Tag Archives: painter

A British artist whose parents came from the Caribbean

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THE BRITISH PAINTER Hurvin Anderson was born in Birmingham (UK) in 1965. His mother and father came to Britain from Jamaica before he was born. As a child, he carried a sketchbook with him wherever he went. He studied art first at Wimbledon College of Art, and then later at the Royal College of Art. Until 26 August 2026, there is an exhibition of his works (mainly paintings) at Tate Britain in London.

Although Hurvin was not brought up in the Caribbean, he learned a lot about the place by listening to his parents talking about the places they had left. The first room of the exhibition contains paintings he made after seeing his parents’ and their friends’ photographs. They are not copies of the photographs but they depict his impressions of what can be seen in them.

Other rooms contain paintings which he made in the Caribbean while undertaking an artist’s residency in Port of Spain in Trinidad & Tobago. In some of these pictures, he explored the complex relationships between slavery, the Caribbean’s colonial past, and modern social situations. In some of the paintings, he places his subject matter behind a painted barrier, for example a grid or fence, to emphasise the fact that often in the Carribean, some people (black or poor) were excluded from pla es where others (white or wealthy) were admitted. Although many of Hurvin’s paintings contain messages or comments about life in the Caribbean, his emphasis is on the aesthetic, rather than the politics.

One of the many pictures that caught my attention was called “Between Port Radix and Moruga II”. According to its exhibition label, it depicts a Hindu mandir (temple) in Trinidad. It shows a low building in front of which many pennants, each on its own pole, are fluttering in the wind. Tridad has a south Asian community. One of its best-known personalities was the writer VS Naipaul (1932-2018).

Near the end of the show, there is a gallery that contains four paintings that Hurvin created specially for the Tate’s exhibition. These, like all the others on show, are beautifully composed and skilfully executed. Hurvin’s portrayals of both people and nature make a visit to the exhibition extremely enjoyable.

One of many artists who lived in north London’s Hampstead

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DONALD CHISHOLM TOWNER (1903-1985) was born in Eastbourne, where there is now a gallery named after his great-uncle (John Chisholm Turner), and studied art first at Eastbourne School of Art, and then at London’s Royal College of Art. After graduation, Donald first took a studio at Mornington Crescent. Later, he moved to Hampstead, first residing at Holly Hill, and then in Church Row, where he lived for 50 years.

Currently, Burgh House in Hampstead is hosting an exhibition of Towner’s artworks, which is called “Amongst the Trees and Terraces: Donald Towner (1903-1985) and will continue until 13 December 2026. The exhibition includes one painting of St Pauls Cathedral surrounded by bombed buildings during WW2. Almost all of the other pictures have scenes of Hampstead as their subjects, and were painted in his studio in Church Row. Mostly painted in pale colours, they are all pleasing to the eye. Pleasant as it is, I would not rate Towner’s work nearly as highly as that of  his friend (and fellow student), the artist Eric Ravilious (1903-1942). Whereas Ravilious was adventurous in his compositional technique, Towner was more conventional.

Towner was not only a painter, but also a connoisseur and collector of ceramics. He began collecting after the end of WW2, and published several books about ceramics. At the same time, he continued painting until the end of his life.

The exhibition at Burgh House is small but well-laid out in the Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Gallery. One large painting, not in that room, hangs in the reception area, and should not be missed.  We saw the exhibition because we were meeting friends in Burgh House’s café. I am not sure that if one does not have an interest in Hampstead, or happen to be visiting the area, that I would make a special journey to see the exhibition.

Gulam Mohammed Sheikh in Ernakulam (Kerala) and the Kochi Muziris Biennale  2025/26

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SOME PEOPLE SAY “save the best till last”. This is what we did accidentally while spending several days exploring the 2025/26 Kochi Muziris art biennale. Much of what we saw at this biennale was far inferior to what we had seen when visiting the four previous biennales. Most of this biennale’s offerings were rich in messaging but insubstantial artistically. The exception to this sad situation is an exhibition held at the Durbar Hall, which is across the sea from Fort Kochi in the city of Ernakulam.

 

The exhibition at Ernakulam is a large collection of (mostly) paintings by Gulam Mohammed Sheikh,  who was born in 1937 in what is now Gujarat.  His artistic training took place first at the MS University in Vadodara,  then at London’s Royal College of Art.

 

A Mappa Mundi by Sheikh

The exhibition includes works from the various stages of his career from the 1960s until today. Sheikh’s work provides  imaginative,  creative, original, beautifully executed, refreshing views and interpretations of the world and its inhabitants.

 

Amongst the many superb creations on display, there is a series of Mappa Mundi paintings, in which, to quote Wikipedia, Sheikh:

“… defines new horizons and ponders over to locate himself in. Sheikh construes these personal universes enthused from the miniature shrines where he urges the audience to exercise the freedom to build up their Mappa Mundi.”

