Exit Through The Giftshop - Postcards at an exhibition....

More bootiful booty from museum and exhibition gift shops...

1) TITLE PAGE OF THE FIRST FOLIO OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS (1623) - Martin Droeshout

I bought this in Stratford-on-Avon at Shakespeare's birthplace - it seemed the most obvious purchase really.  The First Folio was published in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare's death, by John Heminges and Henry Condell who were actors in The King's Men, the acting company that the Bard wrote for.  Although many of Shakespeare's plays had been published in smaller Quarto publications, these were cheaply produced and fluctuated in quality. 

The First Folio compiled 36 plays, 18 of which for the first time including THE TEMPEST, ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, MEASURE FOR MEASURE, JULIUS CAESAR and MACBETH.  It is believed about 750 editions were published and is now considered one of the most important publications in history.  A copy was sold in 2001 at Christies, NY for over £3 million.  21 year-old Martin Droeshout's engraving has become the one that most Shakespeare imagery is based on.

2) PLEIN AIR (1890-1) - Ramon Casas

I bought this in the MNAC Gallery in Barcelona which celebrates Catalonian art.  In 1890 the 25 year-old Casas was living and working in Paris and his painting 'Plein Air' shows the influence of the Impressionist painters on him.

Casas' painting has a haunting quality as a smartly-dressed woman sits outside at a table in the gloaming, staring at a man across the empty courtyard who is turned away from her gaze, looking out of the gate to the town beyond.  The white of the tablecloth and the red wine in the carafe is contrasted against the black of the woman's outfit giving the viewer a focus in the surrounding muted colours.

3) MAP READING (1932) - Stanley Spencer

I bought this at Somerset House when they recreated Stanley Spencer's 19 canvasses in situ as they appear at the Sandham Memorial Chapel in Burghclere, Hampshire.  The Chapel was commissioned to honor Lieutenant Henry Sandham who died in 1920 by his sister and brother-in-law.  They turned to Stanley Spencer to decorate the Chapel with the paintings for which he drew on his memories and observations while working as an orderly in the Royal Army Medical Corps in WWI.

Over his cycle of paintings we follow Spencer's experiences from the training hospital in Bristol where he was confronted with the injured and maimed from the Front in the benign surroundings of the hospital to being an orderly in the field in Macedonia.  In "Map Reading", an officer studies a map of the Macedonian terrain while his soldiers lounge on either side of the road, some clambering among bilberry bushes for food while one sits feeding the officer's horse who stares out at the viewer with an accusing stare.  As usual, what I love about Spencer's painting is the topsy-turvy lay-out, the humanity and gentle humour that he finds in the scene, and in particular the glaring horse - is he angry about being used as a desk by the officer or at the world that has made the situation happen?

4) THE ANNUNCIATION (CELL 3) (1438) - Fra Angelico

 

I bought this at the former Dominican friary San Marco in Florence which now houses many works by the Renaissance painter Fra Angelico who lived there from 1436 to 1445.  The first floor of the friary contains a number of frescoes by Fra Angelico that make it an essential place to visit for any art lover.  As you climb the broad staircase and turn the corner to the last flight up to the first floor you see ahead of you his magnificent fresco of "The Annunciation", one of the great works of Renaissance religious art, but the first floor also has a wonderful collection of frescoes that he painted for each of the monk's cells as subjects for contemplation during prayer. 

The austere beauty of these works is reflected in this fresco of The Annunciation.  Only a few doors down from the more-well known and larger fresco that greets you as you turn the stairs, this one has a stripped down beauty which highlights the Fra's use of perspective and his genius for distilling a deep tension between his figures:  Mary kneels in a pale pink gown, disturbed from her reading by the Angel Gabriel whose multi-coloured wings hide the lurking figure of Saint Dominic who bears witness to what is about to happen.  The glowing simplicity and held moment in time dazzles.

5) SUPPER IN EMMAUS (1861) - Augusto Betti

I bought this at the Medici Chapel in Florence.  I can find no reference to this anywhere online so guess I will just have to describe why I like it!

