RA Magazine Spring 2014

ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS MAGAZINE NUMBER 122 SPRING 2014 RENAISSANCE IMPRESSIONS SENSING SPACES PREMIUMS

ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS MAGAZINE NO. 122 / SPRING 2014 / £4.95

Renaissance Impressions

Revelations in print

Artists who collect Baselitz, Hodgkin, Hirst and Phillips

Scents and sensibility Jo Malone visits Sensing Spaces

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Sculptors’ Prints & Drawings 24th February - 4th April Our annual exhibition of works on paper featuring prints & drawings by Modern and contemporary sculptors

GALLERY PANGOLIN CHALFORD - GLOS - GL6 8NT 01453 889765 gallery@pangolin-editions.com www.gallery-pangolin.com Moon of Alabama 1963 Lynn Chadwick

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Ralph BRown Ra

sculptuRe in the home

A MeMoriAl exhibition 28 February - 29 March

9 April - 17 May

images: ralph brown & Meatporters, 1959; reg butler Study for Fetish & lynn Chadwick Watchers with ernest race Furniture

RA SPRING 14.indd 1

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Pangolin london, Kings Place, n1 9AG tel: 020 7520 1480 www.pangolinlondon.com

PANGOLIN

Courtesy of the artists estate & Jorge lewinski

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LONDON

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Melita Denaro — Whatever one longs for is

9 – 31 May 2014

John Martin Gallery 38 Albemarle Street London, W1S 4 JG

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T +44 (0)20 7499 1314 info@jmlondon.com

catalogue available www.jmlondon.com

— Talking to Bernard after a stormy crossing and him saying how does the boat stick it through rough seas. 3 Feb 2013 oil on board, 13½ x 14¾ inches,

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PAINTINGS, CERAMICS, TEXTILES AND PRINTS

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Michael Craig-Martin Objects of our time 28 March – 2 May 2014 (closed 18-21 April)

The Alan Cristea Gallery at 31&34 Cork St. London W1S 3NU Telephone +44(0)20 7439 1866 Facsimile +44(0)20 7439 1874

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Gillian Ayres Tivoli 2011. Woodcut in 16 colours, Alan Cristea Gallery

Royal Academy of Arts Burlington House · Piccadilly London W 1 J 0 BD

Thursday 24 April 10am to 6pm Friday 25 April 10am to 10pm Saturday 26 April 10am to 6pm Sunday 27 April 10am to 6pm Enquiries: 020 7439 2000 info@londonprintfair.com

www.londonprintfair.com @Londonprintfair

The London Original Print Fair

ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS MAGAZINE NO. 122 / SPRING 2014

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Living colour ‘Alan Davie RA has developed his fluid, playful, improvisatory style on canvas as well as in life’ FIONA MADDOCKS

Features 42

Out of the shadows Anne Desmet RA charts the Renaissance revolution in woodcut printmaking

48 Learning by making

Step by step, Stephen Chambers RA explains how to make a chiaroscuro woodcut

50 Cool, calm and collected

Why do artists collect art? Martin Gayford speaks to some eminent artist collectors

56 Seeing scents

Sam Phillips takes fragrance designer Jo Malone on an olfactory tour of the RA’s ‘Sensing Spaces’

60 Under the influence

50

P H OTO © E AMONN MCCABE . © THE COLLECTION OF HOWARD HODGKIN . © B A R F O R D S CU L P T U R ES

Cool, calm and collected Howard Hodgkin described collecting art as ‘a creative act joining together disparate things. A great collection certainly has a character of its own’ MARTIN GAYFORD

Colin Perry finds out what’s inspiring the RA’s second-year students in the run-up to ‘Premiums’

64 Man of mettle

Anthony Caro RA changed the course of sculpture. Norman Foster RA celebrates his life

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Man of mettle ‘Caro’s breadth of scale has architectural parallels in its range, from pieces small enough to sit on a tabletop to those that create spaces the size of a dwelling’ NORMAN FOSTER RA

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Exhibition Diary Editorial Contributors How to get more from RA Magazine Preview UK Matisse; William Kent; Lundahl and Seitl; Vikings; James Turrell; Helen Frankenthaler; Veronese; First World War portraits; London Original Print Fair Preview International El Greco in Toledo and the Fin-de-Siècle Museum, Brussels Preview Books Grey scales; Bosch; Mies; The Self-Portrait Academy Artists In the Studio with Alan Davie; Tess Jaray’s epiphany; Tim Shaw; Michael Craig-Martin Debate The Question: Will there be fewer fine artists in the future? Why quilts are art; City of London architecture; Events & Lectures Listings Readers’ Offers Academy News The new RA website; The Academy’s expansion plans; Michael Kenny; Atelier café; In memoriam: Maurice Cockrill Inside Story: Tom Stuart-Smith SPRING 2014 | RA MAGAZINE 7

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LY N N C H A D W I C K ( 1 9 1 4 - 2 0 0 3 ) A CENTENARY EXHIBITION

1 5 M AY – 7 J U N E 2 0 1 4 For over 30 years Osborne Samuel have specialised in the work of Lynn Chadwick, arranging many gallery and museum exhibitions around the world. This year we celebrate the centenary of the artist’s birth with a major retrospective at the gallery.

Stranger VII, 1959 Bronze Edition of 6 Height: 83 cm Width: 106 cm Reference: Farr & Chadwick 314

Exhibition catalogue available on request.

Copies of Lynn Chadwick by Michael Bird, the new definitive monograph, will be available at the exhibition at a special pre-publication price.

23a Bruton Street London W1J 6QG T: 020 7493 7939 info@osbornesamuel.com www.osbornesamuel.com

What’s on at the Royal Academy this spring

Exhibition Diary Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined

Renaissance Impressions Chiaroscuro Woodcuts from the Collections of Georg Baselitz and the Albertina, Vienna

Main Galleries Royal Academy of Arts 25 January to 6 April

The Sackler Wing Royal Academy of Arts 15 March to 8 June The RA closes at 1pm, 4 June

PHOTO © ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS , LONDON , 2014/PHOTO JAMES HARRIS/© P E ZO VO N EL L R I CHS H AUS EN . © E V ELY N O ’ CO N N O R

This ground-breaking exhibition emphasises our human encounter with architecture, providing a chance to experience space through the senses of smell, sight and touch. Going beyond the scale models and working drawings of conventional architecture shows, the RA has invited internationally renowned architects from across the world to create new architectural works for visitors to explore in the Academy’s neoclassical galleries.

Organised by the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and the Albertina, Vienna. 2009-2016 Season supported

by JTI. Supported by Edwards Wildman Discover the art of the chiaroscuro woodcut in this exhibition of 150 exquisite prints. Often based on designs by masters such as Parmigianino, Raphael and Titian, these ambitious works were the first coloured prints, making dramatic use of light and shadow to suggest volume and depth. Rare examples from the collections of artist Georg Baselitz Hon RA and Vienna’s Albertina demonstrate this artistic development.

Friends Extended Opening Wed 26 March, 8.30-10am

London Original Print Fair Main Galleries Royal Academy of Arts 24 to 27 April

Installation (Blue Pavilion), 2014, by Pezo von Ellrichshausen, on show in ‘Sensing Spaces’

The London Original Print Fair shows outstanding works across the history of printmaking, from early woodcuts by Dürer to editions by contemporary artists such as David Hockney RA. The world’s longest-running print fair offers the chance to browse, learn about and buy prints at a wide range of prices.

Premiums Interim Projects Burlington Gardens Royal Academy of Arts 7 to 19 March

RA Schools sponsored by Newton Investment Management

Crafted: Makers of the Exceptional

Second-year RA Schools’ students show painting, performance, photography, video, sculpture and site-specific installations.

Burlington Gardens Royal Academy of Arts 3 to 5 April

A showcase of the best of British craft. Some of our finest designers present highly crafted jewellery, textiles, glasswork and furniture.

Friends Preview Days Wed 12 March, 10am-8.30pm Thur 13 March, 10am-6pm Fri 14 March, 10am-6pm

Friends Preview Day Fri 7 March, 8.30-10am

Where the black hole became a star, 2013, by Evelyn O’Connor, who exhibits in this year’s ‘Premiums Interim Projects’

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MADE IN BRITAIN LONDON 1 APRIL 2014

Sotheby’s is pleased to announce the inaugural Made in Britain auction, taking place 1 April 2014 in London. The sale will celebrate twentieth century British creativity across the disciplines of Fine Art, Prints, Sculpture, Photography, Studio Ceramics, Silver, Furniture and Modern Design.

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RICHARD HAMILTON My Marilyn (L. 59), 1965 Estimate £20,000–25,000 Enquiries +44 (0)20 7293 5268 lydia.wingfielddigby@sothebys.com Register now at sothebys.com

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Exhibition Diary Norman Stevens ARA Visitor information Selected Prints Tennant Gallery, Royal Academy of Arts, until 25 May

Renowned for his technical mastery, Norman Stevens ARA (1937-88) produced works in a wide variety of print media that are poetic evocations of landscape, buildings and other structures.

Friends benefits

Levens Hall Garden, 1985, a screenprint by Norman Stevens ARA

Friends of the RA enjoy free entry to all of the RA’s exhibitions, with a guest (one family adult) and up to four family children under 16, and all-day access to the Keeper’s House. Friends can also view exhibitions before the public at Friends Preview Days, and they receive RA Magazine quarterly, in March, May, September and November. Friends also receive a monthly e-newsletter with regular information on exhibitions, events and news at the RA. For more details on Friends membership call 020 7300 5664, or visit www.royalacademy.org.uk/friends

Anselm Kiefer in conversation, ahead of his RA retrospective

© ES TAT E O F T H E A R T IS T. P H OTO © A N N A S CH O R I

Special Event Main Galleries Royal Academy of Arts 1 April, 6.45pm

In the run-up to his major UK retrospective at the RA this autumn (27 Sep–14 Dec), Anselm Kiefer Hon RA (left) discusses his work with broadcaster and art historian Tim Marlow. The celebrated German artist makes paintings, sculptures, artist’s books and entire environments that respond to both past masters and history itself.

His towering sculpture, Jericho, stood in the RA courtyard in 2007. To book tickets, visit www.royalacademy.org.uk.

Watch online This event

will be recorded and available to view on the RA website.

Royal Academy of Arts Burlington House, Piccadilly London W1J 0BD

For general enquiries, luggage restrictions and full visitor information, call 020 7300 8000 or visit www.royalacademy.org.uk Opening hours for the Royal Academy Mon-Sun 10am-6pm

(last entry 5.30pm) except Fri 10am10pm (last entry 9.30pm). The RA Shop closes 15 minutes before the galleries. Early closures 6pm Fri 18 April, 1pm Wed 4 June; closed all day Mon 23 June. The Tennant Gallery Tue-Fri 10am-4pm; Sat-Sun 10am-6pm. The Restaurant SatThur 10am-5.30pm; Fri 10am-9.30pm (to book call 020 7300 5608).

The Keeper’s House Mon-Thur

10am-11.30pm; Fri-Sat 10ammidnight; Sun 10am-6pm. Late opening at 11am, Tue 11 March.

Early closure at 6pm, Mon 21 April.

The Keeper’s House Restaurant

Mon-Sat 12-3pm for Friends and from 5.30pm for the public (to book call 020 7300 5881) Access

Disabled visitors see page 70.

Visually impaired visitors have access to large-print labels in the galleries and on the RA website

Coming soon Summer Exhibition

9 June to 17 August The RA is closed Mon 23 June Friends Preview Days Fri 6 June, 10am-10pm Sat 7 June, 10am-8.30pm Sun 8 June, 10am-8.30pm

Dennis Hopper: The Lost Album

26 June to 25 August

Friends Preview Day Wed 25 June, 10am-8.30pm Radical Geometry: Modern Art of South America from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection

5 July to 28 September

Friends Preview Days Wed 2 July, 10am-8.30pm Thur 3 July, 10am-6pm Fri 4 July, 10am-6pm

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Luke Elwes New Work 11th - 27th March Catalogue available

g a l l e r y

67 MORTIMER STREET London W1W 7SE

t: 0207 580 4360

-

New location

e: info@adamgallery.com www.adamgallery.com

Eduardo Chillida Graphic Works 1st - 25th April Catalogue available

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Introducing this issue

Editorial

Diogenes, c.1527, by Ugo da Carpi after Parmigianino

A L B ER T I N A , V I EN N A / P H OTO A L B ER T I N A , V I EN N A

Obsessive compulsions Howard Hodgkin says he does it out of ‘necessity as well as passion’, calling it ‘a disease’. Damien Hirst admits that it’s a ‘horrifically addictive, crazy pursuit’. Tom Phillips RA explains it as a form of ‘psychopathology’, while Lucian Freud described it as a ‘way to thicken your life’.

Collecting art can have a special hold on artists, as critic Martin Gayford discovers in this issue. Following his discussions with a select group of artist-collectors, Gayford concludes that, for artists, collecting can be both ‘an obsessive compulsion and – at least potentially – a creative act’, whether their acquisitions are African artworks, Mughal miniatures or modern masterpieces (page 50). Georg Baselitz Hon RA tells Gayford that his collection of 16th-century chiaroscuro woodcuts is a ‘visual reference library’ that has informed both his understanding of late Renaissance art and his own experiments in printmaking. The German artist’s holdings are the best in private hands; this spring these woodcuts are presented at the Academy alongside examples from the Albertina in Vienna in

‘Renaissance Impressions’. As the printmaker Anne Desmet RA explains, chiaroscuro printmaking was a pivotal moment in art history, in which light and shade – and consequent depth and drama – came to the medium for the first time (page 42). Many of the works are based on the designs of great Renaissance artists such as Parmigianino, Raphael and Titian, and they often appear remarkably modern. Intrigued by these centuries-old works, artist Stephen Chambers RA recently set out to create his own chiaroscuro print – he describes the process in a step-by-step guide in this magazine (page 48).

While Desmet and Chambers explore one of Baselitz’s obsessions in these pages, Jo Malone examines her abiding passion: our sense of smell.

The fragrance designer visited the Academy’s celebrated ‘Sensing Spaces’ show and reveals her rich sensory response to Kengo Kuma’s aromatic architecture (page 56). Elsewhere in this issue Colin Perry shows us the objects and ideas that are obsessing RA Schools’ art students (page 60).

A group of second-year students, halfway through their postgraduate course, display their work at the Academy this season in ‘Premiums Interims Projects’, and their influences include number sequences, meteorites, cartoon characters and Melanesian cults – and even woodcuts, this time Japanese rather than European. Today’s emerging artists clearly have no hang-ups about from where to draw their inspiration.

Inspiration is the subject of ‘Epiphany’, a new series about moments of revelation in a Royal Academician’s life. Tess Jaray RA (page 37) recalls three key turning points that helped shape her understanding of art, two as a young artist and one more recently, when she encountered the work of Ghanaian artist El Anatsui.

We also launch a new ‘Debate’ section in which artists and thinkers voice their opinions about our visual culture (page 66). You can go online to post your comments on these subjects – and suggest subjects that RA Magazine could debate in future.

Simply follow the links at the end of each article.

Cornelia Parker RA and Jennifer Zielinska – who helps organise the RA’s programme for A-level students – debate whether there will be fewer artists in future, given the circumstances of the art world and art education today. Although they have different perspectives, they both fear that the English Baccalaureate has sidelined art for secondary-school students. It is clear that we must nurture artists young and old – and their obsessions – if we want our culture to continue to be so rich. — SAM PHILLIPS, EDITOR

EDITORIAL Publisher Nick Tite Editor Sam Phillips Assistant Editor Eleanor Mills Design and Art Direction Design by St Sub-Editor Gill Crabbe Editorial Intern Rosanna Hawkins Proofreader Vicky Wilson Editorial Advisers Jerry Brotton,

Richard Cork, Liz Horne, Fiona Maddocks, Chris Orr RA, Eric Parry RA, Charles Saumarez Smith, Mark Seaman, Giles Waterfield and Sarah Whitfield Digital content Kate Huckle, Amy Macpherson Editorial enquiries 020 7300 5820; ramagazine@royalacademy.org.uk To comment on RA Magazine

reply.ramagazine@royalacademy.org.uk ADVERTISING AND PRODUCTION Advertising Manager

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Kim Jenner 020 7300 5658; kim.jenner@royalacademy.org.uk Listings Editor Sarah Bolwell Advertising Production Catherine Cartwright 020 7300 5657; catherine. cartwright@royalacademy.org.uk Classifieds Janet Durbin 01625 583 180 SUBSCRIPTIONS

RA Magazine is published quarterly in March, May, September and November and mailed to Friends of the Royal Academy of Arts as part of their Friends membership.

To become a Friend

£107 Standard Friends (£97 Direct Debit) £150 Joint Friends (£140 Direct Debit) £49 Young Friends (aged between 16 and 25) Friends enquiries 020 7300 5664; friend. enquiries@royalacademy.org.uk www.royalacademy.org.uk/friends To subscribe to RA Magazine

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Colour reproduction by Wings. Printed by Wyndeham Group. Published 3 March 2014 © 2014 Royal Academy of Arts ISSN 0956-9332 The opinions in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the Royal Academy of Arts.

All reasonable attempts have been made to clear copyright before publication

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Contributors FRANCESCO BONGIORNI

is an illustrator. He has contributed to the New York Times, the Guardian and the New Yorker.

HARRY BORDEN has won two World Press Photo Awards and has exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery.

The International Art Fair for Contemporary Objects 9—12 May 2014 Saatchi Gallery, London collect2014.org.uk Sign up to the Crafts Council E-newsletter and be the first to hear about early bird tickets

STEPHEN CHAMBERS RA

is a painter and printmaker.

TRACY CHEVALIER is an American writer based in London.

Her novels include Girl with a Pearl Earring (1999) and The Last Runaway (HarperCollins, 2013).

RICHARD CORK is an art critic, curator and broadcaster.

He is author of The Healing Presence of Art: A History of Western Art in Hospitals (Yale, 2012).

ANNE DESMET RA is a printmaker and former Editor of Printmaking Today. She shows wood engravings at the Brook Gallery stand at this year’s London Original Print Fair. Her solo show at Editions Ltd in Liverpool opens on 26 June.

SARAH DUNANT is a historian, broadcaster and novelist. Her most recent book is Blood & Beauty (Virago, 2013).

EDMUND FAWCETT was

the Economist’s Bureau Chief in Washington, Paris and Berlin, as well as its Books and Arts Editor. His book, Liberalism: The Life of an Idea, comes out in May (Princeton University Press).

NORMAN FOSTER RA is a world-renowned architect. His firm Foster + Partners has recently submitted a proposal for a 136mile elevated cycle route above London’s rail lines.

LAURA GASCOIGNE is a freelance arts writer, who is currently art critic of the Tablet.

MARTIN GAYFORD is a writer and art critic. His most recent book is Michelangelo: His Epic Life (Fig Tree, 2013). Rendezvous with Art is published by this autumn.

Crafts Council Registered Charity Number: 280956 Yufuku Gallery, Japan at COLLECT 2013 Photo: Sophie Mutevelian

JAMES HALL is an art critic and historian. His book, The Self-Portrait: A Cultural History, is published in March by Thames & Hudson.

BEN HAMMERSLEY is a writer and technologist, and author of Now for Then: How to Face the Digital Future without Fear published by Hodder (2012).

MARK HAMPSON is an artist and Head of Material Processes at the RA Schools.

OWEN HOPKINS is the RA’s Architecture Programme Manager.

He is currently writing a book on the history of Nicholas Hawksmoor’s architecture.

TESS JARAY RA is a painter whose new monograph, The Art of Tess Jaray (2014), is published

by Ridinghouse.

RICHARD KIRWAN is an artist and Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at the RA Schools and Goldsmiths, University of London.

FIONA MADDOCKS is a journalist and broadcaster. She is Chief Music Critic of the Observer.

EAMONN MCCABE is a photographer and former Picture Editor of the Guardian. He has work in the National Portrait Gallery collection and has produced several books on photography.

MALI MORRIS RA has exhibited widely in the UK. Her show with Stephen Lewis, ‘Odelay & Wishpool’, is at Kapil Jariwala, London (2 May–28 June).

WILLIAM PALIN is an architectural writer and Conservation Director at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich.

CORNELIA PARKER RA is an artist. She is the 2014 Hogarth Fellow for the Foundling Museum, London, and her solo show, ‘Truth to Materials’, is at Galerie Guy Bärtschi, Geneva (until 21 March).

COLIN PERRY is an art writer and has contributed to Art Monthly and Frieze. He is the Reviews Editor of the moving image journal MIRAJ. SIMON WILSON is an art historian and a columnist for this magazine.

JENNIFER ZIELINSKA assists the co-ordination of the RA’s attRAct programme for A-level students.

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Extra Content

How to get more from RA Magazine If you want to know more about the topics featured in RA Magazine you can explore extra content online.

Simply keep an eye out for a red ‘plus’ icon at the end of articles in this magazine. These icons show you where to find extra digital content related to articles, including extracts from art books, audio interviews with contemporary artists, virtual studio visits and video tours of exhibitions. Just type the short links next to the icon into your computer, tablet or smartphone to enjoy a wealth of additional material.

Anthony Caro RA at his retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery, London, 1963. In the background (from left) are Pompadour, 1963, Twenty Four Hours, 1960, and Month of May, 1963 monumental works that emerged in later decades.

I remember the experience of seeing my first Caro – on returning from graduate studies in the United States in 1963 – at his solo show in London’s Whitechapel Gallery (above). The work was a brightly painted assemblage of structural steel sections welded together that sat directly on the floor with a conspicuous absence of any podium.

At the time it was a shockingly radical departure from anything that I had experienced before as sculpture.

Tony’s breadth of scale has architectural parallels in its range, from pieces small enough to sit on a tabletop to those that create spaces the size of a dwelling. I can recall his monumental works that were equally at home in the cavernous entrance space of the Tate Gallery, as they were sitting in the green landscape of Goodwood.

I recall the magnificent ziggurat of a work that started life indoors as Halifax Steps – Ziggurats and Spirals (1994) and which was later transformed outdoors to become Goodwood Steps (1996). In a

© B A R FO R D S CU L P T U R ES

na and I arrived for the opening on a bright mmer’s morning in the setting of the rolling ape of Roche Court in Wiltshire. I was asked a few words in praise of the artists; Sheila’s n the estate buildings and Tony’s set in the ws. It was a beautiful event and after the nies we took a walk to view the sculptures, our favourites as we went along. was only afterwards that we were to tand the significance of this body of work o, produced in 1974. Partly the realisation hrough conversations with Tony but it was e result of reading interviews and looking e sculptures in the context of what came and then followed. Here, for the first time, st was working directly with heavy industry t of doors in the making of his work. e York Steel Company, based in Toronto, ed cranes and moving equipment that d Tony to manipulate large raw metal n space, turning heavy elements with rative ease and tack welding them together r reappraisal. This was a quantum leap from lities that his Camden workshop/studio ered and it shows in the scale and materiality e works. They emerged over a period rate visits, in between which a small team nger collaborators would be following h the artist’s directives. This process also aro a second opportunity to make changes aps another reason why this group of res appears so resolved. It seems to me ey also paved the way for a new body of

‘...the aesthetic charge from his sculpture is undiminished and that is a legacy that will endure far beyond his lifespan’

such liberty.

As Caro wrote later, ‘…since sculpture conversation the replace noted Spanish sculptor These with links the RA Magazine App that is essentially physical, sculptors tend to think Eduardo Chillida Hon RA, Caro talked about In March, accompanied previous issues. the Royal directly, using actual material, actual size. this transition. ‘I’m interested in how to make my Academy launches a new website (see page 86) The problem a sculptor has to solve is a problem sculpture for outside. When the Goodwood Steps automatically pages smartphones he has for set himself – far from having a competition, werethat will installed outside at Goodwood –optimise they a brief, a site, a given size. The sculptor may wereand originally made for inside atan Dean Cloughexperience tablets, giving online oneven mobile start from a rule he makes for himself or from in Halifax – I realised that they became not only devices that goes beyond that of the App. If you the parts in his piece-bin, from a reproduction something you look at but also something you or comments, please email of a Cézanne or from the joint between two units.’ lookhave any through. Youquestions see the countryside through The last time I saw Tony, he was with Sheila them.

The piece acts as a frame for the countryside webmaster@royalacademy.org.uk having breakfast on the terrace of the Hotel rather than the environment framing it. It is Monaco in Venice last summer. Elena and I joined speaking a different language from the landscape, to access extra them before going off to see his retrospective show just How as buildings in a landscape do.’ content on computers, tablets or smartphones: in Museo Correr off St Mark’s Square. It was the In 1996 I asked Tony to join a small team most recent show that I have seen of his work and, of architects and engineers to compete for a new without doubt, the most unforgettable and moving. footbridge that would span the Thames from Look out for a red ‘plus’ icon at the end of an article – In roughly chronological order it started with the St Paul’s Cathedral to Tate Modern at London’s a short URL linkwith willa design be published nextcoloured to theworks icon same brightly that had excited me Bankside. We won the competition 50 years earlier. The gallery consisted of rooms that almost literally stretched the boundaries of strung out along a corridor with an almost infinite a suspension structure. It was a great experience perspective. Going from room to room was like that also stretched our minds. The artist in any seeing chapters of Tony Caro’s career unfolding, collaborative venture is usually introduced late with variations in scale interposing the transition in the process. So it was unusual for us to work from vivid pop colours to the more sombre metal together from the beginning. One consequence surfaces that were to eventually be his hallmark. was the insights into different creative worlds.

It was a perfect marriage of a confident antiquarian I think Tony was surprised and shocked architecture with the lifetime’s progression of a by some of the processes that architects and supremely confident and great contemporary artist. engineers take for granted, such as the constraints What a testimony and what a legacy. of regulations and the many separate authorities whose needs must be accommodated. Likewise, as architects, we gained an enormous respect for To see video interviews with Anthony Caro and the sculptor’s total freedom of expression and the material on his work from the RA’s archive, visit self-imposed discipline that was a consequence of http://ra.arts/caro Academician Anthony Caro was the most influential British sculptor of the post-war era, famously taking sculpture off the plinth. Norman Foster RA pays a personal tribute to the man who collaborated with him on several projects

Man of mettle My first meeting with Anthony Caro RA and his wife Sheila Girling was in the 1970s when we became neighbours in Hampstead. I recall him knocking on the door to talk about a new project and to ask my advice. He had been approached

by I.M. Pei Hon RA, the architect for the new East Wing of the National Gallery in Washington, with a commission for a site-specific sculpture in a prominent location within the project.

I had just created a model shop within my studio and suggested that he develop his sculpture using a big scale model of the space, which I offered to provide. He loved the concept and, in due course working with the architect’s drawings, I made a large cardboard model of the gallery’s interior with Tony’s assigned space marked out. It was the first time he had worked in that way and he was clearly delighted with the process – and the end result.

When I visit the museum it always brings back good memories to look up at his sculpture National Gallery Ledge Piece (1978) and admire the way in which it complements the architecture.

Most days, if my travels do not take me away from home, I meet Anthony Caro. That is to say that when I walk around outside our house in Switzerland I stop to admire two of his magnificent works – one rises monumentally from a grassy slope, the other hovers serenely next to a footpath.

These are part of a series called ‘Toronto Flats’ and they date back to 1974 when one of Tony’s collectors gave him the use of a steel mill in Canada. The two pieces have been in place for some six years now and my wife Elena and I never tire of living

with them – they are also part of the view from our windows. Their presence has been a constant reminder of Tony and often on our walks they have evoked a ritual exchange between us along the lines of: ‘We really must persuade Tony and Sheila to come and stay with us because they would love to see these works in the landscape.’

On one occasion they made arrangements to come and stay but, because of ill health, they had to cancel at the last moment.

Now that Tony is sadly no longer with us there is a certain poignancy when we pause to admire his works. On the one hand we are sad that there will no longer be the pleasure of his company with his infectious and youthful enthusiasm for life and work. But the aesthetic charge from his sculpture is undiminished and that is a legacy that will endure far beyond his lifespan.

The process of acquiring these two works brought our two families closer together. I was seeing Tony during his visits to Elena’s publishing house, Ivorypress, where they were working together on an artist’s book, Open Secret (2004), which took the form of table-top sculptures in either bronze, brass, paper or stainless-steel.

Each of the books opens up to reveal Shakespearian scripts lovingly transcribed onto thin card sheets, as well as a portfolio of poems handwritten especially for this project by the German poet Hans Magnus Enzensberger. It was during one of their working sessions that Tony mentioned a forthcoming exhibition in the West Country of both his outdoor works and paintings by Sheila.

Elena and I arrived for the opening on a bright late summer’s morning in the setting of the rolling landscape of Roche Court in Wiltshire. I was asked to say a few words in praise of the artists; Sheila’s work in the estate buildings and Tony’s set in the meadows. It was a beautiful event and after the ceremonies we took a walk to view the sculptures, noting our favourites as we went along.

It was only afterwards that we were to understand the significance of this body of work

by Caro, produced in 1974. Partly the realisation came through conversations with Tony but it was also the result of reading interviews and looking at these sculptures in the context of what came before and then followed. Here, for the first time, the artist was working directly with heavy industry and out of doors in the making of his work.

The York Steel Company, based in Toronto, provided cranes and moving equipment that enabled Tony to manipulate large raw metal plates in space, turning heavy elements with comparative ease and tack welding them together for later reappraisal. This was a quantum leap from the facilities that his Camden workshop/studio had offered and it shows in the scale and materiality of these works. They emerged over a period of separate visits, in between which a small team of younger collaborators would be following through the artist’s directives. This process also gave Caro a second opportunity to make changes – perhaps another reason why this group of sculptures appears so resolved. It seems to me that they also paved the way for a new body of

Anthony Caro RA at his retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery, London, 1963. In the background (from left) are Pompadour, 1963, Twenty Four Hours, 1960, and Month of May, 1963

monumental works that emerged in later decades.

I remember the experience of seeing my first Caro – on returning from graduate studies in the United States in 1963 – at his solo show in London’s Whitechapel Gallery (above). The work was a brightly painted assemblage of structural steel sections welded together that sat directly on the floor with a conspicuous absence of any podium.

At the time it was a shockingly radical departure from anything that I had experienced before as sculpture.

Tony’s breadth of scale has architectural parallels in its range, from pieces small enough to sit on a tabletop to those that create spaces the size of a dwelling. I can recall his monumental works that were equally at home in the cavernous entrance space of the Tate Gallery, as they were sitting in the green landscape of Goodwood.

I recall the magnificent ziggurat of a work that started life indoors as Halifax Steps – Ziggurats and Spirals (1994) and which was later transformed outdoors to become Goodwood Steps (1996). In a

© B A R F O R D S CU L P T U R ES

le

‘...the aesthetic charge from his sculpture is undiminished and that is a legacy that will endure far beyond his lifespan’

conversation with the noted Spanish sculptor Eduardo Chillida Hon RA, Caro talked about this transition. ‘I’m interested in how to make my sculpture for outside. When the Goodwood Steps were installed outside at Goodwood – they were originally made for inside at Dean Clough in Halifax – I realised that they became not only something you look at but also something you look through. You see the countryside through them. The piece acts as a frame for the countryside rather than the environment framing it. It is speaking a different language from the landscape, just as buildings in a landscape do.’

In 1996 I asked Tony to join a small team of architects and engineers to compete for a new footbridge that would span the Thames from St Paul’s Cathedral to Tate Modern at London’s Bankside. We won the competition with a design that almost literally stretched the boundaries of a suspension structure. It was a great experience that also stretched our minds. The artist in any collaborative venture is usually introduced late in the process. So it was unusual for us to work together from the beginning. One consequence was the insights into different creative worlds.

I think Tony was surprised and shocked by some of the processes that architects and engineers take for granted, such as the constraints of regulations and the many separate authorities whose needs must be accommodated. Likewise, as architects, we gained an enormous respect for the sculptor’s total freedom of expression and the self-imposed discipline that was a consequence of

64 RA MAGAZINE | SPRING 2014

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such liberty. As Caro wrote later, ‘…since sculpture is essentially physical, sculptors tend to think directly, using actual material, actual size.

The problem a sculptor has to solve is a problem he has set himself – far from having a competition, a brief, a site, even a given size. The sculptor may start from a rule he makes for himself or from the parts in his piece-bin, from a reproduction of a Cézanne or from the joint between two units.’

The last time I saw Tony, he was with Sheila having breakfast on the terrace of the Hotel Monaco in Venice last summer. Elena and I joined them before going off to see his retrospective show in Museo Correr off St Mark’s Square. It was the most recent show that I have seen of his work and, without doubt, the most unforgettable and moving.

In roughly chronological order it started with the same brightly coloured works that had excited me 50 years earlier. The gallery consisted of rooms strung out along a corridor with an almost infinite perspective. Going from room to room was like seeing chapters of Tony Caro’s career unfolding, with variations in scale interposing the transition from vivid pop colours to the more sombre metal surfaces that were to eventually be his hallmark.

It was a perfect marriage of a confident antiquarian architecture with the lifetime’s progression of a supremely confident and great contemporary artist.

What a testimony and what a legacy.

SPRING 2014 | RA MAGAZINE 65

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The BP exhibition

Vikings life and legend 6 March – 22 June 2014 britishmuseum.org/vikings #VikingExhibition Members and under 16s free Supported by BP

Organised with the National Museum of Denmark and the Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

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Sword, late 8th–early 9th century. Kalundborg or Holbæk, Zealand, Denmark.

Photo: Arnold Mikkelsen. © The National Museum of Denmark. Background: Kim Westerskov/Getty Images.

