#PaintingOfTheWeekNo8

 Plum Tree in Blossom by Camille Pissarro, 1894

This week’s painting is a gorgeous work by the French impressionist Camille Pissarro.  I’m not entirely sure why he gets less attention than many of the other impressionists like Manet and Degas – neither of whom really liked the term or felt it applied to them.  Yet if anyone deserves to be called the ‘father of impressionism’ it is Pissarro: only he showed in all eight impressionist shows.  It was he that Cézanne claimed taught them everything.  

This particular painting is at the Ordrupgaard museum near Copenhagen. Indeed Pissarro was part-Danish (having been born in the Danish Antilles to Portuguese and French parents).  Ordrupgaard is one of the thousands of wonderful galleries throughout the world that sometimes get overshadowed by the mega-museums but really should always be on any traveller’s itinerary if one is in the area.

Pissarro came to France as a foreigner and maybe always saw the landscape through the eyes of a detached but somewhat awestruck outsider and observer.  In Paris he studied the works of great painters like Millet and Corot – and landscapes were always to be his metier.  Unlike Monet who was forever travelling in search of new landscapes and cityscapes, Pissarro was comfortable to capture the location around him; the life around his own house and family.   It should be said, mind you, that money – or lack of – played a part in his decision.  I recently read Pissarro’s book ‘Letters to his son Lucien’ and one of the common themes in the near-destitution he lived in.  Once again, it is our friend Paul Durand-Ruel who pops up to offer an economic crutch to lean on.  In 1884 Pissarro and his family moved to Éragny, north-west of Paris. This painting is from the garden of his new house.  The garden is wonderfully bathed in a glittering spring light.  Pissarro is clearly entranced by the light as it skips across the flowering fruit trees.  Everything is both still and active at the same time.  Of a moment and yet timeless.

A final word about the gallery the painting now resides in.  ''I might just as well confess now rather than later that I have been rash and made substantial purchases,'' Wilhelm Hansen (1868-1936) wrote to his wife, Henny, in 1916. ''I know, though, that I will be forgiven when you see what I have bought; it is all first class.''  Hansen, a wealthy Danish insurance tycoon, had just bought two landscapes by Sisley, a Monet cathedral and a portrait by Renoir and a Pissarro.  His interest may have been triggered by a 1914 show of 19th-century painting in Copenhagen that was stranded there by the outbreak of the First World War. Prices for art then dropped during the war, when Americans were absent from the European market, and Hansen made his first purchases thus in 1916. These paintings were to become part of the most important collection of 19th-century French paintings in northern Europe.  We have just finished a film entitled DEGAS – PASSION FOR PERFECTION and Hansen’s collection and Degas intertwined.  Hansen and his associates made many purchases after 1916 but one important one was to acquire the collection of a Parisian dentist, George Viau, which included more than 200 paintings notably part of (the deceased) Degas's collection and studio. They also secured three Degas works from Ambroise Vollard, among them the late pastel ''Three Dancers'' (c. 1898). Thus it is that paintings end up all around the world. Hansen’s fine collection, along with a fine group of paintings by Danish artists of Hansen's day and earlier, was given a fine home at Hansen’s large country home in the town of Ordrupgaard outside Copenhagen. After his wife's death in 1951, the house and the paintings became the state-owned Ordrupgaard Museum. 

What's coming next? Find out here!

Sunday morning and catching up.  I’m too busy to even go for a run today but with Christmas around the corner there’s a lot to get done.  Last Friday we finished YOUNG PICASSO which I think is one of the best films we’ve done.  I think we had the idea almost four years ago so it has been a long time in the making.  

I personally have learnt a huge amount about this titan of art history.   I know plenty of people actually know relatively little about Picasso’s origins – and the importance certain cities played in his development.  Too often films just list achievements without explanation: I like to know why a small child from Málaga rises to become arguably the greatest artist of the 20^th century.  The 26-year-old that paints Les Demoiselles d’Avignon: where does he come from, who does he learn from, was he just plain lucky? And so on.  I hadn’t realised what a full and fascinating youth Picasso had has – and I was extremely fortunate to be able to work with the experts of the (wonderful) Picasso museums in Spain and France. 

Once again, I urge you to luxuriate in the artwork on the big screen.  My word, he is quite extraordinary from such a young age.  The film is out in February: don’t miss it.  The blue period paintings in ultra HD on the big screen are worth the price of admission alone.   Meanwhile, our film DEGAS: PASSION FOR PERFECTION is doing OK on its release.  I admit I wish we were getting the kind of numbers that theatre and opera get in the cinema but we’ll just keep plodding away. Certainly we get a lot of great reaction to the films themselves so that’s very motivating.  I don’t think Degas was very well known by even those who declare themselves lovers of the impressionist period (which frankly should be all of us!).  We’ve just had some great reviews out of France echoing that: see the Degas film in your local cinema and (re)-discover an artist you probably didn’t really know or appreciate.   France is such a tough market – cinephiles for sure but awash with films and with a preference for French-speaking (and why not?) or Hollywood.  Again, we’ll carve out our niche and keep beavering away.  

