3:51pm
There is still time to catch a small but fascinating exhibition at the Wellcome Collection – ‘From Atoms to Patterns’ runs until 10 August and tells the story of ‘Crystal structure designs from the 1951 Festival of Britain’. I’ll admit that it’s a highly specific-sounding title, but will make a curious trip down memory lane for anyone who can remember their parents’ or grandparents’ home furnishings, or those they aspired to, at least.
The focus of the show is the scientific breakthroughs of the 1950s and their use in domestic design. I had always assumed that ’50s dresses had...
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1:11pm
A small press soirée at London’s National Gallery last night provided further opportunity to view its current exhibition ‘Radical Light: Italy’s Divisionist Painters 1891-1910’, which opened last month. It’s an interesting show on several counts, principally because it offers the chance to view an art movement that failed to make much international impact but did, however, pave the way for the bold brilliance of Italian Futurism.
Despite being a loose-knit group of northern Italian painters, the Divisionists were united by one big idea: the treatment of light. This was inspired by the works of French chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul...
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11:22am
The Royal Academy, London, gathered members of the press on Friday to announce its forthcoming October blockbuster exhibition ‘Byzantium’ with which it aims to rescue the empire from the unpopularity in which it has languished since the days when Voltaire declared it ‘a disgrace to the human mind.’ Some 300 objects – icons, silver and gold metalwork, ivories and enamels – on loan from 100 different organisations, will highlight the splendours of the empire that spanned Greece, Turkey, the Balkans, Ukraine, Syria and Egypt for over 1,000 years until the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Ottoman Turks.
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12:00am
This is an extract from an Apollo interview with a well-known collector and art-world figure. A copy of our 2007 Book of the Year, James Stourton's Great Collectors of Our Time (Scala) will be won by the first reader to identify the interviewee. For your chance to win, email your answer to offers@apollomag.com using 'Collectors' as the subject of your email. (A clue is at the bottom of the extract).
I was born in the Home Counties, in Kent. As I grew up I was strongly influenced by a father who was a literary man but who imbued me with...
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3:42pm
Yesterday’s was a rare fine summery evening and a pleasant one to walk through the courtyard of Somerset House, home of the Courtauld Collection. I told Nicola, my drinks companion earlier in the day that I was going along to visit ‘The Courtauld Cézannes’. She was not particularly impressed and rolled her eyes sighing, ‘All those wretched oranges’. (I think she was subjected to a roomful of still lifes at a mid-90s Cézanne retrospective somewhere.) It’s safe to say she’s not a fan. Last night, however, I found that I was.
In the upstairs galleries were the exhilarating blues...
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What can new art add to a historic setting? Three houses, the Louvre and a seaside town provide very different answers.
Hawksmoor's genius, barely recognised until the 20th century, is triumphantly confirmed by the newly completed restoration of St George, Bloomsbury.
The Courtauld Institute of Art in London celebrates its 75th birthday this academic year. Its reputation for excellence is as high as ever, but has it resolved all questions about purpose?
