To the Garden Museum, in Lambeth, a museum I’d not visited nor indeed knew existed before now. Of all the small, quaint museums devoted to minor subjects that can be found in London, few can be more quaint yet more rich in interest than the Garden Museum. It is constructed out of a medieval church,Read More
On steps leading down to the pebble beach at Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey, the words of an uncredited poem are painted. The white lettering has worn away to invisibility in some places, nor is it possible to see the text in its entirety in one view, as half has to be read fromRead More
To the Royal Academy on a Friday evening, joining those neglectful souls rushing to see the Bill Viola / Michelangelo exhibition before it closes (on March 31st). It was very impressive – it could hardly have been otherwise. The exhibition brings together the work of video artist (for want of a better term) Bill Viola,Read More
There was a piece in The Times recently in which assorted experts – artists, art historians, gallery owners, critics – were asked to tell us the best way to appreciate a painting. Their responses ranged from the practical (choosing the picture you admire and devoting deep time to it), to the impractical (visit the galleryRead More
Next up in this short series of posts on my cultural highlights for 2017 is art works. So, a minimum of words, letting a few favourite pictures seen this year speak for themselves, but naming the gallery where I saw each work (which is not necessarily its permanent home) as well as art and artist.
The Lake District is my home from home. I have been coming here for years, the first time on a family holiday when I was eight or so. I became entranced by the rugged beauty of the places, the clearness of the rivers, the colours and roundness of the stones, the single-word poems that wereRead More
To Bologna for a few days, mostly on film matters, but I also found time to visit the Joan Miró exhibition at the Palazzo Albergati. The seventeenth century building is one of those grand palaces dotted about the city whose pomp is now past, but whose pretensions and hauteur still linger on. It serves asRead More
I’m just back from Helsinki, a delightful city, easy to warm to and welcoming in every degree. I liked the even line of the buildings (Helsinki has no skyscrapers, and almost every building in the city centre whether new or old is four or five stories high, giving a great sense of harmony about theRead More
Cricket is first and foremost a dramatic spectacle. It belongs with the theatre, ballet, opera and the dance … It is so organized that at all times it is compelled to reproduce the central action which characterizes all good drama from the days of the Greeks to our own; two individuals are pitted against eachRead More
Contrary to conventional wisdom, I like to judge a book by its cover. If the cover looks good, then the results inside tend to be good also. The better the content, the more inspired the jacket designer must feel. Certainly this has been my rule when judging the use of paintings for book covers. IRead More