Paris: Our Last Day

March 4, 2023 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

We wanted an early start on our last day. Jane had spotted, during our first two days in Paris, a hotel that was renowned for its early and good quality breakfast. This was Frenchie Pigalle in Hotel Grand Pigalle where the chef (Greg Marchand) was a Jamie Oliver mentee/colleague who had now struck up successfully on his own. Certainly the coffee was good, my omelette was nice and Jane enjoyed her granola. Satisfyingly replete, we set off to fulfil our pre-booked visit to Sainte-Chapelle.

In a bit of spare time we walked around the front of Notre Dame Cathedral. A huge crane towers over the site but it is clear that the restoration following the great fire in April 2019 is well under way. Its current closure is presumably adding to the popularity of nearby Sainte Chappelle and the queue we joined outside the Palais de Justice was rather chaotic and substantial – even with our pre-booking.

We had a good moan to ourselves about the French system of queuing and the bottlenecks around security checking but actually we were in chapel with 30 minutes and had to reprimand ourselves for our impatience. The visit was, in any case, well worth the wait.

*^{Palais De Justice (With Sainte Chapelle In The Background)}*

The building dates from the 14th century. Its highpoint are 15 terrific stained glass windows telling stories from the Old and New Testaments which date from that time. These windows are set in huge panels over 15 metres high under the extraordinarily high, barrel-vaulted ceiling of the Upper Chapel. Although the stained glass (over 1,000 pieces) is only of five colours, the overall effect is spectacular and there is huge detail in each piece. Apparently these details, such as facial features, have been picked out by painted-on mixes of powdered glass, oxides and vinegar.

The bright colours of the windows have been replenished through careful cleaning in recent years and luck and happenstance seems to have allowed the chapel to avoid predations of the French Revolution and war. It remains an awesome, gigantic space.

*^{Stained Glass Windows, Sainte Chapelle (The Pictures Can’t Capture Their Marvel)}*

Beneath the upper chapel was a lower one that, with its low ceiling, resembled a crypt. It too has beautifully coloured stained glass, walls and columns. It was another lovely room.

Once back outside, we left the Ile De La Cite and strolled through the shopping streets of St Germain. I dived into the church of Saint-Sulpice while Jane bought socks. This is the second largest church in Paris (after the Notre Dame) and its simple internal structure ensured that its sheer size was the first thing I noticed. There are some famous murals including one by Eugène Delacroix but I found more interest in a small display showing the way the church had been realigned and then expanded from its inception in 1646 through to the late 1770s.

Saint-Sulpice

Jane and I split up for the afternoon. While she returned to the Marais district’s shops, I spent the afternoon in the Musée d’Orsay. This is a large, old railway station converted into multiple galleries for art but with the original carapace of the building still very much on show. It is yet another impressive Parisian building.

The art on show isn’t bad either! The collection of Impressionist art is perhaps the museum’s crown jewels. Its home on the top floor, alongside an equally strong collection of post-impressionist art, was the busiest part of the museum and by the time I arrived at the Van Gogh section I was flagging in the crowds a bit. This was despite the wonderful familiarity of his self-portraits and a version of the gorgeous ‘The Starry Night’.

Certainly there are so many famous paintings at the Musee D’Orsay. Occasionally, as a layman and non-artist, I felt a little frisson of self-satisfaction as I entered a room and either spotted a painting I knew or guessed correctly its artist creator.

Famous Pictures By Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet and Degas at Musee D’Orsay

Of course there was much that was new to me too. In particular I was struck by what I think I understood to be a number of ‘realist’ painters. I understood that realism predated impressionism; while realism focused on portraying accurate, detailed, almost unadorned depiction of everyday scenes, impressionism developed to capture how light interacts with the subject matter.

On several occasions my slow wandering around the museum was arrested by a picture that caught my eye and it often turned out to be by a realist painter. In the future, I will look out for painters I’d not heard of before this visit like James Tissot and Ernest Messonier.

Pictures That Caught My Eye By James Tissot

….And By Ernest Meissonier

I will also look out for exhibitions of work by Vilhelm Hammershoi, a Danish post-impressionist (I think – I’m no expert in all the genres) with strong artistic links back to 17th century Dutch masters. I saw two of his works, liked both and thought that Jane would like the grey tones in them.

*^{Interieur, Standgrade 30 By Vilhelm Hammershoi (1904)}*

I wandered back through the Tuileries to our hotel to meet up with Jane. I was both pretty exhausted and over-exposed to art by this time but I was very ready for another go at Buvette for dinner (rather than breakfast which we had tried earlier in out trip).

My coq au vin was excellent but the vegetable dishes were a little strange. Jane’s beetroot and horseradish dish and my chopped brussel sprout, raisin and nuts mix were both cold (deliberately) and so large that it was as well we were prepared to share rather than overdose on each. It felt good having had another dose of French food though – when in Paris…..

I’m looking forward to the next time!

Paris: A Joy Once Again

March 2, 2023 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

Jane and I visited Paris back in 2018 and, last week, we had another lovely visit to what is surely one of the most impressive capital cities in the world. I loved being back in a big, busy urban centre (I’m still missing London) and Paris has some tourist attractions that are second to none. The food is excellent again (after what seemed to me to be a dip in recent decades compared to London) and the café culture is thriving.

*^{Paris Stretched Out Before Us – A Great Urban Experience And City}*

On the back of BBC weather forecasts in the days leading up to our short break in Paris, we had prepared for three days of rain. In practice, we barely felt any rain. The afternoon of our first day was sunny and we had decent weather throughout our stay; not bad for February and excellent expectation management by the meteorologists!

We stayed in the gently trendy and comfortable Le Pigalle hotel. Having checked in, we used the unexpectedly good weather on our first afternoon to stroll around the nearby streets. As usual when we travel to European cities, we were impressed by the array of independent shops including florists, cheesemongers, bakeries and vegetable and fruit sellers – we barely saw a supermarket chain. We paused our walk to top up with a street-side burger-and-wine lunch and then wandered around Monmartre just to the north.

