Grayson's Art Club : The Exhibition (and the television programme and the book of the exhibition!)

 Grayson's Art Club was one of the truly joyous aspects of the first lockdown. It's both 

• wonderful to hear that the Exhibition of Grayson's Art Club has been hung at Manchester Art Gallery and 
• so sad to hear the exhibition has been caught by 
• the second lockdown during November 
• the Tier 3 ban on Manchester which closes all indoor venues of entertainment - which  prevents art galleries opening.

Below I explain what we can see - and view - and read - and what we know about when the exhibition will be open.

Web Page for the Grayson's Art Club Exhibition at the Manchester Art Gallery

Grayson's Art Club

Grayson’s Art Club was the best performing series from Channel 4’s #StayAtHome Academy programming, attracting over one million viewers per episode.

Grayson Perry Returns - on TV, at the British Museum and with a new exhibition!

• Each week a different theme – portraits, animals, fantasy, view from my window, home, Britain – was explored.
• Each week an enormous number of people around the country submitted their artwork for the theme that week.

He received nearly 10,000 entries, an overwhelming response to his call out. The variety of entries – using canvas, paper, photography, sculpture and mixed media – showed the imagination, skill and creativity of the nation. These works, alongside those of Grayson Perry, Philippa Perry and the invited artists and celebrities, will be on show in the exhibition. (Manchester Art Gallery)

The good news is that a second series will return to Channel 1 in 2021. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Grayson's Art Club: The Exhibition

the exhibition will track the journey the series took as it unleashed the nation’s collective creativity under the constraints of lockdown. (Channel 4 Briefing)

Grayson's Art Club: The Exhibition - of the works by the public selected by Grayson from those submitted during the television series - and those made by guest celebrities - has been hung at Manchester Art Gallery.

All the works on display are very personal visual representations of lockdown, made by the public, well-known artists and celebrities for Grayson’s Art Club. This celebration of creativity in people’s homes chronicled the changing moods of Britain in isolation, providing a unique record of this globally experienced extraordinary time.

The FREE exhibition should have opened on Wednesday 25 November 2020 and run until Sunday 18 April 2021. 

Then the second lockdown struck - and the Gallery had to postpone the opening.

When it finished Manchester was still under ervere Tier 3 restrictions - so Manchester Art Gallery still cannot open.

However the current restriction allow the making of television programmes inside art galleries - and Channel 4 got permission to make the end of the programme which was broadcast last night on Channel 4. 

The Exhibition will open when it can. Tickets will be required. 

Alongside the public’s artworks, the exhibition will feature pieces by celebrities Jenny Eclair, Noel Fielding, Harry Hill, Jessica Hynes, Joe Lycett, Kevin McLeod, Jim Moir (aka Vic Reeves), Liza Tarbuck, and artists Jeremy Deller, Antony Gormley, Maggi Hambling, Chantal Joffe, Martin Parr, Raqib Shaw, David Shrigley and the Singh Twins.

I hope it comes to London too - and maybe tour the country if they can some sponsorship?

Grayson's Art Club: The Exhibition (on television)

Grayson Perry with his wife Philippa

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED VIEWING

I watched Grayson's Art Club: The Exhibition - the last episode of the first series of Grayson's Art Club on Channel 4 this morning over breakfast.

Here's a video trailer....

What's very special is that he visited a number of the artists - from a safe distance - and saw where they made their artwork and met the artists and heard what about what the programme meant to them.

This was prior to moving on to the plans for exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery. As he explained exhibitions normally take two years to organised - whereas this one was organised in about six month. Plus more artists have contributed art than any other exhibition they'd had at the gallery in a very long while....

I spent the last part of the programme with a smile on my face and with with very wet eyes as the works were hung at Manchester Art Gallery and looked - as renowned RA Summer Exhibitor Harry Hill said "It looks just like a real art exhibition".

I find it absolutely amazing that ordinary people - responding in a way that seemed best to them - should have an opportunity to record the pandemic - such a very unique time in our social history -  through some exceptionally creative artwork.

