Tag Archives: painting

Hogarth, debauchery, and a distant view of Hampstead

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RECENTLY, WE VISITED the Foundling Museum near Russell Square in London. One of the many interesting items we saw there was a painting by the artist William Hogarth (1697-1764), who donated it to support the Foundling Hospital, which was established in his lifetime.

The large oil-painting, “The March of the Guards to Finchley” was completed in 1750. It depicts troops gathering at the northern end of London’s Tottenham Court Road. In the foreground, there is a disorderly-looking crowd of soldiers who are mingling with civilians, mostly ladies. The soldiers and the other people appear to have been having a jolly time, bordering on debauchery. The military do not look as if they were in a fit state to face the enemy, whom they are about to head towards.

The soldiers were about to head north from London to defend it from the second Jacobite rebellion of 1745, which was part of a series of uprisings that were aimed at returning the Stuart Dynasty to the throne after the Glorious Revolution of 1688

( See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobite_rebellion_of_1745) .

Behind the rabble of soldiers and other merry makers, Hogarth had painted an orderly parade of soldiers, dressed in red jackets, heading away from London through open countryside towards a distant range of hills. They appeared to be heading north by northeast. On the summit of a hill, there is a cluster of light-coloured buildings – a hill town, which is shown to the northwest of the soldiers marching in an orderly fashion.

Hogarth’s painting shows what was the northern edge of London in 1750. Eighteenth century maps, including one drawn by Rocque in 1746, show that north of the northern end of Tottenham Court Road, the roadway continued north by northeast, and this was most likely the path being followed by the orderly line of soldiers. Today, this road still exists, and is now named Hampstead Road.

Hampstead Road runs north to Camden Town, and its continuation, Chalk Farm Road that becomes Haverstock Hill, runs northwest and steeply upwards before becoming High Street Hampstead. The modern roads follow the old roads that existed at the time when Hogarth created his painting, “The March of the Guards to Finchley”.

Now, you might be wondering where this discussion is heading. Apart from the wonderful portrayal of soldiers and civilians enjoying a merry time, what interested me most was the small town on the summit of the distant hill. From what I have discussed above about London’s geography both in 1750 and today, it is most likely that the hill town shown in the painting was Hampstead.

Hogarth’s 1745 depiction of Hampstead as a hill town separated from London is a great illustration of what I wrote in my book about Hampstead, “Beneath a Wide Sky: Hampstead and its Environs”:

“The essayist and poet Leigh Hunt (1784-1859), a sometime resident of Hampstead, related in his book The Town (published in 1848):

‘In Elizabeth’s time, you might set out from the site of the present Pall-mall, and, leaving St. Giles in the Fields on the right hand, walk all the way to Hampstead without encountering perhaps a dwelling-place.’

During the first few decades of the 19th century, the village (or town: call it what you wish; I will stick to ‘village’) of Hampstead was still as it was in Elizabethan times: separated from the rest of London by open countryside. It was linked to London by a single road, which followed the course of the present Haverstock Hill and its continuation, Hampstead High Street. However, by 1848, Hunt noted that:

‘…every village which was in the immediate and even the remote neighbourhood of London, and was quite distinct from one another at the beginning of the reign of George the Third, is now almost, if not quite, joined with it, including Highgate and Hampstead ….

George III reigned from 1760 until 1820.”

Finally, when looking at Hogarth’s picture at the Foundling museum, an attendant told me that in the artist’s time, people in London sometimes believed they could see snow covering the hillside around Hampstead, even in the height of summer. What they were seeing was sheets and other laundry that had been laid out to dry. Hampstead was, and is now to a lesser extent, richly endowed with sources of clean water.

Among from the many other exhibits in the fascinating Foundling Museum, I found the painting with its distant view of Hampstead to be most interesting – so much so that I need to revisit the museum to savour its other items properly.

Discovering the artist’s points of view

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THE ARTIST LAURENCE Stephen Lowry (1887-1976), best known as ‘LS Lowry’ was fond of the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed in Northumberland. He visited the town frequently between 1935 and his death. And while he was there, he created over twenty paintings of the town and its nearby surroundings.