My colleague David is currently editing VAN GOGH & JAPAN and that’s going to be a cracker too.  This is a fascinating time in the world of cinema as so many are built in new territories: I was recently invited to speak at a cinema conference in Dubai and I have to say I was staggered by the money being spent on absolutely high-end cinemas (albeit often in shopping malls) across the middle east and United Arab Emirates. Billions of dollars.  It’s true that it’s Hollywood and Bollywood that are what most screens will show but I think with determination I can pop our films on the odd screen now and again!  And we have to believe art has the power to influence and change….   Enjoy your day; why not walk down to your local gallery and pop in and say hi.  Talk to us on our facebook and Instagram sites – let us know which galleries and which painters you love. 

#PaintingOfTheWeekNo7

The Last Supper, Leonardo da Vinci

This week I am going to quote from the book 'Great Artists' that I wrote with Tim Marlow and Philip Rance a few years ago and is now available on kindle and audible.

In spite of the ghostly appearance of the work, itself a monument to Leonardo’s desire to experiment and achieve a lasting technical perfection in fresco painting, The Last Supper still has an extraordinary presence.  It is so precisely composed and painted that it resembles a latter-day hologram flickering in and out of vision. Even today it looks as if Leonardo has managed to create another room beyond the refectory in which the work is sited. This is enhanced by the semicircular lunettes painted about The Last Supper which originally contained the Sforza coat of arms to remind all who saw it who had commissioned the work and had ruled absolutely.  

The painted vision is an elevated one: the viewer looks up in awe at a scene which, if rendered strictly according to the laws of nature, would be almost invisible since the most anyone would see would be the underside of the table. Leonardo subtly tilts it forward to reveal the drama unfolding in a deep illusionistic space. The scene centres on Christ in every way possible. Each of the disciples either has his eyes or hands pointing forwards towards their Lord and Master who has just revealed that one of them will betray him. Christ is framed by three windows behind him and seems to illuminate the table, its contents and the surrounding figures himself. The twelve figures are broken up into four groups of three, order imposed by Leonardo on an image of unprecedented expressiveness. Each figure is emotionally connected to the others in his group (with the exception of Judas who is slightly pushed forward and thereby isolated by Peter who whispers manically in the ear of John, to the immediate left of Christ as we look at it) but is, at the same time, depicted as feeling something entirely personal. It is almost as if Leonardo is producing a case study in human response to tragedy. 

In turn, the work can also be read as a diagram by the artist-scientist who was analysing the workings of sound waves and their impact. ‘Those who are nearer understand better’ scrawled Leonardo in his notes to The Last Supper and ‘those farther away hear poorly’.  The work was immediately hailed as ‘miraculous’ and ‘divine’ though it quickly began to deteriorate. But copies were made and artists as significant as Rubens and Rembrandt in the north and Caravaggio in the south, and even, much later, Andy Warhol out west, drew inspiration from the work. It remains Leonardo’s most monumental and significant artistic achievement, even as it continues to fade away.

I have been to see it in Milan – and it continues to pack a powerful punch in its original location.  But an alternative for those in or visiting London is a superb replica at the Royal Academy of Arts.

#PaintingOfTheWeekNo6

DANSEUSE CAMBODGIENNE Auguste Rodin (1840 -1917)

I wanted this week to talk about a painting that I see at least once a day – as I have a copy in my bathroom at home.  It’s a surprising painting as normally we associate the artist Auguste Rodin with one media only – sculpture.

Born in 1840 in a poor part of Paris – the son of a clerk and his wife.  By his teens, Rodin had decided to become an artist and studied at a design school but he was hampered by his shortsightedness and was refused entry aged 17 to the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts; But he persisted and started to specialize in sculpture. It took time but by his mid-40s he had established himself as one of the preeminent sculptors in the country.  His works were to include The Age of Bronze, The Kiss, The Thinker, and The Burghers of Calais.  If you don’t know his work I thoroughly recommend visiting his museums in Paris or Philadelphia – both of which are wonderful – or simply see The Burgers of Calais at the Met in New York.  (Alternatively, have a look at our Tim Marlow meets Tony Bennett – where it is one of Tony’s choices to talk about).

But a painter?  No-one thinks of Rodin as a painter.  His own art collection had 6,000 works including paintings by Van Gogh, Monet and Renoir.   He loved paintings and loved to paint.  

In July 1906, Rodin, 66, went to see the Pré-Catelan in Paris, the show given by the troupe of Cambodian dancers, who came to accompany king Sisowath of Cambodia, during his official trip to France.  Rodin was bewitched by the beauty of the dancers and even followed them to Marseilles to be able to draw them again and again until they sailed away.

A few days later his comments were reported in the newspaper The Figaro: 

"These monotonous and slow dances, which follow the rhythm of a hectic music, have an extraordinary beauty, a perfect beauty ... [They] taught me movements that I had not met anywhere yet ..."

