Contemporary British Portrait Painters 2022 Exhibition in Brixton

This is about the current exhibition by Contemporary British Portrait Painters

from the website of Contemporary British Portrait Painters

It feels rather odd at this time in June not to be planning to visit the annual competitive exhibition of paintings by contemporary portrait painters at the National Portrait Gallery. But that Gallery has been closed for some time and we don't know what's happening to that exhibition.

However, back in 2018, a number of those British artists who have exhibited at that exhibition (which had become an increasingly international exhibition of contemporary portraiture) combined with other prominent contemporary portrait painters in the UK to create a brand new group - purely to create a platform for the mutual support and promotion of British portrait painters. 

I was glad to see this happen as I'd begun to think that it was very incongruous that the National Portrait Gallery now selected less than half the work for this prestigious exhibition from portrait painters based in Britain!

Which is how - post pandemic - you can now see an exhibition of excellent contemporary portrait paintings by excellent contemporary portrait painters this week in Brixton.

Contemporary British Portrait Painters

This is how the CBPP describe themselves - with my added 'bold' to highlight the key points.

There are probably as many ways to paint as there are artists, so there is no “right way to paint”. If there was there would never have been a Michelangelo, Van Gogh, Picasso or Hockney. So we don’t want to be prescriptive about the way you produce your art, for us the finished result is largely all that matters. What we do want, is to represent the best in contemporary British portraiture and encourage the practitioners of it, as they explore this captivating and endlessly intriguing subject. To paint a portrait is to consider the human condition and to reflect upon our own existence, it is deeply personal and as varied and exciting as the people we paint and the painters that paint them!

Key points about the CBPP Group are as follows

• a place to 
• showcase some of the best British practitioners of portrait painting 
• learn and support one another in what we do. 
• mostly professional painters 
• full membership of the group is by invitation
• members are invited purely on the quality of their work and their commitment to portraiture. 
• currently there is no maximum number of members
• "we are aiming to be as democratic as we can be".
• their guidelines for membership

I can look through their list of member artists and see very many of the names of those who I would certainly regard as leading contemporary portrait artists in the UK - many of whom I have met before and who have previously featured on this blog in my coverage of open portrait competitions/exhibitions over the last decade and more. 

These include:

• Alan Coulson
• Andrew Tift
• Antony Williams
• Carl Randall
• Curtis Holder
• Duncan Shoesmith
• Hero Johnson
• James Hague
• Joshua Waterhouse
• Laura Quinn Harris
• Martyn Burdon
• Miriam Escofet
• Sarah Jane Moon
• Simon Davis
• Steve Caldwell
• Tim Benson
• Tom Croft

I'm loving the way that they are NOT listing artists alphabetically by surnames. As one who has spent her entire life with a surname near the end of the alphabet this feels something like redemption. Instead they're listing alphabetically on first names! :)

CBPP Exhibition 

This is a great short video of their exhibition - which is well worth viewing and I'm sure will stimulate many people to go and take a look at their exhibition. More art societies and art groups would benefit from doing likewise.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by CBPP (@thecbpp)

You can also see work by the artists via

• a Gallery page of images of artwork by the artists - I'm unclear whether these are representative or ones in the show. My other comment would be that it's doing an excellent job of showing us the middle of portrait format portraits - and cutting off their heads on my Macbook Air! Maybe there's a need to rethink of the size and format of images for the slideshow - to service desk/laptop as well as mobile platforms?
• various virtual exhibitions on the website 

Exhibition Details

Details of the exhibition are as follows:

• Venue: The Department Store, 248 Ferndale Road, Brixton SW9 8FR (click the link to see the Google Map of its location; it's near both Brixton Tube and Brixton rail stations)
• Dates: 11th - 18th June 2022
• Hours: 10am - 5pm daily
• Entry: FREE

PS My problem is I need to pace myself at the moment and have some prior commitments this week. I'm trying to work out whether I can maybe combine this with one of those....