When we visited Berwick in May 2026, we were unaware of Lowry’s artistic connections with the town until quite by chance we came across a placard near a building with sloping walls. The placard contained a photograph of Lowry’s painted depiction of the building and some background information. It is one of 19 similarly informative panels that together make up the town’s Lowry Trail. Each of the panels is placed where it was most likely that Lowry would have been when creating one of his town paintings. And each has a reproduction of the painting he created when he was at the spot where the panel has been placed. It was fascinating seeing a painting and what its subject matter looks like today. In some of the paintings, Lowry played with the composition to include features that would not have been observable had he remained in only one spot while composing the picture.

By following the Lowry Trail, which is described in a helpful booklet produced by the town council, one not only learns about the artist, but also gets to see much of the town. Berwick-upon-Tweed is an attractive town filled with historic buildings and picturesque viewpoints. The trail helps the visitor to make the most of the sights in a most interesting way.

Above and below the ground in London’s Guildhall

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THE GUILDHALL ART Gallery is one of London’s many excellent places to view paintings, often by well-known artists. Until 20 September 2026, it is holding an exhibition of paintings by Jock McFadyen, who was born in Scotland in 1950. He studied art first at the Glasgow School of art, then at Chelsea School of Art.

The exhibition at the Guildhall is called “Underground (and Surface)”, and is displayed in three rooms. One of them, the first you enter, has McFadyen’s large scale paintings of Underground (‘Tube’) stations. These works transform the mundane aspects of these everyday sights into dramatic works of art. The views and details that so many commuters see twice a day, and probably hardly notice, become strangely significant when viewed in McFadyen’s pictures. The room housing these pictures is not silent. Recordings of Underground train sounds, collected and recorded by Jem Finer of The Pogues (a popular music ensemble) provide a background to the paintings.

Another large room contain McFadyen’s images of London above ground. Like the Underground paintings, the overground ones are large. They depict views of London in ways that make ordinary scenes become extraordinarily beautiful. One picture is curious because it shows a line of buildings in Bethnal Green standing beneath a portrait of Mont Blanc covered with snow.

The third and smallest room contains some of McFadyen’s portraits. They are competently executed but not nearly as visually exciting as the works in the other two rooms. Nevertheless, taken as a whole, the exhibition is worth a visit.

A female artist at a gallery near London’s Smithfield

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REGULARLY, WE PAY visits to London’s commercial art galleries, often to view contemporary art. Many of the galleries are in Mayfair, but one of our favourites, Beers, is near to Smithfield Market and the Barbican. Run by Kurt Beers, a retired Canadian Mountie, the gallery often has exhibitions of works by lesser known, but up-and-coming creators. The current show is a collection of paintings by Georgia Dymock, who was born in Derbyshire in 1998.

Georgia studied art at London’s Slade School of Fine Art, and was awarded a Master’s degree in painting. Since then, she has exhibited her works in the UK, USA, Turkey, Mexico, Dubai, and China. Her current show at Beers continues until 11 July 2026.

The paintings at Beers are figurative, and painted in muted colours. They depict intimacy with great sensitivity, and in some cases, humorously. One of them, which includes an apple, is a modern depiction of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Somewhat dreamlike, Dymock, to quote the gallery’s press release, often:

“… constructs scenes that resist fixed interpretation”

Additionally, the gallery’s text points out:

“Beneath the sweetness of the paintings lies a quieter instability where affection shifts uneasily between nourishment and surrender.”

Regardless of how the paintings are interpreted, they are pleasing to look at, and refreshingly different from much other art that I have seen in London’s commercial galleries.

An artist from Germany who uses paint spraying techniques

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ABSTRACTION IN ART is not to everyone’s taste, but I enjoy viewing it. Maybe, this is because I was brought up by a parent, my mother, who created abstract sculptures. Until 31 May 2026, the White Cube Gallery in London’s Bermondsey is holding an exhibition of abstract works by Katharina Grosse, who was born in West Germany in 1961.