*^{Wonderful Fruit And Veg, Cheese, Bread And Mimosa Along So Many Streets}*

The Basilica du Sacré Cœur dominates the hill that the shops and residences of Monmartre surround. From the hill there are great views of almost all of Paris. The steps between the funicular and the Basilica were teeming with tourists and hawkers of souvenirs, cigarettes and little locks that adorn – no, litter! – the mesh fences around the slopes.

*^{Basilica Du Sacre Coeur And Great February Weather}*

I was amazed by the numbers of people; it was mid-week and February after all. But as we walked 50 yards away from the tourist hot spot, the numbers fell away quickly. Once we were clear of the souvenir shops, there was peace enough to enjoy the atmosphere, views, architecture and the sight of a great French tradition: games of petanque in the little gravelled spaces between the blocks of flats.

^{Views Just Behind Basilica Du Sacre Coeur (The Only Crowds Here Are Those Playing Petanque)}

*^{Eglise Saint-Pierre De Montmartre (Just Behind Basilica Du Sacre Coeur And Almost Deserted)}*

It had been an early start and so we welcomed a pre-booked early dinner at Julien Bouillon, a pleasantly traditional French Brasserie with a solid traditional menu of French food and wine. The stroll back through Pigalle showed how well French city café life has survived Covid and whatever economic travails France may be suffering. For a mid-week night, the streets and bars were very busy.

Next day we tried out breakfast in the Paris branch of Buvette. The breakfast itself was fine but the French seem to eat breakfast relatively late and the café was both empty and cold.

We didn’t linger and jumped on the metro to pay a visit to Père Lachaise Cemetery. This is the largest cemetery in Paris and, apparently, the most visited cemetery in the World. Fortunately the sheer size of the place means that its tranquillity is preserved once one is away from the main gate and into the lattice of paths that divide the cemetery into its 97 ‘divisions’.

*^{Views Approaching And Inside Pere Lachaise Cemetery}*

We saw some of the famous graves (Jim Morrison, Moliere etc.) but the real pleasures for me are in the scale, extravagance and creative designs of some of the lesser known graves and family mausoleums. Some of the family mausoleums are as big as houses!

*^{Close Up Views Of Some Of Pere Lachaise Cemetery Mausoleums}*

Our joint favourite tomb was that for Antoine-Augustin Parmentier who was an 18th century agronomist who, after living on potatoes as a prisoner during the ‘Seven Years War’, became evangelical about potatoes as a staple food. His avid promotion of potatoes was very successful and someone has celebrated this by placing a potato on his grave with the words “Merci pour les frites!” (look carefully below middle right).

As we had in 2018 (when it had been 40 degrees of heat in the cemetery) we walked south along the Canal Saint-Martin. This wide but often tree-lined canal provides a beautiful avenue to walk along with a multitude of bars left and right. We stopped in one (Brasserie au Comptoir) for a quick beer but enjoyed the place and the hoppy IPA beer so much that we rested up for longer than planned and shared a very nice chicken caesar salad. This model for lunch was something we tried to follow the following day but beer that we like (rather than lager) is still quite hard to find in the French café scene.

We walked into the Marais district, past all the pretty shop fronts, and intended to see the Picasso exhibition at the Musée Picasso. We had been thwarted in this during two previous Paris visits due to building works and, although we could get into the museum this time, the Picasso exhibition was not open due to a major rehanging of the work. At least we have an excuse to revisit Paris in the future when the Picasso section of the museum is open.

We sucked up our fleeting disappointment and went into two other temporary exhibitions in the museum. The first was a retrospective of the work of Faith Ringgold.

I had not heard of Ringgold and the first couple of rooms, while interesting, did not seem to offer me enough new on black art in late 20th century America. However, as the exhibition showed how her work evolved into a mix of paint and textiles, and of imagery and text, so I became very engaged. I liked the colours and the subject matter often, pleasingly, a little oblique to the normal activist themes.

*^{Selection of Works (Paint And Textiles) By Faith Ringgold}*

The exhibition in the basement of Picasso-inspired works by Pierre Moignard was much less interesting. What would have helped would have been some imagery of the Picasso piece that triggered each of the Moignard works. As it was, it was hard to understand or like them much.

*^{Some Of Pierre Moignard’s Work On Show At Musee Picasso}*

Dinner at Papi that night was a joy. We had spotted this beautiful-looking and busy restaurant during our walks the previous evening and we had booked the two remaining early evening slots. We found that the food quality more than matched that of the minimalist décor. The food and the service to deliver it were lovely and I recommend this restaurant highly.

The dinner capped a full day of Parisian pleasure. We had one more day in Paris ahead of us. The morning was partly planned out with a booking to visit Sainte-Chapelle in the morning followed by us splitting up for a while to pursue different interests after lunch; more on that in my next post.

*^{Eiffel Tower From Basilica Du Sacre Coeur}*

Barnsley and Bath

February 8, 2023February 9, 2023 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

Despite a few days of frosty mornings, spring feels like it is coming. Cheerful little snowdrops are out in the verges of our lanes. The birds are getting ever more active and noisy. We can open the blinds when we come down in the morning and get the start of proper daylight and the afternoons no longer seem so truncated. There was another heavy frost this morning but another winter is passing into greater light and warmth.

*^{A Recent Frosty Morning – Pretty Though!}*

I need to start getting active in the garden to clear the as yet unharvested leeks and the rotten stumps of chard and beetroot that I failed to harvest or that the deer got to before I could. Unfortunately, the very frustrating back strain I picked up while coughing (would you believe it!) last month continues to constrain activity a bit and I continue to use it as an excuse to restrict myself to extremely light, low-value gardening duties.

I have continued to use walking (plus a few elementary and, I admit, rather half-heartedly undertaken back exercises) as a way of gradually increasing my back’s mobility. In keeping with my wife’s and my joint New Year resolution to get out more when the weather is forecast to be nice, we went for a lengthy walk around Barnsley a couple of weeks ago. This is not the large market town in South Yorkshire but a nearby village in the Cotswolds that we have visited several times before, but not for a few years.

Despite having a fairly busy road running through it, this Barnsley is one of those picture book Cotswold towns and villages that are full of pretty cottages and large rich merchant and manor houses. There’s a popular pub and Barnsley House – previously home to Rosemary Verey, a famous gardener – is a popular spa and tourist attraction. We didn’t visit those but, rather, walked mainly around the village through open fields, woodland and old parkland. The frost made the ground firmer than expected after the January rain and the sky was brilliant blue. It was a lovely, refreshing walk.

