My specialism is eighteenth-century images of London and the River Thames, although my interest in art history is not confined to this subject.
Not by a long chalk.
On this website I will be sharing my interests in art history with anybody who might be interested. I will publish details of my research and current projects, the discoveries I make and the theories I have about them along the way. I will also review and promote current exhibitions and keep track of what’s on and what I think is worth visiting. In addition, I will make recommendations about those things that interest me across the arts.
William Kent (1685-1748) was the leading architect and designer of early Georgian Britain. A polymath, he turned his hand to everything from painting to designing sculpture, architecture, interior decoration, furniture, metalwork, book illustration and landscape gardens. Kent’s life coincided with a major turning point in British history – the accession of the new Hanoverian Royal Family in 1714. This exhibition at the V&A, London, reveals how William Kent came to play a leading role in establishing a new design aesthetic for this crucial period when Britain defined itself as a nation.
An assembly at Wanstead House, William Hogarth, 1728-31
In this painting, Hogarth exaggerates Kent’s interior décor at Wanstead House. The exhibition contains the actual sofa alongside Hogarth’s painting (from the Philadelphia Museum of Art) so you can make your own comparison.
The Bad Taste of the Town, William Hogarth, 1724
In an earlier work, The Bad Taste of the Town, Hogarth has already taken a swipe at the cult of Italian and classical art and architecture being fostered by Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, and his protégé, William Kent, whose stone figure towers above the ludicrously downgraded figures of Michelangelo and Raphael. A closer inspection will reveal his name below the statue written ‘KNT’ – try saying that out loud!
I’ll be discussing William Kent and his enormous influence on John Stanford’sThe Serendipitous Compendium on Radio Crackle this Sunday 1 June 2014.
Engraved by John Rogers after George Bryant Campion, pub. 1830
A good friend of mine from Brühl in Germany has just given me this picture, having come across it in an antique printshop in Cologne. It’s a view of Greenwich Hospital – later known as The Royal Hospital for Seamen – which was designed by Christopher Wren and built between 1696 and 1712. The hospital closed in 1869 and the building became the Royal Naval College in 1873. This view is taken from Island Gardens on the south-east tip of the Isle of Dogs, which is very near to where I live – ah!
This is a steel-line engraving by John Rogers (c.1800-1882) from an original study by the English watercolour landscape painter George Bryant Campion (1795-1870) – who incidentally was Drawing Master at the Military Academy in nearby Woolwich. I think the engraving was originally produced for the England’s Topographer series of Kent Views published in London from 1828 to 1831, although it may have also appeared in T. Allen’s Panorama of London (1830) and W. H. Ireland’s The Country of Kent (1832) – but I’m going to check that next time I’m in the British Library.
Anyway, besides all that – and the very intriguing question as to how it ended up in Cologne – is the mysterious juxtapositioning of four handwritten lines above the picture of Greenwich.
In a slightly unsteady copperplate style, these words are written on the sheet of grey paper to which the print of Greenwich has been messily glued after removal from whatever publication it appeared in. Has the whole been removed from a nineteenth-century scrapbook?
The earliest record I can find of this epigram in print is in The New Foundling Hospital for Wit published in 1786, but it subsequently appears repeatedly in other collections of funnies, for example in Elegant Extracts (1816) and The Tickler (1819). But what is the connection with Greenwich Hospital? Here’s a scan of the whole page:
Could it be something recorded by a Greenwich Pensioner? Suggestions on a postcard please!
Last year David Buckman published his extensive research on the East London Group of Artists in his fascinating book From Bow to Biennale: Artists of the East London Group. Now here’s the exhibition to accompany the book – and it’s a corker.
The East London Group of Artists were a very successful gang of painters which existed for over 10 years from the late 1920s. In their day they were both an innovative and popular artistic movement – but they have subsequently (and very sadly) been passed over by art history. In their heyday there were about 35 members of the group, mostly working class, realist painters who progressed to phenomenal critical acclaim by chronicling life in east London between the World Wars.
Harold Steggles, Old Ford Rd, c.1932
The majority of them came from humble beginnings, but their artistic talent was to flourish under the mentorship of Slade School of Fine Arts trained artist John Cooper, and the Camden Town Group member, Walter Sickert. Their success led to artists from the group representing Britain, alongside such luminaries as Barbara Hepworth and Gilbert Spencer, at the 1936 Venice Biennale. This is the first time their pictures have been displayed publicly for over a generation.
Sunday Morning Farringdon Rd (c.1929) by Cecil Osborne
Maybe it’s because I’m familiar with this part of London, but I found these paintings of eerily empty streets both haunting and poignant. The paintings convey a tender affection for the area and recognise beauty in the urban milieu. Reminding me of Edward Hopper’s American townscapes – although these artists are unlikely to have been aware of their US contemporary – this exhibition of coolly atmospheric paintings is well worth a visit.
‘The East End Group of Artists: From Bow to Biennale c. 1928-1936’ is currently showing at the Nunnery Gallery, 181 Bow Road, London E3 2SJ, until 13 July, open Tues-Sun, 10am-5pm. It’s totally free and there’s an excellent independent café attached.
I’ll be talking about the East London Group of Artists and discussing this exhibition on the Serendipitous Compendium hosted by John Stanford broadcast on Radio Crackle on Sunday 25 May.
This is possibly one of the most intriguing exhibits (for me) in the whole of the Rijksmuseum’s collection. These arms of Charles II once adorned the stern transom, or ‘counter’, of the English flagship the Royal Charles. During the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch bombarded then captured Sheerness before sailing up the Thames to Gravesend, then up the Medway to Chatham where they burned three of the British navy’s most important ships and other vessels before towing away the Unity and the Royal Charles to the Netherlands where they were broken up. The counter decoration from the Royal Charles was preserved to commemorate this remarkable Dutch triumph and the worst defeat in the Royal Navy’s history – and here it is in all its glory some 350+ years later.
Nearby hangs this painting by Willem Schellinks which depicts the extraordinary Dutch naval coup taking place.
Willem Schellinks, The burning of the English fleet near Chatham, June 1667, during the second Anglo-Dutch war (1667-1678)
And this alternative take on it by Jan Van Leyden
Jan Van Leyden, The Dutch burning English ships during the Raid on the Medway, 20 June 1667 (c.1667-69)
