Henry Moore's Old Flo to move to Canary Wharf

“Old Flo” will, in future, be hosted in Cabot Square in Canary Wharf. 

Henry Moore’s bronze sculpture Draped Seated Woman known in the East End as Old Flo is at last to return to London from the Yorkshire Sculpture Park where she went 'on holiday' in 1997 (for safe-keeping) and has admired the view and the sheep for the last 20 years since the wind-up of the Greater London Council's Residary Body.

Tower Hamlets Council this week announced the outcome of the process used to decide where the sculpture should go when it comes back to London.

Draped Seated Woman aka "Old Flo" in Yorkshire Sculpture Park
photography courtesy of John Reynolds - Some rights reserved

My previous blog posts on this topic are:

• Henry Moore Sculpture - a very poor precedent Nov 8, 2012 - This relates 
• the story behind the creation of Old Flo by Henry Moore; 
• her relationship with the borough of Tower Hamlets (where I live) and 
• the story behind the then Mayor's proposal to sell the sculpture sell the sculpture (he's since had to step down as Mayor and was banned from politics for 5 years) - and 
• why this was a really BAD IDEA!
• Old Flo - the end of the story? Jul 13, 2015 - all about why a High Court decision determined that LB Tower Hamlets did own the Moore statue after all
• A new location for Henry Moore's "Old Flo" in the East End
• announced that the Appeal Court had rejected LB Bromley's appeal and Tower Hamlets Council has been reconfirmed as the legal owner of the Henry Moore sculpture Draped Seated Woman. 
• includes a timeline of mishap and malfeasance in relation to the disposition of Old Flo.

As predicted in my last blog post - the ONLY sane option, in terms of a security blanket, at present is Canary Wharf.

There are - or should be - a minimum of two criteria for a new location for the sculpture:

• Moore's conditions of sale
• where the sculpture can be located and be safe from both vandalism and theft

In terms of safety, there's probably no question that the safest place which is accessible to the population of Tower Hamlets is probably what is now the private estate at Canary Wharf. It has its own security force which is active and vigilant. Nowhere else in the borough - with the possible exception of the Tower of London enjoys the same degree of security.

The threat of meltdown

The major consideration had to be the potential theft of the statue for its metal value.

The threat was not insignificant. It's a fate suffered by other Henry Moore Sculptures that have been "lifted" and stolen for their value as metal not art. Below are accounts of other bronze sculptures which have been stolen and melted down

• Theft of bronze statues linked to 'artworks for scrap' gang (The Independent May 2006)
• Mystery of the stolen Moore solved (The Guardian May 2009) - Bronze sculpture worth £3m was melted down and sold off as scrap for just £1,500, say police. This theft involved a massive sculpture, which weighed 2.1 tons and measured 3.6 metres in length - and was stolen from the home of the Henry Moore Foundation - which means they are well aware of what can be achieved by those who are most determined!
• Henry Moore bronze figure stolen from open-air sculpture park in Scotland (The Guardain October 2013) - Standing Figure taken from Glenkiln Sculpture Park in Lincluden Estate, which also features works by Rodin and Epstein

Finding a new location

Tower Hamlets Council's statement says

Three organisations put in bids to provide a home to the valuable artwork, for up to five years.

Following a detailed and independent scoring process, including representatives of the Henry Moore Foundation, it was agreed that Canary Wharf Group had set out the best plans to make Old Flo accessible to residents whilst ensuring the security of the renowned sculpture, amid fears that it could be stolen for its bronze metal value.

Without a high level of security the sculpture would not have been possible to insure.

However this might not be her last resting place.

The Mayor of Tower Hamlets indicates that she may be on the move again.

“Whilst I would have loved to see Old Flo returned to her old home in Stepney her considerable value means we’ve had to find her a safe and secure home for her for the next five years. My hope is after that she can move even closer into our community, possibly at the new Civic Centre in Whitechapel when it is complete. In the meantime Canary Wharf will be a great and accessible home for Old Flo allowing her to once again add to Tower Hamlets’ already enviable reputation as a creative and cultural borough.”

I'll just be glad to see her back in the borough!

For those wondering where Cabot Square is see the red marker sign on the map below.  It's a hop skip and a jump from the nice security men who are stationed at the roundabout monitoring coming and goings of all vehicles entering the estate.