*^{Winter Scenes Around Barnsley, Gloucestershire}*

In a further impromptu excursion last week, Jane and I popped south to Bath. The main element of our planned visit was to pick up a couple of loaves of sourdough bread from the rather wonderful Landrace. It’s a great establishment that worked hard to survive the Covid lockdowns and which sells the best bread I know of.

*^{A Great Group Of Trees In The Circus, Bath}*

Bath is a fair old way to go for just bread so we also visited The Holburne Museum. We also had a very tasty and pleasant lunch at the recently opened Beckford Canteen which is a stylish restaurant set up in an ex-Georgian greenhouse.

At the Holburne Museum we bought tickets for an exhibition of Albrecht Dürer’s woodcuts depicting The Great Passion of Christ and the woodcut publications of a number of Durer’s mentors, contemporaries and followers. The links with the development of the printing press and Lutheranism were of interest but we both found an adjoining exhibition of very different, modern art rather more compelling.

*^{One Of 11 Albrecht Durer Woodcuts Telling The Story Of ‘The Great Passion’}*

The core of this exhibition by Alberta Whittle was a collection of elaborately decorated figures representing African slaves in various poses related to limbo dancing. What was enlightening for both Jane and I was the fact that slaves on slave ships crossing the Atlantic in the 18th century were offered precious time on deck (away from the stinking and confined quarters below) in return for entertaining the sailors with limbo dancing. The figures were alongside decorated cartons which, after inquisition of the Museum guide, we understood to representations of the containers that were used for water and cologne used to douse the slave performers so as to reduce their pungent smell while on deck.

*_{‘Dipping Below A Waxing Moon, The Dance Saves Us’ By Alberta Whittle}*

Whittle’s work here was powerful and informative. In the subject matter and use of brilliant colour, it was reminiscent of the exhibition of a huge procession constructed by Hew Locke that I saw at Tate Britain last September. It was the highlight of our day (if only because we didn’t eat the Landrace bakery bread until the following day).

We have a further life highlight planned later this week: our first visit of the year to Edinburgh to see First Grandchild and his parents! I’m not sure what to expect from my dodgy back after being in car for 8-9 hours, but I am so looking forward to being in Edinburgh again.

Then, to hurry along time until Spring is really here, we have booked a few days in Paris. It’s been years since we travelled abroad so I’m looking forward to getting my passport stamped according to the new Brexity rules and being part of Europe again. There’s nice bread there (and in Edinburgh) too!

Onwards to Dundee and Edinburgh

December 4, 2022 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

Having stayed a couple of nights at the small, tasteful and quirky Taybank hotel, Long-Suffering Wife (LSW) and I moved on and stayed for further couple of nights in Dundee at a large, modern Premier Inn. This was right on the Tay estuary, over which we had a great but very windswept view.

It was also conveniently close to the new V&A Design Museum outpost in Dundee. This is a wonderful building, designed by Kengo Kuma. The museum provides a video explanation by Kuma of why the museum looks like it does and that made it even more interesting for me.

The weather was intermittently very wet (dreich is the appropriate Scottish word I believe), so we went to the dry comfort of the V&A twice. We took in not only the standing exhibitions, but also the temporary ones including a very comprehensive and wide ranging one about Plastic: ‘The Remaking of Our World’. Fortunately that was every bit as interesting as the big exhibitions I have seen in recent years in the V&A London. It’s great that Dundee has such an impressive centrepiece.

*^{The V&A And RRS Discovery And Some Sun!}*

*^{V&A Dundee: Part Of The Plastics Exhibition}*

While in Dundee, LSW did start to eat again following the illness she had picked up from First Grandchild (FG) the previous weekend. However, she quickly regretted it and, with the rain still persistent, our movements were limited. Then, for a while, the weather relented and we did make it to the McManus Art Gallery and Museum. This is a lovely looking building exhibiting proudly the seafaring and industrial history of Dundee, its art and its most famous people. Then,, as the weather closed in again, we visited the Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA) centre.

*^{The McManus Galleries, Dundee (And More Sun!)}*

At the DCA we saw an exhibition by Manuel Solano. He became blind after contracting AIDS and, incredibly, the exhibition contained just work that he had produced since losing his sight. Another interesting hour was passed out of the showers.

*^{Manuel Solano In The Big Spaces Of The Dundee Contemporary Art Gallery}*

While at the DCA we also saw Living, a new and very moving film starring Bill Nighy. He is perfect for the lead role and is supported by excellent acting all-round in a really lovely film. We both enjoyed it hugely.

It was great to have visited Dundee and to see a different Scottish city. The weather changed our plans of what to do there and the rain reinforced our impression that the car was king along the city’s coastline since we seemed to spend a lot of time getting wet waiting for the little green man lights and for the traffic to allow us to cross. But, given the tricky weather blowing in from the East, and given that LSW wasn’t fully operational, we did a lot of good things in Dundee.

*^{View From Our Dundee Premier Inn Room (When It Wasn’t Sunny!)}*

On our way back to Edinburgh via the coastal road around East Fife we had to take a couple of diversions to avoid flooding. We spotted the huge waves off the coast as we passed the famous golf course and lovely buildings of St Andrews and decided to stop at the fishing village of Crail on the easternmost coast of Fife to take a closer look. We parked and walked down pretty, narrow lanes to the harbour. As I rounded a corner to get a closer look at the breakers and take a souvenir picture, I was astounded to be instantaneously splattered by sea spray even though the sea was 40-50 yards away. It really was startling weather.

We drove on along the coast and stopped at a recommended coffee house in St Monans (The Giddy Gannet) where LSW managed half a scone. Then we pressed on and had lunch at The Ship Inn right on the coast in Elie where LSW watched me eat a tasty plate of fish and chips with all the trimmings. Then, with one of us rather more stuffed than the other, we set off for a final 36 hours or so in Edinburgh.