Betti gives us a reduced almost geometric look to the scene where Jesus appeared to two of his Apostles days after rising from the dead and their rapt attention is offset by the servant who is pouring water out of a jug and the dozing, scruffy dog under the table.  Outside the evening falls...  I like the unfussy painting which stood out against some of the more florid works in the Medici Chapel.

Exit Through The Giftshop - Postcards at an exhibition....

I am going to do this as an occasional blog...

Usually for me it kicks in about halfway round an exhibition... that's when I start thinking "I wonder if they have this picture as a postcard in the shop?"  Indeed I remember going to the Royal Academy's 1991 Pop Art exhibition with a friend, Jacqui Tomlinson, who *raced* around the gallery barely looking at the Warhols, Lichtensteins and Johns'.  When I caught up with her I asked did she really dislike it that much and she said "No, I just want to get to the shop quicker".  I thought Andy Warhol would have found that particularly funny.

Of course once I get to the shop, I usually start my usual rant: "Why don't they have a postcard of THAT picture??  Why are there only 4 postcards for such a big exhibition - and why are they all the SHITE ones?"  I have yet to get a proper answer to that one...

But we buy the postcards they have - and in a very special case, the catalogue - but what do you do with yours?  Mine tend to sit in various boxes, waiting to be looked at again... so let's get them on here!  I shall put up a few at a time and give my memories of when and where I saw them.

1) CARNATION, LILY, LILY, ROSE (1885-6) - John Singer Sargent

I bought this after seeing the glorious 2015 Sargent exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery which included the luminous painting of an artist friend's two daughters lighting Chinese lanterns in a twilight garden.  The postcard doesn't exactly do Sargent's colours justice but it's a lovely painting, giving a nod to impressionism but with Sargent's careful staging.

2) EL FINAL DEL NUMERO (1900-1) - Pablo Picasso

I think I bought this at the Courtauld's exhibition BECOMING PICASSO in 2013 which focused on 1901, one of the key years in the artists life. I love his use of pastels in this vivid moment of a singer taking the applause of her audience.

3) MRS HERBERT DUCKWORTH (1867) - Julia Margaret Cameron

 I bought this at the National Portrait Gallery exhibition of Cameron in 2003.  Cameron's niece Julia Jackson posed for this photograph aged 21 and her austere beauty could almost be a personification of Victorian femininity.  Later that year she married the barrister Herbert Duckworth and was left widowed 3 years later with 3 children.  Eight years on she married the writer Sir Leslie Stephen who already had a daughter from his first marriage.  The Stephens would go on to have four more children together before Julia's death at the age of 49.  Her daughters would later rebel against their mother Julia's Victorian values through art (Vanessa Bell) and literature (Virginia Woolf).

4) DAWN, TOMB OF LORENZO DI MEDICI, DUKE OF URBANO (1520-34) - Michelangelo

I bought this in the Medici Chapel in Florence where Michelangelo's monumental tomb for Lorenzo, Duke of Urbano is. The Duke of Urbano was one of the lesser Medici, dying at the age of 26 but his daughter Catherine de Medici would go on to fame as the controlling Queen of France at the time of the Huguenot massacres.  Michelangelo's nude allegorical figure of Dawn however is a glorious statue of weary majesty.

5) SAINT JOHN THE EVANGELIST (1320) - Giotto

I bought this at the Musée Jacquemart-André, a favourite museum in Paris which usually has interesting exhibitions and an even more interesting restaurant, perfect for déjuner avec un grand patisserie.  This was part of their 2015 exhibition FROM GIOTTO TO CARAVAGGIO and is a fine example of Giotto's skill in humanising his figures, his John The Evangelist is an old man whose kind and wise face is suggested by the lines around his eyes and forehead.  I like the gold trimming on his blue gown and pink shawl... John obviously liked his colours.  I have been told by Owen that "Giotto invented art" and I'm glad he did.

More soon...