Fashion City at the Docklands Museum

An exhibition looking at the contribution of London’s Jewish tailors, dressmakers and milliners to global style. There was little that I wasn’t already aware of so I found it slightly underwhelming, but it was interesting to consider how some quintessentially British brands – like Alexon, Chelsea Girl and Moss Bros – originated in the East End of London. As a site for garment manufacturing it was preceded by the Huguenot silk-weavers and, by the time I worked near there, largely replaced by sari shops. Some of the displays were very local such as seamstresses turning out bespoke items of clothing or wedding dresses. Others spoke of mass manufacture but didn’t dwell on the inevitable sweatshop aspect to that. Looking up close at the craft and skill involved was, as ever, fascinating. Tailoring was an eminently portable skill – sadly useful in a world where you might have to flee persecution.

There was a definite sense of the disappearance of the world it commemorated. All those famous brands have now gone, and its “fashionability” barely outlived the sixties. As I walked back to Tower Hill along Cable Street a noisy jeep-type vehicle with two Palestinian flags roared past. Πάντα ρεί.

British Museum

I went to see the new exhibition about Roman legionaries. Not my usual thing – and definitely not at the weekend – but train strikes have kept me in London and it seemed interesting enough.

As indeed it was. Curmudgeon that I am, I could have done with a less family-friendly vibe – but they’re the exhibition-goers of the future, not me. These are the other thoughts that I took away from my visit:

• There was a shield from AD 200s – the only surviving wooden long shield (scutum) – which was discovered in Syria. Next to it was a boss from AD 100s of the kind that would have covered the central hole and protected the elbow. That was discovered in . . . the River Tyne. As an example of the reach and standardisation of the Roman empire, these two items together take some beating.
• Lots of artefacts – monuments, armour, weapons – on loan from German museums, particularly along the Rhine. It made me feel guilty about always giving Landesmuseums the go-by when I’m in Germany.
• I’m still trying to get my head around the fact that a century consisted of 80 soldiers, not 100.
• Unsurprisingly, there were a lot of artefacts found in Britain: I felt quite at home with the Ribchester and Crosby Garrett helmets (bizarre as it was to think of them as armour).
• Roman soldiers signed on for 25 years. Until Caracalla made all free men in the Roman empire citizens, army service was one way to gain citizenship. On display was a bronze diploma of citizenship awarded to a soldier (plus one wife and their children) who had completed his 25 years. He retired in Britain and the diploma was discovered in Hungary.

And then, after three days of roaming among familiar cultures and eras, I decided I wanted a complete change and (with Tokyo Story in mind) headed to the Japanese galleries. Instead of the desired shift, however, I only saw continuities: earthenware pots, jewellery and iron weapons – pretty much the same kind of artefacts that you get from European civilisations from the BC era. Even the decorative art from the Edo period (1603-1868) looked entirely familiar – one Kakiemon-style hexagonal pot (admittedly made for export to Europe) had its Doppelgänger in the European gallery – this time manufactured in Meissen. Like the Roman shield, it triggered a few thoughts about early globalisation.

Despite the morning’s encounter with plenty of Roman armour and weapons, the items that struck me as most unusual were the samurai armour and the sword guard. The armour was made of metal, paper, lacquer, stencilled leather, hemp fibre, water buffalo horn, wood and gold . . . and was embellished with pink ribbons. The sword guard, with its hare, crescent moon and plants, was so lovely that it instantly went on my “to steal” list.

It was also dreadfully crowded – so many tourists (including me, of course) even in February. It deters me from doing this again. Places like Sambourne House seem far more attractive.

After such overload I had to recover in the restaurant over a l o n g lunch.

Kensington High Street

I had been bitten by the Victorian bug after yesterday’s visit to the V&A – and I also had a hankering to take another look at the old Derry & Toms building. So off I went.

There are actually two art deco former department stores side by side, both once owned by the same company and both designed by Bernard George in the 1930s. The one with the giant fins was Barkers of Kensington; it wasn’t actually finished until the 1950s. Of the two, I prefer Derry & Toms: the detailing is wonderful. I delighted in the decorated lintels above the entrances: the bizarre inclusion of squirrels and kingfishers in this most urban of places. The panel reliefs of transport, cosmetics and labour are more appropriate – but less cute. Having said that, there was/is also a roof garden – so the natural world is not entirely absent.

