A great find…

Today I took the Tube from Belsize Park to Pimlico (Northern Line to Victoria Line) and the ride lasted approximately 20 minutes.  This must be a record so far…particularly since I was passing through some of the busiest stations in London.  Underground security is quite high this week as well given that tomorrow is the anniversary of the 7/7 terrorist attacks.

The Tate Gallery opens about an hour before the Tate archive does, so I spent the first 60 minutes of my day strolling around the collection.  It is always thrills me to see things “in the flesh” (so to speak)…

Highlights of today include:

Leon Kossof, Man in a Wheelchair (1959-62)

Leon Kossof’s Man in a Wheelchair is a spectacular example of “sculptural” painting.  Kossof’s canvas is roughly layered with hills and valleys of swirling pigment, some of which sits two inches off the canvas surface…the topography is so accentuated that dark shadows are actually cast across the picture plane giving the subject matter a very eerie sensibility.

I can’t really say I’m a “fan” of Damien Hirst, but I do find the yBa phenomenon strangely compelling (and by that I don’t mean that it’s aesthetically pleasing or always good work, merely “the movement” is very interesting), hence Away from the Flock (1997) makes it as part of my list.  And, more to the point, I’ve never actually seen a pickled sheep before…

Damien Hirst, Away from the Flock (1997)

Vanessa Bell’s Mrs. St. John Hutchinson (1915) makes it into the highlight section because of the quirky story behind the portrait and, more importantly, because I love Bell’s Matisse-inspired palette. Mary Hutchinson was the mistress (the Bells had an “open” marriage in everything but name) of Bell’s husband, the critic Clive Bell.  When the painting was exhibited, Vanessa Bell was claimed to have said matter-of-factly, ‘It’s perfectly hideous…and yet quite recognisable’.

Vanessa Bell, Mrs. St. John Hutchinson (1915)

When the archive opened I signed in and finished up transcribing the rest of the letters written by William Coldstream to Jack Rake that I had started yesterday.  I am particularly interested in the notes he wrote to Rake about his work with Mass Observation.  Coldstream doesn’t offer too much detail about his participation in this particular set of documents (but there are many more to investigate!), however he does discuss at length his increasing sense of social responsibility and how he could use his skills as a painter to promote social justice.  The search will continue tomorrow….

My great find of the day was a set of photocopied letters written by the painter known as Graham Bell (his full name is Frank Graham Bell).  Coldstream and Bell began sharing a studio in 1937 and had very similar left-leaning political views.  Although most of Bell’s archive has not yet been catalogued (and hence is not accessible to the public…all documents in the archive must be vetted by the archivists in order to determine whether or not they are sturdy enough to be viewed by the public and also because many of the documents archived are private correspondence naming individuals who are still alive or whose families are still living), these letters to his family in South Africa are available for consultation and provide a wealth of information.  Indeed, two of the letters that I have found so far reveal a great deal about Bell’s experiences working as a painter for Mass Observation in April of 1938.

Unfortunately, Bell’s handwriting is atrocious…I feel as though a crash course in modern palaeography  might have been in order before staring this venture…