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Annual Exhibition 2014 5 to 15 March, 10am to 5pm (closes 1pm on final day)

Free entry with this voucher

The Mall, London SW1 www.mallgalleries.org.uk info@mallgalleries.com Tel: 020 7930 6844

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manya igel fine arts The Best of Traditional Modern British Art

manya igel fine arts

The Best of Traditional Modern British Art

Frederick Gore

Fred Cuming

Ruskin Spear

‘Teignmouth’, 24 x 24”

Bernard Dunstan

‘The Crossword Puzzle’, 25 x 28”

John Piper 21 - 22 peters court, porchester road, london, w2 Ruth 5dr Stage tel: 020 7229 1669/8429 www.manyaigelfinearts.com email:paintings@manyaigelfinearts.com appointment only 21 - 22 peters court, porchester road, london, w2 5dr tel:020 7229by 1669/8429 www.manyaigelfinearts.com email:paintings@manyaigelfinearts.com by appointment only Also at glencorse, 321 richmond rd, ham common, surrey kt2 5qu tel:020 8541 0871 tues-sat 10-5.30pm

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MARYSIA DONALDSON AN ARTIST’S LIFE

Exhibition: 6th April ~ 1st June 2014 Monday – Saturday, 10am-5pm, Sundays, 12noon-5pm Rozelle House, Rozelle Park, Ayr KA7 4NQ 01292 443708 www.themaclaurin.org.uk The Maclaurin Trust is a Scottish Charity No. 12798

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Sebastian Sleeping 27x36 inches, oil on canvas

06/02/2014 15:59

What’s new this season in London, the UK and abroad

Cutting it fine As Tate Modern mounts a major show of Matisse’s cut-outs, painter MALI MORRIS RA pays tribute to the artist’s directness, inventiveness and exuberance

LEFT Glide, 2013,

by Mali Morris RA

OPPOSITE PAGE Snow

Flowers, 1951,

by Henri Matisse

There is a 47-second film clip on YouTube of a seated Matisse cutting into a sheet of painted paper. The scissors look very big, a curvy shape appears, and he begins to twist the colour yellow around in space. Then he shuffles some cut forms together and lifts the result up to his face, for scrutiny. A few years later, near the end of his life, often bedridden or working from a wheelchair, he produced his huge cut-out works, some around 10 metres wide. The components were by then being pinned up on the walls of his room and moved around to his direction by assistants.

The compositions had become environments, the distance from his bed giving the long view.

The lively near-symmetry of Four-Petalled Flower (1945-46) probably had an influence on my early work. Its current whereabouts is unknown but I sometimes catch sight of it in books and think ‘I did that’ – but of course I didn’t. It was reproduced in 1978 in John Elderfield’s The CutOuts of Henri Matisse and I was shocked by its audacity. That same year I made a painting called Spats, which had blue petal shapes reaching out from the centre to the edges, but months passed before I recognised the connection.

Thirty-five years and many paintings later I am now, in works such as Glide (2013, left), building chequered grounds with colour blocks.

This is the first stage of a painting process, and its architecture is another echo of what I love in some of Matisse’s cut-outs.

The last time I saw the tall vertical Snow Flowers (1951, opposite page) I remember not wanting to leave it, feeling mesmerised. It was because of the flux of subtlety and drama; the slow drift of rose into gold in the grid supporting the shapes; a heavy green and a crimson sitting in there too; and the wild white upstanding shapes, all of a family but completely individual, a smaller black one challenging the others, linked tonally with the dark olive.

This chromatic orchestration in and out of pictorial space is inseparable from a literal, collaged layering, as fronds overlap or touch edges, some crisp, some soft. The intricacies of the flat white opaque forms are seen against rectangles of broad directional washes, and this

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© M A L I M O R R IS . JACQ U ES A N D N ATAS H A GEL M A N CO L L ECT I O N , 1998/ACCES S I O N N U M B ER 1999. 36 3 .46/© 2014/ I M AGE © T H E M E T R O P O L I TA N M US EU M O F A R T/© S U CCES S I O N H . M AT IS S E

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© M A L I M O R R IS . JACQ U ES A N D N ATAS H A GEL M A N CO L L ECT I O N , 1998/ACCES S I O N N U M B ER 1999. 36 3 .46/© 2014/ I M AGE © T H E M E T R O P O L I TA N M US EU M O F A R T/© S U CCES S I O N H . M AT IS S E

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opens up yet another distance. It is a dance through time as well as space, as the eye keeps returning to these never-static relationships.

The strangest feeling, as I remember it, was to locate the white shapes locked safely into the colour grid, but to see them also as free and ready to enter our space, our world. Every time I’ve seen it – once in New York, once in Paris, and twice in London at the Royal Academy – I have felt addressed directly, the immediacy of this sensation putting me, and keeping me, firmly and vividly in the present moment, even as I notice the handwriting along the lowest cut edge: ‘Fleurs de Neige Henri Matisse 1951’.

We read Matisse now with hindsight, and it takes effort to imagine him at the early stage of any of his discoveries, trying something out, working through it, beginning to understand.

It will be a revelation to see 120 of the cut-outs gathered together for a major show at Tate Modern this spring. We are more used to seeing them in the company of the earlier paintings, or singly, lucky to have the great L’Escargot (1953) in London.

But in this show we will be able to concentrate on them as a group, cross-refer them with each other, sift through their variety, recognise their authority.

The conundrum of these masterpieces is that they are decorative without being designs, pictorial without being paintings, heart-stopping in their directness, their economy, their inventiveness. These contradictions might make for strenuous viewing as well as for exhilaration and pleasure, as the compression of a lifetime’s work becomes apparent. It is this I am always moved by, being drawn in to what Matisse was teaching himself, as he took those risks and turnings, taking the rest of us with him.

Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs Tate Modern, London, 020 7887 8888, www.tate.org.uk, 17 April–7 Sep Odelay & Wishpool – Mali Morris and Stephen Lewis: Paintings, Sculpture and Works on Paper Kapil Jariwala, London, 020 7701 5861, 2 May–28 June Matisse: The Chapel at Vence by Marie-Thérèse Pulvenis de Séligny, £60, RA Publications.

To read extracts from the book Matisse: The Chapel at Vence visit http://roy.ac/vence

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The genius of Kent As the V&A explores the influential career of William Kent this season, WILLIAM PALIN selects three works that testify to the abiding achievements of 18th-century Britain’s most versatile artist and designer

THE PAINTED INTERIOR

The Marble Hall, 1729, at Holkham Hall

ARCHITECTURE

The Temple of Ancient Virtue, 1734, at Stowe

LANDSCAPE DESIGN

Burlington House, Piccadilly

Holkham Hall, Norfolk

Stowe, Buckinghamshire

In 1709 William Kent, having broken off an apprenticeship as a coach painter, secured sponsorship to travel and study in Italy. By the time he met Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, in 1714, he was an established artist, making a name for himself with his fresco work at the church of San Giuliano dei Fiamminghi in Rome. Recognising his potential, Lord Burlington brought Kent back to England in 1719 to engage him on the decoration of his rebuilt house on Piccadilly, today home to the RA. As the protégé of Burlington, Kent found himself part of a revolution in British architecture that was based on a reaction to the ‘excesses’ of the Baroque and a desire to return to the true principles of Roman Classical design.

Burlington House was intended to embody the new Palladian ideal and Kent was set to work producing a number of ceilings in an appropriate Classical style. Remarkably, despite extensive later remodelling and redecorating, two of Kent’s ceiling paintings here survive – a circular canvas, The Glorification of Inigo Jones (1719-20), now set into the middle of the staircase ceiling, and Assembly of the Gods (1720, above) over the present Slaughter Room. Most intriguingly, however, a decorative fresco in the coving of the Saloon that was painted over in 1771 has been partially revealed as part of a programme of restoration. Visitors can now glimpse Kent’s figures emerging from obscurity. What he had begun at the RA was to culminate in his masterful interiors at Houghton Hall.

Following his return from Italy, Kent underwent a gradual metamorphosis from painter to designer of interiors, and from designer to fully fledged architect. He created his first lavish and unified interiors at Kensington Palace from 1722 and went on to execute a series of major private works, as well as a handful of significant public buildings (including the Horse Guards in Whitehall, completed after his death).

Holkham Hall remains the grandest of William Kent’s private commissions.

Kent’s involvement in the design was the result of a long friendship with Thomas Coke, the future Earl of Leicester, whom he had first met in Rome in 1714, accompanying him on a subsequent tour of northern Italy. In 1729 Kent was brought in to work up designs for Holkham Hall and its park as part of Coke’s plan to transform his ‘barren estate’ into a heroic Classical landscape.

Holkham’s sober Palladian exterior gives little hint of the treat that awaits the visitor on passing through the entrance vestibule.

The Marble Hall (1729, above), with its sweeping stair rising to a piano nobile encircled by a dazzling screen of pink alabaster columns, is a space of breathtaking beauty and is arguably Kent’s masterpiece. The hall derives its power by balancing tensions between the Palladian style – with its Roman motifs, such as the deeply coffered plaster ceiling – and the Baroque, expressed by the sweeping staircase, the screen of columns and the dramatic handling of space.

It was Kent’s revolutionary approach to landscape design that famously led Horace Walpole to declare that he ‘leaped the fence, and saw that all Nature was a Garden’.

Walpole attributed Kent’s skill in creating naturalistic landscapes to the ‘pencil of his imagination’ and, indeed, his sketches for gardens are exquisite works of art. It is these designs that represent the most unexpected and beguiling aspect of Kent’s artistic output.

During a period of 25 years, between 1724 and 1748, he worked on 24 sites, creating informal picturesque landscapes, which he then filled with temples, lodges, gates, pavilions, grottoes and monuments in every conceivable style.

From the 1730s Kent designed a series of highly original and unusual garden buildings at Stowe, Buckinghamshire. He and the owner, Viscount Cobham, conceived the idea of a poetic landscape with each structure assuming a political or allegorical meaning. A secluded valley – the Elysian Fields – was populated by various curious buildings, including the Temple of Ancient Virtue (1734, above), modelled on the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli, and the Temple of British Worthies, an open exedra featuring the busts of native poets, philosophers, statesmen and monarchs.

William Kent: Designing Georgian Britain V&A, London, 020 7942 2000, www.vam.ac.uk, 22 March–13 July. To view William Kent’s ceiling paintings on a Royal Academy tour, see Events and Lectures page 71

© R OYA L ACA D EM Y O F A R TS , LO N D O N . COURTESY OF THE HOLKHAM ESTATE . © M A R T I N F L E TCH ER

Detail from Assembly of the Gods, 1720, at the RA

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Ken Howard RA Rain effect, Mansion House, 2013 Signed. Oil on canvas: 30 x 36 in / 76 x 91 cm Price: £30,000

Richard Green is the sole worldwide agent for Ken Howard To view recent paintings by Ken Howard please visit our website

147 New Bond Street, London W1S 2TS Telephone: +44 (0)20 7493 3939 Email: paintings@richardgreen.com

www.richardgreen.com

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JOHN RUSKIN PHOTOGRAPHER & DRAUGHTSMAN 4 February - 1 June 2014

A Passionate Journey through the Landscape and Architecture of Europe Watts Gallery, Down Lane, Compton, Guildford, Surrey, GU3 1DQ 01483 810235 / info@wattsgallery.org.uk

www.wattsgallery.org.uk

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URSULA VON RYDINGSVARD 05.04.14–04.01.15 Yorkshire Sculpture Park ysp.co.uk

Also showing at Sculpture at Schoenthal, Switzerland 11.05.14–12.10.14 / schoenthal.ch Supported by

Blackened Word (detail), 2008 6’9” x 20’8” x 6’6” © the artist.

Courtesy Galerie Lelong, New York

9th April17th May

SOLO EXHIBITION

Heart and Soul David Storey CONTEMPORARY ART 20 Bristol Gardens, London W9 2JQ www.thomasandpaul.com

Warwick Avenue

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NEW PAINTINGS PEMBROKESHIRE LANDSCAPE AND STILL LIFE 27th March – 17th April 2014

PIERS FEETHAM GALLERY 475 Fulham Road, London SW6 1HL, 020 7381 3031 www.piersfeethamgallery.com Tues-Fri 10-6; Sat 10-1

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Nolton Haven 1 Oil on board 20 x 41 cm

GEORGINA ALLEN

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Lost and found

CO U R T ESY CH R IS T ER LU N DA H L . T H E H EL EN F R A N K EN T H A L ER FO U N DAT I O N , I N C . A R T IS TS R I GH TS S O CI E T Y ( A RS), N E W YO R K . A R CH ÄO LO GIS CH ES L A N D ES M US EU M , S CH LOS S GOT TO R F, S CH L ES W I G . © W I K I N GER M US EU M H A I T H A B U. © JA M ES T U R R EL L , F LO R I A N H O L Z H ER R

A mysterious artwork at this year’s Summer Exhibition is not to be missed, writes SAM PHILLIPS There are guided tours planned for this year’s Summer Exhibition at the RA that are radically different to any in the show’s 246-year history.

Swedish-born artist-duo Christer Lundahl and Martina Seitl are taking groups of seven visitors on a choreographed journey through the galleries – and through their own imaginations – with the presentation at the Academy of their experiential artwork Symphony of a Missing Room: Archive of the Forgotten and Remembered.

Lundahl and Seitl’s works are highly immersive experiences. For their effects to be at their most transformative, they are best enjoyed without too much prior information. What can be written is that while audience members are led around physical spaces, they are also taken on a disorientating sonic odyssey via the headphones that they wear.

‘Symphony of a Missing Room is a tour through your imagination,’ says Lundahl. ‘Although there are triggers and suggestions in the work, you create your own tour in your mind.’ In this way, suggests Seitl, the ‘missing room’ of the title is less a real room and more a space in the mind.

‘You go there in your consciousness during the work, but you can’t go back to it easily again.

This room in your mind is not actually missing, but we tend to look in the wrong place, as we’re

An illustration of Lundahl and Seitl’s Symphony of a Missing Room

blind to that imaginative part of our ourselves.’

The work was conceived in 2009 and has been shown in several international museums.

As a site-specific piece, it is being customised to take into account the unique environment of the Summer Exhibition. Groups also go behind the scenes and encounter works that were rejected for the exhibition – like the metaphorical

‘missing room’, Lundahl sees these rejected works as ‘a symbol of what could be forgotten’.

For an unforgettable experience, book tickets to Symphony of a Missing Room as soon as possible.

Symphony of a Missing Room Royal Academy of Arts, London, in collaboration with LIFT, 020 7968 6808, www.liftfestival.com, six 75-minute performances daily from 10am, 19 May–8 June, £25 (£18 concs)

Here be dragons

Yukaloo, 2011, by James Turrell Hon RA

Characterised as warriors, and often rapers and pillagers, the Vikings have a lot to live down.

Now their reputation is being revisited in the British Museum’s ‘Vikings: Life and Legend’ (6 March –22 June; 020 7323 8299). Highlights include the remaining fragile timbers from the longest Viking longboat ever found, precious items found in the Vale of York Hoard and luxury objects such as an exquisitely crafted dragon-head pin (below). These help to round our view of these raiders and traders. Eleanor Mills

Overture, 1992, by Helen Frankenthaler Hon RA

See the light

Quiet American

‘I am using light as a material to influence or affect the medium of perception.’ This is how the American artist James Turrell Hon RA views the light installations he has made over the past 50 years. Works since 2005, such as Yukaloo (2011, above), are on display at Pace London (until 5 April; 020 3206 7600). Frosted curved-glass surfaces are set into the walls of darkened rooms – behind them a multitude of LED lights continually change colour. The effect is by turns hypnotic and blinding, and forces you to consider how your eyes process light. Rosanna Hawkins

Despite her major contribution to Abstract Expressionism, American painter Helen Frankenthaler Hon RA wasn’t widely exhibited in Britain during her lifetime. A brilliant new show at Margate’s Turner Contemporary is her largest in the UK for more than 40 years (until 11 May; 01843 233000). Over 20 of her paintings inspired by landscapes, such as Overture (1992, above) are hung alongside those of Turner.

One discovers that these artists, separated by continent and century, pushed paint around the canvas in a similar way, finding out as they went along where the medium might take them. RH

Pin with dragon’s head, 950-1000 CE, found in Hedeby, in modern-day Germany

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Trading in splendour Veronese’s dazzling paintings belied the demise of the Venetian empire, writes SARAH DUNANT as a major show opens at the National Gallery

The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine, c.1565-70, by Paolo Veronese

The title of the National Gallery’s new exhibition ‘Veronese: Magnificence in Renaissance Venice’ says it all. While historians might date the beginning of the decline of the Venetian empire to the 16th century, on the surface everything was still glittering, thanks in part to the work of artists such as Titian and Veronese.

From its outset the National Gallery put its money on Veronese: The Family of Darius before Alexander (1565-67) was among the first great works it acquired, having spent what a parliamentary critic of the time considered ‘an enormous sum’. Now the nation has a chance to judge value for money as the gallery brings altarpieces and mythology paintings from all over the world for the most significant Veronese exhibition to be mounted in Britain. Highlights include the celebrated The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine (c.1565-70, left), with its riotous heavenly celebrations and luscious courtly saint, and Mars and Venus United by Love (1570-75), on show next to the gallery’s own Veronese series, ‘Four Allegories of Love’ (c.1575).

The effect is bound to be sumptuous. Whether depicting thundering hooves and chariots in the cherub-filled skies for palazzo ceilings or the drama of martyrdom for churches, Veronese’s trademark is splendour: dynamic composition, teeming with life and detail (architectural as well as human),

and a colour palette almost hallucinatory in its intensity.

At its most extreme, his love for detail threatened to overwhelm the narrative. In 1573, his huge Last Supper, painted for the refectory of the monastery of St Giovanni and Paolo, was attacked by the Venetian inquisition for overshadowing Christ and the disciples with a cast of ‘jesters, drunks, Germans [i.e. heretics] and midgets’. Veronese’s response was to change the title of the work rather than the painting.

Though the renamed Feast in the House of Levi will not make it to London, there will be no shortage of bravura Veronese. Unexpected pleasure, however, may come from more restrained work. The National owns no Veronese portraits, but of the three in this show (none of the sitters is formally identified) my bet is that the star will be La Bella Nani (c.1555-60), depicting a fair-haired siren whose generous pale breasts rise up from a fortress of dark blue velvet, lace and gold. It is a teasing reminder of the connection between court and courtesan in the culture of the artist’s adopted city. Veronese stretches the vocabulary of artistic magnificence. Might there be such a thing as too much beauty? Visitors to this show may find out.

Veronese: Magnificence in Renaissance Venice National Gallery, London, 020 7747 2885, www.nationalgallery.org.uk, 19 March– 15 June. Sarah Dunant leads the RA Book Club on 21 March, see page 70 for details

PICTURE THIS

JAMES HALL picks a must-see work from an exhibition this season Title Self-Portrait as a Soldier Artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Date 1915 Exhibition ‘The Great War

in Portraits’, National Portrait Gallery, London (until 15 June) The German Expressionist painter Kirchner volunteered during the First World War but suffered a nervous breakdown without seeing combat. He made this self-portrait on being discharged in 1915.

The artist stands, wooden, in his army uniform but with a cigarette hanging from his mouth.

His right arm is reduced to a raw, handless stump. Behind him are a nude model depicted in a primitivist style, and an expressionist work

painted in pinks and reds.

Kirchner is evidently meditating on what it might be like to be wounded and to lose his painting hand. But the image is both apocalyptic and ecstatic, more a record of endurance than of impotence. The amputation is the same red and pink as the canvas against the wall, and could have been painted with it. Edvard Munch had painted self-portraits in which he was mutilated, and believed that ‘Art is your heart’s blood’. Kirchner demonstrates that here. Conversely, Kirchner’s left hand is the same colour and style as the nude model. This is a lurid celebration of a painter’s survival skills.

G A L L ER I E D EL L’ACCA D EM I A , V EN I CE (1324)/© CO U R T ESY O F M I N IS T ER O D EI B EN I E D EL L E AT T I V I TA CU LT U R A L I E D EL T U R IS M O. A L L EN M EM O R I A L A R T M US EU M , O B ER L I N CO L L EGE , O H I O

Preview UK

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LAURENCE STEPHEN LOWRY R.A. (1887-1976) A Footbridge pencil 37.4 x 32.4 cm. (14 3/4 x 12 3/4 in.) £70,000 - 100,000

CONTACT +44 (0) 20 7468 8295 matthew.bradbury@bonhams.com

ENTRIES NOW INVITED Closing date for entries Thursday 17 April Following exceptional results for Modern British & Irish Art at Bonhams in 2013 (making it our best year in the field), we are delighted to now invite consignments for our next important sale.

Already included are works by Moore, Caulfield, Yeats, Vaughan, Wallis, Pasmore, Henry, Pissarro and Heron, among others.

MODERN BRITISH AND IRISH ART New Bond Street Wednesday 28 May 2014

bonhams.com/modernbritish

Augustus John (1878-1961)

& Gwen John (1876-1939) 12th March – 10th April 2014 Monday to Friday 10-5.30 Saturday 11-2.00

19 Cork Street London W1S 3LP Tel: 020 7734 7984 art@browseanddarby.co.uk www.browseanddarby.co.uk

Augustus John, By Tan-y-grisiau, oil on panel, 20 x 11.3/4 in.

28/01/2014 14:49

henry-moore.org/bodyandvoid

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Echoes of Moore in Contemporary Art 1 May — 26 Oct 2014 Joseph Beuys Keith Coventry Tony Cragg Richard Deacon Antony Gormley Roger Hiorns Damien Hirst Des Hughes Anish Kapoor Richard Long Sarah Lucas Paul McDevitt Bruce McLean Bruce Nauman Paul Nobel Thomas Schütte Simon Starling Rachel Whiteread

The Henry Moore Foundation Perry Green, Herts, SG10 6EE Bishop’s Stortford

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Preview UK

New prints on the block There is a fresh spirit of experimentation at this year’s London Original Print Fair, which takes place in the RA’s Main Galleries. MARK HAMPSON, the RA Schools’ Head of Material Processes, picks the printmakers to watch

CO U R T ESY O F T H E A R T IS T A N D TAG F I N E A R TS . © Z ACH A RY E AS T WO O D - B LO O M / R A ED I T I O NS . J E A LO US G A L L ERY & P R I N T S T U D I O

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The London Original Print Fair, now in its 29th year, is the world’s longest-running specialist fair dedicated to printmaking in all its diverse forms.

It is well known by both connoisseurs and newer collectors as a chance to enjoy and buy traditional and modern prints by some of the great masters of the medium, but it is also an opportunity to see contemporary artists’ works, many of which are launched at the event.

The merging of processes old and new is increasingly apparent in the works of contemporary printmakers, many of whom share a love for craftsmanship and a passion for technological potential. A perfect example is Katsutoshi Yuasa, whose hauntingly beautiful woodcuts, such as Wonder Woods, from 2011 (1), are painstakingly created by hand over several months to reinterpret the immediacy of his own digital snapshots. Presented at TAG Fine Arts alongside Yuasa is Justine Smith, best known for her paper-cuts. Her Money Map of the World (2013), a combined inkjet and pearlised screenprint featuring collaged banknotes from every official currency in circulation, presents an alternative portrait of the world that is both politically and poetically charged.

A contrast to these technologically complex works is the minimal beauty of John Robertson’s Once Twice, Twice (2013), a screenprint on translucent polyester film (2) published by Jealous Gallery. Using confident linear brush strokes Robertson’s work often explores the abstract possibilities of text as image. Here he

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has produced a print that updates both Op and Pop sensibilities for a contemporary audience, as do other works at Jealous by artists such as Charming Baker.

Innovation in screenprinting is also evident in the images of unspecified objects by Humphrey Ocean RA, who has collaborated with Advanced Graphics on his first screenbased works for more than 40 years. These new prints, combining painterly expressiveness with calligraphic control, are released at the fair.

Besides providing the venue for the fair in the splendour of the Academy’s Main Galleries, the RA is also one of the participant publishers,

selling prints produced in its Schools as part of the RA Editions initiative, whose profits support current RA students. It has published around 40 original works by Royal Academicians including Tracey Emin, Bill Jacklin, Mali Morris, Gary Hume, Chris Orr and Grayson Perry, as well as RA Schools’ graduates such as Liane Lang, Pio Abad, Maciej Urbanek and Ha Young Kim. And this year sees the start of a new prize for RA Schools students sponsored

by Towry.

Alongside new prints by alumnus Prem Sahib and new Academician Bob and Roberta Smith, RA Editions launches its first 3D print.

The limited-edition sculptural multiple Asklepios (2014) by Zachary Eastwood-Bloom (3) is inspired by a bust originally seen by the artist in the Schools’ historic life-drawing room.

The bust was captured digitally and the resulting form was manipulated by Eastwood-Bloom before being printed using rapid prototyping technology. It was then cast in jesmonite.

Such daring technical innovation demonstrates the renewed enthusiasm contemporary artists have for the medium of printmaking.

London Original Print Fair Main Galleries, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 020 7439 2000, www.londonprintfair.com, 24–27 April. Free entry for Friends of the Royal Academy To see a video of the making of RA Editions’ first 3D multiple visit http://roy.ac/3dprint

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FRIENDS

Image Credit: David Hockney, Self Portrait, 1954 (detail), Lithograph in Five Colors, 11 1/2 x 10 1/4” Edition: 5 (approximately) © David Hockney

Book now Until 27 April

TATE.ORG.UK PIMLICO / WESTMINSTER #DEACON

Supported by Tate Members With additional support from The Richard Deacon Exhibition Supporters Group and Tate Patrons Richard Deacon After 1998 © Tate

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Preview International

The Vision of St John, 1608-14, by El Greco

T H E M E T R O P O L I TA N M US EU M O F A R T, N E W YO R K . © 2014/ P H OTO A R T M ED I A / H ER I TAGE I M AGES/S CA L A , F LO R EN CE

Thoroughly modern Mannerist Toledo celebrates El Greco on the 400th anniversary of his death, while a major new museum opens in Brussels that salutes his Symbolist descendants. By SIMON WILSON El Greco (1541-1614) is one of the most resonant names in the whole of the Western artistic canon. Yet although he was enormously successful in his own time, after his death his strange distorted forms and heightened otherworldly colours brought him several centuries of incomprehension. His peculiarities were attributed to astigmatism. His origin as a Cretan icon painter (hence El Greco – the Greek – his real name was Domenikos Theotokopoulos) has led to him being thought of as a naïve or ‘primitive’ artist. The fact that he spent the bulk of his career in Toledo has led to him being seen as provincial. His extreme religious fervour was a problem for Protestants and became more so in our secular age. Even today perhaps, while we all know his name, both his personality and his art remain elusive to us.

But now, on the 400th anniversary of his death, El Greco’s adopted home town is offering the chance to take a fresh look at this extraordinary painter, and a major new monograph on him has also appeared. The Toledo exhibition will bring together about 70 of his most important portable works from all over the world, but crucially the exhibition is linked to 30 or so of the many works that El Greco painted in the religious buildings of the city. This is a unique

opportunity to get a grip on the whole artist.

What this show and book reveal is, first, that El Greco became highly sophisticated, having left Crete for Venice, where Titian was a crucial influence, then moving to Rome where he joined the artistic and intellectual powerhouse that was the court of Cardinal Farnese. His move to Toledo was organised by powerful Spanish clerics who saw that his devout art would go well in that centre of the Spanish Church and hotbed of the Counter-Reformation.

Second, that his style has two main sources – his extreme passion for his subjects, which caused him to distort reality to express emotion, and the eccentric but highly intellectual movement of the mid-16th century, fashionable in Rome and Florence, known as Mannerism. It was the theories and the elegant distortions of Mannerism that provided a framework for El Greco to develop his own hyper-emotional manner.

The oddity, the intellectualism and not least the eroticism of Mannerism caused it to go underground until it was, with El Greco, reassessed in the mid-20th century. At the same time another of those odd, suppressed art movements, Symbolism, together with its architecture and design counterpart Art Nouveau, was being brought back into focus.

This was no coincidence, since the influence and spirit of Mannerism is clear to see in them.

Belgium played a major role in these movements, as has now been made clear with the opening at the end of 2013 of the Fin-de-Siècle Museum in Brussels. (The French phrase denotes all the phenomena associated with Symbolism at its peak in the 1890s.)

Belgium produced a fascinating group of Symbolist painters, who have however remained relatively unknown to us. This seems odd, since they were strongly influenced by the English Pre-Raphaelites whom we have long taken to our collective heart, and a wonderful painting

by Burne-Jones is a keynote work in the new museum. But a glance at the example of Jean Delville, whose Satan’s Treasure (1895, below) is another keynote work, reveals how these artists went far beyond the bounds of English taste in their obsessions with the far reaches of religion and mythology, and often the erotic.

Delville was an adherent of the secret Rosicrucian sect, and like many Symbolists was fascinated by the opposition of good and evil and by the idea of Satan as a constant presence luring us to sin. In his bizarre undersea scene Delville presents Satan as part man, part octopus, triumphantly straddling his ‘treasure’ – the naked bodies of his beautiful young victims, of both sexes. It makes an intriguing complement to El Greco’s great painting, The Vision of St John (1608-14, left), drawn from the sixth chapter of the apocalyptic Book of Revelation. Here it is a giant quivering St John who presides, not over naked sinners, but a resurrection of naked holy martyrs about to be wrapped in white cloaks of sanctity by approaching putti in the sky.

The Fin-de-Siècle Museum is housed within the enormous Royal Museums complex in the heart of Brussels, and beside Symbolist paintings it contains a fabulous collection of Art Nouveau furniture, glass and sculpture. Toledo is a little further away, via Madrid, but will be well worth the journey.

The Greek of Toledo Museum of Santa Cruz, Toledo, www.toledo-turismo.com, 14 March-14 June El Greco: Life and Work – A New History by Fernando Marías, £60, Thames & Hudson Fin-de-Siècle Museum Brussels, www.fin-de-siecle-museum.be

Satan’s Treasure, 1895, by Jean Delville

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Preview Books

Shades of grey

Bay of Sagami, Atami, 1997,

by Hiroshi Sugimoto

EDMUND FAWCETT enjoys a new book that invites the colour grey to step out of the shadows

HIERONYMUS BOSCH

‘suppression’ in Western art and thought, at the dismissal of colour as ‘feminine, primitive, oriental or infantile’ and at an underlying conviction that colour was ‘superficial, inessential or cosmetic.’

In The Luminous and the Grey Batchelor is less combative. He finds good things to say for the shade without hue in the big gap between white and black. As an artist, Batchelor knows that few greys are strictly colourless. There are warmer, reddish greys and cooler, bluish greys.

MIES

Batchelor ranges wide, touching art, film, optics and philosophy. His main point is that, contrary to reputation, grey can be bright, engaging and luminous.

Exacting readers could wish for a sharper conceptual grid and clearer lines of argument.

But that would probably have made for a greyer book.

The Luminous and the Grey David Batchelor, £12.95, Reaktion Books

THE SELF-PORTRAIT

Stefan Fischer, £99.99, Taschen

Detlef Mertins, £100, Phaidon

James Hall, £19.95, Thames & Hudson

In the words of historian E.H. Gombrich, Bosch gave ‘shape to the fears that haunted the minds of man in the Middle Ages’.

Taschen’s huge tome on the painter is half catalogue raisonné, half cinematic horrorshow, reproducing extra-large the most small but strange details one might otherwise miss – a naked coven worshipping a strawberry, for example. The sense of excess is at its height in the illustration at the centre of the book, in which the panels of The Garden of Earthly Delights (c.1503) fold out to double format. Sam Phillips

Few architects bring to mind a particular aesthetic as quickly as Mies van der Rohe.

If Le Corbusier made modern architecture synonymous with concrete, then Mies ensured steel and glass became so intrinsic to its vocabulary that today the results can be found the world over. Yet the ubiquity of this style belies just how innovative – and hard to pigeonhole – an architect Mies actually was.

Exquisitely illustrated, Mertins’s book examines Mies within his intellectual milieu, and offers a nuanced analysis of the work, ideas and influence of this towering figure. Owen Hopkins

This beautifully designed publication charts the evolution of self-portraits, from those made by Egyptian sculptors up to those of Academicians Antony Gormley and Tracey Emin. Only briefly covering the Classical world, Hall is most keen to stress the importance of the Middle Ages in the development of the genre, redressing art history’s focus on the Renaissance. He delivers original and engaging interpretations and it is only a shame that, at 270 pages, he can’t go into more detail on this huge artistic and sociological topic. Rosanna Hawkins

© H I R OS H I S U GI M OTO, CO U R T ESY PACE G A L L ERY. TAS CH EN / M US EO N ACI O N A L D EL P R A D O, M A D R I D

All theory is grey, Mephistopheles pronounces in Goethe’s Faust. But greyness is the last thing to hold against David Batchelor’s colourful essay, The Luminous and the Grey. In three short chapters, the London-based artist-author offers to vindicate ‘a colour without colour’ that does so much of the unpaid housework in what we see and what artists make.

Grey has a bad press, especially when you get stuck on the word. As a term of complaint, ‘grey’ connotes dullness, obscurity and conformity. We distrust the manipulative grey eminence and pity the nondescript man in the grey-flannel suit. We call random sound ‘grey noise’ and problems we can’t resolve ‘grey areas’.

Colour, by contrast, says something, whatever its hue. Whether subtle or exuberant, colour cannot help being expressive. Grey is cheerless, uptight and safe. Such are the prejudices Batchelor seeks to answer.

Readers of Chromophobia (2000), his previous study of colour’s socio-political meanings, might well take Batchelor for an anti-grey. ‘Somewhere between a meditation and a rant’, as he described it, Chromophobia took aim at colour’s

32 RA MAGAZINE | SPRING 2014

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PRUNELLA CLOUGH KEITH VAUGHAN

Free

Visions & Recollections

15 April – 2 May 2014 Oil Paintings & Unseen Works on Paper

Georg Baselitz (b. 1938), Ein neuer Typ (A New Type) (detail), 1965. Reproduced by permission of the artist. © Georg Baselitz.

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Illustrated catalogue & price list available

Germany divided Baselitz and his generation

Enquiries: Clough.Vaughan@gmail.com Tel: 07899 715 927 Menier Gallery 51 Southwark Street Bankside, London SE1 1RU

From the Duerckheim Collection 6 February – 31 August 2014

11am – 6pm (Closed: 18–21 & 25 April)

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The RA’s painters, printmakers, sculptors and architects

Academy Artists

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In the Studio

Living colour FIONA MADDOCKS visits the converted stable where the nonagenarian artist Alan Davie RA creates his jewel-like paintings. Photograph by EAMONN MCCABE Alan Davie delights in paradox. At 93, he is one of the oldest and newest members of the RA, a fact that charms him no end. ‘It’s quite a farce isn’t it,’ he says, a twinkle in his eye suggesting it is the kind of farce he rather enjoys. ‘I was always very anti-academic and now I find myself one of them.’

He was elected a Senior Academician in 2012.

To become an RA at an age when he appreciates it, instead of in mid-youth when he might have been dismissive, chimes with Davie’s spontaneous, rule-breaking outlook on life.

His Hertfordshire studio, lit only by skylights, is an unadorned, white rectangular space opening straight from his house. In a tiny hamlet 20 miles from London, the Davie domain feels like country, but big roads run close by. He and his wife Bili arrived there ‘about 60 years ago’ and made the old stables their own, living together happily until she died a few years ago.

