Reposted by James Beechey
Painted in 1897, 'Les messieurs en noir,' is a strikingly modern picture for its time yet steeped in an artistic tradition that stretches back to the 17thC. Dutch genre painting with its modest subjects and bold contrasts of light and dark was a key influence on Èdouard Vuillard.
November 24, 2025 at 9:47 PM
Painted in 1897, 'Les messieurs en noir,' is a strikingly modern picture for its time yet steeped in an artistic tradition that stretches back to the 17thC. Dutch genre painting with its modest subjects and bold contrasts of light and dark was a key influence on Èdouard Vuillard.
Reposted by James Beechey
An essay on murals and public art. Please let me know your comments. 'Life in a Boarding House,' (1930) by Eric Ravilious,' for Morley College, London was destroyed in WW2. richardmorris.org/blog-1-1/mural…
November 24, 2025 at 3:55 PM
An essay on murals and public art. Please let me know your comments. 'Life in a Boarding House,' (1930) by Eric Ravilious,' for Morley College, London was destroyed in WW2. richardmorris.org/blog-1-1/mural…
William Nicholson looking splendid at Pallant House. A beautifully-installed exhibition which will repay several visits - fortunately it’s on till May next year.
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November 22, 2025 at 9:53 AM
William Nicholson looking splendid at Pallant House. A beautifully-installed exhibition which will repay several visits - fortunately it’s on till May next year.
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Very glad to have caught Postures: Jean Rhys in the Modern World, curated by Hilton Als - ‘a portrait of the artist through art’ - at Michael Werner Gallery before it closes tomorrow.
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November 21, 2025 at 10:33 PM
Very glad to have caught Postures: Jean Rhys in the Modern World, curated by Hilton Als - ‘a portrait of the artist through art’ - at Michael Werner Gallery before it closes tomorrow.
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My preview in @theartnewspaper.bsky.social of the William Nicholson exhibition opening at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, this weekend.
William Nicholson, often overlooked in favour of his more famous son, is coming out of the shadows
Head of a family of artists including the more famous Ben, a Pallant House Gallery exhibition shows this father is ripe for reassessment
www.theartnewspaper.com
November 20, 2025 at 11:18 AM
My preview in @theartnewspaper.bsky.social of the William Nicholson exhibition opening at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, this weekend.
Sarah Lucas‘s cigarette portrait of Maggi Hambling from OOO LA LA, their joint exhibition opening today at 8 & 38 Bury Street, St James’s, presented by Frankie Rossi Art and Sadie Coles HQ. A winning combination - and a brilliant show.
November 20, 2025 at 10:31 AM
Sarah Lucas‘s cigarette portrait of Maggi Hambling from OOO LA LA, their joint exhibition opening today at 8 & 38 Bury Street, St James’s, presented by Frankie Rossi Art and Sadie Coles HQ. A winning combination - and a brilliant show.
Reposted by James Beechey
I don't know, every day there is something - no, there are lots of things.
So to remind us of what we are dealing with, here again is a postcard made by the great Derek Boshier back in 2016:
"I must not lie about my life - Donald Trump"
So to remind us of what we are dealing with, here again is a postcard made by the great Derek Boshier back in 2016:
"I must not lie about my life - Donald Trump"
November 18, 2025 at 11:35 PM
I don't know, every day there is something - no, there are lots of things.
So to remind us of what we are dealing with, here again is a postcard made by the great Derek Boshier back in 2016:
"I must not lie about my life - Donald Trump"
So to remind us of what we are dealing with, here again is a postcard made by the great Derek Boshier back in 2016:
"I must not lie about my life - Donald Trump"
Reposted by James Beechey
'Nancy with Feather Hat,' (1910) is a portrait of William Nicholson's daughter. Nancy was a painter and fabric designer and owed much of the style of her early designs to her mother, Mabel Pryde. In January 1918, she married the soldier-poet Robert Graves.
November 18, 2025 at 1:21 PM
'Nancy with Feather Hat,' (1910) is a portrait of William Nicholson's daughter. Nancy was a painter and fabric designer and owed much of the style of her early designs to her mother, Mabel Pryde. In January 1918, she married the soldier-poet Robert Graves.
Wonderful to see in Hitchin yesterday North Herts Museum’s complete holdings of 50+ paintings, drawings & prints by William Ratcliffe, who became a full-time artist only after meeting Harold Gilman in Letchworth in 1908 and three years later was elected a founder member of the Camden Town Group.