And now these two buildings have lost much of their function. Derry & Toms gave way to Biba (now that’s an experience I regret missing); there are still shops inside but they are dwarfed by their surroundings.

From the twentieth century to the nineteenth: I visited Sambourne House, the home of Linley Sambourne (1844-1910) and his family. He was an illustrator and cartoonist, mainly for Punch, and the house is furnished in the “aesthetic” style of the time – but with added clutter. So lots of Morris wallpaper; flowers and birds everywhere on carpets, door panels, stained glass; walls divided into three by dado rails and picture rails and then covered in wallpapers, prints, paintings and reproductions. It was exhausting! There were also lots of “Arnolfini” mirrors – but not used as creatively as in Soane’s House. I was glad I had arrived early as I had the house to myself to wander around; the silence of the rooms countered the oppressive sense of “stuff” that was never far from the surface, despite my pleasure in looking round.

I thought I had discovered a little bit of egalitarianism when I reached the maid’s room: it was also covered in Morris paper (willow). “How nice,” I thought. Pah! The room was papered in the twentieth century; the maid would have had plain painted walls. (Which might have been a relief for her to retire to each night after so much pattern during the day, admittedly.)

And then, heading to Holland Park Road and Melbury Road, I discovered the Design Museum (formerly the Commonwealth Institute). It’s an astonishing building because of its roof, but – according to the Twentieth Century Society – it was an even more astonishing building when it opened in 1962. I found its exhibits a bit underwhelming: examples of good design were those that have been around my whole life or I have seen (and been intrigued by) before. There’s a limit to how many times I can be stopped in my tracks by the Frankfurt Kitchen or an anglepoise lamp, brilliant as they are. At least they are on display to be discovered for the first time by young people – although it’s very ageing to see commonplace artefacts from one’s life presented in an historical context!

And finally to the “Holland Park Circle” – houses of Victorian artists clustered around Lord Leighton’s House. They were all very fine and surrounded by gardens, but the only one that I really liked was at 8 Melbury Road – built 1875-77 by Richard Norman Shaw for Marcus Stone. All that light – such a contrast to Sambourne’s house! I was ridiculously pleased to discover that Michael Powell lived there from 1951-71. The other notable house was designed for himself by William Burges – whose hideous painted furniture I had seen yesterday in the V&A. I realised that he had also designed St Mary’s at Studley Royal.

Afterwards, I looked at what Nairn had to say. I loved his description of Leighton’s house: (“the nominal architect Aitchison seems to have been brought in to ensure the decoration didn’t fall down”) but he disliked my favourite, finding it full of “surface tricks”. Not for the first time, I have little idea what Nairn means.

V&A

A visit to the V&A, where I wandered pleasantly and aimlessly, looking for old favourites (Morris, Dresser, Jagger). An interesting – purely for me – observation was that some of the designer’s names have since become more familiar to me, e.g. the furniture of Baillie Scott, who designed Blackwell. I am still astounded each time I see late-Victorian artefacts with a Bauhaus vibe: not just Dresser’s angular kitchenware but also Godwin’s sideboard.

On the way to South Kensington tube I saw the old Derry & Toms building: wonderful.

Sir John Soane’s Museum

A second visit to this Aladdin’s Cave. What more can I say? I found myself in a world of Arnolfini mirrors, which I couldn’t stop photographing. This time I really noticed the staircase: there seemed to be something essential missing. (Not a thought you want to occur to you as you walk down it with a couple of other people.) I checked: it’s cantilevered and made of Portland stone . . .

I was so overwhelmed by perspectives and juxtapositions that, with the exception of the staircase, I didn’t focus on individual artefacts. What a mind and range Soane had!

The Wallace Collection

It felt liberating to head off to the Wallace Collection not knowing what to expect. My first impression was that it was another Musée Nissim de Camondo: all Madame de Pompadour and ormolu stuffed into an over-the-top town house. Fortunately it was more than that: galleries with paintings stacked high on the walls so that you ended up strolling past yet more Canalettos without barely a second look. I was drawn to the Dutch collection: lots of Rembrandts and a couple (which I preferred) by Pieter de Hooch. Amongst a slightly nauseating line-up of Greuze females came Gainsboroughs and Reynolds which seemed very familiar. (I swear Arthur Mee has at least three of them in sepia plates.) Even the rooms of armour held interest: I gazed at the chain mail and compared the intricacy of its manufacture to lace-making. I also discovered some slightly gruesome 3D miniatures of famous people made from glass, wax and wood – far more interesting than yet more Canalettos!