The house itself, tucked behind a hedge and hard to see, appears to be a small, unexciting postwar brick box until you walk inside. Colour hits you from every direction: walls painted all shades of red, from bright tomato to deep crimson, terracotta to scarlet. In the open-plan design, one room leads to another, a purple chair here, a green one there – one of several original Arne Jacobsen Egg chairs Davie bought when they were first designed in 1958. An acid-yellow shaggy carpet runs the length of one room, brightening the grim, wet afternoon. ‘Gold,’ he corrects gently.

Davie is in a quiet mood when we meet, recuperating from a recent stay in hospital.

He looks magnificent: long, silken hair and beard framing his strong, sharp features; dressed in a deliberate craze of colour, like one of his orgiastic, abstract paintings, with fuchsia-pink pullover, mustard coloured sports shirt, green jacket and grey cord trousers. If you had to construct a prototype artist from a kit, he might reasonably end up looking like Davie.

The Scottish painter was born in Grangemouth, ‘a rather miserable place’, in 1920, the son of an artist father and pianist mother.

Art and music, therefore, were twin ingredients of his childhood, but he opted to study painting at Edinburgh College of Art from 1938-40 until war interrupted. After the army, he travelled through France, Italy and Spain with Bili during the late 1940s. These were formative years, when he met

Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko and others, won the support of collector Peggy Guggenheim and had his first London show at Gimpel Fils – still his gallery – in 1950.

In the six-and-a-half decades since, he has developed his fluid, playful, improvisatory style on canvas as well as in life. Here is a man who played jazz professionally – sax and piano alongside John Dankworth and Ronnie Scott – while being a busy artist. He could have been a champion golfer ‘if nerves hadn’t got the better of me’ but decided he preferred the riskier sport of gliding. ‘Now that’s scary, flying above the cliffs at Land’s End.’ Early in his career he made jewellery and other metal objects: chunky rings and elegant brooches, as well as silver spoons that once sold at Harrods.

He retrieves a selection of various objects from a drawer. ‘And look at this nice phallic one,’ he chuckles, pulling out a bulbous pendant in heavy silver which is, yes, phallic. Alongside all this, composing music and writing poetry have been, and remain, mainstays of his prolific existence.

The studio itself contains, essentially, only the oil paint and stubby brushes he uses to paint, together with dozens of canvases stacked against walls and some of his latest sketches – he may do up to 20 a day – on the floor. An accretion of old paint, resembling an ancient sea wall, sits in the middle. Nothing here distracts him from work.

The rest of the house, however, is crammed: Ashanti fertility dolls, Balinese shadow puppets, a prehistoric Mexican god figure, a brightly painted totem pole from Papua New Guinea.

‘I’m not a collector. I just acquire things I like.’

Quiet though Davie is, his hands are never still. He drums his fingers on the desk, then strums the tines of a comb buried in his pocket.

Does he have a secret to longevity? Maybe, he suggests tentatively, not smoking, not drinking, never eating between meals, consuming honey and spending five minutes a day on an old exercise bicycle in his studio. Does he want to reach his century? ‘I hope so… I’ve got lots to do.’

BP Spotlights: Alan Davie Tate Britain, London, 020 7887 8888, www.tate.org.uk, 14 April–5 Oct Alan Davie: Early Paintings Alan Wheatley Art, London, 020 7930 1262, www.alanwheatleyart.com, 9 April–23 May Alan Davie: Recent Works on Paper Gimpel Fils, London, 020 7493 2488, www.gimpelfils.com, 24 April–23 May

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CÉZANNE AND THE MODERN Masterpieces of European Art from the Pearlman Collection

SEE READERS’ OFFERS PAGE 85

BOOK NOW 13 March–22 June 2014 www.ashmolean.org Free for Members & Under 12s

ELIZABETH HARVEY-LEE Exhibitor at the London Original Print Fair at the R.A.

Dealer in Old Master prints and 19th & 20th century artists’ etchings, engravings, woodcuts and lithographs

Charles Shannon (1863 – 1937): Portrait of the Artist. Original lithograph, 1918

This year the Catalogue Subscription will cover three issues.

In addition to the usual 2 stock catalogues I will be publishing an exhibition catalogue.

1914 – 18. The War through Printmakers’ Eyes A selection of images at the Front, at Sea, in the Air and at Home The exhibition will take place Oct 4 – 12 at the Court Barn Museum, Chipping Campden Open daily, except Monday

1 West Cottages, North Aston, Oxford OX25 5QB. Tel: 01869 347164

www.elizabethharvey-lee.com

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Academy Artists Epiphany

Between the lines In the first of a new series on artists’ epiphanies, TESS JARAY RA reveals three turning points in her understanding of art

P H OTO A L A N W I L L I A MS

Epiphany is born out of recognition. If it didn’t reflect something we unconsciously know already it would pass unrecognised, like something in a dream that we can’t identify.

And in some way it must also answer a need, be a revelation, something that perhaps we were unconsciously seeking.

My first, probably my very first, epiphany in the life of art and of seeing was when I started as a student at St Martins – the old St Martins in Charing Cross Road. It was so long ago that it wasn’t even a Foundation course. It was called Beginners. We were much younger than

students are now, some of us only 16, and it was a period in our lives of major discoveries: we learned how to cook spaghetti bolognese, and we lost our virginity.

So when we were taken out into the streets with our drawing tutor (how nostalgic that sounds, not many of them left…) and I drew a row of trees into my sketch-book, the tutor was scathing: you are only looking at the trees.

What about the spaces in between? You wouldn’t even see the trees if they weren’t framed with space. And look, he said, the spaces in between also have shapes – imagine the trees as the edges of the picture, and framing only the space. You still have a shape. Perhaps even more interesting than the trees themselves.

Well, I’ve forgotten his name, and he was very old at that time, already probably in his early 30s, and is no doubt no longer alive, but I owe him much, because a door was opened for me that led to other doors, which in turn continue to open: space is the key, the great mystery, the ever unsolvable problem, an open invitation to enter.

So thank you, whoever you were, for unveiling

Tess Jaray RA stands on the paving she designed for a residential project in London’s Newman Street in 2012

the secret of painting to me at such a tender age.

Of course there have been other subsequent epiphanies, perhaps no less important than this one, such as looking up into Brunelleschi’s cupola on my first visit to Italy on a scholarship. In fact one might call my first venture into the Italy of that period, before the mass of tourists and the having-to-book-in-advance-for-everything, an epiphany in itself. I have certainly never recovered from all that overwhelming beauty, and it still remains an inspiration for me.

When I look at the series of paintings I made after that experience, starting with Cupola Blue (1963), I can see that the influence has never really left me; that some last traces of Renaissance space, the distancing power that perspective allows, remain in the work. What is still important to me is the lesson I learned from those great artists and architects: the possibilities for painting of the expressive power of space itself.

And of course I couldn’t possibly deny the influence of those Italian architectural spaces on the architectural projects I’ve been lucky enough to work on. What I learned there – and I can never understand why our own town planners haven’t also learned it – is how public space is actually used, how it impacts on the lives of the people who use it. So the commission to design the floor at St Mary’s Nottingham last year – a beautiful medieval church – was an opportunity for me to create something that has painterly aspirations but serves a practical purpose as well, and is part of a tradition, now under threat, that has been going on for thousands of years.

One might say, in fact, that unless there is an aspect of something approaching revelation, catharsis, or even merely surprise, a work isn’t worth the making. And when this happens when viewing other artists’ work, or the great masters of the past, it is always a confirmation that this strange thing one is chasing, this chimera, does in fact exist. But it’s rather hard to hold on to.

One occasion was when I was in the British Museum, and saw El Anatsui’s hanging, Man’s Cloth (2001), for the first time. I didn’t know who he was, I didn’t know what the piece itself was, but I knew that it was something rare and wonderful. And the more I stared at it, the more astonished I was to realise that he had made something that covered so much: not just form and colour and surprising shapes and texture, but that all these things had references, political and social meanings, embedded history, and were made in such a way as to embrace the life and the people around him. No other art of recent times, I felt, was so inclusive. It was a great, a very great privilege, a few years later, to be part of the team that enabled his work to adorn the façade of the RA at the 2013 Summer Exhibition.

Landscapes of Space: Paintings and Prints by Tess Jaray Djanogly Art Gallery, Nottingham, 0115 846 7777, www.lakesidearts.org.uk, until 27 April. The Art of Tess Jaray by Richard Davey et al, £28, Ridinghouse. Thresholds

by Richard Davey and Tess Jaray, £35 (special edition £450), RA Publications. See Readers’ Offers page 85. St Mary’s Church Nottingham is open Tue-Sat, 10.30am-2.30pm

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Academy Artists

Out of the ordinary Michael Craig-Martin RA is installing the commonplace in a far from everyday setting, writes RICHARD CORK Michael Craig-Martin RA is exhibiting his large-scale steel sculptures in the spectacular grounds at Chatsworth House. The 12 works represent, as their titles suggest, the commonplace objects – such as a hammer or a wheelbarrow – that fascinate the artist.

‘I’m trying to keep them within half a mile of the house,’ Craig-Martin says.

Gate (white), of 2011 (below), will stand outside the Orangery. Pitchfork (pink), by contrast, is installed in the rose garden, while three of his Umbrella sculptures can be found along the canal pond.

His dark materials War, terror and human conflict pervade the art of new RA sculptor Tim Shaw, whose first major solo show opens in Birmingham. LAURA GASCOIGNE reports ‘Black smoke rising’ was the phrase that came to Tim Shaw’s lips when he was driving back to his native Belfast several years ago and recognised the familiar smoke of burning cars. This sight, combined with the news images then coming out of Iraq, inspired his dramatic sculpture of a figure aflame, Man on Fire (2007-08), now going on display in the new Academician’s first major public gallery solo show. So it is no surprise that the title of the exhibition, opening in April in Birmingham, is ‘Black Smoke Rising’.

Shaw has been associated with images of conflict since his memorable installation Casting a Dark Democracy (2008, above) sent a collective shiver through the London art world. That powerful work, which resurrects the spectre of the hooded prisoner of Abu Ghraib as a hollow giant made of steel, black polythene, barbed wire and electrical cable, earned Shaw the reputation of a guerrilla war artist unafraid to speak truth to power. But his interest in the darker side of life goes deeper than that. Alongside a special reworking of Casting a Dark Democracy, the

Birmingham show also includes the more recent installation Soul Snatcher Possession (2011-12), a nightmare scenario in which grotesque figures made of reclaimed rags appear to be enacting a barbaric ritual. It is, says Shaw, ‘a metaphor for the extraction of soul, the manipulation of mind and the taking of life by the powerful’.

‘Soul’ is a word you don’t often hear from contemporary artists, and Shaw’s insistence on using it declares his allegiance to an artistic tradition stretching back through Goya and Hieronymus Bosch into prehistory. His images make the hairs stand up on the back of our necks because, unlike vanitas themes that merely remind us of mortality, they revive those atavistic fears of a fate worse than death.

‘The reality of life is fantastical enough, and deep and dark and absurd and strange,’ Shaw says. ‘I think my work is about pointing those things out.’

Black Smoke Rising Midlands Arts Centre, Birmingham, 0121 446 3232, www.macarts.co.uk, 12 April–8 June, and Aberystwyth Arts Centre, 01970 623232, www.aberystwythartscentre.co.uk, 1 Oct–2 Dec

Gate (white), 2011, by Michael CraigMartin RA Visitors to the Royal Academy’s Keeper’s House have been enjoying his dramatic Garden Fork (red) in its outdoor setting. But Craig-Martin is equally active as a painter, and insists that the sculptures at Chatsworth ‘are flat – they’re sculptures of line drawings, and the illusionism is two-dimensional.

It’s a pictorial illusion rather than a sculptural illusion. Even the simplest things turn out to be more complex than one can imagine.’

The artist began making this type of steel sculpture in the 1980s, but the Chatsworth works are recent. Six of them have never been shown before, and they exemplify his insistence on rigorous formal economy.

Why everyday objects? ‘I try to strip away, but not in a cartoon-like or abbreviated way’, he says. ‘I’m using things with an implicit human presence. Their familiarity encourages people to bring their own stories to them.’

Michael Craig-Martin at Chatsworth Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, 01246 565300, www.chatsworth.org, 16 March–29 June Objects of Our Time and Wish List Alan Cristea Gallery, London, 020 7439 1866, www.alancristea.com, 28 March–2 May

CO U R T ESY T H E A R T IS T. © MICHAEL CR AIG-MARTIN/COURTESY ROCHE COURT AND GAGOS IAN GALLERY

Casting a Dark Democracy, 2008, by Tim Shaw RA

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Portraiture in Action Mark Hallett

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Sir Joshua Reynolds, the first President of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, was the most celebrated and innovative British portraitist of the eighteenth century. Lavishly illustrated, this book is the first comprehensive analysis of the portraiture that brought him such fame.

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Of Green Leaf, Bird, and Flower Artists’ Books and the Natural World Elisabeth Fairman This gorgeous book explores depictions of the natural world from centuries-old manuscripts to contemporary artists’ books.

Published in association with the Yale Center for British Art 250 colour + b/w illustrations Available May, Hardback £40.00

The Duchess’s Shells Natural History Collecting in the Age of Cook’s Voyages Beth Fowkes Tobin This fascinating book uncovers the story behind the formation of a marvellous shell collection – a story spanning the globe, featuring a wealthy duchess, her fellow collectors, and a spectacular auction.

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Academy Artists

Now showing

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP

Model for statue of William Shakespeare, 2013,

by James Butler RA; Maggie’s North East in Newcastle designed by Edward Cullinan Architects; Heligan 2, 2011, by Gillian Ayres RA; The Perfect Performance, 2013,

by Mick Rooney RA

Our guide to where you can see the art and architecture of the Royal Academicians

● Gillian Ayres shows new paintings

and woodcuts, such as Heligan 2 (2011, bottom), at Burton Art Gallery, Bideford (5 April–1 June) ● Elizabeth Blackadder shows prints at University Gallery, Northumbria University (4 April–23 May) ● Tacita Dean participates in ‘Ruin Lust’ at Tate Britain, London (4 March–18 May) ● David Hockney’s prints are on show at Dulwich Picture Gallery, London (until 11 May) ● Bill Jacklin shows his New York paintings at Marlborough New York (until 15 March) ● Chantal Joffe takes part in ‘Body Language’ at the Saatchi Gallery, London (until 23 March) ● Jock McFadyen shows with Robert Marsden at Marsden Woo Gallery, London (until 29 March)

Sculptors

● Ian McKeever’s show ‘Eagduru –

Against Architecture’ is at Galleri Susanne Ottesen, Copenhagen (until 5 April), while ‘Diptychs 1983-89’ is at the Morat Institut, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany (until 31 Dec) ● Grayson Perry’s tapestry series ‘The Vanity of Small Differences’ is at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (until 11 May) ● Barbara Rae shows prints at the So Fine Art Editions Gallery, Dublin (6 March–19 April) ● Mick Rooney celebrates his 70th birthday with a solo show, which includes The Perfect Performance (2013, left), at Stow-on-the-Wold’s Fosse Gallery (11–31 May), ● Terry Setch’s show ‘Beneath the Surface’ is at Flowers Gallery, London (16 May–21 June) ● New Academician Bob and Roberta Smith has a solo show entitled ‘Get Personal and Political’ at the Von Bartha Garage, Basel (until 15 March) ● Frank Bowling, Jeffery Camp, Christopher Le Brun and Lisa Milroy participate in the group show ‘I Cheer a Dead Man’s Sweetheart: 21 painters in Britain’ at the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea (15 March–29 June) ● Eileen Cooper, Anne Desmet,

● James Butler’s statue of Shakespeare

(model left) is installed in Stratfordupon-Avon on 24 April, to mark the bard’s birth 450 years ago ● A relief sculpture by Stephen Cox is being installed in St James’s Square, London, in April ● Antony Gormley has a solo show at White Cube Hong Kong (28 March–10 May) ● John Maine’s show ‘Sanctuary’ is at Salisbury Cathedral (8 March–23 July) ● David Nash presents ‘Columns, Comets and Cork’ at Galerie Scheffel, Bad Homburg, Germany (23 May–10 July) ● Yinka Shonibare shows work at Pippy Houldsworth, London (13 March–26 April) ● Alison Wilding’s new book Vanish & Detail has been published by Ridinghouse.

Tracey Emin, Tess Jaray, Cornelia Parker and Alison Wilding show

in ‘Underexposed: Female Artists and the Medium of Print’ at the Studio 3 Gallery at the School of Arts, Kent University, Canterbury (16 May– 19 June). ● Tacita Dean, Tracey Emin,

Richard Long, Humphrey Ocean

and Yinka Shonibare show in ‘Ship to Shore: Art and the Lure of the Sea’ at the SeaCity Museum, Southampton (until 4 May)

Architects ● Will Alsop’s firm ALL Design has submitted plans for Heliport Heights, a residential project in Battersea ● Gordon Benson’s firm Benson & Forsyth has begun work on a residential scheme in London’s Victoria ● David Chipperfield’s proposal for a residential tower at Canada Water, London, has received planning permission ● Edward Cullinan’s Maggie’s North East cancer care centre (above) has opened in Newcastle ● Piers Gough’s practice CZWG has completed the first of three residential towers as part of the regeneration of the

area around Arsenal football stadium, London ● Nicholas Grimshaw’s design for a £16 billion nuclear power station at Hinkley Point C has been approved ● Designs for Thomas Heatherwick’s Garden Bridge, a pedestrian link over the Thames, have undergone public consultation ● Michael Hopkins’s World Wildlife Fund headquarters has opened in Woking ● Michael Manser’s firm has been shortlisted to design the Enterprise and Research Centre for the new Inverness Campus ● Richard MacCormac’s practice MJP has begun work on the Jersey International Finance Centre ● Chris Wilkinson’s firm Wilkinson Eyre is restoring Battersea Power Station for mixed-use development.

P H OTO © JA M ES B U T L ER /© JAMES BUTLER . © PAU L R A F T ERY. © GILLIAN AYRES/COURTESY AL AN CRISTE A GALLERY. © M I CK R O O N E Y/CO U R T ESY O F T H E F OS S E G A L L ERY

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he lives of the characters who starred at the dawn of European printmaking were as full of light and shade as their prints. Mantegna allegedly attempted to murder fellow painter Zoan Andrea and engraver Simone da Reggio. Antonio da Trento, while working for Parmigianino, stole his boss’s printing blocks and drawings and made off, never to be seen again. Other printmakers who engaged in fraud, forgery, slander, image piracy and political revolt were often imprisoned. Yet, equally, during the 16th century these artists were moving in lofty circles, their praises sung by scholars and poets.

Chiaroscuro, the Italian term for strong contrasts between light and shade, is also the technical term for the use of such contrasts to achieve a sense of volume when depicting an object – such as a human figure – on a flat plane. The rendering of light and shade – both subtle and dramatic – was a significant focus of painting, drawing and printmaking at this time, Leonardo’s Mona Lisa (c.1503-06) being the most famous example. Chiaroscuro woodcuts remain relatively little known or studied, although they represent a technical and aesthetic pinnacle in printmaking, deserving much wider recognition.

The ‘Renaissance Impressions’ exhibition at the Royal Academy, comprising loans from both

Vienna’s Albertina and from the holdings of the German contemporary artist Georg Baselitz Hon RA, offers a rare chance to see two outstanding collections of them together, with some works on show for the first time.

During the European Renaissance, chiaroscuro woodcuts were primarily conceived as a means of replicating the effects of chiaroscuro drawings in new, original images that could be printed in multiples and thus more widely disseminated to larger audiences, at lower prices, than equivalent one-off drawings.

Chiaroscuro drawing was a popular means of rendering dramatically lit bodies that seem to loom theatrically out of the paper surface on which they were drawn. This new technique involved working on toned instead of white paper, and drawing in a dark medium with white highlighting. The artists used black (or red) and white chalks, or black ink and white gouache, with the coloured paper providing mid-tones.

In Italy in particular, this new, expressive style gradually superseded silverpoint: drawings made by dragging a silver rod or wire across a surface prepared with gesso or primer (Dürer’s silverpoint Self-Portrait as a ThirteenYear-Old, from 1484, is a well-known example).

Chiaroscuro drawing was more technically forgiving than silverpoint and, with its wider range of effects, was enthusiastically adopted by artists. For the first time, drawings became

desirable art objects. They were also invaluable compositional studies and widely copied teaching aids – Raphael’s drawings, among others, were highly prized by patrons and collectors.

At exactly this time, when such exemplary draftsmanship became the measure of artistic accomplishment in Renaissance art, printmaking was being refined by artists into a sophisticated medium through which to convey diverse effects of line, tone and form. This simultaneous conjunction of technical and aesthetic factors resulted in a period of creative experimentation from the early 1500s, during which chiaroscuro woodcut techniques were devised.

David Landau and Peter Parshall, in their seminal volume The Renaissance Print 1470-1550 (1994), sensibly suggest that printmaking would have provided artists with a welcome opportunity to fill time between altarpiece commissions and other projects and, unlike painting, could be undertaken after dark, by candlelight. By 1425 printed ephemera abounded, as mass production methods for papermaking arrived in Europe, followed swiftly by Gutenberg’s inventions of the printing press and moulds to facilitate metal type manufacture.

Printed material included playing cards, advertisements and small votive images of saints that were often bartered as religious indulgences or talismans to ward off plague.

Out of the shadows

The chiaroscuro woodcut revolutionised printmaking in the 16th century, bringing wonderful three-dimensional drama to the medium. As exceptional examples go on display in the RA’s ‘Renaissance Impressions’ exhibition, printmaker Anne Desmet RA reveals the story behind this pivotal development and discusses why these rare prints continue to dazzle us today SPRING 2014 | RA MAGAZINE 43

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hastening the Reformation and exponentially expanding levels of literacy and education among the middle classes of an increasingly market-driven society. It was this heady atmosphere of entrepreneurialism and innovation that gave rise to the chiaroscuro woodcut.

Wood was an obvious printing matrix, being plentiful and available. Woods such as pear, boxwood, European maple, apple and medlar were all suitable for detailed cutting of text or imagery and were readily printable, in relief, alongside movable type. Wood was generally cut along the plank, rather than across the grain, making it possible to work on larger pieces and reducing the danger of blocks splitting. Inking was done with a dabber (a soft

‘With its bold composition and somewhat spare drawing style, this work [above] looks every bit as modern as Peter Doig’s Figures in a Red Boat’

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Hercules Killing Cacus, 1588,

by Hendrick Goltzius THIS PAGE , ABOVE The Miraculous Draught of Fishes, c.1523-27, by Ugo da Carpi, after Raphael PREVIOUS PAGES

each page of text and image could be inked and printed together. Although metal engraving and etching were also developing, woodblock printing was a focus of artistic innovation because of this kinship with book printing.

By 1500, millions of printed books had been produced throughout western Europe.

Meanwhile, vast printed maps and other ambitious print projects were being essayed.

Single-leaf art prints were portable, commercial items that could be traded alongside paper, books, maps and other commodities at the annual Frankfurt Fair (which was in existence as early as the 13th century) and elsewhere.

Thus mass communication dawned, facilitating widespread circulation of ideas, imagery and information in the European Renaissance,

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By 1450 book publishing was booming, especially in Nuremberg and Venice. This created demand for increasingly refined woodcut illustrations – such as Aldus Manutius’s Venetian masterpiece, Poliphilus’s Dream About the Strife of Love (1499, not in show). This lavishly illustrated romance is a renowned example of early printing. Its typography is famous for its quality and clarity, and the volume is illustrated with 168 exquisite woodcuts showing the scenery, architectural settings and characters Poliphilus encounters in his dreams.

The text for books was initially carved and printed using single woodblocks, just like the illustrations. Later, movable type was designed to be printed with woodcut illustrations – blocks and fonts being made to the same height so that

BELOW Lovers Surprised

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by Death, c.1510, by Hans Burgkmair the Elder

leather ball stuffed with rags and rolled in oil-based ink) or occasionally by brush or an early type of roller.

A chiaroscuro print typically used between two and five woodblocks, or occasionally a more technically challenging combination of metal engraving and woodcut. As Stephen Chambers RA explains (see page 48), each block was cut to render a separate tonal aspect of the image. Each was printed one at a time, each in a different colour or tone, to create one complete image with carefully calibrated tonal contrasts, a sense of three-dimensional volume, the linear and cross-hatched qualities of a drawing and also, sometimes, tones and textures simulating watercolour.

‘For the first time colour was introduced into the woodcut,’ explains curator Achim Gnann from the Albertina. ‘With colour, light and lineament creating plasticity, space and atmosphere, new artistic directions opened up. The transition between a monochrome print and a coloured picture became fluent with the chiaroscuro woodcut.’

While single-block, monochrome, woodcut prints were developed to astonishing levels of technical and aesthetic accomplishment by the likes of Martin Schongauer, Dürer and Albrecht Altdorfer in Germany, Lucas van Leyden in the Netherlands, and Mantegna in Italy, the advent of multiple-block chiaroscuro prints produced richly volumetric, dramatic imagery of a type hitherto unseen. Sometimes they were the work of an individual, highly versatile artistprintmaker but increasingly they were created as collaborations between an artist-designer, an expert block-cutter and a printer. Exponents included Hans Wechtlin in Germany, and Marcantonio Raimondi in collaboration with Raphael, Giulio Campagnola and Parmigianino in Italy. These and other talented contemporaries developed works with the characteristics of both painting and drawing, yet with new qualities particular to print. Their methods were carried into the later 16th century by fine artists such as Andrea Andreani and Hendrick Goltzius, whose spectacular Hercules Killing Cacus (1588, page 42) is in the show. This particular impression is regarded by Baselitz as the finest in existence.

German artist Lucas Cranach the Elder’s St George and the Dragon (c.1507, not in show) appears to be the first woodcut of the genre.

It involved a line block for the image and a second block for printing gold highlights, the two blocks being printed onto blue-toned paper.

This was swiftly followed in 1508 by another St George and other images by Hans Burgkmair the Elder who, working with a skilled woodcutter from Antwerp, Jost de Negker, added significant refinements to the method, replacing toned paper with a printed tone block, out of which are cut the brightest highlights in the image, which appear paper-white in the finished print. Burgkmair’s Lovers Surprised by Death (c.1510, left), a three-block woodcut, is a definitive example. It juxtaposes a sparkling Venetian setting with the heart-stopping view of Death, who thwarts a fleeing maiden by gripping her dress in his teeth while, with terrifying skeletal hands, he rips the soul from the inert SPRING 2014 | RA MAGAZINE 45

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(2005-07), on view at Doig’s retrospective, last year, at the Scottish National Gallery.

Another of Da Carpi’s masterpieces is his Diogenes (c.1525, see cover) after a design by Parmigianino, a woodcut involving four blocks and printed in several different colour variants.

Diogenes, the fourth-century Greek philosopher, cynic and eccentric, is shown here with a plucked chicken. The image recalls Plato’s definition of man as an animal, bipedal and featherless, to which Diogenes, in response, is said to have plucked a chicken and declared: ‘Here is Plato’s man.’ Diogenes apparently lived barefoot in a barrel and took the mythological Hercules as role model, believing virtue was better shown in action than in theory. Da Carpi’s image shows a semi-naked Diogenes of Herculean build and gravitas, the ellipse of his barrel visible behind

him. It is an image with arresting qualities of movement, action and sculptural volume. The Albertina boasts a fine Diogenes in greens and pearly blue-greys, while one of the impressions owned by Georg Baselitz creates a different mood in hot reddish-browns.

It is easy to see why artists continue to be drawn to these prints today – whether as admirers, imitators or, in the case of Baselitz, as serious collectors. Baselitz’s passion for them, says David Ekserdjian in the exhibition catalogue, ‘lies in their directness, in the sense that nothing comes between the viewer and their creator’. Both his collection and the Albertina’s include fine and rare examples. Baselitz’s holdings feature the only known impression of a particular work by German woodcutter Erasmus Loy, who made boldly inventive images of

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body of her lover. The fully volumetric, crisply detailed modelling of figures and setting have all the impact of the 1973 horror film Don’t Look Now, which famously featured a macabre red-cloaked figure roaming the beautiful streets of Venice.

In Italy, meanwhile, Ugo da Carpi tried to claim credit, in 1516, for the ‘invention’ of what was, essentially, Burgkmair’s technique, an indication of the esteem in which the medium was held. Da Carpi produced striking chiaroscuro woodcuts in collaboration with Titian, Raphael and Parmigianino. One of his masterpieces is The Miraculous Draught of Fishes (c.1523-27, page 44) after a fairly loose sketch by Raphael. With its vivid red, almost abstract blocks of colour, its bold composition and somewhat spare drawing style, it looks every bit as modern as contemporary artist Peter Doig’s painting Figures in a Red Boat

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RIGHT Witches’ Sabbath, 1510, by Hans Baldung Grien BELOW An Apostle, c.1540-45, by Domenico Beccafumi

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Italianate architecture, such as Courtyard with Renaissance Architecture (c.1550, right). Loy’s prints were not designed for folios but were instead pasted onto wood to be used as cheap substitutes for inlaid decoration in the home.

This function explains why so few have survived, and the show also includes a fine companion piece from the Albertina.

In the German style, typically, a single ‘line block’ held the entire composition and would read perfectly well as a stand-alone print. To add drama, volume and highlights, additional ‘tone blocks’ were cut, as in Hans Baldung Grien’s Witches’ Sabbath (1510, opposite page, right), in which a collection of aged crones are seen cavorting naked beneath a tree, concocting their hellish brews and enjoying a spot of bareback goat-riding. German line blocks were often printed in black, the tone blocks supplying colour. Dürer’s famous Rhinoceros (1515) was originally created as a single-block woodcut – Dürer, in fact, never created any chiaroscuro woodcuts. The chiaroscuro version in the exhibition (below right) was actually created by the Amsterdam publisher Willem Janssen, who added tone blocks to the original Dürer blocks that he had acquired in The Hague about a century after the artist’s death, adding a new dimension to Dürer’s original line image.

Chiaroscuro prints were produced widely in the Netherlands in the second half of the 16th century, as well as in France (for reproduction purposes) and England in the 18th century.

The Italians often dispensed with a line block altogether, breaking down each composition into tones cut on separate blocks, none of which would ‘read’ as a complete image without the others. Domenico Beccafumi’s ‘Apostles’ series, exemplifies this approach. Each print typically shows a standing apostle, portrayed as a bearded statesman swathed in toga-like robes, such as An Apostle (c.1540-45, opposite page, left). Each face and body is dramatically lit down one side, while the other side recedes into darkness. The effect is as if you are looking at monumental marble sculptures, yet these are also poignant images of old age in which gnarled hands and pensive expressions speak of frail human flesh and bone.

Italian blocks were printed in a series of increasingly contrasted tones, none of which usually included black. There were overlaps between both approaches but, generally, the Germans tended more towards creating, within a line block, the effects of an intensely wrought drawing, adding tonal blocks for dramatic highlights and extra volume. The Italian prints, by contrast, inclined towards painterly, monumental qualities, combining a sense of the airiness of watercolour with the solidity of sculpture.

But, by the late 16th century, the primacy of printmaking as a creative art form was perhaps being undermined by its own commercial success. Demand for prints was, by then, so great that publishing companies began, increasingly, to emulate great artists’ works – be they paintings, sculpture or drawings – with the first purely reproductive prints. Connections between artists and printers became more tenuous. Gradually, too, as fashions changed, metal engravings

LEFT Courtyard with Renaissance Architecture, c.1550, by Erasmus Loy BELOW A chiaroscuro woodcut made after 1620 by printmaker Willem Janssen, after Albrecht Dürer’s Rhinoceros, 1515

and etchings became more sought after, while the woodcut’s popularity began to wane.

Questions as to whether chiaroscuro woodcuts are essentially reproductions or original works of art cannot be answered simply.

In comparison to the reproduction prints that followed, chiaroscuro prints often involved a design created specifically for woodcut rather than, necessarily, an attempt to reproduce preexistent imagery. However, making careful copies of their masters’ work was an integral part of artists’ training. Printmakers, likewise, assimilated what they needed from wherever they could find it: an entire figure here, an aspect of landscape there, drapery details or, occasionally, an entire compositional group.

But such appropriation was created in the spirit of furthering a tradition, to refine and develop

treatments of given subjects and thus hand them down, in improved form, to posterity. Similarly, if not working alone, an artist and printmaker might join forces to combine their skills and produce a new work of art. Singly or jointly, artists and artist-printmakers undoubtedly created a wealth of original imagery as lively and diverse in subject matter as in technique.

These works can now be enjoyed in this unusual and often surprising exhibition which should not be missed.

Renaissance Impressions: Chiaroscuro Woodcuts from the Collections of Georg Baselitz and the Albertina, Vienna The Sackler Wing, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 020 7300 8000, www.royalacademy.org.uk, 15 Mar–8 June. Organised by the Royal Academy of Arts, London and the Albertina, Vienna. 2009–2016 Season supported by JTI. Supported by Edwards Wildman.

See Events and Lectures page 70

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Inspired by the prints in the RA’s ‘Renaissance Impressions’, Stephen Chambers RA decided to create his own chiaroscuro woodcut. Here he shares his discoveries about the process and includes his step-by-step guide

At times, for a prosaic man like myself, the practice of examining a picture includes making a version of it – this is a way of looking at its core.

I find that what the eye has assumed it is seeing doesn’t always prove to be the case. I discover things through this process that I might otherwise miss and, without sounding too fey, I become involved in a visual conversation with the other painting.

I have made versions of William Blake’s Gates of Paradise and Bruegel’s Twelve Flemish Proverbs, both images I have long loved. It is a way of getting beneath the skin of an artist. In the same way that re-reading a novel reveals new facets of it, when I make a transcription of another artist’s work, I experience the image differently.

The curiosity that led me to make a chiaroscuro woodcut, however, was slightly different. It was still a way of discovering, but I was looking at a process rather than at a particular print. I had been aware of chiaroscuro woodcuts, with their implied threedimensionality, but had never tried to make one.

The first task, therefore, was to work out how they were done.

There were two basic ways in which chiaroscuro prints were made: the German printmakers tended to create a black line block, which was then superimposed over tonal blocks; the Italian printmakers, however, tended to omit the black line block. This block (also known as the key block) makes for a tidier image.

Arguably, the German method is easier; the line block defines the edges of images.

A print by Cranach, for example, initially appears more sophisticated than a print by Parmigianino.

But if you were to remove the line block from the Cranach, you would then appreciate the true complexity of what has been required to convey the visual information in the Italian print.

