We went up to Oxford last weekend to meet up with the in-laws and visit the Ashmolean. Degas to Picasso was perhaps a misnomer for the exhibition, which ranged rather more widely, collecting influences from the late eighteenth century onwards. Although there were a lot of works in the exhibition, many of them were pencil drawings or sketches for ( Read more... )

None for ages, and then two come along at once. Last year, 82 portraits and 1 still-life; this year, the Tate's blockbuster Hockney exhibition. We booked well in advance and visited last Saturday. It was, of course, busy; but as usual, the rooms further into the exhibition became more comfortable. The exhibition takes a broadly chronological ( Read more... )

Having failed to be organised enough to get in to the Hockney exhibition at the RA a few years ago, we booked in advance for 82 portraits and 1 still-life, although in the end it wasn't all that busy. The works are a series Hockney began in 2013 of portraits of friends and family, all painted on identically-sized canvases (the still-life is from a ( Read more... )

Dad was passing through on Friday, after a holiday in Dorset. Looking for venues close to his travel route, we'd originally intended to go to Nymans, but the weather was poor, so we opted for Chartwell instead. It was quite busy but not overwhelmingly so, and we had a look at some of the gardens, the studio (now housing a number of Churchill's ( Read more... )

None for ages, and then two come along at once, as we headed to Dulwich Picture Gallery again yesterday for the Amazing World of M C Escher exhibition. Expecting it to be popular we had pre-booked and it was busy, though manageably so. Despite the popularity of so many works, it was definitely worth seeing them up close; their very nature means ( Read more... )

Book Review: A Japanese Artist in London, by Yoshio Markino
I was led to this book by notes in the foreword to one of Chiang Yee's Silent Traveller books, citing it as a predecessor. Markino arrived in London in 1897, aged 27, having first travelled from Japan to America. He found California quite unwelcoming and racist, and his writing shows how ( Read more... )

Book Review: The Merchants of Light - A Novel of Venice, by Marta Maretich
This was a spontaneous purchase from the work book sale. The blurb described the book as set in Würzburg at the end of World War II, and in eighteenth century Venice, and sounded intriguing. The cover was a detail from The Banquet of Cleopatra by Giambattista Tiepolo ( Read more... )

Book Review: The Silent Traveller in London, by Chiang Yee
This is the second in Chiang's Silent Traveller series, and the third I've read. I did find it somewhat different in character from the Lakeland and Oxford books; Chiang contrasts life in London with corresponding topics in his native China, often very clearly for the purpose of ( Read more... )

Reading Film Theatre was busier than I have seen it for a long time yesterday evening, when I went to see Mr Turner. Timothy Spall gives the title role character though not really charm, with little in the way of dialogue but much in the way of grunts. The film starts in the middle, I think, as Turner returns to London from a trip to the ( Read more... )

Last Thursday I ventured northwards to see my parents for the weekend. After a missing bus (I didn't miss it; the bus was definitely missing), and a 20-minute walk to catch the next one, which suffered a series of delays, I had to run to catch the train from Reading, but from then onwards, the journey was fine.

On Friday we headed out to Blackwell ( Read more... )