The Garden Museum’s highly successful exhibition ‘A Paradise of Pollen & Paint’
The loan of multiple paintings and wartime photographs to the Garden Museum’s highly successful exhibition ‘A Paradise of Pollen & Paint’ has been a pleasure. None more so than showing Lucian Freud’s ‘Man with a Black Scarf’ 1939 for the first time. The show runs until 20th September. In her essay, Dr Patricia Hardy, Guest Curator, noted: “The […]
Charleston’s show of Robert MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun
The last few weeks are approaching to see Charleston’s show of Robert MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun: ‘Artists, Lovers, Outsiders’. Delighted that works from the Chopping/Wirth-Miller estate were included in this great exhibition.
Man with a Black Scarf
Lucian Freud: The Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings was published in February 2025. Painting number 9: Man with a Black Scarf 1939: Volume 2, pages 26-27.
Royal Society of Portrait Painters
It is with great pleasure that I join the Advisory Board of The Royal Society of Portrait Painters. The Annual Exhibition celebrating the best in contemporary portraiture runs from 8th May – 20th May 2025, 10am-5pm in Mall Galleries, London SW1 (North, East and West Galleries).
My Culture Fix
Zandra Rhodes re-reads The Visitors book by Jon Lys Turner.
When Bacon met his Waterloo
The Diary of Richard Chopping: Saturday 6th April 1974 FB & I became transfixed by the horror of the Eurovision Song Contest, compered by Katie Boyle & finally won by two ghastly Swedish girls singing a song called “Waterloo.” Daily Mail article below…
The Burlington Magazine
The September 2023 edition of The Burlington Magazine features one of Denis Wirth-Miller’s dog paintings on the cover. A twelve page thesis by Katharina Günther analyses some of the vast quantity of items left in his studio. “The many similarities to the contents of Francis Bacon’s studio elucidate the artistic relationship between the two friends, which was […]
Celebrating 70 Years Of James Bond In Print
In this 70th year of the literary James Bond, we are celebrating the written legacy of all things 007 with a very special event on October 29th in association with Ian Fleming Publications at London’s Pinewood Studios. With readings of extracts from books by Bond actors throughout, as we introduce: Jon Lys Turner to discuss his […]
Divine’s Life In London
On Sunday, 18th June Dame Zandra Rhodes and Jon Lys Turner celebrate Divine’s life and career. Together they will lead a discussion on Divine’s time in London and the UK in the 1980’s during his UK tour. Click on the ticket below for further details and to buy tickets.
Francis Bacon Lovers Brawl
I am currently transcribing years and years of the personal diaries of Chopping and Wirth-Miller. Some clues hint at bigger stories, as in this case. When I discussed the story with Zandra (who of course knew Dicky, Denis and Francis) as we travelled on the train to Firstsite, she neatly top &-tailed the story for […]