Social Media

Their marketing of the exhibition via social media has been excellent - not least because it's not been left to one person!

You can also find the group - and their very interesting content on

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/cbpp.org

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thecbpp/

YouTube Tutorials (by members) https://www.thecbpp.org/media-and-tutorials

The BEST ways and places to sell your art - RESULTS

Back in January I created a POLL: What was the best place to sell your art in 2021

• on this blog - and
• also included it on the How to Sell Your Art on my Art Business Info for Artists website - which introduces the different options for selling art considered on the website.

The question artists were asked was 

PROFIT FROM ART SALES: Which 3 options generated the most profit (after expenses) for you last year? (i.e. 2021)

107 people have responded to it - and this is the chart of their responses - followed by a commentary on all the various options and suggestions about what some of the results might mean. For me they mean it might be instructive to try some more polls focused on particular ways of selling art.

If you want to see a bigger picture of the chart

• right click and open the pic of the chart in a new tab, you'll see a bigger picture.
• Or you can go to the  How to Sell Your Art  page my website - which provides a bigger picture

Of course it all depends on what you're viewing it on! I don't think you'll get the best view on a smartphone...

Commentary on profitability of different options for selling art

Scope of responses

Responses are from people who view the Poll and vote. There is no way of knowing which country they are from or whether they are 

• amateur, 
• semi-professional (i.e. beyond hobby income) or 
• professional (i.e. make a living from being an artist).

So the results need to be viewed with this in mind. Nonetheless they provide some interesting perspectives.....

Profitability

Never forget that this is a Poll and Chart about PROFITABILITY i.e. 

• NOT how many sales you make 
• but rather which options make you the MOST PROFIT.

People who have successful businesses understand how they make profit. 

Never ever confuse turnover with profit because If you have significant expenses you won't be making much money. 

By way of contrast if you don't need to incur third party expenses and are good at marketing your art, you can eliminate commissions to galleries and listing feeds for third party sites.

The big surprise

Who painted this #69?

Well - the first thing to say about this week's challenge is that it's NOT a painting - so nobody painted it. 

I've removed the 'dead giveaway' from the bottom - but will show you this next week. 

See if you can work out who created this, what it's of and where it is! (Right click on the pic to open in a new tab and see a slightly larger image)

Hint: it's topical....

Who "created" this #69?

Below you can find

• The details of how to participate in this art history challenge
• the rules of the challenge
• the answer to last week re. Who Painted this #68?
• the names of all the people who got most or all of the answer correct
• who provided the best answer last week - which gives you an idea of what a good answer looks like

Your answers will be published next Sunday - before the next challenge.

How to participate in "Who painted this? #69

Tell me the story of this painting as best you can!

This is how "Who painted this?" works.

This is about using brains not technology - so please do NOT "cheat"

Briefly, in your comment ON THIS POST you must tell me ALL or as many of the following as you can:

• the title of the artwork
• the name of the artist who created this artwork
• the date it was created
• the media used
• where it lives now
• how you know all this eg how did you do your search
• anything else you can find out about the artwork and/or artist - tell its story!

The Winner of this week's challenge is the first identifiable person (i.e. no anonymous guesses) who, in my judgement, is 

• the first person to get to the answer by fair means
• AND provides the best quality answer in terms of added details about the artwork and artist

Remember also

• no use of "Google Image Search" or "Tineye" to find the image allowed
• this is a traditional web search of images using words only plus "hit the books" time
• I don't publish the comments until next week's post.

Comments on this blog post will only be published once a week - on the following Sunday.

(You wouldn't believe how many spam comments I now have to read and delete each week because of this challenge!!)

Who Painted This #68?

Title of the artwork: The Tribuna of the Uffizi 

Alternative titles are:

    Interior of the Florence Gallery
    The Interior of the Grand Duke's Gallery at Florence.