Grosse was educated at art schools in West Germany including Kunstakademie Münster and Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Currently, she divides her time between Berlin and New Zealand. Since the 1990s, soon after qualifying at the art schools, she began making creations using acrylic paint applied with an industrial spray gun. Often, she sprays onto canvases, but also on other things. For example, in 2004, she sprayed the bedroom of her flat in Düsseldorf — everything in it including the bed, floor and the clothes, books and shoes strewn across it — in rainbow-hued acrylics. At the White Cube, one large gallery has been filled with piles of rubble. These piles, the floor, and the walls of the room have all been sprayed with coloured paints, producing an environment that looks psychedelic.

In the other rooms at White Cube, one can view huge canvases on which she has created abstract compositions using her paint sprayer and a variety of different coloured paints. I liked most of these creations. They look good as a whole and, also, when examined in detail. Using her paint application methods, she has produced many visually intriguing effects.

The gallery’s website explained:

“Since the late 1990s, Grosse has primarily worked with acrylic pigments and an industrial spray gun, creating marks that register not only the image, but also the movement of her body as she makes it. The spray gun allows her to extend her body beyond its reach, as far as her eyes can see. In this way she proposes a correlation between the act of looking and the act of painting, an approach informed, in part, by her early exposure to street shows and experimental theatre – productions that dismantled the traditional division between stage and audience.”

I like the idea that what can be seen in the paintings is a record of the movements she made while creating them. Of course, this is the case with every artist’s paintings, but in Grosse’s pictures, the results are not images of objects or ideas but documentation of her movements whilst creating the images.

Apart from being a vibrant and exciting collection of artworks, this show introduces the viewer to an exciting approach to artistic creation.

An artist from Sweden near London’s Smithfield meat market

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KURT BEERS IS probably unique amongst owners of commercial art galleries in London because he was once a ‘Mountie’, a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. His gallery in Little Britain (near the Smithfield meat market and the Barbican) specialises in showcasing contemporary paintings created by up-and-coming artists and those in mid-career. Often, the gallery shows the works of painters, who are not yet well-known, but deserve to become better recognised.  Until 23 May 2026, Beers has an exhibition of works by Alice Herbst.

Alice was born in Sweden in 1993. She studied art at the Stockholm School of Fine Art, and then at the Gerlesberg School of Fine Art. Her show at Beers is called “The Whispering Game”, and is a collection of paintings made between 2025 and 2026. As soon as I saw the paintings, I liked them. Excellently executed, well-composed, and intriguing, they are highly original: a breath of fresh air. Without knowing exactly what, I felt that each painting told a story. What that story was intended to be by the artist did not matter because the viewer can make up his or her interpretation of what was being portrayed.

In many of the paintings, masks can be seen, either being worn or just on their own. In a couple of paintings, faces were partially obscured. Why the masks and the hidden faces are so prevalent would make interesting subject matter for a psychologist. Another feature in Alice’s paintings are depictions of paintings within the paintings. For example, in one picture a masked woman seems to be holding a bunch of flowers. After a moment, one can see that it is not a bouquet in her hand but a board with a painting of flowers upon it. In another painting, a still life that includes a vase with flowers, the flowers appear to be a painting of flowers on a board, rather than real flowers. These types of images within images and the profusion of masks make Alice’s paintings more than pretty pictures, and give one cause to wonder.

As with all the shows we have viewed at Beers, Alice’s paintings were well-displayed on the whitewashed walls of the gallery. Though far from the large group of art galleries in Mayfair, Beers deserves regular visits.

A place where there are no birds

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DURING A RECENT visit to the Tate Britain art gallery in London, we stopped to view a room that contained paintings of birds. All the paintings except one contained depictions of at least one bird. The exception, in which there was no bird to be seen, was painted by Richard Wilson (1713-1782).

The painting is called “Lake Avernus and the Island of Capri”, and was painted in about 1760. Lake Avernus is near Naples (Napoli). In Roman mythology, it was believed by to be the mouth of Hades, the hellish underworld described in the “Aeneid” by the Roman author Virgil (70 BC – 19 BC). This evil place was believed to emit fumes that killed any birds flying over it.

The name Averna is derived from the Greek word ‘aornos’, which translates as ‘without birds’. Hence the absence of birds in Wilson’s painting.

