I haven’t got much to report from my latest site visit.   It’s making progress, but slowly.   We discussed the classicism of the lecture theatre and the extent to which Pennethorne, as well as Chipperfield, was inspired by the Teatro Olimpico;  and how far the attitude to conservation in the building is the same as the Neues Museum in Berlin (I think the answer is that it’s comparable in terms of separating the new and the old, but not comparable because we’re not preserving the signs of previous damage).

The entrance staircase:-

The entrance vestibule with the old lift removed:-

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Next in the line-up of PRAs is a bust of Gerald Kelly, who was President from 1949 to 1954, succeeding Alfred Munnings after his disastrous speech at the Annual Dinner.   Kelly was the son of the vicar of St. Giles, Camberwell and became interested in painting through visiting Dulwich Picture Gallery as a child.   He was half educated at Eton and took what is called a poll degree at Cambridge (I assume an unclassified pass).   He learned to paint in Paris as a friend of Sargent and Sickert and had a penchant for dancing girls.   He painted in a boiler suit and was a connoisseur of fine wines.   He only died in 1972 (the bust is by Maurice Lambert):-

On the other side of the General Assembly Room is Frederic Leighton, painted by his friend and neighbour, G.F. Watts, who he had persuaded to be an RA, but who, unlike Leighton, was always ambivalent about it.   Leighton is confident and leonine, painted in 1888, aged 71, man-of-the-world, who, aged 17, had painted Schopenhauer in Frankfurt, then lived in Brussels and Paris, where he was a friend of Delacroix and Ingres, and Rome.   It took him a while to be elected as an RA because, whilst admired, he was also mistrusted as too European, too intellectual, too interested in the purely aesthetic.   But once elected, he was deeply involved in the affairs of the Academy, on the hanging committee in 1869, organising the first Winter Exhibition in 1870, and elected President as successor to Sir Francis Grant in November 1878.   His last recorded words were ‘My love to the Academy’.   He never married:-

The General Assembly Room at the RA (its main meeting room) has been redecorated, painted carmine, much to its benefit, and hung with more portraits which reveal more of the RA’s history, including its recent history.   I spent the morning looking across the room at Charles Eastlake, painted by John Prescott Knight and looking rather watery eyed.   Eastlake is much revered at the National Gallery as its first proper Director, responsible for great acquisitions;  but I’ve never been convinced that historians remember, or are aware, that he was simultaneously chairing Council meetings and involved in the hang of the Summer Exhibition as PRA:-

Cruickshank’s book about Spitalfields contains useful information about Joseph Dandridge, one of the pattern drawers who serviced the silk industry, living in Moorfields and working for James Leman, before moving out to Stoke Newington, where he was more easily able to indulge his passion for collecting butterflies.   He is an interesting figure:  born in Winslow, apprenticed as a ‘drawer’ to a merchant tailor, he was a passionate collector of insects, shells, fossils and paintings of spiders, as well as butterflies.   He used to go out of London on expeditions to Box Hill and Dover collecting them and gave his name to the Grizzled Skipper and Marsh Fritillary.   Not surprisingly, he was a founder member of the so-called Aurelian Society and is remembered by a fellow member as stout and chatty, as well as ‘full of anecdotes of the old collectors’.

The Ocean estate was smoking:-

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We joined the enormous weekend crowds enjoying the new and generous public spaces of John Pawson’s Design Museum, with ample space to wander, sit on the staircase and watch the crowds.   We still failed to see the actual exhibitions, but enjoyed the new Parabola restaurant on the top floor, run by Prescott and Conran and with views across the avenue up to Holland Park, and the detailing of the original RMJM concrete parabolic roof:-

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We went last night to one of Yinka Shonibare’s monthly supper clubs when he arranges for someone to talk about an artist over supper in the project space below his studio – on this occasion, the poet Bridget Minamore reading poetry inspired by the work of Kara Walker, the African American artist who works in historical media, including silhouette.   The food was prepared to complement the readings, including Bible Belt Bisque, Succulent Silhouettes, and crystalised sugar for pudding (actually, I thought it was marzipan).   Any profit goes to support young artists working on projects in the studio:-

I have been meaning to post a picture I took earlier in the week of Duck Island Cottage, the surprising cottage ornée which nestles on a small island at the east end of the lake in St. James’s Park.   But I have been waiting for an opportunity to find out more about it.   I have discovered that there is an immensely learned article on it by Tim Knox, our now former next-door neighbour, in The London Gardener which tells its history:  from the decoy at the end of the canal in Charles II’s reign intended to catch ducks for the King’s table;  the first Duck Island Cottage built in William III’s reign ‘in a grove beyond and between the miniature canals’;  the appointment in 1733 of the poet Stephen Duck as ‘Governor of Duck Island’;  the recreation of Duck Island by John Nash in 1827;  and the decision by the Ornithological Society of London to build a house for a bird keeper in 1840.   It was designed by John Burges Watson:-

I have just heard the excellent news that a new art history A level is going to be launched by Pearson in September 2017 after the Department of Education intervened to apply pressure on the examination boards.   However this was done, I am full of admiration for how quickly it has been achieved.    One bit of good news !