PREVIOUS EVENTS
2010 - 2009 - 2008 - 2007 - 2006Tuesday, 22 June 2010 9:00 am – 6:00 pm
Day Trip to Chichester – Pallant House Gallery
Our day started with a visit to the exhibition Surreal Friends at Pallant House Gallery featuring the work of Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo and Kati Horna - an English painter, a Spanish painter and a Hungarian photographer. After a welcome by Stefan van Raay, Director of Pallant House Gallery and curator of the exhibition we were given a tour by Guardian journalist Joanna Moorhead, co-curator of the exhibition and great-niece of Leonora Carrington. The exhibition celebrates the friendship of these three women who met in Mexico City in 1943. All three had recently fled war-torn Europe and together they shared memories of Paris, Surrealism, the Spanish Civil War, and the outbreak of World War II. This exhibition represents the first substantial display of Carringon's work in Britain for 19 years, and the first ever comprehensive showing of works by her friends Varo and Horna in the UK .
www.surrealfriends.com and www.pallant.org.uk
After a self-treat lunch in the gallery’s popular Field and Fork restaurant we had a guided tour of the permanent collection of Modern British Art. Pallant House Gallery was created in part due to a generous gift of artworks from Walter Hussey, Dean of Chichester Cathedral from 1955 – 1977. Following the tour of the permanent collection we headed to Chichester Cathedral for a tour to admire the many artworks commissioned by Hussey for the Cathedral.
Friday, 21 May, 10 am
Late 19th Century into Bloomsbury at National Portrait GalleryCurator led tour of the permanent exhibition of the National Portrait Gallery, focusing on the late 19th Century into Bloomsbury, artists and subjects.
Friday, 7 May 2010, 9:00 am – 7:00 pm
Day long visit to Cambridge:
including sculptor’s studio, Fitzwilliam Museum,
New Hall Art Collection and Kettle’s Yar
First stop: Studio tour and visit with artist, Helaine Blumenfeld. One of the boldest and most diverse artists working today, she has continually experimented with form, producing an extensive body of work which combines a respect for tradition and sculptural values with the breathtaking vitality of the twentieth century. www.helaineblumenfeld.com
12:30: Fitzwilliam Museum to view Maggi Hambling: The Wave and the Sculpture Promenade, including works by Angela Conner and Ann Christopher, members of the Royal British Society of Sculptors.
www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk
Self-host lunch
2:45: Curator led tour of New Hall Art Collection, at Murray Edwards College (formerly New Hall) to see collection of contemporary art by women. Collection includes works by Paula Rego, Barbara Hepworth and Maggi Hambling.
www.newhall.cam.ac.uk
4:00 Kettle’s Yard, about a 10 minute walk. Visit exhibition. Introductory talk and private after-hours visit to the House. www.kettlesyard.co.uk
5:30 return to London. Arrive London at 18:38 or 19:05 depending on train we catch.
Tuesday, 27 April 2010, 9:00 am
Quilts: 1700-2010 at the V&A
Cromwell Road, SW7Pre-opening private view to this blockbuster exhibition, Quilts: 1700-2010. Curator Sue Prichard talked about the 300 years of quilting history on show. Sue is passionate about her subject: “Quilting has universal appeal and the time is right for a re-evaluation of these traditional techniques and skills.”
Earliest examples displayed include a sumptuous silk and velvet bedcover, with an oral narrative that links it to King Charles II's visit to an Exeter manor house in the late 17th century. Recent examples include works by leading artists such as Grayson Perry and Tracey Emin and commissions for the exhibition by a number of contemporary artists including Sue Stockwell and Caren Garfen.
At a time when we are used to high speed communication and instant gratification, Quilts takes us back to an age of slow design. Many of the contemporary artists involved in the exhibition focus on the multi-layering of textiles as a metaphor for our complex modern lives. Sara Impey is taken with the idea that “a narrative imbues every quilt” while the painterly approach of Jo Budd takes us in the direction of large scale colour painting.
This exciting exhibition also includes examples of work from inmates at Wandsworth prison (Fine Cell Work) who find solace in the creative process of design and the meditative process of stitching.
