight there was an interesting tv program on Edward Hopper.
In it it was said that the woman in a green dress in ‘Soir Bleu’ is a prostitute.

I could not see why this assumption was made by the man speaking.

Yesterday Waldamar Januscek made the same assertion about the woman in the large foreground couple in Seurat’s ‘La Grande Jatte’ in his film about the Impressionists.

 

 

 

Again I can’t see the why he is so sure about that.

Are male critics likely to label women in paintings as prostitutes?
If so why?

Is any image of a woman out and about and near a man going to be labelled thus?

Why isn’t the man possibly a gigolo then?
No, that would be ridiculous!
 

I hope people reading this will comment.