Tiny house

There was one more thing I wanted to show you from the Rijks. And what a thing it is. It’s this dolls’ house that belonged to Petronella Oortman, built in the late 1600’s. Oortman was a wealthy widow (who later remarried) and had the house and furniture made for her, which ended up costing as much as a full scale one. Rich women commissioned these houses to show off their wealth, and this particular one ended up in the museum. Shall we have a little look round it?

The house and furniture within were all built to scale, using the same materials as their full scale versions. Again with the workmanship! And I love the fabric on the wall - very very cool. I’m not familiar with the lay out of Dutch merchants’ houses of the era, but I think this is supposed to be a kids’ bedroom on the ground floor.

And here is the kitchen, with real marble for the flooring. We’ve been watching a programme on Channel 4 called The Great Big Tiny Design Challenge (really rolls off the tongue doesn’t it?), so I was more drawn to this than I have been on previous visits. And now that I’m older I’m definitely more attuned to highly skilled workmanship, as I can appreciate it on a whole other level. I think it’s related to how most things are done so cheaply and of low quality these days, that when you see things made with proper care and attention, they really stand out. I recently read this article in the Observer about current craftspeople and found it inspiring and reassuring.

Apparently Oortman had these small pieces of porcelain made and sent over from China. Zoom in and have a closer look - they are quite something.

The mural in this room was painted by a proper artist too - no wonder it cost a fortune! In fact Oortman was so proud of it she commissioned Jacob Appel to paint a painting of the dolls’ house, which is also in the Rijks. In it you can see that some of the rooms look different, so maybe parts of the house have been damaged over the centuries, or maybe she chose to update the decor after the painting was made.

A hallway. Fancy fancy.

Is this a dressing room? With what they wore back in those days it would probably take an hour or two just to get dressed. They might even have paused half-way through for a cuppa, judging by the china on console table. Haha, I think i’m forgetting that this is a dolls’ house aren’t I? All the dolls, apart from the little baby that you see seated to the right, were sadly lost at some point.

The top floor bedroom with amazing details all around.

I really liked these two rooms at the top, with the laundry hanging on rails and the coal store at the top of the last little set of stairs. The house inspired the writer Jessie Burton to write The Miniaturist, which also became a TV-series, and I’ve read and watched both of them and enjoyed them, even if they’re a bit trashy. It was so nice to be transported to 17th century Amsterdam and drink in some of the (very dramatic) atmosphere. So there you go, the smallest house tour ever, just for you.

P.S. A snuck this pic of me looking at it, which was very helpful, as this way you can really see the scale of it. Big and small at same time (Biggie Smalls anyone?).

Rijksmuseum time

Yo! Thought it was time for a design refresh here. Lately I just wasn’t feeling the blog, and so I thought that maybe, if I went back on Instagram for a bit (after a 4 & 1/2 year hiatus), it would make me want to blog again - and it worked! I only lasted five days on IG before I deleted it again, and came away from it knowing that I needed to change the look of the blog a bit - just like how painting a room a new colour makes you see it with new eyes. So funny that I knew exactly what I had to do to trick myself into blogging again. Anyway, back to the post…

Just being in Amsterdam for three days meant that I had to strip down the visit to the essentials, and with there being a dearth of good exhibitions on, I decided that our cultural outing had to be a visit to the Rijksmuseum. We got there first thing in the morning when they opened (the only way to get in without having to face a long queue), and started our visit with breakfast in the museum café, where we admired this tulipiere in the picture above, which is how tulips were displayed in the 17th century. If you’d like to buy one this size today it would set you back about €18 000! My friend A really wanted to buy one, but a smaller sized one in the gift shop was €400, so my picture of it had to do instead.

This painting by Vermeer is one that I always have to seek out when I go, I love it so. I have a postcard of it on my fridge so I get to see it every day, but seeing it in person can’t be beat.

These stars, in the ceiling in an atrium part of the museum, were added in the 10-year controversially long refurbishment of the museum, and each one was hand painted in situ. I bet the people painting them dreamt about stars for the duration it took them to finish the project.

