Matthews Gallery

Jane, Evelyn, James and Helen - Philip Connard 1913

British 1875-1958 

Oil paint on canvas

Really, everyone should have an ENORMOUS painting in their breakfast nook.

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Secret London From The Westbourne To The Wandle at Maggs Bros gallery. “Curated by counterculture bookdealer Carl Williams, this brings together the work of two London photographers and writers, Jon Savage and SF Said. Savage is best known as a music writer, but in 1977, inspired by JG Ballard, he set out to photograph the urban wastelands of West London, taking a sequence of stunning black and white pictures of the lost land beneath the Westway.

SF Said’s pictures were taken for last year’s excellent Lost London Rivers book. Said shoots on Polaroid, which he describes as like a ‘photographic time machine’ and says he wants to ‘capture the dreams that a place might have of itself, or the memories that it stores under layers of time’.”

Source

Somber and stunning!

More great photography.

James McNeill Whistler, The Artist in His Studio, 1865/66, oil on board, 62.2 x 46.3 cm, The Art Institute of Chicago. Source

Ghostly self-portrait. We love it!

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Vanessa Bell, The Memoir Club, c.1943, oil on canvas, 60.8 x 81.6 cm, National Portrait Gallery, London. Source

Three portraits can be seen in the background of this particular meeting of Bloomsbury Group members and associates. They represent Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey and Roger Fry, figures who had once been prominent members of the group before their deaths.

Secrets of a painting. We love analysis like this!

More art musings.

Extensive Landscape with Grey Clouds, John Constable, ca. 1821

“I paint by all the daylight we have and that is little enough...” -Constable

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Wreckers- Coast of Northumberland, with a Steam-Boat Assisting a Ship off Shore, Joseph Mallord William Turner, 1833-34

We just saw the JMW Turner biopic Mr. Turner last night. It was brilliant! Read the New York Times review here. 

Woman Sewing at a Window, Gwen John

Gwen John (1876-1939) slept in fields and derelict buildings to pursue her art career. Read about her here. 

More amazing women artists. 

Frank Auerbach, Figure on a Bed, 1967-70, oil on board, 77.3 x 102.3 cm, Tate Collection. Source

A figure reclining on a bed is a recurring subject in Auerbach’s work, particularly in the second half of the 1960s. Tate Britain will be holding an Auerbach retrospective this autumn. 

"It seems to me madness to wake up in the morning and do something other than paint, considering that one may not wake up the following morning." -Frank Auerbach

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5 Turner landscapes: then and now

We teamed up with the Tate and picked out 5 paintings where Turner captured the Victorian landscape of Britain, and compare what the same spots offer today. Find out more

Very cool. 

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British actor Timothy Spall joined Fresh Air to talk about his role as painter J.M.W. Turner in the new Mike Leigh film, Mr. Turner. 

More on Spall and Mr. Turner:

Timothy Spall Takes On British Painter J.M.W. Turner, A ‘Master Of The Sublime’

Above and beyond. Spall learned to paint for this role. If you have a minute, listen to the story. 

More art history. 

Henry Moore, Head of a Serpent, 1927, stone, 18 x 11.4 x 11.4 cm, Tate Collection. Source

"A sculptor is a person who is interested in the shape of things, a poet in words, a musician by sounds." -Henry Moore

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J. M. W. Turner, Snow Storm: Steamboat off a Harbour’s Mouth, exhibited 1842, oil on canvas, 91.4 x 121.9 cm, Tate Collection. Source

The story goes that Turner painted this particular stormy seascape whilst physically tied to the mast of a second ship. This is pretty unlikely, not to mention ridiculous, but the fact that the artist was able to recreate a scene as dramatic and terrifying as this is still a remarkable feat, and reminds the viewer of Turner’s natural talent.

Amazing. 

More on Turner.