Remarkably given the pressures and events of the last few days, Eldest Son (ES) and his wife were entertaining again (with help from her Mum), this time to celebrate her Dad’s birthday. It was a lovely evening with, as usual, lovely food and a chance to meet one of ES’s new uncles-in-law and his wife. Gradually LSW and I are getting to know our newly extended family.

To round off a momentous and lovely week in Scotland, (lovely despite what viruses and the weather occasionally threw at us), we had a few hours with FG including a visit to the National Museum of Scotland. We had taken him there earlier in the year and he loved it again even though he was still recovering from his illness. I previously vowed to take him to this wonderful museum whenever possible when in Edinburgh and that vow stands; it is so exciting for him and, as he grows up, I think it will retain his interest (no pressure FG!)

Cornelia Parker At Tate Britain

September 23, 2022 / fgrtommo / 2 Comments

I had only vaguely heard of Cornelia Parker before my brief trip to London last week (primarily to see my dentist and my football team). Long-Suffering Wife informed me that this artist had done a work involving an exploding shed and I did vaguely recall that. It was enough to encourage me to book a visit to her current exhibition at Tate Britain and, yes, the exploding shed (called ‘Cold Dark Matter: A Exploded View’) is indeed on show as part of a career-to-date retrospective.

*^{Cornelia Parker’s ‘Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View’}*

My visit didn’t start particularly well. After a now familiar, but nonetheless lovely, breakfast of kedgeree at Ozone, I strolled to Tate Modern. Once inside, I floundered around like an idiot for a few minutes before realising that the Cornelia Parker exhibition was at Tate Britain not Tate Modern. The upside of this rookie error was that, to even get close to my ticket booking time, I had to travel by Uber-boat down the Thames to get to the right side of town. It was a very pleasant ride on an almost deserted ferry.

*^{Views Of Tate Modern And The Houses Of Parliament From The Thames Uber Boat}*

The Cornelia Parker was at the back of the Tate Britain building and the route to it took me past an enormous display by Hew Locke called The Procession. I was late and in a hurry but as I walked past I could see that the installation was full of a sense of carnival but also images of slavery, colonialism and imperialism. It was certainly an impressive and very colourful use of the main, central space in the gallery and I spent a little more time viewing it on my way back from the Parker exhibition.

*^{Views of Hew Locke’s ‘The Procession’ At Tate Britain}*

The Cornelia Parker retrospective was a bit of a surprise even though I only had hazy ideas of what to expect. It was posed those perennial questions about ‘what is art?’ through display of part-manufactured goods, used products and repurposed objects. It was an exhibition revealing process as well as end result.

For example, she worked with a police force to obtain a shot gun that they had destroyed by cutting it up. The several parts had been placed alongside a strip of rust grains from another rusted and destroyed gun in a way that implied blood caused by firearms. Violence was implied by a number of other objects such as the steel template of a gun from the earliest stage of gun manufacture.

Other works included piles of black lacquer cut from discs to produce vinyl records (‘Negatives of Sound’) and piles of silver left over from engravings (‘Negative of Words’). Another weirdly attractive set of works were cloths stained from rubbing silver spoons belonging to famous/infamous persons such as Davy Crockett and Guy Fawkes (see below).

In one room there were a series of suspended pools of crushed silver objects apparently collected from flea markets and then collectively flattened by a steamroller (‘Thirty Pieces of Silver’). Another similar exhibit was of flattened brass instruments hung in a circle like a huge silver mobile (‘Perpetual Canon’).

*^{‘Thirty Pieces of Silver’ By Cornelia Parker At Tate Britain}*

*^{‘Perpetual Canon’ By Cornelia Parker At Tate Britain}*

‘Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View’ was the centrepiece of the exhibition and was an arresting sight. As the accompanying blurb pointed out, it both looked like a moment of explosion but also, as one stood back, felt like an implosion; like a moment in one of those films of something exploding put into reverse.

*^{Close Ups ‘Cold Dark Matter: An Exploding View’}*

It was great that the exhibition wasn’t crowded and I spent quite a while peering into the exploded shed at the diverse and disintegrated contents. The explosion, when organised by Parker with the Army School of Ammunition and a chunk of Semtex, had clearly followed some degree of cramming of the shed with strange objects from toys to clothing and from tools to cable. As with some other works on show, the shadows were as impactful as the substance. Nicely done!

On my way home I stopped in opportunistically at the White Cube Gallery in Masons Yard which I had not visited before. This gallery is smaller in scale than its bigger brother White Cube Gallery in Bermondsey but follows a similar pattern with very large, starkly pure white rooms.

*^{Leon Wuidar at The White Cube, Mason’s Yard, London}*

On the walls were numerous works by a Belgian artist called Léon Wuidar. The works had a pleasant simplicity and some had very warm, comforting colours. It was a more straightforward art experience than that Cornelia Parker and the Tate had provided earlier in the day but I’m glad I popped in to see it.

*^{Graffiti Mural (By Morganico, Apparently) Near Mason’s Yard. I Love How This Stuff Pops Up In London}*

Three London Exhibitions

March 16, 2022March 16, 2022 / fgrtommo / 3 Comments

A couple of weeks ago, during visits to London to meet up with friends I hadn’t seen for the couple of years of the pandemic, I slotted three art exhibitions into my schedule. Exhibitions in the great cultural centres of London are almost invariably well thought-out, well presented and well worth seeing. These three were no exception even though I didn’t enjoy them quite as much as some of the truly outstanding exhibitions I have seen in London over the last few years.

For the first exhibition, I followed in Long-Suffering Wife’s (LSW’s) footsteps by attending an exhibition of Louise Bourgeois’ recent work at the Hayward Gallery; LSW recommended it having visited with an old friend a couple of weeks earlier.

*^{Variety of Typical Work By Louise Bourgeois (Note The Cow Bone Coathangers!)}* *^{At Tate Modern}*

The exhibition, called Louise Bourgeois: The Woven Child focuses on her use of textiles. She often sewed fabric to create sculptures set in mobiles or in large vitrines or cages. I found those on the first floor of the exhibition rather oppressive but, upstairs, the colours were brighter and I warmed to the themes of her work.