The museum library is a beautiful space that you can peek your head into from a mezzanine level; I’ll take better pictures next time I promise. Most of the time when I take pictures I don’t think of shooting it in a way that makes sense on the blog. In fact I don’t really take pictures for the blog, I just take pictures that I want to take and then post whatever I think I can make sense of - in blog form. It’s only afterwards that I think ‘Oh you idiot, why didn’t you take a wider shot, or why didn’t you get a shot of the outside of the building?!’ etc. But you know what? It doesn’t actually matter. I’m me, and this is my corner of the internets, and this is how I blog. S’all good.

Back to the aaaaarrrrttt then. I have never seen portrait tiles before. Have you? I likes it.

And the details on this late 17th century wooden cabinet - mijn god!

I didn’t get any good wide pictures as it was quite dark, but you can see the whole thing here. Can’t even imagine the amount of hours this would’ve taken to make. But if you do this, with this much skill, you surely must be in heaven making it.

These two! They were quite small, which I reckon made them even more special. The highlights on the gooseberries! The fuzzy peaches! Mind blown.

Next time I go to Amsterdam (which won’t be too long from now - woohoo!) I want to go to this spot of Herengracht and see how different it looks now - with my own eyes.

I think this was my favourite painting this visit. It just looked so contemporary. Must have been quite an unusual depiction back in 1645-50 when it was painted. I also quite want her hat.

A having a rest in between all the looking and walking. That little rest on a bench in a museum/exhibition is one of my favourite moments. Both your legs and your brain needs a breather after a while, but then, just few minutes later, you’re ready to go again, refreshed.

This guy… just amazing. Like an olden day angry emoji, no?

Loved this cabinet - so modern, yet so clearly very old.

Can’t remember exactly what era this sealed off replica room was from, but it was very grand and atmospheric. Shame I didn’t get a better pic of it (enough with the complaining).

I just can’t believe how lucky I am to be able to look at things that excite me so much so easily. So grateful to all the artists everywhere that create such amazing pieces of art, and have done for hundreds and hundreds of years, and that there are museums where I can go and see it up close for myself. These two paintings of two people not doing anything special were also some of my favourites this time round.

The night before going to Amsterdam, when I said goodnight to Oomoo, we talked about how cool/strange it is that patterns in nature repeats itself so much, and on different scales. Like how a tree, vein, plant root, lightning bolt, sea coral and lots of other things basically all have the same shape. In Rijks I came across these two old German x-rays of a child’s hands and feet, and straight away thought about that conversation, and how we walk around with what essentially looks like winter trees inside our bodies.

Crazy.

Loved these linocuts too, but sadly I don’t remember the name of the artist. All I know is that the man in the left hand picture was the one who made them, and that the man on the right was his son, and the woman below his wife. He was a Jewish artist who tried to flee with his family in WW2, but they got caught and sent to be a concentration camp, and did not survive.

Just before we called it a day I spotted this stunning landscape

and this little domestic scene. So there you go, a little snapshot of my version of the Rijks spring 2022. If you want to have more of a dig around the collection you can do so here. It’s really well put together.

Summer in winter

I don’t know about you, but looking at art is like medicine for me, so after being ill, the first thing I wanted to do was dose myself up on other people’s creativity. Last Tuesday morning I sat down and looked at what was on, and wrote down a list of 15 (!) exhibitions I wanted to go to. After having established the date order of when to go, I headed into town to see Mixing It Up at the Hayward Gallery. Just as I was mere meters away I thought: “Wait, isn’t the Hayward shut on Tuesdays?!” only to see that it was. I put it down to my post-Covid brain not remembering to check whether they were open or not. My other genius move was that I’d left my list at home, but I remembered what was no. 2: The Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy. So, back across the river I walked, arriving at the RA by lunch time and going straight to the café. There I sat, eating my sandwich, facing this mural by Gilbert Spencer called An Artist’s Progress, painted in 1959. Apparently it wasn't very popular at the time, and one critic called it “The worst picture of the year!.” Ouch. I however enjoyed looking at it and following the story, and how it made a good backdrop for the lunching ladies. Re-energised and rested, I went upstairs to embark on the marathon awaiting me; the Summer Exhibition contains over a 1000 artworks. I took a lot of pictures, and I’m going to post 45 of them here. “45 pictures in one post?! Are you mad?!!” I hear you say. Well, I thought it fitting, as walking through the exhibition itself is quite an undertaking. So, make yourself comfortable (maybe boil that kettle), ‘cause here goes.