More on this topic

• Henry Moore sculpture 'Old Flo' set for London return | BBC
• 'Old Flo' makes her way back to London from Yorkshire | The Guardian
• 'Old Flo' sculpture to return to Tower Hamlets as new Canary Wharf home confirmed | Evening Standard
• ‘Old Flo’ set to return to Tower Hamlets in new Canary Wharf site | East London Advertiser (yet another so-called local news report which just parrots the Council's press release!)

Want to see some very big flower paintings?

I've had any number of people tell me over the years that flower painting isn't really serious art.

For example, I've come across a fair few chaps who select work for their art societies who don't seem to take it very seriously. Granted there's a rather lot of amateurs producing some not very good flower paintings. However, I think most of us could agree that it's possible to say the same thing about landscapes, still life and portraits!!

So why does flower painting get shut out of 'serious' art exhibitions?

Jacqui Pestell MBE and Sharon Tingey GM with their Corpse Flower
- technically this is an unbranched inflorescence - and it's the biggest in the world

I know

• I see more skilled use of watercolour by botanical artists than I do in some of the paintings selected for major exhibitions of watercolour art. However, art isn't all about skill is it?
• from discussions last year with the Marketing Director and Marketing Manager of Fabriano Paper (see A Meeting with Fabriano about Hot Press Paper) that 

botanical artists are very demanding when it comes to testing watercolour paper.

However, anybody who wants to see what the women and a few men who paint plants and flowers can do and have been getting up in recent years should get themselves down to Kew and view the artwork on show.

"British Artists in the Shirley Sherwood Collection" opened at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery at Kew on Saturday.

I was at the PV on Monday night, spent Tuesday processing photos and writing blog posts and will be back there back again tomorrow to take a good long hard look at all the paintings in the exhibition.

Rosie Sanders with five of her paintings

You can see more of Rosie Sanders GM's work at

• the Jonathan Cooper Gallery in Park Walk, Chelsea or 
• on her website (prices if you want to do a commission) or 
• in her new book Rosie Sanders' Flowers: A Celebration of Botanical Art (affiliate link). 

If you're visiting the Mall Galleries in the near future, her book was sat top middle of the Featured Books stand last time I was in!

The image at the top of this post is one I've now included on two Facebook Pages. One was prefaced by this comment...

Anybody out there who has any 'namby pamby' concepts about "flower painters" needs to change them!
The women of botanical art paint life-size - even if that means BIG!

This lifesize painting of the Titan Arum (Amorphophallus titanum) - painted very fast last summer as it reached peak flowering and while it was at its stinkiest (it's also known as "the Corpse Flower") - is by Jacqui Pestell MBE (on left), Sharon Tingey GM (on right) and Işık Güner GM (teaching in Morocco at present) who at the time of painting were all artists and tutors for the Diploma in Botanical Illustration at the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh.  It's been donated by Shirley Sherwood to the Kew Collection.

This is how they painted it.

Titan arum painting (Kew exhibition, 2017) from Wild Leaf Reels on Vimeo.

Finally, Coral Guest GM who describes herself as "just a flower painter" who got an awful lot of other women painting large watercolours of plants with her book about Painting Flowers in Watercolour: A Naturalistic Approach (Art Practical) (affiliate link)

She paints large plants from bulbs at their actual full grown lifesize - and some of them are pretty big! At the same time some of the detail is absolutely delicate and exquisite. Check it out and see for yourself!

Coral Guest with five of her paintings in the Shirley Sherwood Collection

The exhibition is on at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art in Kew Gardens until 17th September 2017. It's open every day until 10am to 5.30pm

There's a lot more very fine art by very fine artists in the show - of which more later.... [UPDATE - see British Artists in the Shirley Sherwood Collection - a review and a timeline ]

More of my blog posts about this exhibition

• British Artists in the Shirley Sherwood Collection - an exhibition at Kew
• British Botanical Artists - photographed with their paintings

300th Exhibition of the Royal Society of British Artists

Last week I visited the 300th Exhibition of the Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) at the Mall Galleries. The exhibition continues until 1st April from 10am to 5pm.

Below is my review - plus analysis of how well artists submitting work via the open entry fare.

