C'Obs: Tripping to London

Piccadilly Art Market
Hung on the fence of Green Park

... London, that great sea, whose ebb and flow

At once is deaf and loud, and on the shore

Vomits its wrecks, and still howls on for more

Yet in its depth what treasures!

- Shelley
‘Letter to Maria Gisborne’ (1820), from Posthumous Poems (1824)
http://www.cf.ac.uk/encap/skilton/poetry/shell02.html for the complete, rather comprehensive communication.

We would need so many more years to find all those treasures. However we are valiant in our efforts and travel down to the capital as often as time and finances allow. It would seem that everyone in England travels up to London, regardless of their geographical position- this grates, so in my antipodean ignorance I maintain that we trip down to London from Cambridge. Once returned to Sydney, there will be plenty of time to dream of travelling up!

The entrance created for the Museum. The war entrance was through an internal staircase from the government offices above.

On the weekend of the V.E. day (Victory in Europe - end of WWII but not the Pacific) anniversary celebrations, we got down in time to miss the crowds but enjoyed the barricades across the Mall allowing free reign to pedestrians. We joined a long queue to visit Churchill's War Rooms whose museum access is opposite St James Park Lake. This gave plenty of water fowl entertainment as we waited. Walking there from a parking station just off Trafalgar square, we passed the Horse Guards parade ground which had been busy with the official pomp of the day. 10 Downing St overlooks this area, the newly reelected Mr Cameron would have had a pretty good view from his ensuite window.

The Mall all dressed up for VE day.

There have been a lot of documentaries aired on Churchill recently, most have enjoyed lifting the lid on his heroic status to show all the chaff that really stuffed his suits. Surely this age of cynicism is populated by very few who believe that heroes are faultless so why is the venom so pungent in these docos? It would seem that for many around these green isles there is an inherited hatred of the man who engineered the disaster of Gallipoli in WWI, ordered the military in to break the miners strikes and struggled to understand that the masses were unwilling to maintain their 'place'.

Left: The map room Right: His popularity did not lead a Tory victory at the next election - Labour won.

Waiting to be let in beside the Clive Steps

The War rooms celebrate this Noble Prize for literature winner and celebrated artist's 'finest hours' which many argue were those leading the allies to a teeth grinding victory against the Nazis. His celebrated speeches filled the air as we walked around looking at the exhibitions. He supported the huge cost of the unlikely Enigma experiments, he pushed intelligence gathering through human efforts as well and it would seem he made the lives of those serving the country around him - unpleasant because of his absolute determination to never give in and his capacity to work fueled by cigars and brandy instead of sleep. His aim was to get the job done. With a few dirty tricks the Americans and Russians jumped in and helped a limping UK and Commonwealth free Europe from the foe.

We found the War rooms, that Hitler and his Luftwaffe were completely ignorant of, absolutely fascinating. It is a miracle that any of them survived the living conditions and the work hours demanded over those 6 years. Churchill once said, "We are all worms, but I do believe that I am a glow-worm." Was he arrogantly observing his brief moment of brilliance or was he referring to his ability to work long hours through the night? This was the strangest, out of context phrase displayed around the museum paths.

Plaques in the pavement lead around special walks.

The Canadian gates leading to teh Canadian war memorial in Green Park.

Afterwards we walked through St James park toward Buckingham Palace then up through Green Park to the Bomber command memorial. After WWII the bomber crews were dumped by the motherland faster than they had ever been able to drop the bombs they were ordered to. The post war horror of huge civilian deaths from bombing cities like Dresden and Berlin resulted in the cold shoulder for the thousands of men who died or survived, doing their duty. Churchill didn't acknowledge them in his VE day speech and there was no medal or memorials made for the campaigns. Finally a memorial was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II on June 28 2012; but even then it was paid for by the veterans themselves. Close by is the Wellington Arch surrounded by other memorials including the New Zealand and Australian ones.

