On the last day of my recent holiday in England I tried to get to several galleries, mainly those featuring ceramics but, partly because the newly opened ‘Contemporary Applied Arts’ Gallery is nearby, I chose to visit Tate Modern this time. Recent artist ‘Raiders’ had recommended two shows currently showing there. As teachers of Canadian Art History they told me the Agnes Martin collection is a must-see and that the Sonia Delaunay show is fantastic.
My English friend Julia and I sometimes meet up in London and last time she took me to the Royal Academy where she was a member and we were so moved by the Anselm Kiefer show. This year we agreed to go to Tate Modern together and, thanks to my niece Julia’s membership, were able to lunch in the members’ lounge and enter the two entry-fee shows. Otherwise admission is free to most British art galleries.
We found the minimalist grid-like paintings by Agnes Martin rather hard work, quite honestly. But at least I’ll now know how and what she painted.
But I was most enthusiastic about seeing Sonia Delaunay’s work and explained to Julia that I had written one of my first Art History papers in a Modern Art History class on Sonia Delaunay and Piet Mondrian. As a young woman of the sixties I was thrilled to find an artist who was using psychedelic patterns and colours at the beginning of the twentieth century. And she didn’t just paint, she was a needlewoman and fabric designer. Piet Mondrian was in Paris at the same time as Sonia and I found that although their work went in very different directions their beginnings and influences were related.
http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/ey-exhibition-sonia-delaunay
Actually it was more delightful than I expected to see the Delaunay work in person. Previously I had only studied it from books and slides. The paintings are huge and so bold and colourful. I snuck photos of just a few pieces; three murals for the Palace of the Air in the Paris Exhibition 1937, depicting a propellor, an engine and an instrument panel, an example of a coat she designed and a display case which featured her fabrics on a moving roller. My friend Eric says that item may not have accompanied this show when he and Karen saw it in New York in 2011. One of the fabrics was very much like one of his designs!
Sadly this show ended on Aug 9th so I was lucky to have caught it.
Before I met Julia at Waterloo and took the bus to Tate Modern I had already zipped up on the Northern Line to Tottenham Court Road to visit the Contemporary Ceramics Gallery across from the British Museum. After Julia left me to take the train back to her home in Tonbridge I managed to find the relocated (from its previous location on Percy St) Contemporary Applied Arts Gallery. Photos from those two galleries will appear soon.
The area around Tate Modern and all along the South Bank is being developed at an incredible rate. There seems to be no shortage of building funds in London. When I walked with family members in this area last year, after seeing the fabulous poppy display at the Tower of London, I was impressed then at the gentrification of this previously industrial part of the city.
When I was studying Modern Art back in 1991 I was also taking print-making. So I combined assignments by making two dry-point etching portraits of Piet Mondrian and Sonia Delaunay. I have enjoyed an excuse to re-discover work I’d liked so much back then and find and re-read my paper. Excellent Art History lecturer Ann Morrison gave me 98/100 for it too!