For example, if, say, you were describing a goat standing in front of a bush, on a rocky hillside with a sunset in the distance, all in a few tones made from only two or three blocks, then the work would demand hugely complex orchestration to show where objects begin and end. Dropping on the line block saves much of this hassle. The Italian prints in the Academy’s

show may appear more innocent but in reality they were the more demanding to produce.

Consequently, being a novice, I took the German route. I made a three-block print where one of the blocks was the line block.

Of the other two blocks, one was the dark tone, the second the lighter tone. The lightest tone of all, the highlights, are provided by the white of the paper peeping through.

The image in the print I made, Point West (opposite, top), is set at some undefined moment in the past and has a suggested narrative. I usually limit an implied third

1

The design for the print is drawn on paper

6

Creating the highlights involves removing much less wood than the linear block. The first tone block looks like an aerial photograph of a golf course – the bunkers are the removed areas of ply where no ink will be applied

dimension in my work, and my backgrounds are often simpler than the one in this image, but this print is an attempt to embrace the chiaroscuro process and tradition. It intentionally utilises an aspect from a classic chiaroscuro woodcut: a protagonist in an environment.

To see a video of Stephen Chambers making a chiaroscuro print visit http://roy.ac/chiaroscuro Stephen Chambers RA Pera Museum, Istanbul, www.peramuzesi.org.tr, 5 May–20 July Point West

by Stephen Chambers, a limited-edition print, is available from studio@stephenchambers.com

2

The surface of a block of pale plywood is covered with black ink. Using carbon paper, the outlines of the drawing are then transferred onto this black block

7

A second tone block is made to create the midtones. This block has more wood removed from it than the highlight block, although less than the line block

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© S T EP H EN CH A M B ERS R A

Learning by making

© S T EP H EN CH A M B ERS R A

Point West, 2013, by Stephen Chambers RA

3

Cutting away all the spaces between the outlines exposes the pale plywood beneath and leaves the line block – the perimeters of the figures, trees and clouds – as proud black lines

8

Each of the two tone blocks is covered with a different tone of ink – one paler, one darker

4

When the ink is applied on the block, it is these lines that are inked, with the rest cut away so as to be out of reach of the roller

9

The two tone blocks are pressed one at a time on the paper. The pale tone block is printed first

5

The first tone block is made by transferring the drawing to the surface of another piece of plywood, as in step 2. Areas to be highlights, or the palest areas, are then cut away

10

The two tones are produced, plus the actual white tone of the paper, which are the highlights, where no ink has been applied. Finally, the line block is applied so that its outlines lie over the two tones (see completed print, top)

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Cool, calm and collected

© M A R T I N M Ü L L ER , B ER L I N

Why do artists collect art? Martin Gayford posed the question to artist collectors Damien Hirst, Tom Phillips RA, Howard Hodgkin and Georg Baselitz Hon RA, whose chiaroscuro prints are included in the ‘Renaissance Impressions’ show at the Academy

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M US EU M M O RS B R O I CH L E V ER KUS EN , D EPA R T M EN T O F D R AW I N GS A N D P R I N TS/ P H OTO © M US EU M M O RS B R O I CH , L E V ER KUS EN / F R I ED R I CH R OS ENS T I EL /© GEO R G B AS EL I T Z 2014

I

n 1965, a young German painter was awarded a scholarship to study at the Villa Romana in Florence. This artist, then 27 years old, was born Hans-Georg Kern but a few years before his trip to Italy he had chosen to call himself Baselitz after his birthplace, a little community in Saxony. With him on his Italian journey he took a book called The World as a Labyrinth by the German art historian Gustav René Hocke.

This, Baselitz explained when I spoke to him recently, ‘was my guide, so to speak, my Bible, during my visit to Florence’. Hocke’s book, published in 1957, was a pioneering investigation of what was then almost unexplored art-historical territory: the Mannerist style of the 16th century, developed by the generation of Italian artists who came after Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael – at once complex, fantastic, convoluted, erotic and, at least in the eyes of some later observers, also neurotic. Baselitz’s discovery of Hocke laid the foundation for the artist’s great collection of Renaissance prints, some of which are on show in the Academy’s exhibition ‘Renaissance Impressions’, together with works from the Albertina, Vienna.

As Baselitz explains, The World as a Labyrinth dealt with ‘the paintings, poetry and music of the period’ – the entire Mannerist world. But while Baselitz was in Italy for his scholarship it was the discussion of the visual art that made the deepest impression on him. ‘It was then I discovered Rosso, Parmigianino, Bronzino, Pontormo.’

It is not hard to see the appeal. Hocke’s study, a cult book at the time, presented Mannerism as the art of a period in which ‘brain, blood and heart were in disequilibrium’. As Baselitz recalls, this was ‘a very important book for some of us students because it contained a different view of the world: it was an anti-classical book!’

It is not hard to imagine why that might have struck a chord with a painter who as a child had walked through the smoking ruins of Dresden after the fire storm, and came to adulthood in

M US EU M M O RS B R O I CH L E V ER KUS EN , D EPA R T M EN T O F D R AW I N GS A N D P R I N TS/ P H OTO © M US EU M M O RS B R O I CH , L E V ER KUS EN / F R I ED R I CH R OS ENS T I EL /© GEO R G B AS EL I T Z 2014

© M A R T I N M Ü L L ER , B ER L I N

a Berlin which was itself still partly in ruins, a divided city that symbolised a Cold War world split along ideological lines. Baselitz felt an affinity with Mannerism, the product of war-torn Italy and a Europe fracturing into Reformation and Counter-Reformation.

While he was in Florence he looked hard at the artists whose work spoke to him – Pontormo, Parmigianino and their followers. When the time came to go home to Germany, he wanted to take back a record of their work. ‘Being interested in something is one thing, and wanting to own it is another. I wanted documents of that period of art, Mannerism up to about 1540, which really, really interested me.’

The first Mannerist print he bought cost 40 Deutschmarks, not much – but almost a third of his scholarship funding for a month. ‘In 1965 when I began collecting this kind of thing it was quite inexpensive,’ Baselitz explained. ‘It wasn’t particularly valued historically. Over the years, of course, the collection has become quite large, because I remained faithful to this area.’

His great interests are Mannerism, the School of Fontainebleau – that is, the Italian Mannerist style transported to France by Rosso and Francesco Primaticcio – and the chiaroscuro print.

The latter, the focus of the Royal Academy exhibition, was one of the most sumptuous products of Renaissance printmakers. The chiaroscuro woodcut included different tones of the same colour, thus producing an effect close to monochrome painting. The method involves technical virtuosity, since to achieve the required result, two or even three wood blocks have to be printed on one sheet of paper, one after another, perfectly in alignment. As Anne Desmet RA explains in this issue (see page 42), this medium was pioneered in Germany in the first decade of the 16th century by artists such as Lucas Cranach the Elder and Hans Burgkmair. But it was quickly taken up by Italian artists, including Ugo da Carpi, who made prints derived from the works of Parmigianino, among others.

‘I could not own a painting by Parmigianino, but I could own a print…

I use the prints as a sort of visual reference library’ Georg Baselitz

OPPOSITE PAGE

Georg Baselitz Hon RA THIS PAGE L.R., 1966, a chiaroscuro print by Baselitz

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Two Ascetics Making Music, c.1770, by an unknown artist from Arki (Baghal state), Punjab Hills, from the collection of Howard Hodgkin BELOW RIGHT Indian Sky, 1988-89,

by Howard Hodgkin

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© TO M P H I L L I P S . P H OTO H EI N I S CH N EEB EL I

Art history as we know it would not exist without collectors. Painters and sculptors are far from being the only ones who succumb to the urge to accumulate art, but artists such as Thomas Lawrence PPRA (who concentrated on Old Master drawings), Degas (who owned magnificent paintings by his contemporaries) and Baselitz have put together remarkable collections. Artists see art from a unique perspective – that is, they see it from the vantage point of their own work, which gives their collections a double interest. They scan both the present and the past for objects that appeal to their eyes and their sensibilities. So the fact that Baselitz is fascinated by Mannerism not only tells us something about him, but also something about Mannerism.

Did Baselitz’s print collection affect his own work? To this question, he gives a wonderfully, almost Manneristically complex reply. ‘In the first place, there’s no connection; but in the second place of course there is a connection because in 1966 I made chiaroscuro prints of my own.’

He did this, he goes on, ‘in the full knowledge that this put me in a slightly awkward position’.

‘In those days other print media were fashionable – silk-screens, lithography – those were the techniques used by “modern artists”, so making woodcuts meant I was not one of them.’ The mid-1960s was the apogee of Pop and Op artists using those techniques. ‘For me it was important to use old media but to try to do something new in them. It was a conscious opposition, stubbornness.’

In Baselitz’s case there is a clear link between the artist and his collection: it was a way of studying a historical period that fascinated him.

‘In the 1960s, I could not own a painting by Parmigianino, but I could own a print. It was less a question of price, though obviously it was that too, as a matter of what one can use. I use the prints as a sort of visual reference library.’

There are other ways of explaining the urge to collect, and other reasons why artists buy art by other people. For Tom Phillips RA, for instance, collecting is a ‘psychopathology’.

The painter Howard Hodgkin has an equally debunking line on the subject, as he told me a few years ago: ‘All collecting is fundamentally the same, whatever you collect. It’s shopping.’

© THE COLLECTION OF HOWARD HODGKIN . © HOWARD HODGKIN/COURTESY GAGOS IAN GALLERY

RIGHT

Ashanti, 1991,

by Tom Phillips RA BELOW RIGHT Akan gold dust boxes, 18th-19th century, from the collection of Tom Phillips RA

© TO M P H I L L I P S . P H OTO H EI N I S CH N EEB EL I

© THE COLLECTION OF HOWARD HODGKIN . © HOWARD HODGKIN/COURTESY GAGOS IAN GALLERY

BELOW LEFT

Yet more reductively, Hodgkin summed up ‘most definitions of collecting’ in one word: ‘greed’.

Damien Hirst, another notable artist collector, confesses that one of his own motives was to ‘try and get inside the minds’ of his collectors. ‘I thought it was a smart thing to find out what it felt like. Then you realise it’s a horrifically addictive, crazy pursuit.’

Nonetheless, all three of these artists have carried on collecting, regardless of its psychopathological, addictive or shopaholic characteristics. Hodgkin has built up a superb array of Indian miniatures, which went on show at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford in 2012. Among other collections, Phillips told me, he has amassed ‘about 5,000 African gold weights, which is enough; it must by accident be the premier collection of those in the world’.

For his part, Hirst now owns two collections that have tended to fuse into one: a remarkable cache of contemporary art, including a number of paintings by Francis Bacon, and an updated chamber of curiosities. The architects Caruso St John are currently in the process of converting a terrace of old buildings in Newport Street, Vauxhall, into a gallery to display Hirst’s

collection. It’s intriguing to discover Hirst owns works by Baselitz – and vice versa.

These examples naturally raise a question.

Are they collections that just happen to have been made by painters and sculptors, or is there something special about the artist’s collection?

Hirst believes that, at least, artists have an inbuilt flair for collecting.

‘I think artists are already imbued with the kind of sensibilities you need to make a great collection. Organising a collection is exactly the same as organising a painting, sculpture or

‘All collecting is fundamentally the same, whatever you collect.

It’s shopping’ Howard Hodgkin

any artwork. So if you are an artist you have got a leg up. Also, artists have got the bravery to go with their instincts a lot more than other people.’

He concurs with the view that one of the great inventions of 20th-century art was collage.

And that putting a collection, or indeed an exhibition, together is like making a collage.

When he was the curator of the groundbreaking ‘Freeze’ exhibition in 1988 (the show that first introduced the YBAs), Hirst remembers: ‘It was like a great big 3D collage, organising already organised elements, thinking a Michael Landy sculpture would look just amazing with an Ian Davenport painting; all it needs now is an Angela Bulloch light piece.’

Tom Phillips agrees, but with a qualification.

‘There’s a connection between putting a collection together and putting an oeuvre together, rather than a single work.’ Gold weights from Ghana and the Ivory Coast intrigued him because they were ‘like an inventory of the whole world – every act, every implement, everything people ate, all represented in this genre’. They had an affinity with his own work, in that they were ‘encyclopaedic’.

He completed the collection – as you might a painting or a life’s work – with a crucial touch.

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‘One particular gold weight represents the act of weighing gold itself. That seemed to be the key piece. I sort of half-knew where it was, and eventually I found it. So that was the end of that collection, and I wrote a book about it.’

Hodgkin, on the other hand, is inclined to emphasise the compulsive aspect of collecting more than its imagination. ‘It is true up to a point that it’s a creative act joining together disparate things. A great collection certainly has a character of its own. But it is accumulation.

That can happen to anyone if they are unlucky enough to catch the disease.’ He has suggested, however, that collecting art provides a specific solace for artists. ‘A professional artist sells what he makes. Buying art fills the void that comes as each work leaves the studio.’

If artists have some particular reasons to collect, they perhaps also have an unusual insight into what collecting truly is. Hirst has defined it with a metaphor. ‘Collecting is stuff washed up on a beach somewhere and that somewhere is you. Then when you die, it all gets washed away again.’ This suggests that the fundamental connection between the items in any collection is the collector.

Lucian Freud once put this to me succinctly.

‘In the end, nothing goes with anything. It’s your taste that puts things together.’ Hirst agreed with that thought when I put it to him, but was less convinced by another of Freud’s dicta on the subject. Freud owned a number of works by

Frank Auerbach – in addition to paintings and sculptures by Corot, Cézanne, Constable, Rodin and Degas, among others. But when I suggested he was an Auerbach collector, he was a little put out. In reply, he rephrased a remark by the American writer Djuna Barnes about her relationship with Thelma Wood: ‘I’m not a lesbian, I just love Thelma.’ Lucian echoed that: ‘I am not a collector, I just love Frank’s work.’ Hirst’s response on hearing Freud’s line was, ‘I think that’s good, but it’s not true, because that – loving something – could be all that it takes to make you a collector.’

Obviously, love for a certain kind of thing is likely to be a starting point. Writing in 1991,

‘Collecting is stuff washed up on a beach somewhere and that somewhere is you… when you die it all gets washed away again’ Damien Hirst

Hodgkin confessed that he started buying Indian paintings, ‘because I thought they were beautiful’. Subsequently, however, ‘after the wanting stage has passed, usually when large amounts of money have been spent on serious acquisitions, then you make a horrible discovery that a collection has a life of its own: it makes its own demands.’

Once the ‘design’ of the collection has formed in the collector’s mind, Hodgkin related, then things have to be bought out of ‘necessity as well as passion’. That, he concluded, was the most dangerous but also the most creative phase of collecting, involving the head as well as the heart and other ‘lower organs’.

Surely, this is the truth. Collecting is at once an obsessive compulsion and – at least potentially – a creative act. It is simultaneously an addictive disorder and, as the sculptor Richard Deacon RA recently put it, ‘a way of modelling the world’. You may accumulate works of art to hang on your walls – in Lucian Freud’s words – ‘to thicken your life’ and/or because you can’t stop yourself buying them.

Germany Divided: Baselitz and his Generation British Museum, London, 020 7323 8299, www.britishmuseum.org, until 31 Aug Georg Baselitz: Farewell Bill Gagosian Gallery Britannia Street, London, 020 7841 9960, www.gagosian.com, until 29 March Damien Hirst’s new gallery opens in London in spring 2015

GE T T Y I M AGES/ P H OTO S COT T B A R B O U R /S ER P EN T I N E G A L L ERY

Damien Hirst with Stripped (Instinctual) by Michael Joo (left), and Can’t beat the feeling by Banksy (right), both from his murderme collection

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M A RT I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L T h e l e a d i n g s p e c i a l i s t i n c u lt u r a l to u r s

INDIA

2014 & 2015 Twelve expert-led, small-group tours spanning the Indian subcontinent from Shimla in the north to Madurai in the south and from Jodhpur in the west to Assam in the northeast. They explore millennia of Indian architecture, art and history; ancient and modern.

The Indian Mutiny 28 October–10 November 2014 with Patrick Mercer

Sailing the Ganges 3–16 November 2014 with John Keay

Essential India 14–28 November 2014 with Dr Anna-Maria Misra 20 February–6 March 2015 with Dr Giles Tillotson

Painted Palaces of Rajasthan 24 November–7 December 2014 with Dr Giles Tillotson

Assam by River 1–11 December 2014 with Lesley Pullen

Bengal by River at Christmas 14–27 December 2014 with Dr Rosie Llewellyn-Jones

Karnataka: the Undiscovered South 10–24 January 2015 with John M. Fritz

Temples of Tamil Nadu 26 January–8 February 2015 with Asoka Pugal

Mughals & Nawabs 4–15 February 2015 with Professor James Allan

Kingdoms of the Deccan

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6–19 February 2015 with John M. Fritz

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ABTA No.Y6050

5085

Fragrance designer Jo Malone has a nose for architecture as well as scent, as Sam Phillips discovers when they visit Kengo Kuma’s aromatic installation in the RA’s ‘Sensing Spaces’ show. Photograph by Harry Borden

Seeing scents ‘I just fell in love with it the minute I walked through those curtains,’ says a wide-eyed Jo Malone. Minutes after leaving the installation

by Kengo Kuma in the Academy’s ‘Sensing Spaces’ show, the British fragrance designer is still buzzing. In darkened spaces lit by spotlights on the floor, the Japanese architect has entwined ultra-thin lines of bamboo into two ephemeral structures, which, thanks to capillary action, emit scents of Japanese cypress and rice straw. For someone with such a pronounced olfactory sense as Malone, who has dedicated her life to devising scents, this fragrant architecture made for an overwhelming experience.

‘Before I walked through the curtains I could smell something like sandalwood and slight, slight floral notes, so I knew something special was coming,’ she explains. ‘But it was like being a three-year-old child walking in there for the first time, because it wasn’t what I had expected – it was totally unconventional. The darkness gave me a slightly insecure feeling at first, before my eyes became accustomed to the lack of light. But at the same time the sense of smell made me feel secure. It was cradling me in the dark. And as I walked through the rooms, the soaring scented bamboo had almost the feel of a cathedral. It was just magical, absolutely magical.’

RIGHT Jo Malone, surrounded by scented bamboo in Kengo Kuma’s installation at the Academy’s ‘Sensing Spaces’ show

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CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT

Established 20 years ago, Malone’s self-titled fragrance brand became wildly popular, thanks to its emphasis on scents inspired by natural ingredients over synthetic concoctions. Even if you haven’t heard of the products, it’s likely that you’ve enjoyed smelling them, so commonly have Jo Malone candles been burned in British households, their scents ranging from peony to pomegranate, freesia to fig. Malone sold the brand to beauty giant Estée Lauder in 1999 and left her role as the company’s director in 2006.

Her new brand, Jo Loves, was launched two years ago and her most recent project has been its flagship boutique, based in London’s Belgravia.

As our conversation continues, I soon realise that speaking to Malone about smell is something like having a chat with David Hockney RA about perception, or Wayne Shorter about sound.

She discusses aroma with a wonderful richness, opening a window on sensory experience that I had never previously looked through. For Malone, ‘fragrances are people, they’re identities, they’re personalities.’ She describes her work designing fragrances as ‘creating pieces of music’ and says she has the ability to ‘translate everything I see back into a fragrance note’; the way her mind so closely combines sound and

sight with smell speaks of synaesthesia, the condition in which senses are unified.

Kuma’s installation itself unifies smell and sight, examining how both senses can simultaneously affect spatial awareness. The Yokohama-born architect’s work emphasises what he calls ‘the void’ – spaces between materials – and his structures in the exhibition are a case in point. ‘The bamboo is so perfectly formed,’ says Malone. ‘It’s so fragile and so delicate, and yet if you take two steps to your right, your whole picture of it changes. It has this unbelievable, natural, tranquil simplicity – utter simplicity, but utter genius at the same time. One of the things I can’t bear in the cosmetics industry is those awful dipping sticks that smell, yet I would feel quite happy to live with the scented bamboo in this installation. I would love to live in one huge space and separate it by walls of scented bamboo, with scents ranging from a wonderful lemon grass to a white rice oil.’

Malone also praises the spirit of openendedness in Diébédo Francis Kéré’s installation (see page 70), in which visitors transform the structures by inserting coloured straws through its fabric during the show. ‘That’s how I create fragrance – I don’t know the end form, as

otherwise it becomes predictable and unimaginative.’ Pezo von Ellrichshausen’s massive platform in the Academy’s largest gallery (above left, and page 9) surprised her as she experienced ‘the beautiful spiral staircase, the wonderful feel of that wood as I walked upwards, and then my emotions as I reacted to the light at the top’.

Indeed, as well as being tuned in to external space, Malone’s senses are closely at one with her emotions. ‘The minute I smell Japanese cypress in future I will be taken back to the way I felt in that installation.’ As someone with a lifelong fear of labyrinths, the maze in the exhibition by Chinese architect Li Xiaodong (top) caused Malone anxiety, before the structure opened up to an airy mirrored space at its end. She explains that she would interpret her experience of Li’s work in the form of ‘a really sharp-edged fragrance, with vetivers, and then cedar, cigar notes and caramels’. Over the past two years, she has drawn inspiration from the kaleidoscopic glass sculptures of American artist Dale Chihuly, ‘looking at a piece of his glass and translating the look of it, and the feel of it, into fragrance’.

When I suggest that modern society is losing its connection with smell, she vehemently

© ROYAL ACADEM Y OF ARTS/PHOTO PHIL SAYER /© LI XIADONG . © ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS/ PHOTO PHIL SAYER /© KENGO KUMA . © PE ZO VON ELLRICHS HAUS EN

Three of the architectural installations in the Academy’s ‘Sensing Spaces’ exhibition: Li Xiaodong’s forest-like labyrinth; Kengo Kuma’s aromatic bamboo structure; and Pezo von Ellrichshausen’s 60-ft-high platform allowing visitors to view the RA’s elaborate ceiling coving

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© ROYAL ACADEM Y OF ARTS/PHOTO PHIL SAYER /© LI XIADONG . © ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS/ PHOTO PHIL SAYER /© KENGO KUMA . © PE ZO VON ELLRICHS HAUS EN

disagrees. ‘We’re becoming more connected to it. Everyone in the world is craving something they can believe and trust in, and smell epitomises that – it’s personal, it’s about passion, it’s about emotion. A fragrance is saying, “Have a relationship with me – let me be a memory in your life.”’

The aromas in which Kuma immerses visitors correspond to common building materials in his native country: Japanese cypress (hinoki) is the wood often used in teahouses and temples, and rice straw (tatami) is traditionally used as a

‘As I walked through the rooms, the soaring scented bamboo had almost the feel of a cathedral. It was just magical, absolutely magical’

flooring material. Does Malone love smelling London’s building materials? ‘I love the smell of London’s pavements,’ she concurs, ‘especially after it rains. I love that moment just before the storm. The air gets heavy and, especially in the summer when the pavements are hot, there’s a steaminess when the water suddenly hits.

It creates this amazing explosion of smell, which is there for a second and then it’s gone.’

Malone’s Chelsea home is not decorated with painted walls, patterned wallpaper or choice artworks, but uses aromas instead. ‘I live in a completely white house. It’s very light, with plain wooden floors and a big white spiral staircase.

I don’t have any art on the wall – my art is my fragrance, and I look on my little bottle of fragrance as my paintbrush.

‘In winter, when it’s cold outside, I have a warm red pine note running through the entrance hall and the dining area. We put green, orange and coriander cologne into the water that we wash the floors with – it is just like a carpet of fragrance as you walk in. If we have a dinner party there’ll be lemon-grass candles burning.

The drawing room’s fragrance depends on what flowers we have – if there are white orchids, I don’t want anything too heavy, so maybe a

very light spiced lavender note or a bitter, bitter orange. The bedroom area and the bathroom are always lemon grass, and clementines, mandarins and other very calming citrus smells.’

She stresses the significance of smell for public buildings such as hospitals – ‘Smell is able to calm people going through really tough times, so it might mean they need only one sedation pill instead of two’ – as well as for the individual spaces in which we live, as portable technology develops. ‘Imagine a time when you’ve been at work all day, you’re going home and on the train you can choose how your home will smell the moment you walk through the door.’ After a visit to the Academy’s exhibition, it is easy to imagine a future in which innovative architects employ fragrance designers for their buildings as readily as lighting designers. Jo Malone, no doubt, will be at the top of their list.

Watch video interviews with the architects behind the exhibition on the RA’s YouTube channel http://roy.ac/youtube Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined Main Galleries, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 020 7300 8000, www.royalacademy.org.uk/sensingspaces, until 6 April. See Events & Lectures page 70

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What is in the minds of art students today? Colin Perry finds out what is feeding the imaginations of RA Schools’ second-year students – and what direction their work is taking – ahead of their group exhibition in the Royal Academy’s galleries

CAROLINE ABBOTTS

Interest: Outer space Research material: Photograph by Professor Phil Bland of part of a comet entering the Earth’s atmosphere

Caroline Abbotts’s studio contains a relic from outer space – a meteorite, black and heavy, as if possessed of its own gravitational force. She often works in collaboration with scientists, and has spent time researching images of the solar system.

Themes in her work include the connection between the micro-world (the meteorite) and the macro-world (the universe). Interested in photographic processes, Abbotts has propped up against her studio wall several glass sheets that show negative images of the starry sky taken from Earth’s north celestial pole. For this ambitious work the glass sheets had been immersed in huge developing tanks containing photographic fluids.

2

REBECCA ACKROYD

Interest: Window displays Research material: A window with mesh grill, which distorts the view behind

Rebecca Ackroyd’s work is invested in the allusive quality of things: her sculptures are partly inspired by everyday window displays, from those of shops to domestic apertures that display curtains and plants. In her studio space she is creating a tall, curved, freestanding panel on which a close-up image is printed of a luxurious-looking white bath towel. While Ackroyd’s work may be sculptural, some of her other influences are literary. She is currently interested in the American Imagist poet Hilda Doolittle (1886-1961), known as H.D, whose writing was concerned with the power of simple objects to convey meaning.

3

VICTORIA ADAM

Interest: Dress Research material: Men’s overcoat, English, c.1800

Victoria Adam is currently thinking about the connection between dress and morality: the idea that cloth might act as a visible code for one’s ethics. This concern is related to her interest in the history of clothing, and in particular fixings and fastenings, such as seams, lacing, buttons and zips. Her own works often deploy modest materials in unorthodox ways – for example, instead of using conventional nails or screws, Adam has used cloves and earplugs to attach thin fragments of various materials (including plaster and polystyrene sheets) to the wall.

Her work has a sly (almost undetectable) sense of humour, a fertile sense of the absurd hidden in the everyday.

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P H OTO © M AT T AGER . P H OTO S O F I E A LS B O. CO U R T ESY O F B AS I C B O O KS

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P H I L B L A N D, D ES ER T F I R EB A L L N E T WO R K . P H OTO © R EB ECCA ACK R OY D. © V I C TO R I A A N D A L B ER T M US EU M , LO N D O N

Under the influence

P H OTO © M AT T AGER . P H OTO S O F I E A LS B O. CO U R T ESY O F B AS I C B O O KS

P H I L B L A N D, D ES ER T F I R EB A L L N E T WO R K . P H OTO © R EB ECCA ACK R OY D. © V I C TO R I A A N D A L B ER T M US EU M , LO N D O N

T

he annual exhibition ‘Premiums Interim Projects’ captures a freeze-frame moment in the quickly shifting development of Royal Academy Schools’ students during the second year of their studies. Artists advance, expand and shift gear at art school like nothing else.

This is particularly true at the RA Schools, where students frequently arrive having spent a number of years in the ‘real world’ after graduating, and are now returning for three years to an environment in which experimentation and risk are welcomed.

Students are offered superb atelier-like spaces, lit by long skylights that stretch down the length

of the RA Schools, which is sandwiched between the main RA buildings: Burlington House and Burlington Gardens.

These students are a select bunch, with only 17 or so in each of the three years.

This tends to foster a series of dialogues, confluences and aesthetic disagreements that is highly productive, introducing new elements to an artist’s practice and pushing them further along their chosen path.

What follows is a snapshot of the artists who are exhibiting in this year’s ‘Premiums’, midway through their studies. Rather than showing examples of their work, each artist has chosen an idea, object or image that constitutes part of their research material.

Within this wide remit, we can see that the artists of today enjoy muddying the boundaries between consumer culture, everyday urban and natural materials, and art history. While each artist has chosen a single idea, object or image, these are just examples of the kinds of things that occupy the artists in their studios, prompting thoughts and conversations.

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MATT AGER

Interest: Everyday materials Research material: The form of an ice-cream

Matt Ager treats all materials as equal, drawing inspiration from the composition of everyday objects – he explains, for example, how he was intrigued by the muted colour and proportion of an ice-cream he saw his friend eating. His wall-based assemblages sometimes include an item of clothing – a pair of trousers, a shirt – placed alongside other elements, such as a photograph of a spoon scooping a sugary substance, or framed drawings of a cupcake.

What appears to unite these objects and images is their colour (Ager has a fondness for orange, salmon and pink). If you squint, these works might even look like an abstract painting by Barnett Newman or Mark Rothko. Ager’s work treads a line of taste, collapsing distinctions between highbrow and lowbrow.

SOFIE ALSBO

Interest: Loops Research material: I am a Strange Loop, 2007,

by Douglas Hofstadter

Sofie Alsbo has been reading I am a Strange Loop (2007) by Douglas Hofstadter, a book that explores the use of self-referential or ‘feedback’ systems. The idea of the ‘loop’ is clearly pertinent to Alsbo’s art. She is particularly interested in lenticular prints – think 3D postcards that change image when tilted. Alsbo has used this technique to great effect in an image she has made of a silhouetted man who appears to be running in an endless circuit. She often reuses kitsch imagery, making Romantic-looking scenes filled with deep shadows and gloaming light.

Premiums Interim Projects Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington Gardens, London, 020 7300 8000, www.royalacademy.org.uk, 7–19 March. The RA Schools is sponsored by Newton Investment Management To see an image gallery of some of the students’ works visit http://roy.ac/prem

HANNAH BAYS

Interest: The cult of John Frum Research material: The ceremonial cross of the John Frum cult, on the island of Tanna, Vanuatu

Hannah Bays is a painter whose works explore figuration, symbolism and collage-like fragmentation. She is currently interested in John Frum, a legendary figure who gave rise to a cargo cult in the South Pacific island of Tanna, Vanuatu.

By tapping into the story of Frum, Bays looks at ways in which people have sought to understand the modern, secular world in more mythic terms.

Bays’s images burst with revelations, drawn from sources such as psychedelic imagery (one painting features a character shaped like a mushroom) and Jungian archetypes.

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Josie Cockram’s current reading list includes books by British psychoanalyst Adam Phillips (below), author of such leftfield titles as On Flirtation: Psychoanalytic Essays on the Uncommitted Life (1994), On Balance (2010) and Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life (2012). The themes Phillips examines in these books, such as the value of relinquishing control, inform Cockram’s video installations; she does not synchronise her moving images and her soundtracks, in order to free the viewer to consider the effect of one on the other.

Her videos, which feature close-up, semi-abstract footage of objects, are projected on objects in the gallery space – a tent-like structure rather than a screen in the case of her work, Pavilion (2014), in ‘Premiums’.

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HENRY COLEMAN

Interest: Architectural drawings Research material: Design for Coventry Cathedral, 1953, by Basil Spence RA

Henry Coleman is interested in how drawings, such as architectural plans, are used to develop the built environment. He is fascinated by a drawing in the RA Collections by Scottish architect Basil Spence RA of the new design for Coventry Cathedral (bottom), which had been badly damaged during the Second World War. The image shows the cathedral bathed in rays of golden light, recalling Romantic depictions of biblical and oriental temples. Coleman’s work often focuses on existing architectural structures, using flags and text-based murals in order to emphasise their histories.

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ADAM COLLIER

Interest: The carnivalesque Research material: François Rabelais

11 ZIGGY GRUDZINSKAS

Interest: Looking Research material: Hypnotoad from the cartoon Futurama

Adam Collier makes sculptures that Rabelais (below) would have appreciated. The French Renaissance author’s bawdy humour and fondness for excess finds its equivalent in Collier’s works, with their excrescent surfaces and cartoon-like animism. However, Collier has not been delving into Rableais’s Gargantua and Pantagruel, but rather the Russian writer Mikhail Bakhtin’s Rabelais and His World (1965), a book that analyses literary notions of the carnivalesque and the grotesque. Collier’s work taps into these ideas, adding certain other motifs to the mix – from the artist Mike Kelley’s idiosyncratic re-reading of Freud to the imagery of Hieronymus Bosch – to create works that are viscerally arresting.

Ziggy Grudzinskas’s recent paintings are based on the demonic amphibian Hypnotoad (below) from the TV cartoon Futurama, a creature that intermittently hypnotises characters appearing in the series. Although these images recall the haunting cliché of the Mona Lisa, in which the eyes follow you, the cartoon reference might place these paintings squarely in the tradition of Pop Art. However, Grudzinskas’s works are not so much about low versus high art, as about setting up a game of looking. His earlier works were abstracts, and one might say that he treats Hypnotoad in the same way: as an abstract motif and pattern rather than a Pop Art reference.

10 MARIA DE LIMA

12 DECLAN JENKINS

On Maria de Lima’s studio desk is a postcard of The Cholmondeley Ladies, a 17th-century painting (bottom) by an unknown artist depicting two sisters sitting together in bed, each holding a baby. At first glance, the painting appears to be identical on either side, a quality that De Lima describes as akin to ‘spot the difference’ puzzles.

De Lima’s own paintings explore similar effects of near-symmetry and graphic immediacy followed by contemplative doubt. Some of her paintings are based on a simple linear pattern, but are rendered in a blur, as if to suggest one might need 3D glasses in order to see the image clearly.

Declan Jenkins says that his work is becoming more confrontational. He’s interested in the Greek word agōn (from which the English ‘agony’ is derived). Jenkins’s work is generally performance-based, and he often challenges the viewer by questioning what it means to be an artist; indeed, he recently gave an artist’s talk which included employing hecklers to shout him down. This type of questioning in contemporary art recalls the work of American artist Bruce Nauman, for example. Above all, Jenkins wishes to convey that art is a mode of action, rather than an object, sculpture or painting.

