Review: ING Discerning Eye Exhibition 2023

The ING Discerning Eye Exhibition 2023 opened to the public last Friday - when I visited. This is a review of what I found - but first some facts about this very unusual exhibition and how it works - and who are the six selectors who have created six very different exhibits in 2023

(This post has been updated since it was first published with respect to the number of entries, selected works and artists - see below)

The end of the West Gallery featured a lot of sculpture and 3D works.
I couldn't quite work out whether these all related to just one selector
as the names of the artists suggested not.....

At a time when sponsorship is being withdrawn and art competitions are dying on their feet, ING are to be very much applauded for their continued sponsorship of this open art competition / exhibition.

• ING has been supporting this exhibition every year since 1999!
• This makes it one of the longest corporate art sponsorships in the UK

Since it began in 1999, 11,000 works by 4,000 artists have been exhibited, £290,000 has been awarded in prize money, and over £1 million worth of art has been sold on behalf of the artists

The ING Discerning Eye Exhibition

The Discerning Eye is a visual arts focused educational charity. Its principal activity is to hold a rather unique annual exhibition sponsored by the bank ING - and hence it is known as the ING Discerning Eye Exhibition.

Ian Watkin's Exhibit

What's special about this exhibition is that it is:

• an annual show of small-scale works - which are all for sale
• chosen by two artists, two art collectors and two critics / people who have art-related occupations
  
• as a result, there are six different exhibits - one for each of the selectors
• while 25% of each exhibits MUST come from the open entry, the selectors are also able to invite artists they like to exhibit their work
• it's a good opportunity for 
• emerging artists to get their work seen, appreciated and exhibited - albeit in a small way!
• artists whose work may not always please ALL the selectors!

Within each selection works from, as yet lesser known artists, hang alongside pieces by those who are more established or internationally recognised.

The exhibition is 

• open daily 10am - 5pm in all three galleries at the Mall Galleries in London
• it closes on Sunday 26th November at 1pm

You can also VIEW EACH EXHIBIT ONLINE

Plus I am going to be uploading my photographs of the exhibition to an album on my Making A Mark Facebook Page.

• 

  ING Discerning Eye 2023

  38 items
• 

  ING Discerning Eye 2023 (Part 2)

  37 items

I've included representative ones of each exhibit in this review.

Part of the Exhibit by Chris Levine in the North Gallery
- probably the most curated and gallery like of them all in terms of presentation

The 2023 Curators

Links embedded in the selectors name are to their ONLINE EXHIBIT.

(Quite why the URL for each exhibit bears absolutely no relationship to the selector's name is beyond me - but is the sort of thing I notice!)

Artists

• Chris Levine, a luminary in light art, 
• Julian Wild, an accomplished sculptor, 

Curator/ Critics

• Péjú Oshin, a distinguished curator, currently Associate Director at Gagosian
• Eliza Gluckman, Director of the Government Art Collection

Eliza Gluckman - part of her exhibition in the East Gallery

Art Collectors

• Ian "H" Watkins one of the singers in Steps who is passionate about painting
• Tony Adams - former Arsenal and England football captaiN.

The exhibit by Tony Adams - in the West Gallery

My review

My reviews tend to focus on a lot of practical aspects and things of interest to artists wanting to be selected for the exhibition, visitors to the exhibition and those whose wanting to buy. These are all summed up below in 

• what I liked
• what I disliked 

That's not to say I don't have an opinion on the art - but it is so diverse and eclectic it's difficult to have a coherent view about the artwork itself

Review: A Girl about Town by Rosa Sepple

Rosa Sepple PPRI seems to have settled on 50 paintings as a goodly number for a solo show. This is how many paintings she has in her latest exhibition "A Girl About Town" which is on at the new RWS Galleries at 3 Whitcomb Street (next to the National Gallery) in central London.

If you're an artist, I recommend you take a look at an exhibition by an artist who is renowned for having a very good track record in solo shows and sells lots of paintings!

If you're a collector, I recommend you take a look at artwork which is very different from most art you see in galleries and exhibitions.

Rosa Sepple and the Beatles in A Hard Day's Night (SOLD)

The exhibition has been organised by Adrian Hill Fine Art who has been selling Rosa's artwork to a very enthusiastic set of collectors for quite a while. He's one of those gallerists who's got a very good portfolio of artists he represents and others whose work he sells. The paintings are all presented extremely well using the same black frames which are used for all Rosa's paintings.

