Here's to 2016

New Year is for me always a time to take stock of the year just past.  Every time I visit an exhibition now I make a record of it in a scrapbook - I have been doing it since 2012 and it is surprising how just a little bit of information takes you back in time, remembering things that were on display. Something nice to look through on a cold, dark, rainy winter's evening.

However New Year is also a time for looking forward and planning exhibitions coming up over the year ahead, though I doubt I'll get to them all.  This is a list of textile related exhibitions either currently in progress (and some of which I have seen, but recommend) or coming up in the next 12 months.

Firstly some shows already started, some just about to finish:

Until 4th January 2016 - Fashion Rules at Kensington Palace, London - looking at the glamorous dresses of the Queen, Princess Margaret and Princess Diana; it then reopens on 11 February 2016 as Fashion Rules, Restyled.

Until 9 January 2016 - Losing the Compass at White Cube, Mason's Yard in Bermondsey - includes work by Amish quilters, William Morris but also many fine art, contemporary artists working in textiles.

Until 10 January 2016 - Fabric of India at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.  Definitely a "must see" exhibition which I hoped to revisit; but now think time is against me.

Until 13 January 2016 - Olga de Amariai: Alchemist  at the Rook & Raven Gallery on London's Soho area.  Another exhibition I have only just learnt of, with work by an artist described in Embroidery magazine (Jan/Feb 2016) as "the Louise Bourgeois of Columbia" (review by Liz Hoggard".

Until 31 January 2016 - Shoes: Pleasure and Pain also at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.  An interesting exhibition but very crowded - in the lower galleries.  Wish I had had time to leave my coat in the cloakroom.

Until 28 February 2016 - Liberty in Fashion at the Fashion and Textile Museum, London.  Still on my "to do" list.

Until 1 March 2016 - The White Show at the Flow Gallery, London includes stitched work by Richard McVetis.  Another "to do" list show.

Until 1 May 2016 - A Stitch in Time: Home Sewing Before 1900, also at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.  I have only just learnt about this display which apparently has been available since May 2015.  It is in Gallery 116.

Until 15 May 2016 - Life and Sole: Footwear from the Islamic World - another display I have only just discovered and apparently includes some embroidered shoes.  In Room 34 of the British Museum.

Opening in 2016:

5 January to 19 March 2016 - Centenary Stitches will be exhibiting at the National Archives, Kew. Knitted clothing items made for a film Tell Them About Us, that told the story of two brothers during WWI also gave an insight into the sort of items made on the Home Front to make life in the trenches a little more bearable.

11 February to 22 May 2016 - Vogue 100: A Century of Style, National Portrait Gallery, London.  An exhibition to celebrate 100 years of British Vogue with a display of photographs documenting the story of one of the most influential fashion magazines.

20 February to 29 May 2016 - Social Fabric: African Textiles at the William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow.  Printed fabrics from east and south Africa show how textiles can express the concerns of the people who wear them.

11 March to 17 April 2016 - Art Textiles: Marian Clayden at the Fashion and Textile Museum, London.  Born in 1937, Marian was a skilled dyer and painter of textiles for the fashion industry.  She died in 2015 and this retrospective will showcase work from her incredible career.

16 April 2016 to 5 February 2017 - Undressed: 350 Years of Underwear in Fashion at the Victoria and Albert Museum.  A look at the history of undergarments.

15 June to 10 July 2016 - E.A.S.T. will be exhibiting Between the Lines at Landmark Arts Centre, Teddington. Also talk and workshops - more details in due course.

13 October 2016 to 5 February 2017 - The Vulgar at the Barbican, London.  Looking at notions of vulgarity by looking at fashions of the Renaissance, 18th century and current times.

21 November 2016 to 28 March 2017 - Opus Anglicanum: Masterpieces of English Medieval Embroidery at the Victoria and Albert Museum.  A golden age for English embroidery, this exhibition looks at not only the craftsmanship but at the wider world at the time they were created.

I will try and keep a separate page on this blog now of exhibitions with a textile theme.  Hopefully I can update this as and when I learn of new ones.

I'd love to hear from anyone else on exhibitions I should add.

Magical Tapestries for Christmas

It seems only appropriate to start this week's blog with a scene of the nativity.  It was taken on my recent trip to Rome, to the Vatican.  This was just one of a large number of tapestries in the appropriately named Tapestry Gallery on the way to the Sistine Chapel.

At one time tapestry was the most expensive form of art you could buy - much more prestigious than painting.  Obviously the church wanted to show their power and status so they had several.

Sadly the ones I really wanted to show did not come out at all well in my photographs, but they were pointed out because of what appeared to be quite magical effects.

One of them showed an image of Jesus coming out of what appeared to be a doorway; what appeared to be an image of him on Easter Sunday.  What was amazing about this tapestry was that if you looked at it as you went past the eyes are followed you.  This is something often seen in paintings but technically very difficult with tapestry.

Next to this tapestry is another one of Jesus sitting at a table with two disciples.  The table appears to almost come into the room.  Once again if you watch the table as you go past the position of the table appears to alter in front of your eyes.  

I would love to know if any other tapestries exist with such magical properties?

In the meantime - wishing all a very Merry Christmas.  

Textiles at the Tate

An evening event in London meant I either went up to town just for a couple of hours in the evening or I used my train fare wisely and looked for something to visit on the way.  I decided to catch one of the free daily tours at Tate Modern - in particular I was interested to see if there were any textile art works to be found. 

The tour I joined was to look at the Energy and Process Gallery on the fourth floor.