Name of the artist who created this artwork: Johan Joseph Zoffany (Frankfurt 1733-London 1810) (artist)
Date it was created: 1772-77

Commissioned by: Queen Charlotte of the United Kingdom (1744-1818)

Media used: oil paint on lined canvas

Dimensions: 

    Support: 123.5 x 155.0 cm (support, canvas/panel/str external)

    Frame: 157.7 x 183.2 x 11.1 cm (frame, external)
Where it lives now: Royal Collection

A 'tribune' (tribuna in Italian) is the semicircular (or semi-polygonal) domed end of a basilican church; the Tribuna is the hexagonal domed room created in 1585-9 by Bernardo Buontalenti (1536-1608) at the Uffizi palace for the display of the masterpieces in the Medici collection.

The Tribuna of the Uffizi by Johan Zoffany 
Exhibited in the Prince and Patron exhibition (2018)

I saw the painting at the Prince and Patron exhibition at Buckingham Palace in the summer of 2018.

Zoffany's main claim to fame is that he was the master of the theatrics of "the conversation piece" - which always includes lots of recognisable people and lots of detail. It's the sort of painting which can be very popular of its time but loses some meaning once those who recognise who are portrayed are no longer alive.

• born in Germany and died in the UK. Did you know that Zoffany is buried in the churchyard on Kew Green? (I've got a pic of his grave somewhere!)
• He trained in Germany and Rome - and knew Piranesi
• His came to the UK in 1760.
• His first major patron in the UK was the actor David Garrick - which might account for the development of the theatrical quality of his paintings of conversation paintings - most of which were painted for the wealthy middle classes. He certainly painted scenes from dramas for Garrick.
• In 1768 he became a founder member of the Royal Academy of Arts.
• Queen Charlotte - wife of the Hanoverian King George III - became his patron. Sharing a German heritage with the King would undoubtedly have helped. That by the way is the Queen Charlotte who stars in Bridgerton!

Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
Queen of Great Britain and Ireland and Electress of Hanover
(as wife of King George III)
portrait by Thomas Gainsborough

• Zoffany was nominated by George III for membership in the Royal Academy in 1769, exhibiting there from 1770 to 1800.
• Between 1772 and 1778 he worked primarily in Florence, where he painted The Interior of the Tribuna at Florence. The general consensus was that he'd included too many people and too many things.
• He subsequently fell out with Queen Charlotte over the painting 

'The King spoke of Zoffany's picture of the Florentine Gallery painted for him, & expressed wonder at Zoffany having done so improper a thing as to introduce the portraits of Sir Horace Man — Patch, & others. — He sd. The Queen wd. not suffer the picture to be placed in any of her apartments.' (Diary for 15 December 1804)

Zoffany was certainly paid handsomely for the work and to cover his stay in Florence (though the actual sum is disputed) however he never again worked for the Royal Family. The painting hung briefly at Kew Palace and is recorded, with The Academicians at the Upper Library at Buckingham House in 1819.
Royal Collection 

• He left the UK to work in India in 1783 but returned to the UK in 1789 and lived at Strand on the Green - next to the River Thames.
• It'a apparent from contemporary that he suffered from sort of mental ill health prior to his death.

You can find out more about Zoffany on the following links

• Johan Zoffany | Wikipedia
• Johan Zoffany | Tate
• The quirky side of Johann Zoffany | ART UK - which provides a detailed and very interesting account of his life with lots of images from collections around the UK.

Who guessed correct?

My apologies first to those who started to have go at this - and then noticed that the comments had already been published. I hit the wrong button my mistake when moderating all the spam!

The first person to provide a complete answer was Carol Edan - for the second week running!

The Good News #2: Getting better!

Another brief update on my recovery from surgery and its impact on my blogging.

It's been 19 weeks since my ankle fusion surgery and I've been out of my walker boot for 6 weeks. During that time I've started to walk again - with aids - and quite slowly for the most part.  I've used my carbon fibre rollator, my stick and walking poles so far!

