July/August 2024 – CRITIC’S CORNER
Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520 to 1920 at Tate Britain, Millbank, London SW1P 4RG
(This exhibition is on the Lower Ground floor, so easiest access from the Atterbury Street entrance, rather than the main entrance on Millbank)
At long last, and once the Singer Sargent and Fashion exhibitions had finished earlier in July, I visited this very impressive exhibition featuring all the best-known female artists, including Artemisia Gentileschi, Angelica Kauffman, Mary Beale, Mary Moser and Gwen John, as well as a host of lesser-known but no less talented artists over a period of four hundred years. It is arranged chronologically, which is very convenient, in about ten or eleven rooms. Each work has plenty of space, apart from the section on Photography and the miniatures, and the flow from gallery to gallery is easy to follow.
To say that art, in the sense of painting (particularly in oils) and sculpture, was a male-dominated field over the four hundred years covered is an understatement. Women were not allowed to attend art courses or life classes, let alone earn a living by selling their work. Watercolours were just about permissible as a seemly diversion rather than any hope of profit. For a married woman to sell her work apparently cast a slur on her husband and family’s ability to provide for her. Wealthy, property-owning women over thirty only gained the right to vote in 1918, with universal suffrage enacted in 1928, which is after the period covered by this exhibition.
Institutions such as the Royal Academy continued to refuse to elect women beyond the two founding members, Kauffman and Moser, despite public acclaim for works such as Elizabeth Butler’s The Roll Call, now in the Royal Collection and on loan to this exhibition. In the 1850s there were Watercolour Societies that notionally included women artists; however, those women were excluded from the usual privileges of membership, such as sharing in any profits or having any input into the running of the society, and their numbers were severely restricted. And don’t get me started on the patronising comments by male reviewers, calling women’s work “surprisingly good for a young woman,” which sends steam from the ears of this reviewer.
But back to the art itself: the exhibition covers foreign and British women artists working in Britain, cleverly including Gentileschi and Kauffman, as well as several American-born women who came here in the nineteenth century, often bringing their money and marrying British men. The show contains around one hundred and fifty works, largely watercolours but with many oils; a few sculptures, such as a pair of sleeping dogs in terracotta by Anne Seymour Damer and a skilful marble sculpture of Princess Helena as Peace by Mary Thornycroft, commissioned by Prince Albert for Queen Victoria and still in the Royal Collection; some miniatures, including four beautiful cabinet miniatures by Anne Mee; one or two tapestries; and a selection of photographs, which I confess I did not spend much time on, having already overrun my visit time.
I have now visited twice, each time spending over ninety minutes to see around half of it, as I slow down in reading captions and reflecting on each work. Being a Member plus one guest is particularly useful, as I can return whenever I wish. Update, 19 August: I paid another visit with a more targeted approach and took a proper look at the photographs, which are interesting in themselves but did not thrill me as much as many paintings.
It is well worth a visit, and I only regret not going sooner, again blaming the irresistible Sargent exhibition at the same venue, which I visited five times despite planning to bypass it.
On until Sunday 13 October 2024. Gallery open daily 10.00 am to 6.00 pm. Tickets £20 for adults; Members free. Website: www.tate.org.uk
Fragile Beauty: Photographs from the Sir Elton John and David Furnish Collection at Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, South Kensington, London SW7 2RL
(This exhibition is downstairs in the Sainsbury Wing, so easiest access is through the Exhibition Road Courtyard entrance, formerly the Sackler Courtyard)
This enormous V&A exhibition presents around 350 photographs spanning approximately seventy-five years and showcasing an amazing range of photographers, most of whom were new to me. I have covered it in two visits, each lasting nearly two hours. Some works are wonderful, if sometimes familiar—Richard Avedon’s portraits of Marilyn Monroe, the Beatles, Nastassja Kinski with a boa constrictor, Andy Warhol and Factory figures; Robert Mapplethorpe’s final self-portraits before his death from AIDS in 1989; Sid Avery’s stunning images of James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando with bongo drums; and Terry O’Neill’s lucky snap of Frank Sinatra with his bodyguard and film double. Norman Parkinson’s photograph of Miss Piggy is a playful outlier, but Elton John and David Furnish are known for collecting anything that interests them.