I particularly liked the sets of print and fabric compositions based around spiders’ webs and the concept of spiders as a weaver and repairer of its woven lairs that dominated the second half of the exhibition. The large sculpture of a mother spider, surrounded by a cage and a host of artefacts hinting at threat, protective motherhood and Louise’s own childhood memories, seemed to reflect and oversee a number of other nearby works. I ended up really enjoying the exhibition and the way it was laid out.

*^{Spider by Louise Bourgeois (1997) At Tate Modern}*

I then went to the latest exhibition at The Barbican: Postwar Modern: New Art in Britain 1945-1965. Again, it took me a while to ‘get into’ the content of the exhibition. As usual, it was very well curated and presented with, I found, just the right amount of information in a great space for art. Many different themes were portrayed with each allocated a room or distinct area of the exhibition.

*^{Bronze Figures By Eduardo Paolozzi (1957/8)}*

Perhaps I didn’t quite get the overall point about a ‘rough poetry’ that underpinned and, apparently, linked the work on display. But I certainly could see some overarching points about dislocation, rebuilding and hope for the future. The location, in the heart of the Barbican, which is itself a remarkable monument to post war brutalist rebuilding, created a perfect context for the Postwar Modern scope.

*^{The Barbican – Such A Wonderful Space For An Art Exhibition}*

There were several artists represented that I am familiar with but there were several others that were entirely new to me. Inevitably I enjoyed some rooms/areas – each given poignant names like ‘Horizon’, ‘Concrete’, ‘Scars’ and ‘Strange Universe’ – much more than others but, overall, it was absorbing and impressive. Given that I saw it on its second day and it is on until late June, I may visit again.

*^{I loved This – A Bowl By Lucy Rie and Hans Coper (1955)}*

Finally, LSW and I visited the ‘Surrealism Beyond Borders’ exhibition at the Tate Modern. I went in not knowing much about the exhibition and perhaps it was a mistake not to have read more about it beforehand and not to give it more time than we had.

*^{No Surrealist Art Exhibition Complete Without A Lobster Phone By Salvador Dali!}*

It is a very broad exhibition (hence the ‘Beyond Borders’ title). Although the rooms tried to compartmentalise this breadth around geographies (Cairo, Mexico, The Caribbean for example) or themes (portrayals of dreams, desire and the ‘uncanny’ for example), I struggled to build in my head either a time line or logic to the exhibition as a whole.

*^{‘Deification Of A Soldier’ By Yamashita Kikuji (1967) – Seemed Apt For Our Current Times}*

In addition, and unlike the Louise Bourgeois and Postwar Modern exhibitions, there just weren’t many works that I really liked. Too many were unsettling (as I’m sure they are meant to be) to the point of ugliness; I just don’t think I appreciate surrealist art as much as other styles. However, it’s always good to have the opportunity to visit such exhibitions even if it merely confirms ones predilections.

*^{The Painting I Enjoyed Most In The Surrealism Exhibition, By Alice Rahon (1955)}*

I shall miss the relatively high frequency of my tours of London art and museum exhibitions once we lose our base there (the flat I used on weekdays before I retired), but I’m sure I will find new excuses to get up to London in the future and will squeeze a few more exhibition visits in.

New Year Resolution Trips

January 24, 2022 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

Since retiring over 4 years ago, I have been pretty diligent at making and tracking progress against annual New Year resolutions. Progress this year was patchy. I met my alcohol-free days and alcohol unit reduction targets. I also exceeded my target of an average of 15,000 steps a day, and my weight has just about stayed within the target range. However, intentions to step up organisation of the vegetable garden and composting facilities have remained unfulfilled and I read a woefully small number of books this year.

This time last year, Long-Suffering Wife (LSW) and I made a new, joint resolution to travel around the UK more. Covid has, of course, restricted overseas trips and our sons are now living all around the UK – in Belfast, London and Edinburgh. So perhaps inevitably, we have done more travelling around the UK than in the past, culminating in our Christmas on Skye, Scotland.

Our joint New Year resolution this year is to step up and renew our familiarity with the UK even more. We have already started with a few trips this January and are lucky enough to have the prospect of many more this year.

*^{I Never Tire Of London And Views Of The Thames; This One At Dusk}*

We had to travel up to London briefly to prepare the Barbican flat for sale. There is another such trip later this week. London is always a pleasure for me; there is so much going on to see and do (even in a pandemic). This time, as well as seeing Middle Son and his partner for dinner at one of our long-time favourite restaurants (Moro), we went to exhibitions in the Barbican and in Tate Modern. Plus, I managed a couple of hours in the Imperial War Museum.

*^{Lubaina Himid Exhibition At Tate Modern}*

Lubaina Himid’s exhibition at Tate Modern was substantial and well done. The vibrant colours and range of work were impressive but I can’t say I was entirely convinced or entranced by the pieces on show. The pictures sometimes captured movement but didn’t generate dynamism for me and the sonic works, while interesting and atmospheric, weren’t arresting. However, we both liked the bright colours and thought it was an exhibition worth seeing – especially as LSW is a member so tickets were available and felt free.

*^{‘Old Boat/New Money’ (Accompanied By Sounds of Sea And Ships) By Lubaina Himid At Tate Modern}*

We both thought that the Isamu Noguchi exhibition at the Barbican was much more interesting. The Guardian newspaper review of the exhibition rather poo-pooed the exhibition as being more like a luxury lighting show room. Certainly there were a lot of lovely lighting exhibits on show but there was so much more. I enjoyed a lot of the sculptures, some of the ceramics and, especially, the way the exhibition juxtaposed these with the light-based works.

*^{Views Of The Noguchi Exhibition At The Barbican}*

As usual, too, the Barbican had put together a clear explanation of the progression of Noguchi’s ideas as they developed through his life. I thought it was an excellent exhibition.

*^{More Views Of The Noguchi Exhibition At The Barbican}*

A friend in our village recently recommended a visit to the London Imperial War Museum. So, when I found myself nearby, while LSW was shopping near Borough Market, I took myself off there to investigate the recently commissioned Holocaust Galleries. These build up a picture of the Second World War Holocaust through hundreds of photos and the telling of many stories of Jews and other minority groups persecuted by the Nazis in run up to the war and then during it.