The exhibition at the RWS Whitcomb Galleries, 3 - 5 Whitcomb Street, London WC2H 7HA is on

• From:  Tuesday 12th - To: Saturday 23rd September
• Hours: 11am - 6pm daily (Saturday 23rd 11am - 2pm Only)

On Private View night I walked into a gallery with a LOT of red spots for sales already in evidence plus a number of green ones for those reserved prior to the collector visiting the show.

To date (14th September), after the exhibition has been open for 4 days she's sold 24 paintings of the 50 paintings with three more reserved. So basically she's almost certainly sold half the show with more than a week to go! 

In essence, it's art from the perspective of a young woman - with sparkle - with dreams about what might be! Rosa's paintings are very much uniquely hers.  For those who are interested, the subject matter sales split as follows:

• Party Girls
• Single women
• Couples 
• Landscapes (typically maritime and Venice)

However, aspects of Rosa's paintings do remind me of two artists who have been extremely popular in the UK:

• Beryl Cook - the fascination of things which rather larger middle aged women do - with various added fun components; and 
• the landscapes and narratives of LS Lowry with added whimsical components. 

Rosa Sepple is an artist who likes to paint narratives which tell stories or evoke feelings of "fun" and/or "feeling good". If your paintings can make others smile and feel good too, you can sell a lot of paintings! 

"Dance to the Music" by Rosa Sepple

Interestingly it also reminded me that, in general, I see very few paintings by women of things women like to do. Which is maybe a thought to ponder on for all the female artists out there. 

Personally, I like her larger narrative paintings with lots of people doing lots of things. They have the capacity to make me stop and look for a long time - in much the same way as LS Lowry paintings have done for many people in the past.

I also very much like her skills in the use of collage and frottage to give the paintings textural interest.

The Village Green by Rosa Sepple

Rosa makes it her practice to develop and hold a number of solo shows - in liaison with Adrian Hill - for her very unique subject matter and style which draws a number of avid collectors. It's not the sort of art you see in every gallery - you need somebody who believes in you and Adrian certainly does that. 

I have to highlight that it's not the sort of art I buy. The first time I saw her work - a long time ago in the RWS Open at the Bankside Gallery - I found myself saying to myself, in a fairly pompous huffy way, things like "But you're not allowed to put lots of glitter in paintings!" However I was VERY wrong!  Sparkle can sell paintings!

I now absolutely and totally get why her art is so popular with so many people. Many of the paintings remind me of parties I went to back in the 60s and 70s and people do like fun paintings!

Party Girls by Rosa Sepple in "A Girl About Town"

Party girls in the Basement Gallery

The exhibition also looks absolutely splendid in the brand new RWS Whitcomb Galleries (one on the ground floor and two more in the basement). It's looking very much like an excellent place to hold a solo show. (As somebody who is disabled, I also was very impressed with the lift and facilities for visitors)

I had to wait until the end of the Private View evening to get photos of the galleries without LOTS of people in front of the paintings.

Two Basement Galleries

One final point to ponder

Portraits of Dogs: From Gainsborough to Hockney

Last week, I went to see the new exhibition of Portraits of Dogs: From Gainsborough to Hockney at the Wallace Collection in Marylebone.

Crop of Landseer's Laying down the Law (or Trial by Jury)

Whether you are a dog fan or not, it's a very interesting exhibition for a variety of reasons. Here are some of them:

• the paintings in the show are exclusively portraits of dogs - no humans allowed!
• some of the portraits are extremely impressive - on any level
• artists included in the show include some very well known names - including some you may find surprising
• the exhibition has an excellent narrative in terms of themes which tell the story of dog portraits over time
• it's very well presented with good labelling
• you get to see a well known artist trying to draw a dog - who isn't always co-operating!

Oddly, this is an exhibition which had been planned for some time - and then had to be postponed due to the Pandemic. What happened next is 

• the Wallace Collection decided to publish the catalogue anyway (see below)
• a huge number of people became very new owners of dogs! 

I fully expect this exhibition to be very popular and attract a lot of visitors from both old and new fans of dogs - particularly during the school holidays. I recommend all those who specialise in dog portraits to see an upsurge in interest - and they'd better go and see it to see what has prompted a commission!