Below is me about five weeks ago - on my first outing with my rollator! (The background is the old graveyard which is now a nature reserve where I now walk most days). It was so nice to be outside and in the fresh air - and actually moving on my own, albeit with the help of the rollator!

For those who've not seen me for a while
I lost 7 stone before surgery!
(and didn't put any back on afterwards!)

I'd had some inkling that ankle fusion surgery was a lot more challenging than a hip or knee  replacement - mainly because of not being able to walk for so long. 

What I hadn't quite realised is recovery takes up to 12 months! 

I managed to extract some exercises from the physio people and they helped a lot with getting ready to do more walking outside

However, walking after being in bed or sat in a chair for a while is very slow and painful. I can only approach normal walking after a 5 minute warm-up! Plus I've learned that sitting at my desk is still a total non-starter - my foot just ballooned for two days!

So, it looks like I'm going to be having to:

• allocate constant and consistent time for recovery for the next 6-8 months
• do regular physio exercises for my foot for quite a while and 
• undertake daily / regular exercise to 
• try and contain the contraction of the soft tissue structures and associated swelling.
• learn how to walk with a better gait - and stop "hip hiking"
• do lots of elevation and apply ice packs when the swelling starts because I've done too much.
• PLUS start physio exercises for a hip replacement - as my dodgy hip is not at all happy about all the extra exercise!

I do videos of how I'm getting of for myself so I can see the progress.

a still from the latest video where I'm actually managing to
walk at a respectable speed in a more or less straight line

The good news is I've actually made it to one exhibition - at Kew Gardens. By far the furthest I've walked so far - and, of course, I couldn't move much the next day. However I was elevating my foot on the seat of my rollator all the way back on the tube!

I think I'm going to be OK for getting to the Mall Galleries and intend to be at the Preview of the Plantae exhibition of the Society of Botanical Artists at the Mall Galleries in mid June.

HOWEVER finding time for the physio and the exercise is time-consuming. 

Plus all the effort employed is also rather tiring 

- which is why blogging has become very sporadic.

I'm trying to get back into a routine but it's slow going.....

But I have done two Zoom Talks for clients - which actually seem to be an easier way to communicate oddly enough!

I'm thinking about maybe doing more.... 

Previous posts

• Get ready for surgery: Update #1
• SURGERY UPDATE #2: Still prepping with a steep hill to climb
• SURGERY UPDATE #3: I've finally got a date!
• Surgery postponed - my list of exhibitions in London to visit
• Just a few problems
• The Good News

Who painted this #68?

Who painted this #68?

I saw this painting at an exhibition in London during the last decade. It's pretty big - and my photo of it in its frame has got some parallax issues. 

That's as much as you're getting in terms of clues. You can get to the name of the artist pretty fast if you have a think about the style of costume and the nature of the painting. After that, it's just a case of working your way through the artist's paintings as this is a well known one.

Below you can find

• The details of how to participate in this art history challenge
• the rules of the challenge 
• the answer to last week re. Who Painted this #67
• the names of all the people who got most or all of the answer correct
• who provided the best answer last week - which gives you an idea of what a good answer looks like

Your answers will be published next Sunday - before the next challenge.

How to participate in "Who painted this? #68

Tell me the story of this painting as best you can!

This is how "Who painted this?" works.

This is about using brains not technology - so please do NOT "cheat"

Briefly, in your comment ON THIS POST you must tell me ALL or as many of the following as you can:

• the title of the artwork
• the name of the artist who created this artwork
• the date it was created
• the media used
• where it lives now
• how you know all this eg how did you do your search
• anything else you can find out about the artwork and/or artist - tell its story!

The Winner of this week's challenge is the first identifiable person (i.e. no anonymous guesses) who, in my judgement, is 

• the first person to get to the answer by fair means 
• AND provides the best quality answer in terms of added details about the artwork and artist

Remember also

• no use of "Google Image Search" or "Tineye" to find the image allowed 
• this is a traditional web search of images using words only plus "hit the books" time
• I don't publish the comments until next week's post.