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November 18, 2025 at 9:47 AM
Wonderful to see in Hitchin yesterday North Herts Museum’s complete holdings of 50+ paintings, drawings & prints by William Ratcliffe, who became a full-time artist only after meeting Harold Gilman in Letchworth in 1908 and three years later was elected a founder member of the Camden Town Group.
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An English exhibition of 'The Two Roberts' - Colquhoun & MacBryde - is long overdue. The show at Charleston in Lewes, curated by @damianbarr.bsky.social, takes place in the Sussex town where they were rather incongruous residents for two years in the 1940s, courtesy of the 'Ladies of Miller's'.
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November 17, 2025 at 12:59 PM
An English exhibition of 'The Two Roberts' - Colquhoun & MacBryde - is long overdue. The show at Charleston in Lewes, curated by @damianbarr.bsky.social, takes place in the Sussex town where they were rather incongruous residents for two years in the 1940s, courtesy of the 'Ladies of Miller's'.
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If you happen to be in north Hampshire before 29 November do go and see the beautifully-presented exhibition of paintings and drawings by William Scott at Jenna Burlingham’s gallery in Kingsclere.
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November 15, 2025 at 5:24 PM
If you happen to be in north Hampshire before 29 November do go and see the beautifully-presented exhibition of paintings and drawings by William Scott at Jenna Burlingham’s gallery in Kingsclere.
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Very sad. His contribution to scholarship on the Nabis in general, and Vuillard in particular, was immense.
Hommage à Guy Cogeval (1955-2025)
Les équipes du musée d'Orsay et du Musée de l'Orangerie expriment leur émotion à l’annonce du décès de Guy Cogeval, survenu à l'âge de 70 ans dans la nuit du 12 au 13 novembre.
⬇️
Les équipes du musée d'Orsay et du Musée de l'Orangerie expriment leur émotion à l’annonce du décès de Guy Cogeval, survenu à l'âge de 70 ans dans la nuit du 12 au 13 novembre.
⬇️
November 14, 2025 at 9:25 AM
Very sad. His contribution to scholarship on the Nabis in general, and Vuillard in particular, was immense.
Reposted by James Beechey
Walter Richard Sickert, Sir Thomas Beecham Conducting, c. 1935
https://botfrens.com/collections/14377/contents/1135302
https://botfrens.com/collections/14377/contents/1135302
November 12, 2025 at 3:13 PM
Walter Richard Sickert, Sir Thomas Beecham Conducting, c. 1935
https://botfrens.com/collections/14377/contents/1135302
https://botfrens.com/collections/14377/contents/1135302
Piano Nobile’s excellent exhibition of paintings, drawings and prints by Walter Sickert from the Lucas collection includes this drawing of c.1912 - enigmatically titled The Handicap - of a young Enid Bagnold and a not-so-young Harold Gilman locked in an amorous clinch.
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November 12, 2025 at 10:23 AM
Piano Nobile’s excellent exhibition of paintings, drawings and prints by Walter Sickert from the Lucas collection includes this drawing of c.1912 - enigmatically titled The Handicap - of a young Enid Bagnold and a not-so-young Harold Gilman locked in an amorous clinch.
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Reposted by James Beechey
🔍 This month, our former placement student, Caitlin Johnson (BA Museum Studies and Archaeology, 2021-2025), provides a closer look into Walter Sickert’s intriguing drawing — featured in our current exhibition ‘Paint, Pencil, Print: 10 Artworks for 10 Years’
collections.reading.ac.uk/art-collecti...
collections.reading.ac.uk/art-collecti...
November 11, 2025 at 4:38 PM
🔍 This month, our former placement student, Caitlin Johnson (BA Museum Studies and Archaeology, 2021-2025), provides a closer look into Walter Sickert’s intriguing drawing — featured in our current exhibition ‘Paint, Pencil, Print: 10 Artworks for 10 Years’
collections.reading.ac.uk/art-collecti...
collections.reading.ac.uk/art-collecti...
Reposted by James Beechey
Reposted by James Beechey
It is early in the morning, and there are few people about in this 1919 work by William Nicholson of the Cenotaph in London. It is the original white-painted wood and plaster structure designed by Edward Lutyens, it stands out in stark relief against the Foreign Office.