General consensus seems to be it's well worth a visit which I would endorse

• ★★★★★ 'A treat for art-lovers and dog-lovers alike' – The Telegraph
• ★★★★ 'Charming' – The Evening Standard

About the Artists

I'd heard of most of the artists. They include:

Famous painters of animals 

• George Stubbs (1724 - 1806) - he's best known as a painter of horses - but he's a brilliant painter of dogs too and demonstrates an excellent understanding of their anatomy. He's also a painter of dogs renowned for their bloodline.

Stubbs’s animal portraits were family records intended for personal consumption and not for great public rooms.

George Stubbs (1724-1806) Ringwood, a Brocklesby Foxhound (1792)
Oil on canvas, 100 x 126 cm
Private Collection

• Sir Edwin Landseer (1802-1873) - a very well known painter of animals - about whom I learned something new - his use of allegory in his paintings of groups of dogs. For example, Landseer's painting Laying Down The Law (1840) satirises the legal profession through anthropomorphism. It shows a group of dogs, with a poodle symbolising the Lord Chancellor. This is one of the most celebrated dog paintings of the 19th century. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1840

Edwin Landseer Laying Down the Law or Trial by Jury
one of the most popular paintings of the 19th century

In the picture Landseer uses the individual characters of the breeds of dogs to satirise various members of the legal profession. The white poodle, with the similarity of its long ears to a legal wig, parodies the pomposity of a judge.

The painting was recognised at the time as a satire on the Court of Chancery, set up to deal with common law problems such as contested wills. The endless delays in the court exhausted the finances of the litigants while enriching its lawyers, an issue memorably taken up by Charles Dickens in Bleak House.

and 

UPDATE re. copyright infringement, exhibition reviews and 'who painted this'

This post is about

• copyright infringement and what I'm doing about it
• exhibition reviews
• who painted this - and whether it can continue

Copyright infringement - and what I'm doing about it

I got very fed up this week with the extent of copyright infringement experienced by this blog in recent times. There has been wholesale scraping of content with virtually all the words and pics from some posts ending up on more than one other site.

It's enough to make me want to give up.

Instead of which I've started to hammer the scrapers via Google and, on the face if it, it looks like I'm making progress but need to do more as they scraped yesterday's post

This is what now happens if somebody puts the website description into Google. Note the narrative from Google at the bottom of the page.

Spot Google's Response within Google Search
to the scammer website https://richelleart.com

So I will have to spend more time next week chasing down this toerag - and OTHERS I've also spotted - which means less time for posting about art and exhibitions!

An alternative approach to exhibitions

I'm also finding that I need to break up long posts about exhibitions into parts - as I still get tired post surgery and need to find time for all the exercise I'm doing! 

However I can mix art and exercise! 

• I managed to walk from Green Park tube to Embankment Tube via Colnaghi, Messums and the NEAC exhibition at the Mall Galleries (6,142 steps and 4.6km walked - which is way more than I could manage pre-surgery)
• AND collecting an artwork I bought en route - although I had to ask TFL staff for help getting up and down steps at both ends of my tube journey home!

On my way home with my recent artwork purchase!

So I'm uploading my photos of the paintings in the NEAC 2022 Exhibition - as hung on the walls of the Mall Galleries - to my Facebook Page - with commentary.  This follows the practice I started to adopt pre-surgery for much the same reason. More time for exercise means less time for reviews.

Today I uploaded the East Gallery. Tomorrow I will upload the West Gallery and then on Tuesday the North Gallery.

I'm also going back next week to have another look at the exhibition as it's on for an extra week because of the train strikes and doesn't finish until 9th July.

Who painted this?

I'm trying to work out how to continue with Who Painted this? given that these posts were being targeted by the scammer.

I've had to switch off comments as they were just sucking in spam and that was becoming VERY time-consuming to get rid of.

I'm thinking along the lines of creating a special email address just for this art challenge which would then mean that 

• all responses to the challenge would use the email address to send in their response.
• every time a spammer uses it within my gmail account I can then report the abuse and spam email address to Google - see https://support.google.com/a/answer/178266

However all of this depends on my tolerance for the tedium of dealing with spammers and scammers.

I like getting results - so I'm not giving up yet. 