This particular painting I find absolutely gorgeous.   A gouache of ochre for the arms and head as well as a deep blue for the dress.  There is an absence of detail but that is not missed. The curve of the wrist, the slight tilt of the neck, even the rise of the knees carry with them a grace and control that is bewitching.  The energy and control are captured by a master artist.  This is what one sees time and time again with good and great artists – the ability to say so much with so little. It’s true of film-making too: often the skill is knowing what to leave out, knowing how to summarise in a few words or images what may be a complex tale.  To entertain, inform and move.  Rodin, painter as well as sculptor, was a master.

Test before you invest... The inconsistency of printing photos!

I am an old-fashioned chap at heart – I like my photos in albums.  I have yet to really enjoy the family huddled around a lap top looking at images of my kids growing up in quite the same way as we do when it’s albums we are gazing at. Maybe it’s just how I was brought up. The downside is that it’s a huge task and, despite my best and continuing efforts, I am currently 7 years behind.  It takes ages to ingest and log photos on all the many devices we as a family have – never mind going back through more than 20,000 photos we have on-line to make sure they too are properly labelled. Then one has to choose from the thousands that accumulate in any one year and make a representative selection. I recently did just that for 2012 and totalled up more than 200 that I needed printing. 

The big question then is ‘where’? I have tried on-line, department stores, supermarkets, chemists and photography shops and only their inconsistency is consistent!  The colour black can be anywhere from light grey to coal black. Colours are all over the place and white can be, well, anything. So I decided to do a test. I chose five locations in my hometown of Brighton and sent each the same five images to print. These were the photography chain Jessops, Boots, and photography shops Zoingimage, Colourstream and ClockTowerImages. The results were frankly pretty shocking.  It may be unfair to rank them but I will tell you the best one – and it rather surprised me:  Jessops.  I went in there to ask about their gear and they said they use a dry-printing method and that helps them keep standards high and regular.  I did ask their PR department for more information on exactly what equipment they use but no response has as yet been forthcoming.  

But the conclusion is: do a test in your local area and make sure you find out who prints best before cramming your photo albums with below-par reproductions of your fine photography skills!

#PaintingOfTheWeekNo5

Whistlejacket by George Stubbs

This is one of those paintings that, on its own, is worth the visit to the National Gallery.  Its size, its ambition, its audacity all embrace you. In my career as a film-maker I have often had reason to include images of kings & emperors on their trusted steeds.  Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Alexander, Ulysses S.Grant, Zhukov (on his white steed in Red Square), and plenty more.  But it’s rare that the horse itself is the subject. No bridle in sight, no stirrups, no whip. This is a horse bursting with life and freedom. There is no background but you can add that in yourself. For me, it is the gorgeous Sussex countryside where I live that fills in the blanks but it could be anywhere. Some have argued that Stubbs was supposed to have filled in both background and rider but I simply don’t believe it.  I am sure the painting is just as he wanted it. 

18^th century Britain was passionate about horses – and horse-racing – and this was a race-winning horse (notably the 2000 guineas at York in 1759) that didn’t need a monarch on its back to tell a great story.  We know that Whistlejacket – strange name, possibly to do with the colour of the coat matching a drink of that colour made of brandy – was foaled in 1749 and was owned by the Marquess of Rockingham, who was twice Prime Minister.  The horse had been retired by the time Stubbs was commissioned to paint him in 1762 but he must have been still much loved and admired. And why not – he is magnificent, flaring, all-powerful.  

Stubbs was a master of painting horses – and he certainly sought and caught the individuality of this stallion. It is no accident that he so wonderfully captures the tension and strain in the musculature – Stubbs had gone so far as to dissect horses to gain greater insight into their inner workings.  Stubbs was in his late 30s when he painted this. Born in Liverpool, son of a leather worker, largely self-taught as an artist, he ultimately specialized in anatomical paintings especially of the horse.  No doubt the bones and skins from his father’s tannery were some kind of inspiration but he went much further than that. He studied anatomy to such a degree that he lectured medical students on it and even apparently, in 1756, rented a barn near Hull and, with a female assistant, Mary Spencer (his unofficial companion for 50 years), spent 18 months dissecting horses. They were delivered to him live, and he undertook the messy work of slaughtering, with the objective of learning equine anatomy through detailed personal investigation.

Stubbs published a book with drawings called ‘The Anatomy of the Horse’ in 1756 and soon thereafter he received his first London commission from the artist Joshua Reynolds.  One group of potential buyers who were immediately taken with Stubbs's ‘Anatomy of the Horse’ drawings and enticed by the idea of a portrait or two of their own much-prized horses were wealthy young aristocrats with country estates.  And within another few years, as mentioned, the twice-Prime Minister himself commissioned Stubbs for Whistlejacket.   It is a striking picture, well worth a few minutes of your time when you are next passing the National Gallery.  And, as an afterthought, if you live in or are visiting Ireland, I’d also recommend Stubbs’ painting Hambletonian which hangs in the National Trust property of Mount Stewart in County Down. We filmed it when we made our film Tim Marlow on Stubbs and the Horse in 2005 and it is another gorgeous work.