Mexican Man With Green And Red Spotted Shirt Bill Traylor £96,500

The annual Summer Exhibition has been on every year at the Royal Academy since 1769, and for the past couple of years it’s been held in late autumn/early winter because of the pandemic. It has never been cancelled, not even during the world wars. Each exhibition is co-ordinated by a Royal Academician, and this year’s selection was over seen by Yinka Shonibare. The title of it is Reclaiming Magic, and Bill Traylor’s art worked as a catalyst of what the theme should be. From the guide book of the exhibition: “We begin our journey with the work of one artist, Bill Traylor, from whom the kaleidoscope of ideas in the exhibition has evolved. Born into slavery in 1854, he did not start making art until the age of 85. He was a self-taught artist and has come into prominence in our time as society has shifted its values. Bill Traylor’s work singularly inspired the idea of looking beyond the boundaries of Western art history.”

Red Man With Pipe
Bill Traylor £71,500

Lamp, Abstract Table, Figures And Dog
Bill Traylor £89,500

Now, if you’re a long time reader of the blog (cast your mind back to the heady days of blogging in 2008 if so), you might remember that I got given a book about him, which blew my mind, so to see his work IRL was incredible. I had no idea he was included, so it was a pleasant surprise, and I spent a long time looking at them, with my heart beating a bit faster.

Untitled (Construction With Figures) Bill Traylor NSF (not for sale)

Almost all of the work at the Summer Exhibition is for sale, and had I been a millionaire I might have considered Red Man With Pipe (see above above - ha!), a mere snip at £71,500.

Right then, let’s move on. The fun thing about the SE is that the works on display is a mixture of works from established, new or amateur artists and members of the public. Anyone can enter.

The Musician Joy Yamusage £9,500

I didn’t shoot this with anything to give it scale, but it was huge - and cool.

Prison Culture: Canteen II by Lee Cutter £3,200

I saw some of Lee Cutters’ carved soaps at the 2018 SE. They are really something.

George Floyd Remembered Ian Wright £650

It has never occurred to me that you could do actual portraits with Hama beads.

Memento Mori Chrissie Freeth NFS (not for sale)

There’s no doubt I’m middle aged now, as I keep finding that my taste is changing. I now love tapestries, I can listen to opera without wanting to turn it off and I’ve also come round to watercolour paintings. I used to think they were so naff, and now I love how delicate they are. Anyway, I digress. I found the craftsmanship in this amazing.

Pull Max Frommeld £2,000

Now how’s this for a fancy light pull? It’s actually quite large, maybe about 25cm in diameter. It would be so beautiful hanging in the window of a minimalist house.

Hold Max Frommeld £2,800

As would this handle type thing (see, I know all the art critic lingo). I reeaaaaally liked this. I’d love it just jutting out on a wall somewhere random at home. But obviously not in the loo, as that would be beyond middle age.

Yayoi Kusama Rod Melvin £1,025

Pretty obvious who this is, eh? Also, knitted portraits! Totally deserves an exclamation mark.

Red Robin Harry Hill £50

Harry Hill is a British (very British) stand up comedian, who’s very silly and has made us laugh a lot over the years. He’s also a bit of an amateur artist on the side, and this was one of his entries. You can see him talk about it here.

Renovation of the Headquarters of the Royal Geographical Society, Kensington Gore
Adam Caruso and Peter St John RA (Royal Academician) £360

I’ve always found the architecture room at the SE quite boring, but this year was different, as I’ve become much more interested in architecture since Covid and my lockdown looking-at-buildings walks. £360 isn’t a huge amount of money for something as nice as this, but I don’t have that sort of spare cash. A photo of the print will have to do.