My favourite piece by "proper artists" was the illuminated (in more ways than one) artwork - done in the manner of an illuminated book - by the Singh Twins - who I am an enormous fan of.  The artwork NHS V Covid-19:Fighting on Two Fronts, 2020 (Slaves of Fashion Series) is also available as a print from their website - as a not inexpensive fine art giclee print and an expensive signed limited edition. 

In essence it pays tribute to NHS and other frontline healthcare workers whilst presenting a satirical look at the UK Government's handling of the crisis and also challenging notions of Britishness. Special emphasis is given to the contribution of and additional risk to BAME carers working within the health sector. The main focus of the composition is an Asian nurse depicted as a modern day St George, riding a horse, with lance in hand and battling the Covid-19 virus dragon on the edge of the white cliffs of Dover. Boris Johnson is shown straddling the horse just behind the nurse, thrusting a knife into her back, whilst pulling on the horse's reins. This imagery, together, with another detail (depicting Theresa May brandishing a 'Brexit Sale', 'NHS Workers' Rights' placard and a parliamentary bill voting down a pay rise for nurses), point to the hypocrisy of a government which claps for the NHS in public but whose policy and attitude towards public sector emergency services over the years (and across different governments) has hindered and caused injury to the NHS.

Grayson's Art Club: The Book

Grayson's Art Club: The Exhibition is going on my Christmas list as one of my stocking fillers!

• This 276 page paperback is the catalogue of both 
• the series and 
• the exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery
• it's not published until 17th December so I'm ordering in advance 
• It's already made #1 on the Museums and Art Collections (exhibitions and collection catalogues) listing on Amazon UK! I guarantee it will go even higher......

It's an excellent record of a very odd and very challenging time.

Portrait Artist of the Week now on Sky Arts - but there's a catch

 Portrait Artist of the Week started out on Facebook Live on Sunday mornings 31 weeks ago.

However both Season 1 and Season 2 now appear to be now available via the Sky Arts Channel - which would be nice for all those who love watching portrait painting but are less keen on Facebook!

Sadly, before you get too excited, there is a catch - and to be honest an issue re accuracy of advertising!

Rather than being 4 hours long, they are more like long trailers of some 20+ minutes which include 

• excerpts of the painting process 
•  Joan, the sitter and the Judges talking 
• plus things like Tai's top tips 

So if you want to see the whole 4 hours of sitting / painting you can only see 

• the 4 hour live videos via Facebook Live 
• then afterwards via the recordings of those videos on Sky Arts Videos on the Portrait Artist of the Year Facebook Channel

the programme on Sky Arts

Sky Arts - and the Artist of the Year / Week programmes can be accessed

• live and on demand on your desktop via the Sky Go app (if you have a Sky account)
• live and on demand on five devices on Now TV using the Now TV app (with an Entertainment Pass) - including your TV (via the Now TV Stick) - I've got it on my television, iMac, iPad and iPhone. My stick was free when I got mine but now it costs £24.00

the programme on Now TV

Sky Arts can also be accessed via Channel 11 on various satellite TV services - but you don't get the "on demand" service - and you don't get Portrait Artist of the Week.

Find Sky Arts now on Freeview channel 11, Freesat channel 147 alongside Sky channel 122, Virgin Media Channel 123 and BT channel 348

Portraits of First Ladies

There's a new Online Exhibition of Portraits of First Ladies of the United States over the years - created by the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian.

Home Page of the Online Exhibition of "First Ladies of the United States"

The options are to:

• View the Exhibition - which is split into time periods as follows (do click the "read more" off to the right of each era - as it provides some fascinating details about both the times and the women. You can either scroll down or navigate by individual portraits using the arrows at the bottom of the page
• 1789-1845: Becoming First Ladies
• 1845–1877: Manifest Destiny and the Civil War
• 1877–1901: The Gilded Age
• 1901-1933: Imperialism and Progressivism
• 1933–1993: Serving a Cause
• 1993–Present: Into the New Century
• Discover more about the First Ladies - from past blog posts and articles
• It also includes Educational Resources

This strikes me as what every national portrait gallery should do - combine the art of portraiture with the history associated with the sitters!

