We went tonight to the launch of the beautiful book of portraits taken by Lucinda Douglas-Menzies whose work I know mainly for the care and precision she devotes to photographing work by Romilly. 

But I knew that she has another life as a portrait photographer because many of her works have found their way into the NPG, which started acquiring them after her exhibition ‘Portraits of Luminaries’ in 1989. 

Since she worked for several years in the Chinese department at Sotheby’s, it is not surprising that some of the pictures are of luminaries of the art world: Sir Trenchard Cox, who I discover only died in 1995, long after he had retired from the V&A; Stephen Calloway in 1989; and the painter, Derek Hill in 1988.  Then, not surprisingly, there is also a strong representation of figures from Spitalfields, including Raphael Samuel, The Gentle Author and Marianna Kennedy.

Each portrait is differently composed, unpredictable, formally impressive and full of character.  I was nearing the end when there was a portrait of Romilly which I had not seen and is characteristically brilliant, the best that I have seen of her and demonstrating all of Lucinda’s skills, including empathy and speed of execution.

There’s an exhibition at the House of Anetta in Princelet Street for only a week.  And there are only 150 copies of her book so it’s already rara avis.

A beautiful day for a last visit to Castle Howard for its Vanbrugh exhibition which finishes at the end of October.

We walked out to the Temple of the Four Winds:-

Past the bulls guarding Daniel Garrett’s bridge:-

To the mausoleum:-

Much discussion about the extent to which the steps added by Daniel Garrett marr the clarity of Hawksmoor’s idea of a free-standing temple:-

Then across the bridge to the Pyramid:-

Inside the pyramid is an outsize bust of Lord William Howard, the founder of the dynasty:-

Then along the line of Vanbrugh’s fortifications guarding the entry to the estate:-

To the pyramid gate:-

The point of the visit was to enjoy Vanbrugh’s idea of the wider landscape.  We did.

I have done a post about Hooton’s Homegrown Farm Shop only once before in spite of the fact that it has been a staple of our life in Anglesey ever since it opened in 1998 – it seems longer.

We managed to stock up there just before lockdown and today I arrived just in time to buy the most spectacular carrots, pulled from the ground today:-

A footnote to the many obituaries of Jeffrey Archer.

He used to come to events at the National Portrait Gallery a lot while I was there and, indeed, bought a work from the artist Stuart Pearson Wright when it was exhibited as part of the BP Portrait Award in 1999 (I see from his obituaries that, for a time, he was an art dealer in the 1970s).

Looking back at the work, it’s not one I would have thought he would have wanted to have too prominently on display:-

Rob Perkins came into my life by way of Daphne Astor, who he had known somehow in Boston; but then Daphne knew everyone. It turned out later that he had overstayed his welcome in Cambridgeshire, so Daphne had recommended he come and visit us.

I think his father had been a banker in Boston, he had gone to private school, then Harvard, but had some kind of breakdown and turned into a filmmaker and adventurer. He lived partly in Zion National Park and partly in Lamu on the coast of West Africa. He followed my blog and I would occasionally get messages about posts. Then, I just heard that he had died quite a while ago and, of course, I didn’t know. You don’t get an email from someone who is dead.

I went for a morning walk along the quays at Newcastle.

The old part of the town, south of the railway station, feels unexpectedly well preserved, with steep steps and alleyways down to the quays and the great bridges of the Tyne overhead:-

Before going to Seaton Delaval, we went to Cherryburn, the house where Thomas Bewick was born, grew up, explored the local fields, and returned to every weekend from Newcastle when he was an apprentice, walking twenty miles up the Tyne valley to visit his parents. 

It’s pretty well preserved, including the cottage where he was born:-

And the larger stone farmhouse constructed by his youngest brother, William Bewick, who was a farmer and managed a local mine:-

It was established by the Thomas Bewick Birthplace Trust in 1987, involving Frank Atkinson, the founder of Beamish, and handed over to the National Trust in 1990:-

Bewick died in November 1828, so his bicentenary is coming up.

I have never before seen Seaton Delaval in an evening light, with a small amount of sun on its amazing north façade:-

No photograph ever does justice to the adventurousness of its composition, the contrast between its two side wings and the compression of the main block, as if all the elements of its composition are fighting against one another:-