UCL East Marshgate - Study Model 1:100 Stanton Williams NFS

I know for sure that in another life, Mr Famapa would have been a model maker. He’d be awesome at it.

It wasn’t madly busy, which was nice. I love the quiet in a gallery/museum on a weekday, with the chance to step away from the world outside, especially now as town is all Christmassy and busy.

Chibok Girls: Nigeria’s Stolen Daughters Julienne Hanson £750

Went in a bit closer on this, so you can see it more in detail. Another very large knitted piece.

Another wide shot so you can see how much there is on the walls, and also how high up some of it is. I’d be a pit peeved if that was my picture on top of the throughway like that, wouldn’t you?

6 Works From the Vocabulary Series Marlene Dumas Hon RA NFS

I love Marlene Dumas’ work. Talk about cool watercolours. Her stuff is so otherworldly. She’s got a big exhibition in Venice next year. I might send myself over there in the post so I can see it.

Verde Ana Ayesta £1,000

See number 284? The minimalist green and black piece. Gutted that it was hanging so high up. I really liked the look of it, but struggled to see it properly, and the reflections didn't help either. Shame.

Sleep Well Heidrun Rathgeb £330

Looooooved this wood cut. Another one I would’ve bought with my Monopoly money.

Ada Set Of Stairs 40.11 Wolgang Tillmans RA £108,960

This massive inkjet print really stood out. I was wondering how you can even print something that big, and then when I saw that it was by Wolfgang Tillmans, and I understood that if you’re Wolfgang Tillmans you can. I overheard these two ladies saying that they found it a bit scary, as if it was about to fall down on them. I kind of know what they mean.

Tried to get a shot of this lady with her hat and colour combo, but she moved just as I took the picture.

The Business Of Hanging Around Terry Wood £14,750

Liked the contrast of the clean painting floating in the air and the ornate moulding in the ceiling.

Back Of Wendover, The Aylesbury Fragments Harriet Mena Hill £1,350

Who’s to say that you can’t paint on bits of salvaged concrete?

Amnesiac Beach Fire (Mod II) Mike Nelson RA £15,000

Or make a fire in the corner?

Our Visit To The Contemporary Art Museum Did Not Go Entirely As Planned Glen Baxter £6,800

This made me smile and think of Gary Larson.

Troglodytes Of The Northern Desert Stephen Farthing RA £8,000

Looking at this really messed with my eyes. Some colours put next to makes our brains very confused. This painting was like an afterimage.

End Of The Night Class Gutsche £390

Another one that I would’ve bought. It really reminded me of summer nights in the Swedish countryside. Must be the pine trees.

Stardust Eileen Cooper RA £1,150/£900

There were quite a few Eileen Cooper artworks in the there (I guess one of the many perks of being a Royal Academician is that you can enter as many artworks as you want) but this one was my fave.

Changeling 001 Brett Walker £390/290

See the half cat half human portrait? Loooooooove it.

Seeing Red (Again) Corneila Parker RA £666

This made me smile so much. I think this might be the third version of this concept from Corneila Parker, but she could just run with this forever and ever. It’s a dead cert to get chosen every year, but then she would be anyway, because the lady is a genius. You can read more about the first version Stolen Thunder (Red Spot) here.

Matrix IV, From: Aquatints Antony Gormley RA £2,400

Focus!

Ahhh, that’s better. I really enjoyed the times where I immediately felt something; either instantly liking it or recognising who the art was by, before looking in the List of Works guidebook to check the artist. This was one of those occasions where I instantly liked it. When I read that it was by Antony Gormley it made perfect sense - I love everything he does.

Sin - Without Ed Ruscha HON RA

And this was one of those times when I knew who’d made it straight away - Ed Ruscha (kind of obvious I guess, haha).

So Long And Thanks For All The FIsh Derek Curtis £2,500

See the little painting on its own above the doorway? How aptly placed. Just that bit away from everyone else. Stupid effin’ Brexit. I hate it.