Cover of the catalogue for the 300th Exhibition of the Royal Society of British Artists

This is not the 300th Annual Exhibition because the RBA has not been going for 300 years! It was founded in 1823, acquired a Royal Charter in 1887 and managed two exhibitions a year in its early days - hence "300th".

• You can view the catalogue for the exhibition on Issuu
• you can view all works by members on the RBA website (but NOT the selected works from the Open Submission) - and filter them by subject and medium.
• You can see selected works on the Mall Galleries website - ordered alphabetically by surname some selected from the open entry - and below

In addition to its normal exhibition, the far gallery in the North Gallery included artwork by twenty-two aspiring young artists selected from across the UK and Europe.

End wall in the Main Gallery

Exhibition metrics - and the Open Entry

I write this blog for artists as well as art lovers - in particular, for those who enter art competitions and open exhibitions. This year I'm monitoring how "open" the open Annual Exhibitions of Art Societies are.

In terms of numbers, the number of works submitted for the open has not been supplied in the catalogue - which is a pity. I'll see if I can get hold of it and calculate the percentage success artists have of getting their work accepted.

No. of artworks and artists

There are 510 artworks in the main exhibition across the three galleries (excluding the work by past Presidents and members, NADFAS RBA Scholars and the National Students At Exhibition) 

There are 383 artworks (75%) by 86 members and 127 artworks (25%) were by 100 non-members.

Of the latter some 16 of the 'open' artists are members of other national societies (most of which are based at the Mall Galleries).  Which leaves 84 which have no affiliation.

• This makes the ratio of members' to open artworks hung 75:25. This for me puts this exhibition on the margins of being counted as a serious open exhibition. 
• By way of contrast, the ratio of members to 'open' artists is 46:54 in terms of people hanging work in the exhibition. 

Artworks per artist

• Members: averaged 4.45 works hung. Typically full members hung the six works they can hang while more senior members tended to hang just one or a small number
• 'Open' artists: averaged 1.27 works hung each. The vast majority had just one work hung, a few had two or three and one candidate (who I know) had 4 works.  Whether it's worth submitting more than one work has got to be debateable as the chances are only one will be hung. I don't think there's a good rationale for submitting more than two unless you're pitching to be a candidate for entry now or in the future.

No. of sales per class of artist

This is an interesting statistic as this number will, of course, vary over the course of the exhibition. However, two days after the Private View is a good time to take a sample.

In the case of this exhibition, the metrics work out as follows:

• 32 sales by members - 8.3% of artwork sold 
• 30 sales by 'open' artists - 23.6% of artwork sold 

Bottom line, the open part of the exhibition is generating more sales pro rata to artwork hung than the members.

I did have the impression that some of the members' prices are a tad high relative to the marketplace - but they will know whether or not their work sells at that price.  You can check the prices of all the artwork in the exhibition on the Mall Galleries website and in the catalogue.

Review of the exhibition

Exhibition by members

Work of past Presidents and Members

The exhibition this year includes a wall of artwork by previous Presidents and Members in the Threadneedle Space.  It might be worthy and it's very definitely the sort of thing you do for a 300th event - but quite a lot of it was very dull. Not unworthy - just art more suited to the past than the present.

Yet again the work exhibited in the main gallery was by members.

I have written before at length on this topic and don't propose to repeat myself except to say I think it's a mistake.  The emphasis, to my mind, should ALWAYS be on creating the best possible well-hung exhibition as opposed an exhibition by members with the open submissions being treated as some sort of add-on.

The reality is that while there is some excellent work in the main gallery, there is also some work which fails to interest. Obviously, everybody's taste is different and I don't expect to like everything - but I did feel some of the work looked, for want of a better word, "old" (and by that I don't mean the past members' work or 'traditional' per se.)

Walls which looked good included:

Work by George Large, Jill Leman, William Selby and Martin Leman looked good in each other's company

Traditional but pleasing paintings

More traditional but pleasing paintings

I loved the exhibition of complex multi-media artwork and fine art prints by Vice President Mick Davies. I loved the drawing element to these works and the palette used for the colours. They're a lesson in how to make a very busy artwork look totally absorbing.