Comments on this blog post will only be published once a week - on the following Sunday.

(You wouldn't believe how many spam comments I'm having to identify and delete each week because of this challenge!!)

Who Painted This #67?

The challenge last week was to work out the painting from only half a painting!

This is the whole painting - and many of you got the correct artist and title! It's by Bonnard.

The Table (1925) by Paul Bonnard
oil on canvas
Courtauld Collection - but photographed at the National Gallery

The woman is probably Marthe Bonnard, the artist's wife. She is looking towards a dog whose muzzle is faintly visible on the left, and seems to be preparing its food in a bowl.

Title of the artwork: The Table
Name of the artist who created this artwork: Paul Bonnard
Date it was created: 1925
Media used: oil on canvas

Dimensions: Support: 1029 × 743 mm. Frame: 1256 × 965 × 113 mm
Where it lives now: Tate (Presented by the Courtauld Fund Trustees) 

This painting was bought as a result of the Courtauld Fund. In January 1924 the wealthy textile manufacturer Samuel Courtauld gave the large sum of £50,000 to create a trust for buying Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works for the Tate Gallery. Between 1924 and 1927 the Trust bought nineteen paintings by artists such as Edouard Manet, Paul Gauguin, Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet and Paul Cézanne. This donation transformed the Tate’s Collection of modern art by non-British artists. This significant painting was acquired only a year after it was made, and was the first work by Bonnard to enter the Tate Collection.

My photo of the painting relates to when paintings from the Courtauld Collection were on display at the National Gallery in November 2018 - following the closure of the Courtauld Gallery for a major refurbishment.

The exhibition was Courtauld Impressionists: From Manet to Cézanne (17 September 2018 – 20 January 2019). I'm guessing the painting was included as its presence in London was entirely down to Samual Coutauld.

It's been shown in various other exhibitions over the years including:

• RSA, Edinburgh, April-August 1932 (211); 
• RSA, Edinburgh, April-August 1946 (104); 
• Samuel Courtauld Memorial Exhibition, Tate Gallery, May-September 1948 (1); 
• Bonnard and his Environment, Museum of Modern Art, New York, October-November 1964 (34, repr.); 
• Art Institute of Chicago, January-February 1965 (34, repr.); 
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art, March-May 1965 (34, repr.); 
• Pierre Bonnard, RA, London, January-March 1966 (179)

The Courtauld Gallery reopened again in November 2021.

see Courtauld Gallery reopens after three-year transformation | Museums Association

Along with refreshing the gallery interiors, the Courtauld has completely reinterpreted and redisplayed its collection of fine art, which ranges from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. New spaces have also been created for temporary exhibitions.

 

Who guessed correct?

The first person to get it right was French Jane who knew it straight away as she'd seen it

This is La table painted in oils by Pierre Bonnard in 1925. It belongs to the Tate Gallery. I saw it in Paris in 1984 in a Bonnard exhibition at the Centre Pompidou and I got this information from my catalogue of the exhibition which was also shown at the Phillips Collection in Washington and also in Dallas, the same year.

Carol Edan was the first to get all the details correct - and I admire her approach to working it out.

I recognized this as an impressionist work so started my search using impressionism table seated woman. When I didn't find any results started using the artist's name in the search. Started with Cezanne,Matisse,Mary Cassatt, and Pierre Bonnard. I am currently using Esconia as my primary search engine. Find it very fast and accurate.

Title The Table
Painted 1925
Purchased by the Courtland Fund in 1926 for Tate Museum. His first painting to enter Tate's collection.
Oil on canvas 102.9 x 74.3 cm
This painting was part of an exhibition in the Metropolitan Museum in NY 2009 #15
Bonnard is well known for his domestic scenes of everyday life.
The woman is probably his wife Martha, preparing a simple meal.
Acquired from the artist by Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris
Independent Gallery, London
presented by the Trustees of the Courtauld Fund to the Tate Gallery, 1926