This bottom up approach required time to absorb but had a layering and relentlessness to it that I found very powerful. The portrayal of the seemingly inexorable drive to horror, from before the First World War to the Final Solution, was well done and did not shy away from the relative indifference of the world until it was too late. The history is well known but, nonetheless, rather depressing and the exhibition’s intermingling of the stories of individuals with items indicating the sheer scale of the atrocities was as shocking as ever. My brief tour of some of the other sections of the museum showing uniforms, planes, tanks and rockets felt a bit trivial afterwards and I’ll have to revisit those another day.

Prior to our London trip we made our first visit of the year to The Newt Garden in East Somerset. As readers of this blog will know, we have been a few times before. We love it because it is already a spectacular garden and it is continuing to evolve so there always seems to be something new to see (this time, a Japanese Garden and a ‘Beezantium’ – an exhibition about bees). There is also a lovely restaurant.

*^{View Of The Newt Hotel From The Gardens}*

We are now members and to justify the cost of membership we will have to go a few more times this year – what a hardship!

Then, after London, we had a day out at Compton Verney which is an exhibition space and park that we had not visited before. LSW had seen a recommendation on one of the many social media connections she has. Specifically this was for two exhibitions that were coming to a close. One was of Grinling Gibbons, a master woodcarver (2021 was the 300^th anniversary of his death) the other was of paintings by John Nash (younger brother of the more famous wartime painter, Paul Nash).

*^{Sea Of Aconites In Front Of Compton Verney House}*

Both exhibitions were popular, a little crowded and worth seeing. Grinling Gibbons’s background (initially around the docks in Holland) and his drive to network and commercialise as he built up his business in England was described clearly and interestingly and the pieces on show were terrifically detailed and impressive. However, the full impact of his work would be best appreciated in the houses where his carvings still decorate walls today and I’d have liked to have found out more about how the work was done.

*^{Example Of The Detailed Carvings Of Grinling Gibbons}*

The John Nash exhibition was also well put together and illustrated carefully how his career developed through the First World War, through his love of the countryside, then as a War artist in the Second World war and finally as a retiree travelling the UK and settling in his rural surroundings (as, among other things, a seed catalog and gardening book illustrator). Unfortunately, apart from a few notable exceptions (see ‘Over The Top’ below), I didn’t like the paintings as much as I had hoped (or expected); insufficient liveliness of colour in too many of the works for my liking.

The house grounds, designed by Capability Brown, were lovely in the sun (though muddy underfoot) and the lunch in the restaurant was very reasonable. It was another good day out very much in line with our New Year resolution to get out of the house and our immediate locale rather more. Later this week: London and Edinburgh!

^{January Sunrise At Home. Trips Are Nice, But Home Is Too!}

Overstepping The Mark To Normality?

October 29, 2021October 29, 2021 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

Over the last couple of weeks I have done a number of things that have pushed my risk of catching Covid 19. I haven’t caught it – presumably thanks to being double vaccinated – but have felt in jeopardy on a few occasions. With the exception of our planned trips to Scotland (lockdown restrictions permitting) when Eldest Son and his fiancés’ baby arrives and then for Christmas, I plan to reduce my exposure to the pandemic a bit in the next few weeks.

For the first time since the pandemic struck, Long-suffering Wife (LSW) and I went to a large indoor event. We attended two very interesting talks at the Cheltenham Literary Festival along with a few hundred others who were mostly masked and who were, by and large of the age that would have been double vaccinated. Any feeling of risk of contagion was quickly overtaken by my interest in what was being said.

*Feargal Cochrane And Patrick McGuire Discussing Northern Ireland At The Cheltenham Literary Festival*

The first talk was about the Labour Party and whether it has any chance of winning an election any time soon. The conclusion between three Labour party sympathisers seemed to be a resounding ‘no’ but the reasons and the possible deflections to that verdict were well set out in arguments that seemed to spill new thoughts and ideas every few seconds.

The second talk concerned the recent history of Northern Ireland. This is of particular interest because Youngest Son (YS) and his Belfast-born partner are now making their careers and lives in Northern Ireland. Having visited a couple of times, we love the country and want it to succeed. The risks to that success are rooted in history there, recent disinterest in Westminster, and the touch-paper lit by Brexit. It was a fascinating talk and increased my wish that the current difficulties around the new Northern Ireland Protocol agreement with the European Union can be resolved soon and relatively painlessly.

Then, last week, I travelled up to London. I hunkered down in a corner on the train up and then walked across London to our flat. On the way I visited the new Marble Arch Mound. The Mound and the view from it was a lot less impressive than the scaffolding on which it is built but the light show inside was a nice bonus.

*One Of The Lightshow Exhibits (Left) Mirroring The Scaffolding Underpinning The Mound Itself*

The main purpose of my London trip was to visit my dentist there for a check-up and hygienist appointment that had been postponed several times over the last year due to the pandemic. The Covid protocols in the dental surgery made me feel very safe and I got away with just a couple of bloodied gums and some new dental hygiene advice.

I felt less safe on the tube to and from a football match (it wasn’t quite coincidence that my football team – table topping Forest Green Rovers – were playing at Leyton Orient the day after my dental appointment!). Despite guidance that masks should be worn, only a minority did so. Fortunately I only needed to be on the tube for four stops each way.

At the match itself, masks were completely absent but the excitement of the football always swamps any feelings I have of Covid risk during games.

*Celebrating Shared Spoils After A Tight Game (Nice Orient Mascots!)*

The visit to London was a lovely break. I visited an unusual and stimulating exhibition by Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama at the White Cube gallery in Bermondsey. His art there incorporated old maps (which I love), ideas about colonialism and the story of his renovation of a bat infested grain silo complex. The White Cube is a wonderful space and it’s free to visit.

*Variety Of Ibrahim Mahama’s Work At The White Cube Gallery, Bermondsey*

*Ibrahim Mahama’s ‘Capital Corpses’ – 100 Rusty Sewing Machines That Bash Away On Vintage Desks (Its Quite a Noise!)*

I also got to see Middle Son (MS) and his partner at the football match but also for dinner and lunch. It was great to catch up with what they are up to. Dinner at Bottega Prelibato was excellent and felt pretty safe.