Interest: Symmetry Research material: The Cholmondeley Ladies, c.1600-10, artist unknown

Interest: Struggle Research material: The Greek word for struggle or contest – agōn

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P H OTO © E V ELY N O ’ CO N N O R . © B A R TO L I . P H OTO © M A X P RUS . © THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITIS H MUS EUM

JOSIE COCKRAM

Interest: Psychoanalysis Research material: The ideas of psychoanalyst Adam Phillips

© R OYA L ACA D EM Y O F A R TS , LO N D O N / P H OTO P RU D EN CE CU M I N G AS S O CI AT ES L I M I T ED. GIR AUDON/ THE BRIDGEM AN ART LIBR ARY. H U LTO N F I N E A R T CO L L ECT I O N / P R I N T CO L L ECTO R /GE T T Y I M AGES . © T W EN T I E T H CEN T U RY F OX

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13 EVELYN O’CONNOR

15 MAX PRUS

Evelyn O’Connor makes sculptural works that comprise found elements, such as egg boxes (below), in bold, idiosyncratic forms. For example, one recent sculpture consists of a skeletal edifice made from MDF that extends into a spinal form of purple hoops and red spheres. Her materials are equally unexpected: one sculpture includes chunks of Plasticine and Play-Doh, as well as a large stack of pea-green plastic balls trapped between sheets of plasterboard. O’Connor explains that her works are also connected to an interest in literature, a concern revealed by her long and enigmatic titles, such as One not only learns to walk. One learns to walk as an Irish woman.

Max Prus paints his large canvases in what he calls a ‘co-operative’ manner. He trawls the city in search of people who are willing to visit his studio and commit brush to canvas (below). Prus’s art is achieved partly through the selection of collaborators, and he claims that: ‘Only one in a 100,000 people can paint, and I feel I have a sense of who can do it before they pick up a paintbrush.’ In this sense, Prus is akin to a stage or film director. Prus is considering whether to show his paintings in ‘Premiums’ in a darkened, theatrical space lit by spotlights.

14 LAURENCE OWEN

Interest: Asger Jorn and Per Kirkeby Research material: Jorn in his studio, 1961

Laurence Owen has been drawn to two Danish painters, Asger Jorn (1914-73, bottom) and Per Kirkeby (b. 1938), both of whom have made sculptural works using ceramics or bricks. For ‘Premiums’, Owen plans to create a body of ceramic works to exhibit alongside his paintings, which approach abstraction with what he calls ‘a flat sense of depth’. Whereas both Jorn and Kirkeby made paintings that were often born of intuitive gesture, Owen’s work is far more controlled. He says he is interested in ‘the tools of perception’, suggesting that his work is concerned with analysing our visual experience.

P H OTO © E V ELY N O ’ CO N N O R . © B A R TO L I . P H OTO © M A X P RUS . © THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITIS H MUS EUM

© R OYA L ACA D EM Y O F A R TS , LO N D O N / P H OTO P RU D EN CE CU M I N G AS S O CI AT ES L I M I T ED. GIR AUDON/ THE BRIDGEM AN ART LIBR ARY. H U LTO N F I N E A R T CO L L ECT I O N / P R I N T CO L L ECTO R /GE T T Y I M AGES . © T W EN T I E T H CEN T U RY F OX

Interest: Found objects Research material: Egg boxes

Interest: Co-operation Research material: A man who was invited

by Prus to paint with him

‘These are just examples of the kinds of ideas, objects or images that occupy the artists in their studios, prompting thoughts and conversations’

16 SEAN STEADMAN

Interest: Numbers Research material: Number sequences

Sean Steadman is interested in the functional role of words and numbers (below), and has been reading the work of the philosopher of language Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) and the mathematician Kurt Gödel (1906-78), who each revolutionised their respective academic fields.

Mathematicians have long argued over whether or not numbers are products of our minds, and the strangeness of their status corresponds to Steadman’s paintings, which create a strange world quite removed from our own. They are laden with perplexing symbolism: a satyr-like creature with an axe for a tail and a masked face frolics around post-modern-looking architectural forms (red-brick arches, pillars topped with spheres of faux rock).

17 JOEL WYLLIE

Interest: Japanese woodblock prints Research material: Scene 11: The Lake at Hakone, 1833-34, by Utagawa Hiroshige

Joel Wyllie has a Japanese print in his studio.

It is by Hiroshige (1797-1858), and is from a series depicting the Tōkaidō road between the cities of Edo and Kyoto. Wyllie’s interest in this image (bottom) is related to his upbringing (his father was born in Singapore, and the family house is filled with Asian objects). He is fascinated by the careful spatial construction and form in these prints, and brings these concerns into his own work. Wyllie has recently started a new series of drawings informed by his experiments in the RA Schools’ etching room; layers of Indian ink, airbrush and intricate pencil marks conjure up the planes of colour and detail beloved of Japanese woodblock masters.

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Academician Anthony Caro was the most influential British sculptor of the post-war era, famously taking sculpture off the plinth. Norman Foster RA pays a personal tribute to the man who collaborated with him on several projects

My first meeting with Anthony Caro RA and his wife Sheila Girling was in the 1970s when we became neighbours in Hampstead. I recall him knocking on the door to talk about a new project and to ask my advice. He had been approached by I.M. Pei Hon RA, the architect for the new East Wing of the National Gallery in Washington, with a commission for a sitespecific sculpture in a prominent location within the project.

I had just created a model shop within my studio and suggested that he develop his sculpture using a big scale model of the space, which I offered to provide. He loved the concept and, in due course working with the architect’s drawings, I made a large cardboard model of the gallery’s interior with Tony’s assigned space marked out. It was the first time he had worked in that way and he was clearly delighted with the process – and the end result. When I visit the museum it always brings back good memories to look up at his sculpture National Gallery Ledge Piece (1978) and admire the way in which it complements the architecture.

Most days, if my travels do not take me away from home, I meet Anthony Caro. That is to say that when I walk around outside our house in Switzerland I stop to admire two of his magnificent works – one rises monumentally from a grassy slope, the other hovers serenely next to a footpath. These are part of a series called ‘Toronto Flats’ and they date back to 1974 when one of Tony’s collectors gave him the use of a steel mill in Canada. The two pieces have

been in place for some six years now and my wife Elena and I never tire of living with them – they are also part of the view from our windows.

Their presence has been a constant reminder of Tony and often on our walks they have evoked a ritual exchange between us along the lines of: ‘We really must persuade Tony and Sheila to come and stay with us because they would love to see these works in the landscape.’ On one occasion they made arrangements to come and stay but, because of ill health, they had to cancel at the last moment.

Now that Tony is sadly no longer with us there is a certain poignancy when we pause to admire his works. On the one hand we are sad that there will no longer be the pleasure of his company with his infectious and youthful enthusiasm for life and work. But the aesthetic charge from his sculpture is undiminished and that is a legacy that will endure far beyond his lifespan.

The process of acquiring these two works brought our two families closer together.

I was seeing Tony during his visits to Elena’s publishing house, Ivorypress, where they were working together on an artist’s book, Open Secret (2004), which took the form of tabletop sculptures in either bronze, brass, paper or stainless-steel. Each of the books opens up to reveal Shakespearian scripts lovingly transcribed onto thin card sheets, as well as a portfolio of poems handwritten especially for this project by the German poet Hans Magnus Enzensberger.

It was during one of their working sessions that Tony mentioned a forthcoming exhibition in

the West Country of Caro’s outdoor works and paintings by Sheila.

Elena and I arrived for the opening on a bright late summer’s morning in the setting of the rolling landscape of Roche Court in Wiltshire. I was asked to say a few words in praise of the artists’ works – Sheila’s in the estate buildings and Tony’s set in the meadows. It was a beautiful event and after the ceremonies we took a walk to view the sculptures, noting our favourites as we went along.

It was only afterwards that we were to understand the significance of this body of work

by Caro, produced in 1974. Partly the realisation came through conversations with Tony but it was also the result of reading interviews and looking at these sculptures in the context of what came before and then followed. Here, for the first time, the artist was working directly with heavy industry and out of doors in the making of his work.

The York Steel Company, based in Toronto, had provided cranes and moving equipment that enabled Tony to manipulate large raw metal plates in space, turning heavy elements with comparative ease and tack welding them together for later reappraisal. This was a quantum leap from the facilities that his Camden workshop/ studio had offered and it shows in the scale and materiality of these works. They emerged over a period of separate visits, in between which a small team of younger collaborators would be following through the artist’s directives. This process also gave Caro a second opportunity to make changes – perhaps another reason why this group of

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© B A R FO R D S CU L P T U R ES

Man of mettle

Anthony Caro RA at his retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery, London, 1963. In the background (from left) are Pompadour, 1963, Twenty Four Hours, 1960, and Month of May, 1963

© B A R FO R D S CU L P T U R ES

sculptures appears so resolved. It seems to me that they also paved the way for a new body of monumental works that emerged in later decades.

I remember the experience of seeing my first Caro – on returning from graduate studies in the United States in 1963 – at his solo show in London’s Whitechapel Gallery (above). The work was a brightly painted assemblage of structural steel sections welded together that sat directly on the floor with a conspicuous absence of any podium. At the time it was a shockingly radical departure from anything that I had experienced before as sculpture.

Tony’s breadth of scale has architectural parallels in its range, from pieces small enough to sit on a tabletop to those that create spaces the size of a dwelling. I can recall his monumental works that were equally at home in the cavernous entrance space of the Tate Gallery, as they were sitting in the green landscape of Goodwood.

I recall the magnificent ziggurat of a work that started life indoors as Halifax Steps – Ziggurats and Spirals (1994) and which was later transformed

‘...the aesthetic charge from his sculpture is undiminished and that is a legacy that will endure far beyond his lifespan’

outdoors to become Goodwood Steps (1996). In a conversation with the noted Spanish sculptor Eduardo Chillida Hon RA, Caro talked about this transition. ‘I’m interested in how to make my sculpture for outside. When the Goodwood Steps were installed outside at Goodwood – they were originally made for inside at Dean Clough in Halifax – I realised that they became not only something you look at but also something you look through. You see the countryside through them. The piece acts as a frame for the countryside rather than the environment framing it. It is speaking a different language from the landscape, just as buildings in a landscape do.’

In 1996 I asked Tony to join a small team of architects and engineers to compete for a new footbridge that would span the Thames from St Paul’s Cathedral to Tate Modern at London’s Bankside. We won the competition with a design that almost literally stretched the boundaries of a suspension structure. It was a great experience that also stretched our minds. The artist in any collaborative venture is usually introduced late in the process. So it was unusual for us to work together from the beginning. One consequence was the insights into different creative worlds.

I think Tony was surprised and shocked by some of the processes that architects and engineers take for granted, such as the constraints of regulations and the many separate authorities whose needs must be accommodated. Likewise, as architects, we gained an enormous respect for the sculptor’s total freedom of expression and the self-imposed discipline that was a consequence of

such liberty. As Caro wrote later, ‘…since sculpture is essentially physical, sculptors tend to think directly, using actual material, actual size. The problem a sculptor has to solve is a problem he has set himself – far from having a competition, a brief, a site, even a given size.

The sculptor may start from a rule he makes for himself or from the parts in his piece-bin, from a reproduction of a Cézanne or from the joint between two units.’

The last time I saw Tony, he was with Sheila having breakfast on the terrace of the Hotel Monaco in Venice last summer. Elena and I joined them before going off to see his retrospective show in Museo Correr, off St Mark’s Square.

It was the most recent show that I have seen of his work and, without doubt, the most unforgettable and moving. In roughly chronological order, it started with the same brightly coloured works that had excited me 50 years earlier. The gallery consisted of rooms strung out along a corridor with an almost infinite perspective. Going from room to room was like seeing chapters of Tony Caro’s career unfolding, with variations in scale interposing the transition from vivid Pop colours to the more sombre metal surfaces that eventually were to be his hallmark. It was a perfect marriage of a confident antiquarian architecture with the lifetime’s progression of a supremely confident and great contemporary artist. What a testimony and what a legacy.

To see video interviews with Anthony Caro RA and other material on his work from the RA’s archive, visit http://roy.ac/caro

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Critical issues in art and architecture

Debate

I L LUS T R AT I O N BY F R A N CES CO B O N GI O R N I

The Question Will there be fewer fine artists in the future?

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Yes… The A-level students the RA works with are turning away from careers in fine art, says JENNIFER ZIELINSKA During the past four years that I have been working with attRAct, the RA’s programme for A-level students, I have seen more and more students leaving school with a desire to study creative subjects. Yet very few of them see their future as fine artists.

The profile that art has held in secondary schools has been gradually weakening since 2006, when as an A-level student in a London grammar school, I participated in the attRAct programme. The English Baccalaureate, introduced in 2010 as a performance measure in secondary schools, does not include Art and Design as a core subject that contributes towards the measure. By omitting art subjects from this measure, artistically minded students are marginalised – discouraged from seeing art as a viable line of work – and schools are under less pressure to prioritise them.

According to UCAS statistics, between 2011 and 2012 there was a 16.3 per cent decline in students applying to creative arts and design courses; there was only a minor improvement of a 2.4 per cent increase between 2012 and 2013.

No…

I L LUS T R AT I O N BY F R A N CES CO B O N GI O R N I

There will always be people who want to be fine artists, provided the subject stays on the school curriculum, argues CORNELIA PARKER RA Luckily, I went to art school in the 1970s and early ’80s, receiving six years of free education.

Coming from a working-class background, having access to a full grant allowed me to fulfil my aspiration to become an artist.

My parents were hostile to the idea, but as they didn’t have to pay anything towards my education I didn’t need their approval. When they passed away five years ago they were still disappointed that I never got a proper job.

When I was at art school you didn’t expect to make a living out of your work like you might today. It seemed as if life as an artist was a philosophical quest – one where you expected to live in penury, but enlightened penury. It was worth the struggle because it was about freedom and rebellion, and a life worth living. Now art and the appreciation of art have become much more mainstream, no longer the rarified pursuits

‘Fine art is always going to be popular as a degree, but the average age of students will certainly increase’

This shift away from art could also be blamed on a lack of information about the pathway to attend art college or the possibilities of studying art as a degree. Instead, the focus is on UCAS applications to more ‘academic’ subjects. Of course, there are still some teachers encouraging students to pursue art education, and popular art and design foundation courses are inundated with applications. However, among the attRAct students I work with, there are fewer budding Donald Judds or Gillian Wearings. Increasingly these artistic minds are seeking a way into graphics, animation, architecture, production design: creative subjects that are crucially seen as leading to creative careers in the way art is not.

Are young people simply more savvy than they were in years gone by? The decisions students make these days are steered by the understanding that being a professional artist will not necessarily provide financial security or a stable career. Arts Council England’s budget has received a 33 per cent cut in real terms since 2010 and local authorities are cutting grants to cultural institutions; it is not surprising that a young person might be deterred from committing to such an uncertain career.

As well as this, high university fees mean there will be only a specific, affluent demographic who can afford to be students, let alone fine art students who have the added expense of studio rental and art materials.

Consequently, an art student’s time is often depleted by casual work to pay for it all. This

‘Artistically minded students are marginalised – discouraged from seeing art as a viable line of work’

of the avant garde and consumed only by the upper classes. Through the Turner Prize giving everyman a chance to have an opinion, through museums being free, through media and social networks, there are now a lot more opportunities for artists, and an ever-expanding art world.

Starting out now, one can possibly imagine approaching art as a financially viable career.

It seems that, increasingly, we will want art in our lives. More people are becoming collectors, whatever their class or income. The diversity of materials and means of expression available to artists today mean that works can be made for very little money. So many of my works over the years have been made from discarded objects at the end of the food chain. Lack of resources and space can certainly encourage you to be resourceful and think outside of the box.

There’s the cliché of artists slaving away in their garrets, and it is true that with today’s rents, there are not many garrets to be had in London. When I first moved to the city in 1984, I squatted a house, and later I lived in a housing association property. There is now less and less cheap accommodation and studio space. There is no doubt that artists are getting squeezed.

But will artists need studios in the future?

There is still a traditional romantic idea of what resources artists need to be artists. Working practices are fast evolving and, through the internet, new forums are being created. New strands of collaborative, socially orientated art are emerging that defy old notions of where the

activity can take place. Artists such as Banksy or Jeremy Deller, who didn’t study fine art, have encouraged people to make work out on the street or in the community rather than in the studio.

I taught fine art at art schools until about 12 years ago, and even then there was a changing demographic because of the gradual introduction of tuition fees. In particular there was an increase in mature students. These included those who had made a lot of money, or empty-nesters who had always aspired to go to art school but only now had the time and could afford it. This trend will continue as fees rise. Fine art is always going to be popular as a degree, but the average age of students will certainly increase.

My main fear is about art education in schools. Education Minister Michael Gove’s promotion of the English Baccalaureate, with its emphasis on a narrow band of subjects, is sidelining art. The original thinking that develops when studying art, music and drama is a positive for every other single subject in the school curriculum. If this creativity gets squashed very early on, that’s a much bigger threat to the future of art than fewer applications to art schools. Since the creative industries are this country’s most lucrative export, our biggest manufacturing base, we should be very worried indeed when the genesis of such talent gets nipped in the bud.

does not bode well for the sustainability of an eclectic assortment of artists that is the vital component of an evolving art scene.

By no means am I underestimating that the skills developed through art education – independent thought, an understanding of critical context, an ability to provide both practical and beautiful solutions – are applicable to a variety of careers. But they are often deemed less valuable than perceived ‘academic’ credentials by prospective students keen to be seen as employable on graduation.

I fear that because these abilities are not easily quantifiable, they are overlooked in favour of skills more in keeping with a traditional CV. While we should count ourselves fortunate that the UK is a nation with many thriving creative industries, I think this means young people are deviating from fine art towards them – to the detriment of the vibrant tapestry of culture as we know it. attRAct offers London-based A-level Art students RA workshops, exhibition tours, studio visits, mentoring sessions in the RA Schools, gallery visits and careers and portfolio advice. Visit www.royalacademy.org.uk/learning For details of how to enter A-Level Summer Exhibition Online and show artwork on the RA website visit www.royalacademy.org.uk/alevel

What do you think? To post your comments on this article visit http://roy.ac/fineart

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Debate

Icons or eyesores?

Right to Life (detail), 1998, by Grayson Perry RA

The craft that is now art Novelist TRACY CHEVALIER, who curates a new exhibition of quilts, argues that this traditional activity should be accepted as a contemporary art medium In 2010 I went to see ‘Quilts 1700-2010’ at the V&A, and was blown away by how beautiful, sophisticated and thought-provoking the quilts on display were. Despite initial scepticism from the art world, the exhibition was a big success.

Around the same time, I was researching my historical novel The Last Runaway (2013), in which the English heroine is, among other things, a quilter. I chose quilting because I wanted my characters to take part in an activity that was popular in both Britain and the US during the 19th century. I found quilts to be a fascinating mix of the practical and the creative. Made for beds, they also gave women one of the few opportunities they had in their daily lives to play with colour, pattern, texture – often using fabrics from old clothing, sewing their lives into the layers. Quilts became personal historical documents, covering sleepers and literally absorbing them.

As well as researching quilts, I learned to make them. As a result, I became something of an armchair expert in quilts and last year I was asked to be a judge at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, for the newly reintroduced Fine Art Quilt Masters category.

Are quilts having their moment? Are they making the leap from craft to art? Pots have made the transition (Edmund de Waal); glass has (Dale Chihuly); tapestry has (Grayson Perry RA). Should quilts also be taken seriously as art? Perhaps more accurately: should quilting (the act of stitching together layers of fabric in patterns) be considered an artistic medium?

I think: yes. Art is not defined by how it is made, but by what it does to us.

To me, craft is something made to be admired and used, while art is made to get a response, to make us think or feel. Whether

the media used is marble or paint or thread should be immaterial. Yet somehow sewing does seem to be treated differently. In 2012 I attended a talk at the V&A by the quilt artist Nancy Crow, a mild-seeming American who unsheathed her claws the moment the art/craft issue was raised. There was no doubt that she defines herself as an artist and feels the art world treats quilt art with condescension, perhaps because quilting is often associated with women, and the art world – artists, critics and dealers – is still largely male.

In the end, the difference between art and craft is about context. Make a quilt, use it on a bed, and it’s craft. Hang it on a gallery wall, light it well and give it a label, and it’s art, right?

Perhaps that is too easy an answer. I expect to make some people uneasy at the quilt/art show I have curated for Danson House this year. ‘Things We Do in Bed’ displays antique quilts and quilted clothes alongside contemporary pieces by Grayson Perry RA, Sara Impey and other artists who use quilting in their work. There are also ‘amateur’ quilts, including one made by prisoners through the auspices of Fine Cell Work, a charity that teaches prisoners how to sew.

Some of the antique quilts in the show are displayed on walls, while the contemporary pieces cover beds. Amateur rubs alongside professional. I hope this will make visitors question the line they draw between art and craft and ask whether that distinction is relevant any longer when it comes to quilts.

THE GOOD Built on the site of the old Broad Street Station next to Liverpool Street, the Broadgate office and retail complex stands as an exemplar of how to integrate the new with the old. With a loosely postmodern twist, Broadgate’s sophisticated public spaces and public art – notably Richard Serra’s Fulcrum, from 1987 – help weave the development into its surroundings and make it part of the City. Although less than 30 years old, it is under threat, with one part already demolished to make way for a monolithic office block.

THE BAD Billed as the ‘building with more up top’, 20 Fenchurch Street – aka the ‘walkietalkie’ (below) – became infamous last summer when reflected light from its windows melted a car parked in nearby Eastcheap. That aside, it remains a deeply ungenerous building, blocking light from its neighbours and unduly dominating views of the City.

THE UGLY Just behind St Paul’s Cathedral sits One New Change. Part office block, part shopping centre, this twisting mass of angular glass and steel rears up from its site like a crash-landed stealth bomber. The building’s textured brown glass gives it a dirt-coloured patina, while inside its canyon-like incisions garish retail outlets proliferate. As part of London’s cityscape, it offers little other than the proverbial two fingers to Wren’s great masterpiece across the road.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: New Architecture In The City of London Owen Hopkins’ walking tours for Friends, 2 April and 3 June. See Events and Lectures page 73 What do you think? To post your comments on this article visit http://roy.ac/city

Things We Do in Bed Danson House, Bexleyheath, 01322 526574, www.dansonhouse.org.uk, 1 April–31 Oct What do you think? To post your comments on this article visit http://roy.ac/quilts

CO U R T ESY T H E A R T IS T A N D V I C TO R I A M I R O, LO N D O N /© G R AYS O N P ER RY. © EDWA R D W EB B/ V I E W P I CT U R ES .CO.U K

OWEN HOPKINS tours the good, the bad and the ugly of City of London architecture

20 Fenchurch Street, by Rafael Viñoly

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Discover St Petersburg and the Baltic States

with NOBLE CALEDONIA aboard the MS Serenissima - Summer 2014 & 2015 Bordered by diverse kingdoms and republics in a relatively contained area the Baltic is perfect for exploration by small ship. The history of the region is fascinating with countries vying for commercial and political influence for over a thousand years. The cities of the Baltic offer a cornucopia of delights, whether it be the grandeur of St Petersburg and its surrounding country estates, the newly independent Baltic states and their capitals with marvellously untouched Medieval quarters, or the sheer delight of Scandinavian ports with their colourful architecture and a freshness that is unique to the area.

Join us aboard the 107-passenger MS Serenissima in the summer months, the perfect time to explore the Baltic’s historic shores and look back over its colourful past from the Vikings and the Hanseatic era to more modern day events. With over twenty years experience of operating cruises in the region, we believe we have the most perfectly balanced Baltic voyages, the highlight for many being moored in St Petersburg for three days, allowing enough time to explore this most endlessly captivating of Russian cities. In addition visit up to eight other nations which border the Baltic, making our voyages the most comprehensive available. Within our two week itineraries, we aim to provide you with a comprehensive tour of the Baltic with expertly guided daily shore excursions and knowledgeable guest speakers onboard to add to your understanding of this fascinating region with the added benefit of an exceedingly comfortable small ship.

Departures operate from June to August.

For full details please ask for a copy of our new ‘Exploring the World by Small Ship’ brochure.

Call us today on 020 7752 0000 for your copy of our brochure.

Alternatively view or request online at www.noble-caledonia.co.uk NB. Our current booking conditions apply to all reservations and are available on request.

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Debate

Public Events and Lectures Further information on our events can be found at www.royalacademy.org.uk/events

InPractice at the RA

Fri 7 March A space for artists from our Community and Access programmes to share and celebrate their art practice. If you are an artist who would like to contribute or someone who would like to attend and support others, then come along! Please contact the Access Officer for details.

Reynolds Room; 6–8pm; free; volunteers support these events SENSING SPACES EVENING EVENT Wandering Words

Fri 7 March ‘Sensing Spaces’ provides both the inspiration and the setting for this evening of informal readings by poets of new work which engages with the exhibition in provoking, unusual or amusing ways. Contributors include Patricia Debney, Sasha Dugdale, Ian Duhig, Martin Figura, Vanessa Gebbie, Emer Gillespie, Helen Ivory, Catherine Smith and Tammy Yoseloff.

Main Galleries; 7–9pm; free with exhibition entry, no booking required SENSING SPACES ACCESS EVENT InMotion at the RA

Mon 10 March This tour for wheelchair users and mobility impaired visitors introduces the groundbreaking exhibition ‘Sensing Spaces’, followed by coffee and conversation in the Saloon.

Main Galleries; 9–11am; £3; volunteers support this event How to book ●

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Visit www.royalacademy.org. uk/events, or call 020 7300 5839.

You can also visit the RA Ticket Office, or complete the booking form overleaf and post to ‘Events and Lectures’ or fax 020 7300 8013.

Booking is advised for lunchtime lectures. Unclaimed seats will be released at 12.50pm on the day.

No admittance after 1pm.

Reductions are available for students, jobseekers and people with disabilities with recognised proof of status.

RA Friends and carers go free to Access events; pre-booking is advised. Disabled parking spaces and wheelchairs can be reserved on 020 7300 8028.

Sensing Sounds

Mon 10 March In partnership with the Royal College of Music, composers and performers present new music specially created in response to the ‘Sensing Spaces’ exhibition. This event will be held in the stunning installations within the galleries.

Main Galleries; 7.30–9pm; £18/£9 reductions SENSING SPACES EVENING EVENT Soapbox Talk: Pezo von Ellrichshausen

Fri 14 March The immersive and provoking installations of ‘Sensing Spaces’ provide the context for passionate talks by key figures from the worlds of art, architecture, design and literature, exploring how our experience of spaces informs the way we think about architecture and cities. In this talk, we welcome architectural duo Pezo von Ellrichshausen, creators of ‘Blue Pavilion’ – one of the installations in the exhibition.

Main Galleries; 7–7.30pm; free with exhibition entry, no booking required RENAISSANCE IMPRESSIONS LUNCHTIME LECTURE Renaissance Impressions: An Introduction

Mon 17 March Arturo Galansino, curator of ‘Renaissance Impressions’, shares his thoughts on the exhibition and the development of the chiaroscuro woodcut technique.

Reynolds Room; 1–2pm; free (pre-booking strongly recommended) R A BOOK CLUB Sarah Dunant: ‘In the Company of the Courtesan’

Fri 21 March Internationally bestselling author Sarah Dunant leads a discussion of her epic novel, set in 16th-century Italy. The story encompasses love, beauty, the politics of sex and the power of loyalty set against the decadent backdrop of Venice, as we follow the courtesan Fiammetta (the model for Titian’s sensual painting Venus of Urbino) and her companion dwarf Bucino. Dunant’s novel presents a dazzling portrait of one of the world’s greatest cities at its most potent moment in history.

The Saloon; 6.30–8pm; £10 (price incl. drink)

Installation by Diébédo Francis Kéré, which is part of ‘Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined’

SENSING SPACES EVENING EVENT Soapbox Talk: Iain Sinclair

Fri 28 March Go ‘backwards through history’ with the influential poet and writer Iain Sinclair, as he mounts the Soapbox to deliver, in his words, ‘a rant built on the findings of a one-day walk around London’s Overground Railway’. The talk is part of the Soapbox series that sees figures from art, architecture, design and literature deliver fresh and passionate talks within the immersive installations of ‘Sensing Spaces’.

Main Galleries; 7–7.30pm; free with exhibition entry, no booking required SENSING SPACES SYMPOSIUM Sensing Architecture

Sat 29 March Organised in conjunction with ‘Sensing Spaces’, this symposium seeks to unpick the ideas, issues and assumptions posed by the exhibition. Papers from figures from a range of different disciplines explore how a consideration of the experience of architecture can enrich and develop its practice and analysis,

as well as its theory and history.

RA Schools; 11am–5pm; £24/£12 reductions ACCESS EVENT InMind at the RA

Mon 31 March, 14 April & 12 May Artist and gallery educators facilitate these sessions for individuals living with dementia and their carers, friends and family members. Join us for coffee and conversation to discuss artworks from our permanent collection.

Fine Rooms; 11am–12.30pm; £3 SENSING SPACES EVENING EVENT Writing Architecture?

Mon 31 March This event considers how we use writing to help us understand architecture and communicate our experience of it.

Speakers include Adrian Forty (The Bartlett), Kester Rattenbury (University of Westminster) and Vyv Evans (Bangor University). Chaired by Philip Ursprung (ETH Zürich).

Main Galleries; 6.30–8pm; £18/£9 reductions

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P H OTO R I CH A R D E ATO N

ACCESS EVENT

SENSING SPACES EVENING EVENT

P H OTO © R OYA L ACA D EM Y O F A R TS , LO N D O N , 2014 P H OTO JA M ES H A R R IS/© K ÉR É A R CH I T ECT U R E

March

Royal Academy Talks

FAMILY STUDIO SERIES These free drop-in workshops are supported by Jeanne and William Callanan. Pop in anytime and get creative!

New Friends’ Welcome Tours

Little Prints

Sun 16 March Try out soft cut and collage block printing in this colourful printmaking workshop.

Lego Reimagined

Sun 13 April Create sensational Lego and paper buildings in this hands-on architecture workshop.

Rhyme Time

Sun 18 May Draw your own nursery rhyme and fairy tale characters, inspired by beautiful drawings from the RA Collections.

11am–2pm; free; no booking required; suitable for all ages.

of the John Madejski Fine Rooms are at 2pm on the first Sunday of the month.

Curators’ Gallery Talks on collection displays are at 3.30pm on the first Tuesday of every month.

Royal Academy Tours

1pm Tue to Fri 3pm Wed to Fri 11.30am Sat Tours are free and last one hour; meet in the Entrance Hall.

EXHIBITION TOURS 45-minute introductory tours, free with exhibition entry.

Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined

2.30pm Wed, 7pm Fri (until 28 March).

Please note some Friday tours will be replaced by Soapbox talks.

Renaissance Impressions

2.30pm Tue, 7pm Fri (18 March–30 May) EXHIBITION SPOTLIGHT TALKS 10-minute talks on individual works from current exhibitions, free with exhibition entry.

3pm, Thur ONE-TO-ONE ACCESS TOURS Tours for wheelchair users and audiodescriptive talks about our exhibitions and the permanent collection.

Call 020 7300 5732 for details

April PERFORMANCE EVENT ‘How Do You See Me?’

Fri 4 April Join us for this theatrical performance in which a group of older people reveal how their sense of self has evolved over the course of their lives. Theatre company ‘Small Things’ explore the experiences of entire lifetimes by triggering conversations, stimulating questions and challenging the audience to answer the question ‘How do you see me?’ In collaboration with St Christopher’s Hospice.

Reynolds Room; 6.30–7.30pm; £5 PHOTOGR APHY WORKSHOP Black and White Photography P H OTO R I CH A R D E ATO N

P H OTO © R OYA L ACA D EM Y O F A R TS , LO N D O N , 2014 P H OTO JA M ES H A R R IS/© K ÉR É A R CH I T ECT U R E

Family Fun

Sat 5 April Professional photographer Roy Matthews leads this workshop in the art of black and white photography.

Comprising a practical session followed by a critique, this workshop is designed for all abilities and camera types (although digital is preferred).

Meet at the RA; 11am–5.30pm; £80/£65 reductions RENAISSANCE IMPRESSIONS ACCESS EVENT InTouch at the RA

Mon 7 April This event for blind and visually impaired visitors comprises an audiodescribed tour of the ‘Renaissance Impressions’ exhibition, followed by a handling session.

The Sackler Galleries, 9–11am; £3 (incl. refreshments); volunteer support provided SPECIAL EVENING LECTURE Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Two Works in Progress over the River and the Mastaba

Wed 9 April Check our website for details.

RENAISSANCE IMPRESSIONS ACCESS EVENT Interact at the RA – BSL

Fri 11 April This event for deaf, deafened and hard of hearing visitors comprises an

interactive talk about the ‘Renaissance Impressions’ exhibition in BSL. Reynolds Room; 6–7pm; £3 (incl. exhibition entry); deaf hosts support this event LONDON ORIGINAL PRINT FAIR LECTURE Harland Miller: An Artist’s View of Printmaking

Fri 25 April Artist and writer Harland Miller speaks candidly about his creative process, followed by an opportunity to see his latest prints on show in the print fair.

Reynolds Room; 6.30–7.30pm; £16/£7 reductions (incl. LOPF entry), £12 (event only) RENAISSANCE IMPRESSIONS ACCESS EVENT InMotion at the RA

Mon 28 April An event for wheelchair users and mobility impaired visitors – an introductory tour of the ‘Renaissance Impressions’ exhibition, followed by coffee and conversation in the Saloon.

The Sackler Galleries; 9–11am; £3

May RENAISSANCE IMPRESSIONS LUNCHTIME LECTURE Experimentations in Chiaroscuro: Beccafumi’s Prints, Oil Sketches and Marble Intarsia

Mon 19 May Dr Jennifer Sliwka, National Gallery.

Reynolds Room; 1–2pm; free (pre-booking strongly recommended)

June RENAISSANCE IMPRESSIONS EVENING LECTURE Classical Connections with Professor Mary Beard

Fri 6 June Professor Mary Beard explores some of the well-known and more arcane Classical themes in the ‘Renaissance Impressions’ exhibition, from the rape of the Sabines to the tragic Narcissus.

