Visual Research

Art-Write:The Writing Guide for Visual Artists has a single intention: to teach artists how to write about their own artwork. This concise and current career resource is filled with achievable advice on how to write for art promotion and sales. The audiobook offers a step-by-step approach to create a professional artist statement, with thinking and writing exercises to ease the process and develop authentic and clear content. 

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.   

An essay by Edward Lucie-Smith explores aspects of the mysterious and private character of the renowned American society artist John Singer Sargent.

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.

Cv/VAR series 146 reviews the work of Damien Hirst (b.Bristol 1965), presented in a retrospective exhibition spanning 20 years, held at Tate Modern, April to September 2012. It explores the development of his art - from the controversial animal vitrines and beautiful butterfly composites, to an extensive series of spot paintings, where the artist engaged in a complex invigilation of coded systems that govern daily existence.

Cv/VAR no.103 publishes an interview recorded 2010 with American artist John Dugger (b.California 1948) in which he gives an account of his art and development. He recounts 1960s America and arriving in London 1967: pioneering The Exploding Galaxy with David Medalla; 1970-2, their travels in the Philippines, Sri Lanka, India, then the China Journey of 1972 into Mao's Republic. The monograph documents the artists work for Banner Arts and other projects to date.

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

Cv/VAR no.100 publishes an interview with the American artist Jim Dine, recorded by cell phone from Wales to the artists Paris studio on May 11th, 2010. In this, he discusses his beginnings as an artist, his work with Claes Oldenburg and the Happenings, the Pinocchio series, 52 Books at Pace Gallery, New York, and the relationship of drawing to his graphic work.

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.

The monograph publishes a study of Rembrandt van Rijn and JMW Turner at the National Gallery and Tate Britain in exhibitions of their later works.

There is an increasing tendency to set up body artists and performance artists - the two categories are often interchangeable - as the real heroes and heroines of the contemporary avant-garde. In fact, we need to look much further back for its beginnings. The first body art performer, as well as the first professional bodybuilder, was the showman, Eugene Sandow (1867-1925). Though Sandow’s heyday occurred before the birth of the Modern Movement, there are compelling reasons for giving the primacy to him.

Edward Lucie-Smith examines Hans Holbein's famous series of prints, The Dance of Death, together with associated works, such as various artistic variations on the theme of Death and the Maiden. In addition, Lucie-Smith looks at some famous images made on the theme of war, notably the prints of Jacques Callot and the bitter social studies of Goya y Lucientes.

This is a recorded conversation with Manchester-born artist Hughie O'Donoghue, first published in Cv Journal of the Arts v2/3 September 1989. He discusses his ideas about painting and evaluates key works such as Sleeper and recent landscape The Irish Sea.

Interview with John Murdoch, director of the Courtauld Gallery, Somerset House, London, recorded in 1993, describes the formation of key Impressionist works by Sam Courtauld in the early twentieth century.

Reviews events in the London Festival of the Cultural Olympiad. Writer Alexandra James visits a variety of exhibitions, music, and performances, staged through July 2012, witnessing a range of creative voices drawn from the international arena.

Marina Vaizey and Anne Blood consider the historical impact of photography on the fine and interpretive arts, from pioneers such as Hill and Adamson, Fox Talbot and Louis Daguerre to Edward Steichen and Man Ray. The documentary power and graphic clarity of the medium challenged and persuaded artists such as Degas, Sickert, Warhol, and innumerable creative voices. In their essays Marina and Anne explore the conjunctions and variations where document and dream intermingle.

This study explores the work of celebrated artist Tracey Emin, exhibited at Turner Contemporary in Margate Kent. It reviews the figurative studies and neon calligraphic scultpures.

Renowned artist Thérèse Oulton describes her series, Territory, detailed aerial views in small-scale paintings, exhibited at Marlborough Fine Art London. She considers their source and her excursions in London and elsewhere, and their bearing on her work. 

Interview with leading British sculptor Alison Wilding, RA, recorded at Tannery Street Studio, Bermondsey, in 1995. She describes the making of Harbour, in alabaster and pvc moulding, and Echo, a stainless steel sculpture exhibited at Karsten Schubert. Sourcing materials, the levels of the work; assistant Adam Kershaw; and its relation to other contemporary works.

Interviewed during the installation of "Ghost" at Chisenhale Gallery East London in 1990, sculptor Rachel Whiteread describes her initial experience as an assistant to Alison Wilding and employment as a theatrical props maker. She reveals the development of "Ghost", cast from a room at 286 Archway, and gives details discovered in her first major project of replication.