An exhibition which did not appeal to me

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ONE CANNOT HOPE to enjoy every work of art that is on display. Until 6 September 2026, at the Serpentine South Gallery there is an exhibition of paintings by Cecily Brown, who was born in London in 1960, and studied art at London’s  Slade School of Fine Art. She works in New York.

I found Brown’s paintings to be messily composed. Each one looked like paint had been applied without much attention to composition. I might be missing something subtle, but her paintings did not appeal to me.

Well, at least I gave them a chance by viewing them.

Art says things that history cannot, St John the Baptist on a tray, and a Colombian artist

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WORKS BY COLOMBIAN artist Beatriz Gonzalez (1932-2026) are being exhibited at London’s Barbican art gallery until 10 May 2026. She began studying architecture in the 1950s, but dropped out. Later, she studied fine arts at the University of Los Andes in Bogota, graduating in 1962.

Over the years, Gonzalez produced a wide variety of works, and throughout her life she believed that (to quote her): “Art says things that history cannot”, and what one can see in the exhibition confirms this. She lived through troubled times in Colombia, and this is reflected in many of her artworks. She has been described as a ‘pop artist’ possibly because many of her works were inspired by things she saw in magazines, newspapers, posters, and other media aimed at the public. However, she discounted this description, as can be seen by this answer to the question “Did you ever consider yourself (now or in the past) a pop artist?” during an interview she gave at the Tate Gallery in 2015:

“No, I considered my work a provincial type of painting. I’ve always considered myself more of a painter and within this remit I painted the joy of the underdeveloped. For me the type of art that I was doing could only circulate internationally as a curiosity. Mine was a provincial type of art without horizons, confronting the everyday: art is international.”

I will not attempt to discuss all the works on display at the Barbican, but will confine myself to her paintings on items of furniture, which she commenced in the 1970s. These beautifully executed creations are often quite witty. “The Last Supper” was one of the first of these pieces of furniture repurposed as a work of art. It consists of a fine table on the top of which the artist has painted a simplified version of a renaissance depiction of the Last Supper. And on a wooden coat stand, the mirror has been painted over with Gonzalez’s simplified version of the famous Mona Lisa painting. Another example is a straw basket with a ribbon on its handle. On the inside of the base of this everyday object she has painted a picture of three puppies resting on a floor. There is also a metal cot whose base is painted with a picture of a sleeping child. In the show, there are some televisions with paintings of people covering their screens. By now, you must be getting the idea of this aspect of Gonzalez’s art. My favourite example of this re-use of household items as places to paint pictures is a circular tray on which the artist has depicted Salome carrying the severed head of St John the Baptist on a circular tray.

Apart from the painted furniture and domestic items, the exhibition has a series of sections that show examples of Gonzalez’s art at the various stages in her artistic career. As is often the case at the Barbican art gallery, the artworks are beautifully displayed and well labelled.

David Hockney shows that age need not be an impediment to creativity

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THE ARTIST DAVID Hockney (born 1937) had his eighty-eighth birthday in July 2025.Yet age has not stopped him from creating prolifically. Today, 25 February 2026, we visited an exhibition of his work at the Anely Juda Fine Art Gallery in London’s Hanover Square. It is on until 28 February 2026.

The upper gallery on the first floor is a collection of works, moonscapes and nightscapes, that Hockney created on an iPad, and then had printed and framed. I am no lover of Hockney’s iPad creations, and those on display did not excite me. However, in the ground floor galleries, a treat awaited us. On display was a collection of oil paintings, all created by Hockney in 2025. They include several portraits, depictions of interiors with and without people, and a self-portrait in which the artist can be seen painting while seated in a wheelchair. In some of the pictures, instead of painting the view through a door or window, the artist has pasted photographs of what can be seen outside onto the canvas. Each of the paintings displays a joyful love of life and is richly coloured. In addition, Hockney experiments with perspective in some of the paintings, often with pleasantly surprising results.

To summarise, this is an exhibition worth seeing if you happen to be in London during the next few days. Like Picasso, Hockney demonstrates that advancing age need not necessarily curtail artistic expression.