Friday, August 01, 2014

The Civilisation of Lord Clark (Tate Britain) and Paolozzi at Pimlico

The venue to learn more of Lord Clark

How great it was to receive a comment on a post - yesterday Maria Vittoria Boni Cerri felt very strongly about my comment on the Alo Saatchi viewing so to give a fuller view of the artist   (sadly the comment was subsequently removed by Maria)  anyway -  here's a nice video of some of Alo's works  (from youtube).

Earlier this week I visited the Tate Britain Exhibition entitled  Kenneth Clark- Looking for Civilisation, I was immediately drawn to the man by the quote taken from his autobiography regarding his parents -

'My parents belonged to a section of society known as 'the idle rich', and although, in that golden age, many people were richer, there can have been few who were idler.'

Clark was it seems a renaissance man for the 20th century.

I recall the BBC TV programme in my youth  but did not watch it at the time  and did not realise the breadth of the man - As well as a benefactor to many artists, a talented writer, and a great collector he had been responsible for the introduction of electric lighting in the National Gallery when he was Director there at the age of only 30 - it seems staggering that it was such a time in coming to the gallery.

This was a fine exhibition reflecting Clark's life and passions.
Amongst the works shown in the Tate I was taken by the Japanese works in his collection, the two George Seurat paintings I'd not seen before, The Forest at Pontaubert and Le Bec du Hoc.

Other fantastic paintings included many by Cezanne and two artists I've not been aware of before
1) Victor Passmore (check out The Red tablecloth)
and
2) John Piper - Seaton Delaval

Also illuminating was a study for Renoir's 'Acrobats at the Circus'.

Lord Clark was a populariser of the arts working in UK TV in both commercial and BBC arts strands.

I will definitely seek out the DVD collection of the BBC series.

Paolozzi at Pimlico


On another note  after many times at Pimlico Station finally spotted the Edouard Paolozzi .

Not sure if as examples of 'Public Art' I like this one more than the ones at Kew or the British Library.





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