Life, Death and Art
You may have heard of the Pitmen Painters. In 2007, Lee Hall’s play made them quite famous, both in the UK and across the Atlantic, but first, there was the book that inspired the play, written by William Feaver, a…
The Painter of the Future
We're 10% of the way through 2023, but still feeling the chill of winter, of course, so I hope the bright red, above, warms you up a bit! It’s a detail from a painting by Barnett Newman, actually, titled Who’s…
Seeing and Feeling
Oskar Kokoschka, Polperro II (1938) Kokoschka's lively composition is loaded with juicy brushstrokes. Under his impetuous hand, the clouds race across the sky, trees sway in the breeze and the quayside bustles. When I was very young, we'd go on…
“The Art Itself is Nature”
At the end of last year, I wrote a post about Diane Duyser, who made headlines when she saw the Virgin Mary looking back at her from her cheese toastie. She made a shrine for the holy toastie in the…
A Busman’s Holiday
This summer, during the worst of the British heatwave, I was in Madeira, where the sun rises late and its heat is tempered by balmy, sea breezes. I've visited the island regularly over the past few years, but this time,…
The Sky Is The Limit
¡Hola! Here's the Montgó massif in Spain, a breathtaking lump of rock that rises 750 metres above the villa where I based my first painting holiday in two years, amply illustrating, in two photographs, my constant adjuration to students of…
From penciller to painter
A fortnight ago, while Franklin was thrashing about in frustration, looking for anything Eunice might have missed, I drove down the A303, with a watchful eye on every swaying tree and both hands firmly on the wheel, to spend a…
Making light of play
Back in October, my partner, Petra and I were lucky enough to escape to Madeira for the half term and after verifying our COVID credentials and collecting our free bananas at the airport, spent ten blissfully uneventful days in a…
Sculpting With Colour
"Le plaisir delicieux et toujours nouveau d'un occupation inutile."* I'm very fond of this quotation from Henri de Régnier, which Maurice Ravel inscribed on the title page of his score for Valses Nobles et Sentimentales. The composer may have been satirising…