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.
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.
RECENTLY I NOTICED a sculpture close to Tate Britain but not within it.
When the Chelsea School of Art – now the Chelsea College of Art and Design – moved from Chelsea to Millbank next to Tate Britain, so did this sculpture by Henry Moore (1898-1986). Called “Two Piece Reclining Figure No 1” and created in 1959, this was originally placed in the Chelsea campus of the art school, where for a time in the 1930s Moore was Head of Sculpture. When the college relocated to Millbank, the Sculpture moved with it.
ALTHOUGH THE ROYAL Academician John Zoffany (1733-1810) visited India and created paintings there, the younger and more famous Academician JMW Turner (1775-1851) never visited the country. Yet, an exhibition at the Tate Britain in London, which is showing until 12 April 2026, contains two of Turner’s depictions of Indian landscapes.
Both Zoffany and Turner lived and worked before the birth and full exploitation of photography. Travellers could record their impressions of places both by writing and by sketching or painting. Amongst the many who went out to India in the nineteenth and earlier centuries, there were plenty of officials (both military and civilian) who recorded what they saw by sketching and with paints. It would seem that these people were skilled artists probably because art was included in their education. The images created were important for surveying and topographical purposes as well as, perhaps, a way of passing time in outposts where there was little else to do when the work of the day was over.
Turner, who had become a successful artist, was often commissioned by print publishers to create images that could later be reproduced as mass produced editions of engravings. He painted images of places he had visited as well as places he had never been to. India was one of the latter. However, he created beautiful watercolour depictions of Indian landscapes based on sketches that had been made by British army officers when they were based in India. The two ‘Indian’ watercolours on display in the exhibition are “Musooree and the Dhoon from Landor” (painted in 1835) and “Rocks at Colgong on the Ganges in Bihar” (painted c1835). Both are exquisitely executed and less ethereal than some of his better-known paintings.
“Turner was a great and inventive colourist. If you look at his work from the beginning to the end of his life, the early works are quite dark and sombre, but the later ones are full of colour – brilliant yellow, red, blacks, crimsons, blues. Even if he hadn’t been to somewhere like India, he lived in a place where a lot of people had and they were bringing back descriptions of a more colourful place than England, which was smoky and dark and dull and raining all the time. People were coming back to this England with memories of a place that was full of colour. This was bound to change people’s ideas. In Sir John Soane’s museum in London, there is a bright yellow living room, almost an Indian yellow. That was a yellow that was introduced in Turner’s lifetime, much brighter than anything available before. The tastes for those colours would definitely have been brought back from the empire.”
Even if we cannot be certain, it is possible that some of the pigments brought back from India might have found their way on to his glorious canveses.
The two Indian landscapes form only a minute part of a large, well-attended show setting the works of Constable and Turner side-by-side. Yet, seeing them really helped make the exhibition a ‘hit’ for me. Soon, I will write about other aspects of this show that caught my interest.
THE DUVEEN GALLERIES in London’s Tate Britain provide a wonderful space to display sculptures. The rooms are wide, long, and have high ceilings. Their walls are plain and do not distract the viewer. Until 30 March 2026, these magnificent spaces contain a selection of sculptures by Jacob Epstein (1880-1959), who was born in New York City. He joined the Art Students League in New York, before moving to Paris in 1902, where he studied sculpture at the École des Beaux Arts and Académie Julian. He settled in London in 1905. Both in Paris and London, he studied non-European sculpture, and what he learned from it often influenced his work. Some of the stone carvings in the Duveen Galleries are evidence of this. Soon after arriving in London, he began receiving important commissions to produce sculptures for significant institutions in London such as the British Medical Association (now Zimbabwe House). He became naturalised as a British citizen in 1910.
The collection of sculptures in the Duveen Galleries includes several stone carvings in different styles. The Tate’s website noted:
“In the 1910s, Epstein became a key figure in the ‘direct carving’ movement in Britain. This approach emphasised a ‘truth to materials’, in which sculptors worked directly with the stone, using its natural qualities rather than making wax or clay models first. He was influenced by the techniques and imagery used in ancient Egyptian, West African and Oceanic carvings, which he collected. At the time, his portrayal of sexuality as well as the simplified forms of his monumental figure carvings drew both admiration and intense criticism, limiting his opportunities for public commissions.”
Some of the sculptures on the former British Medical Association (now Zimbabwe House) building were criticised as being too explicit for Edwardian tastes, when they were completed in 1908. Sadly, these sculptures that can still be viewed from the Strand are badly damaged by being exposed to the weather and pollution.