#PaintingOfTheWeekNo4

L’Absinthe, Edgar Degas,

We all need people that influence us as children and I was fortunate that my sister was (and is) a wonderful English teacher and literature enthusiast. I don’t think many 11-year-olds in my day read Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad but I remember doing that one long summer. Even more to my liking was the author Emile Zola who my sister introduced me too. The first (gripping) book of his I read was Germinal but that was soon followed by L’Assommoir.

Now, I am sure many of you know (especially if you saw our recent film on Cézanne) that Zola plays a role in late 19th century art history but what struck me about L’Assommoir was the cover. Yes, you guessed it: L’Absinthe by Edgar Degas. It was – and is – so striking. The work was painted by Degas in 1875/6 and first exhibited in the Second Impressionist exhibition held in art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel’s gallery in rue le Peletier. The ‘easier’ artists had front rooms and the ‘harder’ artists (including Degas) were sent to the back. Degas had over 20 works on display (including The Cotton Office which is magnificent and can be seen in our forthcoming Edgar Degas film). Among them was one called In the Café.

According to Sue Roe in her excellent book The Private Lives of the Impressionists the Irish art critic and writer George Moore was there and his views were strident:

"Heavens! What a slut. A life of idleness and low vice is upon her face, we read there her whole life. The tale is not a pleasant one, but it is a lesson." 

 Each to their own, I suppose. That is not what I see.

I see exhaustion and sadness at the impossibility of escaping from the drudgery of working class life in Paris. Actually the female model – an actress Ellen Andreé – was rather hurt by how she was portrayed by Degas. Some even assumed she herself must be an alcoholic and this upset her even more. The male model, by the way, is Marcellin Desboutin, another artist. Certainly it depicts isolation, an inability to communicate, even hunger. Look beyond the narrative too: the skill of Degas the painter is wonderful to behold. The marble tables, the metallic walls, the collapsed shoulders, the scruffy clothes and even the absinthe drink itself. Moreover there is an amusing connection to the city in which I live – Brighton in the UK.

One of the first art dealers in the UK was a Captain Henry Hill. He bought In the Café and showed it in September 1876 in the Third Annual Winter Exhibition of Modern Pictures – literally minutes from where I am writing this now, 142 years later. He exhibited it as A Sketch at a French Café. It is, of course, far more than that – it is a masterpiece. It is believed that when it was shown in London in 1893 the name was changed to L’Absinthe. And Zola? Well, it is likely that he saw the 1876 exhibition and it is probably no coincidence that L’Assommoir (which recounts the ravages of alcoholism in Paris’s poor) was released the following year.

#PaintingOfTheWeekNo3

Portrait of Pope Innocent X by Diego Velázquez

This is one of those paintings that you stand before and wonder at just how an artist achieved such mastery of paint.  This might seem a conventional state portrait of a Pope but take your time to look more carefully – and prepare to be amazed.  The artist – from a middle-class family in Seville, southern Spain – was just over 50 when he was commissioned for this work.  Velázquez had risen to be the court painter in Philip IV’s Madrid and was an obvious choice for the Papal portrait when he came to Rome.  

Velázquez turns the Pope away from us to emphasize the gap between us ordinary mortals and this representative of God yet at the same time the frown and quizzical, almost self-conscious, look in his eyes affirm his human nature.  The Pope was an impatient 76-year-old when this was painted and you can almost sense his preference to be back at his desk reading the letter in his left hand.  

When Pamphili saw the painting he remarked ‘troppo vero’ (too true) and it has remained in his family ever since (in their wonderful gallery in Rome that I thoroughly recommend).  There is more to appreciate than just biography.  Francis Bacon called this ‘one of the greatest paintings ever made’ and it is the artist’s extraordinary skill with paint that impressed him.  

Not without good reason this has been called a symphony in red.  As so often with Velázquez there is a limited palette: black and hints of white create a thick velvet background, smoother strokes of white create a hat and cape of sensual satin, and a thinner grey and white ground deliver the illusion of the pope’s alb (a long white dress worn under other clothing).  Look up close and everything becomes a blur but from a short distance everything comes into focus and almost 5 centuries dissolve away and we are in the presence of one of the most powerful men alive at that time.  Pigment, canvas, wood, nails, oil…in the hands of a master like Velázquez come together in a stunning work of art – that I, for one, could stare at for hours.

Watch this space!

#PaintingOfTheWeekNo2

Gustave Caillebotte, The Floor Scrapers, 1875

I have always loved this painting and a nice copy of it hangs above my desk at work. Caillebotte is less well-known than many of the other impressionsts/realists of the late 19^th century but he is personally one of my favourites.  It is strange really how an artist who exhibited at a good number of the famous ‘impressionist’ exhibitions has fallen slightly out of public awareness – even more so when one learns that his own art collection eventually (after much drama) formed a key part of the Musée d’Orsay’s own.  

