Art & Photography

Friday, 15 July 2016

RIBA Stirling Prize 2016 - shortlist

Blavatnik School of Government by Herzog & de Meuron

I always enjoy the Stirling architecture prize and this year’s shortlist looks great. I have only visited one of the buildings - Newport Street Gallery, which I enthused about, here - but, judging just by the pictures, the Blavatnik School of Government looks spectacular and the Outhouse is a dream house.

The full shortlist for the RIBA Stirling Prize 2016 includes three university buildings – two in Oxford and one in Glasgow – a private house, a housing estate redevelopment and an art gallery.
The buildings are:

- Blavatnik School of Government by Herzog & de Meuron

- City of Glasgow College Riverside Campus by Michael Laird Architects with Reiach and Hall Architects

- Newport Street Gallery, designed by Caruso St John Architects

- Outhouse, Gloucestershire, designed by Loyn & Co Architects

- Trafalgar Place, designed by dRMM Architects

- The Weston Library, designed by Wilkinson Eyre

See a selection of images below with links to descriptions of the buildings on the RIBA website.

Read commentary by Oliver Wainwright and Rowan Moore.
The winner of the prize will be announced on 6 October, 2016 and the winner is Caruso St John for the Newport Street Gallery!

(See the shortlists (and winners) for 2015, 2014 and 2013.)

Click on images to enlarge.

Blavatnik School of Government by Herzog & de Meuron

City of Glasgow College Riverside Campus by Michael Laird Architects with Reiach and Hall Architects

Newport Street Gallery, designed by Caruso St John Architects

Outhouse,Gloucestershire, designed by Loyn & Co Architects

Trafalgar Place, designed by dRMM Architects

The Weston Library, designed by Wilkinson Eyre

Friday, 8 July 2016

Painters' Paintings - National Gallery

Edgar Degas, Combing the Hair (La Coiffure), c1896 - owned by Henri Matisse

Painters’ Paintings: From Freud to Van Dyck is at the National Gallery until 4 September 2016.

What a pleasure this exhibition is. Inspired by Lucian Freud’s bequest to the National Gallery of a fabulous painting by Corot – he left it to the nation in gratitude for Britain giving refuge to his family from the Nazis in 1933 (see below) – this exhibition brings together a selection of great works collected by great artists, notably Lucian Freud, Henri Matisse, Edgar Degas and Sir Anthony Van Dyck; the exhibition also includes the not quite so great painters Lord Leighton, Sir Thomas Lawrence and Sir Joshua Reynolds. Examples of each artist-collector’s work is exhibited alongside works they had owned.

The premise of the exhibition does make for a fascinating set of stories and insight into the ’conversations’ artists have with the works both of their contemporaries and across time with their forebears. But more than that it simply brings together a concentrated selection of terrific paintings.
The highlights of the exhibition are the rooms devoted to Matisse and Degas and their respective collections. Matisse’s Degas (Combing the Hair, above) is, I think, a sensational painting; Degas himself was, evidently, an obsessive collector, acquiring more than 1,000 works in his lifetime.

The show, dips a little with the rooms devoted to Leighton, Lawrence and Reynolds but concludes on a high note with Van Dyck’s own great work alongside a couple of Titians.

Below is my selection of favourites from the exhibition. Click on images to enlarge.

Read reviews by Laura Cumming, Mark Hudson, Ben Luke and Jonathan Jones,

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Italian Woman, c1870 - owned by Lucian Freud

Henri Matissse, The Inattentive Reader (La liseuse distraite), 1919

Paul Cezanne, Three Bathers, 1879-82 - owned by Henri Matisse

Pablo Picasso, Portrait of Dora Maar, 1942 - owned by Henri Matisse

Jacques-Emile Blanche, Francis Poictevin, 1887 - owned by Egar Degas

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Angelica saved by Ruggiero, 1818-39 - owned by Edgar Degas

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Oedipus and the Sphinx, c1826 0 owned by Edgar Degas

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Monsieur de Norvins, 1811-12 - owned by Edgar Degas

Raphael, An Allegory ('Vision of a Knight'), c1504 - owned by Sir Thomas Lawrence

Sir Anthony van Dyck, Thomas Killigrew and William, Lord Crofts (?), 1638

Titian, Portrait of Gerolamo (?) Barbarigo, c1510 - owned by Sir Anthony van Dyck

John Moores Painting Prize - Walker Art Gallery

Ira Hoffecker, Camp Moschendorf II

The John Moores Painting Prize 2016 is at the Walker Art Gallery until 27 November 2016.
It is great to see that two graduates of Fine Art at the University of Gloucestershire – Ira Hoffecker (2015) and Alex Rennie (2000) – as well as a former Head of Painting – Emma Talbot – have been selected for the current John Moores. (Neal Rock (UoG, 1999) was selected for the previous exhibition in 2014 – see below.)

Alex Rennie, Totem

Emma Talbot, You Came to Me in a Dream

The biennial John Moores is, arguably the most prestigious of British painting competitions. Established in 1957 it has a venerable history and includes amongst its past winners (never mind the roll call of participants) Patrick Heron (1959), Roger Hilton (1963), David Hockney (1967), Euan Uglow (1972), John Hoyland (1982), Lisa Milroy (1989), Peter Doig (1993) and Dan Hays (1997). (See the full list here.)
Below is a selection of works selected for the current show, including this year's first prize winner: Michael Simpson. (He says he will use the £25,000 prize to 'buy a lot of paint.') See here for more images and a full list of selected artists. Click on images to enlarge.