The stone carvings in the Duveen, which vary from figurative to almost abstract, were all new to me. The bronze busts of famous and not-so-famous people include portraits of family members, artists, writers, entertainers and other public figures. These are the works that I tend to associate with Epstein. So, seeing his stone sculptures was a new and pleasant revelation for me. Each of the sculptures on display is accompanied by an informative panel. The works are well spaced so that each one can be admired in splendid isolation. This is an exhibition worth seeing.
THE PAINTER REX WHISTLER (1905-1944) was commissioned by the Tate Gallery (now the Tate Britain) to create a mural for what was its refreshment room in 1926. Assisted by Katharine Ann West (1904–1930), it was completed by 1927. Completely surrounding the room, it illustrates a narrative, which has been summarised on the Tate’s website as follows:
“Whistler’s mural depicts an expedition in search of rare food and drink, led by the fictional Duke of Epicurania. A hunting party sets off from the steps of the gallery. It travels across rivers and seas, through pastoral landscapes and wild forests. The group shoots at leopards and deer and meets unicorns and mermaids. They pass islands topped with Italian cities, encounter shipwrecks and ruins, and visit the Great Wall of China. They return home laden with spoils, greeted by a cheering crowd.”
Usually, the former refreshment room and its mural are not open to the public. Recently, it has been opened and within it a large screen has been set-up. A short film is projected on the screen. The film has two actors, one playing the part of Rex Whistler, and the other of a fictional academic, Professor Shepherd, who discusses the mural with him. Unfortunately, because the film is being screened, the former dining room has subdued lighting, which makes it difficult to fully appreciate Whistler’s superbly painted mural.
Most of the mural is gloriously picturesque, and cannot give rise to any objections. However, if you look closely, there are two insensitive depictions of Black people that might easily cause offence to viewers today. Whether they would have upset the Tate’s visitors in the late 1920s, I do not know. The bulk of the dialogue in the film being screened in the room relates to the presence of these two frankly racist images on the mural. During the film, the fictional prof gives the artist a hard time about the way he represented the two Black people. I got the impression that the person who wrote the script wished to convey that Whistler could not see why the prof was upset by the way he had painted these figures.
The mural was painted eight years after WW1, during which Black and Asian soldiers fought and sacrificed their lives for the British who had colonised the countries from which they came. Whistler must have known about them. Only seven years before the mural was created, countless numbers of Indians were slaughtered at Jallianwala Bagh in the Punjab. Their massacre was ordered by Reginald Edward Harry Dyer. After he was reprimanded for this, and had returned to England, the public, regarding him as a hero rather than a murderer, raised over £26000 (approximately £1,485,000 today) for him. And that was after 1920. It might be a big leap, but it struck me that if the British public felt justified raising so much for such a man in the 1920s, maybe many of them would have seen nothing to complain about when seeing how Whistler portrayed people of colour in 1927.
AT TATE BRITAIN in London, there is an exhibition of photographs taken by the highly talented Lee Miller (1907-1977), which is showing until 15 February 2026. We visited it today, 15 October 2025. There is a vast number (about 250) of Miller’s photographic works on display. And there was a vast number of people looking at them. Plenty of the images are quite small, and viewing them was not easy because of the crowd of other visitors.
After leaving the exhibition, I looked at the catalogue that has been prepared for it. Many of the exhibits are reproduced well in this huge volume. Whereas in almost all other exhibitions, viewing the actual artworks in ‘real life’ is far more satisfactory than seeing them in a catalogue. I felt the reverse was the case with the Lee Miller show. With the catalogue in your hands, you cans get close to the images, and enjoy them for as long as you wish without being disturbed by others around you.
Unless you are a Member of the Tate, you need to pay about £20 (per person) to see the exhibition. The catalogue costs £32 (paperback). In the case of this exhibition, but not most others, I would suggest buying the catalogue without purchasing an entry ticket. It is a case of see the book, not the exhibition.
UNTIL I ATTENDED the superb display of the paintings of Edward Burra (1905-1976) at a special exhibition at London’s Tate Britain, I associated him only with depictions of the USA. Despite his Italian sounding surname, Burra’s father came from a long-established British family. Edward trained as an artist at Chelsea School of Art, then at the Royal College of Art. In 1925, he contracted rheumatic fever, and for the rest of his life he suffered ill-health. However, this does not seem to have affected his ability to produce an impressive number of beautiful paintings.
The exhibition at Tate Britain displays Burra’s paintings and drawings chronologically. Throughout his life, he produced works of art that are not only attractive and intriguing but also sensitive portrayals of his views of the times in which he lived. Some paintings exhibit his interest in surrealism, but although many of his paintings have a dreamlike quality, they are in the main not what could be described as Surrealist. His images of France, although highly original and imaginative, capture the ‘atmosphere’ of French life between the two World Wars. Burra was keen on jazz. Many of his paintings include jazz musicians, particularly those he made while visiting the USA, and New York City in particular. The exhibition includes a collection of some of the artist’s collection of jazz music records.