However, it was during that dinner that I decided that I would forgo another planned London trip the following week during which I was scheduled to see the band Tourist with MS. The idea of being in a cavernous, enclosed space with several bouncing and singing, young and partially vaccinated people felt like an overstepping of the Covid risks. MS and his partner were able to use the tickets and I’m left with regret but well-being.

Other safe events were a visit by YS and his mate on their way to a holiday in Wales and a simultaneous visit by a couple who have been decades-long friends from London. All had gone beyond the call of duty by having recent lateral flow tests – something I need to get in the habit of doing – before visiting us. It was an extremely convivial weekend full of chats, walks, good food and a local art exhibition by a West Country chap called Stuart Voaden. His day was made too by the fact that our friends purchased some of his work. We all had fun.

*Stuart Voaden’s Exhibition At The Three Stories, Nailsworth*

What felt less safe – although it was fun too – was a visit to the local pub last week. For a few weeks now, since the weather got colder, I have been drinking inside rather than in the pub garden. Even during the busy recent Quiz Night the environment felt relatively Covid-free. However, the ‘Jam Night’ last week was a night of full blown sing songs and, as I left after a few noisy beers, I wondered if that had been my peak risk of infection during the last few weeks. I’m going to go to the pub on quieter nights for a while.

Everyone has a different feel for the balance of risk in relation to Covid. I know that I’m lucky that I can choose how much risk I take. The last few weeks have been interesting in helping me determine what is and what is not ok for me in advance of my booster jab and, one hopes, a final decline in Covid cases.

Postscript: Just one more shout out for our Café-au-Lait dahlias which have given me so much pleasure as cut blooms over the last few months. They will continue for a little while yet until they are blasted by the first frost.

Also, I am pleased that my limited range of vegetable harvest has been decent again this year. I can’t grow a lot of things since I struggle to protect them from mammals both large (deer, badgers) and small (voles, mice). However, some basic fencing and conservative plant choices have meant we have plenty of squash, chard, beetroot, onions and potatoes stored in the old stables as we enter winter.

*Home Grown Veg! The Crown Prince Squash (Top Right And 1 of 5) Is A Whopping Stone In Weight*

Pre-Baby Edinburgh

October 9, 2021October 11, 2021 / fgrtommo / 5 Comments

Last weekend, we ventured north again to Edinburgh in our electric car. We visited my Dad in Nottingham on the way. Then we had an overnight stay in Harrogate, and stopped briefly in Jedburgh, before reaching Edinburgh in time for pre-dinner drinks. Apart from the brief catch up and lunch with my Dad, the main purpose of the trip was to see and stay with Eldest Son (ES) and his now very pregnant partner before the excitingly close baby due date.

*View of Jedburgh Abbey Across Jed Water*

The journey was smooth albeit long due to the need to charge up the car every 100 miles or so, and to regulate speed so the battery didn’t get run down too quickly. The charging of the car was almost without any problem. Our relief at that was enhanced by the smugness of knowing that we didn’t have to search for, or queue for, apparently scarce supplies of petrol. Having said that, we might not have got a ChargePlace Scotland charging point to function without the helpfulness of a Jedburgh resident. We were a little lucky in an unpredictable e-charging world!

Stopping off in Harrogate, which is famous for its conference facilities, brought back some memories of a few corporate conferences I attended there back in the last century (it feels even longer ago than that….). On this occasion, the part of the town we were staying in was overrun by HGV company bosses and drivers who were attending a large lorry-fest. The lorries on show were for every imaginable purpose and all tremendously shiny – quite a sight!

*Apparently A Current Rarity In The UK – HGV Drivers and HGVs (At A Show In Harrogate)*

We loved Edinburgh this time as much on this trip as we did during our last one in the summer. The scale, the architecture, the vistas, the proliferation of interesting independent shops, the history and the monuments are all attractive. The excrescence that is the new shopping centre is a rare architectural misstep in the city centre and is rightly nicknamed by locals as the ‘golden turd’. Almost everywhere else feels right, interesting or both.

Henry Dundas's Statue With The New Shopping Centre Peeking Out Rather Awfully Just Behind — *Henry Dundas’s Statute With The New Shopping Centre Prominent Just Behind*

We did quite a lot of walking and casual sightseeing. We retraced many of our previous steps along the Water of Leith that winds pleasantly through the city. This time, we managed to get to Calton Hill in sunshine.

On the Saturday I took a breezy walk around Holyrood Park and up Arthur’s Seat. I was fortunate, given the intermittent, blustery drizzle, that it was reasonably dry on the way up and down since there was some slippery scrambling to do in places. The view from the top was worth the effort and I look forward to repeating the climb on a sunnier day.

Other highlights from the visit were a tour of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and the Royal Botanic Gardens.

The Modern Art Gallery was a manageable size and contains some excellent and varied art. Unexpectedly, it happens to contain one of Long-Suffering Wife’s (LSW’s) favourite paintings – ‘Lustre Bowl With Green Peas’ by William Nicholson (see below).

The current temporary exhibition was of paintings and related sketches by Joan Eardley. I had seen this had been reviewed favourably in the Guardian. I loved the seascapes and landscapes which were all of a small village on the Scottish east coast where she had lived in, and alongside, some tiny, semi-derelict cottages. That there were just two rooms of her work on show made the story around her art and the pictures themselves really accessible and absorbable. The exhibition is on until early next year so there may be an opportunity to visit (for free) again.

The Botanic Gardens were gorgeous despite the lateness of the season. There were still splashes of vibrant colour and the gardens were exceptionally well maintained. The rockery, in particular, was impressive and the Palm House, although empty and undergoing repairs, was beautifully proportioned. An exhibition of photographs of unusual seeds was also interesting and we happily donated a bit of cash for the otherwise free visit.

*Late Summer Colour In The Edinburgh Botanic Gardens*

*Palm House, Route to The Vegetable Garden And A Greenhouse In The Edinburgh Botanical Gardens*

ES’s partner cooked a lovely dinner when we arrived – she is a calm and excellent cook. Next day we went to Leo’s Beanery for a rather wonderful breakfast (see below). We seemed spoilt for choice of breakfast eateries but this was a very good one that served up such substantial fare that I didn’t need lunch.