The one thing which struck me about the exhibition is how amazing the portrait of FLOTUS 51 Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama is in the context of portraits of recent First Ladies.  Amy Sherald's portrait of her is just stunning when placed next to the portraits of other First Ladies in the 

When Amy Sherald’s portrait of Obama was unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery in 2018, many viewers were pleased while others were shocked by the artist’s distinctive approach, which uses gray for skin color as a way to look beyond the superficial differences of race.

I wrote at the time about the Portraits of the Obamas in The response to the Obama Portraits.

This time looking at the portraits from across the centuries, it provides a history lesson in the art of portraiture - as well as an education in the personal tastes of all the different FLOTUSs.

• the ratio of paintings to photographs is interesting, It rather seems that having a photograph of a Presidents wife in the latter half of the 19th Century was the done thing - which includes a rather impressive photo of Mrs Lincoln. (Although alternative / additional portrait of the First Ladies are also included in the "Read More" section.)

Her focus on class position is seen in the many carte-de-visite photographs of her in fashionable costumes.

• the narrative about the women reflects on their position in relation to slavery
• it's interesting to see how they choose to have themselves portrayed - in finery or in normal day costume - there again I didn't know what I only found out as I got to Hillary Rodham Clinton
• I loved the portrait of Eleanor Roosevelt - with the small studies included at the bottom - and was even more impressed by the narrative about her

Arguing that dignity came from within, she is credited with the saying “Remember, no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” After her husband’s death in 1945, which came just months after his re-election to an unprecedented fourth term, she became the chairperson of the United Nations’ Human Rights Commission. Her work on the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights led many to hail her as the “First Lady of the World.”

• I was intrigued by the fact that Jackie Kennedy's portrait by Boris Chaliapin (1904–1979) was created in "Gouache, watercolor, colored pencil, and graphite on paperboard" until I realised it was a gift from Time Magazine and had obviously been created for the cover of the magazine
• Apparently all portraits prior to Hillary Rodham Clinton were gifts to the National Portrait Gallery who had only commissioned portraits of the POTUS. Thereafter a portrait was also commissioned of the FLOTUS - however 
• Barbara Bush's portrait was also a gift
• it seems as if sponsors are required to make sure a decent portrait artist is engaged to create the portrait - note the very many sponsors of the Michelle Obama portrait!

Note: As a public health precaution due to COVID-19, all Smithsonian museums are temporarily closed.

Review: Episode 7 of Portrait Artist of the Year Series 7 (Autumn 2020)

Trying to catch up with Episode 7 of Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year before the next episode airs!!

View of Episode 7 at Battersea Arts centre - minus the public ue to covid-19

Episode 7: The Artists, Self-portraits and Sitters

This is the About the Artists page (click episode 7 under Series 7) - where you can see their individual self portraits and speeded up videos of their paintings.

One thing - you get edited highlights about artists in the programme - whereas I dig deeper and bring added value...... Some of the information below was not mentioned in the programme.  

The artists in Episode 7 - waiting to hear the judgement

Professional artists

Six professional artists participated in this heat

• Vincent Michael Brown ( Website | Facebook | Instagram ) - professional artist since 2002 and began first selling my art and taking commissions at the age of eleven. Now a 48-year-old fine-artist and co-founder of Artime (a gallery, studio, art school and shop) with a good track record in art competitions.
• Deborah Pearce ( Website | Facebook | Instagram | Commissions ) - BA in Fine Arts, Painting. from Central St Martins. Has worked as a worked as an Actor and Hypnotherapist, Coach and Tutor - as well as an artist.
• Leanne Rutter ( Facebook | Instagram ) - who I have met and know from her portraits which have won awards and been hung many times in the Mall Galleries. She's an Associate of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, is exhibiting in the Annual Exhibition of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters 2020 and this is an article about her travel paintings