An EXCELLENT wall of mixed media work and fine art prints by Vice President Mick Davies

Some large and small sculpture in the Threadneedle Space
plus colourful paintings which looked excellent in the very neutral space.

The Open Entry and the North Gallery 

Most of the artwork selected via the Open Entry is hanging in the North Gallery. It includes a lot of good work. Overall, it has a more contemporary feel than some of the artwork by members in the main gallery.

It also had my favourite corner/wall of the exhibition.

North Gallery #1

North Gallery #2

North Gallery #3

This was my favourite wall. I love the combination of mostly monochrome with some well-judged colour.

The Middle of the North Gallery (the little room)

I also loved the fine art prints which were hung on the 'monochrome' wall.

Fine art prints from OPEN artists in the North Gallery

This is the VIDEO I made of the work hanging in the North Gallery.



I can't remember the last time that I saw Melissa Scott-Miller's work in the North Gallery. Her large paintings are normally out in the Main Gallery space winning prizes and garnering sales from her very faithful following...

Three works by Melissa Scott-Miller NEAC RP

Work by Young Artists / Scholars

I thought the work by some of the Young Artists in the far gallery was very impressive. Indeed some of them were winning prizes! (see below)

You can see all the NADFAS RBA Scholars on this website

I wasn't in the least bit surprised that this portrait by Wilmslow High School student Eleonor Prime was singled out for a Highly Commended for the top prize in the show! To my mind there are some issues with the painting but overall it shows very great promise.

Also see two of the prizes below which were won by Young Artists exhibiting in the North Gallery.

Prizewinners

One of the bonuses of this open exhibition is that it has a lot of prizes! Prizewinners are listed on the website. It's a pity the list doesn't include images. Below are some of the award winners.

The de Laszlo Foundation Prize 
Medal and £1,500 will be awarded to the artist under 35 for the best painting from life
Blindfold by Anna Rubincam (Open)

Contemporary Arts Trust Award £1,000
Joint Winner
Untitled I by Gopal Sharma(Pencil)

Contemporary Arts Trust Award £1,000
Joint Winner
Self Portrait by Jane McNulty
RBA Scholar from Bourne Academy

.@AnnieBoisseau, Landscape Morning Light
Winner of the @winsorandnewton Painting Award at the @RoyalSocBritArt 300th Exhibition pic.twitter.com/p9A3hE75SR

— mallgalleries (@mallgalleries) 22 March 2017

.@MalcolmAshman Ghost & Henry Jabbour Peeling 2 have won The Michael Harding Award at the @RoyalSocBritArt 300th Exhibition pic.twitter.com/ECA68KrB7Z

— mallgalleries (@mallgalleries) 22 March 2017

I thought the next painting - by a young artist was very impressive and certainly worthy of the prize it won.

The John Ingram Memorial Prize
for a Young Artist
Self Portrait by Katie Denham

The Michael Harding Awards
Two prizes of £500 of art supplies
Ghost by Malcolm Ashman RBA ROI (above bottom left)
Peeling 2 by Henry Jabbour (open)

Frinton Frames Award
£200 of picture framing at Frinton FramesWaiting for You by Steven Outram RBA
(middle row right)

The Edward Wesson Award for Watercolour Painting £100Present from A.J. by Annie Williams RBA RWS

The Artist Magazine Award
The winner will be featured in The Artist magazineAll works (502-507) by Anthony Yates RBA

The Dry Red Press Award

Work published as a greeting card

Songbirds by Nicola Slattery RBA
acrylic painting on wood

The Alfred Daniels Personal Favourites Awards (Six prizes of £100)

• Lights in Mist, Blackheath - Jon Pryke RBA
• Don't Rock the Boat - Stuart Smith (OPEN)
• Girl on the Wire - Bridget Moore RBA NEAC
• The Old Boat - Alex Callaway (OPEN)
• Bull's Head - Martyn Baldwin RBA
• The Thames at Putney - Ronald Morgan RBA ROI 

Don't Rock the Boat - Stuart Smith

The Geoffrey Vivis Memorial Award £100
Self Portrait by Charlie Pike
NADFAS Scholar | Thomas Hardye School, Dorset

Events during the exhibition

The remaining events next week are as follows:

Presenters	Event Detail	Dates and Times
James Horton	Portrait Demonstration	Monday 27th March 12 noon to 2pm
James Horton	Tour of the exhibition	Monday 27th March 4pm
David Sawyer	Landscape and Architecture Demonstration	Wednesday 29th March, 12 noon to 2pm
James Horton	Coffee Morning (with sketching) James will be playing the classical guitar	Thursday 30th March, 10am to 12 noon
Mick Davies Nick Tidnam	Acrylics and Mixed Media Demonstration	Thursday 30th March, 1:30pm to 3:30pm

About the exhibition

• Venue: Mall Galleries - The Mall, St. James's, London SW1, UK (link is to Google Maps)
• Dates: 22nd March to 1st April 2017
• Open: Daily, 10am to 5pm during exhibitions (unless otherwise stated), including Bank Holidays.
• Admission £4, £2.50 concessions, 50% off for National Art Pass holders, Free for Friends of Mall Galleries, RBA Friends and under 18s

Review: The Big Painting Challenge FINAL 2017

I was metaphorically on the edge of my seat last night watching the Final of The Big Painting Challenge on BBC1 - willing my prediction to do well.

Which was a bit silly when it dawned on me that this was filmed last summer and no amount of positive thoughts from me would have made any difference to the result!

However to my mind 'attitude' made a big difference to the result last night.

"Being in the Final, what it says to me is you shouldn't be so negative about your possibilities" David White

The Final Judgement

Not only did we have a worthy winner in Suman Kaur (who I had a lovely messaging chat with in the week - where she didn't betray a thing!).

We also saw four artists who had genuinely been - in those cliché words much beloved of TV people - "on a journey".

If you've missed my earlier blog posts about this series (and the last series) you can find them at the bottom of this post - along with links to the websites of all the participants in the series (including the Judges and Mentors - unmissable!).

Now for the final!

The Penultimate Challenge

The location was the Queen's House in Greenwich - which is a magnificent building and a beautiful setting for this challenge.

Hearing that the Penultimate Challenge is a Portrait

The presenters indicated that

• The final episode would contain two very different challenges which would show how far they had progressed during the series. (Let's not forget that the different aim of this series was a much more educational slant to the programmes and continuous mentoring throughout up until this point.)
• The ultimate aim was to identify the Finest Amateur Artist of 2017. (I'm guessing this is because Sky has already nabbed the Artist of the Year title - and this BBC series wants to emphasise its relationship with amateur artists across the country).

The Finalists were also told that the big difference in the Final was that the Mentors would NOT be able to counsel and coach - and they were on their own for the first time. That was a smart move - it made the first five episodes seem like lessons and tests and this was "The Big Exam" at the end of term!

So the first challenge was to be a portrait - but they were not told who was going to be the subject. So much speculation with the favourite being that they were going to paint their mentors.

They had tips from the mentors

"Think about your strengths that you've got remember to keep looking, keep observing. Think about composition, could be the face, could be the whole thing, think about the background, think about colours. You're going to be on your own. Just have my voice in your head saying 'Do that, do that!'." Diana Ali

"If we can get this triangle right between the bottom of the nose and the centre of both the eyes, no matter whether it's square on face or three-quarter view, if you get that right you can kind of do anything you want with the painting. You;re going to do the best painting you've done so far - I'm 100% sure." Pascal 

This challenge was WAY BETTER than the penultimate challenge from last year's series which was completely unrealistic in terms of subject matter and how people respond to it.  You can't make people paint subjects that don't mean anything to them - especially when the subject is the Royal Naval College!

This year, the penultimate challenge of evoking an emotional response for a painting was so much simpler when the artists were given the chance to "paint a parent"!  (Well done to the parents for agreeing to sit and be painted!)

The challenge was to paint a portrait in 3.5 hours AND:

• to showcase all they have learned
• to paint a portrait which demonstrates the character of the sitter

The overdub opined that painting parents can actually be a very real hindrance to painting a portrait BECAUSE of the emotional reaction. However I think the BBC forgot that compared to the challenges they had put painters in previous episodes this challenge apparently felt like a bit of a walk in the park. Well maybe not that relaxed - but definitely one which stimulated them to do well but without making them stress about the subject.

In fact, the presenters kept commenting on how much more relaxed the session was! Nobody was stressing out in a corner........

