Sophie Taeuber-Arp at Tate Modern

Sophie Taeuber-Arp isn't as well known an artist as she should be and Tate Modern has put on the first ever retrospective of her work in Britain and it is a joyous celebration of her life and work. Born in Switzerland in 1889, she was educated and went to art school in Munich, met her husband Hans Arp (also an artist), became part of the dada movement, exhibited with Kandinsky and Sonia Delaunay and sadly died in Switzerland in 1943. I hadn't heard of her before this exhibition but she is now firmly on my radar.

Something I immediately noticed was that her works were relatively small in size and were created for the 'average' home. They weren't created as big public works that could be bought by the rich or public institutions, these are works for me and you. They are also very colourful and largely abstract. Apparently Taeuber-Arp came to abstraction through dissecting textiles and many, at least the early works, are quite linear in composition. She also used a wide range of materials in her work, using graphite, crayons, gouache, watercolour, oils and other media like wool to make 'appliqué paintings'. 

As you'd expect from a dadaist she was involved in lots of different things within the movement and turned her hand to most things. She created puppets for the Swiss Marionette Theatre and a series of 'dada heads' like hat stands and she turned the wood herself. One of the 'heads' is a portrait of her husband. I loved the puppets and it would be fun to see them in action (I think there's a video in the exhibition but I missed it). 

As well as being an artist Taeuber-Arp was also an architect and designer and some of her furniture is on display, all modular and functional and could easily be in a furniture shop today. There's also a gorgeous rug hung on the wall that she designed and made and it looked very deep and rich. She used her rugs and tapestries as the basis for creating other designs and there's a cabinet full of her experimental watercolour designs based on the rug. I like the idea of riffing on a design, developing it for a different work. 

As I walked through the exhibition I noticed that the colour palette became deeper and richer before becoming very sparse as I came to her later works. The works became more angular and geometrical as she delved deeper into her own abstraction. Some of the later works were simple line drawings in graphite and/or ink from during the Second World War when she didn't have access to a studio or lots of materials. There's also a gorgeous landscape drawn entirely in graphite that shows what a great draughtswoman she was. 

Sadly, Sophie died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty stove as she sheltered from the war in Switzerland in 1943 at the age of 53. It's very sad that we don't have her more mature works - who knows what she might have created after the war? Her friend Sonia Delaunay 'discovered' black in her 60s - what would Sophie have discovered?

Sophie lived and created in one of the most artistically stimulating times - the first half of the 20th Century. Der Blaue Reiter were working in Munich when she was there and dada sprung into life when she was ready to create, just as with Sonia Delaunay. There's a lovely photo of Sophie and Sonia in beachwear that Sonia designed at the opening of the exhibition. Sophie exhibited over the years with Sonia and with Vassily Kandinsky so that's pretty good company to be in. She discovered her own form of abstraction and pursued it for the rest of her life. I assume she isn't more well-known partly because she died during the war so wasn't there to celebrate the peace and create more great works. I wonder how she would have responded to the Abstract Expressionists and their huge canvases.  

This really is a very good exhibition that provides a good selection of her works across her lifetime. When I was there it was busy with a steady stream of people but not crowded, and I liked that since I could linger over the details of paintings without feeling I was hogging them. It seems to have been an unexpected success since Tate has run out of catalogues and is having to get more reprinted despite it being open for another couple of months. I'll definitely go back to see it again after the school holidays to spend more time with this wonderful artist. I need to learn more.

Favourite Paintings: 'Orange Balloon (4 Paul Adams)' by Sir Frank Bowling

I had no idea who Frank Bowling, now Sir Frank Bowling, was when I went to see a retrospective of his work at Tate Britain in 2019 but I soon perked up when I saw the colours he discovered. I love the idea of a young Guyanese man coming to London to become a poet and artist, going to art school with David Hockney and then becoming a celebrated artist with studios in London and New York who is still painting and creating today. But I'd never heard of him. 

I saw many of his paintings in the retrospective exhibition but the one that stays with me is 'Orange Balloon (4 Paul Adams)'. Paul Adams was the first black player on the South African cricket team after apartheid and this is a tribute to him. I wonder what he thought of the painting. The painting is over 6' tall so is a big piece.

Sir Frank clearly loves his colours, his abstract expressionism and his acrylic paints. He still paints at the age of 87 and his grandchildren help to deliver his vision by manipulating the paints on his behalf, just as Matisse had assistants to help with his cut-outs. 

'Artemisia' at the National Gallery

The first major exhibition of paintings by Artemisia Gentileschi in the UK has just opened at the National Gallery in London and it's well worth visiting. She's not a terribly well known artist so hopefully this exhibition will change that and give her the credit she deserves. Born in 1593, her father was an artist and follower of Caravaggio and that influenced her own paintings. She was raped by an artist friend of her dad's who was successfully prosecuted and she is noted for her depictions of powerful women, occasionally cutting off mens' heads. 

She left Rome for Florence where she became the first woman admitted to the Accademia, lived in Venice and Naples, was commissioned by Charles I and spent time in London with her dad who died here and then she returned to Italy. She had children, had love affairs and enjoyed an international reputation as an artist at the time but that reputation diminished over the years and is only now being rediscovered.

'Artemisia' is in the exhibition suite in the Sainsbury Wing and is quite large and spread out. Most of her paintings are large and it doesn't take many to fill up the walls of each room. There are also a few original letters from her and her husband with the curly script you'd expect from the first half of the 1600s. You need to be masked to get into the National Gallery at the allotted time on your ticket, then head downstairs to the exhibition space and join a short queue to get into the exhibition. There's a free audioguide to the exhibition you can stream and listen to on your own device of choice if you want to. And then in you go to the exhibition.

Artemisia seems to have had a stock of subjects she painted and painted again, such as Judith cutting off the head of Holofernes, sometimes with spouts of blood and other times with dribbles. Also Susanna and the Elders where the old men spy on the youthful Susanna and threaten to report her as whore unless she has sex with them. Susanna is definitely the victim of men in these paintings, trying to cover her nakedness from the lecherous old men.

It's difficult not to associate these paintings with her experience of being raped as a girl/young woman. There are also paintings of the death of Cleopatra and the asp, a powerful queen choosing death over slavery. There's a strong sense of morality, of nobility, in these paintings. Better to die in control of one's destiny than die as a slave. 

She used her own image as the basis for some of her paintings, such as her painting of Saint Catherine with her wheel symbol and holding the palm leaf of a martyr which is in the National Gallery collection and herself as a painter in the 'Allegory of Painting' in the Royal Collection. There's also a self-portrait of her as a lute player. I prefer the Saint Catherine painting since we see the face almost full on with a direct gaze, a confident woman knowing her fate and willing to face it without fear or shame.

It's well worth seeing this exhibition if you can, the first exhibition of her work in the UK. She led a colourful life and it's been interesting finding out more about her.