Ben Nicholson

Hare Hill, 1928

There’s a lovely little exhibition of pictures by Ben Nicholson at the Crane Kalman Gallery until the 11th of May, a roomful of his paintings and drawings and collages, and downstairs works by some of his close contemporaries, including Winifred Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth, Alfred Wallis, Joan Miró, Christopher Wood and Alexander Calder. Here are just a few of my favourite Ben Nicholsons. Continue reading “Ben Nicholson”

Frames of reference

The Colour Of Memory

The entrance to the Pierre Bonnard exhibition at Tate Modern is a portal through a giant detail reproduction taken from his painting The Garden of 1936. It’s perhaps his best painting. It’s the one that most draws me in, most like a garden itself with it’s abstract disposition of marks and colours, it reminds me of paintings by Patrick Heron and Gillian Ayres. And there are other paintings here that bring to mind Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Howard Hodgkin, David Hockney. But before all of that, we’re straightaway into a red gallery with ‘hot’ paintings of Bonnard’s mistress, full-frontal nudes and a post-coital bedroom scene. The gardening comes later. Continue reading “The Colour Of Memory”

Frames of reference

Devour

A few mementoes of Jelly Green’s magnificent but all too brief exhibition, Devour, at the Oxo Tower Gallery on London’s South Bank for just four days in early April. At the opening I was running around excitedly with my camera pointing and shooting wildly, trying in vain to absorb it all. The resulting photos are of varying degrees of clarity, but hopefully you’ll get the gist. Continue reading “Devour”

Frames of reference

Lepidopterae

We’ve got a windowful of butterflies to cut out and keep, captivating moments gilded and framed, an April shower of lepidoptera, caught in a dream of waking and sleeping and waking again.

I dreamed I was a butterfly, but then I awoke. Now I do not know whether I was a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am a butterfly dreaming I am a man – Chuang-tzu. Continue reading “Lepidopterae”

Frames of reference

Helmet Heads

A short walk from Annely Juda’s in Dering Street, north across Oxford Street to Cavendish Square, west along Wigmore Street to Manchester Square, and to Hertford House, home of the Wallace Collection – a national museum which displays the art collections brought together by the first four Marquesses of Hertford and Sir Richard Wallace, thought to be the illegitimate son of the 4th Marquess. It was bequeathed to the British nation by Lady Wallace, Sir Richard’s widow, in 1897. Continue reading “Helmet Heads”

Frames of reference