Tag Archives: England

Exhibition Tour: British Illustrator Aubrey Beardsley (Tate Britain)

Although our galleries are temporarily closed we wanted to share the Aubrey Beardsley exhibition at Tate Britain with you. Join Tate curators Caroline Corbeau-Parsons and Alice Insley as they discuss the iconic illustrator’s short and scandalous career.

Before his untimely death aged twenty-five, Beardsley produced over a thousand illustrations. He drew everything from legendary tales featuring dragons and knights, to explicit scenes of sex and debauchery. His fearless attitude to art continues to inspire creatives more than a century after his death.

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Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (1872-1898) was an English illustrator and author. His drawings in black ink, influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts, emphasized the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He was a leading figure in the aesthetic movement which also included Oscar Wilde and James McNeill Whistler.

City Praise: “London, Hong Kong, Toronto, Milan & Rio de Janeiro” (Podcast)

The Urbanist Monocle 24 Podcast logoWe ask our housebound editors and correspondents across the globe to reflect on what they cherish about the places in which they live and to pen a love letter to their cities: London, Hong Kong, Rio de Janeiro, Toronto and Milan.

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Art: Virtual Exhibition Tour Of “Picasso And Paper” (Royal Academy)

Experience our Picasso and Paper exhibition from your own home in this video tour of the galleries, created before the Royal Academy had to close its doors due to coronavirus.

Picasso didn’t just draw on paper — he tore it, burnt it, and made it three-dimensional. From studies for ‘Guernica’ to a 4.8-metre-wide collage, this exhibition brings together more than 300 works on paper spanning the artist’s 80-year career.

Installation views of the Picasso and Paper exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts. © Succession Picasso/DACS 2020. Exhibition organised by the Royal Academy of Arts, London and the Cleveland Museum of Art in partnership with the Musée national Picasso-Paris.

New Museum Exhibitions: “Andy Warhol” At The Tate Modern, London (Video)

Although our galleries are temporarily closed we wanted to share the Andy Warhol exhibition at Tate Modern with you. Join Tate curators Gregor Muir and Fiontán Moran as they discuss Warhol through the lens of the immigrant story, his LGBTQI identity and concerns with death and religion.

Meet the man behind the brand. It’s a Warhol you might not know, with some artworks you may not have seen before.

Find out more about the exhibition here

 

New Literary Podcasts: Author James Shapiro On “Shakespeare And Plagues”

Octavian Report Rostrum PodcastsOctavian Report “Rostrum” spoke with him about a major theme in Shakespeare’s work and life: disease. Specifically, pandemic plagues, which ravaged London repeatedly throughout Shakespeare’s career, shuttering the theaters, and which appear (obliquely and otherwise) in some of his greatest plays.

The latest episode of the Rostrum’s coronavirus series features James Shapiro, the Larry Miller professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University, and a leading expert on Shakespeare. Shapiro has published widely on this subject, most recently Shakespeare in a Divided America. He is also an advisor to the Royal Shakespeare Company and to the Public Theater.

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James S. Shapiro (born 1955) is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University who specialises in Shakespeare and the Early Modern period. Shapiro has served on the faculty at Columbia University since 1985, teaching Shakespeare and other topics, and he has published widely on Shakespeare and Elizabethan culture.

 

Art & Humor Spotlight: 56-Year Old British Painter Harland Miller’s “Iconic Penguin Book Covers”

From a Maddox Gallery website (March 20, 2020):

Harland-Miller-Ill-Never-Forget-What-I-Cant-RememberMiller’s Penguin book covers and ironic titles catch the art world’s eye

These covers are closer to still life studies, rather than two-dimensional posters. Experimenting with different paper sizes and angles, he occasionally shows their spines, and the shadows they cast. It is a celebration of books as treasured objects. His drawings – in particular his studies for his large-scale oil paintings with their notes scribbled down the margins – are some of his most intimate works to date.

The ensuing images are humorous, sardonic and nostalgic at the same time, while the painting style hints at the dog-eared, scuffed covers of the Penguin classics themselves.

Starting with Jay Jopling in 1996, when Miller exhibited in a group show at London’s Institute of Contemporary Art, his works have garnered many a famous fan. Amongst which are AC/DC’s guitarist Angus Young, David Bailey, and Elton John – whose work amusingly, if a little painfully, bears the title ‘International Lonely Guy.’