The Bonber Command Memorial is tucked up the end of Green Park opposite the Piccadilly under pass.

The statues were modeled from photos of men from Bomber Command.

The Australian Memorial - The large words list the battles fought at and the tiny words list all the towns from Australia that soldiers called home.

The New Zealand Memorial - each post has a different aspect of Aoteraroa. The fantail need a good dusting!

Not sure that Peace(One of many statues around the Victoria monument outside the gates of Buckingham Palace) would go to war for a flake cone ice cream but she is certainly looking interested!

Watford Sation

Another weekend, we grabbed a filled roll from the Watford station after Messy Church at St Johns, and headed in to see 'The Wallace Collection'. M had heard about this from G(a regular visitor to this free museum when working in London years ago) and was keen to see the biggest collection of armour in Britain. They claim to have the 'finest museum collection' of Sevres in the world including many pieces from the country bankrupting dinner service Catherine the Great ordered form France's premier porcelain artists. The ice cream cooler from the Tsaritsa's (whose name wasn't even Catherine -this Polish royal was christened with a first name of Sophie) service is the coolest and Madame de Pompadour's perfume burner and egg steamer the most useful!

Left: Catherine the Great's Sevres ice cream cooler. She designed the colours and demanded the cameos which were all individual and very difficult to make.
Right: The Perfume burner and egg steamer. The chicken lid lifts and the eggs are placed in a wire basket that is suspended above the steam coming form the pot below that also contained oils to scent the room.

Sir Richard Wallace left all his property to his wife who outlived him by seven years. His son had died three years before him and left four grandchildren. Lady Wallace left Hertford House and its art collection to the nation and most of the remainder of her inheritance to her secretary. I think there may be a story there - why didn't her grandchildren benefit? Sir Wallace(dubbed for charitable deeds during the siege of Paris) was the illegitimate son of the 4th Marquis of Hertford; a distant cousin inherited the title. The 4th Marquis was a great collector of art. Living most of his life in Paris he was able to procure so much rescued from the French revolution in auctions. His son became his secretary and art adviser and was bequeathed the entire collection and properties in France. He bought Hertford House off the new Marquis and refitted it for display instead of storage.

Snuff (powdered tobacco) boxes,
small and perfect

Horse armour - did they teach the horses to head butt?

Hertford House

The Stables were converted into galleries and the courtyard was roofed
with glass and has become the cafe.

Strong memories of Christmas boxes of Roses chocolates surged as I wandered around the galleries. It is a shame that copyright laws or change of taste means company logos replace famous portraits on today's boxes. They were the beginnings of my classical art appreciation. I especially remember "The Swing" and "The Laughing Cavalier". On close inspection the cavalier seems more smug than amused, the trick being his upward turning mustache. This title was bestowed by the Victorian public when the painting became very popular after being put on display when Sir Wallace bought it to England in 1872, 250 yrs after it was painted. I overheard a tour guide telling a group that it was an engagement portrait yet the identity of the sitter is unknown. In Baroness Orczy's novel she claims he is an ancestor of the Scarlet Pimpernel.

Left: The Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals 1624 Right: In black Cap c.1637

Rembrandt painted himself so many times, Europe is scattered with these earliest 'selfies' - he produced around 50 paintings of himself and nearly as many sketches and etchings - perhaps he couldn't get enough models to sit for him. The Wallace Collection has 'Titus' a portrait of Rembrandt's 15yr old son and the Rembrandt Research Project, who has become the authority on whether a work of Rembrandt is genuine, have confirmed that 3 other paintings in the collection are also his. In 2012 they released a film titled ‘Out of the Shadows’, which documents their recent techniques and discoveries.

Left: Perditia has Petal's 'what now?" face on. Right: I didn't know the Pompadour painted.

