'Walter Sickert' at Tate Britain

Tate currently has its first major exhibition of works by Sickert in 60 years at Tate Britain. I don't know much about him at all so this was a good way to find out. He had a long career, working from the 1880s to his death in 1942 so he lived and painted through the major art movements of the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. He worked in the studios of both Whistler and Degas and looks to have been particularly influenced by Degas, especially in the subject matter of his paintings. 

The first room of the exhibition is full of rather sombre self-portraits but I quite liked this self-portrait of Sickert as 'The Servant of Abraham' (1929) based on a photo of himself shown next to the painting. His palette for most of his career seems to have been rather dull and, apparently, Degas encouraged him to expand into richer colours.

I much prefer colour so noticed his 'Brighton Pierrots' (1915) straight away with its much richer palette and glowing colours. The costumes of the pierrots, the dusty pink suits, the colourful houses and empty deckchairs all combine to make this a colourful and mysterious painting. Degas had a fascination with music halls and cabarets and Sickert seems to have picked this up as well. Beside the pierrots is 'The Trapeze' (1920) with the vast expanse of canvas tent with the small figure of the trapeze artist about to jump and fly. I immediately thought of 'Miss La La' by Degas and thought this is Sickert's version of Miss La La.

Sickert seems to have had a fascination with Dieppe and Venice where he seems to have returned time and again to paint, as well as with Paris and London. There were quite a few cityscapes of those cities and a room full of the facades of cathedrals. I liked this one 'The Facade of St Jaques' (1902) with it's dramatic light effects as the sun hits the front of the cathedral leaving the street level in shade. I liked the detail of having a sign for a restaurant in the painting because, of course, wherever you go there is always a restaurant or cafe beside a cathedral. Sickert rarely painted the streets of London but I liked this one of the front windows of a drapers shop, 'Easter' (1928), named after the easter bonnets filling the shop window. 

Another painting that called to me from across the room was 'Bathers, Dieppe' (1902) with its vast expanse of sea and the people in their colourful bathing costumes. It reminded me of Sorolla's beach scenes with the excited waves and then I noticed there is no beach. Or sky. It's an odd composition in a way, seemingly focused solely on the middle ground. I like the sea and the many different colours in the sun and shadow as the waves gather and then crash on the shore. I couldn't help but wonder about the group in the black swimming costumes, presumably friends or workers on an outing, and wondered what they might've though about the men wading into the sea in their bright, stripy costumes (possibly the workers' bosses?). 

The final room of the exhibition was full of paintings Sickert did from photographs, including photos in newspapers. He painted a lovely 'Portrait of Degas in 1885' (1928) and painted famous people of the time from photos as well as significant events. These paintings were all in much brighter colours and the paint seems to have been thinned to provide a light covering on the canvas. Despite the brightness of the paintings, the one that touched me was 'The Miner' (1935-6) painted from a press cutting at the time which was displayed in a case nearby showing a miner kissing his wife as he returns to daylight after being on strike underground to shut the pit down. It looks grubby and drab and he carries a water jug under his right arm, other arm round his wife pulling her close. It's close-cropped and that emphasises the power of the image. 

And here is the painting of Degas.

'French Impressions' - Prints at the British Museum

The British Museum has just opened a new, small exhibition about prints-making by the Impressionists and their successors, 'French Impressions: Prints from Manet to Cezanne'. It's upstairs in Room 90, a single room, but it has some great works that are well worth seeing. They seem to be mainly lithographs, rather than other forms of print-making, with some etchings on display as well. I've seen many paintings by some of the artists featured in this exhibition, but those were in oil paints rather than the mainly monochrome prints so it's interesting to see how they manage with a largely monochrome palette.

One of the first prints I saw was a lovely small portrait of the painter Berthe Morisot that also serves as the picture for the poster of the exhibition. It's by Manet, who was friend of hers. You've probably heard of Manet but possibly not heard of Morisot. I saw an exhibition of her works a few years back in Paris and all the exhibits were small, warm and very welcoming. Morisot also has a couple of prints in the exhibition that were more like line drawings, quite delicate and small, one of which was a self-portrait with her daughter.

One of the more experimental print-makers was Degas and there's one of his 'bather' prints on display. Apparently the first time he made this print if came out too dark so all the detail was lost so he scraped it clean and tried again and this is the result. Not as feminine as his pastels but still, obviously, a Degas.

There was, of course, the inevitable print by Toulouse-Lautrec but the one that surprised me was a portrait by Vincent Van Gogh of Dr Gachet, with whom he was staying in Auvers after his release from the mental asylum. It's an etching and is Van Gogh's only etching which he gave to the doctor and his son donated it to the British Museum in 1923. Apparently Dr Gachet taught Vincent how to etch.  

There were a few other portraits in the exhibition and one of my favourites was a portrait of the art dealer Ambroise Vollard by Renoir, a lithograph from 1904. They were friends and I think this comes across in the portrait which seems quite gentle and intimate.

Another portrait I liked was a self-portrait by Cezanne. Apparently Cezanne only made eight prints and this is a lithograph self-portrait from around 1896. He also knew Dr Gachet and stayed with him in Auvers in 1873 (it was a smaller world back then). This doesn't look like any of Cezanne's other self-portraits which were all painted in oil  but is really quite charming, sitting in front of a canvas (or mirror?) he was working on. There was a great exhibition of his portraiture a few years ago that I saw in Paris and in London and it's a great shame that this print wasn't included in it - it would've helped shed more light on his approach to portraiture.

In the display case beside the self-portrait was another of Cezanne's rare prints, this time a print of one of his 'Bathers'.