Thursday, 18 March, 11:00 am - 2:00 pm
Photo/Video Crawl in the West End:
Curator/Gallerist/Artist talks
Start: Frith Street Gallery, 17-18 Golden Square, W1F 9JJ
A West End crawl with curator/gallerist/artist talks, to include:
· Jaki Irvine, Seven Folds in Time, a multiscreen installation exploring the relationship between film and music at Frith Street Gallery
· 24:2010, 24 photographers each capturing an hour of New Year’s Day – tour by artist in Golden Square
· Alice Anderson, Time Reversal, installation, including thousands of metres of hair, film, sculptures and photographs, based on fictional childhood memories at Riflemaker. The artist was present to discuss her work.
· Deutsche Börse Prize at the Photographers’ Gallery: three of four shortlisted photographers are women: Anna Fox, Zoe Leonard and Sophie Ristelhueber.
Wednesday, 10 March, 9:15 – 10:15
Gillian Ayres at 80,
Coffee and Gallerist’s talk
Alan Cristea Gallery, 34 Cork Street, W1S 3NU
www.alancristea.comA pre-opening private view and gallerist’s talk, introducing this exhibition showcasing new work by one of Britain’s most respected artists celebrating her 80th birthday.
Broadcaster Andrew Marr described Gillian Ayres as ‘probably the finest abstract painter alive in Britain’. He continued: ‘Ayres has always been obsessively concerned with painting — the unfolding of a self-contained logic, whirling chaos held just in check. In her acid/sweet collisions, the complexity and crampedness, and then the unscrambling, of the canvas, it’s about energy, laid down in colour and transmitted in shockwaves to the viewer'.
Ayres is best known for her vibrant palette and the sheer physicality with which she applies paint to canvas. The works in this exhibition contain many familiar motifs but also represent a marked progression. Each work brims with her usual energy, however these new compositions are more distilled and exude the confidence of a painter at the height of her powers.
Ayres was initially influenced by American Abstract Expressionism in the 1950s, but sees her work as part of a European tradition. Gillian Ayres said: 'Titian, Rubens and Matisse are the greatest painters, unashamedly, of sheer beauty but they also used the medium to the fullest in every sense before or since.'
Wednesday, 3rd March, from 6:30 – 8:00 pm
Projectspace 176/ Zabludowicz Collection
Private Guided TourAfter hours access and a curator guided tour of The Library of Babel / In and Out of Place, in which guest curator, Anna-Catharina Gebbers invited us into a salon-style exhibition of selections from the Zabludowicz Collection. Showcasing 200 works, the format emphasises the deliberately overwhelming amount of contemporary works of art including painting, photography, sculpture and video.
Wednesday, 3rd February
Day trip to Liverpool
Day trip to Liverpool with a visit to the exhibition "The Rise of Women Artists" at the Walker Art Museum , led by curator Laura MacCulloch. We also had some time to view the permanent collections at the Walker and visit “Afro Modern – Journeys through the Black Atlantic” at Tate Liverpool with an introduction to the exhibition by co-curator Peter Gorschlüter.
At 3:30 participants were free to choose from the following options:
- a private visit to the Paintings and Works on Paper studios at the Conservation Centre of the National Museums Liverpool with talks by David Abbot and other restoration experts ;
- continuing to visit Tate Liverpool (in addition to “Afro Modern” there was a survey exhibition of sculpture from the Tate Collection “This is Sculpture” as well as Mark Rothko’s Seagrams Murals);
- exploring Liverpool on your own.
Monday 1st February at 9:30 a.m.
Lisa Milroy RA
Breakfast Talk
The Arts Club
40 Dover Street
London W1S 4NP
Lisa Milroy RA spoke "in conversation" with Friends of NMWA UK subscriber Susie Allen of Artwise Curators about her experiences as a woman academician, particularly her recent experience on the Council, the governing body of the Royal Academy.
This event is part of a series of breakfast talks about the role of women at the Royal Academy . Friends of NMWA , UK has kindly been invited to participate in this series in collaboration with the Contemporary Circle of the Royal Academy.