The National Gallery

I went to check on the Delft courtyard as I had promised myself: no, it doesn’t glow like Vermeer. But neither do the two Vermeers in the same room glow in the same way as the two in Amsterdam. I also clocked the Fabritius, Chardin and Bellows (you can just feel the cold).

It was such a pleasure to walk through London again after my stay in Rotterdam. Just as busy, but the scale and diversity were more appealing.

London

A couple of days in London to visit the National Portrait Gallery and the Photographers’ Gallery (to see the Evelyn Hofer exhibition).

The Hofer exhibition was brilliant. Not just the technical aspects, which I know little about (large format, dye transfer printing process), but composition, clarity and the sense of real people (Schiaparelli amongst her odd clutter, the unflustered Garrick waitress in contrast to Mrs Cibber behind her, the warehouseman with string for a belt and the foreman distinguishable by his bowler) and beautifully composed/observed still lifes. It inspired me to stop and photograph an old dairy warehouse I spotted on the way back, and – after seeing Hofer’s portrait of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I had to return to the NPG to compare it to John Singer Sargent’s pile-up of WWI top brass.

Royal Academy Summer Exhibition

Not something I would have chosen, but that’s no reason for not trying it. There was a church jumble sale feel to some rooms – and, in the case of the architecture room, a backstage-amongst-the-props-of-an-am-dram-production-in-the-village-hall vibe.

It was interesting to compare my visit here to last week’s visits to art galleries exhibiting well-known artists who have full colour plates in hardback books by the Phaidon Press. Here most artists were unknown, their works selected by a group of Royal Academicians (and wouldn’t it be interesting to watch them choosing! What are their criteria?) and hung several deep on the high walls. The theme was “Only Connect”, which made it very Zeitgeisty. There were far too many works to take in, and the last few rooms barely got a look in – even Paula Rego’s gruesome triptych we passed by.

There were some well-known contemporary artists in the exhibition – Michael Craig-Martin, Tracey Emin, Antony Gormley – that stood out only because of their greater size. There were also a couple of enormous sculptures by Phyllida Barlow, whose obituary a few months ago I recalled. Yes, well. The photographs did them justice. Even allowing for all the things I’ve learned and read about modern art, I was underwhelmed.

I liked the kind of things I normally like: landscapes, muted colours, meandering abstracts. Portraits and figure painting left me cold and I found them inept – but when I consider the portrait by Marie-Louise von Motesiczky in the Hunterian last week, I realise how inconsistent I am. Perhaps I need the aura of another age to appreciate some kinds of art?

The chair – well, I don’t know. I just liked it. Perhaps some echo of Cadell’s Interior in the colours. We discussed whether the “draped mobile” would look better in a more muted colour, and I remembered post-minimalism. I realise, on reflection, that my steals – the chair and the shadowy boat painted on patched tarpaulin – belie the theme of the exhibition entirely!

The Foundling Hospital

My idea of revisiting the Soane Museum was put on hold: I was hot and tired and wanted something less demanding of my attention, so I walked to the Foundling Museum instead.

It was founded by Royal Charter in 1739, thanks to the heroic efforts of Thomas Coram, to care for abandoned children. Once opened, the hospital found that demand was so great that other buildings were required. It moved from London to Berkhamsted in 1935 and closed a couple of decades later. The original building was demolished, but its 20th-century replacement includes some of the original features. The court room is rather overwhelming, like walking inside a wedding cake. Paintings include, unsurprisingly, Pharaoh’s daughter and Hagar.

It was the little things that were most affecting: the tokens that mothers left with their children as identifiers in the (unlikely) event that they could ever afford to reclaim them: coins, bracelets, scraps of ribbon. The tokens, along with admission details for each child, were kept in “billet books”. Apparently they are now an importance resource for historians of everyday 18th-century life.