The episode also enabled the programme-makers to give a potted summary of "the progress the artists have made so far". They're particularly interesting on reflection because in a lot of ways they're not untypical of very many other amateur artists out there who have similar issues re. skills and areas they need to improve

The summaries went something like this....

Review: Michelangelo & Sebastiano at the National Gallery, London

I went to the preview of "The Credit Suisse Exhibition: Michelangelo & Sebastiano" at the National Gallery this week, along with rather a lot of other people from all over the world.

Michelangelo & Sebastiano - Room 3 Defining the Roman Style

Michelangelo is a name we all know - but Sebastiano is less well known. This exhibition is about why they worked together within the context of Raphael's ever-increasing profile and prominence.

The key issue for me for those coming to visit the exhibition is that there talents and reputations and unequal - people will come for Michelangelo - while the exhibits (paintings, drawings and letters) are mostly by Sebastiano.

Notwithstanding it's impossible to remove mural frescos from walls in Rome and there are some exceptional loans of sculpture and drawings by Michelangelo, the exhibition does feel a tad unbalanced.

The 'Taddei Tondo' - the only marble sculpture by Michelangelo in Great BritainMadonna and child with the infant John the Baptist and a bird
On Loan from the Royal Academy of Arts (which it has not left since the 1960s!)

However, I did find the curator's talked focused on the relationship rather than the paintings and how their joint enterprise progressed and in that context I came out of the exhibition with a better impression than when I went in.

I'd also go a long way for a look at Michelangelo's drawings!

Michelangelo drawing of a seated nude with arms (crop)

The exhibition includes around 70 paintings, drawings, sculptures and letters.The exhibition is in the North Galleries on Level 2 and continues until 25th June 2017. It's open from 10am - 6pm daily (9pm on Fridays). The curator of the exhibition is Matthias Wivel, the National Gallery's curator of 16th-century Italian Paintings.

Below are highlights of the exhibition and key points about the context and the artists. Articles about the exhibition are listed at the end of this blog post.

A creative partnership

It's an exhibition about a creative partnership. Michelangelo (1475-1564) - who, as the audio guide suggested, never sustained a relationship with anybody - had a collaborative and creative working friendship with Sebastiano del Piombo (1485-1547).

This is the National Gallery short video about the exhibition.

Book Review - The Great Pottery Throw Down

The first series of The Great Pottery Throw Down had me fixating on the potter's wheel and raku firing. I ended up taking a trip to the Victoria and Albert Museum and writing this post - The Ceramics Gallery at the V&A. Mainly because I'd never before realised the scope, breadth and depth of the V&A collection.

The rest of the country conspired to make pottery now the most over-subscribed evening class in the UK!  Although I suspect that for many people being unable to have a kiln at home also probably contributes to that....

I've again been a regular watcher of the Second Series which I've been greatly enjoying yet again.

The semi-final is on BBC2 at 8pm tonight (and apparently we're all going to be wowed by Johnny Vegas throwing a teapot very fast - he used to study pottery at Middlesex University where he was taught by Kate Malone).

Then there's the final next week - I've no idea who's going to win - and after that nothing, except evening classes.

Or that's what I thought until Pavilion Books sent me 'the book of the series' to review - so this is that review.

PS If you think this blog has been a bit besotted with art on television of late you have the programmers to thank. It all seems to go up a gear as we go into the New Year!

The Great Pottery Throw Down - the Book

Those who have enjoyed the series will definitely enjoy this book - and learn from it.

What's the book about?

It's intended as a companion book to the series - but it's not a "how to" book.

That's not to say it doesn't explain techniques - because it does and it does illustrate stages.

However, it is emphatically NOT a step by step type book for those who want to try every pottery technique known to man since the beginning of time

I think it's very probably aimed at those who like to stay in their armchair rather than venture out to an evening class - and yet at the same time provide enough content to stimulate those who loved the series to have a go for themselves.

I found it very educational in a very easy read way. I don't mean that it uses simple concepts and words but rather than the information is presented in a well thought through way. It has enough information to enable learning and not so much that you want to switch off!