Last night I appeared on @skyarts Portrait Artist of the Year @artistoftheyear. Due to #boatlife, my lack of a TV and lockdown preventing going to someone’s house I haven’t actually been able to watch it

Leanne Rutter finishing her background to her portrait of David Haig

• Si Sapsford ( Website | Instagram ) Based in London. An artist and Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at the University of East London. Has a very long and extensive CV of exhibitions, awards and publications. Was selected for BP Portrait Award Exhibition in 2000 and won the BP Travel Award in 2000. Joint winner of Innovative Teaching Award UEL in 2020. Predominantly sculpts (she currently makes mechanical sculptures) and has only recently taken up painting again. She's also been painting the sitters from Portrait Artist of the Week - which you can see on her website.
• Alastair Farley ( Instagram ) - a Fine Art Graduate currently doing an MA at the Royal Drawing School.
• Liorah Tchiprout ( Website | Instagram ) based in London. Studied Fine Art Printmaking at University of Brighton, graduating 2016. In 2020 she graduated with an MA in Printmaking from Camberwell College of Art, London. Her work is concerned with belonging, girlhood and the theatrical. She builds physical puppet characters to construct her own pantheon from which to draw images.

Amateur Artists 

• Caron Clarke ( Website | Instagram ) - Very sensibly got a new website up and running after appearing in this heat! Born in London, Caron Clarke is a watercolour artist. who teaches art and design to children with autism. 1995 - BA (Hons) Illustration, University of Westminster. 1998 - Postgraduate Certificate in Art and Design Education, Middlesex University. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Caron Clarke (@caron.clarke_artista)

• Jack Dickson ( Website | Facebook | Instagram ) - Based in Dorset. BA (Hons) Fine Art: Painting at Winchester School of Art (1997). 2002 - PGCE Art and Design: University of Brighton. He works as a House Master and school master who teaches art to 14-18 year olds at an independent school in Dorset. Participated in portraits for NHS Heroes this summer.
• Licia Santos - Based in London. Studying fine art at Goldsmiths College of Art. 

Self Portraits

Self portrait wall in Episode 7

This is a summary of the size, format and content of the self portraits in this heat. 

There was a distinct preference for smaller than average "head and not very much shoulder" self portraits in this heat.
 

• SIZE
• Large x 1
• Medium x 3
• Small x 4
• Very small x 1
• FORMAT
• Landscape format x 0
• Portrait format x 8
• Square format x 1
• CONTENT OF SELF-PORTRAIT
• full size x 0
• torso + head + hands with another person x 0
• torso including head and hand(s) x 2
• Head and shoulders + hand(s) x 1
• head and shoulder(s) x 4
• head x 2

The Sitters

The Sitters for Episode 7 were:

• Jane Horrocks - an English actress, comedian, voice artist, musician and singer, who played the roles of Bubble in the BBC sitcom Absolutely Fabulous (1992–2012) and received Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations for the role in the 1998 film adaptation Little Voice.
• David Haig MBE - an English actor and playwright with a career over four decades and ha appeared in a number of very popular television programmes and films as well as a number of West End plays.
• Jordan Stephens - one half of hip hop duo Rizzle Kicks

Themes and Tips

Drawing / Blocking / Refining

Artists use various ways to draw the sitter, then block in and refine the portrait and include the detail.  This series offers an enormous amount of information for those wanting to think some more about how they choose to paint - and whether it is effective.

If you have a talent demonstrate it! It gets you noticed and the Judges paying attention. 

Although she used two brushes for drawing, Si Sapsford's main talent was being able to produce a convincing drawing with a brush.

Review: Episode 6 of Portrait Artist of the Year Series 7 (Autumn 2020)

Episode 6 was a very strong heat - with various styles and some excellent self portraits and heat portraits.

I was pretty sure who was going to win from near the beginning - not least because the artist did not faff about, started well and zoomed through to a finish - with 30 minutes to spare. Experience helps a lot when you're under pressure!

Episode 6: The Artists, Self-portraits and Sitters

The beginning of Episode 6

This is the the About the Artists page - where you can see their individual self portraits and speeded up videos of their paintings. 