Chris Whitty’s Cat Grayson Perry RA NFS

I don’t hate this though. Such pleasure to also see this in real life, as I watched this being made in one of the Grayson’s Art Club episodes last year. In the first lockdown, broadcast on Channel 4 in weekly instalments, Grayson Perry started an art club, with weekly themes that members of the public could partake in, and send him their art. The end result is an exhibition of lockdown art that is currently travelling the country. There were so many good things on TV to keep us sane in those many months of isolation, but Perry’s show was probably the best.

A Little Bit Of InfinityB/C/F Peter Randall-Page RA £4,000 each

Noice noice. Really liking the complex simplicity of these. Whoa, I’m hitting the wall dudes. Are you? This is a flipping monster of a post. Are you still with me? Or are you scrolling going “Next. Next.”? Don’t tell me, as it’s easier for me to pretend that you find all of this interesting, because I’ve spent HOURS doing this post. We’re nearly there guys, only six more pics to go. We can DO IT.

Exodus Zak Ové £43,200

This was a very popular piece, with a lot of nostalgic men looking at it. Made it impossible to get a clean shot of it without anyone in it.

Pool 1 Christine Haig £480/280

So beautiful this, isn’t it? One thing I think I figured out is that if you’re submitting photographs to the SE, they must be very clean graphically. More like something that you put in your house because it goes well with the interior, rather than it being a good picture (not the case here though, but it falls in that bracket too). I think it’s a bit unfair, as so many of the other art works are really busy, and a thing within itself. It could also be that the photographs that get in are like this because they have to compete with busy paintings and the like, and it’s the only way they’ll stand out. They can’t all be huge like Wolfgang Tillmans’ print (which, hello, was very clean graphically!). I’d love to see what the photos that don’t make it in are like. Are they better photographs? Or is this kind of photography the only kind being submitted? Or does the photographer think about how they can easily sell their work? And actually, I’m equally guilty of thinking of the art in the exhibition in relation to what would look like in my house. I guess it can’t be helped, as if you’re buying art, it’s generally going up on a wall, in a home. Still, I think it’s interesting that there’s such a clear division between photography and the other art forms on display here, but I realise that I’m being hypocritical, seeing as all the pieces I’ve taken pictures of and have posted here, fall in the bracket “clean graphically”. “But I used to be a graphic designer” she whispers. “So I can’t actually help it. It’s deeply embedded in my visual DNA”. Pffffft.

Fatou Amoalko Boafo (Private Collection) NFS

I guess it’s harder for photographs to “compete” when there’s such great things around them like this painting for example. I’m sure if I had a go at finger painting it would not turn out like this.

Experiencing British Art History Nelly Dimitranova £3,500

OMG. This. This is epic. First it made me laugh as I know this colour chart from Farrow & Ball very well, but then my jaw kind of dropped when I looked closer at each paint chip. Every one of them a drawing of a famous British painting or sculpture. I mean, everyone is in there, honestly. If you take your time, I’m sure you’ll recognise loads of them. I recommend coming back to this and looking at them all properly, as I completely get that you might just have OD’d on all of this by now.

I did tell you. The Summer Exhibition is a real undertaking. So is a blog post with 45 pictures.

But we’ve finally made it to the end. If I find out you just scrolled through it all, I’m going to come and pinch you. And I’ll take a picture of me doing it, and then I’ll enter it to next year’s Summer Exhibition. Boom.

Clever lady

Oh hello! How’s tricks? As is always the case in September, I have a long backlog of pictures from the summer to post. I managed to cram in a lot of culture as it’s pretty much my oxygen, you know? And with winter looming and who knows what, I just wanted to take advantage of things being open. Luckily there’s been a lot of good stuff to see. Me and my fellow culture vulture D went to see the Charlotte Perriand exhibition at the Design Museum last month and were seriously impressed by the seriously impressive Perriand. I have to be honest here, these exhibition posts are so time consuming to write as I want to try and share info about said artist/architect/creative, but it does mean that it can take a really long time before I’m ready to press the publish button. Do you guys find this stuff interesting or am I making things unnecessarily harder for myself? Feedback would be very much appreciated! In the meantime I’m going to cheat, and you can read up more on Charlotte Perriand here.