One of the works we looked at was by an artist Georgio Griffo (b.1936) and called Segni Orizzontali (1975). The title translates as "horizontal signs".  I picked this work out because its textile qualities are so obvious.  The canvas is not fixed on a stretcher and the folds in the fabric not only make the qualities of the medium very obvious but are very much a feature of the work - a line not in paint but in memory.  

The canvas looks quite coarse - I did not look closely enough to see if it was in its natural state or artificially coloured.  The painted dashes of colour are very evenly and regularly painted - a line of blue, green, a pinky mauve and then a deeper pinky mauve.  Then a line of blue starts again but runs out half way.

What our guide told us was that here the artist expects the audience to "finish" the work - first by mentally "painting" the rest of the blue dashes.  We might then imagine the next line - and most likely follow the pattern in the same recurring colours.

What this piece seems to reference is our human instinct for order.  The textile artists amongst us might also wish the creases were ironed out.  I expect some of us might also wish to see it framed and ordered.  

During the guided tour, which took about 45 minutes (they run daily at 11am, 12 noon, 2pm and 4pm), we looked at about eight art works and I am not certain if the same tour by a different guide would include other works.  Certainly these tours make you look much more closely at works that you might otherwise have walked past.  

When I came out to go to my next destination I walked back through the Christmas Market situated in front of the gallery (it is there until 23 December) and across the bridge towards St Paul's.  The twinkling lights made for a very festive atmosphere and put me in just right mood to go on to a Christmas party where I could catch up with friends, old and new.

Stunning textiles in pastel and enamel

In London, with time on my hands, I decided to visit the Royal Academy's exhibition of the 18th century artist, Jean-Etienne Liotard.  Until technological developments to overcome the difficulty of displaying his favoured medium of pastel were overcome, his work has been difficult to exhibit. It is this medium that gives his pictures a particular luminosity, yet equally it has made him less well known that he should be.  

Born in Geneva in 1702, Liotard spent much of his early life travelling across Europe painting for people on their Grand Tours.  John Montagu (4th Earl of Sandwich) and William Ponsonby (Viscount Duncannon) commissioned him to travel and draw souvenirs of their journey to the Levant, in particular the local costumes.  Not only did this display his talent for attention to detail and love of painting textiles it also gave him contacts that later in life helped obtain even more prestigious clients.

Liotard spent four years in the Levant and when he returned to Europe he dressed in an Oriental style. This made him stand out and attract customers, but they were also impressed by his artistic skill. His other eccentricity was that until his marriage he sported a very long beard.  This was removed at his new wife's request.  On her death (in 1782) the beard returned.  He was still painting in old age and, like Rembrandt, he recorded his own changing features in several self-portraits.  Liotard died in 1789.  

Although an exhibition of mainly portraits, this exhibition that could be viewed for the costumes alone.  Many of his western clients would wear for costumes purchased abroad, to give themselves an air of exoticism.  He had a particular love of a beautiful blue in which many of his sitters were dressed.

I think what I particularly enjoyed with this exhibition was looking at the difference in images looked from a distance and then close up.  In one painting of Katherine Furnese, Countess of Guilford (1754), a diamond at her throat looked so realistic seen from afar. Close up it seemed to be a brown oval with black and white marks - it was almost magical.  

Not only was Liotard skilled with pastel but also talented as a miniaturist working in enamels but both were difficult media.  On the audio guide there was a section that told how until recently it was difficult to transport pastels for exhibition and it is only with new developments in understanding the physical properties of this technique and advances in art transformation that made this exhibition possible.

Liotard drew and painted royalty across Europe including the young Marie-Antoinette, and the British Royal family.  He also painted more ordinary bankers, physicians, actors and singers.  He had no desire to idealise his sitters and the faces are informal and real.  There were so many beautiful images it would be hard to pick just one favourite.

It would also be impossible to finish this review without mentioning his trompe l'oeil, in particular his painting on silk of two plaques and sketches on what appears to be a wooden mount.

This exhibition continues until 31 January 2016, but be warned because the Ai Weiwei exhibition is in its final days (finishes 13 December) there is currently some queueing at the door.  This is partly for bag searches and then ticket purchase.  It was only about 15 minutes when I arrived around lunch time on Wednesday, but by the afternoon the queues were considerably longer.  

Finding Faults of Love

Today I visited the Foundling Museum and while I was there I had a further look at The Fallen Woman exhibition.  I first saw this fascinating exhibition in September and now it is in its last few weeks.  The exhibition looks at the lives of real women of the Victorian era who turned to the Foundling Hospital in their hour of need.  Real petitions are displayed alongside paintings, prints and stereoscopic photographs to look at how women of the time were portrayed in art.  Additionally there is a sound installation. 

The stories from the petitions show girls who were naive, gullible or in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Whatever the story it seems it was always the women who were at fault and for some the hospital allowed them their only hope of a second chance in life.  

The art works show how in Victorian England there was often only three types of women - the totally virtuous, the tempted woman (was she weak or strong?) and the fallen woman.  In art the only way the fallen woman could redeem herself was in death.  The dress you wore was frequently an indicator of which of these types of woman you were thought to be.  

Alongside this thought provoking exhibition was another smaller display - Unpinned. This included work by First Year BA Jewellery Design students from Central Saint Martins, who had used the museum and its archives as a as their inspiration.  I particularly liked the image at the top of this page.  Made from cotton and pins it was a really fascinating technique.  There were other textile pieces on display, some of which are shown below.  

The Fallen Woman continues until 3 January 2016

Unpinned is on display until 31 January 2016

The museum is normally open every day except Monday but is closed between Christmas Day and New Year.