These ladies are both famous royal mistresses. Perditia (Mary Robinson 1757-1800) had an extraordinary 43 years, bouncing between poverty and riches. The Prince Regent (soon to be George IV) saw her acting on stage and promptly offered her a huge sum of money to become his mistress - the affair didn't last long. She remained in these exalted social circles through other relationships and became the leader of fashion and popular mode. When ill health put an end to this giddy life she became a novelist, poet and women's rights campaigner (she was close friends with Mary Wollenstonecraft). Being put in house arrest with her children because her husband was sent to jail for bankruptcy(before her acting career) and being discarded by the love of her life for a wealthy young heiress when she was no longer the toast of the town, gave her some expertise about the poor lot of regency women. We loved this portrait because something around her mouth and eyes is sooo familiar from Petal's face when 'unamused'.

Pompadour was displayed in this room too. The woman in white is Mrs Elizabeth Carnac painted by Joshua Reynolds in 1775. She and her brigadier husband were urgently called to India and had to leave before the portrait was completed.

Louis XV's longest and most influential mistress, Madame de Pompadour(1721-64), is the subject of many historical novels. As with many other powerful women, she has been painted as both a saint and a demon. "It seems absurd that while an ancient pen-pusher, hardly able to walk, should still be alive, a beautiful woman, in the midst of a splendid career, should die at the age of forty two." Voltaire April 1764. Some people seem to pack in an awful lot of life into their forty odd years.

"The Swing" I always imagined it to be a big picture but it is the small one hanging on the right side of the room. The original has a depth and range of greens that do not show well in this photo!
The piece of furniture at the front is a beautifully decorated lady's writing desk.

All sorts of things to be seen in London. Top centre - Grosvnor Park Bottom left - a piece of the Berlin Wall outside the USA embassy which had a warning poster on the security guard's box telling people that bombs were not allowed inside!

We walked down to Piccadilly and popped into Fortnam and Mason. When we came out we realised we were running late to meet GF so we looked regretfully at the wonderful Hatchards - England's oldest bookstore. It opened in 1797. If we weren't on the way to the theatre it would have been better to buy the book first then go to the grocer for a snack to take home for the reading! With five floors to peruse, Hatchards needs 1/2 a day or so sacrificed to it, perhaps with afternoon tea booked down the road at The Ritz to give our eyes a rest.

We took the girls to Miss Saigon at the Prince Edward Theatre. They knew the sound track so it was a good opportunity when cheap tickets were available from the Leicester Square booths. The opening act was a lot raunchier than the staging I had seen in Sydney 20 yrs ago - the representation of the war time sex trade left little to the imagination. The Chopper scene was accompanied with heart pounding sound effects and tears were jerked at all the right moments.

The following Saturday night we fortuitously caught a show on TV called - The Royal Academy Summer exhibition 2015. It was really good so we decided to go the next day. I went to book tickets on line but so must have many other viewers because the website had crashed. Early the next morning things were back up and running so we took off back down to London for the afternoon. There is no congestion tax on Sundays so we drove right into Russell Square - not far from Harely St and caught the tube into Piccadilly Circus. Petal had a flash back of her first exit from subterranean London when she looked up at the Eros statue.

Walking back to Piccadilly Circus Tube

The Royal Academy is opposite Fortnum and Masons and Hatchards no time for the later but the former were having a sale so we helped ourselves to some of Paddington's favourite preserve and some specialty teas which I then had to cart around the exhibition; luckily I had purchased a F&M tote so I didn't rustle whilst doing the art view spin in each of the rooms.

Left: Oldsest Bookshop in London 1797- now owned by Waterstones Right: Front door to the Queen's Pantry.1707

The five iron clouds are meant to provide dappled light in the courtyard but there has to be sun for that! It is still an impressive installation!

Looking up at Conrad Shawcross's 'The Dappled Light of the Sun'.
The title suggests that the sculpture is a tool to make nature create the art.

Willow and Petal at the entry to the Royal Academy

Vinyl tape was laid on the stone steps as an artwork by Jim Lambie and his many helpers. He called it Zobop?!