George Michael, with his Harland Miller piece ‘Incurable Romantic Seeks Dirty Filthy Whore‘ commanded  £237,500 in the posthumous auction of his art collection last year.

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“Do Remember They Can’t Cancel The Spring” – A Message From 82-Year Old Painter David Hockney

David Hockney has unveiled a new painting to add a splash of colour to the dark times facing the country.

Do remember they can't cancel the spring David Hockney Daffodils March 18 2020

The 82-year-old painter, often dubbed Britain’s greatest living artist, new piece is titled ‘Do remember they can’t cancel the spring’.

Bright yellow daffodils spring up in the foreground in front of a gloomy grey mass in the back of the painting.

Mr Hockney is currently in lockdown in Normandy, northern France, where he has been located since his last exhibition opened.

From a Daily Mail online article

 

Nature Video: “Woodland Words – The Laboratory with Leaves” (Oxford)

Sarah Watkinson is Wytham Woods’ first poet in residence. She leads us through a delicate maze of woodland and words, weaving together nature, research and poetry. In their work, scientists are objective: they don’t express opinions, they don’t talk about themselves. Poetry would seem science’s diametrical opposite: it’s traditionally inward-looking and self-reflective. Sarah’s writing combines her scientific background and her love for form and words in the most delicate and unexpected way: observing the world, for her, is a form of poetry.

Art Magazines: British Photographer James Kerwin Launches “The Background” (2020)

The Background Photography magazine James KerwinAs you will see from my portfolio, travel plays a huge part in my image-making. I visited nine countries in 2017 alone, and close to twenty since my journey into architectural photography began. I have always been fascinated by different cultures, foods, textures and colours. It is this love for travel, combined with my deep passion for photography, that keeps me motivated and dedicated to putting in the long lonely hours of research and logistical planning to then get out with the camera time and time again.

I hail from the fine city of Norwich in the United Kingdom, having spent the best part of thirty years growing up there it was a place I always returned to after travelling. Since January 2019 I have taken to the road full-time to undertake a nomadic lifestyle with my girlfriend Jade as we strive to grow a better photography and adventure tour business.

James Kerwin Photography

THE BACKGROUND MAGAZINE

PRODUCED THREE TIMES A YEAR, “THE BACKGROUND” IS A DIGITAL AND PREMIUM PRINT MAGAZINE THAT IS WRITTEN AND PRODUCED BY MYSELF, JAMES KERWIN. THE FIRST EDITION CONTAINS 100 PAGES AND HAS TAKEN HOURS OF THOUGHT. THE UNIQUE MAGAZINE IS PACKED FULL OF IMAGERY, TRAVEL HACKS AND TIPS AS WELL AS ADVICE ON WHERE TO PHOTOGRAPH, THINGS TO SEE AND HISTORICAL INFORMATION RELATING TO MY INTERIOR AND ABANDONED ARCHITECTURE LOCATIONS. THINK OF THIS MAGAZINE AS A TYPE OF MEMOIRS OF MY LAST FOUR MONTHS OF NOMADIC TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHY.

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Interviews: 84-Year Old British Photographer Don McCullin (Apollo)

From an Apollo Magazine online interview (Feb 22, 2020):

McCullin is reluctant to place himself in the company of artists, partly because he never wants to feel that he’s ‘arrived’ – ‘The moment that happens, I know I’m finished’ – but also because of the nature of his material. ‘There’s a shadow that Irreconcilable Truths by Don McCullincomes over my life when I think […] that I’ve earned my reputation out of other people’s downfall. I’ve photographed dead people and I’ve photographed dying people, and people looking at me who are about to be murdered in alleyways. So I carry the guilt of survival, the shame of not being able to help dying people.’ 

Don McCullin Vietnam and Berlin Photos from websiteOn top of a hill a few miles from Don McCullin’s house in Somerset is a dew pond, a perfectly circular artificial pond for watering livestock. Nobody knows how long it has been there; some dew ponds date back to prehistoric times, and it’s tempting to think that this one served the Bronze Age hill-fort that overlooks the site. McCullin is obsessed with the pond. For more than 30 years, whenever he has had the time, he has walked up the hill and stood there with his camera waiting for the right moment to take a photograph. Often, the moment never comes: he can spend hours there, just looking. ‘It’s as if it has a hold over me,’ he tells me when I visit him at home in early January. ‘I can’t leave it alone, I photograph it all the time. And yet I think I’ve done my best picture the first time I ever did it. I can’t tell you how.’

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