Sir John Soane, dying just as the Victorian era began, was one of the worthies who used their wealth to accumulate treasures of all sorts. As an architect, he favoured sculpture and architectural artefacts (eg marbles from Rome and casts) but the famous series by Hogarth “The Rake’s Progress” may also be found here –…
I was familiar with Paul Nash’s wartime paintings and some of the landscapes. His war paintings are unforgettable, the WW1 pictures with their decapitated trees especially affecting. However, I hadn’t realised how much he got involved in surrealism, and how effectively. In the 1930s he and other British artists got to know surrealists (e.g. Andre…
Every few months it seems that one of the bigger galleries/museums will hold a major – blockbuster – exhibition, covering an artist, a period or whatever. The dictionary definition of “blockbuster” is “an [event] that is a great commercial success”. Therein lies the key. Galleries need funds to keep going, most have free admission nowadays,…