Burra lived through two World Wars and the Spanish Civil War. The Tate’s exhibition includes many of his paintings depicting the horrors of these conflicts. The final room of the show displays Burra’s portrayals of Britain. The artist’s depictions of landscapes is stylistically original, slightly abstracted, but evokes their nature perfectly.
Whether Burra is painting people or objects or machinery or landscapes, the impact of his painting is in each case powerful. This wonderful exhibition will continue until 19 October 2025, and is well worth seeing. I am glad I went because now I realise that although his paintings of New York and jazz are wonderful, they are only a fraction of Burra’s amazingly artistic output.
THE FIRST ROOOM of the Tate’s exhibition of photographic images of Britain in the 1980s, “The 80s Photographing Britain”, was disappointing. There were too many small photographs, which would have been far easier to appreciate by seeing them in a catalogue or book. However, the other rooms of this show, which is on until 5 May 2025, contain many photographs that are often interesting as well as artistic. As the Tate’s website explained, during the ‘80s:
“… photography was used as a tool for social change, political activism, and artistic and photographic experiments.”
It continued to say that the visitor to the exhibition will:
“See powerful images that gave voice and visibility to underrepresented groups in society. This includes work depicting the Black arts movement, queer experience, South Asian diaspora and the representation of women in photography.”
After my initial disappointment in the first room of the exhibition, I soon began enjoying the exciting range of pictures on display in the rest of the show. During most of the 1980s, I was working as a dentist in a small, rather conservative provincial district in Kent, and was largely unaware of the social changes that were going on around me. So, now, many years later after having seen the exhibition at the Tate Britain, it has only dawned on me what had passed me by while I was concentrating on looking after the dental health of some of the inhabitants of the Medway Towns.
Would I recommend seeing this show? My answer is ‘yes’, but hurry because it is ending soon.
THE EXHIBITION WE saw today (the 3rd of June 2024) at London’s Tate Britain exceeded our expectations. Called “Now You See Us”, it consists of about 150 artworks created by over 100 women, working between the years 1520 and 1920. Apart from their gender, these artists shared at least one other thing in common: they were professional artists who worked in Britain, rather than talented amateurs. The earliest works on display are by women working in the Tudor Courts during the 16th century. They include Susanna Horenbout (1503–1554) and Levina Teerlinc (c.1510s–1576), some of whose exquisite paintings can be seen in the exhibition.
There were too many artists to be able to describe them all in this short essay. Some of them (for example: Angelica Kauffman, Artemisia Gentileschi, Mary Beale, Mary Moser, Laura Knight, Julia Margaret Cameron, and Elizabeth Forbes) are now well-known, but others whose works are exhibited are somewhat obscure. One notable artist, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755-1842), who lived (and painted a little) in England for about three years, is not exhibited in the show, which is a pity because from what I have seen of her work (at Ickworth House in Suffolk), she was a highly competent artist. Next, I will highlight several things that particularly interested me in this superb exhibition.
There are several small paintings created on sheets of ivory. They reminded me of the glass paintings I have seen in India. One of these is a beautifully executed self-portrait by Sarah Biffin (1784-1850). She was born without arms or legs, yet learned to sew, write, and paint using her mouth. Early in her career, she worked at country fairs, where people used to pay to watch her draw and paint. Later, she established herself as a professional portraitist.
There were three photographs by the Victorian photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron, about whom I have written a short book. I am glad that her works are included in the exhibition because her skill was creating painterly works of art, rather than accurate images, with photography. Here work was greatly admired by the pre-Raphaelites.
I was interested to see a painting by Frances Reynolds (1729-1807), who was the sister of the famous artist Sir Joshua Reynolds. Although the painting is not a great work of art, its presence in the exhibition exemplifies the situation for women artists before they were first admitted to art schools in the second half of the 18th century. Before that time, several of the artists, whose work is on display, had to learn to paint from male artists in their family – fathers, husbands, and so on.
For a very personal reason, I was interested to see a painting by the poet and painter Anne Killigrew (1660-1685). Her father was the playwright Henry Killigrew (1613-1700). The reason that this Killigrew family is of interest to me is that their coat of arms includes the double-headed eagle, indicating the family’s connection with the mediaeval Earls of Cornwall. Sadly, Anne, whose works are attractive, died young following a smallpox infection.
One room of the exhibition contained works by women artists working in the Victorian era. These, often sentimental, works did not appeal to me. However, the final room, which contains works created in the first two decades of the 20th century, is spectacular. Many of the exhibits in this room demonstrate how artists were abandoning tradition, and exploring new techniques. This period coincided with the gradual improvement in women’s rights in Britain.
The exhibition continues until the 13th of October 2024, and is well worth visiting.
yamey 