"The Big City - London painted on a grand scale"

A new exhibition about London - The Big City: London painted on a grand scale - has opened at the Guildhall Art Gallery. 

It focuses on the world’s most extensive collection of supersize paintings of London

Venue: Guildhall Art Gallery, Guildhall Yard, England, EC2V 5AE

Dates: until Sunday 23 April 2023

Hours: Mon to Sun: 10:30am-4pm (last admission 3.45pm)

Admission: Pay What You Can i.e. you can pay as much or as little as you like for your ticket or visit for free.

It's a unique exhibition which 

• celebrates the exceptional talent of 19 artists and 
• showcases some of the largest paintings in the the City of London Corporation's, including works that are not normally on public display.

The Big City: London painted on a grand scale includes:

• a series of pieces by David Hepher (b.1935), on display in London for the first time. The works were gifted to the City Corporation by the artist in 2022 and is the largest donation in the Gallery’s recent history. His career spans six decades and for the last 40 years he has focused almost exclusively on London, in particular, the inner-city estates of the 1960s and 1970s.

Graffiti tags, based on Hepher’s own observations, adorn the paintings in various colours, while the canvases themselves are primed with a mixture of concrete, PVA, and wood to create the illusion of tower-block walls, onto which Hepher has applied paint to mimic the small streams of slime that often stain concrete structures.

• a four-piece panel installation by John Bartlett (b.1960) - one of the largest items in the show
• gigantic works of art from Frank O. Salisbury (1874-1962) and Terence Cuneo (1907-1996) that have never been displayed side-by-side.

I've not seen it yet - but it's one I'm planning to visit in the near future. I must confess I'm more interested in historical views of London and having done a search of Art UK, I'm interested to see which artworks they've selected for the exhibition. 

Some I'd love to see are

• Parliament and Lambeth Palace, London by Alfred Daniels (1924–2015)
• Billingsgate Market, London by Ken Howard (1932–2022)

but I'm not sure they're big enough....

I will be reporting back after I've seen the exhibition

Melissa Scott Miller paints from Tower Bridge Walkway

Melissa Scott Miller has been painting from the Walkway at the top of Tower Bridge. This summer she's been its official Artist in Residence

Melissa is a portrait and urban landscape artist who has been commissioned by the Trust which runs Tower Bridge (which is owned by the City of London) to create a panoramic painting of the views from the West Walkway at the top of Tower Bridge - from City Hall and the Shard on the South Bank, across the Thames, to the views of the various buildings old and new in the City of London on the North Bank of the Thames

You can find out more about #ABridgewithaView and Melissa on this page

To immortalise the very same views in 2022, we have commissioned English artist Melissa Scott-Miller to paint what she sees from the West Walkway. A Bridge with A View is a celebration of London and an ode to this vibrant city. The project takes place throughout the summer, and will include public workshops and family activities. Visitors to the attraction will be able to observe Melissa painting during their visit and see how the artwork progresses.

The intention is that the painting will be 150cm x 100cm - or maybe a triptych - and that the City of London will sell the painting at a charity auction later this year.

This is a video of Melissa painting her second painting in response to the views of Tower Bridge’s West Walkway - which covers the Upper Decks of HMS belfast to the Dome of St Paul's Cathedral.

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