The Professional Artists

There were only two professional artists in this heat - these were

• Sarah Cowley ( Website | Facebook | Instagram | Commissions ) - Based in Loughborough in Leicestershire. A self taught artist who has over 30 years' experience as a portrait artist. She specialises in creating highly detailed works of art in oils, pastels and pencil; capturing life in minute detail - and started pet portraits 15 years ago.  Her very small self portrait ws on aluminium. A lot of her drawing happens with a paintbrush.
• Katherine Rowe ( Website | Facebook | Instagram ) - Based in SW London. History of Art Degree from Edinburgh University. In 2019 she was profiled in the Sunday Telegraph and dubbed ‘Britain’s most sought-after dog artist’ and was pictured with her dog, Toastie, in her studio. Her portrait of Skukura Murray features on page 20 of the new book Portraits for NHS Heroes. She;s written a blog post about her experience of Portrait Artist of the Year 2020: My experience and tips for future artists

some of the artists having a break after the heat

The Amateur Artists

There are seven amateur artists - who mostly favour Instagram for sharing their art. They are:

• Josh Donkor ( Website | Instagram ) Studied illustration at Cardiff Metropolitan School of Art and Design. Shortlisted for the World Illustration Awards 2020 and featured in the AOI UK Graduates to watch. Startwith the eyes and then works in blocks.
• Rob Fellows ( Instagram ) - a primary school teacher in London. Used a completely white background for his self portrait and switched and used a completely black support for his heat portrait
• Thomas MacGregor ( Website | Instagram ) - born in Sidcup, raised in London and the Scottish highlands and now lives and works in London as a horticultural therapist. He studied at Edinburgh college of art in 1995-99. Taught drawing and painting within the scottish prison service from 2001 until 2006. Now enrolled on the studio programme at Turps Banana, cohort 2018-2020. He likes to employ narrative in his paintings.
• Eoin O'Sullivan ( Website | Instagram ) - an Illustrator based in London who works mainly in monochrome using pen and black ink.  Works in pencil and then moves into black ink once he's got the drawing right. He reams of a career in illustration.
• Stuart Pearce ( Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter ) - a Marketing Manager, designer and portrait and figurative artist. Trained at Plymouth College of Art and Design and lives/works in Broadway in Worcestershire. Worked in the advertising industry as an illustrator and designer for more than 30 years. Also undertakes commissions for advertising, film and theatre set design
• Daisy Potter ( Instagram ) - Based in Brighton.
• Hattie Quigley ( Instagram ) - Studied She was the Bristol Winner of the LARA Summer Scholarship Competition in 2019. This is an interview with her.

The Self Portraits

This is a summary of the size, format and content of the self portraits in this heat. There was a distinct preference for head and shoulders only in this heat - which actually made those that were not stand out more.

• SIZE
• Large x 3
• Medium x 5
• Small x 0
• Very small x 1
• FORMAT
• Landscape format x 0
• Portrait format x 5
• Square format x 4
• CONTENT OF SELF-PORTRAIT
• full size x 0
• torso + head + hands with another person x 0
• torso including head and hand(s) x 2
• Head and shoulders + hand(s) x 1
• head and shoulders x 5
• head x 1

Yet again we heard that immortal phrase from Tai

"We do like a painting of an artist in action"

The Sitters

The sitters for this episode were all actors in popular recent dramas

• Sian Clifford  - played the older uptight sister in Fleabag. After its second season she won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Female Comedy Performance, and received a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series as well as a Critics' Choice nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series
• Eddie Marsan - has appeared in a wide range of film and television roles often as the villain and sometimes as the detective!
• Paul Mescal - an Irish actor, best known for his starring role in the 2020 miniseries Normal People, which earned him a Primetime Emmy Award nomination. He's also won numerous newcomer awards.

Themes and Tips

The sitter is a long, long way away

If you doubt the truth of this statement - just look at this photo below by Sarah Cowley showing her view of Eddie. Is that the sort of distance you like to paint people from?