Various sections include Reportage, featuring Richard Drew’s horrifying image of a figure falling from the Twin Towers on 11 September 2001, and Boris Yaro’s photograph of Robert F. Kennedy’s shooting, taken as he helped disarm the assailant. The exhibition covers race riots and black history in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in the US and includes many Afro-American photographers.
As this is the Elton John and David Furnish collection, there are many nude male portraits in various styles—artistic, erotic and sometimes eccentric. Nan Goldin’s Thanksgiving installation fills a room with 149 prints of friends, lovers, LGBT-identified people, AIDS patients, transvestites and drug addicts, accompanied by a health warning for viewers sensitive to its content.
This vast exhibition represents less than five percent of their collection. As items of fragile beauty, many works qualify, and nearly all are skilfully composed. However, some provoke visceral reactions that challenge simple notions of beauty. The exhibition has deepened my interest in photography, if not my personal skills.
On until Sunday 5 January 2025. Museum open daily 10.00 am to 5.45 pm, and until 10.00 pm on Fridays (last entry 8.30 pm). Tickets £22 including a £2 donation; Members free.
Madwomen of the West at Riverside Studios, 101 Queen Caroline Street, Hammersmith, London W6 9BN
I attended an early performance of Sandra Tsing Loh’s latest play, transferred from smash-hit runs in New York and Los Angeles. Four women of a certain age—Marilyn, Claudia, Jules and Zoey—gather at Jules’s Brentwood mansion to celebrate Claudia’s birthday. Nothing is as it seems: Marilyn has done something drastic to her husband; Claudia’s child is in crisis; Jules may be an alcoholic; and Zoey and her husband are not as flush with funds as expected. The dialogue races along with London in-jokes and Uber references but feels forced rather than genuinely spontaneous for lifelong friends.
The cast includes Caroline Aaron, Brooke Adams, Marilu Henner and Melanie Mayron. It is heartening to see women of a certain age in leading roles, but the script could be less contrived. I feel that damning with faint praise is all I can offer this time.
The run finishes on Saturday with two performances, including a meet-the-cast matinee and post-show talkback.
On until Saturday 24 August. Performances start at 7.30 pm, with matinees at 3.00 pm on Wednesday and Saturday. Running time about 120 minutes including one 20-minute interval. Tickets £10 to £40.
Concert by the Band of the Mercian Regiment at Hyde Park Bandstand, off Serpentine Road, near Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Rose Garden and the Gates, Hyde Park Corner, London W1J 7NT
What could be nicer than spending a summer Sunday afternoon in the park with music on the Hyde Park Bandstand? The Band of the Mercian Regiment, joined by guest players, travelled from Wolverhampton to entertain a small but enthusiastic audience. They offered military marches, show tunes, an Elton John medley and even a waltz.
Friends of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens have arranged a series of free late-summer concerts for several years. This season also features the first concert at the newly restored Kensington Gardens Bandstand, off Broad Walk by the Round Pond, on Sunday 15 September, when the Epsom and Ewell Silver Band will perform from 2.30 pm to 4.30 pm.
Other dates this season are
• Sunday 1 September, 2.30 pm to 4.30 pm at Hyde Park Bandstand: Orquesta Mambarito and Victor Marchangioli
• Sunday 8 September, 2.00 pm to 4.30 pm at Hyde Park Bandstand: South London Jazz Orchestra with Simon Selman and SwingDance UK—note the earlier start, as Simon Selman will teach a swing dance lesson. Swing attire most welcome.
For BBC iPlayer arts content, consider
• BBC Proms 2024 from 19 July to 14 September, with daily concerts live or on demand: www.bbc.co.uk/proms/events/by/date/2024
• The Impressionists: Painting and Revolution, Waldemar Januszczak’s series on the famous art group: search “Impressionists” on iPlayer
• Rebuilding Notre-Dame: The Next Chapter, Lucy Worsley’s update on restoration after the 2019 fire, in time for the Paris 2024 Olympics: search “Notre-Dame” on iPlayer in future.
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