Royal Academy – Page 2 – Ian Louis Harris

Allen Jones RA, Royal Academy, 1 January 2015

We were having a pretty shitty Christmas break, with mum in hospital since just before Crimble (and, as it turned out, never to come out). Our main respite had been some reasonable weather that at least enabled us to play tennis in the mornings, as reported on Facebook at the time – see below:

At the end of that long weekend (the Sunday I think) we went to the Park Royal Vue to see Paddington- click here for the IMDb resource on that movie. Janie warned me that I would probably blub at the scene where Paddington loses his old uncle and moves on from his family – she was right as usual.

Still, lots of laughs and fun in Paddington. I loved the way that there was a calypso band on every street corner in this version of Notting Hill, in contrast with the ubiquitously pale look of the neighbourhood in the eponymous movie.

Yet we craved some high culture and had been eyeing up the Allen Jones as high on our list for the holiday season, so we took some respite on New Year’s Day and went to see the Allen Jones in the afternoon.

The excellent Royal Academy resource with videos, pictures and information can be accessed by clicking here.

We really enjoyed this exhibition. Allen Jones’s work is colourful, accessible, fun, sometimes shocking…it was just the ticket for us that day.

Nuff said.

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 curator Marco Livingstone explains the exhibition:

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

The Real Van Gogh – The Artist And His Letters, Royal Academy, 5 March 2010

This exhibition was a few years before Janie became a friend of the Royal Academy but after they had started taking Friday late bookings, which suited us very well in those days. In fact, we still like going to the galleries and museums for those late openings.

Anyway, that’s what we did.

We both really liked this exhibition. Not only a chance to see some of Van Gogh’s superb works but also a rare chance to see his letters.

Here is a link to the Royal Academy’s on-line resource for this exhibition.

There’s a book if you want it – click the picture below for the Amazon link:

This search term – click here – finds several reviews of the exhibition. If they don’t rate it good they rate it brilliant.

Janie remembers the evening as magical, which is quite a good summary.

Subsequent correspondence tells me we must have bumped in to Bobbie Scully at that exhibition, but neither of us remembers doing that.

Neither of us can remember what we ate either – possibly we stopped at May’s on the way back to the country quarters…

Three Galleries In One Day, Royal Academy, National Portrait Gallery and Wallace Collection, 6 October 2008

Hertford House – Wallace without Gromit

Blimey O’Reilly; three galleries in one day and it looks as though we played tennis in the morning before setting off, if my diary scribble is to be believed.

First up: Miró, Calder, Giacometti, Braque at The Royal Academy. This exhibition might have been curated just for us; we both really like all four of these fellas.

An excellent write up appeared on Culture24 – click here.

Sophie Hicks Architects had something to do with it, so click here for their page about it.

We were onto this exhibition early; it ran from 4 October until the January; we were through the door 6 October.

Next up: Annie Leibovitz at the National Portrait Gallery. Click here for a link to the Gallery’s own excellent pages on this exhibition. Also up my/our street – I think she is a wonderful portrait photographer.

Click here for a review of the Annie Leibovitz from the Telegraph.

I think the Osbert Lancaster was a sweetener for me, as I love his cartoons. Not sure Janie was so interested. Perhaps she didn’t realise how keen I was on the other stuff we’d scheduled for that day. Anyway, we had time and off we went. Another exhibition that had just opened a few days before. Click here for the Wallace Collection pages on the exhibition.

In short, this day was an embarrassment of riches in the exhibition stakes – we both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

An Utterly Arty Day Off, Several Exhibitions At Several Galleries, 14 April 2008

Janie and I only occasionally took days off to do arty things in those days. So when we did, we went a bit mad and did lots.

So this particular day, 14 April 2008, we went to see three exhibitions at three separate galleries (Ogblogged here) and then went on to the theatre (which I shall Ogblog separately).

First stop, the Royal Academy Of Arts to see From Russia: French and Russian Master Paintings 1870-1925 at the Royal Academy – click here for an excellent preview fro the Guardian.

This piece from the Telegraph – click here – describes the hoo-ha that nearly prevented the Russia exhibition from going ahead.

It was a fabulous exhibition.

Then we shuttled across to the Tate Britain to see the Peter Doig exhibition, which we also enjoyed very much. Click here for the Tate’s informative stub on this exhibition.

Then on to The Hayward to see the Alexander Rodchenko exhibition of photography. Click here for the Southbank Centre’s stub on this excellent exhibition.

All three had been justifiably very well received by the press and we enjoyed a super arty day seeing all three.

Three Exhibitions In One Day: Kandinsky Watercolours And Other Works On Paper, Birth Of The Cool, New Art – New Era, Royal Academy & Barbican, 12 May 1999

As part of a week off at home, we did a fair bit of cultural stuff. A rare visit to the theatre on the Monday did not work as well as the dinner afterwards…

The Cosmonaut’s Last Message To The Woman He Once Loved In The Former Soviet Union by David Greig, Lyric Studio, Followed By Dinner At Grano, 10 May 1999

…but this day going around galleries was memorably good.

We loved the Kandinsky watercolours, but the critics hadn’t been so keen on them, preferring Kandinsky for oils and criticising the way the exhibition had been curated. Richard Dorment in The Telegraph, for example.

Kandinsky Dorment Telegraph 21 Apr 1999, Wed The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Brian Sewell in The Standard was even more waspish.

Kandinsky Sewell Standard 22 Apr 1999, Thu Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Kandinsky Sewell Standard 2 of 2 22 Apr 1999, Thu Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Still, Ogblog is not about what those expert geezers think but it is about what we felt. I recall Janie and I really liking that exhibition, so much so that we set off later than intended for the Barbican, where we had chosen to see two exhibitions – in particular David Bailey’s The Birth Of Cool Photographic Exhibition.