Reynolds Room; 6.30–7.30pm; £16/£7 reductions (incl. exhibition entry), £12 (event only)

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Short Courses at Christie’s Education

February Introductory Wine Course 18 February – 4 March Cultural Capitals 19 February – 26 March

Winter/Spring 2014

March Collecting Course New cycle begins 3 March Art Business Course New cycle begins 4 March

Classic Wine Course 11 March – 8 April April A Genius of Venice: Paolo Veronese 1–2 April

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Wine Masterclass: English Sparkling Wine 10 April

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The Cheapside Hoard 14–15 April Contact shortcoursesuk@christies.edu +44 (0) 20 7665 4350 christies.edu

ACE CULTURAL TOURS No:

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MA in the History of Art: the Renaissance to Modernism

October 2014 – September 2015 In association with the Royal Academy, a one-year programme of ten evening seminars and an individual researchproject, offering a overview of Western art from the Renaissance to the late 20th century, with lectures by a series of internationally acclaimed art historians, artists, and gallerists.

Examination is by a research dissertation, on an approved art history topic chosen by the student, of not less than 20,000 words.

Lecturers for 2014/15 include:

Course enquiries and applications: Claire Prendergast, Humanities Research Institute, University of Buckingham Tel. 01280 820204 Or via email to the Course Director, Michael Prodger: michael.prodger@buckingham.ac.uk

• • • •

Martin Kemp Tim Knox Xavier Bray Martin Gayford

Each lecture or seminar is followed by a dinner during which participants can engage in a general discussion with the guest speaker.

Others wishing to attend the seminars, but not intending to take the MA degree, may join the course as Associate Students at a reduced fee.

THE UNIVERSITY OF

BUCKINGHAM

LONDON PROGRAMMES

The University of Buckingham is ranked in the élite top sixteen of the 120 British Universities: The Guardian Universities League Table 2012-13

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Debate

Friends Events and Excursions These events are generally very popular. We recommend you post the booking form overleaf as soon as you receive the magazine. Remaining tickets will be sold online and over the phone from 17 March

Sir John Soane RA. Stowe House Preservation Trust leads our tour of the ongoing restoration. After lunch we tour Stowe Pleasure Gardens, which involves a degree of walking.

9am–7pm; £76 (incl. coach, set lunch/glass of wine, tea)

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Compton Verney & Broughton Castle

P H OTO © A N D R E W L AWS O N

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: New Architecture in the City of London

Temple Church and Middle Temple

Tue 2 April & 3 June Owen Hopkins, the RA’s Architecture Programme Manager, leads this walking tour around the City of London’s most notable new buildings. We consider the forces behind the transformation of London’s skyline by ‘iconic’ buildings, whose nicknames, like ‘The Gherkin’, have entered the London vernacular.

2.30–4.30pm; £23; EC3

Fri 11 April & 16 May Built by the Knights Templar, Temple Church is one of only three Norman round churches left in England. Revd Robin Griffith Jones, Master of the Temple, leads our introduction to the church’s history and architecture. We then tour Middle Temple Hall, where we finish with a three-course lunch.

10.30am–2pm; £62 (incl. lunch/glass of wine); EC4

National Liberal Club

The Oriental Club

Wed 9 April & 14 May Established by William Ewart Gladstone, the ‘NLC’ has been the home of British Liberalism since 1887.

We tour the club rooms, designed by architect Alfred Waterhouse RA, with club archivist and former MP Michael Meadowcroft. We hear about the club’s history and some of its most notable members, and tour the club’s art collection, featuring artists such as Walter Sickert and Ernest Townsend.

3–4.30pm; £24; SW1

Sat 12 April Founded in 1824 for gentlemen returning from the Far East, the Oriental Club occupies the imposing Georgian mansion, Stratford House.

Our tour with Secretary Mr Rivett encompasses the history of the club, the house and art collection, which includes works by RAs such as Sir Thomas Lawrence and Sir Joshua Reynolds.

6.30–8.30pm; £50 (incl. tour, drinks, canapés); W1

Spitalfields Past & Present

Tue 15 April For over 100 years, the Government Art Collection has collected works of art to promote British art and artists. We go behind the scenes with the curator to see a range of works and discover how art is selected for government buildings in the UK and around the world.

6–7.30pm; £26 (incl. wine); W1

Thur 10 April & Mon 14 April Led by Charlie de Wet, Chair of the Huguenots of Spitalfields charity, our walking tour takes us around this curious, closed world of early-Georgian terraces and grand 17th-century silk weavers’ houses that mark the faultline between the City of London and neighbouring Tower Hamlets. We learn about Spitalfields’ fascinating history and visit an exhibition of photographs of the area taken in 1912, plus the interior of Sandys Row synagogue, formerly a Huguenot chapel.

11am–1pm (10 April); 2.30–4.30pm (14 April); £24; E1

Government Art Collection

Stowe House and Gardens

Wed 16 April Stowe House is an architectural masterpiece on a palatial scale that has inspired – and contains the work of – leading 18th-century designers, notably Sir John Vanbrugh, Robert Adam and

●

Handel House Museum

Tue 29 April This beautiful Georgian town house was home to the great baroque composer George Frideric Handel. He lived in the house from 1723 until his death in 1759, and composed some of his greatest works here, including The Messiah. We tour the house, learning about his life and the artworks in the museum, which include portraits of Handel and his contemporaries. We finish with coffee and a 30-minute private recital. Please note there are steep stairs in the house.

10–11.45am; £26; W1

The Barn, Tom Stuart-Smith’s home and garden, which Friends visit on 4 June (see page 75)

How to book ●

Wed 30 April We tour Compton Verney’s ‘Moore/ Rodin’ exhibition, which compares the work of these two highly influential sculptors. We then privately visit Broughton Castle, a moated manor house first recorded in the 13th century and home to the Fiennes family for 500 years. The castle has been rebuilt over time and includes a rare 14th-century private chapel and Gothic gallery.

9am–7.30pm; £83 (incl. coach, coffee, lunch/glass of wine, tea)

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Postal bookings open now. Post booking form overleaf to ‘Events & Lectures’, or fax 020 7300 8013.

Friends may purchase a guest ticket to Friends Events.

Friends Events booking forms are balloted; please list your choices in preference order.

When an event is running on more than one day and/or time and you forget to choose a time, we will select one for you.

Excursion coach leaves from outside the RA on Piccadilly and return times are approximate.

There is no discount if you choose to drive instead of travelling by coach.

For Friends membership enquiries, call 020 7300 5664 or visit www.royalacademy.org. uk/friends For queries about these events, please call 020 7300 5839.

2006 for their work on the restoration.

After lunch we enjoy a presentation on the house’s special collections, including portraits by Burne Jones and copyist Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich.

We then tour the garden and grounds.

9am–7pm; £79 (incl. coach, set lunch/glass of wine, tea) The Geffrye Museum

Thur 1 May & Tue 24 June Founded in 1831, the club houses the largest and most significant collection of British theatrical works of art with over 1,000 paintings, drawings and sculptures on display, including works by Zoffany and Millais. Theatre historian Frances Hughes leads our tour.

10am–12pm; £36 (incl. coffee); WC2

Thur 15 & 22 May The Geffrye Museum of the Domestic Interior is set in almshouses built in 1714 by the Ironmongers’ Company, which provided homes for poor pensioners for almost 200 years. Almshouse No. 14 has been restored and is furnished to show their living conditions in the 19th century. We enjoy an exclusive talk and tour of the almshouse.

10.30–11.30am; £16; E2

St Pancras Renaissance Hotel

Turner’s House

Sat 3 & 10 May After years of devoted restoration, the former Midland Grand Hotel has been hailed as London’s most romantic building. Taking in features such as Gothic Revival metalwork, gold-leaf ceilings and hand-stencilled wall designs, our tour includes the dazzling grand staircase, lobby, the Sir George Gilbert Scott RA sitting room and the Ladies Smoking Room.

12.30–2pm; £35; NW1

Tue 27 May & 5 August Sandycombe Lodge was built in 1813, to the designs of England’s great landscape painter, J.M.W. Turner RA, who worked as his own architect. We enjoy a specially arranged tour of the house with representatives from the Turner’s House Trust. By kind invitation we then visit the nearby fine Georgian home of Trust Chairman Catherine ParryWingfield for drinks and nibbles. Please note Turner’s House is pre-restoration, with uneven flooring and narrow stairs.

6–8.30pm; £40 (incl. donation); TW1

Garrick Club

St Mary’s House and Gardens, West Sussex

Tue 13 May St Mary’s is a unique 15th-century timber-framed house, with five acres of magnificent gardens. We exclusively tour the house with owner Peter Thorogood and curator Roger Linton, who were both awarded MBEs in the Queen’s 80th Birthday Honours in

House of St Barnabus

Thur 29 May & Tue 10 June No. 1 Greek Street is an intriguing Georgian house that is now home to London’s newest private members club, The House of St Barnabus. With almost untouched Rococo interiors and a stunning hidden chapel, the

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Premiums Interim Projects

New work including painting, sculpture, photography, video and performance

7â&#x20AC;&#x201C;19 March 2014 RA Schools sponsored by

Rebecca Ackroyd, Fondle (detail)

Burlington Gardens Admission free royalacademy.org.uk

Premiums QP.indd 1

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THE CLUB WITH A PASSION FOR THE ARTS The Royal Over-Seas League is a unique, not-for-profit, private membership organisation. For over 100 years we have encouraged international friendship and understanding through arts, social, music and humanitarian programmes. With membership benefits including accommodation and dining at our historic clubhouses in Green Park, London and Edinburgh, we offer our members a home away from home.

Contact ROSL for more information, quoting RA Magazine for special joining discounts. www.rosl.org.uk +44(0)20 7408 0214 (ext. 214 & 216) info@rosl.org.uk

London: Over-Seas House, Park Place, St Jamesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Street, London, SW1A 1LR Edinburgh: Over-Seas House, 100 Princes Street, Edinburgh, EH2 3AB

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Debate Friends Events and Excursions

Friends Worldwide Art Tours 17–20 July 2014 Copenhagen is justifiably known as the ‘Paris of the north’. Its cobbled streets are lined with beautiful 17thand 18th-century buildings, and the spires of Rosenborg Palace, the ‘Marble Church’ and Christiansborg Palace grace the city’s skyline. It is a delightful place to explore, especially the Christianshavn quarter with its picturesque canals. The galleries and museums offer a wealth of club also houses a unique collection of contemporary art. We tour the club with Revd Dr Adam Scott and curator Katie Heller, viewing donated works

by Gilbert & George, Jeff Koons and Tracey Emin RA, among others.

10.45am–12pm; £16; W1D The Barn: Tom Stuart-Smith’s Garden

European art and design, with works showcasing Denmark’s own golden age (1800–1850), the Skagen Group and Scandinavian Modern design.

Please call 020 7873 5013 or visit www.coxandkings.co.uk/ra

fine collection of watercolours, several

by Edward Lear, and a very early Turner of Malmesbury Abbey. More highlights include classical sculptures bought by the first Marquess in the 1770s and a cabinet of ‘curiosities’ given

by Dr Samuel Johnson. We also tour the delightful Walled Garden.

9am–7.30pm; £78 (incl. coach, coffee, lunch, tea) Thur 19 June We return to Crosby Hall, described

by Country Life as ‘the most important surviving secular domestic medieval building in London,’ for an update on the progress of its restoration. Built in 1466 by Sir John Crosby and relocated brick by brick from Bishopsgate to Chelsea in 1910, Crosby Hall is now owned by Christopher Moran, who leads our exclusive tour and shares the story of the Hall’s tumultuous past.

3.30–5.30pm; £50 (incl. tea); SW3

Nether Winchendon, Bucks

Kelmscott Manor, Gloucestershire

Wed 11 June Owned by the same family for over 450 years, this delightful medieval and Tudor manor house was extended with late 18th-century alterations in the Gothic style, reminiscent of Strawberry Hill. Beyond the Tudor courtyard lies an exquisite interior with an original Great Hall. Our tour, led by the owner Robert Spencer Bernard, takes in a collection of fine English furniture, family portraits and a very rare tapestry portrait of Henry VIII. We also visit the gardens and the early 13th-century church of St Nicholas.

12.30–7pm; £56 (incl. coach, tea)

Thur 26 June By popular request we return to Kelmscott Manor, the country home of William Morris from 1871 until his death in 1896. On our private tour, we hear about his time at the house and see works by Morris and his associates, including furniture, textiles, carpets and ceramics.

10.15am–7pm; £82 (incl. coach, set lunch/ glass of wine, tea)

Bowood, Wilts

For Friends Events & Excursions, please list your event choices in preference order.

Number Event Date of Tickets Cost

Total Cost £

Wed 4 June Tom Stuart-Smith, renowned landscaper and designer of the RA’s Keeper’s House garden, generously invites Friends to visit the private gardens at his home in Hertfordshire.

Tom’s design practice has an international reputation for combining naturalism and modernity; he has won eight gold medals at Chelsea, including three best-in-shows. The beautiful walled garden at next-door Serge Hill will also be open for us and after an introduction by Tom, guests will be free to wander and explore both gardens.

12.45–6.30pm; £47 (incl. coach and tea)

Wed 18 June Bowood is the home of the Marquess of Lansdowne, whose family have owned the house since 1656. With a later façade designed by Robert Adam and gardens by ‘Capability’ Brown, the house is a treasure-trove that includes a collection of 19th-century paintings, a

Events booking form

Crosby Hall, London

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Saddlers’ Hall

Fri 27 June Destroyed three times by fire or bombing, Saddlers’ Hall is the private city mansion of the Worshipful Company of Saddlers, one of the oldest of the City of London Livery companies. We tour the rebuilt hall with Beadle Keith Marsh, and then with Silver Steward Max Ballaro view the company’s treasures, which include Caroline silverware such as the ‘Fisher’ and ‘Dashwood’ cups.

2–4pm; £25 (incl. tea and coffee); EC2

● Some of the venues we visit occasionally offer general public tours. By purchasing a ticket through the RA, you are supporting the Friends’ Events programme and other Learning initiatives and we are grateful for your patronage. ● There is a handling charge of £5 for all refunds. We regret that refunds cannot be made less than 14 days before an event.

● All events are correct at time of publication but are subject to change without notice. ● Send or fax your completed form to the booking address: Events & Lectures Learning Department Royal Academy of Arts Piccadilly London W1J 0BD Fax booking line: 020 7300 8013

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c a s t l e g at e h o u s e g a l l e ry

WITHIN AND WITHOUT tHe spring exHiBition f e at u r i n g w o r k s B y M i c H a e L H a r r i s o n 5 – 13 apriL 2014, 10aM – 5pM

sheila Fell ra 1931 - 1979

an exhibition of works for sale 12th april - 3rd May

www.castlegatehouse.co.uk

L I T T L E B U C K L A N D G A L L E RY

Castlegate House Gallery | Cockermouth | Cumbria |CA13 9HA 01900 822149 | 07920836874 | thegallery@castlegatehouse.co.uk

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L i t t L e B u c k L a n d , B r o a d w ay, w r 1 2 7 J H i n f o @ l i t t l e b u c k l a n d g a l l e r y. c o . u k

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Listings London Public BARBICAN ART GALLERY Silk Street EC2, 020 7638 8891 www.barbican.org.uk United Visual Artists: Momentum

UVA invite you to experience a carefully choreographed sequence of light, sound and movement within the unique space of the Curve, until 1 June The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk Explore the celebrated

French couturier’s fashion world from his avant-garde fashion creations to cutting-edge designs, 9 April-17 Aug CAMDEN ARTS CENTRE Arkwright Road NW3, 020 7472 5500 www.camdenartscentre.org Moyra Davey, 11 April-29 June COURTAULD GALLERY Somerset House, Strand WC2, 020 7848 2526 www.courtauld.ac.uk/gallery A Dialogue with Nature: Romantic Landscapes From Britain and Germany The exhibition brings

together 26 major drawings, watercolours and oil sketches by artists such as J.M.W. Turner, Samuel Palmer, Caspar David Friedrich, Carl Philipp Fohr and Karl Friedrich Lessing, until 27 April Court and Craft: A Masterpiece from Northern Iraq

Discover the story behind one of the most beautiful and enigmatic objects in the Courtauld's collection: a bag made in northern Iraq around 1300, until 18 May DULWICH PICTURE GALLERY Gallery Road SE21, 020 8693 5254 www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk Hockney, Printmaker Looking beneath the decorative surface of David Hockney's prints, until 11 May THE ESTORICK COLLECTION OF MODERN ITALIAN ART Canonbury Square N1, 020 7704 9522 www.estorickcollection.com Giorgio de Chirico: Myth and Mystery

An opportunity to explore the enigmatic world of de Chirico through rarely seen sculptures reflecting the artist’s fascination with classical myth and legend, until 19 April Pablo

Echaurren: Iconoclast Display of

collages reflecting the artist’s interest in cartoon imagery and incorporating fragments from Futurist and Dadaist publications, 19 March-18 May The Years of La Dolce Vita Drawing on the archive of Marcello Geppetti, this photographic exhibition captures a golden era in Italy’s cinematic history, 30 April-29 June GEFFRYE MUSEUM 136 Kingsland Road E2, 020 7739 9893 www.geffrye-museum.org.uk Contemporary Design Show This exhibition showcases the best of cutting-edge design for the home by both well-established industry figures and emerging talent, 29 April-25 Aug NATIONAL GALLERY Trafalgar Square WC2, 020 7747 2885 www.nationalgallery.org.uk Strange Beauty: Masters of the German Renaissance A fresh

look at National Gallery paintings, alongside drawings and prints, by artists including Holbein, Cranach and Dürer, until 11 May Veronese: Magnificence in Renaissance Venice

Exquisite works by Paolo Veronese, one of the leading painters of the 16th century, 19 March-15 June Building the Picture: Architecture in Italian Renaissance Painting Discover how

architecture was employed to frame figures and construct space in pictures from the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, 30 April-21 Sep NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM Park Row (Greenwich) SE10, 020 8858 4422 www.rmg.co.uk Turner and the Sea The first major exhibition of Turner's seascapes, in the heart of Greenwich, until 21 April NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY St Martin’s Place WC2, 020 7306 0055 www.npg.org.uk Bailey’s Stardust A landmark exhibition of over 250 portraits by one of the world’s most distinguished and distinctive photographers, David Bailey, until 1 June The Great War in Portraits This exhibition looks at the radically different roles, experiences,

and, ultimately, destinies, of those involved in the First World War, until 15 June TATE BRITAIN Millbank SW1, 020 7887 8888 www.tate.org.uk Richard Deacon Major exhibition of the work of Turner Prize-winner and leading British sculptor Richard Deacon RA, until 27 April Ruin Lust Offering a guide to the mournful, thrilling, comic and perverse uses of ruins in art with over 100 works by artists such as J.M.W. Turner, John Constable, Eduardo Paolozzi RA, Rachel Whiteread and Tacita Dean RA, 4 March-18 May Kenneth Clark Over 200 works and supporting archival material examine Clark’s role as a patron and collector, art historian, public servant and broadcaster who brought art of the 20th century to a mass audience, 20 May-10 Aug TATE MODERN Bankside SE1, 020 7887 8888 www.tate.org.uk Paul Klee: Making Visible

exhibition is a glamorous, comprehensive look at Italian fashion from the end of the Second World War to the present day, 5 April-27 July

London Commercial ADAM GALLERY 67 Mortimer Street W1, 020 7439 6633 www.adamgallery.com Luke Elwes: Writing on Water, 11-27 March Eduardo Chillida: Graphic Works, 1-25 April ALAN CRISTEA 31 & 34 Cork Street W1, 020 7439 1866 www.alancristea.com Richard Hamilton: Word and Image, Prints 1963–2007 (31 & 34 Cork Street), until 22 March Michael CraigMartin: Objects of our Time Solo

exhibition of new works by Michael Craig-Martin RA (34 Cork Street), 28 March-3 May Wish List Curated

by Michael Craig-Martin RA and bringing together iconic 20th- and 21st-century prints by major modern and contemporary artists (31 Cork Street), 28 March-3 May Ben Johnson Solo exhibition of new paintings inspired by the Alhambra, Granada, and the Neues Museum, Berlin, 9 May-7 June

Challenging Klee's reputation as a solitary dreamer, this exhibition reveals the innovation and rigour with which he created his work and presented it to the public, until 9 March Richard Hamilton The first retrospective to encompass the full scope of Hamilton’s work.

This new exhibition explores his relationship with design, painting, photography and television, as well as his engagement and collaborations with other artists, until 26 May

ART SPACE GALLERY – MICHAEL RICHARDSON CONTEMPORARY ART 84 St Peter’s Street N1, 020 7359 7002 www.artspacegallery.co.uk

Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs

John Kiki: Myths and Goddesses

This comprehensive exhibition brings together around 120 works, many seen together for the first time, in a groundbreaking reassessment of Matisse’s colourful and innovative final works, 17 April-7 Sept

Paintings that marry the bright lights and colour of the funfair with the tragedy and grandeur of Byzantine icons, until 7 March Julian Cooper: Natural Forces Landscapes of the Lake District fells and the quarries of Carrara and Tasmania, 14 March-11 April

V&A Cromwell Road SW7, 020 7942 2000 www.vam.ac.uk The Jameel Prize 3 An international art prize for contemporary artists and designers inspired by Islamic traditions of art, craft and design, until 21 April The Glamour of Italian Fashion 1945–2014 This major

BANKSIDE GALLERY 48 Hopton Street SE1, 020 7928 7521 www.banksidegallery.com RWS Contemporary Watercolour Competition Annual open competition

which aims to promote innovation and experimentation in water-based works on paper, 7-19 March RWS

HOW TO BOOK For inclusion in RA Magazine’s paid Listings section for public and commercial galleries in the UK call 020 7300 5657 or email catherine.cartwright@royalacademy.org.uk. Readers should contact galleries directly for opening times and ticketing queries

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Listings The exhibition marks the outbreak of the Great War with a small display of work by RWS Members, 28 March-26 April RE Original Prints New works by some of the country’s leading printmakers, 9 May-7 June

Nest, 2014, by Sarah Gillespie at Beaux Arts London

BEAUX ARTS LONDON 48 Maddox Street W1, 020 7493 1155 www.beauxartslondon.co.uk Fresh Start Opening exhibition in a new space of specially commissioned work by gallery artists, until 31 March Six St Ives Artists Beaux Arts London revisits its roots in a new London space, 3 April-30 May BROWSE & DARBY 19 Cork Street W1, 020 7734 7984 www.browseanddarby.co.uk

Augustus John and Gwen John,

12 March-10 April CONNAUGHT BROWN 2 Albemarle Street W1, 020 7408 0362 www.connaughtbrown.co.uk TEFAF Maastricht 2014, 14-23 March Post-Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary Works of Art (Please contact the gallery for details) Portrait of a Lady, c.1909-10, by Gwen John at Browse & Darby

Sshh…, 2012, by Deborah Azzopardi, at The Cynthia Corbett Gallery

The Royal Society of British Artists Annual exhibition, 5-15 March Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, 2-17 April

FRANCIS KYLE GALLERY 9 Maddox Street, W1S, 020 7499 6870 www.franciskylegallery.com Lydia Corbett: World in a Flower

5 March-3 April GALLERY ELENA SHCHUKINA 10 Lees Place W1, 020 7499 6019 www.galleryelenashchukina.com Allan Forsyth: Vivid Light Scottish artist Allan Forsyth’s photographybased works reflect the drama of nature through a range of techniques, until 28 March Marcos Marin Serigraphs, paintings and sculptures combining three-dimensional light, colour and movement (at 18 Beauchamp Place, SW3), until 28 March

New collection of abstract landscape paintings, 6-29 March Naomi Blake Retrospective of sculptures marking the artist's 90th birthday (main gallery), 2-26 April Bernard Dunstan Lithographs (upper gallery), 2-26 April Katharine Holmes Landscape paintings (main gallery), 1-31 May Rob Olins New sculpture (upper gallery), 1-31 May

HIGHGATE CONTEMPORARY ART 26 Highgate High Street N6, 020 8340 7564 www.highgateart.com Scottish Artists Euan McGregor, Rachael Rebus, Sian McQueen and Belinda Bullen, until 8 March Land Sea Sky Russell Frampton, Boo Mallinson, Simon Ledson and Fergus Hare, 12 March-5 April London Selected artists’ views of this magnificent city including work by Charles Cundall RA, Peter Brown, Phil Tyler, Michael Alford, Piers Ottey, 9 April-3 May Matthew Phelps 2014 Popular landscape artist Phelps returns to Highgate, 7-24 May

THE CYNTHIA CORBETT GALLERY 15 Claremont Lodge, 15 The Downs, Wimbledon SW20, 020 8947 6782 www.thecynthiacorbettgallery.com Affordable Art Fair Battersea, 13-16 March Deborah Azzopardi Retrospective 2004-14, 31 March5 April Tom Leighton and Andy Burgess Site 109, Lower East Side, New York, 28 April-25 May

THE ILLUSTRATION CUPBOARD 22 Bury Street SW1, 020 7976 1727 www.illustrationcupboard.com The Art of Chris Riddell, 5-15 March Tony Ross and his 'Sticky Ends', 19-29 March Drawn to Drawing: The Art of John Vernon Lord, 2-12 April The Art of Niamh Sharkey, 16 April-10 May David McKee Celebrating 25 years of Elmer the Elephant, 14 May-7 June

EAMES FINE ART GALLERY 58 Bermondsey Street SE1, 020 7407 1025 www.eamesfineart.com

KINGS PLACE GALLERY 90 York Way N1, 020 7520 1490 www.kingsplace.co.uk

David Hockney RA: Graphics

Lucy Jones: Looking In, Looking Out

Exhibition and sale of etchings, lithographs and inkjet-printed computer drawings from the last 50 years, 12 March-6 April Studio Focus on Drawing Sketches and drawings at the Eames Fine Art Studio by established printmakers and painters including Joan Miró, Anita Klein and Amanda Danicic, 13 March-5 April Ross Loveday: Abstract Landscapes New paintings and drypoint carborundum etchings, 29 April-25 May

A painter of provocatively disquieting self-portraits and unpeopled landscapes of flaring colours and raw beauty, until 21 March The Lost World of Norman Cornish Born in 1919, Cornish is the sole surviving member of the Spennymoor Settlement and one of the most important artists to have emerged in the North East in the post-war years, 28 March-9 May

CURWEN & NEW ACADEMY GALLERY 34 Windmill Street W1, 020 7323 4700 www.curwengallery.com Robin Richmond: On Solitary Fields

Munich I, 1977, by Eduardo Chillida at Adam Gallery

FEDERATION OF BRITISH ARTISTS Mall Galleries, The Mall SW1, 020 7930 6844 www.mallgalleries.org.uk

LLEWELLYN ALEXANDER 124–126 The Cut SE1, 020 7620 1322/1324 www.llewellynalexander.com Jeremy Barlow ROI New paintings, 18 March-26 April Pamela Kay Still life, flowers and interiors and Robert Wells Architecture of London and the City and British countryside, 1-29 May LONG & RYLE GALLERY 4 John Islip Street SW1, 020 7834 1434 www.longandryle.com Recent Paintings, Henrietta Hoyer Millar The artist captures the transient

drama of the natural landscape with a light touch, 13 March-11 April London Original Print Fair Royal Academy of Arts. Showing Katharine Morling, Charlotte Cory, Su Blackwell, Ramiro Fernandez Saus and Melanie Miller, 24-27 April John Monks (at 10 Gresham Street exhibition space) A monumental triptych and a set of captivating paintings will challenge the viewer to look anew at the familiar and the commonplace, 22 May-26 Aug MANYA IGEL FINE ARTS 21–22 Peters Court, Porchester Road W2, 020 7229 1669 www.manyaigelfinearts.com By appointment only. Works by RAs past and present, members of the NEAC and other well-known artists MARLBOROUGH FINE ART 6 Albemarle Street W1, 020 7629 5161 www.marlboroughfineart.com Cathie Pilkington, 4-30 March Nina Murdoch, 1-27 April John Virtue, 29 April-30 May OSBORNE SAMUEL 23a Bruton Street W1, 020 7493 7939 www.osbornesamuel.com TEFAF Maastricht Showing a selection of masterworks by both modern British and international artists, 14-23 March Prints Presenting an exhibition of modern and contemporary prints and in commemoration of the First World War there will be works

by Kerr Eby, James McBey, Paul Nash, Christopher Nevinson and Edward Wadsworth, 7 April-10 May Lynn Chadwick: A Centenary Exhibition Celebrating the centenary of the artist’s birth with a major retrospective, 15 May-7 June PANGOLIN LONDON 90 York Way N1, 020 7520 1480 www.pangolinlondon.com Ralph Brown RA Memorial exhibition exploring the early work of this highly respected British sculptor who passed away in 2013, until 29 March Sculpture in the Home Pangolin London transforms into a domestic space, incorporating post-war sculpture and furnishings, 9 April-17 May Terence Coventry Looking at the variety of bird forms made throughout Coventry’s career, 23 May-28 June

© SARAH GILLESPIE/COURTESY BEAUX ARTS LONDON © THE ARTIST'S ESTATE/COURTESY BROWSE & DARBY © EDUARDO CHILLIDA/COURTESY THE ADAM GALLERY © DEBORAH AZZOPARDI/COURTESY THE CYNTHIA CORBETT GALLERY

Spring Exhibition: Marking Time

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DEBORAH STERN

ARBS

ROBIN RICHMOND O N

S O L I TA RY

F I E L D S

6-29 MARCH 2014 Artist’s talk Tues 18 March from 6.30pm “Anemone”. Bronze. Edition of 9.

4½” x 8” x 15¾” (11.5cm x 20cm x 14.2cm)

Image: Chekhov’s Dream, acrylic on canvas, 100 x 81cm

Curwen

& New

Academy

Gallery

34 Windmill Street, London W1T 2JR Tel: 020-7323 4700 galler y@curwengaller y.com www.curwengaller y.com M o n d ay - F r i d ay 1 0 - 6 ( T h u r s d ay 1 0 - 8 ) S a t u rd ay 1 1 - 5

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Telephone: 020 7262 7104 Viewing by appointment in central London Email: info@deborah-stern.com Website: www.deborah-stern.com

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Listings

Under the Influence: John Deakin and the Lure of Soho,

11 April-13 July

Girl in Cafe, late 1950s, by John Deakin, at The Photographers' Gallery

PIERS FEETHAM GALLERY 475 Fulham Road SW6, 020 7381 3031 www.piersfeethamgallery.com Anne Wright and Patricia Winer

Paintings and drawings, 11-15 March

13 March-22 June

Pembrokeshire landscape and still life, 27 March-17 April William Packer Recent paintings, 30 April-24 May PURDY HICKS 65 Hopton Street SE1, 020 7401 9229 www.purdyhicks.com Arturo di Stefano: Fat Over Lean, 28 March-26 April THACKERAY GALLERY 18 Thackeray Street W8, 020 7937 5883 www.thackeraygallery.com After India: Judith Cain Solo show of new work inspired by an extensive trip to India, work which explodes with colour, intricate patterns and floral designs, 4-21 March Rothko's Rainbow and other Paintings: Christine McArthur McArthur's

Flowers, 1994, by Donald Hamilton Fraser RA at Bohun Gallery

return with a solo show of new work, 1-17 April Moving On: Caroline McAdam Clark Continuing her travels across the Colorado plateau, the artist explores in greater depth the colour, heat and arid landscape of the Americas, 6-23 May THOMAS AND PAUL CONTEMPORARY ART 20 Bristol Gardens W9, 020 7289 6200 www.thomasandpaul.com Affordable Art Fair Battersea, 13-16 March Heart and Soul Solo exhibition

by David Storey, 9 April-17 May

Rest of UK ADAM GALLERY 13 John Street, Bath, 01225 480406 www.adamgallery.com Luke Elwes: Writing on Water, 29 March-16 April Eduardo Chillida: Graphic Works, 26 April-15 May THE ART ROOM 8a The Strand, Topsham, Devon, 07718 480 604 www.theartroomtopsham.co.uk Robert Manners: Seascape Refits Right Then, 2013, by Anna Gillespie at Beaux Arts Bath

THE ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM Beaumont Street, Oxford, 01865 278002 www.ashmolean.org Cézanne and the Modern: Masterpieces of European Art from the Pearlman Collection,

Georgina Allen: New Paintings

Chapel, Greenwich, 2013-4, by Arturo di Stefano at Purdy Hicks

ASCOT STUDIOS Bee Mill, Ribchester, Lancashire, 01254 878100 Angela Wakefield New works, 3 March-26 May

Paintings, collage and prints inspired by the physical components of the sea and seascape, until 16 March Philip Clayton Painting ‘en plein-air’. Scenes from London, France and Devon, 30 March-27 April Chris Prindl Ceramics inspired by Japanese style, 30 March-27 April Patricia Volk Distinctive ceramic sculpture, 11 May8 June

BEAUX ARTS BATH 12–13 York Street, Bath, 01225 464850 www.beauxartsbath.co.uk Stewart Edmondson Landscape paintings featuring Dartmoor and the Dorset coast, 3-29 March Simon Allen Distinctive carved wooden wall sculptures, 3-29 March Anna Gillespie Bronze sculptures, 7 April-3 May Simon Wright Atmospheric oil paintings, 7 April-3 May David Tress Energetic landscapes in oil, 7 April-3 May Pieter Vanden Daele Bronze sculptures, 7 April-3 May BOHUN GALLERY 15 Reading Road, Henley-on-Thames, Oxon, 01491 576228 www.bohungallery.co.uk Donald Hamilton Fraser RA Paintings and prints by this celebrated semiabstract artist, 1–22 March Collector’s Prints 2014 Featuring Mary Fedden RA, Elizabeth Blackadder RA, Julian Trevelyan, Wilhelmina BarnsGraham, Peter Blake RA among others, 29 March-26 April John Piper Paintings, ceramics and prints by this diverse British artist, 3 May-7 June THE BOWES MUSEUM Barnard Castle, County Durham, 01833 690606 www.thebowesmuseum.org.uk Henry Poole & Co: Founder of Savile Row – The Art of Bespoke Tailoring and Wool Cloth Featuring

contemporary and ceremonial tailoring from Henry Poole & Co., and historic menswear from the Museum’s collection, until 11 May Seven Billion Two Hundred and One Million Nine Hundred and Sixty-Four Thousand and Two Hundred and Thirty-Eight

Bringing together all of Gavin Turk’s neon works for the first time, until 21 April Manet: The Execution of Maximilian A unique opportunity to see Manet’s iconic painting as part of the National Gallery’s 'Masterpiece Tour', 22 March-18 May BRIGHTON MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY Royal Pavilion Gardens, Brighton, 030 0029 0900 www.brighton-hove-museums.org.uk From Downs to Sea: A Slice of Life

Seascapes by L.S. Lowry and Jeffrey Camp; rural scenes by Peter Doig and Edward Burra; urban images by Carel