Still, I guess I have to explain a bit about her here so this post makes sense. So, Perriand was a French designer and architect who was a part of the Modernist movement working from the 1920’s until the end of the 1990’s (!). She applied for work at the Le Corbusier Studio only to be told by the big man himself: "We don’t embroider cushions here.” (insert massive eye roll). But a year later, having seen her installation at Le Salon d’Automne in 1927, where she had recreated the bar area in her own apartment showing her furniture designs (a bit like in the first picture), Le Corbusier asked her to join his studio on the spot (in your face LC!). She, together with Pierre Jeanneret, went on to design the furniture to go with Le Corbuisier’s houses, who was horrified by seeing how his clients would fill his Modernist houses with antique furniture. The gall!

It was clear that these designs would fit the interiors much better.

Maybe you recognise this design of this chair, the Fauteuil Grand Confort? A Perriand classic, that Le Corbusier and Jeanneret got credited for designing, when it actually was all her work alone. Isn’t patriarchy just great?

And here D is trying out a replica IRL. It’s well comfy. And those colours are just delicious. Putting tubular steel on the outside of the seat was a groundbreaking design at the time.

The Chaise Longue Basculante is such a great design; you can lift the seat section up and angle it however you like. Also very comfy, but hard to get out of gracefully, at least at this angle.

It wasn’t clear in this section of the exhibition that this was a replica of an single room apartment that Le Corbusier, Perriand and Jeanneret presented as an installation at the 1929 Salon d’Automne. This was the open plan section looking one way (I didn’t take a pic of the reverse view with the dining area, I thought this was just a section with furniture on show - put together badly 😂). The bathroom and kitchen section is behind the storage units on the left of this picture.

Sterile, n’est pas? It’s crazy to think this was designed nearly 100 years ago. Those guys were so influential, and it’s even crazier to think that architecture and interiors haven’t moved on that much from the Modernist movement. Although personally I’d never choose to sleep right next to the bathroom sink.

On the other side of the wall at the back of the picture above was the kitchen. Apologies for not taking a wide shot here.

I loved this picture from Perriand’s studio in Montparnasse. It just looks so damn cosy. Towards the late 1930’s she turned away from metal manufacturing and started working almost exclusively with wood. She designed the table in that shape as it let you seat more people comfortably than you could do with a rectangular or square table. So clever. Perriand was also very sporty Spice, hence the still rings in the ceiling.

An example of the table in the exhibition, clearly showing how the design of the table legs meant that they weren’t in the way of guests’ legs (I hate when you have to sit with your legs around table legs).

During WW2 she was invited to go and work in Japan, and on the ship on the way over there she spotted this chalk graffiti on the deck, drawn by a Japanese sailor, which impressed her so much…

… that she copied it and enlarged it onto a rug design. As you can see here, her furniture designs had taken on a much more organic form by the early 1940’s.

Love this picture of her messing about.

Some very cool wall lights that you could pivot the angle on. They gave off such a nice light.

And this chair! Wouldn't mind having a couple of them in the house (I wish 💸).

Some Isamu Noguchi rice lamps - from below. Very much looking forward to seeing his exhibition at the Barbican this autumn.

Looking at my pictures now, I realise I skipped so much as I wasn't intending to take pictures of everything to show what was there - here. I just took pics of what I liked the look of. So apologies for an abbreviated representation of all of this. So what is this you may wonder? Well, Perriand designed the ski resorts of Les Arcs 1600, 1800, 1950 and 2000 in the late 1960’s and 70’s. She had the kitchen and bathrooms prefabricated off site, so that they could be craned into position with all the electrics and plumbing all ready to be plugged in. Here’s the kitchen section

and here you can see the bathroom part in it’s own box. I found this film on YouTube that explains a bit more.

Charlotte Perriand was a genius designer and architect, and by the looks of things a great human being too. In her later years she built herself a small chalet in Meribel, and it was my favourite of all the things she created. There were only photographs of it in the exhibition, but have a look here and you’ll see what I mean. So happy we got to find out more about her and her work; I resent how history has always airbrushed women out if it, unless they were royals. Stupid frickin’ patriarchy.