The RWS Open at the Bankside Gallery

The RWS Open is back and on display at the Bankside Gallery between 4th and 20th March. This post reviews what I can see online (while sat on the sofa with my post surgery non weight bearing ankle elevated on my knee scooter!)

Jennifer McRae

David: West End Summer

watercolour on paper

63 x 130cm

£9500

Why the RWS Open is different

The Royal Watercolour Society has a different approach to open exhibitions when compared to most other national art societies. It has 

• a special open competition and 
• an exhibition dedicated ONLY to those who are non-members.

I'm bound to say this is, very probably, because they exhibit at the Bankside Gallery which is smaller than other venues used by national art societies and hence including open entries in a mixed exhibition with members would mean 

• either fewer works by members (which they wouldn't like!)
• or the number of non-members who were exhibited would get squeezed - which would mean they wouldn't attract a lot of entries.

Anyway - after a year's break due to the Pandemic (when all the art galleries were closed a year ago) - the RWS Open can now be seen at the Bankside Gallery - except by me. I'm not back on both feet for at least another three weeks and probably not walking until the end of April.

So - how to review this exhibition? Well all I can do is look at it online - so that's what I'm going to do.

The RWS Open Online

The first things I noticed are that 

• it's changed its name:
• it used to be known as The RWS Contemporary Watercolour Competition (see the 2020 competition/exhibition)
• it's now branded as The RWS Open

Formerly known as the Contemporary Watercolour Competition (among many other names during the exhibition's 50+ year history), the RWS Open is the largest open-submission water-media exhibition in the world, attracting thousands of submissions nationally and internationally each year.

• the Online exhibition is NOT on the Bankside website. Instead ALL the images of the artworks are on the RWS website. That means that 
• the RWS website can archive ALL its past exhibitions online. 
• Let us not forget that storage of images is not expensive and it seems crazy to go to all the trouble of putting on an exhibition only to pass up the opportunity to continue selling images from the exhibition or by artists in the exhibition after the exhibition closes! 
• I think this is very sensible strategic marketing move and one which I wish more art societies would copy!

One thing which remains unchanged is that Selection is down to a small group of RWS members. For the 2022 RWS Open, the selectors were the President of the RWS plus three other members and a guest Judge

• Jill Leman PRWS (jillleman.co.uk) President of the RWS
• David Remfry RA RWS (davidremfry.com) He used to be Professor of Drawing at the RA Schools
• Chloe Fremantle RWS (chloefremantle.com) - elected to membership of the RWS in 2021 so a new eye in relation to what's on offer
• Wendy Jacob RWS (wendyjacob.com) - paints in gouache and is a regularly selected for various juried exhibitions 
• Brit Pruiksma (Founder of Mothflower) - the Instagram account @mothflower is a curated account of artwork which now has some 60k followers since its creation in January 2020.

The Online Exhibition

Some comments on how the online exhibition works and then I highlight the artists whose artwork I liked.

Display online

The fairly small thumbnails (compared to some other exhibitions) provide name of the artist and whether the artwork has won a prize.

The display scrolls easily on my iPad Pro (i.e. it's not limited by pages) except for the fact it works better in portrait mode than landscape.

However in my opinion, the RWS website makes THREE BIG MISTAKES 

RHS Botanical Art & Photography Show - extended until 9th October 2021

This is a summary of the blog posts I've written recently - on my website Botanical Art and Artists - about the RHS Botanical Art & Photography Show 2021. 

This show normally lasts for 2 days in one of the RHS Horticultural Halls in Victoria - and attracts exhibitors and visitors from all over the world. 

Featuring more than 200 of the best botanical artwork and garden photography by 34 global artists, all competing for an RHS Medal.

Last year - like many other annual exhibitions - it was cancelled.

This year, it had to change the way it worked - and moved to the Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea - for three weeks. It was initially two weeks but the show has been extended to Saturday 9th October.

These are my blog posts reviewing the medals awarded, the two shows and the changes in 2021 - and what needs to happen in future - in reverse chronological order

• RHS London Botanical Art & Photography Show - Pros, Cons and the Future
• Review: RHS London Botanical Art Show​
• Review: RHS London Portfolio Photography Show 
• RHS Botanical Art Awards 2021

You can see views of the Installation - in three galleries - at the Saatchi Gallery here

I'm really pleased that the RHS managed to get an exhibition up and running despite the many very significant challenges. 