Weight and David Redfern, 5 April15 June BROOK GALLERY Fore Street, Budleigh Salterton, Devon, 01395 443003 www.brookgallery.co.uk London Original Print Fair Royal Academy of Arts, 24-27 April Storm Thorgerson Studio show, 4 April4 May Without Boundaries New paintings by Heidi Koenig, 16 May8 June CAMPDEN GALLERY High Street, Chipping Campden, Glos, 01386 841555 www.campdengallery.co.uk Stewart Geddes: Zed Alley, 8-30 March Works on Paper Painting, limited edition prints and bookworks by 16 leading contemporary British artists, 8-30 March Paul Harvey The first seven in a series of exquisite bronze bird sculptures, 8-30 March Kurt Jackson: Archipelago 5 April-5 May Jeremy Annear New paintings, 10 May-1 June CAROLINE WISEMAN AT THE ALDEBURGH BEACH LOOKOUT AND ART HOUSE 31 Crag Path, Aldeburgh, Suffolk, 01728 452754/020 7622 2500 www.carolinewiseman.com Caroline Wiseman Modern and Contemporary 25th Anniversary Exhibition The gallery is choosing one

artist to represent each year. Featuring work by Joan Miró, Howard Hodgkin, Terry Frost RA, Eileen Cooper RA and Alison Wilding RA. Twenty-five eminent artists are each showing a work. Works are for sale and exhibited Kettle's Yard style all over the Aldeburgh Beach Art House, 3 March-26 May CHALK GALLERY LTD 4 North Street, Lewes, East Sussex, 01273 474477www.chalkgallerylewes.co.uk In Detail: Drawing from Nature

Intricate observations of the natural world by Louisa Crispin, 3-23 March Leaping Cows, Friendships, Thoughtful Cows Large-scale watercolours by Veronica Van Eijk, 24 March-13 April Downland Moments Paintings by Janice Thurston responding to the patterns created by the shifting light of the Sussex Downs, 14 April-5 May Art from the Heart Uplifting paintings by Orna Schneerson Pascal, 6-26 May CHRIST CHURCH PICTURE GALLERY Christ Church, Oxford, 01865 278172 www.chch.ox.ac.uk/gallery Drawing in Siena: From Sodoma to Salimbeni Ten rarely seen drawings

from the Christ Church collection, until 5 May Inferno – Purgatory – Paradise Geoff MacEwan interprets Dante’s Divine Comedy, 12 March19 May

© JOHN DEAKIN/COURTESY THE PHOTOGRAPHERS' GALLERY © ARTURO DI STEFANO/COURTESY PURDY HICKS © DONALD HAMILTON-FRASER RA/COURTESY BOHUN GALLERY © ANNA GILLESPIE/COURTESY BEAUX ARTS BATH

THE PHOTOGRAPHERS’ GALLERY 16–18 Ramillies Street W1, 020 7087 9331 www.thephotographersgallery.org.uk

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New Scottish Artists A Royal Scottish Academy exhibition supported by the Fleming-Wyfold Foundation

25 March – 31 May 2014

Matthew Phelps 7 May - 24 May Jonny Lyons, Saw 2013 © The Artist

Highgate Contemporary Art THE FLEMING COLLECTION 26, Highgate High Street, London N6 5JG 020 8 340 7564 www.highgateart.com info@highgate.com

13 Berkeley Street, London W1J 8DU 020 7042 5730 | www.flemingcollection.com Tuesday to Saturday 10am–5.30pm Free entry

We will also be on Stand 10 at the 20/21 International Art Fair 15-18 May at the Royal College of Art

ROYAL WATERCOLOUR SOCIETY

Free entry with this voucher

Image: David Poxon RI, Garden Shed by the Sea

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2 to 17 April, 10am to 5pm (closes 1pm on final day) Closed Sunday 13 April for London Marathon

SPRING EXHIBITION MARKING TIME 28 March - 26 April 2014 New work by RWS artists including recent paintings of Camp Bastion, Afghanistan by Francis Bowyer PPRWS

Open daily | 11am - 6pm

The Mall, London SW1 www.mallgalleries.org.uk info@mallgalleries.com Tel: 020 7930 6844

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Francis Bowyer PPRWS, Camp Bastion, Afghanistan [detail], watercolour

The exhibition will mark the outbreak of the Great War with a small display of rarely seen work by RWS Members from WW1, WW2 and other conflicts

ROYAL INSTITUTE OF PAINTERS IN WATER COLOURS

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Bankside Gallery | 48 Hopton Street | SE1 9JH | London | 020 7928 7521 info@banksidegallery.com | www.royalwatercoloursociety.co.uk

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07/02/2014 14:08

Listings FOSSE GALLERY The Square, Stow-on-the-Wold, Glos, 01451 831319 www.fossegallery.com Mick Rooney RA: Rome Scholar at 70

One-man exhibition, 11-31 May THE GALLERY AT 41 41 East Street, Corfe Castle, Dorset, 01929 480095 www.galleryat41.com Spring Exhibition Mood, atmosphere and light explored by contemporary artists including Richard Price ROI, David Atkins and Felicity House PS 18 March-15 May Dorset Art Weeks Exhibition Festival exhibition showcasing a wide variety of work by some of the finest Dorset-based contemporary painters and sculptors, 24 May-8 June GALLERY PANGOLIN 9 Chalford Industrial Estate, Chalford, Gloucs, 01453 889765 www.gallery-pangolin.com Sculptors’ Prints and Drawings

Annual exhibition of works on paper featuring prints and drawings by modern and contemporary sculptors, until 4 April On Home Turf Sculpture, prints and drawings by artists living and working in the Gloucestershire area. Including Anthony Abrahams, Ralph Brown RA, Jon Buck, Daniel Chadwick, Lynn Chadwick, Ann Christopher RA, Damien Hirst and Lorraine Robbins, 6-30 May GRAY MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ART 01935 881696 www.graymca.co.uk BADA Antiques & Fine Art Fair 2014

Duke of York Square, London SW3, 19-25 March The Decorative Fair Battersea Park, London SW11, 29 April-4 May 20/21 International Art Fair The Royal College of Art, Kensington Gore, London, 15-18 May HAYLETTS GALLERY Oakwood House, 2 High Street, Maldon, Essex, 01621 851669 www.haylettsgallery.com Modern British and Contemporary Original Prints Annual exhibition of

prints by well-known post-1950s British artists including David Hockney RA, Paula Rego, Henry Moore RA, Bridget Riley, Peter Blake RA, Tracey Emin RA and more, 8 March-5 April Anita Klein PPRE Exhibition of paintings and prints by this hugely successful international artist, 12 April-10 May Through the Ages: Watercolours and Etchings by Charles Bartlett RWS RE ARCA Artworks which illustrate the

artist's love of the light in East Anglia, 31 May-27 June THE HEPWORTH WAKEFIELD Gallery Walk, West Yorkshire, 01924 247360 www.hepworthwakefield.org Philip-Lorca Dicorcia Photographs 1975–2012, until 1 June

JENNA BURLINGHAM FINE ART 2a George Street, Kingsclere, Nr Newbury, Hants, 01635 298855/07970 057789 www.jennaburlingham.com Specialising in 20th-century British paintings, prints, ceramics and sculpture as well as works by selected contemporary artists. The gallery displays an ever changing range of works by Modern British and contemporary artists including Sandra Blow RA, Mary Fedden RA, Elisabeth Frink RA, Peter Greenham RA, Ivon Hitchens, Peter Joyce, Ffiona Lewis, Victor Pasmore RA, Keith Purser, William Scott, Edward Seago, Julian Trevelyan RA and Keith Vaughan THE LINDA BLACKSTONE GALLERY The Studio at Little Stafford, 2 Loudwater Ridge, Sarratt Lane, Rickmansworth, 07808 612193 www.lindablackstone.com Affordable Art Fair Battersea, 13-16 March Affordable Art Fair Hong Kong, 20-23 March Affordable Art Fair New York, 3-6 April MOMA WALES Heol Penrallt, Machynlleth, Powys, 01654 703355 www.momawales.org.uk Geoff Wilde: Frozen Music Striking paintings using rich colour, shape and texture, until 3 May John Lavrin: Country Matters John Lavrin records life in Powys in his inimitable paintings and sculptures, 15 March-3 May Aberystwyth Printmakers: 10th Anniversary A diverse range of artists

using a variety of printing techniques, 10 May-28 June NORTH HOUSE GALLERY The Walls, Manningtree, Essex, 01206 392717 www.northhousegallery.co.uk Felix Sefton Delmer: Felix Paints the Blues Monochrome paintings

reflecting the properties and qualities of different blue pigments, until 29 March Rod Bugg: Construction and Reconstruction Ceramic sculpture and related drawing, essentially abstract but referencing the real world, 5 April-3 May Jonathan Clarke: New Work Sculpture and reliefs, 10 May-7 June ROYAL BIRMINGHAM SOCIETY OF ARTISTS 4 Brook Street, St Paul’s, Birmingham, 0121 236 4353 www.rbsa.org.uk Secret Garden A charming collection of contemporary craft exploring fairytales and narratives, 7 April-28 June Candidates’ Exhibition Annual exhibition of work by artists seeking election to become Associates or Members of the RBSA, 14-26 April Next Wave: Emerging Artists at the RBSA New work by contemporary

artists in the early stages of their careers, 12 May-7 June

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Exhibitions Somerset House Chichester Festival Theatre Pallant House Gallery Works on Paper Fair Science Museum

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Listings ROZELLE HOUSE Rozelle Park, Ayr, 01292 443708 www.themaclaurin.org.uk

Marysia Donaldson: An Artist's Life,

6 April-1 June

UNIVERSITY GALLERY & BARING WING Northumbria University, Sandyford Road, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, 0191 227 4424 www.northumbria.ac.uk/universitygallery Ørnulf Opdahl: New Paintings

THE SCULPT GALLERY Braxted Park Road, Nr Great Braxted, Colchester, Essex, 07980 768616 www.sculptgallery.com Sprung A spring-themed exhibition of sculpture. Artists include Maurice Blik, Hugh Chapman and Lucy Lutyens, 1 March-5 April Sprung This exhibition will be on location at the Royal Horticultural Society Gardens, Hyde Hall, Chelmsford, Essex, 10-26 May

Influenced by the sublime sense of place, Opdahl’s paintings draw upon stimulating currents from his own Norwegian landscape tradition and the spiritual concerns of post-1945 abstract art, until 28 March Lucy Jones: Looking In, Looking Out A painter of provocatively disquieting self-portraits and unpeopled landscapes of flaring colours, 4 April-23 May Elizabeth Blackadder RA: Prints, 4 April23 May

SLADERS YARD West Bay, Bridport, Dorset, 01308 459511 www.sladersyard.co.uk Palaeoscapes New paintings by Brian Graham. His paintings reach back in time to Ice Age Britain, combining archaeology and empathy to invoke powerful common themes such as ice, earth, fire, refuge and nurturing, 1 March-27 April Dorset Now Contemporary Dorset artists painting landscape in new ways.

A selected group of ambitious and interesting Dorset painters including Vanessa Gardiner and Alex Lowery, 3 May-8 June

WATTS GALLERY Down Lane, Compton, Guildford, Surrey, 01483 810235 www.wattsgallery.org.uk

THE STANLEY SPENCER GALLERY High Street, Cookham, Berkshire, 01628 471885 www.stanleyspencer.org.uk Paradise Regained: Stanley Spencer in the Aftermath of the First World War This show demonstrates how

Spencer redeemed the devastating effects of the war upon his personal and professional life, renewing the connection with his birthplace of Cookham, 2 April-2 Nov THE SUNBURY EMBROIDERY GALLERY The Walled Garden, Sunbury-on-Thames, 01932 788101 www.sunburyembroidery.org.uk Awash with Stitches Solo exhibition

by Evelyn Jennings. Jennings describes the process of her work, 'like painting with a needle'. A lifetime hand-stitching to magnificent effect, 4-30 March Mapping My Maze Community project working with local schools to explore and create a sensory map, with local historical references to knot gardens, 1-24 April TATE ST IVES Porthmeor Beach, St Ives, Cornwall, 01736 796226 www.tate.org.uk/stives Gallery closed, until 16 May International Exchanges: Modern Art and St Ives Exploring the wider national

and international contexts which shaped art in St Ives in the 1940s, '50s and '60s, including work by Peter Lanyon and Patrick Heron, 17 May-28 Sep

John Ruskin: Photographer & Draughtsman This exhibition explores

the fascinating relationships between Ruskin’s art, his photography and his books. It provides a compelling new view of this prophet of our modern ideas of heritage and sustainable living, until 1 June YORK OPEN STUDIOS Various venues in York www.yorkopenstudios.co.uk York Open Studios 2014 Search for artists’ studios across historic York with over 70 artists, craftspeople and designers taking part in this free event, 4-6 April and 12-13 April YORKSHIRE SCULPTURE PARK West Bretton, Wakefield, West Yorkshire, 01924 832631 www.ysp.co.uk Ursula von Rydingsvard The first large-scale survey of work in Europe by this highly acclaimed American artist, 5 April-4 Jan 2015 Tom Price A solo exhibition by this young British artist, inspired by public observation, magazine images and historic sculpture, until 27 April Uncommon Ground: Land Art in Britain in 1966– 1979, 5 April-15 June

ZILLAH BELL GALLERY Kirgate, Thirsk, North Yorkshire, 01845 522 479 www.zillahbellgallery.co.uk 76th Annual Exhibition of the Society of Wood Engravers International

exhibition of last year’s finest wood engravings and prize-winners as selected by the SWE jury, 1-29 March Jon Booth and Brenda Wright Etchings and watercolours by Jon Booth; ceramics by Brenda Wright, 12 April-3 May City and Guilds of London Art School A wide range of work by current students, graduates and tutors of one of the country’s longest established art colleges, 17 May-7 June

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Readers’ offers are open to all RA Magazine readers when they show a copy of this magazine

Readers’ Offers

New titles from the Royal Academy Craigie Aitchison Prints: A Catalogue Raisonné

2-for-1 Tickets

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Royal College of Art (15-18 May). For details email info@20-21intartfair.com.

See advertisement on page 84.

two free tickets to Art in Action 2014 (17-20 July) when booking a course.

Tutors are professional artists and demonstrators from Art in Action.

Contact artinactionartcourses@gmail. com or 07980 091297 quoting code RAx2. Visit artinaction.org.uk for more details. See advertisement on page 82.

Ashmolean Museum ‘Cézanne and “The Modern”’ (13 March-22 June).

For tickets and details visit ashmus. ox.ac.uk. See advertisement on page 36.

BADA Antiques and Fine Art Fair (19-

25 March). At Duke of York Square, London. Visit bada-antiques-fair.co.uk or call 020 7589 6108 for details. See advertisement on page 41.

Chelsea Art Fair (10-13 April).

At Chelsea Old Town Hall, Visit chelseaartfair.org or call 07961 371961 for details. See advertisement on page 83.

The Courtauld Gallery ‘Court and

Craft: A Masterpiece from Northern Iraq’ (until 18 May). Visit courtauld. ac.uk/CourtandCraft for details. See advertisement on page 28.

Dulwich Picture Gallery ‘Hockney, Printmaker’ (until 11 May). See advertisement on page 30.

The Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art ‘Giorgio de Chirico: Myth

and Mystery’ (until 19 April). See advertisement on page 30.

Watts Gallery ‘John Ruskin:

Photographer and Draughtsman’ (until 1 June). See advertisement on page 23.

COLLECT: The International Art Fair for Contemporary Objects (9-12 May)

at the Saatchi Gallery. Book now and get two tickets and a catalogue for £30.

For more information and tickets visit collect2014.org.uk. See advertisement on page 14.

Free entry to the London Original Print Fair (24-27 April) plus one adult and up to four children and the catalogue for the reduced price of £5.

Visit londonprintfair.com for more details. See advertisement on page 6.

The National Gallery is offering 25% off full-price tickets to ‘Veronese: Magnificence in Renaissance Venice’ (19 March-15 June). For T&Cs please see nationalgallery.org.uk/RA. See advertisement on page 16.

Eating Out/ Membership Richoux, opposite the Royal Academy,

is offering a 10% discount on breakfast, morning coffee, lunch, afternoon tea or dinner. See advertisement on page 93.

This authoritative book brings together all of Aitchison’s prints for the first time. Beautifully produced, full colour plates reveal these luminous and touching images

Matisse The Chapel at Vence With stunning new photography, this definitive volume provides an unparalleled view of an iconic and sacred space. The book heralds the Tate’s show Matisse: The Cut-Outs

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Maurice Cockrill This beautifully illustrated monograph provides a thoughtful analysis of Cockrill’s oeuvre from early realist works to his later abstract compositions £22.50 (rrp £25) hardback online code RAMAG79

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25% off the joining fee. Visit rosl.org. uk or telephone 020 7408 0214. See advertisement on page 74.

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10% discount is also available on our current exhibition catalogues: Chiaroscuro: Woodcuts from the Collections of George Baselitz & the Albertina £36 (rrp £40) hardback, online code RAMAG80 £22.50 (rrp £24.95) softback online code RAMAG81 Sensing Spaces £22.50 (rrp £30) online code RAMAG77

Available from the RA Shops and online by visiting royalacademy.org.uk/shop Mail order call freephone 0800 634 6341 (9.30am - 5.00pm Mon - Fri)

SPRING 2014 | RA MAGAZINE 85 RA Publishing_Spr14_half.indd 1 Readers_Offers_2C.indd 85

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The latest developments in and around the RA

Academy News

Take your tablets…

In the midst of this historic institution, a digital revolution is taking place.

BEN HAMMERSLEY introduces the Californian technology pioneers who are transforming the Academy’s virtual world, starting with a brand new website While plans are being made for major building works at the RA, including the construction of a link between Burlington House and Burlington Gardens (see page 89), another renovation is well under way. The first stage of a major digital overhaul launches in March when the Academy unveils its new website.

Designing a website is no longer, if it ever was, a matter of just making it look good.

A website has users, not readers, and the way the users can interact with the site is, in many ways, at least as important as the way it looks.

The choice of IDEO as the Royal Academy’s partner in its transformation is a well considered one. Founded in California and with offices worldwide, and employing not just designers, but anthropologists, architects and surgeons, this award-winning agency – hired by Apple to create its first mouse, and by governments to redesign public services – has pioneered a technique called design thinking.

Developed in the 1990s, design thinking changed the way that design firms were employed, as well as the way they did their jobs.

In the old days, much of design was the creation of a façade, with the designer brought in to make an existing idea look pretty. Often the

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News decision about how a new website would function, for example, had already been made and fully specified by others elsewhere. But in design thinking, the designer is placed at the heart of the innovation process: considering strategy and business plans and delving into the heart of the problem at hand – all before any solution is even considered.

For the RA, the opportunities are clear.

As the RA’s Director of Communications, Will Dallimore, explains, an improved digital presence extends the Academy beyond Burlington House. ‘The RA is a platform for art and artists, and this platform has predominantly been a physical one, at our home in Mayfair. We’re now increasingly looking to engage Friends and other art lovers in the digital world, as a way of greatly enhancing their experience of the Academy.’

Practically speaking, IDEO’s design thinking approach isn’t complicated. It goes like this: first, the immersion stage, where the designers research the problem by plunging themselves into it – talking to the people they’re trying to help, working with them, interviewing experts. In the case of the RA, this meant not only talking to visitors and Friends, but also listening to staff and RAs, and understanding the complexities of the internal processes that have built up over the years.

The second stage – synthesis – is where the IDEO team gather together their findings and look for patterns. This is done with hundreds of insight-holding Post-It notes covering the walls of the IDEO studio. The designers clustered their RA notes around similar observations (such as ‘hearing more from the curators’ or ‘demystifying art’) until the true nature of the problems at hand were revealed.

The third stage, ‘ideation’, brings brainstorming solutions to the real problems identified by stage two, and then comes prototyping, making mock-ups of solutions to try out against the problems. At the RA, that meant building a complete prototype website, and asking visitors and Friends in the galleries to use it, and give their feedback. Only at the end of this stage are judgements made; until then, all ideas are given equal weight.

As Steve O’Connor, IDEO’s London lead, puts it, when they were given the task of creating a digital strategy for the RA, they found that a change of website would actually require a change in the way the RA works.

‘It’s an holistic project, with the website being the first part,’ he explains. ‘The most significant challenge to getting a design to market is not the design, but the people inside the organisation.’

So IDEO developed a set of design principles for their RA work. The first is ‘No departments’ – reframing the internal perspectives of the old website, whose design reflected the RA’s organisation chart, into a new site that meets the needs of the user.

The second design principle, ‘Content in context’, is all about creating a new avenue for

the growth of the Royal Academy itself.

The website’s blog extends the institution’s editorial platform, allowing the Academy to develop connections between its activities and the wider worlds of art and architecture. The new site also highlights the works on display in more detail, integrates audio and video content more readily, reproduces artworks at a larger scale, and examines more closely Royal Academicians and the students of the RA Schools – indeed, the students’ very presence is often unknown to the wider public. All this content can be accessed elegantly on smartphones and tablets.

As Will Dallimore says, ‘It’s about reflecting a larger narrative. Both the digital and physical infrastructure projects are about being an academy, and making more of the things that make the RA distinctive.’

Visit the Academy’s new website at www.royalacademy. org.uk. See page 16 for instructions on how to access extra RA Magazine audio, video, text and image content on your computer, smartphone or tablet

In brief EASTER OPENING HOURS The RA closes at 6pm on Good Friday, 18 April. The Keeper’s House closes at 6pm on Monday 21 April.

TWO NEW ACADEMICIANS Wolfgang Tillmans and Bob and Roberta Smith have been elected Academicians in the category of Painter.

CORRECTION In the Winter 2013 issue of RA Magazine we stated in the obituary of John Bellany RA that he had a liver transplant in the 1980s. He in fact had a kidney transplant.

We apologise for the inaccuracy.

ARTISTS’ LEGACIES A new book to help artists manage their estates and legacy has been published by the Royal Academy.

The Artist’s Legacy is available at http://roy.ac/artistlegacy

What will you find online?

World-class exhibitions and events

Learn about the latest shows, workshops, lectures and debates at the RA. The new website goes behind the scenes to hear from the curators and artists, and includes podcasts, videos and images from the Academy’s Events programme.

Get closer to artists

The RA is run by the country’s finest artists and architects. The site digs deeper into the world of the Royal Academicians – their art, practice and day-to-day lives – with interviews, studio visits and expanded image galleries of their work.

Explore the world of art

As well as insights into the life of the Royal Academy, including the institution’s rich heritage and art collections, the revamped blog includes recommendations of the best art and architecture to see in London, the UK and around the globe.

Interact with the Academy

AMERICAN ASSOCIATES For the full schedule of events planned for this year by the American Associates of the Royal Academy Trust please contact its offices in New York on +1 212 980 8404 or info@aarat.org, or visit the website at www.aarat.org BOWLED OVER Visit the RA Shop online (www. royalacademy.org.uk/shop) for exclusive gifts, including the new selection of RA greetings cards and notecards, and choose from the range of gifts accompanying the ‘Sensing Spaces’ exhibition, which includes this ceramic vase by Timea Sido.

The new website is just the beginning.

The Academy’s online presence will develop over the coming months, creating new ways for Friends to interact with the RA and its activities. To keep up-to-date with the latest developments, sign up to the Friends e-newsletter by visiting www.royalacademy.org.uk/friends

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Give a gift that will last forever

John Flaxman RA Apollo and Marpessa (detail), c. 1790-94 Marble relief, 48.40 x 54.80 x 6.90cm Photo: Š Royal Academy of Arts, London

Approaching its 250th anniversary, the Royal Academy has a story like nowhere else. Led by an extraordinary group of artists, we have been making, debating and exhibiting art since 1768. Help us write the next chapter in our history by leaving a gift in your will.

To find out more and request an information booklet, please email Emma.Warren-Thomas@royalacademy.org.uk or call 0207 300 5677 www.royalacademy.org.uk/legacies

Your support is our future The Royal Academy Trust is a registered charity with Charity Number 1067270

Legacy V2 April 2013.indd 1

19/04/2013 16:03:27

Academy News

BURLINGTON HOUSE

LINK

BURLINGTON GARDENS

An architectural section showing how Burlington House (above) will be linked to the Burlington Gardens galleries (above right)

Linked in

CO U R T ESY DAV I D CH I P P ER F I EL D A R CH I T ECTS . © A R T IS T ’ S ES TAT E / P H OTO R OYA L ACA D EM Y O F A R TS , LO N D O N . © L I AV I T TO N E

A major Heritage Lottery Fund award is set to unify the RA’s buildings and create a 21st-century Academy, writes SAM PHILLIPS The Heritage Lottery Fund’s (HLF) major award to the Royal Academy of £12.7 million, announced last November, will enable the most significant physical transformation of the institution since 1868, when the Main Galleries at Burlington House were built. But the new spaces designed by architect David Chipperfield RA have at their heart not just contemporary character but the Academy’s 18th-century ideals and identity.

The Academy is often perceived by the public as simply a venue for world-class exhibitions.

Yet at its heart it is an academy: an association of artists who, in the words of its Georgian founders, exist ‘to promote the arts of design’.

The building works aim to reinvigorate this vision for the 21st century, accompanied by new learning and participatory activities that will enable the Academy to share its history with a wider public.

Once complete in 2018 – on the 250th anniversary of the Academy’s foundation – a purpose-built 300-seat auditorium in the

Coffee break Atelier is a new café (below) run by caterers Company of Cooks that has opened in the RA’s Burlington Gardens building. Designed by the architecture and design practice Lyn Atelier,

Burlington Gardens building will help re-establish the institution as a key international centre for cultural debate. Exhibition spaces will allow an expanded contemporary art programme, focusing on the work of Royal Academicians, and will include displays from the RA Collections, which features works by the great British artists of the past three centuries, masterpieces of European art – such as Giampietrino’s eight-metre-wide copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper (c.1520) – and rare materials from the Academy’s archives and library.

‘We are on course to engage the public as never before with the essential features that distinguish us as an Academy,’ explains the RA’s President, painter Christopher Le Brun. ‘These are the Royal Academy Schools, the membership of Royal Academicians, and of course our unique Collections and heritage.’

These elements come together in a new public link that for the first time unifies Burlington it serves hot and cold food, from cured meats to seasonal soups, salads and sandwiches.

It also offers an exceptional range of cakes.

Escape the pace of Mayfair for afternoon tea or a glass of wine. Atelier is open MonThur 8.30am-6pm, Fri 8.30am-10pm, SatSun 10am-5pm. Eleanor Mills

House and the Burlington Gardens galleries.

The RA Schools currently lies between the two buildings – the public might not necessarily be aware of the Schools’ existence – and visitors to the Academy currently go off-site and walk up Burlington Arcade to travel between the two sites. As the illustration above shows, Chipperfield has designed a link that soars up above the Schools’ studios, giving visitors who walk to and from Burlington House and Burlington Gardens a sense of the RA Schools at work. The West Gallery, on the first floor of Burlington Gardens, will become a dedicated space for presenting works from the Collections, which include significant art by Academicians both past and present.

The HLF award has been matched by trusts, foundations and individual patrons, raising a total of £32.5 million, with another £8.8 million to be raised to enable the project’s completion.

Building works begin in 2015. Over the next three years more details will be announced about these ambitious expansion plans as the ‘21stcentury Academy’, in the words of Le Brun, becomes a reality.

To learn more about how the Heritage Lottery Fund award will transform learning at the RA, visit http://roy.ac/hlflearn

Kenny uncovered The Royal Academy Collections is loaning works by sculptor Michael Kenny RA (1941-99) for an exhibition across two venues in Bath (3 Mar-20 Apr). Kenny’s celebrated series of works on paper ‘The Stations of the Cross’ (1998-99) is shown at the city’s Quest Gallery, while his 1976 sculpture Crucifixx is presented at the same time in Bath Abbey.

With its plumb line and half-painted timber planks, Crucifixx demonstrates a hallmark of Kenny’s practice – the incorporation of raw materials and tools as part of a finished sculpture.

Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus (left) from ‘The Stations of the Cross’ is a prime example of the Liverpool-born artist’s religious work and also illustrates his interest in the abstracted female figure. Rosanna Hawkins SPRING 2014 | RA MAGAZINE 89

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Tickets available now

Summer Exhibition Preview Party 2014 The highlight of London’s social calendar

Wednesday 4 June 2014, 7–9.30pm Be the first to view and buy works at the world famous Summer Exhibition and enjoy a glamorous evening of champagne and canapés in the beautiful surroundings of the Royal Academy.

The purpose of the Summer Exhibition, which was set up in 1768, is to raise funds to support the Royal Academy Schools, the oldest art school in Britain. Help us continue this tradition by supporting the Summer Exhibition Preview Party.

I would like to apply for (please enter amount of tickets required)

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Individual ticket(s) at £245 each Donor ticket(s) at £325 each Individual VIP Lounge ticket(s) at £525 each

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Please note that tickets will not be issued without guests’ names and refunds will not be given.

All tickets include a copy of the Exhibition List of Works & Price Guide. Donor Tickets also include a copy of the Summer Exhibition Illustrated Catalogue. Tickets will be sent approximately three weeks before the event

Donations I would like to donate £ payable to The Royal Academy of Arts

Please tear or cut out this page and return to: Events Office Royal Academy of Arts, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BD F: 020 7300 5905 E: fundraising.events@royalacademy.org.uk

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For further information please contact the Royal Academy Events Office on 020 7300 5792

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04/02/2014 15:29

Academy News

Maurice Cockrill RA at his studio in West Dulwich in 1994

In memoriam Maurice Cockrill RA

P H OTO F R AS ER M A R R

His huge abstract paintings brought a vibrance to the RA’s Summer Exhibitions, while a spirit of openness characterised his role as Keeper of the RA Schools, writes his colleague, senior lecturer RICHARD KIRWAN Time was when the overarching sense of an art school was heavily dictated by the subjectivity of its Head. In the case of the Royal Academy Schools, being one of the first art schools in Britain, the role of Head has always been known as the Keeper. Maurice Cockrill RA was elected in 2004, and he brought with him a new vitality and openness to this significant position.

Long before Maurice came to work in the Schools, his paintings had consistently caught my eye in numerous solo exhibitions in nearby Cork Street, as well as in the visual combat

of the annual Summer Exhibition, but I knew little of the persona that motivated these visually generous abstractions. During his first week as Keeper of the Royal Academy, Maurice invited me into the creative chaos of the Schools’ office, and within a few minutes, I instinctively understood that the Schools had been placed in safe hands, and that its progression from an art world ‘best kept secret’ to an internationally recognised art school was assured.

As Keeper, Maurice was afforded a beautiful studio next to Burlington House, in one of the

suite of rooms now known as the Keeper’s House. Shortly after he moved into this enviable space, a series of blank canvases had been transformed into glowing, lyrical works that somehow managed to juggle their vibrant colours and multifaceted layers with a structure and discipline that set his work apart. Maurice premiered these new works by opening up this very private space to the new intake of students, welcoming them all with a glass of champagne. This established a new tradition for the Schools, and became an annual fixture in its calendar.

Maurice understood from the outset that heavy-handed influence had no place in a contemporary art school, and therefore quickly won the trust of subsequent generations of students that he would support the diversity of their work. Maurice took the lead from his predecessor, Brendan Neiland, and resisted the familiarity of an instantly recognisable ‘house style’. To achieve this was no mean feat, and demonstrated Maurice’s ability to listen to the opinions of the other artists who constituted his staff (a term that always made him feel a little uneasy).

During the annual round of selecting and interviewing candidates for a coveted place at the Schools, Maurice always remained good-humoured and open to new possibilities for art. It soon became unnecessary to attempt to second-guess his opinion during the discussions that followed an interview, as he consistently supported the most stringent conceptualist alongside those who followed his passion for oil on canvas. In fact, he didn’t bother to differentiate; he just recognised visual intelligence and talent.

The Royal Academy Schools is not at all dissimilar to an extended family; it is an amazing and intimate place to work.

Inevitably, Maurice became not only a colleague, but also a friend. I visited him in his wonderful network of studios in West Dulwich, and we regularly went out for Sunday lunch, and on one or two occasions after work enjoyed an evening of almost lethal vodka martinis at Dukes Hotel.

An art school must always be a place of transition. At the graduation show each year, Maurice would sit behind his desk, sometimes a little teary, as if only just truly realising that it was already time for this particular group to leave our studios to establish themselves in the contemporary art world. There are generations of artists in London and beyond who acknowledge that their time at the Schools during Maurice’s tenure literally changed their lives. But like the head of any family, these opportunities were given unconditionally, and with love.

Maurice Cockrill £25 (RA Publications).

See Readers’ Offers page 85.

To watch a video of Maurice Cockrill in his studio, visit http://roy.ac/cockrill

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Restaurant & Shopping Guide The RA Magazine’s directory of places to eat and shop around the Academy. This is an advertisement feature.

To advertise please call Janet Durbin on 01625 583180 or email classified@royalacademy.org.uk 3

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with international touches of chef Ben Kelliher, to include a pre-theatre menu and traditional afternoon tea served daily.

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Restaurants 1 AMARANTO RESTAURANT Amaranto Restaurant comprises an elegant dining room, a contemporary glass conservatory seating area overlooking the garden, an intimate private dining room and outdoor dining on the private terrace during the summer months. Amaranto presents a modern Italian cuisine with an innovative combination of classical and traditional dishes, while Amaranto Bar offers a wide range of fine wines and cocktails with fireside seating.

Hamilton Place W1, 020 7319 5206 www.fourseasons.com/london/dining

224 Piccadilly W1, 020 7930 0488 www.criterionrestaurant.com

3 BELLAMY’S RESTAURANT & OYSTER BAR Situated in central Mayfair next to Bond Street, Bellamy’s offers a classic French brasserie menu with an affordable famous name wine list.

Patron mange ici. Open for Lunch Mon to Fri. Open for Dinner Mon to Sat.

18/18a Bruton Place W1 020 7491 2727 www.bellamysrestaurant.co.u

5 BUSABA EATHAI Conceived by Alan Yau, Busaba Eathai is a modern Thai eatery. Delivering a much coveted, flavoursome selection of freshly prepared salads, stir fries, noodles and Thai curries, the menu also offers an extensive list of Asianinspired juices and a simple yet selective wine list. Renowned for its core cult following, stylish interiors and bustling atmosphere, 15 years on Busaba remains one of London’s hottest tables.

