Cecily Brown: Death and the Maid assembles a select group of some fifty paintings, drawings, sketchbooks, and monotypes from across her career to explore the intertwined themes of still life, memento mori, mirroring, and vanitas—symbolic depictions of human vanity or life’s brevity—that have propelled her dynamic and impactful practice for decades. On view April 4th, 2023 through December 3rd, 2023.
Learn more about the exhibition: https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions…
Henry Moore achieved international fame as a sculptor, despite once being denounced for promoting ‘the cult of ugliness’. And he also remained a most unassuming man, finds Laura Gascoigne, as two new exhibitions of his work prepare to welcome visitors.
Sculptors are very rarely household names, but no one who lived through the 1960s could be unfamiliar with the name of Henry Moore. At the height of his international success, Moore’s monumental public sculptures in prominent locations — from the 12ft-high Knife Edge Two Piece (1962–65) outside London’s Houses of Parliament to the 26ft-long Reclining Figure (1963–64) outside the Lincoln Centre in New York, US — became such a feature of the urban landscape that they appeared in cartoons in the popular press. For a Modernist abstract sculptor, that was fame.
In the 1950s, Moore added a new subject to his signature themes of the mother and child and the reclining figure. As a young man, his first sight of Stonehenge by moonlight, in 1921, had left an indelible impression; 30 years later, he began a series of large bronze totemic forms recalling prehistoric monoliths.
Henry Moore with three of his Upright Motives c.1955.Photo: Barry Warner
Matthew Rice is a long-time observer and illustrator of cities, buildings and all those who inhabit them, with an uncanny ability to express the energy of a place through a few lines of ink and splashes of paint.
For years, Venice has been a source of deep creative inspiration for him; and now, in Venice: A Sketchbook Guide, he captures the highlights of this most beguiling of Italian cities. Unsurprisingly, given his abiding passion for architecture, Matthew provides a wealth of information about the ‘stones’ of Venice, including an illustrated guide to the main building styles of the city – Byzantine, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Modern – and exemplars of its balconies, bridges and campaniles.
Further sections explore the city’s sestieri – its six residential quarters – as well as its history, paintings, festivals, wildlife and, not least, its cicchetti and aperitivi. Following the same landscape format as Matthew’s real-life sketchbooks, Venice: A Sketchbook Guide will combine enchanting watercolour illustrations with an informed, personal and witty text, and promises to delight all visitors to Venice, armchair or actual.
I like to get in front of my subjects “en plein air” if I can. Even in my allotment pictures (which are partly from imagination) the core elements are taken from real allotments. Working on site you get so much more from what you are trying to capture, I also get to chat to passersby who feed into my work with their rich stories and conversation. For me working purely in the studio would be like painting through a letter box.
In regards to perspective, the early part of my career was drawing and airbrushing full 3D cutaways of fighters and ships for the MoD so I know a fair bit about getting perspective right if I need to.
Accurate perspective however is all well and good, although in creative terms it can only deliver so much. I tend to adjust and push things about until it feels right. If that means geometric perspective is abandoned then that’s fine. It’s all about the overall impression.
Restorer Paul Ackroyd gets ‘The Red Boy’ ready to be displayed in the Gallery.
The Red Boy, or Master Lambton, are popular names for a portrait made in 1825 by Sir Thomas Lawrence. It is officially entitled with the name of its subject, Charles William Lambton, who was the elder son of John Lambton.
Paul Ackroyd, restorer, is cleaning ‘The Red Boy’, an iconic painting by Sir Thomas Lawrence. It was so popular it was the first-ever painting to feature on a British postage stamp.
Aimee Lax is an artist whose work examines the fragility and strength of the natural world, showing how it can be simultaneously threatening and beautiful. During her residency she has focussed on the question of the Anthropocene, looking at the burial of nuclear waste and the strange morphological effects on organisms in areas exposed to nuclear radiation. Creating works which convey a sense of otherworldliness and the uncanny, she uses clay to illustrate the dangers of the past, present and future. Engaging Ceramics Artist in Residence October 2019 – July 2020.
While museums in France are shut due to Covid-19 restrictions, private galleries are allowed to remain open and have become a haven for art enthusiasts. British artist David Hockney’s “Ma Normandie” (“My Normandy) show, which opened at a Paris gallery last year, has been the sensation of the season.
David Hockney, OM, CH, RA is an English painter, draftsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century.
Tim Wilmot is an artist from Bristol in the South-west of the UK, specialising in vibrant watercolours, using tone and light to bring out the best in the medium. Tim, self-taught, paints in a loose, impressionistic style and, while having dabbled with portraits and still lifes, he is inexorably drawn to landscapes.
He says: “I’m an outdoor person rather than an indoor person. For many years I’ve taken a sketch book on my travels and I quickly scribble scenes in a shorthand sort of way. Then, returning home, I recreate those memories with paint and brush. Watercolour is also an ideal medium for those quick impressions when you’re limited in time.”
Nick Veasey is a British photographer working primarily with images created from X-ray imaging. Some of his works are partial photomanipulations with Photoshop. He therefore works with digital artists to realise his creations.
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