However the show was VERY quiet and there were no artists - or as one visitor put it

A very different venue to the usual Lindley Hall and the exhibits looked very good in the setting. Missed the atmosphere though, along with chatting to the artists and more information provided about each exhibit.

I think it's a big mistake to consider this show to be an exhibition - as opposed to an EVENT which includes an exhibition.

 

Or as I said in my overview post

My main concern for the future is that the RHS gets back to remembering that this is NOT JUST AN EXHIBITION!

This is very emphatically an EVENT i.e. PEOPLE (not just artwork) come too, to:

• meet up with other botanical artists and photographers
• talk to the people exhibiting 
• talk to one another - many make plans to meet up with people from all over the country and have lunch or dinner afterwards
• sell (and buy) artwork, prints and cards
• network, network, network to plan future projects, exhibits etc

It's this networking and making connections aspect which helps raise the standard of botanical art. It's hugely important to the wellbeing of the genre.

Note the difference between the Installation Views - and photos in my posts and this video of the show in the Lindley Hall in 2017

For all those who follow Botanical Art 

• you can subscribe to my Botanical Art and Artists New Blog - find out how to subscribe to my regular updates on this page.
• you can follow daily updates on my Botanical Art and Artists Facebook Page

Review: Annual Exhibition of the New English Art Club 2021

I visited the Annual Exhibition 2021 of the New English Art Club at the Mall Galleries on Tuesday - and it was as if everything were normal again. Apart from the face masks, the galleries were full of the "double jabbed" all keen to see this year's artwork

What was odd was that there was rather less of "this pandemic year" than one might expect. Did artists not think it was relevant - or were they bored of it.

However, there was some excellent artwork recording life as lived over the last 15 months. I particularly liked the large painting produced by Sarah Godsill who is an artist who relates to the need to record historical memories. I couldn't agree more! I do however think her pricing is VERY ambitious - and I'll comment more on pricing later...

Spring Lockdown by Sarah Godsill (OPEN ENTRY)
whose work centres around figures
Interconnected (right) is by David Cobley

The reality for me is we never ever think war art is unusual - so why, given there was a LOT of very focused art producing during the Pandemic, is there so very  little in this exhibition? (Given the submissions for the previous exhibition had largely been submitted prior to the pandemic). It just seemed rather odd to me....

Was it filtered out by the selectors - or did they just not receive enough good submissions? Will we ever know? (I'd love to know which it was if anybody would like to tell me!)

The Annual Exhibition 2021

You can see my photos of the exhibition on my Making A Mark Facebook Page - which is accessible by everyone in these three albums

1. NEAC Annual Exhibition 2021 - East Gallery
2. NEAC Annual Exhibition 2021 - West Gallery   
3. NEAC Annual Exhibition 2021 - North Gallery

Incidentally, I mostly try to exclude people from my photos - they're in no way representative of the number of people in the galleries!

Thank you to all those who say they like looking at the exhibition they cn't get to in this way. You'll also find my blog post Three Virtual Views of the New English Art Club Annual Exhibition 2021 helpful if you want to find out more about the art and who painted - and whether it is still available!

The Annual Exhibition continues until 5pm on Saturday 3rd July.

A number of my photos are annotated with details of the painter - particularly if it was work I liked, even more so if the artist had been selected from the Open Entry.

Artists whose work I liked

Below I'm noting the artwork I liked by artists selected through the OPEN ENTRY - with links in their names to their websites. 

 

NEAC is, after all, a good place to spot up and coming artists with new takes on how to create good art.

Review: 208th Exhibition of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours

Yesterday I saw my first art exhibition in nearly six months. The Mall Galleries reopened with the 208th Exhibition of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours which should have been held in April. 

Wall in the East Gallery

I wrote previously about the prizewinners here Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours - 208th Annual Exhibition and Prizewinners - on 1st April which should have been the day of the Private View.

This post will include some of my photos from the exhibition but if you'd like to see the paintings online then go to:

• the online exhibition on the Mall Galleries website
• my album of 58 photos on my Facebook Page - which is PUBLIC (i.e. you don't need to be a member of Facebook) and will give you some sense of the relative size of different paintings

The RI exhibition of 444 paintings is open until 12th September (11am - 5pm) - and until 7pm on Thursday the 3 & 10 September.