These wonderful artworks that were inspired by mediaeval maps of the world provide the viewer with exciting expressions of Sheikh’s interpretations of the world, past and present,  real and imagined. In one room at Durbar Hall, there is a wonderful film that, in a way, brings Sheikh’s Mappa Mundi to life.

 

Each of Sheikh’s artworks tells a story. However that story is open to each viewer’s own interpretation. The artist’s works are not only vehicles for a story or stories, but they are also aesthetically sophisticated: art at its best.

 

It was a great pleasure to see Sheikh’s art. Unlike much of the other exhibits in the Biennale,  his work does not rely on gimmickry, sound effects, lighting effects, film clips, ‘objets  trouvés’, and explanatory notes. Sheikh’s works are the products of a technically competent painter who is able to express his imaginative ideas in ways that are both aesthetically pleasing and highly original.

 

Seeing the exhibition of Sheikh’s works has revived my enthusiasm for art, which had begun to flag while visiting a seemingly never ending series of mediocre artefacts being displayed at the various sites of the 2025/26 Kochi Muziris Biennale.

An artist from Aberdeen in west London

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SURROUNDED BY SOCIAL housing, the Frestonian Gallery is within a stone’s throw from the Westfield shopping mall in west London’s Shepherds Bush. This small but elegant commercial gallery hosts well-chosen artworks at temporary exhibitions. The artists whose works are displayed there are not as well-known as those shown in some of the larger and longer established galleries in Mayfair, but all of them deserve to be recognised as worthy exponents of their craft and creativity.

The current exhibition, which continues until 13 June 2025, is of paintings by Barry McGlashan, who was born in Aberdeen (Scotland) in 1974. Trained in painting at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen, he went on to teach in its painting department between 1998 and 2005. He now lives and works in Edinburgh.

At first glance, many of Barry’s paintings have a hazy or misty appearance. After a few moments, the mist seems to clear, and the viewer can enjoy beautifully painted scenes. The paintings have a dream-like quality, and as the gallery’s handout notes, some of his images are:

“… at once so vivid and yet close to slipping away entirely …”

Barry refers to a concept embraced by the Elizabethan John Dee (1527-1608). Namely, that the world around us is far more unseen than seen. Barry’s pictures do depict such an idea very well.

Rather than wasting time and money in the Westfield shopping mall, feed your eyes on the lovely paintings currently on show at the Frestonian. You will not regret visiting this gallery.

Address: 2 Olaf St, London W11 4BE

The brief but creative life of an artist from America

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BORN IN SEATTLE (USA), the black American artist Noah Davis (1983-2015) led a brief but productive life. Son of a lawyer and an educator, Noah became addicted to painting during his early teenage years. By the age of 17, he had his own studio. He studied art at the Cooper Union School of Art in New York City between 2001 and 2004, and from 2004 onwards he lived and worked mainly in Los Angeles. Until 11 May 2025, there is an excellent exhibition of his works (mainly paintings) at the Barbican Centre Gallery in London. Until I visited this show, I had never heard of Noah Davis, but I am pleased that I have now ‘discovered’ him and his work.

Noah’s lifelong aim was (to quote what is recorded in Wikipedia as having been said by him):

“… to just show black people in normal scenarios, where drugs and guns are nothing to do with it …”

And to portray these scenarios in images created to illustrate:

“… where black aesthetics and modernist aesthetics collide …”

Although most of the paintings illustrate mundane or normal aspects of the lives of Black American people, Noah does so in ways that make the ordinary seem less ordinary and more magical.

In a documentary film that visitors to the exhibition can watch, Noah, who comes over as being a delightful person, made an interesting point. He said that in some forms of art like film, theatre, and literature, a story can gradually develop as the performance or novel proceeds. In painting, on the other hand, the artist must create an image that tells the whole story from start to finish, all on one canvas. This is something he does successfully.

In 2015, Noah was diagnosed with a rare but usually lethal carcinoma. Even while lying in bed in hospital, he continued to create images. In fact, he made 70 wonderful small works (many of them experiments in abstraction) while undergoing treatment for the disease that tragically ended his life. Many of these works are shown in the exhibition. During the month before his death, he made three large canvases, each one expressing his anticipation of his life’s imminent ending. One depicts two girls asleep on a sofa. This picture honours togetherness and restfulness. Another depicts a funeral. And the third shows a man walking in front of self-storage lockers. This image represents the loneliness in which each of us leaves the world of the living.

Having become acquainted with the creativity of Noah Davis, I feel that it is a great tragedy that this wonderfully poetic artist lived for such a brief time.

