Willow Tea Rooms, Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow (iii)
Posted in Architecture, Art, Glasgow at 12:00 on 27 February 2025
Posted in Architecture, Art, Glasgow at 12:00 on 27 February 2025
Posted in Art, Sculpture, Trips at 12:00 on 12 January 2025
Among other exhibits there are of course many prieces by Hepworth herself at The Hepworth Wakefield.
These are typical Hepworth sculpted forms:-
To left and centre; Two Forms and Three Oblique Forms:-
To right above; Three Hemispheres:-
Maquette for Sculpture for Waterloo Bridge:-
Winged Figure:-
Posted in Architecture, Art, Modern Architecture, Sculpture at 12:00 on 11 January 2025
We had an overnight stop at Wakefield on the way back up from Bath so that we could go to The Hepworth Wakefield. It was built in commemoration of artist/sculptor Barbara Hepworth who was born in the town. As well as many of her works it now houses the municipal art collection started in 1923.
The building stands by the River Calder and was designed by British architect David Chipperfield.
From over River Calder:-
From walkway over the river:-
Entrance and rear:-
I took a video of the weir from the main road bridge:-
Posted in Art, Exhibitions at 12:00 on 22 September 2024
During the Great War Lavery was commissioned as a war artist. Several of his war paintings are on display at the Lavery on Location Exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery.
Mine-Laying Submarines Harwich 1917:-
Hendon 1917. Hendon was a Royal Flying Corps training base. I really liked this as I’m a sucker for biplanes:-
More sombrely this is The Cemetery, Étaples:-
Daylight Raid from my Studio:-
A Coast Defence. An 18-Pounder Anti-Aircraft Gun, Tyneside:-
Lavery was almost alone in portraying those who became casualties. Wounded, London:-
More of Lavery’s works can be seen on the Ulster Museum’s website, here.
Posted in Art, Exhibitions at 12:00 on 19 September 2024
Lavery made his name when he was commissioned to paint the State Visit of Queen Victoria to the Glasgow International Exhibition 1888. For this he had individual sittings for the privileged invitees so that he could then incorporate accurate portarits of them into his final composition.
He painted many pictures of the International Exhibition including this one of the main building. Along with many other depictions of various International or National Exhibitions, plus the Festival of Britain, I have a copy of this hanging on my study wall:-
Lavery also painted A View from the Canal, Kelvingrove, showing one of the gondolas which plied the waters of the River Kelvin as an amusement attraction:-
And this one of the exhibit The Blue Hungarians:-
One of the features of the international Exhibition was an array of restaurants and café including The Dutch Cocoa House (as depicted by Lavery below) which dispensed Van Houten products.
The above for some reason reminds me of both Edwin Hopper’s Nighthawks and Edgar Degas’s The Absinthe Drinker.
Lavery exhibited this painting in the Art Gallery at the International Exhibition. Dawn after the Battle of Langside. Mary, Queen of Scots in the aftermath of the battle:-
Posted in Art, Exhibitions at 12:00 on 17 September 2024
For some reason the title the Scottish National Gallery has given to its exhibition featuring the painter John Lavery is “An Irish Impressionist.”
I had always considered Lavery to be a Scottish painter, even if he was born in Ireland. He moved to Scotland as a child and started his career in Glasgow.
The Exhibition is on till 27th October.
Lavery’s early work resembles paintings by The Glasgow Boys. This is The Intruders, very reminiscent of a painting by James Guthrie:-
His style soon developed as he took to painting more impressionistic works such as these two of the Bridge at Grès (Grez-sur-Loing):-
and The Harbour of St Jean de Luz:-
There are two versions of On The Loing in the exhibition. This one was a study for the larger painting exhibited beside it.
Posted in Art, Edinburgh at 12:00 on 7 August 2024
I’ve been to the City Art Centre, Edinburgh again. They have a retrospective exhibition of the works of Adam Bruce Thomson, of whom I admit that until the exhibition I had never heard.
The Exhibition’s title, The Quiet Path, perhaps explains that a bit. He seems to have been an unassuming man.
He was a very good painter but I was particularly taken by his drawings made during the First World War.
Zeppelin on the Ground:
Making Pontoon Bridge:
Royal Engineers Building a Bridge Near Mons:
Other drawings included Colinton:-
And, Loch Carron: Passing Storm:-
Bringing in the Hay is more colourful:
As is New Galloway:
There were some paintings of Edinburgh scenes.
North Bridge and Salisbury Crags:
The Old Dean Bridge:
And scenes from elsewhere.
Stooks, East Lothian:
From my bedroom window:
Towards Mull:
Tréboul Harbour, Brittany:
The exhibition is on till the 6th of October.
More of Thomson’s art can be seen here.
Posted in Art, Edinburgh, Exhibitions at 12:00 on 16 May 2024
The current Exhibition at Modern One, Edinburgh, is Tracing Time by the Korean artist Do Ho Suh, of whom I hadn’t heard until the exhibition came on. It ws quite interesting, though some of the exhibits were a bit of a miss rather than a hit.
The outline of this reminded me of the shape of the Korean peninsula:-
A fairly crude drawing of an odd subject:-
Circles or swirls feature in a lot of the exhibits:-
A somewhat scatological drawing:-
This seems to be just a shape:-
Houses, too, are a feature:-
This walk-thorough installation recreates the entrances to several of the homes in which the artist has lived:-
The Exhibition is on till Sep 1st.
Posted in Art, Museums, Trips at 12:00 on 11 May 2024
One of the downstairs rooms in the Rijksmuseum held paintings that weren’t perhaps as famous as The Night Watch or Vermeer’s Milkmaid.
Two were by by Hendrick Avercamp, both reminiscent of the work of the Breughels.
Ice Entertainment Near a City :-
Winter Landscape with Skaters:-
Self portrait by Betsy Westendorp-Osieck:-
Self Portrait by Emile Bernard:-
van Gogh Self Portrait:-
Therese Schwartze Self Portrait:-
Portrait of Theresia Ansingh (Portret van Sorella) by Therese Schwartze. Also known as Woman Wearing a Hat. A better picture than mine is here:-
The Night School by Gerard Dou. An illustration of depiction of light. (Again better to see here):-
An unusual Mondrian. Painting of a Windmill:-
Posted in Architecture, Trips at 12:00 on 25 April 2024
While we were in The Netherlands last June we took the chance to go to Amsterdam as it was somewhere we’d never visited. It involved quite a long train journey, first on a swish kind of Inter-City double-decker train from Heerenveen to Zwolle, then a slower type of train called a Sprinter, which seemingly stopped everywhere between Zwolle and Amsterdam, including six stations in Almere alone!
The sprinter had decorations in the style of the artist Mondrian.
Glass partition:-
The walls of the toilet were also styled like Mondrian – see where corridor doglegs :-
We got off at Amsterdam Centraal Station. Central facade:-
Stitch of frontage:-
Canal scenes:-
Amsterdam City Hall:-
Clock building in Muntplein:-