35 Panton Street SW1, 020 7930 0088 www.busaba.com

2 AL DUCA Serving modern Italian cuisine, Al Duca focuses heavily on bringing out the very best elements of what is one of the most acclaimed gastronomic regions of the world. The menu at Al Duca emphasises the use of simple fresh ingredients skilfully combined to bring out the best of a wide range of traditional dishes offered both in classic style and with a new twist, all following Pulze’s ethos to offer reasonably priced good Italian food.

Now serving breakfast.

4-5 Duke of York Street SW1 020 7839 3090 www.alduca-restaurant.co.uk

7 CRITERION RESTAURANT Our breathtaking ceiling, professionalism, modern European menu and most central location make the Criterion restaurant the perfect address to enjoy a delicious late lunch, an amazing champagne afternoon tea, a romantic dinner, or just a relaxed drink after work. Head Chef Matthew Foxon only uses the finest and freshest ingredients and loves creating alchemy in the kitchen, where everything is homemade – from smoked fish to butter, not forgetting ice cream.

4 BENTLEY’S OYSTER BAR AND GRILL Hidden just around the corner from the RA, a local resting place for weary art lovers and gourmands for over 98 years.

Trading from Midday to Midnight, Champagne and native oysters, traditional fish and chips or for those who care not for the mollusc beautiful lamb or a simple slab of steak. A best of British menu, designed by the incorrigible, controversial and twice Michelin awarded Chef Richard Corrigan. 11-15 Swallow

Street W1 020 7734 4756 www. bentleys.or

8 CUT AT 45 PARK LANE CUT at 45 Park Lane is internationallyacclaimed chef Wolfgang Puck’s first restaurant in Europe, a modern American steak restaurant serving exceptional food in a contemporary interior with impeccable service.

Delectable dishes range from prime dry and wet aged beef to succulent pan-roasted lobster, sautéed whole fresh fish and salads. The superb wine list features 600 wines including the largest selection of American wines in the UK. Breakfasts are another highlight or relax at weekends with brunch and custom-made Bloody Marys as you listen to live jazz.

45 Park Lane, Mayfair W1, 020 7493 4554 www.45parklane.com/CUTat45ParkLane 6 BUTLERS RESTAURANT Butlers home of “the best Dover Sole in London”. A warm and intimate restaurant offering elegant dining, delicious food and impeccable service. Located in the heart of London’s most exclusive district, Mayfair, near the Royal Academy it is as popular with local residents as it is with hotel guests. Offering British cuisine tempered

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9 FISHWORKS RESTAURANT & FISHMONGERS The perfect meal in a stylish seafood restaurant with a traditional wet fish counter. You can select any fish or crustacean and have it cooked there and then to your liking! The classic a la carte menu includes Devon Ray with black butter & capers or a piled-high Fruit de Mer... The blackboards display daily landings such as line-caught Dorset Wild Sea Bass, simply grilled Falmouth Bay Plaice and more! Please book and mention ‘The Royal Academy’ to get an exclusive 15% off* your total bill (*available daily until 7pm).

12 GETTI A modern Italian restaurant at the fast-paced heart of London’s West End, Getti Jermyn Street is an authentic Italian dining venue in London’s historic tailoring district, dedicated to offering a traditional and memorable Italian dining experience.

A splendid destination for London locals and tourists alike, Getti Jermyn Street focuses on serving simple, regional dishes from mainland Italy.

Private dining available.

16/17 Jermyn Street SW1 020 7734 7334 www.getti.co.uk

7-9 Swallow Street W1, 020 7734 5813 www.fishworks.co.uk

10 THE FOX CLUB Our Dining Room is one of London’s best-kept secrets and for those in the know, a lunchtime essential. Our menus offer refined excellence without being pretentious. The modern Eurpean menu changes on a weekly basis.

The Fox Club now offers a delightful afternoon tea from 3-5pm. To avoid disappointment it is best to make a reservation.

46 Clarges Street W1, 020 7495 3656 www.foxclublondon.co.uk

13 THE GREENHOUSE The Greenhouse’ Executive Chef, Arnaud Bignon combines his traditional French training with contemporary techniques. He applies a philosophy of perfect harmony and balance to all his dishes, often playing with fresh and original flavour combinations. This is accompanied by an exceptional wine list of approximately 3,300 bins, which has won the Wine Spectator Grand Award every year since 2005, one of only three restaurants in the world to have achieved this. Special offer: 3-course set lunch and coffee, £30. Quote Royal Academy of Arts when booking. Open for lunch noon-2.30pm, Mon-Fri; dinner 6.3011pm Mon-Sat.

27a Hay’s Mews W1, 020 7499 3331 www.greenhouserestaurant.co.uk

Sun: 12.30–9.30pm 35 Willow place SW1, 020 7834 5778 www.ristorantegustoso.co.uk

15 HIX MAYFAIR Situated close to the Royal Academy, this fashionable restaurant offers an outstanding menu of classic British dishes, using local seasonal ingredients. Mark Hix and Lee Streeton offer a full a la carte menu alongside a special set lunch, pre-theatre and dinner menu of £27.50 for 2 courses and £32.50 for 3 courses.

HIX Mayfair is also home to an amazing collection of British art including pieces

by Tracey Emin RA and Bridget Riley.

16 MAHARANI SOHO Open all day and situated in the heart of Soho this family run restaurant established 42 years ago offers the best cuisine that the north and south of India has to offer, with our own little twist. All our dishes are cooked fresh to order, using free-range meat and locally sourced vegetables. We offer a special set lunch menu at £6.95 which runs to 5pm, or you can choose from our mouth watering à la carte menu which offers excellence without pretension, leading us to be counted as one of the best Indian restaurants in London. To avoid disappointment it is best to make a reservation. Last order 11.30pm.

77 Berwick Street, W1 020 7437 8568 www.maharanisoho.com

Brown’s Hotel, Albemarle Street W1 020 7518 4004 www.hixmayfair.co.uk

E S T. L ON D ON 1 9 0 9 E S T. L O N D O N 1 9 0 9

Enjoy another another work work of of art art at at Richoux Richoux Enjoy Justopposite opposite the the Royal Royal Academy Just Academyin inPiccadilly Piccadilly

11 FRANCO’S Some believe Franco’s was the first Italian restaurant in London, having served residents in St James’s since 1942. Open all day, the personality of Franco’s evolves and provides a menu for all occasions. The day starts with full English and continental breakfast on offer. The à la carte lunch and dinner menus offer both classic and modern dishes.

61 Jermyn Street SW1, 020 7499 2211 www.francoslondon.com

Open week Openseven seven days days a week Breakfast, morning coffee, coffee,lunch, lunch, Breakfast, morning afternoon afternoontea tea&&dinner dinner 14 GUSTOSO RISTORANTE & ENOTECA Home-style Italian dining room Ristorante Gustoso is found moments from Westminster Cathedral and Victoria Station. Quietly situated, pleasingly intimate, Gustoso is the ideal place to unwind after work, with friends or to enjoy a little romance.

Cocktails are professionally served from the well stocked bar and the menu is based around the Italian classics, cooked using authentic ingredients to recipes passed down through the generations of Italians.

There is an extensive wine list and an unrivalled collection of grappas.

Opening times : Mon-Thu: 12–3pm, 6.30–10.30pm Friday/Sat: 12–3pm, 6.30–11pm

10% of the the RA RA magazine magazine 10% discount discount for for readers readers of Maximum 6 customers dining

Kindly show your RA membership card at any of the following Richoux Kindly show your RA membership card at any of the following Richoux 172PICCADILLY, Piccadilly, W1J 020 7493 74932204 2204 172 W1J 9EJ 9EJ • 020 41a South Audley Street, Mayfair, W1K 2PS • 020 7629 5228 5228 41A SOUTH AUDLEY STREET, MAYFAIR, W1K 2PS 0207629 Brompton ROAD, Road, KNIGHTSBRIDGE, Knightsbridge, SW3 1ER 0207584 75848300 8300 8686 BROMPTON SW3 1ER• 020 Circus ROAD, Road, ST St JOHN’S John’s Wood, 0207483 7483 4001 4001 3 3CIRCUS WOOD,NW8 NW86NX 6NX• 020

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www.richoux.co.uk www.richoux.co.uk

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17 MATSURI ST JAMES Matsuri St James’s was opened in 1993 and is the icon of authentic Japanese food in London. When the restaurant opened in the heart of Mayfair, Matsuri St James’s introduced not only traditional Japanese food, such as Sushi and tempura, but also a new style of Japanese cuisine - Teppan-yaki and the art of “live cooking”.

Food and wines or sake tasting courses bring together the best possible ingredients that we select from the market, with a well-balanced list of wines, champagnes and sakes in order to maximise your dining experience, from aperitifs to starters to dessert.

15 Bury Street SW1 020 7839 1101 www.matsuri-restaurant.com

20 SARTORIA Sartoria is an elegant Milanese-style Italian restaurant located on the corner of Savile Row and New Burlington Street, behind the Royal Academy of Arts. Head Chef Lukas Pfaff creates refined yet uncomplicated Italian food and showcases a different regional special menu each month, and Head Sommelier Michael Simms is on hand to recommend the perfect Italian wine.

Quiet confidence in the kitchen is complimented by warm, friendly and attentive service, whilst the stylish bar is a fashionable spot for a light lunch, an espresso or classic Negroni. Sartoria is open for lunch Monday to Friday and for dinner Monday to Saturday.

20 Savile Row W1, 020 7534 7000 www.sartoria-restaurant.co.uk

shellfish, game and meat. Choose from an exclusive wine list. Open for lunch and dinner, Monday-Friday and dinner Saturday. To secure your reservation please quote RA Magazine.

55 Jermyn Street SW1, 020 7629 9955 www.wiltons.co.uk 23 THE WOLSELEY A café-restaurant in the grand European tradition and located just a few minutes’ walk from The Royal Academy, The Wolseley is open all day from 7am for breakfast right through until midnight.

Its all-day menu means it is possible to eat formally or casually at any time, whether a full three course meal or just a coffee and cake. Whilst booking in advance is advised, tables are always held back for walk-ins on the day.

160 Piccadilly W1, 020 7499 6996 www.thewolseley.com

18 PETRICHOR Boasting two AA Rosettes, Petrichor at The Cavendish London offers a high-end take on classic British cuisine complimented by an extensive wine list. Set in the heart of the West End, the luxurious Petrichor dining room features rich velvet furnishings and glossy black lacquer, whilst expansive prints offer a splash of colour. To book a mouth-watering lunch or dinner email petrichor@thecavenendishlondon.com and quote “RA Magazine”.

81 Jermyn Street SW1, 020 7930 2111 www.thecavendishlondon.com

19 RICHOUX A unique traditional restaurant open all day, serving coffee, all day breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, supper and dinner from 8am to 11pm daily.

172 Piccadilly W1, 020 7493 2204 www.richoux.co.uk

21 UMU Umu prides itself on the provenance and integrity of ingredients, serving timeless Japanese cuisine in the heart of Mayfair. Michelin-starred Chef, Yoshinori Ishii, has designed an innovative menu with both the traditional Japanese restaurant goer and the contemporary Japanese food lover in mind. The wine list consists of over 500 references, and there are also 150 different types of sake available. Enjoy a Michelin-starred lunch from £26 with a selection of seasonal shokado bento boxes. Lunch 12–2.30pm (Mon-Fri) Dinner 6–11pm (Mon-Sat)

24 YOSHINO Restaurant Yoshino is serving Healthy, Beautiful, Original authentic and innovative Japanese food. Situated at 3 Piccadilly Place where it is the only restaurant on this alleyway and close to the RA. There is no surprise that Yoshino continues to receive the highest accolades for its products and standards and our reputation for fresh, quality food is second to none. Open from 12–21:30 (Last order) Mon to Sat.

14-16 Bruton Place W1, 020 7499 8881 www.umurestaurant.com

3 Piccadilly Place W1, 020 7287 6622 www.yoshino.net

22 WILTONS Established in 1742, Wiltons enjoys a reputation as the epitome of fine English dining in London. The atmosphere is perfectly matched with immaculately prepared fish,

requirements. Or just take a visit to see the wonderful venue and step back in history to 1698. Open Monday to Friday 10-6 and Saturday 10-5.

3 St James’s Street SW1, 020 3301 1576 www.bbr.com/london

2 DR HARRIS Situated in St James’s Street for over 200 years, D. R. Harris is London’s oldest Pharmacy and has been owned by the original family since 1790. D. R. Harris are renowned for their range of quality products for men and women including soaps, colognes, bath and shaving preparations.

The majority of products are still produced by traditional methods in the UK. The main shop and pharmacy are temporarily located at 35 Bury Street for 18 months whilst works are done at 29 St. James’s Street. The full range is also available from 52 Piccadilly.

35 Bury Street SW1, 52 Piccadilly W1 020 7930 3915 www.drharris.co.uk 3 DEGE & SKINNER Established in 1865 and holder of the Royal Warrant, Dege & Skinner is recognised around the world as one of Savile Row’s finest bespoke tailoring houses. Specialising in civilian and military attire, as well as ready-to-wear shirts and bespoke shirts, their shop at 10 Savile Row is well worth a visit whenever you are in Town. For those unable to visit Savile Row, they also travel overseas to meet customers.

Shopping

10 Savile Row W1, 020 7287 2941 www.dege-skinner.co.uk

1 BERRY BROS. & RUDD A stone’s throw from the Royal Academy, Britain’s oldest wine merchant Berry Bros. & Rudd offers the finest drinking wines in a unique historical setting dating back more than 300 years.

From super premium spirits to artisan Champagnes from lesser known houses and the finest red and white wines from around the globe, our experts are on hand to help you make an excellent selection whatever your drinking

4 FLORIS Floris is delighted to announce the launch of their brand new fragrance line ‘Soulle Ámbar’. A warm sensual fragrance with jasmine and geranium, warmed by soft vanilla and amber, and lifted by a modern green

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accord. To receive a complimentary sample of ‘Soulle Ámbar’ please visit the Floris Perfumery at 89 Jermyn Street or the new Perfumery Boutique at 147 Ebury Street, Belgravia 89 Jermyn Street SW1, 020 7930 2885 147 Ebury Street SW1 , 020 7730 0304 Mail Order: 0845 702 3239 www.florislondon.com 5 GIEVES & HAWKES Gieves & Hawkes has been located at No. 1 Savile Row, a short stroll from Burlington House, for over 100 years. With a tradition of military and fine bespoke handwork, the firm has enjoyed the continuous patronage of royal families both at home and abroad over three centuries. Today No 1 Savile Row houses the company’s bespoke workshops, Private Tailoring suites and flagship ‘ready to wear’ store selling stylish British menswear. Do pay us a visit.

No.1 Savile Row W1, 020 7432 6403 www.gievesandhawkes.com 6 GRANTA Granta 126: do you remember explores the textures of memory and loss, recovery and invention.

Janet Malcolm deconstructs Emily Dickinson with the help of writer and scholar Marta Werner and a pair of scissors, Edmund White remembers his years in Paris as an aspiring writer and Vogue correspondent, while Lydia Davis discusses the uncanny aftertaste of a spelling problem. Subscribe to Granta, the magazine of new writing, for just £32 and receive Granta 126: do you remember as a free gift. Visit granta. com/subscribe and enter the promotion code “DYR” for more details

www.granta.com/subscribe 7 HILDITCH & KEY 100 Years of Excellence. Hilditch & Key has long been recognised as London’s leading Jermyn Street shirt maker with a reputation, among the discerning, for the finest gentlemens’ shirts, knitwear and clothing as well as an increasingly popular ladies shirt and knitwear collection.

37 & 73 Jermyn Street SW1 020 7734 4707 & 020 7930 5336 www.hilditchandkey.co.uk 8 LOCK & CO. Choose from our wide range of summer headwear: fine quality hand woven panama hats, foldable travel and safari hats, linen and cotton caps. For those unable to visit we provide a mail order service orders can be made on line or ask for our catalogue.

6 St James’s Street SW1, 020 7930 8874 www.lockhatters.co.uk

9 LA MAISON MAILLE The La Maison Maille mustard boutique complements the long-established Maille boutiques of Paris and Dijon with a world of premium French mustards drawn from its 267 years of heritage and expertise. More than 60 variants of mustards, vinegars and gherkins are available for the first time in the London boutique, located directly opposite the Royal Academy in Piccadilly arcade.

Be sure not to miss out on the range of specially created mustards dispensed fresh from the signature mustard pump— a unique experience only available in the Maille boutiques.

2 Piccadilly Arcade SW1, 020 7499 8552 www.maille.co.uk 10 MATTHEW FOSTER Established in Mayfair since 1987, in addition to our collection of Art Deco and period jewellery we now offer a selection of Art Deco period Objets d’Art, sculpture, mirrors and lighting.

Website to be launched in May 2012. Our jewellery and Objets d’Art collection covers a wide price range suitable for all occasions, each piece carefully selected for its quality and style.

25 Burlington Arcade W1, 020 7629 4977 www.matthew-foster.com

Amsterdam & The Hague F o u r

N i g h t

E s c o r t e d

H o l i d a y s

EL GRECO

IN MADRID & TOLEDO FIVE NIGHT ESCORTED HOLIDAYS | 25 JUNE & 1 OCTOBER 2014

Spain will mark the 400th anniversary of El Greco’s death, with major new exhibitions in Madrid and Toledo.

Our tour, based in Madrid at the centrally located 4* Hotel Emperador, will take in the ‘Greco and Modern Painting’ exhibition at the Prado, as well as the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, one of the finest assembled by a private collector. From Madrid we will travel to El Greco’s adopted home town of Toledo to see the spectacular cathedral, the artist’s house, the Museo de Santa Cruz and ‘The Burial of the Conde Orgaz’ at the church of Santo Tome.

In Illescas, mid-way between Madrid and Toledo, we will see El Greco’s works at the Hospital de la Caridad.

Price from £1,385 for five nights including flights, accommodation with breakfast, three dinners and the services of the Kirker Tour Lecturer.

Speak to an expert or request a brochure:

020 7593 2283 quote code GRA Bronze Sculpture by Delandre-Portor Marble base. France 1930’s

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Classified The RA Magazine is published quarterly and has a circulation of 100,000 making it the most widely read art magazine in the country. To advertise in this section please contact Janet Durbin on 01625 583180

Artists’ Websites LOUISE DIGGLE Pastels of London life and light www.louisediggle.co.uk JOAN DOERR Paintings inspired by the elemental impact on the environment www.joandoerr.com MICHAEL FAIRCLOUGH Textured oil paintings of vast skies above reflecting seas and brooding landscapes www.michaelfairclough.co.uk JACQUIE GULLIVER THOMPSON Memories in oil paintings of Mexico, Byzantine Greece, Yemen & the Sahara www.jacquiegulliverthompson.com

Bespoke Artists Canvases

Canvases & Stretcher Bars Made to Measure Professional Quality Hardwood Stretchers 10oz, 12oz, Superfine and Claessens Linen Fabrics Online Ordering & National Delivery

www.harrismoorecanvases.co.uk

Artefact Picture Framers Bespoke Framing, Conservation and Museum Standards Art & Frame Restoration, Mirrors, Canvas Stretching, Installation

Commission Art Portraits, house portraits and animals

by experienced artist, reasonable fees.

John Wilkinson. R.A.S., R.B.A. Tel: 01425 656048 House Portraits in Watercolour by

established artist. Please contact Tim Rose email tim@timrose.co.uk www.portraitsofhouses.com

Courses

An exciting range of art courses for all abilities in relaxed surroundings.

See our website for more details or contact us to receive a brochure.

New House Farm Barns, Ford Road, Arundel BN18 0EF. Tel: 01243 558880 office@themillstudio.com www.themillstudio.com

Black Mountains Wales Nr Hay-on-Wye Painting, drawing, life classes, landscape, 2-3 day courses. Beautiful surroundings, very spacious studio. Excellent food www.artcourseswales.com tel 01874 711 212

36 Windmill Street, London W1T 2JT www.artefactlondon.co.uk T: 020 7580 4878

GREAT COURSES IN SOMERSET Discover an amazing range of residential courses in a fabulous and glorious setting. Five Star rated! www.dillington.com

OLIVER NEEDS Contemporary artist. Surreal, symbolic and meaningful paintings www.oliverneedsart.co.uk OWL ART STUDIO Woodcarvings and printworks.

A mythology of one’s own www.owlartstudio.net ULLA PLOUGHMAND Paintings. Colourful female forms, landscapes, flowers and the cosmos www.ulla-art.com SP PRESCOTT Stunning modern pieces. Deconstruction of form, producing vibrant colourful reconstruction. www.spprescott.com

Saturday Life Classes All Media, all levels with professional tutoring Long and short poses Experienced portfolio advice for students Elianor Jonzen tel: 020 7221 4525

SABRINA ROWAN HAMILTON www.sabrinarowanhamilton.co.uk www.srhprints.com

Weekend Art Courses with Nicola Slattery

NICOLA SLATTERY Thoughtful, peaceful art from the imagination www.nicolaslattery.com

learn to paint with acrylic, discover printmaking, create art from imagination.

Telephone: 01986 788853 www.nicolaslattery.com

ANGELA WAKEFIELD Contemporary urban landscapes of New York, London and Europe www.angelawakefield.co.uk JO WHITNEY Oil paintings; sea, sand, city life.

Venice; Nice; Cornwall; Plymouth www.jo-whitney.co.uk MARJANA WJASNOVA Symbolic, abstract, spiritual artist www.wjasnova.com

Art Services

Books

We are always pleased to buy

good quality second-hand & older books for our shop. Aardvark Books Manor Farm, Brampton Bryan, Shropshire, SY7 0DH Tel: 01547 530888

Email: aardvaark@btconnect.com

Half Day Art History Courses special themes followed on Mondays am/pm in informal atmosphere in south west London. Lectures with slides by highly qualified speakers and guided visits.

Tel: 020 8788 6910.

Draw Cartoons and Caricatures!

CD-ROM and downloadable course by top professional. www.cartoonworld.org/courses

PORTRAIT SCULPTURE COURSES

LIFE PAINTING AND DRAWING

Near Alton, Hampshire

Susan Bates Little 01420 561034 www.susanbateslittle.com

with Rachel Clark

Highly recommended. Small classes.

Week/Weekend/Saturday/Private Tuition.

Twitter: @SBLart

T: 07528 674389 www.rachelclark.com

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Classified Holidays

Tuscan/Umbrian Border

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Luxury Architect Designed Villa. Exquisite Furnishings. Fantastic Kitchen. Stunning Views.

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Discover the masterpieces of The Renaissance and the contemporary spirituality of The Burri Collections – all within minutes.

www.riadhayati.com VENICE CENTRE s/c apts in charming

15th C palazzetto, sleep 2/5. www.valleycastle.com PROVENCE LUBERON Vineyard

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www.georgeirvinefineart.co.uk Buttermilk Stud Farm, Barford St Michael, Banbury, OX15 0PL Tel: 0754 915 7855

Foundries

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Fine Art Bronze Casting Welding – Patina Specialists Ceramic Shell Contact: AB or Jerry 1 Fawe Street, London E14 6PD Tel 020 7515 8052 Fax 020 7987 7339

Galleries for Hire BANKSIDE GALLERY 48 Hopton

Street, London SE1 9JH Airy & welllit. Beside Tate Modern. 200m sq space.

Competitive rates. t 020 7928 7521 e-m info@banksidegallery.com www.banksidegallery.com Asia House 100 sq m gallery in the

heart of central London. Full technical support available. For further info. contact Philip Woodford-Smith Tel 020 7307 5454 or email philip.woodfordsmith@asiahouse.co.uk Gallery 8 Splendidly maintained gallery

in prime location – helpful, experienced management and full facility support – 8 Duke Street, St. James’s, London SW1Y 6BN e: gallery@8dukestreet. co.uk web: www.8dukestreet.co.uk t: 020 7930 0375 and 07973 292958 The Framers Gallery Unique Space,

Great Location, No Commission, 36 Windmill Street, London W1T 2JT T: 020 7580 4878 www.theframersgallery.co.uk

For Sale

sleep 2/5 garden, parking. Children most welcome. www.valleycastle.com VIENNA CENTRE country style apartment in peaceful cloister. Sleeps 2/3. www.valleycastlevienna.com ROME CENTRE s/c apts in royal villa, sleep 2/5 garden, parking. Children most welcome. www.valleycastle.com VIENNA CENTRE country style apartment in peaceful cloister. Sleeps 2/3. www.valleycastlevienna.com Menton town centre, sleeps 12. Enjoy the eclectic art collection and interior design in this restored 1860’s villa and separate guest house situated just above town centre, 5 mins walk to shops and beaches. Beautiful garden with panoramic views across the bay and over old town. Lovely pool area with shower and shady places to sit and read.

Secluded dining area on front terrace or in shady citrus tree courtyard. Enjoy versatility of 2 houses on one site.

Ideal for 2 families. Off street parking for 2 cars. Small speed boat for rent.

Now booking summer 2014. tel: 07900 916729 pattiebarwick@gmail.com www.mentonsejour.com ITALY Tuscany/Umbria Farmhouse

and barn: pool, views, gardens, art, walks. Piero, Donatello, Burri, etc minutes away. Sleeps 4 to 16+ (sliding scale), all ensuite. 020 7059 0278 www.lafoce.co.uk SPAIN: ANDALUCIA.

Spacious apartment. Mediterranean views. Year round sun. Three bedrooms. Large private terrace. Pool, gardens. Secure parking. Ideal for Granada, Cordoba, Seville. 0777 5657 333 www.andalucia-apartment.com FRANCE: MENTON 2 bedroom house

in grounds of 1860’s town villa; pool Beautiful views of sea and old town charming courtyard with lemon trees; Easy walk to covered market, sea, train and bus station. Off street parking available. tel: 07900 916729 pattiebarwick@gmail.com www.mentonsejour.com

Artistic Flare Affordable art for the

home and office Tel: 020 7736 7921 Mobile: 07854 734 290 Website: www.jacquelinemidgen.wordpress.com Email: jackiemidgen@hotmail.co.uk Visits to studio by appointment only

www.casa-sant-anna.com MENORCA, unspoilt fishing village

Branscombe, Devon – The Retreat:

of ES GRAU in Biosphere Reserve.

A retreat for two, delightful studio apartment set in large shady courtyard, 45 seconds to beach. +34629381601

Accessible Eco-home in beautiful coastal Devon, sleeps 4. Area of outstanding natural beauty appealing to artists and environmentalists alike.

Pets welcome. 07949 593463

churchillalipaintings@gmail.com Cap d’Antibes Quiet 2 bedroom house

2 terraces, garden, shared pool, 4 min sandy Monet beach. Walk to Picasso.

From £300pw 01707 322527 S. FRANCE Studio for 2, Panoramic sea view – pool. May, June, September £300 per week. July, August £330 per week. Tel: 020 7828 8245.

E: fcbutlin@btinternet.com VENICE heart of the city. Pretty apt

newly restored in small courtyard 1 dble bedrm. Sleeps 2 Reasonable rates 3nts+

www.homeaway.co.uk/p1115058 Discount for RA friends.

Branscombe, Devon – The Retreat:

Accessible Eco-home in beautiful coastal Devon, sleeps 4. Area of outstanding natural beauty appealing to artists and environmentalists alike.

Pets welcome. 07949 593463 www.homeaway.co.uk/p1115058 Discount for RA friends.

Tel 07796 957579 patricianolan@btopenworld.com FRANCE: NICE. Stunning view over

roofs of old town. Quiet sunny 2 room balcony flat. Sleeps 2/3. 30 mins bus to airport. £485 p.w. Tel: 020 7720 7519 or 01736 762013.

LANZAROTE Explore an artist’s view

of this UNESCO Biosphere Reserve island; visiting sculptures, paintings and amazing architectural tours de force designed by Cesar Manrique (www. cesarmanrique.com/fundacion) Stay in our restored C17th Canarian farmhouse which has a private pool, 3 double bedrooms – all en-suite. Use the large separate artist’s studio. Recommended

by Alistair Sawdays and featured in The Times. Call Paul +34-928-522620 www.fincalagranja.com Riviera: French/Italian coast.

Breathtaking, uninterrupted views.

Romantic, spacious 2/3 bedroom flat with own large garden, in 18thC stone palazzo. Parking. Menton 5 mins, Ventimiglia 10. www.ilvalico.eu email: vitosmi@gmail.com Lodging in Venice: canal facing, lovely

double bedroom, bathroom, every amenity incl wi-fi, air-con, washing machine in stylish and affordable home-based B&B flat. Ideal for single traveller. 380.00 euros pw incl.

Tel: +39 347 216 2851 or email: venice4u@yahoo.co.uk

Holidays UK

SEE NEW WEBSITE: St Ives, 2nd

floor flat. Views, sleeps 2, stylish, light,spacious open plan living. www. fifteenthedigey.co.uk 01223 295264 Scottish Borders – magical, spacious,

secluded farmhouse & garden, stunning hill views. Sleeps 10. Large kitchen with Aga. Games barn. Wood-burning stoves.

Barn owls. Fabulous walking. 07957 396 232 www.middleholms.com

Rental Studio/Workshop TO RENT Part of small creative complex on farm with stunning views. 900 sq ft workshop available for £350 per month.

Botleys Farm, Downton, Salisbury, SP5 3NW Tel: 07970 655240 hugo@botleysfarm.co.uk www.botleysfarm.co.uk

Sculpture

STONE SCULPTURE from

ZIMBABWE all important artists represented.

The Contemporary Fine Art Gallery (Eton) 31 High Street, Eton, Near Windsor, Berkshire.

Tel. 01753 854315 7 days a week 10.30-5.30 p.m.

The Mercury Journal, USPS 009/065, is published quarterly, March, May, September and November. Periodicals Postage Paid at Rahway, NJ. US agent: Mercury International, 365 Blair Road, Avenel, NJ 07001 POSTMASTER: Address change to THE MERCURY JOURNAL, 365 Blair Road, Avenel, NJ 07001

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Inside Story garden is in the centre of London, as I can arrange to meet people here, and I can keep an eye on it easily.

How long did it take to install the garden?

The building of the garden took about two months and the planting about four days.

What qualities do you look for in a garden? The infinitesimal. William Kent,

Lord Burlington’s protégé [see page 22], was a genius at weaving random elements into formal gardens. This made his gardens open to personal discovery, and enabled people to lose themselves in nature within the space.

Is that how you would like people to respond to your gardens? My idea of garden

design relates to Kent’s ideas. I like to create spaces that don’t appear to be over-designed.

If you enter a space with only one way to walk, one place to sit down and one place to read, then it becomes a forced experience. For me, landscape is about the liberal world of nature, so when you enter a garden or landscape you ought to feel that the possibilities are infinite, that you can go anywhere, do anything. I try to bring that into my gardens.

When did you first realise you wanted to work with plants? I had an unnaturally early

preoccupation with gardening. I gardened like crazy at the age of 15 and spent all my money on plants. But I had no idea I could do that as a job. And then, about halfway through university, I was lucky enough to meet two men in their 80s called Lanning Roper and Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe RA, two of the fathers of landscape architecture in Britain, and that was the start of my career.

What do you enjoy most about what you do? Being entrusted to look after the part

of somebody’s life that represents their ideal.

Tom Stuart-Smith The landscape designer discusses with ELEANOR MILLS the ideas and inspirations behind his garden for the Keeper’s House, and names the garden he finds closest to paradise What was your vision for the RA’s new Keeper’s House garden? I’m interested in

what a garden can say about a place – I like to respond to the context of the site. So when I came to design the Keeper’s House garden I was aware that the site was layered with architectural history, and that I could view my work as if it was part of an excavation. The site even looked like an excavation, a canyon made from brick, with those dark London walls enclosing the space.

Is that history the reason why you’ve planted 200-year-old tree ferns? They have

come from Australia and are nearly as old as the Academy. But they have practical attributes too. In their natural habitat tree ferns grow under the tree canopy, so they thrive in shade.

So in winter, when a garden can look very sad, the ferns stay a rich green. They’re only slightly bigger than humans, so they appear like people with crazy green hairstyles, which makes the space look fun to be in. It’s lovely that the

Rousham, near Bicester. It’s a complete and utter masterpiece. Most of it was created

by Kent. It is completely magical, hauntingly beautiful and deeply intellectual, and very rarely visited. But I also love the gardens at Ninfa in southern Italy, just south of Rome.

It’s an abandoned medieval town with a river running through it that was transformed into a garden. There’s a perfection to its timelessness.

It’s a good model for paradise, if ever there was such a thing. So, I would easily spend 12 hours on my last day in each of those two gardens.

What is your favourite depiction of a garden in art? Lucian Freud’s paintings

of the humdrum outside his studio are really extraordinary. They’re not paintings of gardens really, just lost spaces.

What’s the best gardening advice you could give to Friends of the RA? Get out

there and do it.

For details of a Friends visit to Tom Stuart-Smith’s garden at The Barn in Abbots Langley, Hertfordshire, on 4 June, see Events and Lectures page 73-74.

For details and opening times of The Keeper’s House visit www.keepershouse.org.uk, or see page 9

P H OTO CL A R E F OS T ER / H O US E & G A R D EN © T H E CO N D E N AS T P U B L I CAT I O NS LT D

Which garden represents your ideal?

Where would you spend your last day?

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Art Tours Worldwide Art • Archaeology • Architecture 2014 Cox & Kings is the travel partner for the Royal Academy of Arts (RA) and our programme of small-group tours has been specially created with the Friends of the RA in mind. The 2014 collection focuses on the art, architecture and archaeology of many of the world’s most culturally-rich destinations.

The tours are accompanied by expert lecturers who help to design the itineraries, give talks along the way and, in many cases, open doors that would normally be closed to the general public.

2014 Highlights Bruges & Ghent: Flemish Art & Architecture

23 Sep – 4 nights from £1,275

Rome: Caravaggio & the Eternal City

29 Sep – 4 nights from £1,625

Ethiopia: A Journey through Landscape & Time 24 Oct – 12 nights from £3,495

Oman: Land of Frankincense 9 Nov – 7 nights from £2,095

Barcelona: Gaudi’s Masterworks 24 Nov – 4 nights from £1,195

For reservations, please call 020 7873 5000 For detailed itineraries and prices, please request a copy of the 2014 RA Worldwide Art Tours brochure by calling 0844 576 5518 quoting reference RAARTS, or visit www.coxandkings.co.uk/ra ATOL 2815 ABTA V2999

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IVON HITCHENS

From the collection of Ted Floate 10 hitherto unseen oils and 16 drawings Exhibition begins Saturday 15th March 2014 View art and introductory films by Peter Khoroche online Catalogue available

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