I now know a lot more about:

Gareth Reid is Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year 2017

Last night, it was revealed that Gareth Reid was the Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year 2017 - and had won a career-changing £10,000 commission to paint Graham Norton (who for the uninitiated is a television and radio 'national treasure' in the UK).

Sky broadcast two programmes back to back last night.

• The first related to the Final held at the National Portrait Gallery last year.
• The second related to the story of the winner and the painting of the commission.

Below you can find out more about

• The Commission
• The Final
• Gareth Reid
• How to see the exhibition about the Portrait Artist of the Year 2017
• How to watch the Heats for the Portrait Artist of the Year 2018 - NEXT MONTH!

The Commission

The prize portrait commission for the winning artist was revealed on New Year’s Eve as television presenter and comedian Graham Norton.

Graham Reid with his portrait of Graham Norton

Graham Norton and Gareth Reid

Graham commented afterwards on a really curious coincidence - both sitter and artist turn out to be related via family in Ballymena. It turns out that Mr Reid’s great-grandmother is the sister of Mr Norton’s great-grandfather. They only found out when they met to start the portrait.

"Out of all the people who entered, getting the opportunity to paint Graham, out of all the people they could have chosen, and it turning out we're third cousins"

The portrait will hang in The National Gallery of Ireland and goes on public display in the Millennium Wing of the Dublin gallery TODAY.

"The most important thing for me was the privilege of having a painting in a national public collection, but the thing you just can't buy is the exposure on this scale. For years you do the work and it's a very slow and often frustrating process getting it out there. But a big prize, especially a televised one, will definitely help the cause. We'll wait and see how it goes." Gareth Reid

I think it's a great portrait being both a really good likeness and having a nice painterly quality to it.

The official "Nortrait". @SkyArts #portraitartistoftheyear @CASSART @grahnort @NGIreland pic.twitter.com/55T5p3TdUu

— Gareth Reid (@TheReidArt) 15 March 2017

Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year 2017 - The Final

Let's not forget where it all started - and I'll have a reminder at the end about how you can watch the 2018 competition

London and its River by The Wapping Group

The Annual Exhibition of the Wapping Group of Artists is titled 'London and its River".

The Wapping Group is somewhat curious. Originally formed to record the River Thames and shipping in the Port of London (at Wapping). Its members have continued to meet since 1946 to paint the River Thames “en plein air” from Henley, along the banks of the Thames and out to its estuary in Essex and Kent .

Paintings by Paul Banning and Derek Daniells

It now has 25 "statutory members" - and only one of them is a woman (elected in 2016 and showing this year for the first time as a full member)!

I'm not quite sure what they mean by "statutory" as it normally means "required, permitted, or enacted by statute". I'm not quite sure what law deemed 25 members sufficient.... Maybe the word they mean is 'maximum'?

Paintings by Trevor Chamberlain and looking through the two more galleries of paintings

This is the 14th annual exhibition held at the Mall Galleries. The exhibition continues until 4pm on the 18th March in the North Galleries. You can see in this post some of the photos I took this afternoon of the exhibition.

This wall included pastel paintings by Rick Holmes

Winter light, Isleworth by Graham Davies SOLD

What I noticed was that:

• the painting of some of the older members is not what it was in the past
• they have three candidates up for membership - Chris Burdett, Graham Davies and John Walsom - each with three paintings in the exhibition. I was particularly impressed with the paintings of Chris Davies who seemed to capture the soft vaporous colours of the riverside.
• there's rather a lot of views of London - of places away from the River.

Paintings by Bert Wright and Sidney Cardew

I'm a purist when it comes to the Wapping group. I've seen a number of their exhibitions - and I like to see paintings of the river and the land immediately adjacent to the river - as I have in the past when exhibitions only included a very occasional view away from the River Thames.   Views of other parts of London are what I expect to see in other exhibitions but NOT this one.

Paintings by Alan Runagall

I'd very much like to see the Group return to its roots and what it does which is distinctive and different from any other art society - which is

• painting the River Thames
• the boats seen along the river, 
• the land and buildings on the banks of the river  and
• some of the people and places associated with river activities.

That gives lots of scope for a great exhibition. There's really no need for paintings of soldiers marching or the streets of the City of London.

Maybe the Group needs a new rule which says something along the lines that the maximum submission by any member of anything away from the River and river activities should be limited to one per member?

