CityLit's looking at Paintings course -Getting to the end

Tate Britain - it's beginning to look a lot
like Christmas  

This Wednesday we were back at Tate Britain for the penultimate group (City Lit Looking at Paintings  course) - Tate Britain has got a great Kitsch-y Christmas look and it was nice to there (less Crowded than National Gallery).



Generally the course has run along the theme of Genres but there's also been a less defined underlying chronological undercurrent and with these last two sessions (next one is at Tate Modern) we're coming (almost) up to date.

Julia shows us a 'near' abstract

 
So first of all don't get me wrong I do like Tate Britain but there are times when I'm struck by the fact that certainly after the Pre-Raphaelites and before the British Pop Art there was a period where most of what came along did not do it for me - much of it looked downbeat and  was concerned solely with the artist - so it was that what we looked at on Wednesday might have been of significance but was (I'm sorry to say) for was not exciting.

A story of Lizzie

[By the way interested to see that there's a book about the somewhat tragic Lizzie Siddal a muse and model to many of 'The Brotherhood and lover of Rossetti].

We did look at an example of British 'Quasi Surrealism' by Meredith Frampton called 'Trial and Error' which can also be read as a Still life Momento Mori. Meredith was the son of celebrated sculptor George Meredith.

Trial and Error (1939)

We did look at some Walter Sickert works and I do like his paintings but he is almost an honorary European, spending much of his time in France and being the son of a German-Danish Artist.



Sickert was a somewhat restless artist associated with Camden Town Group latterly much of his work was derived from Media images (often The Press) like the picture below of Miss Gwen..., who was a famous actress.


This use by Sickert was long before it became the 'vogue' to use Mass Media in works of Art as Sir Peter Black and Andy Warhol did in the 60's.


I am looking forward to (I hope) seeing more examples of Sickert when I visit the National Portrait Gallery with a City Lit  course in 2018.

[There were stories that Sickert was in fact Jack the Ripper - not sure how much salt is needed with that!]

Late Period Sickert - Miss Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies as Isabella of France (1932)