The changes when visiting the Mall Galleries

View of the West Gallery
- minus tables and chairs and plus tape on the floor for the one way system 

This time there are some changes - and I'm going to deal with those first before commenting on the exhibition

• no Private View
• one way system for viewing the exhibition
• face masks required before you can enter the Gallery (all the staff are wearing face visors)
• sanitiser around and about the Gallery
• to visit you MUST book a timeslot - in advance
• no rack for coats
• no lockers
• no cafe (bring your own bottled water) and no tables and chairs
• no shop.

I also had to get on the Tube for the first time since March and that was surprisingly easy given there are very few passengers and everybody is wearing a mask.

I'd recommend people visit late morning / early afternoon as that seems to be the time when you're least likely to encounter lots of other people on public transport.  

• I arrived for 11 and departed about 2.30pm. 
• During that time there were quite a few people in the gallery but nowhere felt crowded and it was a very comfortable experience - apart from the lack of a cup of tea!  (I'd be happy with a hot water urn and a "bring my own sealed hot drink vessel and tea bag!").

About the 208th Exhibition

Overall my impressions of the exhibition were:

• it looked MUCH better in the Gallery than it did online - art looks good with other art - on the wall!
• It felt rather like going to the Summer Exhibition at the RA - where in the past Galleries have been crowded with paintings - which I like a lot
• the end wall reminded me a lot of a lateral version of the much beloved Small Weston Room - jammed with small paintings - before the RAs started messing about and using it for other things. It both felt like "coming home" and presented a visual draw to the eye when viewed from a distance.

The end wall of the West Gallery
masquerading as the Small Weston Room!

• There are many more small and medium sized works - rather than large works
• Pricing looked a lot more sensible. I've yet to crunch any numbers but I saw very few "silly numbers" on the labels I looked at. This can only contribute to more sales in the long term as the paintings get a better fit with the pocketbooks of those who visit the exhibitions.

Overall it's an excellent exhibition and I recommend you pay a visit.

East Gallery

You start in what used to be called the Threadneedle Space but has now reverted to being called the East Gallery.

Review: Royal Society of British Artists Annual Exhibition 2020

The online catalogue of the Annual Exhibition 2020 of the Royal Society of British Artists promises that it might be a good exhibition. I viewed it today and the actual exhibition more than lives up to what's online - although the stronger works are predominantly in the Main Gallery and Threadneedle Space.

• you can view works by most of the members and all of the open entry on the RBA website  
• You can see selected works on the Mall Galleries website 
• both are ordered alphabetically by surname 

You can get free entry for two people (value £10) by saying you're there having seen it on "Making A Mark" at the reception desk.

Annual Exhibition 2020

The Royal Society of British Artists has been through something of a rejuvenation in the last three years. 

It's certainly come a VERY long way from the 2012 exhibition which is etched in my memory (See RBA 2012: An exhibition of Middle England?). I remember identifying a lot of work I liked and then felt absolutely compelled to comment to the effect that I was less than impressed by some of the artwork in the competition - that it felt old fashioned and parochial. Thereafter I stopped taking the RBA seriously and, for me, it became an "also ran" art society for me.

Back in 2016 I was still perturbed by it and wrote

My own feeling is that the artworks which have been juried in from the open entry (i.e. from non-members) out perform a number of the artworks submitted by members - which are NOT juried - by some margin. From my perspective that's just not right.

However it's now a society which is almost unrecognisable given the change in content - it's diverse in subject matter, media, style, and it's strong on colour, monochrome and 3D.

I LOVE the prints featured on the end wall

It's very definitely an art society to take very seriously. Indeed despite the aspiration of many of those wanting to advance their art careers to apply to NEAC, I'd very much recommend the RBA as a much better bet for those entering via the open exhibition.