November 9, 2025 at 10:52 AM
It is early in the morning, and there are few people about in this 1919 work by William Nicholson of the Cenotaph in London. It is the original white-painted wood and plaster structure designed by Edward Lutyens, it stands out in stark relief against the Foreign Office.
David Hockney’s exhibition, opening tomorrow at Annely Juda’s chic new gallery in Hanover Square, contains radiant new paintings made this summer of chairs, flowers and fruit which joyfully convey his undimmed zest for life (and art).
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November 6, 2025 at 10:47 PM
David Hockney’s exhibition, opening tomorrow at Annely Juda’s chic new gallery in Hanover Square, contains radiant new paintings made this summer of chairs, flowers and fruit which joyfully convey his undimmed zest for life (and art).
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The answer is probably yes. Tate's 1999 exhibition The Art of Bloomsbury received a critical mauling - very unfairly in my view. (Full disclosure: I wrote an essay in the catalogue.) The gist of most reviews was 'why should we care about these ghastly people about whom we've heard far too much?'
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‘It’s not that the art, writing and design of the Bloomsbury Group isn’t often wonderful.’ It’s rather, writes Matthew Sperling, that it all takes up ‘a disproportionate amount of cultural space’.
Have we reached peak Bloomsbury yet?
The cultural legacy of Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and co. is undeniable, but with the design, fashion, art and literary worlds forever ‘rediscovering’ them, Matthew Sperling says it’s time to move on
buff.ly
November 2, 2025 at 6:40 PM
The answer is probably yes. Tate's 1999 exhibition The Art of Bloomsbury received a critical mauling - very unfairly in my view. (Full disclosure: I wrote an essay in the catalogue.) The gist of most reviews was 'why should we care about these ghastly people about whom we've heard far too much?'
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This is not, in fact, his first wife Grace Canedy - who had returned to America a year before this painting was made - but his younger sister Irene Battiscombe. It was painted at the Battiscombes’ house in Warwick in spring 1910.
November 2, 2025 at 11:51 AM
This is not, in fact, his first wife Grace Canedy - who had returned to America a year before this painting was made - but his younger sister Irene Battiscombe. It was painted at the Battiscombes’ house in Warwick in spring 1910.
I’m not sure I share John-Paul’s hatred of Cezanne’s Les Grandes Baigneuses; but having caught the Cezanne exhibition at the Musée Granet in Aix just before it closed earlier this month, I would trade it for almost any other picture on show there.
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Weary of how amazing and excellent art is, all the time, everywhere?
I wrote about hating a painting, and found it liberating.
open.substack.com/pub/jpstonar...
I wrote about hating a painting, and found it liberating.
open.substack.com/pub/jpstonar...
A painting I hate
In the National Gallery, London.
open.substack.com
October 31, 2025 at 12:20 PM
I’m not sure I share John-Paul’s hatred of Cezanne’s Les Grandes Baigneuses; but having caught the Cezanne exhibition at the Musée Granet in Aix just before it closed earlier this month, I would trade it for almost any other picture on show there.
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Who is this baby painted c.1912-13 by Harold Gilman? I make a very tentative suggestion in a catalogue note for Bonhams Modern British sale next month:
www.bonhams.com/auction/3071...
www.bonhams.com/auction/3071...
October 27, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Who is this baby painted c.1912-13 by Harold Gilman? I make a very tentative suggestion in a catalogue note for Bonhams Modern British sale next month:
www.bonhams.com/auction/3071...
www.bonhams.com/auction/3071...
My catalogue note on this rediscovered Interior by Harold Gilman, in Bonhams Modern British sale on 19 November:
www.bonhams.com/auction/3071...
www.bonhams.com/auction/3071...
October 27, 2025 at 6:57 PM
My catalogue note on this rediscovered Interior by Harold Gilman, in Bonhams Modern British sale on 19 November:
www.bonhams.com/auction/3071...
www.bonhams.com/auction/3071...
Reposted by James Beechey
'The Vineyard.' (c1938) Throughout the interwar years, Vanessa Bell lived predominantly in London and travelled to Europe, taking extended stays in Italy and France. Her paintings at this time consist of warm, sunny landscapes that document her travels abroad.
October 24, 2025 at 11:28 AM
'The Vineyard.' (c1938) Throughout the interwar years, Vanessa Bell lived predominantly in London and travelled to Europe, taking extended stays in Italy and France. Her paintings at this time consist of warm, sunny landscapes that document her travels abroad.