Beloved Eleanor

Some of you will already of heard of Bletchley.

• World War II
• Codebreakers
• Spies

Some simply because the Victorian house is amazing also.

Or maybe even because you saw the film Enigma, and wanted to know more about the codebreakers.

Truth is, Bletchley needs our help.  It is a charity and relies on donations to keep going.  Not only that you can help by visiting and perhaps even volunteering for them.

Why not get behind Bletchley today?

You can visit the Bletchley Park website, and also follow them on Twitter @bletchleypark

Continuing from my last moment of exhibition excitement, I recently discovered that the Tate is staging a Van Dyck Exhibition.

How gorgeous!  Anyone that has visited the Royal Palaces in the UK must have seen his work, and I love the colours in them.  Great for checking out all the famous people of the day too!  A portrait of Princess Mary, sister of Charles II was recently returned to Hampton Court Palace too, after years in a private collection.

I would really, really love to get to this one, though sadly my exhibitions list grows longer by the day with no sign of it yet.  Sob.

You can check out further information about Van Dyck and Britain at the Tate’s website.  Plus, if you go and don’t tell me about it, I shall sulk.

I was fortunate enough, a few weeks ago to come across a book called 1000 Masterpieces by Sister Wendy Beckett.  It is a huge hardback book, full of information and of course, the 1000 paintings.  In fact, it is your own personal art gallery, and I have already had hours of fun thumbing through it.  Plus, I got it second hand for the princely sum of £1.50!

It reminded me that I had seen Sister Wendy (a nun) on TV many years ago talking about art in her own engaging style,  some of you may remember.  I feel I owe her for this, as it has really helped me learn more about historic art.

While I am on the subject, there are few exhibitions that I am currently interested in:

• Until the 26 April 2009 at the Guildhall Art Gallery, London G.F. Watts Victorian Visionary
• Until Saturday 1 February in Scotland, but in London at the British Museum, London 5 March – 31 May 2009 The Intimate Portrait: drawings, miniatures and pastels from Ramsay to Lawrence
• 5 March – 14 June 2009 at the National Portrait Gallery, London Constable Portraits: the Painter and His Circle
• 27 June – 13 September 2009 at the Royal Academy, London J.W. Waterhouse RA

Who’s with me?

I have been lucky enough to pick up a copy of the guide to Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery, Glasgow recently also, I would like to get one for the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh next.

I’ll subtitle this one as maybe I’ll have the time?

It’s well known here that I love photographs and photography in general so the first exhibition I’d like to see is Vanity Fair Portraits 1913-2008 (14 February-26 May) which is showing at the National Portrait Gallery, London.  I’ve always thought that their photography was of particularly high quality, though I confess I’d probably enjoy the older shots more.

This ties in with my next desirable exhibition, Victorian Artists in Photographs: G.F. Watts and his World (7 January-13 April), which is showing at the Guildhall Art Gallery, London.  I love Watts’ work, plus Victorian art in general, so this is one I’ll actually try very hard to see.

Finally, a place I’ve wanted to see for a while, and is also holding an exhibition is Jane Austen’s House, Chawton, Hampshire (1 March for 10 weeks), it will be showing a display of costumes from the 2008 BBC adaptation of Sense and Sensibility.  As far as I can tell, they are already showing costumes from the film Becoming Jane also.

Did I mention it will soon be castle season?  Yay!  More places to go…

I’d barely made it into town from the airport when it was time to stagger to the Tate Gallery (or Tate Britain if you prefer) for the John Everett Millais exhibition, which has been running since September.

Regular readers will know that I adore the Pre-Raphaelite artists and Millais is one of my favourites. The exhibition is gorgeous, much more than I thought it would be, many more rooms anyway. The works were split into different parts and you were able to wander in between. There were also some artifacts, such as the artist’s easel and brushes, chair etc. which were also quite interesting to see.

I saw my favourite painting ‘Ophelia’ and also looked out for ‘The Black Brunswicker’ and ‘Mrs Perugini’ as the latter are both modelled by Kate Dickens, later Collins and Perugini, daughter of Charles Dickens.

There were many drawings, which were beautifully done, but not my favourite things to see, I love the light, colour and life in Millais’ paintings which I can’t really see in these.

I’d forgotten that it was Millais who painted that famous image of the ‘Princes in the Tower’, and ‘Bubbles’ who is so well known from advertising these days (Pears). It was amazing to see that some family members had preserved the shoes and bonnet worn by one of the child sitters, and they are still in family hands today.

All in all, it is a wonderful exhibition and I recommend that you go and see it if you can. Even if you can’t Millais’ paintings live all over the world, and I’m sure there’s probably one near you that you can visit at a museum or art gallery. That’s the thing really, I fell in love with ‘Esther’ and soon she’ll leave the country of her birth to return home again, that’s one thing that makes me slightly sad about exhibitions…

I’m so excited about this. I’m going to be bogging off to London in December for a week for a couple of gigs, and copious amounts of shopping. Tutankhamun is probably going to be booked up, so I might try and squeeze in the Terracotta Army as well.

My friend told me about this exhibition yesterday, and funnily enough I’ve just acquired an interesting new book about Katey Dickens by Lucinda Hawksley (who also wrote a fantastic book about Lizzie Siddal) one of Charles Dickens’ daughters. The book is simply called ‘Katey’ for anyone interested in getting a copy. I haven’t read much yet, but I’m loving it already.

Lucinda is actually a descendant of Charles, and was so fascinated by a painting of Katey (later in life as Mrs Perugini), this led to her researching and later writing about her life. The painting was by John Everett Millais, so my attending this exhibition was obviously meant to be! Millais also painted the very famous ‘Ophelia’ modelled by Lizzie Siddal, which I’ve talked about previously and was a personal friend of the Dickens’.

Any of you who can get to London for the exhibition, or just want to read a little more about it, can find it on the Tate’s website. I will of course report back in December as to what it was like.

I heard yesterday that the British Museum in London is holding the first exhibition ever of the Terracotta Army outside of China. How excited am I!

I shall make a date with myself to visit London in the Autumn, as I’ve also heard that Tutankhamun will be paying a visit as well. My cup runneth over