This particular painting is fascinating in a number of ways – the perspective, the lighting, the repeated motif of the curl are but three things to look at. Plus it is one of the first representations of an urban working class.  Paintings are open to interpretation and one argument states that a Parisian working man scraping down wooden floors would never be topless and that Caillebotte is alluding to his own sexual preferences by painting them as such. On the other hand, anyone who has been in Paris in the summer knows how hot it can be and perhaps they had just taken their shirts off.  You decide. Mind you, almost nothing an artist does is an accident.  Certainly when he submitted this to the 1875 Salon it was rejected for its ‘vulgarity’.  A year later, Caillebotte placed it in the more welcoming arms of the 1876 exhibition of those we now call the impressionists.  

Caillebotte was lucky – his father, who died the previous year (1874), was wealthy and left Caillebotte very well off. The family home in which this painting is thought to have been set was clearly very comfortable.  Being well off allowed for a freedom of subject choice and workmen were as good a subject as the more traditional history or genre paintings. Caillebotte’s younger brother, who lived in the family home too, could also follow his interests and one of those was photography. One can sense the influence that this relatively new invention is having on an artist like Gustave Caillebotte.  He was fascinated by it and sought both to incorporate and respond to this new medium.  

I love the painting personally for a few reasons: it feels like a genuine snapshot of ordinary workers, I find the craft of the workers and the craft of the artist equally impressive, and – frankly – because it reminds me of my own living room floor which I really must re-wax one of these days!

#PaintingOfTheWeekNo1

The Orchestra at the Opera, c.1870, Degas, Edgar, Musee d'Orsay, Paris, Bridgeman Images

This is a painting that contains many elements that I love.  Music, ballet, opera, real-life characters, mid-19^th century France, theatre and, of course, art.  I was reminded of this painting recently when involved in the edit of our next film – DEGAS: PASSION FOR PERFECTION.  Degas has always been the impressionist that intrigued me the most. Somehow he is the most mysterious and a passing awareness of him would suggest he's a man that likes ballerinas or racehorses but, as ever, there is so much more to any artist than the subject matter they may choose. Actually a large proportion of his work is portraiture. This painting is in some ways no exception. The bassoonist at the art of the work is Désiré Dihau and indeed the majority of the musicians are actual friends and musicians. The configuration of the instrumentation makes little sense but the feeling of energy and confined space overrides that. You can sense the energy going into the music and what great fun it must have been to be in the audience.  Degas has brought the orchestra almost to the level of the stage. He hasn’t portrayed them as they would normally be – almost hidden below stage. He’s not interested in reality he’s interested in what his painting suggests.

The ballerinas behind are almost an afterthought but they are especially significant as they were the first picture of ballerinas that Degas did. Nowadays if he is known for anything it is that very subject matter and many paintings, pastels and indeed sculptures he did of ballerinas – not least behind stage in rehearsal rooms overseen by tutors and mothers. I admire this painting for all the tricks Degas is using : look at those lines that force your eye from one character to the next. The line of the harp takes you down the shoulder of the bassoonist then up we go along the bassoon along the bassists’ shoulder to his instrument and its neck takes us to the headless ballerinas. A little head on the left stops us drifting out of frame and instead that head’s eyes bounce us back along the stage and round we go again.  The multicoloured tutus clash and contrast with the black of the orchestra and the brown furnishing of the opera itself. Degas was in his mid thirties when he made this work and was a single, dedicated, complex man with an absolute passion. For him the painting was unfinished but the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian was what prevented him from finishing it. I don’t see what he needed to change – it’s fabulous, brash, noisy and fun just the way it is. 

Great Art ITV returned to screens!

"Remarkable, educational and hugely enjoyable" The Times

“Illuminating and valuable” The Observer 

“Accessible and entertaining” The Telegraph

Our latest TV series Great Art returned to ITV screens on Thursday 10th May, 2018 for a second series which featured five new 50-minute episodes delving into the lives of iconic artists including Hockey, Bosch and Manet. After Series One aired in January this year, marking ITV’s return to arts programming, we were determined to increase our audience with the second series and further encourage ITV audiences to fully embrace our art films on television. Something that stuck with us from Series One, and encouraged us to work tirelessly on Series Two, was Mark Hudson (Art Critic) of The Telegraph's comment on the series:

"There’s nothing like a product name that tells you exactly what you’re going to get. With its resolutely uncomplicated two-word title, ITV’s new art series has a ring of back-to-basics bluntness. Produced by Phil Grabsky, whose Exhibition on Screen films have taken blockbuster exhibitions to cinemas around Britain – and the world – in the form of easily comprehensible, immersive documentaries, Great Art, which starts tonight, is out to bring “serious art” back to mainstream TV from the ghettoes of BBC 4 and Sky Arts" 

We knew that cementing our place on a commercial TV channel was going to be an arduous task, especially as ITV arts programming has been scarce of recent years but after a fantastic response from Series One - from press and public, we were delighted to see the second series sparked even more interest and appreciation. Series Two received over 50 previews and reviews.