From rural Cornwall to the Royal Academy in London

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ONE OF MY FAVOURITE National Trust properties in England is Trerice, which is about 2.3 miles south of the Cornish town of Newquay – not one of my favourite places in Cornwall.  We visit the house and gardens at Trerice every time we spend time in Cornwall, and always discover soothing there that we had not noticed before.

This tine (June 2024), one of the volunteers working in the house pointed out a painting by John Opie (1761-1807). I had not come across his name before. Our informant told us that he had been born in Cornwall, and thought that he had been involved with the establishment of the Royal Academy. He was born at Trevallas between St Agnes and Perranporth, both of which are not far from Trerice. At an early age, his artistic talents became evident, but his father, a carpenter, wanted John to become a carpenter. A physician, Dr Wolcot, met him at the place where he was an apprentice, and reecognising John’s artistic skills, paid for him to be released from his apprenticeship. Wolcot encouraged Opie, and by the start of the 1790s, he was a successful portraitist in Cornwall.

In 1781, Wolcot took Opie to London, where his works were admired by great artists of the time including Sir Joshua Reynolds, who compared John’s work to that of Caravaggio and Velasquez. A year later, Opie began working independently of Wolcot, who had been supporting him up until then. An acquaintance of Dr Wolcot introduced Opie to the court of King George III. This led to Opie being commissioned to paint portraits of people of high rank in English society and royalty. In 1886, he was elected a full member of the Royal Academy, and in 1805 he was appointed a professor in that esteemed institution.

There are three paintings by Opie hanging on the walls of Trerice house. One is a portrait, and another a self-portrait. The third, which depicts three people playing cards, is a copy of the same picture that can be seen at Petworth house. The version at Trerice is believed to have been painted by Opie and others in his studio. Each of the three people in it have smiles. It is thought that in this painting, Opie was experimenting with the depiction of smiling. Although attractive, this picture is not as attractive as his other two paintings in Trerice.

It is always pleasant to re-visit places, and always exciting to discover something one had missed on earlier trips to that same location. As well as the lovely interiors at Trerice, the gardens surrounding it are always a joy to behold.

An artist from Vienna who lived in Hampstead (north London)

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HAMPSTEAD HAS BEEN home to many artists – both painters and sculptors. Some of these are well-known, such as John Constable, George Romney, Stanley Spencer, Henry Moore, and Barbara Hepworth – to name but a few. Others are less widely known. Amongst the lesser-known is the late Marie-Louise von Motesiczky (1906-1996), some of whose paintings are on display in a special exhibition in Hampstead’s Burgh House until the 15th of December 2024. In addition to the works in the temporary exhibition, Burgh House’s permanent collection includes a few of her paintings.

Marie-Louise was born in Vienna (see: www.motesiczky.org/biography/). Her mother’s family were well-connected with Vienna’s flourishing intellectual circles in the early 20th century. Her grandmother, Anna Von Lieben, was one of Freud’s first psychoanalytical patients. At the age of 13, Marie-Louise left school, and began studying art in Vienna, The Hague, Frankfurt, Paris, and Berlin. In 1927, she joined the master classes held by the artist Max Beckmann (1884-1950) in Frankfurt-am-Main. This painter became an important influence in her life and work.

After the Anschluss (the Nazi annexation of Austria) in March 1938, Marie-Louise and her mother, Henriette, left Vienna. They went to Holland, where, in 1939, Marie-Louise had her first solo exhibition. Soon after this, she and her mother left for England, and settled in Amersham. There, she met the Bulgarian writer Elias Canetti (1905-1994) and his wife. Canetti was to become an extremely close friend of Marie-Louise. At Burgh House, we saw her portrait of him on display.

When WW2 was over, Marie-Louise and her mother moved into a flat in West Hampstead, which they rented until 1960. Then, they purchased a large house in Hampstead, number 6 Chesterford Gardens (a short road linking Frognal and Redington Road). While living there, she painted many portraits of her ageing mother. Some of these were on display at Burgh House.

Marie-Louise is now highly acclaimed as a 20th century artist in the country where she was born. Although the paintings I saw today at Burgh House are often imaginative and pleasant enough, I began to understand why she has not become as well-known as some of the many other artists who lived in Hampstead. However, everyone has different tastes in art. So, a good way to judge this artist’s work would be to pay a visit to Hampstead’s lovely early 18th century Burgh House.

From the screens of Instagram onto the walls of commercial art galleries

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DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE the power of Instagram.

Today (the 2nd of April 2024), we visited Beers Gallery in Little Britain, a street which is close to St Bartholomew the Great church and Smithfield meat market. Until the 13th of April 2024, they have an exhibition of delightful paintings by Florent Stosskopf, who was born in Rennes (France) in 1989. Based in Brittany, he has qualifications in web and graphic design, as well as holding an Advanced Technician diploma from L’école Multimedia. Yet, he is a self-taught painter. His current exhibition at Beers is called “The Mocking Bird”. The gallery’s press hand-out says:

“The title, he informs us, is a loose reference to elements of his own autobiography that he found mirrored in the song ‘Mockingbird’ by Eminem.”