Particular aspects which are noteworthy in this exhibition this year are:

• the fine art prints - which are simply STUNNING. This exhibition is worth visiting just for the prints alone!
• the 3d work and sculpture which is numerous and very varied.  The range of media and diversity of approaches is amazing.  Definitely an exhibition to enter if you an aspiring 3D artist (Most of the sculpture is in the Threadneedle Space)

• The diversity of styles and media used for drawings and paintings.  While some is still traditional, the diversity of styles mean that this exhibition has well and truly lost the air of "fuddy duddy" which it had in 2012.
• the introduction of a theme - "Inspired by Trees" is an excellent idea. It hung as a continuous theme in two different galleries - with a very strong monochrome section in the Main Gallery

Inspired by Trees in the Main Gallery

Inspired by Trees - the monochrome section

• the hang which is excellent - a huge exhibition remains accessible (apart from the labels - see the end). I very much appreciated the theming of different works - the still life at the entrance, the trees in two different places within the exhibition etc.
• the size of the exhibition. They've selected 500 works in total - of which 20 relate to their RBA Star Students.  Some of the paintings are hung in 3 rows - but they can cope with it as all remain accessible

Still Life near the entrance - including the excellent and much admired Annie Williams (I'm a fan!)

• one of the reasons it is large is because of the very many smaller works which have been selected.

Small works on the mezzanine and next to the cafe - there's even more to the left!

• There's a better mix of works between members and those selected from the Open Entry across the three galleries - which was pleasing to see.

North Gallery

The RBA is also a society I regularly recommend to young artists given:

• the breadth of its scope for media
• the size of its exhibition
• the number of prizes
• the respectable split between members and non-members in terms of work hung

The Open Entry generated 1,699 entries for this year's exhibition

• of which 186 works were selected for the exhibition (11%) 
• thus the open entry represents 38% of the total works hung in the main part of the exhibition 
• while members work represents 62% of the artwork hung.

Work I particularly liked

There were lots of works to like - and below I'm singling out people I've not highlighted before.

Review: Royal Institute of Oil Painters Annual Exhibition 2019

The 2019 Annual Exhibition of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters opened last week and has been holding a number of events. Including the one I attended today - when I finally got to see the exhibition after a very bad week with a very painful ankle. (see Why I'm not reviewing the ROI and RMS Exhibitions - yet!)

oil paintings in the main gallery - in the centre three by David Curtis

The exhibition comprises:

• an exhibition within an exhibition - with paintings on a theme of "London in oil paint"
• 304 paintings in two galleries - the Main Gallery and the Threadneedle Space at the Mall Galleries.
• until 1pm on Sunday 8 December 2019

It's also being holding lots of events

• ROI Paint Live was held last Saturday - with oil painters out painting plein air within half a mile of the Galleries - these are the people who prizes at the end - I love the Ian Layton painting.

• There was also an Art Event Portrait Evening 
• Two painters John Walson and Natalia Avdeeva - painted in the gallery during the art event with Winsor & Newton yesterday 

Lots and lots of people at the Winsor & Newton "Discover Oil Paint" event

Anyway - expeditions with my ankle the way it is at the moment make me incredibly tired afterwards so what I'm doing is this.

• below I'll give you the edited highlights of the exhibition
• tomorrow I'll reflect on whether I want to say or add in any more.

Review of the ROI 2019 exhibition

I'm really sorry I missed the Private View for this exhibition as I very often attend. As it is it clashed with another Private View which is the one I went to - and stood up for too long - hence my inability to walk afterwards.

If like me you're unable to get to the exhibition in person for any reason you can see:

• all the Royal Institute of Oil Painters Prize Winners 2019 on this page on the Mall Galleries website. My personal view is that this information needs to be on the ROI website for the next year and then archived and accessible into the future.  At present the only way people can find out and see prizewinners painting in previous year is via my blog posts!
• review the prizewinners on the ROI Facebook Page too
• works in the exhibition on the Mall Galleries page for the exhibition - just scroll down and painting start appearing. Each has its own page where you can find out more about them - and you can buy via these pages too!
• PLUS I've uploaded added 57 new photos of the exhibition to the album Royal Institute of Oil Painters - Annual Exhibition 2019 on my (public) Making A Mark Facebook Page.   
• These include some of the paintings I really liked

However I'm puzzled.

I don't quite understand why

• there are works on the walls and in the online listing of works which are not in the exhibition catalogue.  
• there are works in the exhibition and in the catalogue - but are not in the online listing. 

Given the amount of sales which now start online (as I understand) I can think of no good reason not to list every work online.....

A corner of the Threadneedle Space

Oil means oil! 

95% of the annual exhibition of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters comprises paintings in oils. Less than 5% is in acrylic. See the figures below for trends over the last six years

I very much like the fact this exhibition is EXACTLY what it says it is i.e. an exhibition of oil painters.  If you want to see good oil painting this is the exhibition to come to!