A final print I'll highlight is a colourful one to show that they also used colour back then and not everything was monochrome. This is another lithograph by Henri Gabriel Ibels from 1893, 'At The Circus, The Clown'. Lovely warm colours and simple lines and so very effective.

If you're in the area you could do worse than pop in to see the exhibition - it's free!

Degas at the National Gallery - 'Drawn in Colour from the Burrell'

Yesterday afternoon I went to a preview of a new exhibition at the National Gallery - 'Drawn in Colour: Degas from the Burrell'. The 'Burrell' refers to the Burrell Collection in Glasgow that is currently closed for refurbishment. The National Gallery seems to have a policy of showing exhibitions in unusual locations at the moment and this exhibition is in the ground floor galleries near the Getty entrance, usually galleries B, C and D (I think). I like this approach that forces us to go to parts of the Gallery we might not normally visit.

The exhibition is made up of various works featuring dancers, horses, intimate moments with women after a bath and combing their hair and some of everyday life such as a pastel of laundry women and others looking at gem stones. My favourites were the dancers. Apparently, Degas attended 54 ballet performances in 1885, many at the Paris Opera. I've got a long way to go to catch up with that kind of record. I particularly liked 'The Rehearsal' with ballet dancers hidden by the spiral staircase and another cut in half by the edge of the paper. These are very specific compositional decisions to achieve the 'modern' effects he wanted.

Another work I really liked about dancers was 'The Red Ballet Skirts' featuring three dancers in their deep red costumes, limbering up and getting ready for a dress rehearsal or a performance. This is a later work and these are not lithe young women - look at the sturdiness of those legs with muscle and power. This is quite a startling work and really stands out in the room of dancers. It's the poster for the exhibition and rightly so.

In contrast see the more delicate and less monumental 'Dancers on a Bench' with the dancers almost like delicate birds fluttering and flapping on a tree branch. You can almost see the quick movements and hear the chatter as the dancers relax during a rehearsal and get ready for the next section of the dance. You just know that the girl sitting down with the fan is the ring-leader of the group, chattering away ten to the dozen.

In the next room are a few works showing women in intimate situations and positions and the most famous is one of the National Gallery's own works, 'After the Bath, Woman drying Herself'. It's always a fascinating work to see, pastel on several sheets of paper. That pose looks uncomfortable so is probably meant to show movement as the woman rocks forward for a moment. All we really see is a naked back with reds and blues of slight shadows as well as flesh tones. It does make me wonder how many towels the woman actually needs after a bath. It's a good job there are some laundresses pictured in the first room of the exhibition to take care of the towels.

It's a relatively small exhibition spread over three of the ground floor gallery rooms so doesn't take a long time to see it but it's good to see these works that rarely leave the Burrell Collection in Glasgow,

'Painters' Paintings' at the National Gallery

The current big exhibition at the National Gallery is 'Painters' Paintings' and that describes it perfectly, showing paintings owned by painters. So we see which paintings by famous artists Freud owned, Matisse owned, Degas owned (he had so many he gets two rooms), Reynolds owned and so on. Each famous painter has a room of his own to show some of the paintings he owned and, presumably, was influenced by.

There are some marvellous paintings in this exhibition - some, I'm sure, most people will have seen since they've been shown in recent exhibitions or are in the national collection but some were new to me and I'm pleased I've had the chance to find some new favourites. I'm very lucky because I could look at these paintings with fresh eyes after my recent course in the history of art at the National Gallery.

One of the paintings in Matisse's collection was 'Combing the Hair' by Degas. It's based on a black and white Japanese print but look at all that red and shades of orange and red. Degas never sold it and Matisse bought after his death, ownership followed by the National gallery. It's an oddly affecting painting with the woman holding onto her hair as a maid brushes it, red hair to match her boudoir.

Another painting that caught my eye was owned by Degas and painted by Georges Jeanniot, a painter I haven't come across before, called 'Conscripts'. It's hung next to Degas's own 'Young Spartans' and you can see the influence. The thing I like about this painting is the clear embarrassment and shame of the young men, stripping together and in front of a much older man as an officer. Heads bowed, hands covering themselves, you can almost feel the embarrassment. It's a very powerful painting.

One of my favourites was a surprisingly small painting by Raphael called 'An Allegory (Vision of a Knight)'. It was owned by Sir Thomas Lawrence (and his room is introduced by a self-portrait of him with baldy head) and I'd happily take it off his hands. It's really small which makes the detail even more marvellous.  Just look at that landscape, suggested by few brush strokes, setting the angels in place as the knight sleeps and dreams of virtues. It can't be a very peaceful slumber in that position but it seems to work for him. I'm not sure why the tree is positioned in the centre of the painting - it probably represents something but I don't know.

Another painting in the Degas rooms (his were separated into the moderns and the old masters) was this portrait of 'Monsieur de Norvins' by Ingres. He was the chief of police in Rome under Napoleon Bonaparte and. from the look of him, you wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley. It's an astonishingly realistic portrait and, in the real thing, you can see the layers of black cloth on his coat and the odd red curtain framing the portrait. He's obviously full of himself and that comes across so well in this portrait. It's life sized and highly finished, an expert portrait from an accomplished portraitist.

The final painting I've chosen in a huge Titian in the final room of the exhibition, 'The Vendramin Family, venerating a Relic of the True Cross'. This was in the Van Dyck collection and takes up a lot of wall space. The first time I saw it I was all ho hum, and then I saw it again and caught the old man's gaze... and he captured me, telling me to remember him and his family. It is an astonishingly powerful painting with three generations of the males in the family but it's the old man that looks straight out of the family portrait right at you, the observer. I will remember.

It's a lovely exhibition and doesn't get too crowded so I'd encourage you to go and see it if you're in London and have an hour or so to spare.