Visual Research

A collection of reviews and studies of photographers published since 2001. Includes David Bailey, Horst, Cecil Beaton, Don McCullin, Lee Miller, Francesca Woofman, E.O.Hoppe, and others.

Listen as descriptions of human physiology are illustrated in the eBook edition with 80 panel paintings by Philip James ROI. A viscous surface of pulped and washed colour interprets the intricate framework of muscles, arteries, bone and soft tissue, all infused with an internal dynamic of potent nervous energy. First published in 2001, the volume carried 80 colour plates of art works with descriptions of the location and function of portrayed parts.

Explores the structure and development of the Pre-Raphaelite movement in the mid-19th century and works that figure among the most enduring and generally popular in British art. Renowned writer and art critic Edward Lucie-Smith contributes a study of the brotherhood of seven artists and their interconnection and intricate links with the social establishment of the time. James Cahill has a special interest in the movement, having studied Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Holman Hunt. He reviews a major exhibition of 150 works at Tate Britain launched in September 2012.

An essay by Edward Lucie-Smith considers the Andy Warhol exhibition re-opening at Tate Modern on July 27. He puts forward a provocative view of the relevance of the art in an time of turbulent disruption. When the Warhol show returns to Tate Modern on July 27, almost the first thing you’ll meet if you go to see it will be a large painting, on two paired canvases, entitled Marilyn Diptych. It features repeated images the film star Marilyn Monroe.

Cv/VAR series 52 features an interview with American artist James Turrell recorded at Michael Hue Williams London in June 1996.

The Titian Show at the National Gallery here in London has just opened to the public again. It was available for just three days before the big lockdown. Now, it is with us once more, though on rather different terms from what was the case previously. You have to book a time. You have to be wearing a mask. You have to maintain distance between yourself and other visitors booked in for the same slot. Is it worth the hassle? Yes, of course it is. Titian is one of the greatest figures in the history of Western art.

The exhibition attempts a revaluation of the pre-Raphaelite movement of the mid 19th century, as Dr Marsh indicates it is not about gender competition. Rather, it's about rebalancing the contribution of partners, models, and studio managers. It is also about creative discourse and the other significant roles undertaken by women associated with individual artists.

A study of Aubrey Beardsley's work exhibited at Tate Britain until May 25, 2020. The author considers the darkly vigorous imagery of the short lived genius, his graphic work for the notorious Yellow Book, and sublimely erotic illustrations for Lysistrata by Aristophane and Salome by Oscar Wilde, which frank imagery even shocked the author.

In this study, Art, Poetry, and WW1 by Edward Lucie-Smith of writing, poetry, and painting in the centenary year of the outbreak of the First World War, the author considers the historical impact on the general psyche of the calamitous events, reflected in the expression of poets and visual artists. He establishes a continuity to the theme with reference to works by Velázquez, Watteau, Goya, and others, in their treatment of the spectacle of battle and the horrors of war and human conflict.

A commentary on the Pierre Bonnard exhibition recorded at the press view on Monday January 21, 2018. Views figure studies and landscapes made between 1900 and 1940 and responds to the conception of the compositions with their radiant color fields.

Cv/VAR 50 publishes an interview with the artist Helen Chadwick (1953-96), recorded at her Beck Road studio in 1989. It explores the body-action-photographic works distilled in installations such as Ego Geometria Sum and Of Mutability, and the cromalin prints of 1989: Viral Landscapes, prepared for exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art Oxford in 1990.

Feature by David Rose first published in Cv Journal of Art and Crafts 2/4 December 1989, in which he describes craft practices of individual makers in the county of West Cork, Ireland. The monograph also includes a survey of Dublin colleges of art and design by Margaret MacNamidhe, first published in Cv Journal 4/2 July 1991. From Cv/VAR Archive. Crafts Directory surveys practices in the applied and decorative arts in the UK and Ireland. The anthology of interviews and features was first published in the quarterly review Cv Journal of Art and Crafts 1988-91, and includes showcases of emerging practices, studies of crafts education, and a comprehensive index of specialist producers and suppliers in the flourishing arena of crafts design and distribution.

A review of the Mary Quant exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum London. The audiobook looks at the beginnings of the designer's practice, launched with the Kings Road boutique Bazaar in the 1950s; progressing to Quant's mini skirts and trouser suits in the 1960s, and development of a cosmetic range in the 1970s. Includes quotations from associates and biographical data.

Interview with painter Anthea Holmes, recorded in April 1988 at her Whitechapel Studio. She describes her training at Kingston University and at The Pratt Institute New York; with the development of an intricate play between figure, ground and light in an intimate process of accumulation and elision of elements.

Review of the exhibition of visionary artist William Blake at Tate Britain, September 2019: The exhibition is arranged in eight rooms of the downstairs gallery spaces of Tate Britain, low-lit, maroon-painted walls, a very comprehensive collection of a highly original and complex visionary creator.

Painter Claudia Carr describes her surreal landscapes, composed from reflections of found objects that suggest imaginative scenarios of play and dreams.

Clare Lilley, head curator of Yorkshire Sculpture Park, gives an interview to Cv/VAR in which she describes her own career path to the YSP and gives a detailed description of the history, aims, and initiatives of Britain's largest environment for contemporary sculpture, with special projects involving artists such as David Nash, James Turrell, Jaume Plensa, and Anthony Caro.

A collection of reviews made from January to June 2019 of exhibitions in museums and galleries in London and Oxford. The volume proceeds from Small Histories, published in 1996 then updated in 2011. Contents include: Mantegna/Bellini at the National Gallery, John Ruskin at Temple Place, Elizabethan Miniatures at the National Portrait Gallery, Pierre Bonnard at Tate Modern, Mary Quant at the V&A, Jeff Koons at the Ashmolean Oxford, and Anish Kapoor at the Lisson Gallery London.

Presents a collection of essays by Nicholas James on classic and contemporary art: "The Trinity" by Masaccio at Santa Maria Novella, Florence; Vermeer's "The Maid" and "Woman Weighing Pearls"; Cezanne and Salvador Dali, Francis Bacon portraits, and reviews of over 70 exhibitions in public and private galleries held between 1993 and 2010.

Very seldom in London can a major show of modern and contemporary art at a highly respected national institution have received such universally negative reviews. As I write this, not all the verdicts on the Royal Academy’s exhibition of Modern British Sculpture have been delivered. However, it is already clear that the majority will be hostile. Paradoxically, it is this, more than any other factor, which makes it seem like an important event - a turning point if you like.