Caught out - the girls thought it was the right place for him.

Some modern art in action - I think the artist himself is more interesting than the lie of legs and arms in blue tissue - the faces of the girls that were rolling had eyes doing the same and while out of shot broad grins - not very serious!

The first ever London phone box has been moved to the gates of the Royal Academy.

Inside the Galleries - a few painted boldly for this year's exhibit.

Willow was keen to see Tom Phillips' room full of artmented(think augmented with art) novel pages. 49 yrs ago he decided to use the first novel he could buy for thrupence in a second hand bookshop as a lifelong art project. I bet he thought he'd find a thin book for three pence! He found a leather bound copy of the Victorian novel 'A Human Document' by W.H.Mallock. and now, 367 pages later, he is finished. We were both frantically taking photos of the pages that were amazing but luckily in the gift shop found a copy of 'A Humument' to take home. Inside the dust cover the artist writes "I took a long forgotten novel found by chance. I mined and undermined its text to make it yield alternative stories, erotic incidents and surrealist catastrophes which lurked within its wall of words. I replaced with visual images the text I'd stripped away. It began to tell, amongst other memories, dreams and reflections, the sad story of Bill Toge, one of love's casualties."

Top - original pages, Middle 1970s work Bottom: latest redo.

Words say "Play the shadow of fifty years only imagine a century. At last - welcome! My own sayself"
I assume the image is of the artist at his half way point.

Petal was really pleased to be going because 'there will be some new stuff - what artists are thinking and doing today - not all that old fusty(perhaps inject a slightly more hip adjective here) stuff in gilt frames like you usually drag us around."

One of the celebrated 'new' (graduated with a BA in fine art in 1982) artists that is very popular with the media at the moment is Grayson Perry.

Left: Una Stubbs, best known for her role as Mrs. Hudson in the television series Sherlock has a watercolour, Grayson and Measles, which depicts fellow artist Grayson Perry and his teddy bear, Measles. (about 15cm square) Centre: As for Perry, it's hard to miss his supersized tapestry(4x3m - £69,600) that is a modernised, vibrant rendition of Grant Wood's American Gothic. Perry does away with the sullen-looking farmer's original pitchfork and gives him a glass of red wine and a tear in his eye. The woman stands next to him with a bouquet of flowers. Laura Rutkowski, 9.6.15 in GQ Magazine. Right: Claire (Grayson’s transvestite persona) at the Preview party. His recently completed ‘House for Essex’ had its own documentary screened on Channel four.

Architect Charles Holland and Designer Grayson Perry of The House for Essex.
Inside is art work telling the story of the tapestry folk.

Three Towers

There was a room of architectural art which M liked the best. His favourite was this 3D perspex model and embroidery thread of three towers by Victoria Watson. It sold for £2000. The photo doesn't do it justice.

I'll leave you with some of our favs but at this website you can go for a browse for yourself. It is the first time the RA has made every piece in the exhibit viewable on their site, it may only be available until the end of the exhibition or until all the pieces for sale are sold perhaps. https://se.royalacademy.org.uk/map

Franklin's Morals of Chess (Jade) by Karl Singporewala
The jade pieces are the old classic buildings of London and the White are the modern buildings.

My favourite - 'Into the Park' by Bill Jacklin
It is still for sale but at £63K I'll just have to get the exercise instead.

Luther Road by Donna Mclean - one of Petal's choices. This image doesn't do it justice, the original was full of detail and the black background didn't look monotone at any point.

A short life and its trouble by Clyde Hopkins

Frank Bowling - Circles for Lucas and his mum. Still for sale - £78K
Willow would like a floaty dress made with this pattern on fabric.

Fire burnt the land like a language x by David Firmstone The title is a lot more surreal than the painting!

Gentle Horse by Cathie Pilkington. This little Hand coloured Lithograph sold out! The exhibited work for £480 and the other 24 prints for £390. There was an owl companion piece which also sold well.