Paintings by John Killens and Michael Richardson

Some earlier posts about the Wapping Group of Artists

• The Wapping Group of Artists - Annual Exhibition 2015
• Exhibition review: Wapping Group of Artists - 63rd Annual Exhibition (2009 exhibition)
• The Wapping Group of Artists (2007 exhibition)

Review: The Big Painting Challenge - Episode 5 (Movement)

So - we now know who's in the Final of the The Big Painting Challenge 2017!

I won't spoil it for those who don't yet know but will be revealing who went after this Semi Finals episode near the end of this post. (I found myself missing Angela - who went last week - as the episode got under way.)

David, Jennifer and Alan tackling Movement as the Episode 5 Big Painting Challenge

One of the more interesting aspects of this episode was how the artists behaved once they'd been brought together as one group, given they'd previously only known how the other painters in their group painted.

It kept reminding me of painting holidays where you always have the painters who want to see what everybody else is getting up to - especially as the competition was "hotting up".

There seemed to be a general consensus that Jennifer and Suman - who had each achieved two free passes to the next round - were the ones to watch as matters progressed with this challenge.

The setting for the Challenge for Episode 5 (iPlayer Link) was very familiar to me. Painters Hall in Little Trinity Lane in the City of London is the home of The Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers. The Livery Hall in particular, where the Second Challenge was shot, was where the first few exhibitions of the Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize used to be held. So it's very well used to playing host to a painting competition!

The Briefing for the First Challenge

The First Challenge - Ballerina dancing 

The Big Challenge this week was to paint or draw the body in motion. 

Mariella characterised this part of the episode - with a glint in her eye - as "the short warm-up before the main event tomorrow".

The first challenge was to:

• paint or draw a solo dancer performing a series of repeat movements very slowly  for two hours - with short breaks
• achieve both a sense of proportion (or as Daphne put it - that the arms, legs and head all belong to the same person!) 
• plus a sense of movement
• using the medium of their choice - in two hours

Their faces when they first saw the ballerina and what she was doing were 'a picture'!

Jimmy about to enhance the curves of the dancer

I thought Jimmy was the person who produced the best painting from the first challenge - in the sense that it might not have been accurate in proportion but it was the only one with a real sense of movement.

Suman's was probably the most accurate drawing but it didn't flow.  That may well have been because she ran into a practical problem of finding that the available paper wasn't suitable for the charcoal which she loves using - and has used a lot in the past challenges. (Dear BBC - there's no excuse for not providing artists with the paper they need!)

I'm not sure Alan is thinking about the composition of his painting before he starts it. I think maybe he'd a got a bit of a gung-ho approach of getting started before he has worked out what happens after he's got something down on paper or canvas.  I'd love to see him making much more use of a sketchbook to work out compositions. (Or maybe he does and that gets edited out?)

Alan with his short challenge painting

Tips from the Mentors

This week the tips from the mentors seemed to be quite influential in terms of building confidence and introducing new ways of thinking about how to paint

Pascal - who has visibly relaxed as the episodes have progressed (he was even caught smiling and smirking this week!) - took them to Peter's Hill (between St Paul's Cathedral and the Millennium Bridge) to paint people passing.

His technique was to ask them to get away from detail and to simplify and try and capture each person with just one vertical stroke of the brush. That and paint a 100 people!

The giggles you get after the Mentor asks you to paint 100 people as one stroke

However, it worked! Both produced convincing monochrome crowd scenes using what I assume was ink and water (see below).  This is David's blog post about this episode Big Painting Challenge 5 (Movement) - My Comments  which includes comments on this task.

The 100 people painted one vertical stroke at a time

Diana Ali's group were moving paint around with card - although I rather suspect there was another part of the exercise which was about drawing stick people (there was a very prominent stick drawing) to make sure you've got proportions and perspective sorted before you start.  Jennifer took to the card painting like a duck to water - and promptly incorporated into the next challenge.

The 5th Big Painting Challenge - Swan Lake!

The BIG Painting Challenge of the series to date was to paint a troupe of dancers performed sections from Swan Lake! Like you do....

The artists were being judged on:

• The composition of the painting
• accurate proportions
• a sense of movement

This was an exercise to sort the women from the men! ;)