Number and percentage of works - by medium - in the ROI Annual Exhibitions 2014-2019

One wonders why we can't also have 95% of annual exhibitions of watercolour societies in traditional watercolours i.e the ones where the paint remains soluble after it dries if you apply more water!

View of the ROI 2019 exhibition in the Threadneedle Space

Which artists are doing well

I now count sales for analysis of the exhibition metrics.

Congrats to those artists who have three or more sales as at 10 days into the exhibition. It's interesting to see that a wide range of subjects appeal to buyers!

• Adebanji Alade VPROI - urban London scenes with people
• Linda Alexander SBA ROI - realist still life with silver and fruit/flowers (who is a consistent good seller at every exhibition)
• Jeremy Barlow ROI - paintings of sunshine in places in southern Europe and north Africa
• Lucy Marks - abstracted landscapes
• Barry Peckham ROI RSMA - boats on the coast

I'll be doing further notes about the sales and the pricing later.

London in Oils

I really liked the exhibition within an exhibition of the paintings of London.

Views of London #1

Looking at the sales it would be no bad thing to do this on a regular basis. I've always wondered why more societies don't take advantage of the fact that people like to buy paintings of views they know or places where they live - and that the paintings have much more impact when hung together. 

More views of London #2

The Hang

The hang of the rest of the exhibition slightly irritated me. The reason being that there was no candidates' wall and their work was split up around the exhibition.  

Spreading candidates artwork around the exhibition as a whole requires all the members voting to 

• find all the paintings by the candidates spread around the exhibition and then 
• retain these images in their heads and then 
• assess which candidates they like the best while NOT having their artwork in front of them. 

I much prefer the approach adopted by other FBA societies of hanging all the candidates work together and next to one another. That way it's 

• much easier for the members to choose who they want to elevate to membership
• much fairer to all the candidates because they know that members saw all their work hung in the exhibition.  
• It also provides a very good baseline for those applying for candidature in the future in terms of the standard they might need to aspire too.

The wall used by other societies to hang the candidates artwork

The exhibition didn't quite 'grab me'. Maybe it was because there was so much else going on in the Main Gallery.  But the hang keeps niggling - I think what was in the exhibition could have looked better on the wall. I suspect this year has seen a change in who hangs what.

The Small Works

While there was a lot to like among the small works, I think there needs to be a bit of a pep talk to some of the members. Small works should also be excellent i.e. no less good than those bigger paintings that a member or open artist might produce. Some works stood out while others didn't - or did - but for the wrong reason.

The public knows this and spends their money on those who produce good work.

In addition the small works didn't read for me. Certain exhibitions achieve a great "read across" - but this wasn't one of them. Grouping is what matters not a chequer board hang.

Scope to improve the hang of the small works to generate a better impact

PS I also don't like seeing small works hung low on a wall (see Threadneedle image two above). That's rather like saying they're insignificant.... to which my response would be to ask why you're hanging them at all.

 

Previous Exhibitions

You can find links to my previous reviews of exhibitions below.

• 2019 - Call for Entries: Royal Institute of Oil Painters Annual Exhibition 2019
• 2018 - 
• 126th Annual Exhibition of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters AND 
• Review: ROI Annual Exhibition 2018 + commentary on pricing
• 2017 - Review - Royal Institute of Oil Painters Annual Exhibition 2017
• 2016 - Review: Royal Institute of Oil Painters 124th Annual Exhibition 2016
• 2015 - 
• ROI Exhibition: Young Oil Painter Awards and 
• Review: Annual Exhibition of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters 2015
• 2014 - Review: Royal Institute of Oil Painters - Annual Exhibition 2014.
• 2013 - Review - 2013 Annual Exhibition of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters
• 2012 - Royal Institute of Oil Painters - Annual Exhibition 2012
• 2011 - Review: 124th Annual Exhibition of The Royal Institute of Oil Painters
• 2010 - 
• Review: Royal Institute of Oil Painters - 123rd Annual Exhibition 2010 and
• Winsor and Newton Oil Painter Awards
• 2009 - Exhibition Review - Royal Institute of Oil Painters
• 2008 - The Royal Institute of Oil Painters - 121st Annual ExhibitionLinks for oil painters