 
We've been making art films for TV and cinema for over twenty years now. Our Great Art series for ITV has been a real highlight and pleasure. It's wonderful to work on a project that sheds new light on some of the world's renowned artists, and bring these new perspectives to a mainstream audience. With this experience comes the knowledge that we cannot just rely on the press to encourage audiences, we need to be speaking directly to them at home. So, we need to ask ourselves 'what excites your imagination?' and 'what will make you stay up until (the rather late slot of) 10:45pm every Thursday to watch the series?'. With a limited budget and no commercial ad coverage, we took to social media, our newsletters, contributors, regional art groups, universities and galleries we know to help spread the word. 

Social media was certainly vital: we were overwhelmed to see how people took to social media to express their appreciation and share information. We were naturally delighted with how many viewers contacted us via email and Facebook to tell us they enjoyed the films. That's what makes it all worthwhile. If you enjoyed the series, please do contact us and ITV at this address and share your thoughts:

ITV Studios

2 Waterhouse Square

140 Holborn London EC1N 2AE  

And, finally, some good news to end on: a new season is on the way in 2019. 

#GreatArtITV

EOS TOUR AUSTRALIA – NEW ZEALAND: 14 days – 12 cities – 41 interviews – 16 Q&As

EXHIBITION ON SCREEN tour of Australia and New Zealand.  14 days – 12 cities – 41 interviews – 16 Q&As – and not enough sleep. That just about sums up a trip I have just completed to the other side of the world to help launch the new season of EOS films – commencing with DAVID HOCKNEY AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY.  

We have been in both countries since the start and have built up a loyal audience but every year something changes – not least the increased competition.  In just a few years, event cinema has grown in its offering of theatre, opera and ballet. And we too in the arts have a rival by the name of Artbeats – headed by a friend of mine based in Italy.  I’m delighted from the point of view of the ordinary person in Australia and New Zealand – indeed any country anywhere – as there is no shortage of great cultural events

and films to go see now in your local cinema.  

From the point of view of EOS alone, it’s tough as who has the time or money to go twice, three times, a week to the cinema.  So we have to fight for your attention: we have to make great films first and foremost and then we have to make them known to you – time, date and place… And encourage you to buy your seats and go see them.  Trust me, it’s not easy.  Hence my trip. It was full on until about 1am every night and up again around 5 or 6am but it was thoroughly worthwhile. I have done such tours three or four times and so have some previous contacts but still I was surprised by how much press we got and how extraordinarily positive it all was.  Even after 7 years, you still get the ‘so tell me what EXHIBITION ON SCREEN is’ questions but much more was about Hockney and our other upcoming films on CANALETTO, CEZANNE, VAN GOGH (an encore of A NEW WAY OF SEEING) and I, CLAUDE MONET.  

I also found the audiences in both countries to be extremely attentive, encouraging and supportive.  The questions after the films were sometimes pretty hard (!) but always gracious and energised by a film they had thoroughly enjoyed. In fact, I must be honest: the response to Hockney was so strong it took me by surprise.  It’s, in some ways, a relatively simple film – two exhibitions and three interviews – compared to other more complex films we make but people – you – loved it to bits.  The credit lies with Hockney of course – he and his art are so full of creativity, insight and humour.  To hear the laughter night after night in different (superb) cinemas from Perth on the west coast of Australia all the way east to Auckland in New Zealand was a great boost for me – and my team.  

And all those wonderful press reviews might have been a bit late to ensure the audiences we needed for Hockney but I hope they ripple positively for the next film in the EXHIBITION ON SCREEN schedule which is CANALETTO AND THE ART OF VENICE FROM THE QUEEN’S GALLERY, BUCKINGHAM PALACE which deserves an award for the longest title ever, if nothing else.  Enjoy!

The Sunday Times, Perth 

From New York to West Palm Beach and many stops in between...

OK, America, it has to be said that you still don’t know what good coffee is (in hotels at least) nor bacon nor apples (import them from Britain please!) and a barely audible ‘uh-huh’ is not how to respond when someone says ‘thank you’ but there are so many things I love about this wonderful country that I always enjoy my trips here. Luckily some of those things are in the worlds I inhabit on my visits – namely art museums, cinemas and, when I get the time, running.  Many countries have great galleries but no country has so many in so many cities…I have just visited a few in New York, Washington, Richmond & West Palm Beach.  But that hardly scratches the surface: think LA, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Denver, Toledo, MoMA, Met, LACMA, the Getty and so many more.  Yes, it’s largely down to historic economic power that these collections have come to be but that’s no different to anywhere else and no worse than through historic military power which helped create so many of the European collections. 

So, a few days in the USA – and visiting as many galleries as I can. Plus a few screenings of both an encore film I, CLAUDE MONET as well as a new release CÉZANNE – PORTRAITS OF A LIFE. Plus a bit of research for a film we have in production which is yet to be announced (stay tuned)! Plus various other meetings…  A busy few days indeed.  What made it great fun though was the daily visit to a different cinema to introduce a film and then take questions afterwards.  I have been visiting American independent cinemas for 15 years and they just get better and better but above all it’s the audiences I like. They are always so enthusiastic, interested and gracious. There are many Americas – just as with any country – and one has to distinguish between the rather two-dimensional America that might be presented on the nightly news from the multi-faceted one you’ll meet for yourself.  It’s a huge country and, like English churches, there are way too many cinemas for one person to ever visit in one lifetime, but the response EXHIBITION ON SCREEN has had this week has been fantastic across the board and will keep me coming back. You can’t help but be encouraged by such an enthusiastic response.

