Visual Research

Feature by David Rose first published in Cv Journal of Art and Crafts 2/4 December 1989, in which he describes craft practices of individual makers in the county of West Cork, Ireland. The monograph also includes a survey of Dublin colleges of art and design by Margaret MacNamidhe, first published in Cv Journal 4/2 July 1991. From Cv/VAR Archive. Crafts Directory surveys practices in the applied and decorative arts in the UK and Ireland. The anthology of interviews and features was first published in the quarterly review Cv Journal of Art and Crafts 1988-91, and includes showcases of emerging practices, studies of crafts education, and a comprehensive index of specialist producers and suppliers in the flourishing arena of crafts design and distribution.

Cv/VAR 50 publishes an interview with the artist Helen Chadwick (1953-96), recorded at her Beck Road studio in 1989. It explores the body-action-photographic works distilled in installations such as Ego Geometria Sum and Of Mutability, and the cromalin prints of 1989: Viral Landscapes, prepared for exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art Oxford in 1990.

Dr. Stephen Deuchar, director of the Art Fund, gives an interview to Cv/VAR, first published in Curators and Collections Volume Three 2010. He describes the history of the Art Fund, its foundation, aims and initiatives, and work as a major benefactor, enabling museums and galleries to preserve and develop their collections, including recently discovered treasure troves, and individual works saved for the future.

A presentation by exhibition curator Catherine David in 1997 describes her plans for Documenta X Kassel; title 'Retroperspective', including works by Joseph Beuys and Walter de Maria. She proposes the ambitions of the projects, in linking strands of modern and progressive art, with aspirations of different nationalities and cultures.

The 251st Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy London in a review recorded at the press view on 3rd June 2019. The Summer Exhibition is most popular event in the nation’s cultural calendar, and commercially the most successful. It allows works in all media, print/photography/painting/sculpture/architectural models - with rooms arranged by different Royal Academicians, some of whom, like Barbara Rae’s Arctic room, set a theme to their hang.

Eco-art exhibitions are part of the trend of our times. Radical Nature, the show at the Barbican Art Gallery in London, demonstrated some of the possibilities and paradoxes of enterprises of this sort. Basically what the organizers had to do is to move the outside indoors. This set them both practical and, in their own terms at least, moral problems.

A commentary on the Pierre Bonnard exhibition recorded at the press view on Monday January 21, 2018. Views figure studies and landscapes made between 1900 and 1940 and responds to the conception of the compositions with their radiant color fields.

Edward Lucie-Smith reviews Frieze Art Fair London 2013, in a critical take on the contemporary scene. It's pretty easy to get the point of the Frieze Masters art fair, now in its second edition, after a very successful start last year. Its purpose is to present the best of the best - or, at the very least, a good slice of the top quality art that is currently on the market. One of the great pleasures of Frieze Masters, this year more than ever, is the accidental confrontations the event manages to set up.

Daniel Graves is a man of many talents. He juggles his responsibilities of being a painter, a teacher, the director of The Florence Academy of Art, a husband, and a father remarkably well. He knew from the age of three or four who he wanted to be. His career launched when he was 11 years old. He studied with many artists including Richard Lack, Richard Serrin, and Signorina Simi, and received regular critiques from Pietro Annigoni.

The Titian Show at the National Gallery here in London has just opened to the public again. It was available for just three days before the big lockdown. Now, it is with us once more, though on rather different terms from what was the case previously. You have to book a time. You have to be wearing a mask. You have to maintain distance between yourself and other visitors booked in for the same slot. Is it worth the hassle? Yes, of course it is. Titian is one of the greatest figures in the history of Western art.

In a set of essays entitled "Doubles" author, critic, curator, and traveller, Marina Vaizey explores pairings of artists drawn from the canonical cycle of Western art. She considers themes of engagement such as the portrait or figure, treated as stories of wider implication for society, that draw on the artist’s perception of the seen, combined with personal visions of dreams and imagination.

This audiobook is a review of David Hocking's Drawing from Life exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London. It explores early self-portraits from the 1950s and portraits of friends and associates, including Celia Birtwell, Gregory Evans, and Maurice Payne.

An essay by Edward Lucie-Smith considers the Andy Warhol exhibition re-opening at Tate Modern on July 27. He puts forward a provocative view of the relevance of the art in an time of turbulent disruption. When the Warhol show returns to Tate Modern on July 27, almost the first thing you’ll meet if you go to see it will be a large painting, on two paired canvases, entitled Marilyn Diptych. It features repeated images the film star Marilyn Monroe.

A study of Aubrey Beardsley's work exhibited at Tate Britain until May 25, 2020. The author considers the darkly vigorous imagery of the short lived genius, his graphic work for the notorious Yellow Book, and sublimely erotic illustrations for Lysistrata by Aristophane and Salome by Oscar Wilde, which frank imagery even shocked the author.

A review of Anselm Kiefer exhibition at White Cube Bermonday tours room by room, with analytic descriptions of the large scale works on view.

A review of Nam June Paik at Tate Modern, explores the exhibition room by room. "When asked about his practice Paik replied "I am aware of Zen, but I am an artist: I react to Zen in the same way I react to the music of Johan Sebastian Bach."

A review of the Mary Quant exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum London. The audiobook looks at the beginnings of the designer's practice, launched with the Kings Road boutique Bazaar in the 1950s; progressing to Quant's mini skirts and trouser suits in the 1960s, and development of a cosmetic range in the 1970s. Includes quotations from associates and biographical data.

A recorded visit to van Gogh and Britain considers the work of Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) placed in the context of British art and literature of the 19th century and his effect on succeeding generations of artists.

A recorded visit to Elizabethan Treasures during the press view at the National Portrait Gallery London. Inspect miniature portraits by Nicholas Hilliard and Isaac Oliver of Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Frake, Henry Wriothesley and others, and the celebrated icon of Queen Elizabeth I.

An interview with the author J. P. Donleavy, recorded in 1989 on the occasion of his exhibition at Anna-Mei Chadwick Gallery, Chelsea. He describes his formative experience of Dublin, with exhibitions there in 1948, '50, and '51, the catalogue manifestos, for these were his first published writings, leading to work on his first renowned novel, The Ginger Man.