Be that as it may, the paintings are full of bold colour and vibrancy. It was a joy to see them.

We had never heard of Florent Stosskopf. We asked a lady who worked in the gallery how her establishment had got to know of this artist. The answer astonished us. She told us that it was after he began posting pictures of his paintings on Instagram (see: www.instagram.com/stosskopf_florent/)  that he began to be recognised as being a painter worth exhibiting in commercial galleries.

Many people with artistic tendencies and varying degrees of skill post images of their creations on Instagram. Even I use Instagram to try to promote some of my books. However, just posting on Instagram is not enough. To become truly successful by using Instagram, you need real talent, and that is what Monsieur Stosskopf has in a large amount.

A twentieth century American artist who seemed to have lost his way

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THE EARLY WORKS OF artists, who became famous for their successful experimentation in style and expression (such as Matisse, Picasso, Van Gogh, Miro, and Hockney), began by making quite conventional figurative pictures – always competently executed. Such was also the case with the artist Philip Guston (1913-1980), who was born in Canada, son of Jewish parents who had migrated from Czarist Russia. Born ‘Goldstein’, he later changed his surname to ‘Guston’. His family moved to Los Angeles (USA) in 1922. His childhood was filled with trauma: his father committed suicide, and soon after that his brother was killed in a motor accident. He began to be involved with art as a way of dealing with these sad events. In the 1930s, he engaged with political activity, fighting racism and anti-Semitism at a time when the Ku Klux Klan was enjoying some prominence. Several of his paintings depict hoods, such as were worn by the Klan.

There is a retrospective exhibition of Guston’s works at London’s Tate Modern until the 25th of February 2024. The paintings are exhibited chronologically on the walls of eleven interconnecting display areas. Like the artists listed at the beginning of this piece, Guston’s early works are figurative and very beautifully painted. Many of these powerful images reflect his concerns about the adverse political developments he observed during the 1930s. Later, in the 1940s, he became friends with artists like Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning, and he moved successfully from figurative painting to abstraction. He became well-known as an abstract artist. After that, in the 1960s, his art seemed to my eyes to go downhill.

Guston’s later works, which are partly figurative and partly abstract, and created in and after the late 1960s, were undoubtedly created to send messages to the viewer. However, I found them to be crudely executed in comparison with his earlier abstract and much earlier figurative works. Whether this crudeness was deliberate or reflected a decline in the artist’s ability I cannot say. These later works express the artist’s personal crises and his reaction to injustices and other global catastrophes, but they did not do much for me from an aesthetic point of view. Had I left the exhibition without seeing them, my admiration for Guston would have been higher than it is having seen them.

Franco and Franco in Funchal

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MOST VISITORS TO central Funchal in Madeira will pass, and probably notice, a bronze statue high up on a square based plinth outside the Bank of Portugal and the Golden Gate Grand Café. It depicts Joao Goncalves Zarco, who began the Portuguese settlement of Madeira in the 15th century. Very few people who pass this statue will know that it was created by a Madeiran sculptor, Francisco Franco (1885-1955). His older brother Henrique Franco (1883-1961) is one of Madeira’s most famous painters.

Both brothers studied at the Lisbon School of Fine Arts. They also spent time in Paris. Henrique returned to Madeira where he painted many of his pictures. Many of them are of Madeirans and scenes of the island. His paintings are beautifully executed and visually pleasing. Although the influence of Cezanne can be detected, Henrique did not seem to have affected by the innovative trends that were occurring in Western art during the 20th century.

Francisco visited Mussolini’s Italy in the 1920s and was impressed by the way that the state produced sculptures, which promoted the ethos and aims of the regime. He returned to Portugal, and began creating sculptural works that boosted the image of his country. Many of his important works were created for the Salazar government, which began in 1932.

Until our second visit to Funchal, I had never heard of the Franco brothers. Today, the 8th of May 2023, we visited a small museum in Funchal. It contains a fine collection of the works of both brothers. The museum contains many fine paintings by Henrique and sculptures by his brother, including a bust of Portugal’s former dictator Salazar. A video showing in the museum seems to suggest that far from being hostile to the Salazar dictatorship, Francisco was happy to create sculptures for it and its institutions.

Francisco attended an industrial school in Funchal. Its building is next to the museum. Over its main entrance is a carved stone sculptural frieze created by Francisco. The edifice now houses the Escola Secundaria de Francisco Franco, which opened in about 1976. Within its entrance lobby, we saw a bas-relief depicting the sculptor.

Although it is not one of Funchal’s main tourist attractions, the Museu Henrique e Francisco Franco deserves to be better-known.