The third aspect I really enjoy in the USA, on a personal level, is a simple one: running.  On this visit I have run along the Hudson in NY, the C&O canal and Potomac in DC, the James in Richmond, the Atlantic Ocean in West Palm Beach – it’s a great way to explore. But watch out for the police guarding President Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in West Palm Beach – I am not sure what they thought a sweaty runner could do but they didn’t want to take the risk of finding out, that’s for sure.  Despite that, and although ten days is a long time to be out of the office, I look forward to coming back soon

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND | Vincent van Gogh: A New Way of Seeing

Hello everyone, including new followers of EXHIBITION ON SCREEN in Korea, Japan, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan….

I have just been to a screening of VINCENT VAN GOGH: A NEW WAY OF SEEING.  It was in a gorgeous cinema with fantastic sound. The screen was huge, there were 300 people attending, the seats were great, the audio perfect, even the coffee was tasty. How fortunate we are indeed that cinemas have become so wonderful and that, of course, the scheduling of films is so much more varied that EXHIBITION ON SCREEN is now being seen in 61 countries.   But not only art, there is wonderful theatre, opera and ballet too. This simply didn’t exist like this ten years ago.

VINCENT VAN GOGH: A NEW WAY OF SEEING was first released in 2016 and has become one of our most popular films.  We have had so many requests to repeat it that it is coming out afresh in just over one week (from 20th March).  It is one of two special encores in the current season. (The other is I,CLAUDE MONET – being re-released in May). As I watched it, I have to admit to feeling enormous pride. These films are of course a team effort but, above all, I wish to express my continued admiration for the film’s extraordinary director David Bickerstaff.  Maybe it is somewhat boastful to express this but it is a staggeringly good film.  I try to watch any and every art film made by anyone and anywhere and David’s film is as good as any I have seen.   To pull out just one detail: how on earth did he know that the actor (usually beardless) Jamie de Courcey would not only look so astoundingly like Van Gogh but also be such a brilliant actor. 

EOS Vincent van Gogh © Seventh Art Productions & Annelies van der Vegt

The starting point for this film was us being informed that the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam was going to re-hang its entire collection.  That doesn’t happen often in any gallery and hadn’t happened at the VGM for many years. For us, it seemed an ideal moment to look afresh at the character of Vincent van Gogh.  There have been no shortage of books and films about “the world’s favourite artist” but, let’s be honest, they do frequently concentrate a little too much on the extremes of his character – and seem to leave one with a sense that they drank too much, visited too many brothels and so on. They offer up a troubled, almost lunatic mind that painted as he did almost by accident.  Well, I don’t believe any artist paints in any way at all by accident. We wanted our film to explore where this artist actually came from and how he learnt his craft.

Luckily for us, we were helped in this quest by a superlative ‘cast list’ from the Van Gogh museum itself.  How impressive are the Van Gogh curators!  And bear in mind they are almost all speaking a second language. We always love to tap into extensive knowledge but when it is allied with real enthusiasm and articulacy you can’t go wrong.

EOS Vincent van Gogh © Seventh Art Productions & Annelies van der Vegt

As I sat in my comfy cinema chair I admit to being proud of many other aspects too: I thought the score by our long-term collaborator Asa Bennett was 100% spot on – and getting the emotional tone of a musical score just right is very hard. I thought the cinematography was superb, the editing faultless, the post-production work (by Storm in London) really great. I also knew about all the behind-the-scenes efforts – clearing the rights to use paintings, finding the sets and costumes, making sure every single caption was correct, researching and researching again the life story, overseeing the finances, so on and so forth. I know it’s wrong to boast but we always set out to make films that have long term, legacy value – and in the crowded arena of Van Gogh films I think we did just that.  You’ll have to decide for yourself but, for my part, now that we have made 19 EOS films, I have a sneaking suspicion that perhaps this is the best one so far.  

One final thought: We will be announcing the lineup for our next season of EOS very soon - keep updated with our newsletter and social media for the big reveal.  I already look forward to sitting in a cinema somewhere and enjoying it with you, my fellow art-lovers. 

