Revolution: Russian Art 1917–1932, Royal Academy, plus David Hockney, Tate Britain, 6 March 2017

We had booked the evening out for Hockney members’ evening ages ago; we decided to book out the whole day once our holiday plans had been fixed.

Thus the idea of going to see Revolution before the Hockney was hatched.

Still, events conspired against us earlier in the day and it ended up a bit of a rush to get in to see Revolution before closing time.

We got to the RA about 17:15. The young lady on the door warned us that they start closing about 17:55 (five minutes before actual closing time). I explained that the revolution wouldn’t take us all that long as we are seasoned revolutionaries. That seemed to convince her – at least she let us through without further ado.

Here is a link to the Royal Academy’s excellent resource on the Revolution exhibition.

In truth, we didn’t need all that long to see that exhibition. There were a few really good works of art, but the rest was interesting from an historical point of view rather than jaw-dropping art that you want to look at for ages.

I expected to like the Chagalls and the Kandinsky. More surprising was that I liked some of the Kazimir Malevich and the Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin (in the latter case, not the one depicted on the resource link above, but I did like several others).

I read The Noise Of Time by Julian Barnes on holiday, so the stuff about Stalin purging the arty folk was fresh in my mind.

Janie commented that, in many ways, reading the leaflet was more interesting than much of the art itself.

We then took a welcome break at the RA bar, where a Lenin-lookalike barman took an age to serve our wine as he was busy making up cocktails for a little group of barflies who were knocking them back.

Then on to Tate Britain for the Hockney. We had seen many of the works before, not least the more recent iPad work, the colourful East Riding of Yorkshire works and (some years ago) the sixties and seventies portrait stuff around pools in California and the like.

The art critics tend to favour the earlier stuff over the later stuff, whereas Janie and I are both fans of the later work. Seeing this retrospective on his whole oeuvre, our feelings were reconfirmed.

Here is a link to the Tate Britain resource on Hockney.

As it was a members evening, the exhibition was actually rather busy at the start. We chose to go round it backwards, starting with the later work and ending with the earlier. This seemed to work well enough for us, as we are familiar with much of his work. Perhaps not such a good idea for an artist with whom you are less familiar.

Then home (i.e. the flat) via the Ranoush shawarma bar in Kensington High Street.

What a pleasant late afternoon/evening.

Nottingham, Wormleighton and Yorkshire – a Short Break with Multi-media Relics 10 to 19 April 2013

A rather unusual round trip, taking a week or so off work, for cricket, walking and stuff.  This short break was a substitute for the longer trip we had planned for Malawi, which we ended up deferring to September and was well worth the wait.

But back to our Midlands and the North trip.  We started with a couple of nights in Nottingham, in order to enjoy the second day of the county cricket season as guests of Nottinghamshire CCC.  I wrote up our Nottinghamshire day, 11 April, for King Cricket – click here for that King Cricket (cricket-free) report.

Just in case anything ever goes awry with King Cricket, here is a scrape of that piece.

Here’s the match card – in case you want to know about the cricket.

Then on the 12th to the village of Wormleighton, in Warwickshire the spiritual home of Janie’s family.  No-one knows how the family came to have that name. Probably because someone in the dim and distant past came from there and probably not because Janie is descended from the Spencer family (which pretty-much owned the village), despite the Churchillian and Princess Diana resemblances in Janie’s family.

Wormleighton Village Scene
Wormleighton Village Scene

There is an ancient video of “the Worms” visiting the village of Wormleighton en famille in 1971 – here or below

On this trip, Ged and Daisy made a little video of their own search for the ancient village of Wormleighton – here or below.  

For the uninitiated, Ged and Daisy are our pet names for each other and have been so for over 20 years.

We stayed at Wormleighton Hall, which is a rather grand farm house just outside the  village – formerly the squires residence I shouldn’t wonder and now the home of the tenant farmers who make the whole thing work commercially by running the place as a small hotel as well as a farm.  Lovely family; into all the local countryside stuff.  We visited the Mollington point-to-point which they were attending on the 13th and took some excellent pictures of the local tribes at leisure.

Sighting of local tribesfolk at the Mollington point-to-point
Sighting of local tribesfolk at the Mollington point-to-point

All 80 pictures from the whole round trip are contained in this Flickr album – here and below.

01 Wormleighton Hall P1000515

On 14th we went to Chipping Norton to visit brother-in-law Tony and his lovely second wife Liz.

Hockney says you cannot properly photograph these Wolds scenes

Hockney says you cannot properly photograph these Wolds scenes

On 15th, off to North Yorkshire, driving the eastern-side to see and photograph Hockney country before reaching The Star, where we stayed and ate in great style for a few days.

arndale, the lower, less visited part
Farndale, the lower, less visited part

On 16th we went on a Farndale walk in search of daffodils, surprisingly successfully as the cold start to the spring had delayed the daffs, but they were just starting to show well our day – good fortune.

Some more nice pictures in the Flickr link above; also another little Ged and Daisy video – the attack by a savage sheep (mistaken for a ram) and the skipping lambs at the end being delicious highlights – click here or below .

Saltaire view
Saltaire view

17th we drove South-West to Saltaire and had a look at the town and some art gallery-style Hockney stuff.  18th we spent at leisure and walking around the Star’s vicinity (Harome).

19th we drove home.  Middlesex were again in action against Derbyshire (Day 3) and as we drove home we realised that an improbable early result to the match was on the cards.  After stopping off at the house, I went on (alone) in the car to catch the end of the match and witness a Middlesex win – here’s the card.   Quite a week for us and for Middlesex.

David Hockney: A Bigger Picture, Royal Academy, 30 March 2012

Janie and I absolutely loved this exhibition of Hockney’s big landscape works.

It was the day after Uncle Michael’s funeral. We had booked a Friday late slot for this exhibition many weeks before. The exhibition was colourful relief after a sad day.

Here is a link to the exhibition’s resource on-line.

Janie loved it all so much she bought the book and we went off to Yorkshire in search of Hockney’s Wolds the following spring…to be Ogblogged when I get to it.

Hockney says you cannot photograph those Wolds and in a way he is right, but still I did have a go when we visited in 2013:

Below is a video in which Hockney explains the exhibition from his point of view – well worth a look:

In short, we really loved this exhibition at the Royal Academy.