Tag: David Smith

Abstract Expressionism, Royal Academy, 11 November 2016

Abstract Expressionist Gromit
Abstract Expressionist Gromit

We’d both been really looking forward to seeing this exhibition, without quite getting around to seeing it; prioritising other “more urgent” things, as th Abstract Expressionism is running until January and as a member Janie can get us in any time.

We had booked out the time to see the exhibition on this day and were quite determined to see it, although with Janie feeling poorly the day before, I was half expecting us to defer the visit yet again.

But Janie woke up on this Friday feeling better and was keen to go ahead with the visit after getting some other bits and pieces out of the way.

Naturally, it was quite late by the time we set off for the Royal Academy, which actually worked out well with the late night opening. No congestion charge, no parking charges and a reasonably clear run around Mayfair/Piccadilly.

The Royal Academy has a good resource on this show with some very good examples – click here.

We both really liked the show, without necessarily liking all the work. Barnett Newman has always left me cold and I was not so impressed by the David Smith sculptures. This is big, “wall space” art in truth.

Reviews are a little mixed:

We thought the show worked very well as a whole. Very colourful. Also very interesting, as we were familiar with some of the works and artists but not really on the Abstract Expressionists as a school. We suspect that many non-expert visitors shared our sense of enjoyment along with the sense that we learnt something too.

Janie was convinced that Cy Twombly should have been in there, even asking one of the shop attendants to look Cy up for her and then explain why Cy was absent. It transpires that Twombly’s work is later, modern romantic symbolism, not abstract expressionism. Bad call, Janie.

Romantic Symbolist Madonna and Child
Romantic Symbolist Madonna and Child

Mrs Klein by Nicholas Wright, Cottesloe Theatre, Followed By Dinner at RSJ, 19 November 1988

The diary is quite clear about this one:

I rated the play/production very good indeed at the time. I am pretty sure that Bobbie rated this highly too.

Here is a link to the Theatricalia entry for this production. Some cast: Gillian Barge, Francesca Annis and Zoe Wanamaker. Peter Gill directed.

There is a page about this production on Zoe Wanamaker’s website – here.

Below is Michael Billington’s Guardian review:

Billington on Mrs KleinBillington on Mrs Klein Fri, Aug 12, 1988 – 26 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

Below is Michael ratcliffe’s Observer review:

Ratcliffe on Mrs KleinRatcliffe on Mrs Klein Sun, Aug 14, 1988 – 37 · The Observer (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

More than 20 years later, Janie and I went to see the revival of this play at the Almeida – which I also rated highly:

Mrs Klein by Nicholas Wright, Almeida Theatre, 24 October 2009

Bobbie and I went to RSJ’s after seeing the 1988 production. RSJ was one of our favourite places back then. I recall Janie liking that place too. It is still there in 2018 but apparently with a different formula.

That was a top notch evening back in November 1988.

Mountain Language by Harold Pinter, Lyttelton Theatre, 25 October 1988

Wow – this was a real experience in the theatre. Only a short piece – not even half an hour long – Bobbie and I will have both traipsed to the National after work, spending far more time traipsing than watching. But the memory of this piece lingers long in the memory.

Here is the Wikipedia entry about the play.

What a cast – see this Theatricalia entry for details. Michael Gambon, Miranda Richardson, Tony Haygarth, Eileen Atkins…

…Pinter himself directing…

…Julian Wadham was also in it – I seem to recall that Bobbie was working with his sister at that time.

I rated it very good indeed in my log and I remember talking and thinking about the piece long after the curtain call.

Below is Michael Billington’s Guardian review:

Billington on Mountain LanguageBillington on Mountain Language Sat, Oct 22, 1988 – 17 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

Below is Michael Ratcliffe’s Observer review:

Ratcliffe on Mountain LanguageRatcliffe on Mountain Language Sun, Oct 23, 1988 – 40 · The Observer (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

I subsequently saw the piece again, in a double bill with Ashes To Ashes at the Royal Court, with Janie second time around. It is a very strong piece and no doubt can still shock and make the audience realise how bad regimes exert their power in part through the suppression and abuse of language.

What an honour to have seen the first production of this important, though short, piece of drama.

Battersea Park Open Air Sculpture Exhibition, Spring/Summer 1966

It is one of my earliest memories. All I remember is having so much fun, climbing in, out, around, and through sculptures.

Playing hide and seek by dint of the artworks.

In my memory it was a Henry Moore exhibition, but on discovering a little pile of long-forgotten photographs (fiendishly mixed up with some of my parents’ late 1980s prints), followed by a little on-line research, I learn that it was a much wider exhibition, organised by the Greater London Council (GLC), that Battersea Park affair in 1966.

Not only Henry Moore & Barbara Hepworth but also F. E. McWilliam, Bernard Meadows, Robert Adams, Kenneth Armitage, Anthony Caro, Hubert Dalwood, William Turnbull, John Hoskin, Brian Wall, Phillip King, David Hall, David Annesley, Kim Lim and David Smith…apparently. I doubt if the three-going-on-four-ish version of me took all of that in.

The exhibition was thoroughly reviewed by Norman Lynton in The Guardian that May…

Norman Lynton on Battersea SculptureNorman Lynton on Battersea Sculpture Sat, May 21, 1966 – 7 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

…and by Nigel Gosling in the Observer the next day:

Gosling On Battersea ParkGosling On Battersea Park Sun, May 22, 1966 – 24 · The Observer (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

My guess is that we, the Harris family, ventured to the exhibition the following weekend, the late May Bank Holiday, although it’s possible that it was later that summer, perhaps the August Bank Holiday.

The reason I suspect it was the earlier holiday is because the photos look to me as though dad wanted those pictures from that exhibition to use as examples for his photographic studio classes that spring and summer.

Dad’s shop and studio was in St John’s Hill, Battersea.

Such a photogenic exhibition up the other end of Battersea would have been too good an opportunity to miss in those days, when (as I understand it) the studio was still a key part of dad’s business.

Anyway, that was dad’s job. My job was having fun.

The “pictures for the studio” theory would also explain why I hadn’t seen the pictures before now. Dad probably rescued those prints from the shop when he closed down the shop in the mid 1980s and the packet got mixed up then with mum and dads holiday snaps from the late 1980s. The negatives, sadly, seem lost.

Still, it was quite extraordinary seeing these pictures when I discovered them in March 2021, nearly 55 years after the event.

I have such a strong memory of having a wonderful time that day in Battersea Park and the pictures bear that out.

I have a feeling that mum didn’t really approve of this “let the children play” style exhibition. I can imagine there was a view in a fairly large section of the public that such sculptural works are to be revered rather than toyed with by children.

Mum doesn’t look 100% sure. I look sure.

But I think such exhibitions are a superb idea.

Personally, I have always been drawn to sculpture. Perhaps my fondness for sculpture would have happened anyway. But something tells me that my love of sculpture was forged that day in Battersea Park, which I so clearly remember as being just the most amazing fun.

You can see all the pictures (there are only eleven, most are shown in this piece) in Flickr by clicking here or below:

1966 Battersea Park Sculptures 07