#EOSSeasonSix #ComingSoon

Cézanne - Portraits of a Life

It’s a pattern that repeats itself – every time I finish a film I think ‘now that really is the greatest artist that ever lived!’.   I know, deep down, it’s a ridiculous thought to have as how can one really compare Leonardo to Vermeer or Rembrandt to Hopper?  But, just before Christmas as we signed off on our film about Cézanne, there was that feeling again.  Judge for yourselves in the weeks ahead when the film reaches a cinema near you (hopefully) but, for me personally, as the months of film-making progressed, I grew and grew in admiration of the man and his art.   Towards the end of his life he wrote the following words:

 ‘My age and my health will never allow me to realise the artistic dream I have pursued all my life. But I shall always be grateful to the audience of intelligent art lovers who have sensed what I was trying to do to renew my art, in spite of my halting attempts…In my opinion, one does not replace the past, one only adds a new link. With painter’s temperament and an artistic ideal, that is to say a conception of nature, there should be sufficient means of expression to be intelligible to the general public and to occupy a suitable rank in the history of art’.

I think it is fair to say Cézanne now occupies that ‘suitable rank’. Maybe one can’t claim him as the greatest but certainly among the greats.  For me, this film started a couple of years ago when I heard that London’s National Portrait Gallery was planning an exhibition of Cézanne’s portraits – something actually no-one had ever done (bar one similar exhibition by his dealer shortly after Cézanne’s death).   I went to see the gallery and they told me that this was to be a three-gallery co-operation with the Museé d’Orsay in Paris and the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.  The next step was to talk to the curators – what was the plan for the show, what was the thesis?  Then we had to decide what is the story of our film? 

EOS Cézanne - Phil Grabsky at Portraits de Cézanne exhibition ® EXHIBITION ON SCREEN (David Bickerstaff)

The decision having been made to make the film I set about the research in earnest. Here I declare a healthy dose of good fortune.  The author Alex Danchev had only recently written both a new biography and a new translation of many of Cézanne’s letters.  Those of you who have read my earlier blogs will know I always try to start a new biographical film in what I consider the obvious place - the artist’s correspondence. That’s exactly what I did here – and, as ever, the man that emerges differs from the preconceptions that we have built up previously.  In the course of making films about other artists of this period I think I had accumulated superficial ideas concerning Cézanne and his ill-tempered nature, his poor personal presentation, his reclusiveness in Provence.  Even though I had made a short film about him back in the 90s I admit to still having had those attitudes towards Cézanne.  Until I read the letters, until I read the new biography, until I spoke to the curators and until I saw the plans and pictures for the exhibition.   Then I realised there was, of course, so much more to this man.

Aix, 3 August 1906I get up early and it’s only really between five and eight that I can lead my own life. By the time the heat becomes stupefying, and saps the brain so much that I can’t even think of painting.
I caught bronchitis, I’ve abandoned homeopathy for old-fashioned mixed syrups.It’s a shame that I can’t give many demonstrations of my ideas and sensations, long live the Goncourts, Pissarro, and all those who have a propensity for colour, which represents light and air.
I know that with the terrible heat you and maman will be tired; so its good thing that you were both able to get back to Paris in time to find yourselves in a less burning atmosphere.I must remind you not to forget the slippers, the ones I have are just about giving up on me.

Having looked much deeper into who was Paul Cézanne and then having looked closely at the forthcoming exhibition and accompanying catalogue, the next stage was to decide how best to make a film for the cinema.  I knew instinctively that mood was going to be vital so one of my first calls was to composer Asa Bennett to discuss a score that would give me the dramatic and emotional bed that the film would need.  Doing this early helps as, with luck, one gets early drafts to listen to when on location researching and shooting.  I decided we needed to do a little bit of shooting in Paris – especially if we could secure interviews with Orsay’s curator Xavier Rey (who has now moved on to Marseille) and the museum’s director Laurence des Cars (who is extremely busy of course). We got both and, my word, they were great.  The key filming of the exhibition was to be London – and the National Portrait Gallery were fantastic to work with.   We had three long days and nights there and the privilege of filming paintings like these never wanes.  In a way, though, the key shoot was in and around Aix-en-Provence.   David Bickerstaff flew down to help me with the filming and we spent a good few days capturing what we felt we needed of the town, Cézanne’s homes and studios as well as the surrounding countryside.  If you know anything about Cézanne you’ll know that his heart and soul lay in the forests and hills around his hometown.  That is where he and his good friend Emile Zola spent their childhood – and it is where he was always happiest.  It entailed a few pre-dawn starts and after-dusk finishes for the filming but we captured some gorgeous material – to be honest, it’s not hard. A particular thrill though was filming a dawn time-lapse while standing on the dam that Emile Zola’s father had built.

EOS Cézanne - Phil Grabsky filming Monique at Mont Saint-Victoire ® EXHIBITION ON SCREEN (David Bickerstaff)

All this footage we took back into the edit – and there the fun began.  How long do we hold on a painting? How many letters do we quote from? How much of the interviews do we use? And so on.  But Clive Mattock (the editor) and I quickly found our feet and something about this film just clicked from an early stage.  I’d been worried when I commenced the project that somehow there wouldn’t be enough meat on the bone – how foolish I was to think that even for a moment. It has been invigorating to have been Cézanne’s companion for the past year – and his art has revealed to me a previously unrealised depth and brilliance.  I think it’s one of the best EXHIBITION ON SCREEN’s we’ve done and, yes, right now he’s unquestionably one of the greatest artists I know.

PG