*Selection Of Breakfasts At Leo’s Beanery*

Dinner on the Saturday was with ES partner’s parents (indeed, since our last Edinburgh visit, ES and his partner have got engaged so we should consider her parents as ES’s future parents-in-law). The Palmerston was a perfect venue; the food, service (after an overly rapid start) and company were all very good.

It was matched for quality by dinner on our last night in the north at Tom Kitchin’s The Scran & Scallie. My starter there included mushrooms, ox tongue, egg and bone marrow (still in the bone) in a presentation that made it one of the most interesting starters I’ve had for a while.

All these meals, walks and talks with ES and his (now) fiancée were enlivened with the expectation of motherhood, fatherhood, grandmotherhood and grandfatherhood in a month’s time. How exciting!

*Panorama Looking North From Carlton Hill, Edinburgh*

London Exhibitions At Last: Paula Rego and Jean Dubuffet

August 24, 2021 / fgrtommo / 2 Comments

One of the things I have missed most during the coronavirus pandemic has been London and one of the things I enjoyed most during my London visits was going to the art and topic-based exhibitions curated there. Last week, at last, Long-Suffering Wife (LSW) visited London again for the first time since the first pandemic lockdown. We both loved the blip out of our relatively rural semi isolation (notwithstanding our trips to Belfast and Edinburgh in the last year).

*Back In London Among Its Familiar Landmarks!*

During the trip, I saw two art exhibitions: one a life retrospective of Paula Rego (a contemporary Portuguese artist) at Tate Britain and the other a similar retrospective of Jean Dubuffet’s work at the Barbican (it’s now finished). It was a welcome cultural binge.

The fundamental reason for our London trip was just to break up our routine for a couple of days. Also, it was an opportunity to catch up with Middle Son (MS) and his partner in their new flat in Haggerston. They recently moved out of their stop-gap rental of our flat in the Barbican, so that was available to us. Although the flat is now bare and looking a little tired, it remains a very comfortable, central and convenient bolt hole for this sort of visit. We are very lucky to still have it until we finally sell this retirement nest egg, probably, next year.

After driving up in our e-car (which in combination with the flat made the trip itself near free of incremental cost), the weather was kind enough to enable us to make a lengthy walk along the Thames Embankment to Tate Britain.

*The Thames: Bridge, Skyline And Unused Tourist Boats*

There, the exhibition of Paula Rego’s work was substantial and comprehensive. What I love about these elite retrospective exhibitions is that one can trace the development of the artists thinking over time while seeing the consistent themes beneath and between the changes in technique and subject matter. Much of her work depicted the sexuality, strength and resilience of women in hardship; the Dog Women series was an example.

I enjoyed the exhibition a lot but suspect that was as much a function of the novelty of being in a classy exhibition as it was the art.

*Paula Rego: ‘The Artist In Her Studio’ (1993)*

The exhibition of French contemporary artist Jean Dubuffet’s work was also chronologically ordered to enable understanding of development of his ideas. The work on show was more varied than that of Rego and I really only liked some of the series of work. Again, though, some aspects of his style were satisfyingly constant – not least the strange, bloated heads on the figures in many of the works and the use of natural materials with unusual paint type combinations.

*Jean Dubuffet: ‘Caught In The Act’ (1961)*

The Barbican presented the works very nicely. Some of the more colourful pieces were lit so they appeared luminous and the pandemic has made London art exhibitions less crowded than they were so there was plenty of room to view everything.

*Jean Dubuffet: Part Of His Performance Art ‘Coucou Bazar’ (1971)*

However, although the Barbican tried, I didn’t really understand the Art Brut movement that Dubuffet first named and for which he was a lead exponent of through much of his career. Maybe the video at the end of the exhibition that explained his counter-cultural aims would have been better placed at the start of the exhibition alongside Dubuffet’s quote (which sounded about right):

“Art should always make you laugh a little and fear a little. Anything but bore”

*Jean Dubuffet: ‘Les Vicissitudes’ (1977)*

The weather was too nice to be indoors soaking up art exhibitions for too long. Apart from the initial riverside walk to Tate Britain, LSW and I also tried out the new Uber riverboat service to get us back to our flat. It was refreshing and it’s always good to see London from the perspective of the river.

*Travelling By Uber Boat And More London Landmarks*

We also went to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in East London. We followed a newly signposted art trail (‘The Line’) south from the Park down the tangle of man-made and natural waterways leading back to the Thames.

*Old Mill Houses, Locks and New Flats Near Olympic Park, East London*

The area is, of course, changed out of all recognition since we lived in Bow in the 1980s. Everywhere there are new complexes of flats but, in between, there are signs that the environment and leisure activity is being properly considered. Certainly, the Olympic Park itself is a lot less bleak than when I last visited. Now the planting and trees are maturing along the walkways. I’m looking forward to visiting again and doing some more strolling around the Park and along the nearby waterways.

*One Of The Sculptures Along ‘The Line’ Art Trail, East London (Thomas J. Price: ‘Reaching Out’)*

LSW and I ate out at Smokestak which is an old haunt of mine and ours. That was good but better was the dinner we had with MS and his partner at Bistrotheque. East London seems to continue to be almost as well populated with good restaurants and cafes as ever despite the pandemic and the reduced customer numbers. Drinking holes on the way to Bistrotheque at Signature Brew and, on the way back, at Ombra were conspicuously quiet. But that just meant that we could get prime tables and attentive service; very nice!

I have a couple of long and often postponed gigs to see in September and October in London and, at some point, LSW and I will need to decorate the Barbican flat to make it ready for sale. Those should all be opportunities to spend more time in London – even if these visits become swansongs – to take in more of the excellent exhibitions and art and architecture trails there.

*The Olympic (West Ham United) Stadium and The Orbit*

Meanwhile there is the significant and emotional matter of my Mum’s funeral. Thankfully she died peacefully. After a year or so in which she had, regretfully, to come to terms with being in a care home (a very good one as it turned out), in which she contracted Covid, and then in which she gradually faded, her passing was no shock. Nonetheless, Mum’s funeral will be a sad closing of a long and fruitful life. There will be tears and then we are compelled to move on with our memories.

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