Swiss Travel Posters – Part 1
On his first trip to Switzerland in 1878, Mark Twain noted that "regions which were unvisited and unknown remoteness a hundred years ago, are in our days a buzzing hive of restless strangers." Though most…
Month: July 2024
Rebel, Rebel
Leonora Carrington was always a rebel. The potted biography at the start of Leonora Carrington: Rebel Visionary at Newlands House Gallery in Petworth tells how she was "asked to leave" not just one but two convent…
Franz Messerschmidt – part 3
Franz Messerschmidt, the leading sculptor at the court in Vienna in the 1760s, was forced, for personal and professional reasons, to leave for the provinces and by 1777 had settled in Pressburg (today Bratislava). There…
LIFE DRAWINGS, part 5
In recent weeks, we've looked at different approaches to figure drawing, and discussed how different artists can use the same human form as a vehicle for wrestling with very different types of issues of both…
Prydie — Back Home a Century On
Nicholson's a big name in the history of British art. Our 1970s copy of the Penguin Dictionary of Art and Artists gives half a page (a comparatively long entry) to Sir William and his eldest…
Franz Messerschmidt – part 2
Franz Messerschmidt, the leading sculptor at the court in Vienna in the 1760s, was forced, for personal and professional reasons, to leave for the provinces and by 1777 had settled in Pressburg (today Bratislava). There…
LIFE DRAWINGS, part 4
I've previously written about the great Australian illustrator and war artist, Ivor Hele.A veteran of many bloody battles, Hele's figure studies frequently turned out to be "death" drawings rather than life drawings. However, when he returned…
Franz Messerschmidt – part 1
Self Portrait Bode-Museum, Berlin, GermanyFranz Messerschmidt, the leading sculptor at the court in Vienna in the 1760s, was forced, for personal and professional reasons, to leave for the provinces and by 1777 had settled in…
Luigi Bompard – part 3
Born in Bologna in 1879, from a French father, Luigi Bompard was not an artist who could be called revolutionary, he always worked in the wake of the Italian tradition influenced by the Jugendstil and,…
Luigi Bompard – part 2
c1920 Self-Portrait with a dedication pencil on paperBorn in Bologna in 1879, from a French father, Luigi Bompard was not an artist who could be called revolutionary, he always worked in the wake of the…