Hello
Welcome to Wednesday Wishes. Sargent and Fashion at Tate Britain, figures from the African diaspora at the National Portrait Gallery, cast your vote for the occupant of the Fourth Plinth at the National Gallery, a bamboo garden at Somerset House and how opium made the world go round in Smoke and Ashes by Amitav Ghosh are this week’s wishes. How can you resist a line up like that?
Two exhibitions worth travelling for … first of all Turning Heads: Rubens, Rembrandt and Vermeer opens at the National Gallery of Ireland. It looks at how this trio created a library of drawings of heads called Tronies that then appeared over and over again in their crowd scenes. I saw turning heads in Antwerp and it is excellent, well worth the trip to Dublin.
Closer to home, William Blake’s Universe opens at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge which looks at how Blake and other artists sort to bring spirituality into their work as war and revolution swirled around them.
Every morning Mr CW brings me a cup of tea in mug decorated with a Mel Calman cartoon. 100 of his artworks, including many of his distinctive little man, are coming up for auction at Olympia Auctions. You can go along and see them for free and who knows maybe even bid for one of them in the online auction.
Another auction. This time over at the Truman Brewery on Brick Lane. All the works have been created from materials made from ash and charcoal gathered in the wake of fires in the Amazonian rainforest. All works will be auctioned with proceeds going to the Xingu Indigenous communities of the Amazon Rainforest at Christies on March 9th but you can see them for free from Thursday to Sunday at the Brewery before the auction.
Finally … this Friday is late week at the V&A. Fabric and Folklore is the theme, two of my favourite things. Free to attend, V&A lates are always good fun.
Happy Culturing
Catherine